001All right, get logged in. Gosh, that went fast. It did go fast. Here we go. 7 o'clock. I call to order the November 24th, 2025 board of education meeting. And everybody stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, roll call. Katie Casey here. Joel Johnson. Natalie Mel here. Joseph Quinn here. Tom Schwarz here. Mary Shoefeld here. Ali Stanbury here. Okay, moving on to consent agenda. Motion to approve the consent agenda as submitted. Motion second. Casey, yes. Stanberry, yes. Shoefeld, yes. Schwarz, yes. Milfeld, yes. Quinn, yes. That moves on to public input. I don't see any. Um, could we address the big blue cards in
002front of me? Oh, those aren't from Richmond School. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, normally this would be only recognized, too. So, I might as well point these out. So, these are from Richmond Grade School. That That was for um board appreciation day. Oh my gosh, look at all that. Wow. This is We're all going to go through here later and try to look for our kids. Yeah, this is fantastic. Thank you for sharing. I feel. All right, that moves us on to reports and we'll go down the list here. I'll pause to see if anybody has any questions on the reports that have been presented. Starting with report 5.1, revenue expenditure report. Okay. 5.2, fund balance comparison report. 5.3 special education revenue expenditure report. Okay. 5.4 the impressed report. 5.5 transportation report. And that moves
003us on to 5.6 administrative reports. And uh Dr. Lynn, your report first. Yeah, good to see everybody here tonight. Um, Thanksgiving coming up, Monday is always a different night. Sometimes I have to remind myself this time each year. It was Monday, not Wednesday. So, I didn't know it, but we all made it yesterday. Yeah. [laughter] Um, a couple things. We're going to talk about the special ed um review later in the meeting, so I'll get into more detail there. Uh, we continue to do significant work with our life safety, and we're going to talk about that as we get to building and grounds. to date with the life safety as well as other repairs and things we've done over the years, we've we've been able to spend $3 million on improving our schools from a
004infrastructure standpoint, which is I think something to be really proud of. Um and and has taken us a long way from roofs to windows to, you know, Hback and those things. We have a long ways to go, but we're we're making good headway. Um, the other thing I wanted to to mention tonight is when I was at the conference, I got a chance to talk to a couple of the bus companies. Uh, Midwest is the one that we predominantly have used in the past. They still tend to be coming in with the best prices and the best service. Um, but the there's a significant increase and I've brought this up in the past and so we see the price going from our lease each year from mid600s to upper 900s in in transportation costs and
005this is happening across the board. Um, although 157 is the one that signs the lease, obviously that cost comes back to district 2 and in and mileage and and the cost of it. So, I've talked with um Tom a little bit and I'd like to get together with another board member from D2 along with the transportation committee at uh Richmond Burton and kind of sit down um in early January and have a discussion over our fleet. I think we can cut anywhere from three to three minimum up to maybe six or seven buses. uh and we're going to kind of look for some expertise on how to maybe do routes a little different and we talked about that a little bit too. So the will we be able to save make up that 300,000 and
006the cost? No. But we would like to be as efficient as we can. So, um, if anybody else would like to join Tom or you have an interest in that, uh, probably early January, we'll get together and let me know or let Tom know and and I'll set something up and we'll, uh, meet with RB on that. That is the main report for today. Any questions? Any immediate takers? I'm just kidding. You don't have to. I will though. No one else wants to. All right. Very good. Thank you for that. Moving us on to Dr. Enright in the assistant superintendent of curriculum report. Good evening everyone. Happy Thanksgiving. Um just a few updates for us for the 9010 evaluation for the NMS grading policy. We've been working on creating surveys for students, parents, and staff.
007Uh those will go out over the next one to seven days. So we start gathering information from uh those groups on 9010 and what their thoughts are on it and what their understanding is of on it. So that'll be interesting to see. Uh staff survey for well we will also work on staff surveys for standard based report cards. Um we're going to meet with uh those will go out the teachers first then parents sometime in the spring. Um so we're going to meet again with that team on January 22nd. The literacy team I shared last time we reviewed four different programs. We're going to meet on December 1st to go over all the programs and see what recommendation if any we want to go with and the numerousy team met um we reviewed the current
008standard or current standards that the teams have created just to make sure there's an alignment with I and from grade level to grade level. Uh so we have one meeting we'll meet again on December 2nd to finish that review and hopefully have that back in the hands of the teachers for their review. Um I just want to thank all the team members u from the report card team, the literacy team and numeracy team that are listed on there for all their work and participation can answer any questions any questions. Great. So we have the curriculum committee uh coming up again in December December 17th. Yeah, December 17th and we'll have a bit more information on 9010 I think. Very good. Yeah, I finished talking to all the other school districts that actually responded to the
009spring survey I sent out. Um, and so I uploaded those into our notes. So those are we need to review those at some time before the committee. Perfect. Thank you. All right. I would say that moves us on to either Spring Grove, Dippers, or RGS principles for their reports. I'm pretty sure they're in the middle of parent teacher conferences right now. Um, so that moves us on to FOYA requests. Do we have any foyer requests? Nope. Very good. Do we have any old business? No old business. That moves us on to new business. And new business starts at 71 the 2025 levy discussion and approving the resolution. Yes. So tonight, um we basically approved what are we going to do? And it's the five or the 4.9%. We always uh what we call a balloon
010levy. It's at 2.9%. Um but our EAV goes up and down. So if things go up and down, you know, uh the the balloon levy allows us to capture that extra that may not be right now. So we say 4.9%. It's not going to be 4.9%. Um it'll be lower. And again, I always stress that this is our only revenue basically. Uh we do get some federal, we do get some other funding from the state, but about 85% of our revenue comes from this. So always an an important thing to take each year. You think? Sure. So about uh four weeks ago, we went ahead and the estimated EAV for the county, it was 568 million. It is now up to 581 million. As your EAV goes up, your tax rate goes down. Um the
011last time this was looked at was on October 22nd. I haven't looked at it yet, and I won't look at it until next month when we do this. Um, but that EAB will continue to move through the spring. That's the reason why we do the balloon nut because we're not a thousand% sure what that EAB will land on in the spring. Um, so you either get the 5% or just under the 5% or 2.9% whichever is higher. So we are allowed to go up to the 4 point. I think I've got it at 4.95. Um, so the gray box is what your levy was last year. The blue box is you take your levy times your extension times your EAD in the middle. And it looks like with the new numbers, we'll get about 450
