District 96 Board of Education Regular Meeting 10-18-23

001[Music] yes call to order and roll call please okay Miss gun here miss KCK here Mr Hunt here miss claps Mr barsati present and Mr Mar here okay Quorum is present this is a board meeting of the Riverside School District 96 today is uh October 18th this is our regular business meeting and do we have any public comment thank you are there any changes to the agenda seeing as there are none Martha the superintendent report please thanks Joel so we are going to start with some student presenters from Hollywood school Garden Club so I'm going to introduce principal Miss Hefner who I think will introduce the other Garden Club leaders thank you thank you for having us here this evening I'm really excited to share with you the Hollywood Garden Club um the Hollywood Garden

002Club was a vis vision of Miss Nelson it was started approximately maybe six years ago and the very first year we have no documentation of it no pictures and putting this presentation together it was a challenge but they put in one of the first things they did was put in a butterfly garden at um Hollywood um and so I'm just going to turn it over to Miss Nelson she's done a fabulous job developing this Garden Club um this is Miss Nelson and a handful of third graders who participated in Garden Club last year okay hello everyone uh thank you so much for having us we're very excited to be here to talk about Garden Club in Hollywood so um I have a lot of presenters with me today you guys can come closer I'll introduce

003you all right so um we have some of our third graders here and they're going to tell you about Garden Club we have Elie and Penelope Brook and Leo lucious Oliver em Cardoza and Vivian Cur so we're g to start thank you for inviting us to present today to the school board and the community we are FD graders at Hollywood and we are here with Miss Nelson to talk about Garden Club here are some of the activities we did in Garden Club last year we planned Earth week activities for kids at our school we played games with recycled materials during us our club made the games and collected the materials we made we made plant people out of soil and grass seed we would make sure our plant people had a lot of sunlight and

004water then we started seeing grass gr after their head of w Hill L of us picked the milk jug planting as our favorite activity we planted vegetables and milk jugs because it was too cold out for the plants to go in the ground we watered them and then when it was warm enough we took them home and planted it on our own garden in the late summer and fall we enjoyed eating the vegetables with our family we also planted vegetables from our garden at school we had a gardener from the community come in and help us plant tomatoes and Basils she taught us about pring and stacking plants and also about companion planting and also about companion planting at the beginning of the school of this school year we Harvest our tomatoes and Basils and

005took them home to eat I'm I'm up now um we do have some past Garden Club projects that we wanted to show you they're still growing at Hollywood today uh we have our butterfly garden which was many years ago we planted 18 different plants in our but butterfly garden around our bird bath and we still take care of them today we also had a landscaper visit in previous years and we planted um a bunch of plants in the front of our school just to make it look even more magical at Hollywood uh we also have some future Garden Club projects coming soon we have a leadership day teaming up with Hower the eighth graders at Hower and the fifth graders at Hollywood are going to be building plant boxes for us so we have so

006many options now for all our Garden Club things um we're teaming up with the Hollywood Community Association we get to use their land and wash construction is donating materials for us last year we also prepped the plant boxes by painting rocks with volunteer Clips so we can make a rainbow in our new plant boxes so we're very excited for that and we have a couple more things for students to share about their EXP experience in Garden Club Tommy Ames our classmate Tommy Ames says my favorite activity in Garden Club last year was planting our milk jug plants I planted my zucchini and tomatoes in a pie at home and my family ate them when they were ready I loved planting zucchini I planted it in my garden at home and I made zucchini bread with

007the zucchini I tried the tomatoes but I still don't like tomatoes I really like doing the activities for because we got to we recycle B basketball and other fun activities our classmate Finn Johnson says I loved planting the tomatoes and the milk jugs it was a lot of fun I like doing the activities for Earth the week because it was fun creating them from the recycling hello my name is Vivian curtain and Garden Club is a special Club at Hollywood first you get to plant flowers and vegetables two watching them grow and checking on them and my mom loves gardening and that's how I got into gardening three sharing tomatoes with friends and family four they are fresh and nice and we are very excited to plan again this year with our new garden [Music]

008[Applause] [Music] beds yes that was in the practice that's right we would love to feel some questions any comments how do you guys decide what plants to plant take away we just do random things the landscaper brings us things or uh the butterfly garden we had like it prepped by a company and they helped us and then um they tell me what vegetables they want in their milk drugs and then I buy them from the store and then they get to pick it's pretty much what they choose once the um rais beds are built what's going in them a lot of vegetables we're thinking just having like a lot of options for vegetables um oh sorry you guys can go yeah oh thank you what do you want to put in them yes um we

009also um in Hollywood we have like the Tower Gardens where we have um like Mr Murray has that in second grade um with lettuce and they guys uh these guys got to work with that last year um and we brought it to our lunch room too so cross your fingers we can grow some vegetables for the lunchroom very cool any more questions is there anything you plant to try and get later in the fall when it starts getting colder so that you can see it more at school well now you guys had the tower garden last year what were some of the things that you guys got to keep growing because they grew the tower garden all year long so is there anything that you guys like to grow there I think we grew I

010think we grew spinach yes oh yeah Miss thought of some pumpkin a pumpkin idea well it's team idea um and uh yeah we're thinking like putting that in the garden and then it'll be ready by Fall imagine the possibilities I don't know carving seed counting in kindergarten we do that with the pumpkins we have options very cool anything you guys want to share anything else any other does anything getting brought inside for the winter I feel like I don't know I'm thinking mostly our tower garden and um for a Garden Club we kind of started March right yeah we were like starting in March and that's why we did the milk jugs because we could quite get outside yet uh but we had we had all these milk jugs on a cart we would bring

011outside if there it was sunny and we would bring inside if it was too cold started around the IDE of Burma composting now that we have the um school lunch Believe It or Not There are children pick broccoli froli sometimes we have some vegetable waste but um there's a few staff members who have worms in their garden beds they don't do well in the winter we don't want worm in our so we're going to bring the worms in we have a a Verma compost container from kindergarten that we' like to use throughout the winner so they don't know that yet but that's and the um the garden beds that are being done with Hower students that's a new project coming from Hower too there's a student leadership group that has planned a project at each

012of the elementary schools and Hollywoods will be building the garden the garden bed so you're going to hear more from that group in the future too the the Houser group but Hollywood you were great we really appreciate knowing about the Garden Club and thank you so much for joining us than [Applause] you we're gonna we're going to move on to um more student discussion and um students aren't here with us tonight but we have information about uh the central Houser project we actually have some serious details from da Architects and from our m around um draft budget and timeline Etc so we're going to get into kind of a fullscale presentation on our current status with the central Houser project so with that I should introduce Steve Wright and Ryan Kelly and rir um all

013with us tonight to to talk about kind of where we are currently and then also just answer questions that the board might have you want to get us started so my name r for the construction projects that happen and I know they're going to want you to speak into the micro the the YouTube live there we go how's that is this on can you hear oh it's just for them okay got it uh so I'll be overseeing the construction projects that come up each year in the school district and uh for our projects over 2425 we're looking at a major project project in the central hous of Campus which is to redo the parking lots and the playground fields and more importantly there are some utilities that are underground that are in bad shape that

014are going to get replaced at the same time so there's a combination of uh projects that are taking place over a period of time we had initial discussions on this project over the last 6 to n months with the board where we presented various alternates between using artificial turf and natural grass we presented pros and cons of each of the materials and the board decided at a fairly early level that early stage to go with natural grass so we started with that process and we went through uh the design process and da will discuss that in in in some detail but the important thing out here is that uh because the location of where we are between the parking lot and the play Fields what we what we need to accomplish is fairly complicated so

