November 18, 2025, School Board Meeting

001I now call this regular meeting of the board of education to order at 7:01 p.m. Can you please call the role? >> Miss Pearson. >> Miss Chavez >> here. >> Miss McCall >> present. Miss Bennett >> here. >> Mr. Carpenter >> here. >> Miss Haley >> here. Miss Stanford >> here. >> With six present, one absent, we have a quorum. >> Thank you. We will now take a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance. As we start each board meeting, it's important to remember that the mission of rep the Rockford Public Schools is to collaboratively engage all students in an equitable first class education for a changing world. Before we go any further, we'd like to thank Kim Patterson and Aaron Hill who are working behind the scenes to produce the board's broadcast

002via YouTube live stream and Comcast channel 20. Um the first or number two on the agenda public hearing. Um, this item is for the board of education. Is a public hearing to receive public comments on the proposal to sell one bonds in an amount not to exceed $50 million for the purpose of increasing the working cash fund of the district. These are the working cash bonds. and number two, bonds in an amount not to exceed $10 million for the purpose of conforming its existing facilities that house students to the building code promulgated by the state board of education of the state of Illinois by altering, reconstructing, and repairing said facilities and having equipment purchased and installed therein. These are the life safety bonds. All persons desiring to be heard are now being given an opportunity

003to present oral and written testimony with respect to the proposed issuance of the working cash bonds. Are there any speakers for the sale of the $50 million bonds for increasing the working cash fund? Are there any board member comments? Thank you. All persons desiring to be heard have been given an opportunity to present oral and written testimony with respect to the proposed issuance of the working cash bonds. I will now open the discussion for the proposed issuance of the life safety bonds as follows. For the purpose of conforming its existing facilities that house students to the building code promulgated by the state board of education of the state of Illinois by altering, reconstructing and repairing said facilities and having equipment purchased and installed therein. Are there any speakers for the issuance of the life safety

004bonds? Are there any board member comments? Thank you. All persons desiring to be heard have been given an opportunity to present oral and written testimony with respect to the proposed issuance of the life safety bonds. I will now take a motion in a second to adjourn the public hearing portion of the meeting. So moved. >> Second. >> Thank you. Can you please call the role? >> Miss Chavez? >> Yes. >> Miss McCall? >> Yes. >> Miss Bennett? >> Yes. >> Mr. Carpenter? >> Yes. >> Miss Haley? >> Yes. >> Miss Stanford? >> Yes. >> The motion passes the six yeses when absent. >> Thank you. U moving on to the next agenda item number three. We will now recognize and celebrate outstanding contributions and we are going to have Miss Pearson. >> Miss Pearson will

005be um leading that. Thank you. >> Thank you. Good evening everyone. We are excited to honor RPS 205's outstanding staff, students, and coaches to celebrate their great achievements. We're doing recognitions a little different this year. After you hear your name or team called, you will come forward and make your way through the inner circle to shake hands with the school board member members in the superintendent's cabinet. You will then proceed to the hallway where you receive your certificate, pin, and have an opportunity for photographs. Audience, please hold your applause until the very end. We apologize in advance if we pronounce any names incorrectly. We'll start with athletics. The following middle school student athletes and their coaches qualified for the state cross country meet. In class 2A from Barber, Angelina Escobar and her coach Ashley Robberman.

006In class 2A from Monasuri, athletes Alexis Rei and Andrew Korski along with their coach Hannah Holmes. In class 3A from Marshall, Charlotte Versino and coach Matt Curts. In class 4A from Eisenhower, Delilah Party, Eden Layback, and Xander Vibbori with their coach Fedlav Bonv. And also in class 4A from Flynn, Ethan Becker and coach Nick Vanvra. Guilford High School freshman Roryu qualified for the girls golf state tournament at Hickory Point Golf Course in Foresight, Illinois on October 10th. She scored an 81 at the sectional event in Aurora. Congratulations to our student athletes and their coaches. Let's give them a round of applause. [applause] Next up in fine arts, and this is a long one, [laughter] the following students auditioned and qualified for the 2025 Illinois Music Education Association District 8 Festival. ILMEA offers opportunities for students

007to participate in competitive auditions for band, choir, orchestra, and jazz ensembles with top performers advancing to the state level allstate student programs for Auburn under the faculty direction of band teacher Wes Braybeck, orchestra teacher Peter Finnegan, and chorus teacher Marissa Martinez. We have for senior band and senior orchestra, Alex Benedictto. Also for senior band, Benjamin Kindler and Braden Vez. for senior chorus, Mob Les, Benjamin Garner, Elena Knox, Ryan Marino, Samuel Michaels, MW, Emberly Shonne, Single Seagull, Ellis Sides, and Isaiah Ying for senior orchestra. Julia Curran, Camila Para, Reishi Salma, Elora Slutter, Derek Turner, and Elena Yaly Gilachi. Thank you for East High School under the direction of chorus teacher Brittney Kiselhorst and band teacher Amy Caulk, Bella Rodas for senior chorus, and Athena Williams for senior orchestra for Guilford High School under the faculty direction

008of band and orchestra teacher Courtney Kobaki and chorus teacher Daniel Walls. for senior band. Emma Aala Fern Coots, Emmanuel Leon, and Leslie Sanchez Cisneros. for senior chorus. Michelle RC Arce Jamar Jordan, Eleanor McHune, Isaac Morasi, Jonathan Murphy, Anna Peachy, Abigail Rabone, Jason Teal, and Albert Warren. For senior orchestra, Sarah Hobart, and Victor Osorio. and for senior vocal jazz 1, Zella Hamilton. Now for Jefferson High School, under the faculty direction of chorus teacher Jerry Buckley and band teacher Benjamin Randcker, we have for senior band Leno Gonzalez, Eduardo Tamayo and Kristen Vieiraa. for senior chorus, Tyler Bevans, Autumn Halfacaker, and Stan Paw. And for senior jazz band 2, Elijah Rodriguez for West Middle School under the faculty direction of band teacher Brian Hilddrth, orchestra teacher Jamie Kovatch, and chorus teacher Brian Eis eus. Ephus, thank you. Sorry.

009For junior band, we have Aubrey Hamberlain, Sebastian Herrera, and Jackson Tap. Olivia Graasar for junior chorus. And for junior orchestra, Thomas Alonszo, Abriana Campbell, Davon Jones, and Solar Zuk. For Eisenhower Middle School under the faculty direction of band teacher Robert Robin Heightman, we have Nicole Dominguez. for junior band for Marshall Middle School under the faculty direction of band teacher George Espino and orchestra teacher Mr. Finnegan again for junior band Elizabeth Lowry and Ruby Kindler for junior orchestra Hudson Carlin Jan Sufi G Oh oh I'm sorry Gia Tartaglia Marid Midi Ava Nelson and Estella Weira. Congratulations to all the students and faculty for a job well done. [applause] >> Congratulations. [applause] >> Next, we recognize Guilford High School senior Aiden Khalil, who has earned the rank of Eagle Scout in Troop 139. [applause] Congrats. [applause] >>

010Becoming an Eagle Scout takes years of dedication. Scouts first advance through scout tenderfoot, second class, and first class, building skills and teamwork. Then they progress through star, life, and eagle, developing leadership and teamwork. Then they pro Oh, I'm sorry. Earning 21 merit badges. 14 are required. Serving in troop leadership and completing a major service project before the age of 18 for his Eagle project. Aiden led a beautifification project at St. Anscar's Church. He built a garbage corral, cleared and trimmed 128 ft of trees, tilled and mulched the fence line, and organized volunteers to weed and mulch the church's front area. He called his project God's shield. Congratulations, Aiden, on this outstanding accomplishment. [applause] [applause] And last, but certainly not least, we would like to recognize STEM ST STEM teacher at Marshall Middle School, Stacy Wallace.