012thou $457,000. That green box is just me doing some adjustments for fund balances. Um two three years ago, we started spending down um fund 50, which is your municipal retirement fund and social security fund. We need to adjust that uh up this year so that it'll start This should be the last adjustment we make. So that'll it'll start being a flush a flush fund. 558,000 in new funds. Correct. 457,000 in new funds. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. based on that EAV. Again, the EV doesn't isn't time ISO spring, but unfortunately, we have to next month let them know I'll let the county know what uh what we're requesting um based on the information we have at that time and then they'll run those numbers um in the spring for the final ED moves, but we've been talking
013about 4.95% or the lesser of the I think 2.79 is what's in the box right now, whichever comes out higher. Yeah. So the 2.9 is your December CPI of December of 2024. That CPI never moves in this calculation. Um the 4.95 will move up and down. Um so if you go under CPI or you you uh or you could flat levy it which I do not recommend. Um but the 4.95 gets us as close to the 5% that we are allowed. Yeah. So if that 2.9 um I'm sorry it's 2.9 never lose. So if the EV ends up being over $600 million, um it'll push that $457,000 up to some unknown 475,000 about. So yeah. Okay. So that 2.79 is actually your tax rate. Your tax rate. Yeah. And last year it was 3.12190. But
014because EAV went up so high um because last year your EAV was 532,000. This year it's right now as of 1022 it's 581 million. So then um your tax rate tax rate would be the 2.792876. Okay. Any questions? So for the um you know the tax novice um these two numbers CPI and the levy at 4.95 just so I understand the um it's 5% or CPI whatever is highest that's your maximum 11 correct right so with the CPI being lower 5%'s the max you actually you can go over the 5% % but then you have to uh hold a hearing, do a blackbox in the newspaper and stuff. But but just at a at a regular board meeting, we are allowed to go up to just the 5%. That's why you'll see us be like
0154.9 4.95. Okay. All right. I just want to make sure my understanding was correct. You'll see school districts around the county push that we're at 4.95% up to 810%, but they're going to the newspaper. they're holding hearings to let their there's additional process that you have to other processes but this we are entitled to the up to the 5% by with just at a regular board it's not going to come close to that this year no and then so historically when we saw the the high um inflation that pushed that CPI way up did we and so then we would we went over 5% those previous years there was one year in in the past five years that we did do the black box on it And um yeah, I think we it was 8
0168.1% I think. Okay. So you had to do the process even though CPI was high. Correct. So had you not done the black box, the max you could have gotten was at 5%. Gotcha. So 5% no matter what you you go over that you'd have to do that black box and the additional process. Correct. Okay. All right. Thank you. Of course. Any other questions? We need a motion to approve the resolution to prepare the 2025 tax levy as submitted. I'll make a motion. Second. Schwarz, yes. Shoefeld, yes. Casey, yes. Mailfeld, yes. Stansbury, yes. Quinn, yes. Motion passes. That moves us on to 72, Special Education Review. [clears throat] Yeah. So we had um a very good I think uh consultants that came in. They spent three days in all our schools. They met with teachers.
017They met with some parents. Um they met with people across the spectrum of education. And the one thing that was really nice that came out of it is uh the feedback was that they were walking in the rooms and they were seeing outstanding instruction. And that that meant a lot. We know that things are happening the right way. Um they do have some things that we're working on right now. They're gathering the rest of the data. We looked at minutes that are being uh given to children. Uh how IEDs are written as well as some uh administrator structural things that we're looking at. We're going to have to review and probably make some changes. But what we're going to do is wait for their complete audit review to come back to us and then we'll
018be able to review it and have those discussions and then I'll bring forward a set of recommendations that I think will make us a little bit more efficient and uh most importantly uh improve maybe what we provide students uh in the classroom and out of the classroom. So it it went really well and I want to thank Denise and her team. Uh they spent a lot of time organizing the the different schools. They were going to go to the classrooms and everybody they were going to meet with. It was pretty comprehensive. Yeah. They've gotten every piece of data that they could. Um and so I'm looking forward to the final report so we can kind of review that and have some discussions. Great. Any questions for Dr. L? Will they come back after the changes
019are in place to see the effect? They could. It would be another like, you know, outside of what we're doing now, they do that. Um, one of the things that I've talked to them about is, you know, making sure that we have some concrete steps that we could take for improvements, for efficiency. Um, so we're not reading something and trying to grab inference from it like, well, what would be best? Um, and then we certainly could after we make these changes and a year goes by or two years, it may not be a bad idea to have them come back and review it and say, "Hey, things are going well here, but maybe we still need to improve here." Um, so yeah, we can always do that. So, we're thinking another month or so before
020we get the uh recommendations. Yeah, it takes a while. Um I you know they were going through each person's minutes, how many people we had deliver those minutes and different things like that. So uh I've been very impressed with it. I think probably beginning of the new year we should have something other questions. All right. Thanks. That moves us on to 73 the health life safety report and cost update. So we have spent a lot of time on health life safety which is great because we need to spend a lot of time on that. Um if you remember last year we did the 10-year life safety report. Um and then we've kind of been breaking that down. We've been working on many of the smaller things that we had to get done. Uh and then
021we are looking now at what do we have to do to take our buildings and and bring them up to where we need them to be for the next 25 years. You know, boilers, roofs, um pavement, those types of things, as well as heaters in the classroom, all those things you can think of, piping. Um and they're very expensive. So, uh we're looking at uh one way of going about it is through uh issuing life safety bonds. Um Allison has been working with us. You have two documents that I've shared with you. The first one was the improvement summary that you should have and I'm going to let Allison talk about that a little bit as well as our our team members and they can add where they want. Our focus right now, just to
022let you know, is on priority one and two. Those are the things we just have to fix no matter what. the threes and the fours get to be a little bit more where we'd like to fix that, but you know, if that's not fixed, it's not going to cause us to cancel school because it's the boiler broke. So, I will turn it over to whoever would like to talk about this. Um, so the document that you have, I I forget when I was in here and we had updated the facility assessment and and been working with the the buildings and grounds committee to make sure we were in agreement and in alignment with what was being called out as priority ones and two. So we did that exercise and then we met again to review