015we do have to take the parking lots offline most of it in the phase one because we have to remove the asphalt and then following that we have to excavate almost 6 to 8 ft down to install the storm detention system and the storm detention system essentially traps water and prevents it from uh being put back into to the Village uh storm systems during a major rainstorm and the part of this is uh governed by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District the mwrd and we have to pull a special permit from them to get this work underway each year we design it our Engineers uh size the system but when you submit it to them they're going to be design changes this always we've always had this process every year we had this issue but here

016what we're trying to do is as much of an early start as possible and we looked into the possibility as to why we couldn't place the storm detention system in the play lot sorry in the in the field because that would have left the parking lot open the major reason why we couldn't do that is the Playfield is at a lower level than the parking lot and the cost of excavation would have gone up substantially to place this storm detention tank so that's one of the questions I believe that may have been fielded by the board as to why we didn't did not place the detention tank in the field it's a question of elevations and anytime you excavate and you remove soil from site it's an expensive process because you actually have to U

017Move the soils off site in large trucks it's a more uh the schedule goes up the costs go up we wanted to be aware of this of this we kept a really tight lid on the budget and as it is the budget has crept up because our scope has increased but essentially we want to start the project um the timeline that we have right now is by November we want to go out to bid we receive bids in December we review them through December and early January the January board meeting we would like to make a recommendation to award and that then that starts the contract for the selected contractor and by March we want to start the project now there are pros and cons are starting in March by starting in in March we

018can finish the job we believe at this time by August but by the time School reopens we are done with the parking lot we'll be able to turn that part over back to the school the disadvantage that you have is there's going to be noise and there's going to be dust past spring break because it's an outdoors project heavy equipment being moved here so that's something that's important to keep in mind as far as noise and dust it's a construction project so there's very little that we can do to control that but the plan out here is that we would put some fences around the contract and such that the contractor cannot start before 7: a.m. you know they can't run their trucks out here on site you know you bring you bring a truck

019you load and you leave you can't be sitting out on site you know running we'll try and put that into our contracts to keep a tight rain on noise but I just want to want make everyone aware that noise and dust is definitely going to be an issue the next part the second phase of the project so in the first phase phase most of the parking lot is being taken out a small portion of it will be available for parking during the school year but the majority of it is gone in phase one but phase two is when school closes in June when they take over the rest of the field and they start working on the entire site and we intend to complete the project by August now this leaves us with the planting

020season for the field so there's an extended period when the field will not be available starting in September to May of 25 when the field will not be available so that's a drawback we got to be when we go with natural grass there's a planting period because we're planting seed in here you get let the seed grow and take on the soil there's a 6 to 9 month period that we have to wait so the full field will only be available for active use in 25 so that's an important aspect to take into account uh from the scheduled standpoint um what else do we have about it yeah so that's the basic description of the project um we have some lessons learned from all our previous projects to you know we've created adequate allowances in

021the budget as to cover you know if mentalities because it's not an exact science when you excavate on site with regards to uh soil excavation we can do the calculations but you know you you're going to find something in there which you didn't plan for it's underground and we put allowances into the budget to try and cover this I mean we've always the most important thing for us as Architects construction managers owners reps is to make sure that the budget we present to you is as realistic as possible that's why we've identified as much of it right now so we can have any questions please do ask us as to why we set up the numbers the way you see them it's basically to make sure that when we give you a number we don't

022want to get you know run into a problem where we exceed the budget by a million or two million because then you are run to issues that you're trying to justify the project after it's being awarded we trying we are definitely trying to avoid that situation uh we've had extensive uh discussions obviously and have you kept the board informed through the facilities committee uh over the past uh 5 to 6 months so I'm pretty sure that uh most board members are aware of this project but feel free to ask me any questions um I'm here well so if you're taking the parking lot offline starting in March so is there a contingency plan yet for where the staff would part for the rest of the remainder of the school year so the majority of the

023parking lot is being taken out yes we are I mean if you look at the phasing plan it looks like about 15 to 20 spots would be available but the uh essentially we are not making AR any Arrangements other than either it be street parking or we have to talk to the Village to see if you know what they would allow us to you know use as far as the neighborhood parking goes but as far as the construction crew they would have to stay within the confines off the lot you know normally otherwise in construction Crews they end up parking all over the you know they take up a lot of the Village the roadside parking in this case we're going to try and tell them that you have to stay within our our project

024site so you can leave those spaces open so uh as far as teachers parking we haven't made any alternate Arrangements yday we had some conversation so yeah that's been discussed a lot at facilities um trying to coordinate with the village on potential other locations but also just making it understood that there is going to be more street parking from for the staff um in the neighborhood and that's people don't often don't like people other people parking in front of their houses but that's there's not really a way to get around that so it's going to be a lot of just communication and staff is also going to be communicated with in terms of what's available and potential alternates with the the phasing remes has it basic the phasing basically leaves I'm assuming access along the

025building during the school year yes so that kids can get in and out and absolutely so uh if you look at the phasing drawing in the board package you'll notice that we leaving a section like so wide open you want to take this section off because the storm detention is right here in this gray area that you see and that's where the major excavation takes place so this whole section will be open during construction so you have access to the exits of the building and this section also be open to and where are we in this maybe more for d but where are we at in terms of discussions with the village and just some of that coordination and then where's where's this the mwrd permit at I'm Ryan Kelly with TLA Architects um so

026to answer your question Joel uh we met with the village I think it was about two weeks ago now um got their preliminary feedback um our plan is to submit drawings to them uh at the end of this month um we have gotten uh um approval to submit to the mwrd at the same time so they'll do kind of a dual review process obviously there'll be comments in coordination that we'll need to do but um um that's that's our timeline with drawing submitt was there any major Thoughts From The Village any review comments so far just no I think it was uh I think it was pretty straightforward I mean it was really details I mean about hydrants that would be moved um access uh Chief Buckley was there as well uh so we had

027some comments about access around the building which you know gave some some Credence to our phasing plan uh keeping access around the entire building um but no no no major design comments I think it was pretty understood uh what was required uh the scope and the size of the detention that we're providing um and obviously they'll review those calculations specifically when we submit TD okay it as well as the village yeah could you may speak to what impact this will have on recess and gym both across central Ander sure um and actually we're going to talk a little we had a parent meeting this morning with Central parents to talk about some of the preliminary playground ideas um we've been in conversation I have been in conversation with the village manager been in conversation obviously

028with both our principles at Central Hower I mean I will be really clear it is going to be a very significant challenge um one of the things we've talked about for Central students is to make sure could we get the Houser gym spaces available could they you know again not have gym classes PE classes during the Lunch Period um today we are brainstorming with families we've been brainstorming I've been brainstorming with the village there is not any quick and easy solution um to get children outside in large groups during what we absolutely understand going to be some of the nicest months of the school year um today conversations came up about reaching out to the um in the grassy area near St Mary's um I know there are parks it as you all know it

029takes 10 minutes 15 minutes to walk with a group of students and when they have a 25 30 minute break it's just not enough time um I have you know again I don't want to sort of get into details that I may or not be at all acceptable to the Village but um is some idea of being able to play out front but what would that require in terms of barricades or fencing uh I can tell you when we had the project at ases we were planning um to work with we had worked with the village we I would call sort of the block party setup is using barricades um ases is a very different traffic area than here I can't imagine that we could close off Woodside Road Joel um close off Woodside Road

030for even 30 minutes an hour at a time it's just it's a major thoroughfare through Woodside is one of the busier streets in town so um we I mean truly we are we are asking for Community engagement on this talking to the Village manager she was very supportive she said let's you know continue to walk through the The Village spaces together and really think about this so um I'm I I want there to be a solution um you know Mr gats Miss May Mr herbales everybody has really been sort of leaning in and putting our heads around this and um we're not coming up with a great solution to be really honest I'm hopeful that we will come up with something we've talked about staggering The Lunch Period so that you know smaller groups of