011She has been selected as the TE AI Middle School teacher of the year. TE AI is a technology education association of Illinois. This award acknowledges the outstanding technology teacher who uses the latest developments and uses this knowledge to constantly upgrade classroom curriculum and activities. Miss Wallace will now represent Illinois at the National Conference in Virginia Beach in March. Congratulations. [applause] That concludes the recognitions portion of the board meeting. Let's give everyone a warm round of applause. [applause] Thank you for coming and have a good evening. We are going to take a five minute break for photo opportunities. When we return, we will have a presentation from our sisters for change. Thank you. All right, we're going to actually um not take a break for the meeting. Um that'll be Yeah, I don't know if we

012can shut the door maybe for um because we're going to continue with the meeting. It's a little bit loud. sisters. >> Is that what Okay. Okay. And so we'll continue with um with your committee, Miss Haley and Miss Stanford. >> Good evening and thank you all for being here. My name is Kimberly Haley and I am honored to introduce the official launch of Sisters for Change. Tonight makes an important moment as we begin shaping a space designed to uplift, guide, and empower our young scholars through the bags frame framework. That's behavior, attendance, grades, and social emotional growth. Throughout this presentation, you'll hear from several members of their leadership team. They will share their vision, the goals that drive this work, and the impact they are committed to making within our schools. Each voice you hear

013tonight plays a meaningful role in bringing this initiative to life. At this time, it's my privilege to introduce the creator of Brothers and Sisters for Change and our chief of culture and student engagement, Dr. Antoine Reid. All righty. Thank you all for allowing us to be back. And as you can see, I'm with the sisters. They always are going to one up the brothers. And so, we are proud to uh come back to talk about the initiative that we started at the beginning of the year. And bags is our district-wide initiative and we wanted to pair our sisters who will be joining us today and they have a second lens that they're they're going to bring to our wraparound support. So where the brothers are focused on leadership for our scholars, the sisters are focusing

014on restorative practice. Where our brothers are focusing on engagement as it relates to attendance, our sisters are going to talk today about the root cause. Then while our brothers are talking about taking risk in that classroom, our sisters today are going to talk about culturally relevant instruction. And where our brothers have to focus on solving conflict peacefully, our sisters are going to focus on making sure our teachers are trauma informed and our staff are trauma informed so we can make sure we're getting proactive on these things. So, it is it's a great honor that I introduce Miss McNeel and Anna uh to kick off the Sisters for Change. [applause] Good evening. My name is Jarmice McNeel and I am the cultural and student engagement manager here for Rockford Public Schools. Um, and I just wanted

015to introduce Sisters for Change. So, Sisters for Change um is not a movement. Um, we are a group of strong, powerful women of color who are ready to take action and pour into our young girls of color, which we will take action through leadership and mentorship. >> Sorry. So, this program um was built on understanding that the female experience, particularly for girls of color, is unique and layered. It provides safe spaces for these students to explore who they are, build community, and find strength in shared experiences. And our vision is to cultivate confidence. Show these girls that they are resilient. Show them their purpose, their values. Show them that they belong. That is a important piece and a passion is to show them that they do belong. So now we'll start with why Sisters for

016Change Matters with Tamara and Lita. [applause] Hello, my name is Tamara Butler and I'm the eighth grade principal at RHSA as well as the advocacy partner for Teach Plus and ISBY for the Rockford region of bipac educators, black indigenous people of color. Sisters for change is essential not only for students but the sisters who are providing the mentoring. When girls see mentors who share their racial and cultural background, it affirms that their identity is valuable, capable, and powerful. It creates a sense of belonging specifically in spaces where girls may be misunder may be underrepresented. The students participating in this program may grow up to become mentors themselves. Therefore, expanding representation and reshaping systems that have historically excluded us, me for most sisters in education, it's not just a job, but a calling rooted in service,

017justice, and community. Mentoring black and brown female students helps retain black and brown teachers because it strengthens their purpose, belonging, leadership, and community. All key elements of long-term educator satisfaction and sustainability. Next, I have Lita Wright. As a scholar, I always found it helpful when my aunt, my grandmother, and my mom taught me how to be a young lady. thinking about the scholars that Sister for Change will be supporting. They may not have someone to help them understand certain things about themselves and that's where Sister for Change comes into play. We are going to support the the scholars in various ways such as building their self-worth. We're going to help them create um goals, personal and academic goals, and we're also going to help them navigate healthy friendships. Lastly, I leave you with not only

018are the scholars that are going to be joining Sister for Change will be uplifting themselves and uplifting others, but they're they're they're also excuse me building their strategy toolbox while they're a part of Sister for Change. Thank you. And next, I bring up Miss Ivy and Dr. Turner. [applause] Good evening. My name is Alvina Ivy. I am a product of Rockford Public Schools and proud and honored to serve as the director of instruction K12. As you can see, the potential of Sisters for Change offers more than support. We are expanding opportunity through hands-on skill building in financial literacy, self-care, and leadership. Girls gain tools that directly strengthen their focus, confidence, and readiness for learning. The women who will lead this work will endeavor to be models of accountability, reflection, and the habit of showing up

019fully for one another. And that demonstration will translate into improved self-awareness, greater belonging, and better instructional performance. This initiative can change academic trajectories, and it's also transformative. Good evening. My name is Dr. Taran Turner. I'm a director of alternative learning programming in the student services department. Meeting our girls where they're at consists of three elements. I want to talk to you about those three elements this evening. One, we will focus on responsive programming. The needs of our girls will drive our work. We will show up to every session ready to respond to the individual needs because each girl's journey is unique. Two, cultural competency and care. It is essential that we lead with empathy and patience to meet students where they are emotionally, academically, and personally. Three, empowering growth from within. We are not trying

020to change who our girls are. In order for our girls to have a sense of belonging, they must feel seen. Our goal is to enhance their school experience by highlighting their brilliance and affirming their greatness. Thank you. I now introduce Miss Anna Thompson. [applause] Was noises. My name is Anna Thompson. I am a recruitment coordinator here in the admin building. Culturally relevant programming, language inclusivity, and representation play a significant role in improving academic performance for Latino and Hispanic students. When curriculum and school activities reflect students cultural experiences, engagement and motivation increase leading to stronger comprehension and more consistent academic effort. Language inclusive practices such as bilingual communication, translation support, and guided instruction ensure students have full access to learning, reducing misunderstandings, and improving assignment completion. Additionally, representation among staff strengthens student teacher relationships and builds

021academic confidence, encouraging students to seek help, participate more actively, and remain connected to school. When students are supported by adults who understand and can relate to their experiences, we create the conditions for meaningful connections and positive school culture. Parents and family members feel connected as well, not only to their child or teacher, but because they feel seen, have a sense of pride or ruo, and play an active role in their child's e educational success. Together, these elements foster a supportive and equitable learning environment that directly contributes to higher grades and improved academic outcomes for Latino and Hispanic students. Much gracias. >> [applause] >> Sisters for Change has had the opportunity to take 20 girls and we partnered with Triculture University um and gave them an experience things that um our young girls go through is

022is their hair. Um they can get teased about their hair um things like that or not want to go to school because their hair is not done. their parents might not have enough time to get their hair done. So, it's more than just getting their hair done. It's the overall experience that they're able to um to give. And so, I would like to share um the event that happened on that day. How do you feel now that your hair is done? >> I feel good. >> You feel good? How did you feel before you got your hair done? >> Um, I didn't want to go in school. Like, I was like, because my hair was a mess and I was like, "Oh my god." >> Yeah. How were you how were you treated by others

023before you got your hair done? >> People were calling me ugly and stuff, but I didn't let that affect my day. >> Okay, that's good. Keeping a positive mind. But now, how you going to go to school now that you got your hair done? >> Okay, get it. Get it. [applause] So, how do you feel now that your hair is done? >> Good. How did you feel before prior to before you got your hair done? How did you feel like in in school? >> Not really good. Why is that? [music] >> Cuz kids kept on making fun of you. >> They were making fun of you. Okay. So now when you go back to school on Monday, how you going how you going to walk up in school? >> Oh, skip your way in there.