023that list and talk more about items on that list that would be health life safety eligible. Um the process for health and life safety does um allow some things that um we might not have necessarily incorporated in the initial health life safety survey that we did last year. Um and so we've gone through and so the the the columns that you have that are highlighted in orange, those are taking those facility assessment items um priority one and two and breaking out what I think would be um accepted. This is all pending state review obviously um what would likely be eligible for those health life safety. So from each category at each building, um you'll kind of see how those totals go across. Um there is some things that don't necessarily fit into those categories and
024that would just be something that you know we work on through a different means um to ultimately still accomplish those priority ones and twos. Um but a lot of the things that fall into this category is as Dr. was mentioning um you know your infra it's it's focused on your infrastructure making sure you've got appropriate infrastructure to keep your buildings warm safe and dry um so things like unit ventilator replacements roof replacements um exterior tuck pointing um interior conditions that are you know extremely worn just because of age and use which is obviously something that happens over time um all of those things are and have been um accepted by the state um in their review process for health and life safety um because certainly if you know our our floors were in a bad
025condition it potentially creates a hazard for for tripping or slipping or something like that. So it's um along those lines. Um similarly as I as we reviewed in some extent when we were doing the initial survey there are also the priority C items um that are typically related to you know maybe accessibility um security paving um so some of those things that are maybe um you know paving outside the building but still again as people are coming and going from your from your buildings something that wants to be um kept into in good condition and and brought up to good condition if it hasn't worn to the point that it's not. Um, so we've broken this out um just to show again this is my initial uh review and assessment of what I think would
026be appropriate to submit um and let the state obviously go through their process um to ultimately approve or not assuming uh the board wants to go that direction. Alison, thank you. And uh [clears throat] I mean really we look at the uh you know like you said priority ones and twos those are the like the critical things that could you know affect school operations. You get into priority threes now we're talking about hey these are good things for energy conservation you know replacing original windows things like that. Um more more so efficiency type things. Um, so really, like I say, those one and two items, they're directly related to safety and critical building systems that keep us in school. And I think it's great that the opportunity with the health life safety bonding, we can
027address that 90% of that with that type of funding. So really appreciate your leg work on that to find find what projects would, you know, fit into that um eligibility. Yeah, if you look the majority of the money that you're looking at life safety is at the middle school and I don't think that surprises anybody. You know, your building's over 75 years old, original piping, um original heaters of some classrooms and those types of things. Um when we look at a project of this scale, uh the middle school will be a project that probably goes consistent for two years where a lot of times we do things in the summer. Uh we would have to have uh students moved out of maybe an area while we're working in there to retight and those types of
028things. So there's a lot of logistics that are going to have to go into this. Uh but after the middle school you can see the the the rest of the money is spent in you know HVAC roofing at the other schools fire light safety but I think the total comes out to what is it around 23 million is that where we for priority one and two that was yeah that was for the entire the entire so all three schools you're looking around $23 million. Um, I've shared with you as well. We went back and talked to Liz from the bonding company and I think it's important to kind of get an idea. Well, what is uh and I gave you an example of 15 million. Let's say the state comes back and says, well, we're
029not going to approve everything, but we're going to approve these things. So, I we threw a number out, 15 million. And then we said 21 million. and what would its impact be on a home that is a a 400500 [clears throat] $600,000 house just to try to get an idea of what does that do to property taxes. So you could kind of look at that. That is not a uh what it's going to be for everybody because we don't know either how much the state's going to allow us to do or not do. But I think when you look at that 23 million, I I believe you're probably getting to where you that's the possibly a stopping point where, you know, you have to balance what can you get done and really make significant improvement
030because you don't want to go and spend 8 million but still have boiler problems, roof problems. You want to get that taken care of. And I think that's why when we talked about the priority one and twos made perfect sense um because that does take care of the daytoday big issues that we struggle with. These are large large ticket items that would otherwise be hard to break up and do later. Like you say, you've got the critical need, right? We're past due. Um when you get into priority threes and things like that, like we're talking like a lot of window replacement stuff. Those are things that Chris can take and break up and use regular um annual revenue to be able to take care of those things. I I really think the, you know, the
03121 million would solve those big ticket items like look at roofs, you know what I mean? You're you're not going to be able to slice up a big roof section and reduce it down, right? Those things are critical. Take care of those. Um, and then you'll be able to experience some savings with this work as well as like you say the u especially because of the reduction of reactive maintenance, reduction of preventive maintenance and taking those funds to be able to roll that into [clears throat] these other priority projects. So I think um addressing priority ones and twos with life safety funding will set us up to be able to take care of the other things. Yeah. and and I know we're replacing right now we have a you know we're already replacing windows at
032RGS and what we can do for windows and other things like that. The money you will save from you called reactive maintenance or you know $100,000 I think we spent last year in boilers and heaters just at um NMS. That's $100,000 now that goes back into the budget that can go into other things that school needs and kids needs and those types of things. Can you remind me what is our deadline for the priority one and two items? What is our timeline? I believe our we've gotten our A's done. Correct. All the A's on On the fire safety side were done. Yeah. So, we've met that. Okay. These now are a three years, five years. Yeah. These are the things we submitted um as a amendment which is what we would do. um majority of
033what we've uh identified as priority ones and twos are going to fall into that B category which um is typically a fiveyear window. There are [clears throat] a few items that again because of the size of the investment that would be necessary be identified as a priority one or two because it wouldn't be something you could then just like systematically take on like windows you can do a couple each year and manage it. Um there are a few things that would fall into that C category um which does have a little bit of a longer time frame. And that clock began when that report was given to us. That clock would begin when the amendment is filed. Gotcha. So for anything that isn't already on that list, which is what we're talking about here. Yeah.