031children can be out front I know children do play in this front of school area um I I don't like the idea of 200 children playing outside it's one thing when you see one group of students out there so um yeah if uh I I don't want to be Cavalier or say that we haven't thinking we've been thinking a lot and we just don't have a solution we' like is a Major Impact is really going to be from the beginning of phase two in March through the end of the school year and then as we roll into August and the field takes time to come online the students will still have access to the playground into the court but they won't have access to the field for recess and gym and that's a huge impact

032to Hower because that's their outdoor PE PE space um so there there will be no field and rash I heard you say last time we talked about there would be no field in this this spring spring of 24 fall of 24 I just heard you say spring of 25 it's a full 9 month process so we start from September of 24 till almost end of May June it's a slow process to make sure the field catches otherwise you start playing in that it'll get ruined and you have to square one and that that's what that's based on is just getting the grass established there was an initial thought that perhaps by the end of fall of 24 it might be ready but you you're thinking right now based on typical grass growing an establishment that

033it really needs that spring as well to get going so and the reason for the phasings is as as you just mentioned to to only take the playground offline for that three months um it would be available in the fall of 24 yeah yeah for for the sorry go ahead go for the um since how how's are utilizes the field for its PE space what happens to PE can it move to the gym or there too many stay indoors you know one thing if you have a Houser student you know that they all run the mile I believe on Wednesdays that probably won't be impacted because they follow the perimeter that is not the most favorite activity that children engage in so um so yeah and and during the pandemic if you recall they would

034do walks around and that also was not uh not a highly preferred activity so I know uh rsh and Ryan Steve had promised that they'll get us a capacity like that that playground hard surface play area that what's basketball and four square um needing to understand the group size that could be out there is is a number that you know once we have that to work with you know we could talk about adjusting we could you know adjusting lunch periods even that sounds easy and um it probably doesn't take a lot of sort of insight to understand that there are very elaborate schedules the interventions the supports the special education services not to mention the specials the art the music the PE so we start to play with lunch period we start to impact you

035know student needs so but that is something that Mr Gat is taking a look at as some possible or having a different grade level that just eats lunch a little bit later a little bit earlier um so these things are all you know sort of inactive consideration um yeah the two other elements that I'd like to bring up is we sensitive to the neighbors because you know that's part of our outreach program so in of a regular construction fence that may be say 3 or 4T High we're going to be putting perimeter fences on both sides that are 10 to 12T High to constrain noise dust and activity sight lines so that'll help with uh some kind of privacy as far as the construction goes that's number one the second thing is um our garbage

036osal and our trash is in this section right now so we have to have access to that so we're going to try and reach out to the Village to see what other alternate places whether we could move it out to the front it's going to be a challenge because if people are parked here you we will back a truck into that place to pick it up or the pickup needs to happen at an early enough hour when there's no cars out there or a late time after school hours they can't come between say 7 and 3: to pick up garbage so we got to discuss that issue as well so there's a coordination there and that that's discussion with I assume we use flood right M Jim I'm not sure Jim would know Jim we

037use flood disposal for uh trash pickup for trash pickup what day that's that's flood disposal right the company it's the village company Flood Brothers so that's the first route to start discussing with them y in the plans there's uh sidewalk widening SL a bump out on Woodside has that all gone through the village at this point um not yet so I discussed this with Martha briefly um if you're going to bid that as an alternate at this stage because I believe there are some other nuances in it that should be considered before we combine it with this project so we'll proceed with the discussion with the village and see their input we'll bid it we bid as an alternate but our B main award is still limited to this playground and parking lot so that's

038we'll say that that's a possibility but not a guarantee it's possibility we had that conversation in the preliminary review with uh The Village um and they had some questions some concerns that we'd like to come back to facilities committee uh with before we you know decide to include it in the project this is minor in comparison but will the access to the bike parking between March and may be impacted or can we move the bike racks elsewhere are there okay they moving the bike rids okay doing the they going bring the m y yeah it's part of the plan and let me just back up too about the the outdoor play so K kindergarten and first grade students will still have access to that front playground we're going to leave that untouched for for now

039there we would like to renovate that that's something students talk to us about um whether or not that weights for a a a future future phase of the project um the courtyard was is still available right yeah so grade two often plays in the courtyard area so that's taking care of three grade levels and then you know again I we have to figure out third third fourth and fifth so potentially that's not as daunting as the entire student body remes the intent I think to you've already said it but to make it clear all the the asphalt parking lot will be complete barring anything a by August so yeah we'll be turning over all of this by August and there's work down through towards the courtyard as well yes this section there a little bit

040of repaving that's required yes all that stuff too so for the areas that we're that we're not using because want the grass seed to attach now are we fencing that off or how do we it's get fenced off correct okay it's going to have a construction fence for about 9 months mhm yes are we putting any signage on it to let people know why that's there or sure you put some signage up too that you know seed to grow in yeah we talked about uh fencing watering um signage is all part of the the base contract over that that time period through spring of 25 the maintenance portions added to the specification so the contractor bids on it is responsible to maintain that they'll have access to it to come in get our PL going

041so so with with the cost right now I think I think you said the cost went up because scope increased we consider it's substantially it's I mean as I said you know we're trying to be as careful as possible because if you notice from where we started two years ago where we are right now it's a fairly it's a much larger project cuz we've added the utilities as well we're replacing quite a lot of Utilities in this section and part of the requirement is also ComEd has a main line that runs out here a new fiber optic line was added last summer which now has to get relocated I mean it's it's going to get displaced and we to we we adding that section to the contractor's work so that he does not disrupt any

042activities the school so that work may have to be done off off ours uh so it crept up from initially we had looked at a project that went from 4 a half million 5 and A2 now it's sitting in that $6.5 million range but we feel that we can trim some portions out because that six Not Included the work in the front of the school which we're not going to be doing right now as a straight up project that kind of work that comat work is partly where the Transformer correct the trans line item comes is to leave it in place to leave the transform in place but we want to move the the the basic feeder that's sitting on top of the pole underground that's the M that's the majority of that project which

043is from a safety standpoint a much better solution than leaving it with an overhead connection especially right over the playground that's another one that we have to start early because Comet does not react very quickly even though this work is relatively minimum it's still going to take like four to five months to get get on their books to get this done they have their own process have you been able to I realize this is probably more of an open question than anything but are there any new Transformers required because that's a long lead time issue lately not yet no not in this project okay we're not changing any of the service feeds and comment is so far as I know we do not have any power up upgrades all this Transformers is old it's fine

044as of right now it's functional other questions so I I questions so when we get to the construction subtotal so underneath some of some of these expenses that are listed here I understand you construction allowance I believe that's just for overages correct correct so General conditions h&p I'm not aware of what that is okay so sorry about that so General conditions overhead and profit so General conditions are the contractor's overhead cost to run a project it means his superintendent the fences his trailer if he has one fuel cost for the Machinery uh any supplies that they have to bring to site something that they cannot obtain through the subcontractors but it's their overhead cost in a project it can range from anywhere from 6% to 25% depending on the size of the project complications you

045if you have to pay for a project manager that they have on who comes on tend meetings the people in their office staff their overhead has to be passed on in a proportion all that's part of the general conditions the overhead and profit is I mean we do cap that off in uh contracts and public contracts that's listed in uh in our frontend documents mhm so I guess design contingency that's essentially the money that we're setting side for all of this is essentially no so design contingency will become Zero by the time we get to 100% documents so that's to clean up some of these things that questions are being posed right now you want to talk about what are the implications of adding or making decongesting the site how do we get to the