024Okay. [applause] All right. And so now I'll introduce back Dr. Reid. [applause] I know you saw that scholar skip right there, right? >> Yes, we did. >> Well, I'm gonna introduce you to some of the people that make that skip happen because see what we need to do is we got to look at the root cause. If it takes making sure scholars hair is cut and they feel good to come to school. Unfortunately, we got to take that route. And I'm thankful to partner with these uh these persons behind me because they make that thing happen. So, I'm going to introduce uh first our Barber College and then I'll intro introduce to Croy. >> Good evening. I'm Sherry Matlock. This is Kennedy Porter. Um I am the proud owner of First Cut Barber College. We

025are Kennedy and I we are honored to support the scholars of RPS 205 and the partnership. We are here to assist the scholars to look and feel better, build confidence and lighten the load for families and parents. We are here and I am here to change lives. And not just because I partnered with RPS 205. My lifelong journey has been even when I was at St. Peter in the yearbook, it said I want to do hair. So here I am and now owning the school and we really hope to change lives with RPS 205 going forward. Thank you. [applause] >> All righty. And then here's our our assistant from Marosi. >> Hi, I'm Michelle Fleti. I'm the campus director for TRO University. Oh, I'm sorry I'm emotional. [snorts] This was really an honor for us

026to be able to change these girls' lives and to see them [snorts] just to see them smile and skipping and be happy because they got their hair done. It is the simplest thing for us to be able to do someone's hair. So, we're very proud to be partnered with Sisters of Change and be able to change these young scholars lives by something as simple as getting your hair done. Really, for us, it it really is that simple. It's doing hair. It's what we do every day for [snorts] ourselves, for all of our guests, for all of our young people. And you you all know when you look good, you feel good. So, if we can continue to give back and to continue to partner with Sisters for Change, we'll continue to do that and give

027back to our community. So, we're proud to be here tonight and to be a part of all of this. [applause] All righty. You all I want you to stand with me for this uh last part because we we we are not doing this for fun. You all heard everybody talk the word scholar, right? But what does it mean to be a scholar? How do you transition a student to a scholar? See, a student has to sit and give whatever you give them. But see, a scholar is someone that can give to you, that can cultivate the room. And the way we do that is you have to move a scholar from surviving to thriving. Why is that so? See, in survival mode, your scores don't matter. Your lesson plan don't matter. Nothing matters in that

028school when I'm in survival mode. See, when I'm in thriving, I'm flourishing. Because in survival mode, I might not even know who's trying to save me until you pull me out. We have to get our scholars out of that mold into thriving. And what we're going to do is we're going to continue to partner with our schools. This initiative is not just checking the box. It's not just changing scores. It is changing lives. So, thank you, sisters, and thank you for this event. >> [applause] >> All right, thank you very much for that um powerful presentation. Um we're now moving on to item four, petitions and communications. Um portion of our meeting where we invite the public to make comments. Slurs, profanity, harassment will not be tolerated. If any speaker uses unacceptable language, they may

029be directed to surrender the remainder of their speaking time and may be restricted from comment in the f from public comment in the future. The board will not respond to the comments at this time. If it's appropriate, you will be contacted in a timely manner by staff. Each speaker will be allowed no more than three minutes to address the board. It is not appropriate to discuss matters that would otherwise be confidential in these open meetings. On the left there is two digital clocks. One shows the total time allotted to public comments and one shows the total time for each speaker. We thank you for your cooperation with our guidelines. Our first speaker will be D. Edertton and after Dedgerton will be Carol Bailey. push the button. Okay, got it. Um, I have my up here

030representing West tonight, West Middle School. Um, I'm a teacher there and I'm representing everybody that works at West Middle School and not just myself. Uh, staff at West, we're weary. We're tired. Um, and I think to myself that you all have to know what's going on at West. And then I realized maybe you don't. So, I came here to share some facts about West tonight. A couple weeks ago on a Friday, I um had to break up a fight in the hallway because there was nobody available. I used my body to shield a girl's face from being brutally beaten by another student. At that time, it took several minutes for staff to arrive because it was right at 4:00 at school dismissed, only to be called a female dog when she got up off the

031ground. Um, this is what it looks like at West. And what I want to talk to, I want to talk to the experts because that's what they tell me. The experts are here. So, I want to tell you that we're down six math teachers. That means that 462 of our 818 [clears throat] students are not receiving grade level math instruction. And we're struggling. 100% of our tier 2 uh instructional or intervention students in math are not receiving instruction by a certified math teacher. 62% of our teachers have an overage. Now, let's be honest, some of us need that overage because it for me personally, without it, I can't pay my bills. We're struggling because who do we call when we need help? Twothirds of our counselors have taken on an extra class. Who do our

032students go to when they're in crisis? We're currently down 8.6 teachers and soon it's going to be 9.6 teachers. Right now, I did the math here. I'm not a math teacher, but I did the math. There are 56% of our students that are not receiving math instruction at their grade level because we of our shortages. So, I just want to say that we're tired. We're tired of our students being pushed to the back of the bus. We're exhausted by the words and rhetoric that we keep hearing day in and day out from downtown. Our principal has asked for help. I don't know what that help looks like, but she has asked for help. We're shielding and protecting our students with everything we have only to be underappreciated and pushed to the limit to our faces.

033We need actual action, not just a job posting and empty promises. You might be asking why we don't leave. And in case you don't know, we're West Warriors and that's why we're not leaving. [cheering] Thank you. [applause] [cheering] [applause] >> Am I supposed to press a button this one? I think it's on. >> Got me. You can hear me. Hi, I'm Carol Bailey. Uh, I applaud the woman who just spoke and support them 100%. I have a foster grandchild there at West, too. Now, I wanted to talk about ICE guidelines for the school district. And I'm not privy to what the status of your ICE guideline policies are, but I want to encourage uh the school board to establish some clear guidelines and directions and policies and procedures in the event that our school and

034our community is visited by those federal agents. We've all seen the damage they've done to other communities, to daycarees, private homes, and to our citizens. And I'm quite certain there are many parents and children very, very concerned about ICE agents attempting to broker school property. So, I would ask uh the school board to establish some clear guidelines for parents, for school staff and employees so they know what to do to handle this situation if it can be handled at all. And to designate all school property, not just buildings but surrounding properties as well as school buses as well as non-school property where there are school sponsored activities to be designated as ice free zones and to post posters at all buildings designating these buildings and making it clear that they are ice free zones. I

035trust and I hope that schoolboard members and officials have consulted with our local law enforcement personnel to determine uh the proper procedures and policies to be done. But I want to encourage everybody to focus on the safety of our wonderful children in our wonderful schools and to make sure that they can go to school and not live in fear of being removed, of their families being destroyed, of parents being arrested on picking them up from school, etc. We all know the stories and I know you have a lot on your plate, but this is one of those issues that also deserves some priority. Thank you. [applause] Thank you. Our next speaker is Angela K. Larson and she will be f followed by Elizabeth Olrich. I think you got to push the button. >> Oh, there