034That would start once the state approves Got the amendment. But we can't retroactively be reimbursed for all the wonderful work that [laughter] you've done. [clears throat] There's no expensive report to the states. No. But the the nice thing about that though is um it's that much less money that we have to bond for. The the other thing is if you look at NMS, we've really been strategic on the roofs we've taken. They've been the the smaller ones. You see, this summer we're getting to a little bit bigger, but you know, just like I have at the high school, we're now into million-dollar roofs, you know, and we just don't have that. Yeah. Okay. You know, I think a couple of things. One, um, it's nice to know those life, health, and safety bonds exist. Two,
035when when you look at the spreadsheet and it shows how much the potential increase is per home on this, realize that the assessed value is going to be very different, uh, most likely very different than what maybe Zillow or an appraised value of your home is going to be. So, it's important that when you're starting to think of this, if you really want to drill down to what this might cost you on an annual basis, go to the assessor site and look. For most folks, I think the assessed value is going to be a bit less than what your appraised value is for the home. So, um, but even with those five years, some of these things, it's going to, you know, bonding, getting the funds, and then getting contracts out, and then getting the
036projects completed going to take up a lion share of that five years anyway. So, okay, Dr. Lyn, I actually just had a question about the life safety bond. [clears throat] Does it work as far as a total dollar amount that we get and then we're able to spend it within these categories that we've submitted? Um, or is item specific? So, like if we start ripping up the roof and the roof is going to cost more than what we submitted originally, can we pull from the total bucket or then are we responsible for the difference? I believe you can pull and I'm going to let Alison this. you can pull for what it cost. So if we estimate that roof to be a million dollars and we pull it up and you're like, "Oh, that's a
037million2." We as long as the action of replacing that roof has been approved, okay? Then we can bond for that. We have a bonding limit, right? But we're not near that with this. Okay. Um because we also know there's going to be abatement with the asbestous, you know, and any older school. So um all those things are going to come in. Now, ideally, we hope that, you know, some of the [clears throat] other projects when we start talking like roofs or the paving or things like that, we can turn that over internally to, you know, Chris and and save a little bit by having him manage it as opposed to where when we when we talked about this, when you get to repiping an entire school and electrical, we we will probably need to have
038some kind of project manager on site like through an IHC or something like that just to make sure all the trains are getting there and getting things done the way they're supposed to. Yeah, that's a lot that's a lot to manage. You know, you talk about a project like um NMS. Uh very similar to, you know, work that I was part of in Johnsburg when we renovated like a 1967 junior high. Very similar new unit ventilators and piping and um you know, you're dealing with you know, finishes and walls, you know, I mean, you got to get access to pipes and all those things. So be able to um coordinate all that. I I highly recommend um you know utilizing a construction manager. And I think a lot of efficiencies come through that process too.