046final documents so that number will keep on shrinking and whatever is left over we just return it back we don't as we as if we didn't touch it okay so it is just so I don't want I want to say that we will not exceed that number that you're seeing out there but we need some uh margin to adjust the budget as of this time can I rephrase it it's also and you'll either any one of you can criticize this but basically because the drawings right now are at 90% there's additional refinement that will come with the design to get to that 100% And so some of those refinements may add costs so the idea is to capture those costs now and not exceed that's correct that amount sense especially if there's still items to

047go before various boards for approval and this is typical in any big contract I I guess the last part then there was some charge 250,000 for escalation right so um escalation is in the construction world is synonymous with inflation so a contractor who's beating the job so we typically escalate a project through midpoint of construction so the contractors has to project for the fact for example labor unions change they they have their new rates come into place in June of a given year so that step up that they have to adjust for that so when they bid it they'll adjust that price it's part of escalation fuel costs being in a very fairly volatile fuel cycle right now so especially with heavy equipment they may consume anywhere from 25 to 100 150 gallons a day

048they have to make sure they can capture that so there's an escalation factor that they will add when they bid the project so these are all numbers just trying to protect the budget so that a contra especially in Long lead time projects you know projects run one or two years four years you're trying to ask a contractor to to project out costs that they don't know about and we trying to prevent them from just adding a number a crazy number number like a few years ago I mean when we ran into this escalation inflation cycle where inflation was running anywhere from 6 to 8% we saw a tremendous increase in prices so we trying to protect the project from those kind of numbers by adding an escalation number so we're not seeing those same numbers

049of no it's come down significantly so right now we're averaging about 4.4% annually in inflation costs and we tried to capture it through that number but you can have selective large scale jumps for example concrete has risen significantly this summer it had a 30% increase so if you're buying concrete on the spot this summer you would have been paying a significantly large larger price rebar went up while most other costs were somewhat stable in that 4.4% that I'm talking about but you have selective materials that can go because of shortages demand because a large project came up somewhere a large infrastructure project started eating up a lot of those resources prices start to spike so we this is a large civil project for the most part so the limited number of materials that we could

050run into that could cause problems so we're trying to hedge against that price volatility through the escalation Clause okay so I gu I just do have a one question and why is you've been saying it's 4.4% why don't we just put it at 4.4% that's 4.4% annually on an average of projects of products now in this one I want wanted to take a look to see for example asphalt prices are highly dependent on oil prices oil prices are spiking right now but we reach the end of the asphalt cycle as far as the paving the paving season ends this month end of this month it spills into a little bit of November and then restarts again in March so if you have to hedge for the prices for next year if the contractor is going

051to bid at this this year he does not know how much asphalt's going to cost so he may add 5 6 7% to his bid to cover that eventuality and we're trying to protect against that do you have any thoughts on the type of work being site work and then the estimated price is that going to make it less competitive more competitive more desired by contractors and this I realize this is just an opinion and not you're not being pinned no we should be able to attct uh a good healthy uh set of contractors to bid on this project the the difference is again again a lot of lessons learned for us in the sense that we want to make sure that we don't attract a type of contractor what we call brokerage contractors that

052means they don't self-perform any work but they manage other contractors we feel that unless a contract has skin in the game where they feel that they have to self-perform too then the project becomes a lot more interesting to them they bid it a lot tighter so we're adding a clause in our documents this time that at least 10 to 15% has to be self-performed so that's it's not just a brokerage contract it should make for attracting a lot of contractors who just do this kind of work and the good thing about it about this is this does not have an Interiors component you know where we're doing interior renovation it's a very large civil project essentially so youve likely to see not more than four or five subcontracts on this project you know a little

053bit of electrical a little bit of you know um um probably know fence work could be in a sub a subcontract but the majority of it on this excavation Paving and all that we're going to see that in one or two contracts it is a very attractive project by the way because of the size you normally don't get concentrated projects like this in this range you know with a fairly tight schedule um so it's it's fairly rare and typically Schools public works do attract these kind of projects and I feel that we should be getting some good bids on this one and if it goes less than the numbers that I projected yeah I'll just say and then I'm happy to move on um obvious this is a project that people are really excited about

054it is riddled with challenges as you made us where I don't know that I was fully aware of the extent of the challenges that we would be facing as a result of it and we kind of live and breathe this all the time every month you know it's on the Forefront of our mind so I just can't underscore the importance of communicating getting it out there to you know to staff about parking to the community to brand new Houser families whose children will not use a field for a whole year um you know I just even remember at Hollywood when we couldn't use the um the playground until maybe November because of you know the equipment Etc it was very I think frustrating for families not to really know what was going on so to

055the extent that we can get ahead of it and communicate and overc communicate because when some all of these disruptions start coming to a head you're going to have a lot of or perhaps have angry people who didn't quite see it coming I mean I didn't see the extent of this coming and again I'm talking about it all the time through today you know we thought like we thought we were going raes and I had talked last week after facility advisory and he said you know I think we can preserve more parking and as he said as they looked at the elevations and the changes literally you are hearing today and the whole Community is hearing today for those that you know are tuning in right that um that there is going to be a

056lot less parking available than we thought um the recreational field being off limits also in Spring of 25 is information also for me tonight um so there are many many complexities and I and I completely agree with you Stephanie that it is about communication um we will communicate but I feel like I need a little more certainty around some of these aspects before U and a little more time to sort of problem solve too um before we bring It Forward we we wanted to bring this to the Board of Education tonight you have been I think Mr Gat jokes we've been talking about this project for 11 years it probably has been I mean I've been here for eight and this has been sort of on our minds we've done some Community coffees and information

057gathering probably certainly six years ago five years ago um in Earnest really now for two years the board really actively planning for this project um I don't think we're the first school district to ever try to renovate a parking lot and a playground in a recreational field all in one space um but yeah I mean I you know I I am sort of right there with families and with staff around concerns related to parking and concerns related to outdoor play um and outdoor PE so I know talked to Miss may just earlier today with not even knowing about the turf and the the grass growing in the spring and she said what's her option I said her option would be do the project right you know I mean you know I I don't want to

058be so you know again not trying to be Cavalier or glib about it at all but um you're not being Cavalier yeah the the reality is to dig up this entire however how how many acres is it can you guess two and a half how many two and a half I believe to dig up two and a half acres takes time and then like raes said the Landscaping takes time to grow you're not being glib it's it's everything will take has its own time to happen grow um and we've talked about the parking issue that's that's really a communication issue yeah that that probably the bigger part on our students is like you said Stephanie it's the use of the fields that's going to be the hard something that people are going to have a

059hard time with but I guess the thing that iort like this is something like you said Stephanie this is something everyone wants and uh like you mentioned it's also it's going to be an impact and there's not going to be a good solution to this okay but this is something that has been on our minds for a long time I guess what I'm just s asking is that there is understanding I mean we're going to come up with as I look at it the best worst situation you know we're going to nothing's going to be ideal so if we can just make like in the communication just sort of there has to be some understanding across the board that this is in the end this is what we want but it's going to it's going

060to be a little painful getting there so um I I do think the pain though will be definitely worth it in the end I mean this is going to be a fabulous uh field a fabulous playground I mean the kids are going to definitely benefit from this the staff's going to definitely benefit from the improve parking it's going to be all around significantly better one of the things I'd like to bring to the board's attention is that once things get more formalized and we start to finish up the documents we have input from the village and mwrd I normally put out what's called a community newsletter if you recall when we did the bleight park project last year before we started we started issuing a pro a newsletter which the principal was sending out to