036we go. Um, I'm Angela K. Larson, the CEO of the Greater Rockford Chamber of Commerce. Thank you for um giving me this opportunity to speak, but also to hear the other speakers. This has been incredibly enlightening. [clears throat] As you know, the chamber represents the voice of our region's business community. And in doing so, we are pleased to support you in your superintendent search by sharing our expectations for the next leader of RPS 205. I sent this information to you in an email last week and really appreciate this opportunity to share it in this forum. [clears throat] Recognizing that our schools are critical to business and talent retention and attraction, these expectations are prioritized based on which elements could potentially have the greatest impact in improving our region school district and preparing our students to

037enter college, career, trade school, and military. Number one, strong business acumen in managing the assets, income, and expenses of one of our largest taxfunded institutions. an understanding of property taxes as the basis of funding, including local and state regulations governing tax rates and revenue, and the process for certifying the district's annual tax levy. Number two, experience in addressing chronic absenteeism and strategies to employ community stakeholders and organizations in increasing student attendance. Number three, and after tonight, I personally think maybe this one should be number one. [clears throat] Understanding the challenging demographics of our student body and our community's passion for working together to support our scholars, especially in training and retaining RPS students within our workforce. [applause] Thank you. Commitment to increasing students proficiency in math and English language arts. Commitment to integrating employability skills

038into classroom teaching and extracurricular activities with clear metrics that are regularly reported to evaluate students improvement. I love the work that you're doing. This is exactly what we see is needed um to prepare the workforce of the future. strength in leading a workforce that's partly represented by a union with respect, collaboration, and a focus on students and families. With that skills in negotiation, communication, and providing feedback. And in the spirit of collaboration, as you all know, we offer our services, access to the business community to help you implement um everything that you're striving to do to improve our schools. We understand that there's many variables that you're weighing to make this decision and really appreciate that you would consider the perspective of the business community. Thank you. >> Thank you. [applause] >> I am overwhelmed.

039I am stretched too thin and I don't make enough money. Please explain to me why I earn about $10,000 less per year than a colleague who works in Belvadier. Per the IRC, both Belvadier Middle Schools have a student mobility rate of 6%. IRC says that West rate is 15%, which I think is way low, but regardless, as stated, that's 250% higher. Belvadier's middle schools have chronic truency rates of 22% and 24%. West chronic truency rate is 63%. Nearly 300% higher. All those stats drive one really important stat. West teacher retention rate is 69% which also I think is way elevated while Belvadier's middle schools is 90%. The current year's retention for West will be very low. We've already last lost four or is it five people since the school year began and one more is

040leaving in a few days. Shouldn't I earn more money than someone who works in these conditions that are so much easier, not $10,000 less? Since multiple teacher positions are vacant, that means that every day we have dozens of classes that teachers have to cover by subbing during their plan period. My principal has to sub at least one class period per week because we are spread too thin. I believe in the Champs program. I believe that West can improve our test data in a big way. Kids are engaging with text on task and working. Imagine this learning. Our school has made so much headway with student behavior, particularly time in class instead of the hallway and time on task with no phones, but those gains are sliding away every day because those of us who have

041not quit or been dismissed are overwhelmed and spread too thin. Please spend a day at West. Walk the second floor hallways and see that the kids only go to class when they feel like it. Come and sub for a class. See what passing period is like. put in some earplugs and go to the lunchroom. I'm spread too thin. I'm overwhelmed. I do not make enough money. Put together a fair contract for the REA. >> Thank you, Ronda. who will be followed by Avery Dylan [clears throat] and Rondell. [clears throat] >> I'm loving the passion in this room tonight because that's what it's going to take to change Rockford Public Schools and the success of our students. Um, I'm here tonight just to remind you of the qualities that we listed uh we spoke to you

042in August uh the qualities we need in a superintendent. I actually had planned to talk about them but frankly you all have already talked about them [laughter] and so I don't need to repeat it. You have a paper in front of you that lists the qualities that eliminate racism would like to see in a new superintendent. Um, I've I worked for the RPS for 16 years and I worked through the changes of 11 different superintendent. And so that's really why I think this decision is so so important. Changing a superintendent every other year is not a route for success. We need you to make a really um carefully thought out decision uh that is really focused on the needs of the students we have in RPS and also the needs of the families that we

043have in RPS. So, thank you. I know it's going to be a tough decision. Um, it's probably one of the most important things you'll decide in your entire tenure on the school board. Thank you. >> Thank you, [applause] Aver Dylan. >> Good evening, everyone. Sisters, my name is Avery Dylan. I work with the city of Rockford under the mayor's office of community and domestic violence prevention. I work at the Community Healing Center, which is a project funded by the Department of Justice, and we focus on bringing youth to the forefront of every conversation. Youth being in as many rooms as possible, making decisions on their own behalf about their communities in every single way. One of the initiatives that we have is the youth advocacy board, which is a coalition of RPS 205 students from

044middle schools and high schools, all of which you serve. The majority of the students come from Rhysa. We have one of them today, Miss Malia Sasha Ellison. So, give her a round of applause for showing up. [applause] Our goal with our year-long initiative with these students is to prepare them in ways that is already happening within their community, but very intentionally teaching them how to be their own best advocate. Whether it's in meetings like this, in the classroom, at home, in sports, in everything that they are in, they will be back. They will be coming for you. They will be asking you why, how, and what you plan to do for them in the future. And I'm here to prepare you. They have a lot of concerns. Every month for two hours, we sit with

045them and we help them craft and sit with things that are bothering them about this community. Not just at RPS 205, in the city, in their homes, in their specific communities. and they are getting ready. These are young leaders that are coming up and they are asking for your help and I expect you to answer them. So we will be back. Thank you. >> Thank you. [applause] John Tac friendly. >> Yes. >> Good evening board members. uh cities in Rockville, Illinois, but mostly those that's watching. I uh commend the brothers and sisters for uh change. Uh I am John Tac Bradley, the CEO of Renewal Turning Point Program. Back in 1980, I was uh uh I was hired for the Turning Point program. I was a family counselor and an advocate at West High School.

046And I my my attention was addressing kids that was in trouble, kids that was being absent, and kids that was missing school. That was my top priority. Here today, I'm still doing the same thing as renewal turning point program. I went from uh three kids the beginning of the school year to now I have 32 kids. I have Reese's school. I have uh uh uh Flynn. I have not Flynn, I have uh Whitehead. I go from Whitehead to McIntyre to Welch to Lewis Flynn to other school. What I want to bring the attention back to is West uh West Middle School. Back in 1972, Richie Gardner had a lawsuit. I mean, Richie Gardner was arrested and and had to pay a $40 fine and it went all the way to the Supreme Court. What it

047was about was about u the lack of minority administrators and teachers and the lack of ethnic studies at their school. 1972 the Supreme Court voted nine to zero in our favor. Yet nothing happened. Back in 19 and during the 90s we had another lawsuit when they took West High School and made it to a middle school. We won that. Four schools came out of that. Barber school, West uh Risha Lewis and and Ellis. The only school that profited from that was Barber School. I commend Barber School because they 98% Hispanic. How was the Hispanics able to accomplish everything they accomplished at barber school? I asked the brothers and sisters, look up what barber school have done, what they have accomplished and why we can't accomplish that here. I look at Dr. Reed and I asked

048Dr. Reed this here a question. Renewal Turning Point had uh asked about meeting with Dr. Reed. Everything y'all talking about doing, Renewal Turning Point is already doing. We uh and as with FA at FA at FAB's uh studio, we want to take a 100 kids to the Harlem Gold Travis game at the uh end of December. Holler be have 100 years of their anniversary here. We always take five men no matter how many numbers of people you take to the icehogallog game where they fighting at the icehogallog game. But take them to the take them to the hot gold tra. Harlem gold travel was the first team where the NBA start hiring Harlem Gold Travis players which brought up the NBA uh NBA play attendance. Harlem Gold Travis was bringing in 2,000 to 4,000 peoples