039Like some of the things we talked about is maybe um you know housing you know like the eighth grade at the at NMS at the high school temporarily work is being completed because anytime you can do work during nonpremium summer hours you save money. Um that the labor in the summer is premium. So I think working with a a construction manager will be able to generate savings for us and you know be able to you know stretch the dollar. Yeah. And and remember the piping when we repipe all the pipes that are there will stay. They just get abandoned because pulling them out and all that just causes bigger issues. There's room up there. Yeah. There's room. There's always room. There's always room. But to your point, I mean, you start doing abatement and you
040start tearing off pieces of wood, you don't know what you're going to find. You don't, especially in a school that old, you don't know what's behind a wall sometimes. Yeah. Drain. Yeah. Any other questions? Anything else, Alison, with that? Um, just from a awareness, I would also say that the the reverse is also important to understand. So if we do find some cost savings as we're going through this effort, then in a project that we, you know, we estimated was going to be a million dollars and it comes in at 750 when everything is said and done, that 250 is now available to you that you can still spend on other health and life safety eligible items. So if you know we get through the 20 million and we have some left, right? um or
041we see that coming, we can easily submit additional amendments and maybe start to take on some of those priority three things or if something else has changed over the course of this um those dollars would be available that can be used for additional things. So, um it's not a use it and lose it kind of use it or lose it kind of situation either. And you guys went through and updated all the prices too based on [clears throat] Yeah, this was based on the the work we had just gone through when we did the health life safety survey last year. We were doing a facility assessment at the same time. So these are all up to date of course. So we'll just the timeline we'll we're going to wait for W and Allison to do
042the itemization do the the application and then it will go to the ROE and then down to the state and that'll take a couple months but if again if this is a direction the board chooses to go um it would we could work it so work could be begin in summer of 2027. So, okay. So, in the meantime, if things start failing but they're already in the amendments, how does that work? Well, in that case, we we just have to take our our money and fix them at the time. Yeah. you know, if we have a catastrophic like boiler situation, uh the the the goal would be if we if we can and we try to get it up and you know, we have four and I think we always have three running. Um four
043is pretty unusual, but yeah, we just have to kind of take it I guess at a time. Fingers crossed at this point. Yeah. Hope for a nice But it doesn't affect our application. It's the right way. No. Right. It doesn't affect the process. It doesn't affect the process at all. No, there won't be any impact on that. Okay. Thank you. All great questions. Anything else? All right. Thank you. That moves us on to the review of the 2025 board of education dates. I'm assuming this maybe 2026. 26. Okay. [clears throat] There's no approval that's needed for this. It's just kind of reviewing it. Um you I looked at these earlier. The only one I would and this came up last year and I think even the year before, but it's today's date, right? because it's
044always seems to be coinciding with parent teacher conferences and things of that nature. Um so I'm fine present like moving forward with this as is but like an asterics around if we can solve for this Monday to allow principles to be here. We did talk about we could do a we do Wednesday RB we could have a Thursday D2. It may limit just [laughter] mean as of last week. Last week. What's that? Last week. Yeah. But doesn't that it will limit the financials that you get for that month because the That's a lot with the conferences then too. Doesn't that limit the Chicago conferences, not school? I'm okay with not doing that. It would be more of a Tuesday, Wednesday, right? Tuesday. That one might be a little bit better. as we there were times
045Monday Tuesday or we did Tuesday Wednesday. Yeah, Tuesday would be better. The Thursday would just be too much. What about like the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week? Cuz aren't the principles and all that? Yeah, I mean that's that's very possible tomorrow, right? Yeah. Yeah, because today their late day, tomorrow's an earlier day. That's a possibility, too. We I know I think past over the last 17 years, we've done it a lot of different ways because it's hard to find one that kind of meets what you need. There was one November where we had five Wednesdays and I was able to push it past Thanksgiving rather than true Wednesday, but there's no there that's not coming up anytime soon again. Well, we we'll look at and see what we can do. Yeah. And I'll we'll run some
046ideas past uh before we get to summer and we can make some changes still. I don't see any other conflicts otherwise. Any questions on this? I don't know if now is the time to bring it up, but a big theme theme that came up in the seminars that I went to was like goal setting for the board. And I was wondering if any of these dates are like designated as an opportunity for us to take a look at our progress towards our goals or realign. Yeah, good question. Typically what ends up happening is that we do the goal setting process um on a different date than a board meeting. And I know that gosh because it was just I mean it's usually around this time of year that we end up having Yeah. somebody come
047in for a training session. Yeah. And so probably not ideal for you know December but maybe we look at January we try and reach out to ISB for some training dates. They will probably I'm just going past it. They'll probably be booked up into the spring. Okay. But as far as goals, if you're like our goals, we can do a goal. We we haven't So what we've done typically is they come in and do a training on goal setting. Yeah. And they get they have us go through like this process of goal setting if I'm if I'm remembering this correctly. And then we actually go through the goal setting process together as a group. Yeah. We I mean we could certainly do the goal process. We haven't in the last year or so because it's
048all been based on the the buildings really a lot of the the stuff but we certainly are at that point where we could we look at some new curricular goals um and different things like that. So um I could bring some dates back in Janu or December as that might work. Yeah. And it was never really one meeting either. We've always had like a couple of meetings to we kind of define what we're looking at and then we come back to a following meeting and then we actually have the goals sort of Yeah. And then maybe we do the board member training through ISB as soon as they allow or can come in and provide that training. Yeah. Thanks. Where are we at? Oh, I just have a question. Sorry. Where are we at with
049the strategic planning process? So like in Johnsburg I sit on the strategic planning team which is the first year I've done that and it's to set you know goals for the next five years and so it's kind of a new process for me and um I think it's something we're looking to do is you know five years and then we'll set it again for another five years and involves a lot of stakeholders and things like that. Um is is that completed similarly in this district? So there's a strategic plan that we're working off of and then we do an annual goal setting kind of based on that. Yeah, great question. It actually it is all one and the same. I think I I've been on the board since 2019 2020 and we've had at least