061the parents which indicates the schedule the type of work the challenges we were trying our best to reach out and it really did help because I never heard any complaints during the construction period because we putting out that newsletter the reason we haven't put one out yet is it's still in flux right now and we didn't want to make a commitment to something and then pull it back that's harder to take back if I had said you could have the entire parking lot and then said no no sorry it's only 90 you're getting 10% I think there been a bigger blowback so just trying to be careful on that subject right now once we finalize this we get to 100% documents I'll issue the community newsletter number one and we'll go through both p and

062with April and get it out to all the communities and and I'll be communicating directly too and and already just like with staff communication um I think some of that will operationally come from Jim about parking Etc so um there there's a lot there's a lot to it I will say that um and I know we're going to switch to something a little more exciting and that's going to be the playground visioning here in a few minutes um because it's does feel very positive David to your point we met this morning with eight about eight parents I think we had in the room um parents of kindergarten first and second graders all younger families which you know so their children will see the benefits of this um at Central School and we had this sort

063of the same level of conversation you know the frustration around outdoor play and where could they go and we talked about St Mary's and we talked about the triangles and we talked about being out front and um I would say parents left with great appreciation for the board's effort around doing this project you know they didn't leave with uh my goodness how is my child not going to have the best outdoor play space for you know a good part of the school year it was thank you for working so hard to try to make this happen now granted this was a group of parents that showed up very committed and interested in the project so I'm not saying they will represent All Families but I think there was you know certainly that that this we

064see that this is challenging um we see that the the long-term goals are really positive for students I I feel there's a question that needs to be asked and it pains me to ask it but I I feel like I must so uh given the long time period where the field will not be available if we were to use artificial materials I'm assuming and perhaps I'm wrong but I'm assuming that we wouldn't face that similar times constraint that is correct so in all likelihood what would be the loss of usage there would be a few months or for switching to artificial t yes there would be no loss because you once it's in it's in it would been it would have been in in August provided we got the material in time it's in you

065would use it from day one MH yes it was pointed out during our review we went through the pros and cons of each of them that was one of the things that we would go into this process where grass takes time but I believe the board made an informed decision that this is the way to proceed so but Dan also say that question came up among staff too you know I think when the decision was made and I'm not asking the board to redo that decision that wouldn't be my place anyway but um and there were a lot of approvals based on it being natural grass Etc but that that question came up you know when we start to look at the the realities of the implementation of this project MH I don't think we

066realize natural grass took nine months to grow I think we were always we always knew that the fall was going to be non available but the spring was not that's a more recent development or assessment sad doesn't make a difference no it has to take I mean and the thing is that grass will grow dominant in winter so it still has to take that second growth is requ quied for it to take we are going to shift to a more positive we'll talk about playground unless anything else I'm good this part was fun this part was very fun so not not to make light of all the challenges we've been talking about them for a long time and we'll continue to do so um but as we have talked to everyone uh all stakeholders in

067this process uh we did so uh with playground as well uh so the one component of this is the actual playground the playground equipment U and we went through this process at ases uh and at Hollywood uh met with the students uh in what we call a visioning session uh we met with staff um to do very much the same thing and then this morning uh with parents as uh Dr Ryan toy was talking about um so I'd like to share with you some of the drawings behind you uh that some of our uh students did um we took them through a few different activities we asked them to and you'll see this on the video um we asked them to pick out uh their favorite equipment uh so if you can see behind me

068here we asked them to select number one and number two uh choices of equipment and there were more boards than this but and then to explain their ideas what what they liked what they didn't like um and then we asked them to draw their their playground uh you know what what would that be you know no budget Blue Sky what would that look like and they came up with some amazing drawings and some amazing explanations um talked about things about uh inclusivity accessibility and again this was not driven from us it was all their ideas and what they um they wanted to see um and I won't spoil anything but they also surveyed their classmates some of them came with lists of things that they wanted to include so it was really impressive um so

069with that I'll share with you a video that you may have seen already but it's worth watching again it's about oh you [Music] got ideas from the playground next summer we're going to make a big mess back in school we're take parking lot out grass area out there but we're also talking about putting a better playground that's super everybody not just so this is a chance for you guys today and some of you talk classes teach STS in discussion to share ideas to get feedback to the adults that are going to be working on the other side of it because what you guys think is going to be good is really important for us to know as Mr Gat said we are going to be designing and building playground for you guys you have an

070idea that you're looking to work on in fact we want some Excell we told you guys are the Excell we need your in so this one is all about um what would I do if I built the school so I've got two young boys about your age and we read this book all the time and this is Nolan's favorite page and this is the playground so what we want U we're going to get to that we want your big Ideas anything that you put on your playground is rolling so we come over here we're g to gather around different ideas about pieces of playground equipment zip lines climb on swing on hang out in um so what we'd like you to do if we can make it formal number one is going to be pink

071all right so I'm going to give you a little sticker you'll come through and look at all the pictures and your favorite one I want you to put a pink sticker on your second favorite one I want you to put a blue sticker [Music] on all right so let's go around and just tell us quickly what you picked for number one and why and what you pick for number two and why you picked that St back I pied a also for the very much enjo so if you're playing Dad you can make a quite hilarious um my second pick was um the playground to the top right here yeah all right I like that one it had a tunnel SL and um I like the design of like the brown number one thing this one

072here yeah yeah and then yeah this one oh I see you I also like instruments too what did you pick my first choice I chose the CL because and my second choice was that because um when we were discussing with my class um a lot of people said that like they wanted you get you discuss with your class and get input you're represent draw a picture draw [Music] their oh you're doing a great [Music] job you go I do [Music] enjoy wheel in the swing yeah like the wheel they have to get out ideam we got that in the front so the field goals are thousands of there's this kid who came up with it and I'm like I don't know about that [Music] get these are half blue and half purple half blue Pur

073yeah just pretend that this is purple because we're just giving ideas about what dreams I actually was like sleeping on it I was like should go to your meeting but then I got up and I like okay and my mom coffee and all this on the table and she's like David I want you you should have AAL get your [Music] could be like a whe up the wheels and then they and then the on in the whe can control it I like that and then this is a slime that's purple and blue stripes you it's a lad um I drew a ramp for people with wheelchairs so they could get off and there's like a bridge right here that leads to the side and um there are monkey bars and there's like um a swing

074but for Wheelchairs and there are regular swings for people without Wheelchairs and then there are like these velro darts that you like throw at the board and a ladder for people with no like I don't first I made a zipline because most people love Ziplines and I made a little opticle course where you're supposed to go from like this this this and some monkey bars and then like things I like jump over and this is just like a rock L wall weird but I really didn't know what to make climb up this ladder to get to The Swinging Bridge and if you go down there there's a little ladder to get to the monkey bars and if you fall you'll just fall into a ball pit and then if you go this ladder you can

075either go down this big tube slide or you can go down this firan pole um and then I put um a around here um some swings a bench and then a trampoline little St just room and then below it there be um anr trampoline trampoline it suggested that maybe we keep the playground in the front for the small kids right yeah and do a bigger one in the back yeah yeah that was your idea right yeah yeah think that was a really good idea but we got to try and make all all of those ideas fit back here so we're going to have to see what we can do we haven't talked about these that we are going to do some new playground in the back because right now you don't have any playground equipment

076in the back right so that'll be an improvement for sure so thank you for all of your help today and we're going to take those ideas we're actually going to share some of your ideas with your teachers just to get their opinion to say oh yeah that's a cool idea that's a cool idea so they're going to get a chance to kind of look at these boards too and tell us what they think you guys will do you guys have better hand on it you do this you guys did a great job I'm really proud of you the ideas you brought forward and shared with everybody it's going to really help the adults move the process forward because in the end it's going to take the adults to make magic happen but you guys gave