049at their game where the NBA was only bringing 800 to,200 peoples at their game. I'm I'm paying $140 on gas. I'm spending my time up. But I also want to thank the teacher union for looking out for me last year and uh giving the gas money. >> Thanks. >> We need more than three [applause] minutes. [applause] >> All right, we are now on to performance and monitoring. The team will now present the systemwide framework 2025 results. Next to June, I'll go around and grab him. How are you? Oh my god. But it's delicious. Okay, I'm going to kick off our presentation on our systemwide framework. And uh before we jump into talking about our systemwide framework, just a little bit of background of what it's about. Um, in our district, we really believe it's important

050to have um, standards of practice that we ensure all students have the opportunity to receive best practices and instruction, but we also want to make sure we have standards of service that our district office is doing what it needs to support our schools. And obviously in both areas, there is work to do. Um, and here we are going to be reporting to the board about um, things that are going well, but also things that that do need to be improved. I'm going to be sharing the stage with uh both the schools team and uh Christina from the department of uh continuous improvement and we're going to combine to tell a little bit about what our work has looked like with the systemwide framework. This framework launched in 2021. At the same time, we launched our

051focus on having pretty significant targets for literacy improvement, graduation rate on track rate. And this was if that is what we wanted to accomplish, this would be a good description of how we wanted to accomplish it. Um, this is not going to just be another data presentation. We did a whole bunch of that uh at our last meeting when we had our state scorecards and we had uh a much deeper dive there, but there will be some data when we're going to talk about the data that is connected to the practices that we are accomplishing in our classrooms. And just a reminder that this is something that we are attempting to do to ensure there is consistency across all of our schools. And not only do we want consistency, but we want consistency with high

052expectations to ensure that those uh students, no matter what classroom they're in in our district, they receive a similar experience. Um, and we're making progress and that's what we're going to talk a little bit about today. But we're also going to talk about where we're not making enough progress. and we are going to talk about the standards of practice, the standards of service, and all the things that we are doing together to ensure that things are improving right here with our universal goals. Um, we did want to see our early literacy scores improve. We did want to see our middle school on track rate improve so we set the tone for success in high school and we did want to see our high school graduation and on track rate improve. And as you can see

053here, we made real strides in that area. Um we significantly achieved our literacy target. We were also just missed uh we have one year to go, but we've just just under where we want to be with our middle school on track. And you can see year-over-year we continue to make improvements on graduate rate and freshman on track. But I also want to talk about what's next. Um, yes, we have achieved and pretty significantly exceeded where we were with our universal goals, but those were never meant to be the end of the road. We know that there's more that we want to accomplish. Some things that's that are coming, and this was alluded to with some of the board questions. We have got to see improvement in ACT scores at the high school level. We do

054have 56% of our students that are leaving with some type of a career certification, but we want to get as close to 100% of students that leave with a career certification, a college credit, uh a college readiness ACT score in math and reading. U lots of ways we can show that readiness. Um but there is more work to do that goes beyond what we set for our universal goals. Next thing that we've made progress on is we've seen really dramatic increases and Christina will walk you through this on our scores on the state scorecard. We've seen about a 10% average increase. High schools have gone up almost 20% from when we started tracking with this new scorecard system. But there's a new accountability system that we're going to be walking into this year that has

055raised the bar for what the state expects of us. And it is not a it is not a mystery to this board because you are seeing and vis we're actually having board meetings in these nine intensive schools. We know we have schools that are the furthest from opportunity and and need work. So it is a challenge to build on our success with school scorecard knowing that there will be an even higher bar with the accountability system and nine schools that are in that intensive status. And then finally, we've had commenters allude to this this evening, the challenge of chronic absenteeism, student mobility, and many of the things that make this challenging, we want to make sure that we not only achieve the state average, but we go significantly beyond that when it pertains to chronic

056absenteeism. I think we can all agree if we don't continue to make progress and we're proud of the fact that we've gone from 61% to 40 42%. We're proud of what Dr. Reed and Jarmice have done with the brothers and sisters for change that can with the bags work that it can help in all of these areas. Uh but we acknowledge today that this is both a cause for celebration but it is even more a call to action to do more and I think there was a lot of action orientation in the room tonight and I appreciate that. And with that I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Gallagher to walk us through the standards of practice. Just a reminder, the purpose of our standards of practice are a quick snapshot of our internal

057progress um to serve as leading indicators towards that state um report card. And our theory is if we get better on our standards of practice, we will see better student outcomes and higher state report card um scores. And to visualize that theory, um, this graph illustrates that correlation that we hope to see from our standards of practice to our scorecard. Um, for example, our blue dots, those elementary schools, there's a high correlation of what they receive on our internal standards of practice scores to what they're going to get on the state report card. meaning that it's pretty predictable if you're doing well on our standards of practice in internally that they are going to get a correlated score on their state report card. Our middle schools and high schools still have a bigger gap in

058their correlation which you will hear about more later in the presentation for some of the changes that were made because of that gap that we saw. And just a reminder, just a couple weeks ago, um I presented the state report card designations um report and this is the ultimate goal. And one thing that this slide does not show though is what Dr. Jarrett alluded to is that we've made some gains inside those raw scores that don't translate to change in designation quite yet. You can see as a district, we gained 8.4 4 points in our raw score in summitive designation with seeing doubledigit improvements in just two years for our high school and middle school and special programs which leads um saying that we need to continue that work and continuous improvement in these leading

059indicators. As a reminder that this year, the data you're about to see for the 25 school year is the first year of our systemwide framework 2.0. So although we've talked before about some of the changes, just a high level of some of the changes that were made in the systemwide framework 2.0 is we lessened the amount of standards of practice at each level. This was to provide a greater focus so they could look at just a few things that were considered the highest levers for change in student outcomes. We also changed the rubrics of what we were looking for inside the standards of practice. We moved out of compliance to more quality. Whereas our previous systemwide framework 1.0 was very much about are you doing the things and systemwide framework 2.0 I know this new

060rubric that you will see the results for in this presentation is are you doing quality teaching? Are you having higher teaching practices that requires students to take on the cognitive load and student engagement? So, this is a more rigorous rubric across all of the standards of practice that you will see in our 2.0. To illustrate this point, our elementary literacy standards of practice um in our first year in 2022, it was an average of 3.3 score. In our second year, it improved to 3.5. And then by the third and final year of systemwide framework 1.0, we had a perfect score in the elementary average for literacy. So, our second systemwide framework standards of practice rubric became more rigorous. Um, and although you will see that the score went down to a 3.5 from the 4.0,

061it's actually a higher improvement because we went from just a compliance standpoint on the rubric to expecting a higher rigor and what we were looking for inside the classroom. Similarly, our surveys, our surveys were a consistent 3.5 to 3.8 to again a 4.0 because the the standard of practice was by participation rate. We wanted our schools to do the surveys for our students, our parents, and our teachers. But our 2.0 rubric, we decided to become more rigorous that it's not just about participation, it's our results in those surveys. So although we don't see as big of a change, it's moving in the right direction that it's not just about participation. It's our five essentials participation for students and teachers, but also their results and the impact that our teachers and students are seeing inside the

062schools. And now I'm going to hand over to Dr. Gallagher to give more details about each level standards of practice. >> Thank you. Evening everyone. Uh we're going to start off with the first level that we'll look at is elementary schools. I want to reiterate these scores that you're seeing. This is for the four standards of practice that we have at elementary that we started last year under the 2.0 standards of practice and systemwide framework. Um what you'll notice in particular with elementary um already in their first year scoring an average of a 3.5 on the literacy standards of practice. That's very strong for their first year. If you look at the first year we did the 1.0, we were nowhere near a 3.5. As Christina just shared on her graph, where you see where