050three or four of those sessions where we would take a look at what we have listed out there for five years. Um and then as a board we take a couple of meetings to discuss which ones we've hit, which ones have should stay out because we haven't hit them or we replace them with something new. And so we've done that pretty much annually um as a board. And so I suspect that that'll be what this next Yes. set of meetings will be about. So we had a very complex set and we decided, hey, let's give this five years. Yeah. And so those goals we've been working off, we've accomplished quite a few of them. Um and then I think the last year and a half has really been focused on um buildings and you know,
051things like that. Um so I think again going back if we have the training session or and then another goal setting we can bring those back and then as a board you can well we've done this what about adding this and yeah I think the time is probably right it's probably been yeah it's time since we since we've actually had a chance to you know go through those I mean we keep track of them um as a group but we've probably achieved many of them and need to review many more to see what's feasible now over the next 5 years. So, I think the timing is about right. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Good with the dates for now. That moves us on to 75, the first reading of press policy updates. Yeah. Take take
052a look at these the first reading. If uh you come across something that kind of catches your eye, you have questions about, let us know. Um, nothing out there right now that is drawing a lot of attention. Just a lot of legal lease changes as well as a few other things. And I'll go through them a little bit more, too. If I see something, I'll I'll send it out. Okay. Any questions on that? We approve, we vote to approve in December. Okay. Yeah. I think we had a prelim last month. Yeah. Okay. If no questions, let's go on to updates from the IASB conference. Um, I would just say that it was my first trip to the conference. Mine too. Yeah. I thought it was um terrific. Uh, I'll just speak to um the sessions
053that I was a part of, my key takeaways. I'll rely upon you for some feedback, too. We happened to go into the same session uh in the morning and that was about overcoming odds when it comes to bond referendums. Um really great presentation by the group. This was Troy I believe right what was the group down there? BBHS I don't know BBHS. So, um, anyway, they had a scenario to where they needed some major updates to their high school. Um, and they described the process that they went through, the surveys they conducted. And what was very interesting because we had our own surveys too is they didn't look at the surveys as a negative thing. They looked at the surveys. Okay, this is what people are saying they did not like about the idea of
054having these bonds out there. And so, how do we address the negatives? And so, their mindset was a bit different. Um, they alluded to their plan, their 12-month plan on getting some ideas out there um was was so step one was taking all um going out there doing the surveys, getting this feedback, getting your core team together. Step two was finding out who in the community could be partners, putting together presentations, going to different town halls to discuss these presentations. Step three was really then figuring out which option you're going to choose. And step four is like a pretty hard last 90 days of going out there pounding on doors and getting the word out there. Um there's a lot more into it. I took a lot of notes in regards to that um presentation,
055but I thought it was pretty eye opening. Absolutely. I think it it just really spoke to the concerted effort that was required and I think that it was really helpful that they had that third party expert in with the community organizers. Yeah, that was really helping identify those opportunities for community outreach for those um just refining what the plan was for surveying and identifying which um individuals to canvas. Yeah. And organizing those canvasing efforts as well. So the value that I took out of that was like that the third party expert really helped drive that process forward. Yeah. Successfully. I think it was so the architect was very crucial to that process and then this individual out there that was sort of the the marketing piece the person kind of the band-aid bringing all the
056people together um the community experts the board uh the administration and the architect and them all working together to get the right messaging out. um really put them on this really good um kept them on this great process of informing the public consistency, addressing concerns consistently and um getting it to a place where it ultimately got approved. So, the thing I really took away from this is that after they got through all the surveys and the factf finding mission and they came down to presenting these things to the public and they had these seven different options on there, options ranging anywhere from like a $19 million fix all the way to like a $120 million brand new build. They ended up choosing the one just under that at 70 million to get like everything except
057for a new bill done. that was the public choosing that at the end of this whole thing after going through this educational process and I thought that was pretty fascinating. Um second one that I was a part of and I I will circle back to Dr. Ed on this it was using AI for growth in your organization and closing gaps. when they see growth, it's the the the the school system as a whole in growing academic success and things of that nature, but also a very specific part of this was how can you close the gaps with the IEP process for those that are that that have an IEP. And um you know basically they hired an expert out there that was able to generate an AI platform that saw state data and then maybe
058map data um other information I ready that we could use here that would consistently feed these tables to highlight growth. And it was so cool to me as somewhat of a data nerd that they could drill down to, okay, you got people that are on the basketball team, just choose the basketball students and how are they doing with grades during the basketball season and it can kind of track all the data. And so I'm not saying you have to get that granular, but what this did was it highlighted areas for that particular district to focus on where they needed to focus focus on growth using raw data and how grades came back and things of that nature. So very fascinating to me. Um I don't know of anybody else that took that particular course but
059um had a great time down there. Now what were some of the observations that you had from the other things that you were part of? Can I build off that one? Sure. Now that you're talking about AI because that links to another seminar that I went to. There was a legislative update that was co-hosted by a state congressperson, state senator, and then um Tony Sanders. um they were talking about the there's an AI plan that ISB is going to the guidance is going to be released in summer of 2026. So I thought that was great to go along with their new mercy and literacy plan that's already been released. Um yeah, it's definitely something we need from the state. We need guidance on the AI. Um and it and it you know I think a
060lot of us are using it right now in different ways but certainly really harnessing harnessing it to go into that that deep research is going to be important. So that's what it was. It was Bradley that had the high school uh it was Troy that had the AI uh program instituted in their school district. That's why Troy wasn't top of mind. So, um, might be worth figuring out, but we're reaching out to see what they did with the information, but very insightful. So, yeah. So, that was really cool update from ISBY. Exciting to hear that that's going to be coming in summer 2026. Um, they also updated a couple of other things. The mental health screening bill goes into effect in 2027. So, um, and they were just talking about funding. try to balance that.