077us the ideas we needed to take it in that direction so thank you all and I hope you have a great rest of your day and when we have an idea of what the final project might be maybe you guys will get I was say and I wanted to say thank you also it's great to meet you and great to hear your ideas I also said to Mr gets you all do a wonderful job expressing yourself you just do a great job working together and I was impressed when you introduced yourself I was impressed when you just described your project ideas so thank you so much it was really really appreciate so I have to tell you we had about 25 minutes or more of footage so pairing that down was was difficult um so

078thank you for your time not only is this a fun process um I think fun for the kids but certainly fun for us but these ideas really end up in the playground um they did at ases they did at Hollywood and they will here as well so any questions was there any equipment or ideas that really stood out in your mind mines besides the trampoline a lot of climbers um a lot of talk about accessibility they really want to climbers that uh could be accessible for people in wheelchairs um that we heard many times over so a lot of climbers not as much zipline as we've heard in other visioning sessions so swings and Tube sides yeah swings and swings and climbers and and slides yeah yeah so it was fun thank you thank you

079thank you anything else for daa for AES related to playgrounds the project in general appreciate the board just you know the the pause and the consideration and we're continuing to move forward and absolutely the communication pieces and just problem solving around the parking and and play areas continue to be front of mine if there's nothing else then thank you so much for being here thank you I know Kim has has has left I think she's usually here in October it seems but October is principal appreciation month and uh I think there's a proclamation that the the state puts out the governor puts out around um the state's appreciation for our principles I just want to say um during principal appreciation month uh sort of share my and I know I think probably speak for you

080just our appreciation for really outstanding principal team so Todd gearan and kesmir Gorman Pete gats who you saw in the video Kim Hefner April May and Chris harbal is our assistant principal over at Hower um just really an outstanding group of professionals so dedicated so dedicated to Children um to our families obviously to their staff and making sure that there's just really great instruction that happens in all of our classrooms it's a huge job that they have and they do it incredibly well so um just want to appreciate appreciate all of them um speaking of instruction in all the classrooms um the board is aware that the Illinois state report card comes out on October 30th so I don't have any information to share at this time because we actually are not allowed to share

081the information the student data is all under what they call embargo so um we will not be able to see information from other school districts until October 30th we have our November 1st cow meeting plan so I know Angela dozel and the team are already um sort of digging into the data and getting ready to bring forward a presentation um the board always gets a preview of the packet um days in advance of the actual board meeting the comparative data coming from other school districts will not be available to us to even put into our report until October 30th it it will probably take us the 31st to to put some of it together so when the board even gets a preview of the data you'll get a preview of District data but not of

082um comparative data so um and then I know Angela's not here tonight to congratulate but Nora is we we had a a really great um Institute day on October 10th um I have the agenda attached for all of you just so you can again see the the wide variety of um professional learning activities that we set up uh for the the staff members um and again just um as we say hitting the nail on the head for um about 165 different staff members who really have all very different um there's some common themes but um there's also a lot of uh different needs around professional learning and growth for for each and every educator in this District so um October 10th was a great example of of that work and then Norah is here this

083is always I think we we share this annually um this is the State Board of Education update on um our educational determinations for special education services it looks like um not that exciting report on the face of it but it really speaks to this big idea of ensuring that absolutely all of our children and in this particular case in this report our children with um special needs with IEPs individualized education plans really are receiving services in what we call the least restrictive environment which is the greatest access to general education um and but yet receiving all the supports and services they absolutely need so um again that you'll see that we have met on all those determinations and again it is no small feat so thank you Nora and Pam because as Nora was quick

084to point out this is actually a report from from prior year so and with that that's the superintendent's report longest one ever I think Joel thank you we wanted to get da and rshh early on the agenda and seeing there was no action involved that that was place the agenda that's absolutely it's something that you're very close to and you're going to be the recipient of many of the parent Communications on that as well as April and Pete I'm sure so it's just a quick comment um and I saw earlier I think it was this week you um included in your email the importance of um students attending school right and I noticed here too in the in the um packet that a big piece for our district in getting a great grade on this

085report card is uh student attendance right 20% of the grade is relates to whether or not we have students that are chronic absentee and so I think you know it's just important to continue to stress the importance of having students come to school and um it would be really interesting I think to as we are sort of digesting the uh the data from um the state to sort of understand what's behind some of our chronic absenteeism right like I know we talked about it in one of the meetings about learning a little bit more about whether it's sickness or whether there's just more of a Toler an for missing school because you know if you can work remotely maybe you can school remotely and just like a sort of a change in culture and ideas

086around that and so I think it's important for us to sort of understand and identify where the issue is so that way we can address it right like and continue to sort of come up with a plan um you know at the principal level or at the teacher level to um get back to where we maybe were preo because you know the the data that was presented a few weeks ago sort of showed that you know there's an that's an area of an improvement for us right yeah and we'll we we'll take a closer look at some of that when we look at the state report card um I know Angela and I have taken sort of just a preliminary look and trying to break it down also um based on our subgroups and is

087there a particular group or student need area that um may be more related to some of the the absenteeism um I know I'm talking to April and Chris where where you know we sort of make an assumption that more of it may be a middle school um issue it's not entirely that but um you know I think sort of the description is you know really a tailored and targeted approach right because there is not one reason that children are missing school and there's not one solution on how to ensure but we do know that communication is a big piece of it and so you absolutely to your point Selena and and it is why I very intentionally wrote it in there like you need to get to school um getting to school is yes it's

088sort of an indicator of our school district success but it's also where you learn so if you're not getting here where you know how how much of this is also um seeing an impact where children then maybe aren't doing is you know really meeting their potential so um it is it is interesting to me that it continues to be a theme we're seeing I you know you're all seeing it too it's just in news it's in a lot of the educational journals it's just uh it's a phenomenon that seems to have been exacerbated by the pandemic but maybe really was part of sort of a a growing mental health concern that was coming pandemic or no pandemic right so I think it's a a phenomenon that that um you know educators are certainly seeking to

089understand so that we can address it effectively or more effectively is that something that like um uh you know like we we're sort of tracking and I saw this also attached in the report and the board asked to see it right like see the um lunches that are being served on a monthly basis I don't know is it something that we're of tracking at the school and grade level on a monthly basis or is that information that maybe the board would be interested in seeing on a on a trimester basis just to make sure that we're on top of it and is that possible to even report it's very possible because Power School tracks attendance sort of you know daily again and Don I would sort of look to you but something you and Jonathan

090could review was looking at um if the board was interested in like looking at under informational items might be a way you know to I think we track um staff attendance that was something that had come from the board many years ago just sort of what are we one of the questions what are we paying in Subs but also is understanding staff attendance um in the same way we could craft a report you know again just maybe Gathering some more information on what we want to see um but I'm my quick sense is done it's not hard because the data comes to us every single day in our power school system CF mon en reports the monthly attend report but out of context like if we don't know I mean I and I think nor

091said this last time that there's you know maybe more complex issues surrounding some of the kids who have more chronic absenteeism that if we're just looking at numbers of kids who are absent out of context is that going to tell us anything and I don't feel like I'm privy to know why there are certain that's not my business like why certain kids have chronic absenteeism if it's like a medical issue or a you know yeah you wouldn't know it would just be a straight up attendance report what you would what you would see and I think that's the question you're posing Selena to the board right is this this idea of um sort of looking at Raw num raw numbers it wouldn't be by name it would only be numbers and aggregate um if it

092if it's an of interest it's something that we would you know were able to do with probably not tremendous additional effort but what you're saying is would it even be meaningful so get you know yeah I mean I think it I think it' be interesting I guess without the knowing the root cause or why if I mean if we're if we're seeing like 10% I'm just making these numbers up but we see like 10% and like 5% are because of medical you know okay is that medical like a cold or is that medical like because like when my daughter had her appendix she was out for a week so I mean so just I think I think it's good information to have I just don't I think it's going to pose a lot of questions