063we're the lowest is the five essentials with a score of a 1.3. [snorts] That five essentials score for the new 2.0 is low across the board because again, we're not just looking at participation. There used to be three standard of practice scores that you would get for surveys. You'd get a score for a parent survey, a staff engagement survey, and a student survey. On top of those three surveys where all you had to do is come up, participate and have an action plan. Everybody was getting fours across the board. We also still as a state mandate had to take the five essentials. And we were being measured on our school designations, on our school ratings, how they did with the participation rate on the five essentials. So, we went away from having those other three

064surveys where everybody was getting the easy four and we said on top of the participation rate that you need to hit 95% to get your full weight of points with the state which all of our schools in the district hit that 95%. Now, it's about how are you actually using the results of that survey. It's not just about making sure 95% of kids and 50% of teachers and 20% of parents take the survey. How are you using those results? We held an annual admin academy as we have the last four years in August for all of our school administrators where they received training through the ROE on how to use those five essential uh results to drive school improvement. So when we look at our school improvement plans for any of our schools, you would

065see that they've now integrated those five essentials results that they're addressing in those school improvement plans. Looking at middle school, um what'll stand out to you starkly is the 0.2 score average of aligned instruction. But what I want to point out for middle school is their highest score is MTSS at just a 1.2. Christina didn't st talk specifically about the MTSS standard of practice, but I will say while the rubric, which is extensive and highly rigorous, the rubric primarily remains the same, the bar in terms of how we score it has risen now that we've had our MTSS rubric in place four years prior, this being year five, we expect to see more than a 1.0 after five years, right? So, we're moving up on that. see special programs because they're special and they have

066their own special curriculum that they only have two standards of practice being the five essentials and NTSS. Looking at early childhood also very dialed in on just two standards of practice starting last year and pyramid is their equivalent of MTSS in early childhood. High scope is the play-based curriculum that they use. And then looking at high schools and again starkly what you'll see here is that there was a score of zero on that aligned instruction with the new 2.0 of the instructional standard of practice there. So that zero really lit a fire for multiple departments including the schools team and our curriculum department um and MTSS. And so when we look at that, previously giving context under our 1.0 standard of practice for secondary instruction, it was very much check the box compliance-based. We were

067just telling them do the thing, deliver the curriculum. And so what we were measuring is are you giving the assessments provided by the curriculum department? When we move to the 2.0 you know 0 where we see the score of zero at high school and a score of 0.2 at middle school. We shifted from compliance to quality. We really wanted to see that students were asking questions that they're gathering evidence that they're communicating conclusions. We wanted to see evidence of all three of those on the rubric and if we didn't they weren't hitting the mark and they're scoring a zero. But what we realized is that after last year we also had to pivot. And so this year we are using a revised rubric for aligned instruction which is more closely aligned to the rubric that

068we see at the elementary level because we've seen that high level of correlation of success between the standards of practice at elementary and how elementary is performing with their state designations. So now under the rubric that we have this year, we have a much larger sample size of classrooms that are being visited, we have many more people as REA or admin as members of the standards of practice teams that are going into the classrooms so that it is not just one administrator or one curriculum director that is conducting the standards of practice, but people that are actually in the buildings. And this all allows with this year's uh revised rubric, what I would say is like the 2.1 rubric, um feedback that's much more specific and much more actionable. We have several members of our

069schools team and curriculum department here that could also share with you um as this lit a fire the many many things that we're doing to address quality teaching and instructional practices in our classrooms. Before you may have any questions for them though, we're going to have Christina close us out with uh evidence from our standards of service. >> Thank you. Um so just like uh we have our standards of practice for our schools, our central office is held to our standards of service and in the May June season you typically hear from me the survey results in which I talk about the standards of service survey results. But just like our standards of practice got a higher rigor um of what their rubric was, our central office also got a higher rigor in that we

070added a layer to our standards of service. Each school picked one department that they wanted to work through a challenge or a barrier with in order to provide a higher level of service. So, every school picked a department and we had multiple uh sessions where the school staff with the department that they selected and Dr. Jarrett and myself went out to hear what they were um struggling with and listen to the challenges that they were experiencing and some key themes emerged and we also provided some quick wins. So in addition to some quick wins that were very school specific. So for example, Haskell worked with the nutrition services department to provide some steam focused healthy choices and a visual menu board um that created some really great um educational partnership. We also have some just

071high-level themes that came out of these 25 sessions with 41 schools that we did last year. Um, one, our registration process that we really spearheaded to make sure that our online registration was a priority because we saw that a lot of schools were struggling with not having the right information on day one. So in 2024, our online registration rate was only at 32% and last summer we ended at an 86% online registration from that campaign. Our special education and our student services department heard in a lot of their services the need for our students and hundreds of students were individually reviewed by their team to ensure best placement for day one of school for a lot of different programs. We also heard that our new new teachers need help before the first day of school

072to know exactly what to teach. So a cross departmental team came together to provide a professional development for our new teachers of fiveday curriculum building so they knew and felt prepared to teach on day one. And then you've heard um some of the work today um on that high expectations for students and staff across the board. schools were asking to raise the bar on what we expected of our students. You heard about some of our bags partnerships um in December um at our committee of whole. You'll hear about our CHAMs and Safe and Civil Schools AOI. Um and we've already done over 1500 classroom visits this year based off of those CHAMPS and Safe and Civil School partnerships that you'll hear about already. We still have a few more sessions to go, but since we're

073already in it, I felt like I should give you an update of where we're at with these sessions. We're already seeing some themes um that are across the board going to be an area of focus for the district. We see a high need for our transitional grades, EC to kindergarten, 5th to 6th, and 8th to 9th. Our schools are reporting that we have a pivotal need for student success for each of these new settings. So a cross department team will work together to figure out how we can help support and provide information to on-ramp those students into their new settings. Our transfer students with such a high mobility rate in our district. There's a large amount of students transferring in and information there's an information gap to our schools that are receiving these students um

074that we need a better on-ramp to success for our transfer students. And then across the board, different levels, contents, experience, and different staff are requesting more professional learning that is real time applicable job embedded into their workday that they can they can practice hands-on in their classroom or in their setting. Um, so that will probably also become a priority as we um finish out these standards of service sessions. And so what we've learned from these standards of service sessions that we we like doing these um we get to hear directly from the staff is when we provide them a structured opportunity to have a conversation with central office. We can hear a timely response to what they need and we can build a systematic response for all of the schools not just the one raising

075the issue. And with that, I will ask if we have questions about the standards of practice or standard of service. >> Miss Bennett. >> Okay. Um my question is for Dr. Gallagher. One of the slides that you reviewed slide 18 um specifically for middle school. Okay. for the MTSS score. Can you reexlain or restate what you said about the score and Yeah, just >> so the MTSS rubric is based off of four different components for building your MTSS systems and structures. The 1.0 rubric, the language is pretty much the same from the 1.0 to the 2.0. However, we've raised the bar higher in the 2.0 0 where it's more difficult to get the scores because we don't want to after three years under the 1.0. We shouldn't still have schools that are at a score

076of a one after that three years, right? So, we need to keep raising the bar so that we really get to see that they're at the highest level of achievement um that they can get for their MTSS score. >> So, okay. So what I hear you saying or how I'm understanding it, you tell me if it if I'm not if it's not correct. If they if the score was one, so in theory the schools were not getting above a one, right? The root cause of why they were not getting above a one wasn't necessarily addressed, but then we raised the bar to make it more difficult to get a higher score with not getting a score. Is that correct? >> Can I say yes and no? Um, sure. I'd love to get back to you.