061Trying to find out. I think they're asking a little under a billion in additional dollars. They just don't have this year. Um there's been a lot there's been a lot of money added into the evidence-based funding and and it's a it's a wonderful program. You know, I think arguments from district like ours is that it would be nice to also have other metrics. So, evidence-based funding, you're getting some if you're a school district that has significant um you know, structural needs in a school or things like that. You know, that that the system is good, but we'd like to see it expanded so more of us are eligible for it. Yeah. Which I don't think is going to happen. But is that something that we would reach out to our state legislators for? There's a
062growing group of um superintendents and administrators in districts like ours where we get zero not zero, but we get very little for evidence-based funding, but you have a school that's 78 years old and another one that's 60 years old, and you just can't get the money to keep up with the things that are are failing. Um, and so I think I think eventually you're going to see some things change uh or some more accountability come to if they are giving you the money, then accountability for showing performance or something for it. But there's also the chance the state could just cut it completely uh with a tighter budget. So yeah, the two legislators that were there were were really pro education and trying to advocate for more funding availability, but just recognizing that there's a
063limited number of taxing um revenues that you can Yeah. pull from. And it seems like if you look at it, because we're looking at um a possibility of a 1% sales tax throughout the county eventually, [clears throat] you know, you go to that, but eventually, right, there's only so many 1%s that you can put on different taxes. So hopefully the state will someday come up with a a funding system that's a little bit better, maybe. I don't know. Maybe. Well, I can speak to the sessions I went to. Um, one of the I mean I was part of the delegate assembly of course. Um, all of the constitutional amendments passed. Um, they tried to pass it as a consent agenda and then different schools spoke out about pulling things off of the consent agenda and
064we had discussions. So, it was a very lengthy [clears throat] um, delegate assembly. It was two full hours. Um, yeah, it was a lot. But I do have the all of the final tallies if anyone's interested. Um the school bus funding also passed. Um let's see that one passed 344 to 10. So yeah, do adopt that. [laughter] And uh yeah, it was it was very interesting. I do have the report if anyone is interested in looking at it afterwards. Um we uh we did all sorts of exciting things. Um [clears throat] but then the sessions that I attended um one I kind of talked to Katie about um in light of the mental health screening. Um it was it truly takes a village and it was about um Daybreak Health is this service provider that
065was there speaking with members of the Crystal Lake um school district and just how they utilize this provider to kind of supplement um the services that are given to students in their district. Um it really takes the pressure off of the social workers in the district. It allows for um parents to make referrals as well um if they see that their child is maybe holding it together at school but they're having issues at home. Um it was really interesting. They did um uh run some numbers uh after three years of utilizing the service. They found on average um 12 more days of school were attended for those children that were missing quite a lot of school and there were 50% fewer discipline referrals. I can see that they're shortterm um counselors. They're like 12 to
06624 months and [clears throat] not meant to be longterm. Um but they were just saying like it really was able to alleviate some of the burden on the the school um for providing those resources for students who maybe just needed a little um additional support um for a short-term um need. So that was really really helpful. Um they did talk about maybe some grant funding for that. Uh they do bill through private insurance um and Medicaid um whenever possible. for those are the Daybreak professionals working in the context of the school or is that something happening outside [clears throat] of the school? Did they say so? There were different plans based on the age of the student. Um for the younger students, um some of the counseling sessions were with the parents. Um and they
067would their schedules were wide open. So they would even do like teleaalth in the evenings um with the parents and the counselor. Um yeah, and then for the older students, some of those were taking place during the school day in the facility. Um It was it was kind of interesting just to to hear how it all worked. Um yeah, they were able to also um remove a limit on referrals for the service. So that was nice. It didn't feel like you only have a thousand sessions or something. So people were like holding on to them. It was unlimited. So um anyone that was referred got the service. Um do you know if that was the high school or elementary? the elementary elementary district. Yeah. Yeah, it was great. Um and then I went to another
068session that was um it was called a year of shared services for safer schools. Um so it was two neighboring districts that both had a need for a director of safety and security but weren't sure if that was a full-time role or not. So they entered into an IG um hired this full-time person who came in. Um he had a law enforcement background. Um so he was able to really make connections with those um different agencies. Um but uh that was really interesting um that it was a shared service. Um, and they talked about how just when the teachers felt safer in the facility and they felt supported by this director of safety and security that they worked better in the classrooms than when the the parents felt better, you know, and the the students
069grades kind of picked up because there were less behavioral issues. Um, [clears throat] and the safety didn't it extended beyond just the physical buildings. It wasn't just about like cameras and you know ID checks and you know door locks and things. It was also about digital safety um and those sort of things. So I thought that was a really they did determine after a year that it was definitely they each needed to have a full-time person. Um, but by that and they did communicate the heck out of it um to push this is why we need this person and then that just made the the whole school community really support them in this vision. Um, but it was two different um school districts. I think it was Arlington Heights. Oh, yeah. So there was like
070different very a lot of different like um police agencies that they had to kind of like touch base with because there's so many different communities in those districts. Yeah. So that was kind of cool. Um I liked that. And then um on Sunday I attended the round table. It was the rural and small school topics with heirs. Are we members like do we pay fee dues to heirs tuno? Um the association of Illinois rural and small schools. So I looked up like they said are you a rural and small school? There's like a QR code and I looked this up and RV was listed. Never. Yeah. Because if you have over a thousand students, you are considered a small school. So that's I did ask. Yeah. And they said we are rural adjacent. So [laughter]
071So we qualify. RV actually [clears throat] gets a sizable grant. Yeah. Every year, but we can't get it unless we go under a thousand for D2. Well, he's what you're saying is we need a third school. Yes. Yes. He said, "If you think you're rural, you're rural." Yeah. [laughter] Well, that we should be able to get the grant if we think that's right. So, it was kind of interesting like just to be a member of their group. I mean, it was kind of fascinating. There are rural districts in the state and that makes up 57% of all the districts in this like it's a huge block. So, you're talking about like legislatively like working together, they're really trying to like get all of these rural and small schools to work as a team because there's