093that we don't have answers to yet so I think we should track it and and I think it's something maybe we can put it in like the in the board book sort of under like superintendence report just so that we know what's going on to track it but I don't know unless we know what the reason is I mean I'd like no and I don't think that it's necessarily the board's role to dig into reasoning like Martha said sort of needs to be like a tailored caseby casee approach so if teachers or principles are sort of seeing that there's students or families that are having trouble with attendance or you know if there's ways to create interventions you know I think that the board would sort of be able to see like look you know

094Central um chronic absenteeism has increased substantially do we need to sort of really come up with a plan around intervention and do we think that this is more than just you know sickness or you know just just to sort of give us an indicator of hey do we need to sort of allocate resources towards um uh helping this problem well that's interesting too from I mean we know that between preco and postco there's been a big change so while we don't need know we and we shouldn't know exact reasons but knowing where things are going and having kind of that highlevel description that you know that there were a lot of kids with that were legitimately that were sick just regular colds and such so I I think you have a sense of that or

095the teachers do so what I can shareed Hower um because that tends to be more and what I'm sort of debating about is it is it worth a board presentation like a committee of the whole an education committee item unique to its own um we've hired the AAP person as you all know from West 40 um this year that's that's new and I I would say we're still sort of really getting the sort of Effectiveness that of that up and off the ground um Hower also has um it's Mr aducci he has periods um devoted specifically to supporting kids who are arriving late to school or have had attendance problems our school social workers get very engaged with students that have had ATT dep problems I mean when it's a straight up you know David

096to your pointa you had your appendix out there's nothing much you can do about that um it's more the the absences that don't necessarily um that that they really are chronic that they seem to be repeated not repeated five days in a row because of a significant illness it's a couple days here a couple days there a couple days here you know things that fall into patterns whether it's around weekends or um you know we talked a um certainly maybe not as much here but School anxiety and school refusal are very real issues in um communities School communities that kids that just struggle to come to school not because of physical illness and um I would say that we have a lot of resources that we bring to bear on students with those kinds of

097needs the effectiveness of it can vary again based on sort of the the magnitude of of the problem so um and that's when I kind of say like a being tailored and targeted and compassionate and communicative those are all like if you were to describe it in general those were those are words I would use but that doesn't mean that this child who's not coming to school who you know again not for board information but you know I know of that child is seeing a social worker that child may be seeing a counselor outside of school that child may have a family who's working very hard to get their child to school um and there are barriers you know so um what we want to do is make sure that we understand those barriers that

098we look to address them um if there are barriers that we can just get up and and out of the way you know we had looked at even arrival time was that one um as you know there's a fair amount of early morning supervision that happens at Hower get here you know hanging out with your friends if seeing Lily the therapy dog you know was going to get you here like again um many different layers and approaches here um with it being really that this effort that we want you here clubs and activities you know co-curriculars one of the reasons why you all support co-curriculars and the way you support co-curriculars is because we know there are kids that come to school for the extra stuff that they get to do in terms of a

099club or in activity it's having that relationship with a trusted and special adult um those things sometimes are the things that keep kids coming and they're really important so I I appreciate all that information I just especially with it having been presented in in the superintendent report and you know I know you've been communicative to the district and parents about the importance of it I just um it seems like we've sort of identified a problem and I in in to all that you just said we are putting a lot of effort to sort of fixing that problem but it it might be um uh helpful to provide some additional information if if you know when the report card comes out um and is publicly released and if that is a big factor impacting the grading

100to sort of be able to present what we have done and part of our plan um uh to try to get us back to where we were pre-co what we could do um I mean certainly as a district we can come up with a A you know an informational item report that we could do monthly sounds like maybe there's still a little bit of like wanting to understand sort of purpose or context or even is Don saying the parameters what we could do is there will be a piece of that information shared with all of you as part of the state report card um even though you've seen like we've shared data pre and post pandemic um there there will be a difference you know there will be an item there you've already seen those

101numbers not because they were state report card but because that was something we looked at specifically it will be in the report card maybe we see where the conversation goes that's our next meeting November 1st Committee of the whole will be the kind of deeper dive into all the student data and then maybe based on that you you could give me a response that says we'd like to keep looking at that or we'd like to look at it annually you know we'll look at you'll look at it annually in the state report card for sure with the preview um so just thinking about this so in in my industry and highed our report card is the rankings which are dictated by US News and World Report which creates via an algorithm and this algorithm seems

102to change every year on how they determine so I remember last year um Angelo presenting on like the science proficiency I think perhaps either being new or having a different percentage has there been a change in like the percentage of weight or or even like in The Chronic absenteeism indicator have you seen that increase in the percentage that they're weighing it so Angela speaks far better to the details of it but but there is absolutely a formula um and all of these factors are weighted and and you know so I wonder how much it's changed again the science one I remember from last year she said that was more heavily weighted now or perhaps weighted but I wonder historically how chronic absenteeism has been um weighted because that is a pretty it seems to maybe

103be an issue that is important enough that they are assessing a it's in the form it's in the formula but has it changed how has itally has it changed yeah was it attributed a smaller percent um in the past and now it takes up a pretty big chunk of the quality Student Success indicators just yeah more curiosity but we'll look forward to learning more at the November count yes it's a good point I'm adding it to my notes for Angela so we want to make sure you know as much as you can let us know the kinds of things you're interested in hearing about you'll hear sort of overview certainly but um some of those more Nuance pieces we'll we'll bring bring forward to share with all of you we move on good for now

104all right um would the board secretary could read the uh consent agenda items yes tonight's consent agenda consists of um minutes of the September 6th special meeting along with the corresponding minutes from the Clos session during the September 6th meeting the minutes of the September 20th regular business meeting uh the Personnel report as presented uh please note that the Personnel report does include the hiring of the cafeteria manager with which increases the overall FTE due to the increase in number of days also the payables pre-list as of September 30th and the payables pre-list as of October 18th that is tonight's consent agenda do we have a motion just does anyone need to remove an item or discuss an item so I think Joel that you ask that yeah do we so remove it and then

105well when when anyone are there any items for further discussion anyone would like to remove from the consent agenda for further discussion seeing as there are none could someone make a motion to approve the consent agend so moved second Kathy can you call the role okay Miss claps Mr barati hi Mr Hunt hi Miss gun hi Miss KCK hi and Mr margle I motion passes thank you I believe we do not have any representatives from Riverside Education Council correct are there any board Other Board member comments I just want to throw out that a lot of well many of the people that I spoke with at the um social we had on the 10th said that this was like the most fun awesomest idea ever um I enjoyed I saw Steph and Dave there so

106I I thought it was really really nice to just kind of be able to chat with I mean I ended up kind of talking to more teachers that I already know but um they all loved it they thought it was a great idea it was really fun we missed I know our board president was on his way back into town he was not able to attend I think it was originally his idea so it yes it was they everybody said it was a great idea so yep I hope we I glad I was able to be a part of it and hope we continue um Community engaging events like that with our own Community internally in the future also we I didn't know if you were going to say anything about Saturday morning no just

107yeah just a couple um myself David and um uh Wesley all got gold stars for attending uh the divers equity and diversity equity and inclusion training on Saturday morning from 8:00 to 10: um you know kind of really heavy important stuff to be discussing thinking about I really appreciate it also having um a view at the type of training that our you know District leaders and Educators and principls um are receiving um yeah I thought it was really well done kind of happy to share out more don't have my notes with me I participated professionally and personal personally in a lot of similar trainings uh being a univers City employee um and I was really impressed with the content but also sort of the workshopping as it related to the you know to schools to