077Amy Ganon, of course, is the director of MTSS, and I'd be happy to share the specific scoring mechanism that we use from the 1.0 to the 2.0. It's a little bit more nuanced than what I'm able to communicate here because it's not just like saying like now we expect a higher overall score. Um, there is a little bit of nuance to that, but I'd be happy to share that with the board. >> Okay. And I think Mrs. Miller has something to share. Yeah. Um so I can give a just a highle summary of some of the changes in the MTSS rubric. So um instead of the rubric being a whole and you get a cumulative support of scores um it's now you have component one um so you create the foundations of a team and

078in that to get a one um they also added attendance this year that was not on the MTSS rubric before with chronic absenteeism being um such a high issue is we added you not only have to have a core foundational team but you also have to have systems of response to help support attendance and so that's how you get out of a one is if you can do those first things and then step two um is that you have the next level of support and as you get a higher score you get to go to the next components whereas before it used to be a cumulative score of all the things that you were doing for MTSS but now it's like a stair is first you have to create this foundation and you're approaching all

079of the issues of MTSS and then you um can earn your points in each of the categories um so that's how we made it a little bit more rigorous whereas Before it was um people could earn points throughout the whole rubric and now you have to show that you've demonstrated the foundational needs before you can earn additional points. Some >> okay that's very helpful. Thank you. >> Better set. >> Yeah. >> Good evening everyone. Um I'm one of the point people for MTSS for our team working with Amy Ganon. Um, one of the other layers of support that we provide for our schools in addition who are scoring in either zero, one or two, we have a tiered support system. So Amy and her deans go out and provide extra support to those schools. they

080have more hours um of handson experience and support and working through their rubric so that they can get out of each component than the other schools that are scoring higher. So, I just want to make sure that it's not just we're getting giving them this harder rubric and you're struggling, but we are providing even extra support so that they can make it out, which is different than what we've been doing before. >> Okay. And I I appreciate that feedback because I know that there are a few middle schools that have struggled year after year after year and they are doing the best they can. they are implementing everything that they have in their power to implement with the people that they have. And so I appreciate the schools that in theory are doing better and

081are excelling and are close to three and four. I think one of our middle schools has a four. Um that that one in theory doesn't need as many resources. So those would be allocated somewhere else um just to help those that are struggling. So >> absolutely. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> To your point, we did hear that there were MTSS concerns out west. They're getting significantly more support than Rhysa which was at a score of four. >> I had a question about the um SOS solution session. Um that's interesting to me and I was just kind of wondering is that something that will be continued this year. So maybe schools have a different department they want to work with this year. Yeah, they um so we did change a slight um last year we

082had people pick in like fall and then we we had a I'm looking at Dr. Jarrett there because we had a long hall of a lot of sessions trying to cram all those into the schedule since we started a little bit late. We learned from that experience and last year we had them select and talk to their staff at the end of the year so we could better schedule. So that's why it's November and we only have four sessions left to do. So we will have all of this year's wrapped up by December because we got a little bit head start. We learned a lot of things and we liked the process. So um we kind of frontloaded that a little bit better too. So we we are continuing that we're almost done um with

083all of those sessions. We have just four left. And one thing that's embedded one thing that's embedded in that um >> what you're seeing is sort of the view from Christina and I where we're seeing all of the sessions and we're kind of highlighting the big themes that come out of it which is my role in the process with support from the team. But there also are each the one of the things that's really powerful about this process is the faculty and principal selecting the department that they most need to improve a relationship with most need to improve a process or sometimes both there or it's something that's going well that they want to go even better in some cases. Um and and we get a wide wide variety of district departments that are selected.

084But what's powerful is when you ask a school and faculty, staff and principal to kind of get together and pick one department that they most want to work with, it is really powerful to see what is prioritized. And so there are quick wins that come from the partnership with that direct department that is there to listen. But there also are some longer term things that we talked about today. Okay. So, I want to be clear that not only are those big emerging themes coming out of this to how the district can improve, but in many cases, there are some things that are getting done almost immediately uh to address something that is not working well, whether it's a system or a relationship with an existing department. And we really think this is important because if

085we are going to continue to raise the bar for standards of practice, we feel like it's important to model that with our district office to make sure that we are modeling that same level of raising the bar and accountability because this is a team sport here that we have to be in this together. So, um, excellent question and just wanted to highlight some of the details uh that that are also happening in this process. Thank you. Uh, Miss Bennett, >> just one more question. Uh, for the transitional grades, um, would those be things like orientation, back to school nights, like just for example, in supporting those areas? >> Yes. Um, here's we're at a problem statement now that is emerging and I think solutions will be developed and those are certainly among the solutions. But

086if you look at our district right now with a with the mobility rate that we have which is one of the highest in the state some of our schools it's as high as 30% but districtwide it's 15%. So if you take 28,000 students and you think about 15% of them are mobile in the year either intra district or intra district in the district or out of the district moving in and out. That means that almost somewhere between four and 5,000 students without grade transitions are new students each year. Then figure that we have nearly 2,000 PK toK, nearly 2,000 fifth to 6th, nearly 2,000 8th to 9th. So you add that up and it's well over a third of our students are new students in our buildings. And our faculty and staff are telling us

087in these sessions how difficult that is. that at the beginning of the year getting the students into the right space is really challenging and as the year goes on just as routines are established new students are coming in all the time. So what I am really passionate about us trying to accomplish here is a series of solutions that would allow for a much more intentional and much more district supportive student screening and onboarding process. So we make sure that students as they transition in design transitions P tok 5 to six and 8 to9 but also our transfer students receive much more intentional screening support much more intentional placement support we have many stories that have come up from our schools of students who are coming in and it's weeks before we have proper transcripts weeks

088before we have proper information about IEPs and things like that. So, we are really deeply committed to ensuring that our faculty and staff at the building level can have a better chance to know this the backgrounds of the students they're supporting prior to their arrival. And when you think about that level of transition, some of that we can control with building better systems between fifth and sixth, 8th and 9th and PK and K, but some of it is just making sure that we really tackle this transfer student issue because student mobility is a significant issue and I think there will be a wide variety of solutions that come out of this. Um, more to come on that. We're still just really finishing the listening at this point. >> Yeah, thank you very much. Thanks, >>

089Miss Chavez. You have a question for the transfer students coming from our district. Is it actually another school district or is it like newcomer students or like >> Yes. >> Which which is it both? Which is okay. >> So we have a significant number of intradist housing. You look at our why would Rockford have such a high issue? Well, part of this is well outside of the control of the school district. We have major housing instability in our community. So when students move around, they often uh are have to transfer. And so that may be an opportunity for board policy. That may be an opportunity for us to think about grade configuration. There are things we maybe could do. Also things we can do in partnership with our community to think about what we can

090do to further stabilize housing. So that's intradist. Um when you start when you start talking about interd district, it also ties to some of those social factors. People are typically that are moving in the school year often aren't doing that by choice. It's because they it could be due to students who are newcomers to our country. It could be students that are new to our city because uh things have gone uh badly with housing or circumstances in the in the city they're in or the community they're in. Um very very rarely is that an easy transition. And so the more we can do whether it's intradist or interd district uh we think there are significant opportunities for a stronger district support structure because schools are bearing too much of the brunt of that right now

091and we want to build some systems to address that. Miss Haley. >> Yeah. As far as the um slide [clears throat] 24, the special education and placements are concerned as when you're looking at the teams, what are those teams comprised of? Who who makes those who what what is are those teams made up of? So this summer, my team, this from student services, including special education and the MTSS team, um pulled data on,600 students and reviewed those students success in their current placement and made recommendations to the school building principles and their administrative team on on student placements. And so we collaborated collaborated with them with those lists to determine uh where the students would be placed on day one. So the principles had the final and ultimate decision on that. But we did do

092all of the back leg work on making sure that we had attendance data for years, student discipline data for years, student progress for years to look back and say what is this student's progress? Was last year just a bad year or is this been kind of we've been on the downhill slide for a while? One of the things that was powerful about what Mrs. Lawrence and her team did is by taking that proactive approach, what we were finding time and time again, and again, a lot of our listening sessions have led us to these concepts, but I think we see these in our board discipline packets. If we are not intentional about having students in the right placement on day one, those students are much more likely to end up changing placement through code of

093conduct. If we can get students the support they need on the first day of school and the right environment on the first day of school, we are less likely to have to use the code of conduct to get them to the placement they need. And I think that was a big part of what happened behaviorally with this work, but certainly academic and all the work tied to bags was part of that as well. So real huge shout out to Jen and her team on this one. >> I just I wanted to add those placements included placements within the zone school recommendations for intervention courses. Thank you. >> Um just one quick question on mobility. Um do you have any um idea of what the number of intra versus inter district mobility is of that 15%.