072so much more strength in numbers. So, they did say like it's $400 to join for the year for the association. And they were like, "Your best bet is to get a bank to sponsor you because that makes them a friend of rural schools for $500 and they can put something in their window." [laughter] Oh, yeah. It was fun. But yeah, they had these like pennants like just Yeah. rural schools here. So, it was interesting just talking about all the issues that everyone's facing. I mean, crumbling infrastructure, uh, you know, teacher retention, finding school bus drivers, all of it. Like, everyone's going through the same stuff. Oh, this is going to be [clears throat] good. Yes, sir. So, the high school Yeah. is rural. They're rural. Yeah. We are not. Correct. Okay. Just wanted to make
073sure. We were on the spreadsheet, so I assure you. He looked us up. Is it 40,000? [laughter] So our fee actually gets about $55,000. You get a grant for $55,000 because they're under the thousand. Yeah. And even though we're we are considered rule for nippers, you also have to be under the 10,000 enrollment. So what is our what is our green school district? 1150. [clears throat] We were on the seat. So he said we were that should be split with us. 40. It should be 60 40 eighth grade. Let's get the eighth grade high school. Hey there you go. Yeah, we're going to put them over there maybe earlier. Um yeah frustrating. I was like is [clears throat] it just that our dots are on top of each other on the map? [laughter] Yeah. So,
074yeah. So, that was I thought it was great. Um, as usual, lots of really good information, lots of really great people. Um, yeah. Well, they could use the 55,000. So, that's good. Um, that sounds Yeah, I mean, that sounds um like a pretty cool organization that can go out there and help support the rural ities and more awareness and fighting and if they get recognized the state can provide grants to them too. So that's that's terrific. Yeah, they were all talking about the 1% sales tax too and some of them are so rural that they're like well 1% who's spending them like where's the central southern Illinois? It's not going to help them either. Yeah. So that's Yeah. Any others? Well, it was my first time down there and I thought it was great. Um
075it was, you know, when the day flies by and you're taking in all this information, it just, you know, it means a lot. And my favorite, uh, seminar was creative solutions for rural school facility improvements. And, [clears throat] you know, talking about that sales tax potential, uh, this particular district, which was a small unit district, um, out by Poria, they talked about, you know, how they had that pass in their area. They didn't get the full percent, they got half a percent. But it equated to $30,000 a month in additional revenue. And it was a gamecher for them. And that they use that to issue working cash bonds and do a whole bunch of facility improvements. So So definitely there's there's major potential there with that um you know that sales tax. Uh they also
076talked about um a lot of just opportunities uh that are available to school districts for free energy assessments and resources uh that I can you know bring back to the buildings and grounds committee and work with Chris on. Um they talked about uh master facility planning. So, you know, we're talking about the, you know, the HLS bonds and doing this major work and then like like we talked about that additional work and how to schedule that and do that effectively. Um, health life safety, you know, one of the key options there was the change in the u the law and the ability to do that. Everybody was um really taking note of that. So, uh just some really great things. They even talked about like some things with technology and how you know with the
077evolving technology looking at leases versus purchasing to save money overall because of the phase out or the obsolescence of that type of equipment. So just a lot of different options. They talked about school bus fleets and the efficiencies there. Uh so just a lot of different um you know options that are available for cost savings and took a lot of notes and and like I say I'll I'll be able to bring a lot of that stuff to discussion at buildings and grounds and some other things transportation. Uh but I found the whole conference extremely valuable. Um and like I said it was my first time down and I'm looking forward to going again. Great. Thanks. All right. So, it was my second time down and I was telling Dr. Lynn earlier, I think it was
078the busiest one. I think because the weather was so great is why everyone was down in Chicago that weekend for the parade and the tree lighting. Um, and I would say the the session I went to that I like the most was um social media in a school district and it was the communication director for Maine Township School. Well, I believe you said it was right around O'Hare and then two lawyers and um the big thing was how it um can affect people's freedom of speech. So, when you've got a lot of communication going out from a school district, you know, do you want to have comments turned on or turn off? Can you turn them on and off for certain posts? Um they went through different case studies um with schools and um universities
079and when it would start interfering with people's freedom of speech and different cases that were proved that way. And then they talked about our responsibility as a board member. What we're posting even on our own social media, you know, what hat are you wearing? Are you the board member? Are you is it your personal? And even if it's a personal, it's your personal opinion. Even if you're not stating that, you know, your opinions are separate from the board or all that, you know, you've got to be very clear and um even on your own social media pages and things like that, you know, and especially they were talking about the board president having extra responsibilities because you're considered the spokesperson already for the board, you know. Um, and so it was really interesting and it
080was interesting hearing what uh the communication director at Main Township how he handled things. He said they just like to have uh the least amount of uh social media as possible. Like they don't use Twitter at all. I think it's called X now and it's because of some of the things in place. I think they allow nudity and other contact that they don't want to be associated with. So they don't want to have any accounts associated with Twitter and X at all. Um, the way they run it is they don't turn on any commenting, but under the header of all their social media pages, they put a way of getting in contact with the school district because then they said you get you take away some of the back and forth comments too where people
081can sit easily at their um computer and go back and forth and it might be off topic for what you're posting about and things like that. Um, so yeah, that's kind of how they handled it and I thought it was informative as a board member, you know, think about what you should be responsible for as well. Um, it was just good an overall good experience, too. Good. Yeah. Huge topic, right? That's why I only stick to posting about the bears. I get so much flack for even that. And so [laughter] That's enough. That's exactly right. Anything else? Okay. Thanks for all your updates in regards to uh the conference. Like I said, my first time. I was really blown away um by the presenters topics that they covered. Um thought it was time really well
082spent down there. Uh that moves us on to uh any close uh to [clears throat] closed session. Do we have anything to discuss in closed session? No. Okay. So then no motion needed to enter into closed session. Uh we'll move directly into uh adjournments and need a motion to adjurnn. Motion second. All in favor say I. All opposed same sign. This meeting has been adjourned. Thank you. Yeah. What do I put now? There's just two things. Not so.