108the work of boards um particularly so very like appoo to what we face and what we're doing um I can't remember all that were in attendance but definitely some of our um The High School uh members from uh Riverside Brookfield High School were there some other neighboring districts bwin no 100 not 101 100 uh there were a couple other people on that morning so so was interactive as well yeah breakout rooms very interactive I don't know that the two people driving their car realized there would be breakout rooms but it was like you need a sheet of paper you draw this write this down like it was like you had to kind of be in the moment it wasn't something you could be multitasking you know driving and listening in um but I I personally

109enjoyed that I got more out of it in that format but I don't know if people were prepared for it I went back to read the email to be like oh was it clear that like this is what was maybe expected of us that morning um I don't know where I landed on it but I I felt I enjoyed it so no it it was defin it was definitely good um much more it it was done I thought it was more to your point I thought it was going to be much more sort of um just receiving information I didn't realize it was going to be some interactive but you need that interactivity to make it you like to worthwhile and so that I did appreciate um and so but kudos to you because you

110kept your camera on I just got up I was still not presentable to be on camera so I did have some bites of bacon on camera I was drinking my coffee and I Bean like and I was drinking my coffee and taking some bites of bacon you know whatever making it work but yeah than for the opportunity for bringing it to our attention and thanks for participating Other Board member comments okay Dan and his wife got their picture taken with bige head Fred talk about not being present in general now I think when when I'm leaving the house I'll be sure to wear coat and tie like uh like our member of the visioning board that that's probably the best idea you never know when you're going to wind up on the Riverside Village Instagram

111page cool with Bed Head bigad frerick law Olstead has been visiting he's visiting all four of the elementaries he's been to blle and to Ames he'll be at Central in Hollywood on the 25th and 26th or 27th but yes the hunt family was arriving as big head Fred was giving out magnets and saying hello to people and so a special mhm special hello to the my daughter in particular has a fondness for Freddy I think she calls him Freddy so likes to uh try really new or they just really fun to see those characters uh at the the Quai board meeting that was the Riverside hop stop uh he was he was at uh there as well so the kids had seen him recently and he's in the Fourth of July parade as well I

112believe mhm well I learned that the costume is very um it comes it's stored in Washington DC it happened to be in Milwaukee and they made a driving trip up to Milwaukee to get it and that probably will not be available to us next year that this was kind of a special thing so pictures now it's not just a a chance informal meeting say that wasn't the first time I've seen him in front of so was here last year and this year but I heard maybe not next year so okay Mr Gman said I'll see you next year and she said oh no I don't know that we'll be back than he's very busy yeah any other observations I do love that the i' I've started following the ble Park Instagram uh account and it

113is just fun to see how they communicate with their Community through that page and share pictures of going on at the at the school um it's a really neat I'm not even sure who runs it but I think is it she's doing a great job I know she took the pictures most of the pictures are are hers um yeah very good uh we have no old business tonight and the new business item is the iasb joint conference and most significantly are some some recommendations and some new um sorry I can't think of the word new resolutions that are going to be discussed and I don't know that we need to if the board wants to we can go through them in detail I know sometimes the board is sort of well Stephanie you sometimes there

114have been there have been resolutions that the board feel strongly about voting on the one that always comes to mind is was a resolution about whether or not to harm teachers as a school safety measure um others I think the board has felt we've typically just aligned with what the committee recommends um I I mean I took a look at the resolutions they're actually very light this year they're so light was I was I was sort of surprised odly light yeah I was like and there's certainly one that's I know why it came in which is the um Industrial Development near schools that's specifically out of the LT right controversy um no in my recollection they you know use a consent agenda for any of the ones that they recommend adopt on and then the

115ones that are do not adopt if the the the the district that brought it forth they have to appeal it for it to then come to the floor if they don't appeal it then it doesn't even come onto the floor I forgot because we that was the one that we didn't disagree on I was like there was nothing for me to vote on because it didn't actually get appealed so then they don't bring it um forth at all so it will be quick I guess I I mean I know some of us have discussed who's going um I was the only one that last went last year so I was the delegate um so I guess the first question would be you know figuring out or finding out who the delegate will be I'm not

116sure if that typically Falls to if our president is at the this meeting or if it's based off of interest but whomever the delegate is we would just need to equip them with the board's consensus on how we want to there's five resolutions and three of them were recommend the resolution committee said do not adopt and then there's another four that aren't even supposed to be presented right the reason they're not being brought forth just reading those was because there's apparently other resolutions out there that um say essentially the same thing so yeah there's a lot of that I mean yeah they have the prerogative you know to determine which ones are going to come forth or not but they still present all the position statements to us in this um document and then yeah

117so who maybe some additional discussion after everybody has a chance chance to read I haven't read them supposely I I know I was planning to attend this year and again I don't need to be the delegate again somebody else wants that yeah I think some of um reason putting on the board agenda too was certainly to discuss the resolutions if you'd like to in more detail I think you know there would still be time at the November meeting would be in advance of the conference um but again this is uh probably historically there there has not District 96 has not board of education has not been um very involved in going to the conference um we certainly I know it was something that they talked about at the self assessment I know Lori Grant from

118ISB was suggesting to you the importance of attending the conference um and also you all will receive the award the recognition award at the conference so somebody should be there to get the award um but also the district will take care of registration and um cost of the conference if you're interested in going so some of it for right now is getting the dates out there um connecting with your own calendars if it's something you're interested in letting Kathy know if you're interested in attending um and then the resolutions could could wait I've always intended to attend or at least a couple times I've intended to and not been able to so have to check my calendar again Stephanie is intending on uh being at the conference I'm happy to let her um be our

119delegate uh seems like she's the only one with concrete plans to attend um but I don't want to put that no I mean I I said it was you it was um I I enjoyed the experience I'm happy to do it again um I forget what days I went last year it's like Friday just yeah looking at the agenda cuz then there was there's like different Road M like some of them were like very focused and there were some that were like extra cost certain tracks that came at an extra cost not to say that perhaps it wouldn't be a good use if we found that information or that session to be valuable to us but I remember it being a little confusing for somebody who attends a lot of conferences professionally I remember telling

120them like I'm having a hard time navigating this conference um but I the bulk of it was Saturday but I also feel like I took Friday off and did some sessions I didn't go to any of this there was Sunday morning stuff and I didn't do any of that we went to a session together on supporting principles Saturday on Friday Friday okay there's a lot I mean it's it's worth looking at the conference brochure that's probably coming to you on repeat from the iasb if you're not getting it we can make sure that your your email is well known to the ISB um I think probably like a lot of conferences there's probably some things that are worthwhile and there are probably some things that aren't so but it's really a matter of personal choice

121then perhaps more solid thoughts next time we discuss this on people who do or don't want to go and then any additional thoughts on the the various the five um resolutions if there's any kind of consensus towards yes or no definitely review it but for yeah for once they seem to be pretty much I don't know they seem fairly esoteric not very many hot button issues actually say I'm kind of surprised given how many times over the last year I'm sure I've heard that well the legislature will fix this and they didn't there definitely was a lot of legislative intervention in Schoolboard matters over the past year and you again with promises that some issues would be fixed and then they never come come about to be fixed that I'm aware of any other thoughts

122on IB if not any additional public comment there's not all right our future meeting dates November 1st committee the whole blle park uh November 15th regular business meeting here uh close session if necessary uh December 6th committee the whole aims and then December 20th back here for regular business meeting uh information items in the board book and uh we are not entering into closed session so don't need to do anything else do I Dan meeting meeting [Music] adjourned