094>> I do not but both numbers are substantial. Um I we again when you have a number of 15% we had a few uh folks cite those numbers. Um, and I think Christina Raber could probably give us some of the details. Uh, do you know, do you have some of it off the top of your head? [snorts] >> Uh, I can't speak to the entire district, but our high schools alone, um, 16th of our high school graduating class every year are kids that did not start high school, nth grade, at RPS. And of that 16th, about a fourth of them are newcomers to the United States. just every year that senior graduating class. So, we're talking about about hundreds of students every year did not start nth grade at RPS and then of them um

095about a quarter of them are newcomer students in each graduating class. >> Oh, thank you. >> I would add to to highlight that point. Um, we've done some case studies with some of our high schools where you look at our graduation rate of our students that were say at East all four years and their graduation rate is well into the 90%. Area, but we sit on average at 77%. So that's why Dr. Jarrett is saying there's needs to be a real focus for how we're screening these students to make sure that they're getting the appropriate placements and services. uh on day one when they come into our district. >> Thank you. That's important information. Any other questions? Thank you very much for the presentation. It's really uh informative. The next item is 5B, the fiscal

096year 2025 audited financial statements. Is there a motion and a second to approve the fiscal year 2025 financial statements? >> So moved. Second. >> I second. >> Thank you. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, would you please call the role? Miss McCall, >> yes. >> Miss Bennett, >> yes. >> Mr. Carpenter, >> yes. >> Miss Haley, >> yes. >> Miss Stanford, >> yes. >> Miss Chavez, >> yes. >> The motion passes the six yeses when absent. >> Thank you. We're now moving on to agenda item six, the performance and monitoring consent portion of our meeting. May I have a motion and a second to approve the items listed in section six? So move. >> Second. >> Thank you. Are there any um consent items in section six that board members wish to have pulled for

097separate consideration? >> Seeing none, would you please call the role? >> Miss Bennett? >> Yes. >> Mr. Carpenter? >> Yes. >> Miss Haley? >> Yes. >> Miss Stanford? >> Yes. >> Miss Chavez? >> Yes. >> Miss McCall? >> Yes. The motion passes the six yeses when absent. >> Thank you. We're now moving on to agenda item seven, the planning and development committee action items. Um first is item 7A, the county school facility occupation tax. Is there a motion and a second to approve item 7A, the county school facility occupation tax? >> So moved. >> Second. Is there any discussion? Um, would you please call the role? >> Mr. Carpenter? >> Yes. >> Miss Haley? >> Yes. >> Miss Stanford? >> Yes. >> Miss Chavez? >> Yes. >> Miss McCall? >> Yes. >> Miss Bennett? >>

098Yes. >> The motion passes with six yeses when absent. >> Thank you. Uh moving on to item 7B, the resolution to approve the tentative 2025 tax levy. At the committee, the whole of the board requested um additional information and so we'd ask Dr. Brown to u share the requested information. Yes. Or if you don't mind. Thanks. Okay, I know there was a request to look at some different scenarios. Uh we had sent out four additional scenarios. I don't know if they're actually in this presentation or not. I know you have them in your packet. Uh I'll just real quick review the original three that were presented. One was scenario A that was uh no CPI or new property. That was a flat levy. Uh scenario B was to uh levy the tax on new property

099only. That would have generated about $866,000. Option C was to take the maximum allowable CPI of 2.9% and also take the uh tax on new property that would generate about $5.2 million. The other four scenarios were iterations of that of different points between zero and the 2.9%. And so, um, if you go to the next next slide on that, I don't know if everybody can see it. There's scenarios D, E, F, and G. And so D would be a 1% uh CPI with new property. That's about 2.3 million. Scenario E would be 1 and a.5% CPI in new property, 3.1 million. uh scenario F 2% and new property 3.8 million and then 2 and a.5% on new property which would be about 4.6 million. So those are kind of the inbetweens from a flat levy,

100you know, all the way up. And then you can see I I had included a a page there where you could see what the increases were for a taxpayer of a $100,000 home, $150,000 home, and then a $200,000 home. And that that scenario showed what the 2024 taxes payable in two 2025 would be. Those are the taxes that were paid with the current year tax bill. And so you can see, you know, there in that first line item, you know, how much uh the the taxes would be on those respective homes. And then you could see what the taxes would be on the various scenarios if you assumed that someone's value actually stayed the same. So, if they stayed the same at a 100red or$1 150 or $200,000 home, they'd actually pay less tax under

101all the scenarios if the valuation on their home didn't change. Uh if you assume that the value increased by the average increase in the county which was about 10.1% uh they're projecting for new property increases you can see that there would be a slight increase on all the different homes from 100 to $150 to $200,000 home. uh if you were looking at a $100,000 home, if you you know look looked at the scenarios there, someone could pay, you know, between 30 and and $60 more on a $100,000 house. Um it's a similar increase really on on all of them for 150 and and 200,000 as well. 200,000 is a little bit more. you'd be looking at potentially, you know, a $100 increase on a $200,000 home. And that's if you did the maximum amount. So,

102what we do need tonight is a decision on one of the seven scenarios because we have to have at least 20 days between the tenative levy and the final levy, which we're planning on voting on the final levy on December 16th. So, we really have to do something at tonight's meeting to make sure that we can carry forward what we're planning on doing with the final levy. So, choice is yours. I just need to know which one it's going to be. >> And to be clear, it the choice is yours. Um, this is my 13th year of superintendent. Um, 11 of those years I've personally recommended that we hold the levy flat. Uh, but this is the second time that the administration is recommending that we take the full CPI number. That is of course

103not our decision, but we are letting you know that based on uh the the needs uh that we have in our community to meet in continually increasing student need. Um, and with the significant inflationary pressures that have been on our budget and the uncertainty around federal and state funding both, we do believe that it is imperative that the board consider uh even though that is not something any of us take lightly uh to take the the statutory tax increase uh of CPI and we do believe that that will be necessary to maximize our ability to meet the needs of our students, deal with inflation, ary pressures and protect us against what I think are going to be very very uncertain both fa state and federal funding streams. Uh it is in your hands of course

104but I did want to go out on that limb with you publicly. Thank you for that information. Um, I think uh procedurally what we need is a motion and a second to um to approve one of these seven scenarios and then we can discuss it. Um, Stanford, >> I would move that we would select option C, the maximum amount that we can take on the levy. >> And is there a second? Miss it. No. Okay. I'll second that. And then um so at this point the question would be is there any discussion? >> Miss H >> I don't know if this is the time that I could present another option. >> Well you can talk about why what what you think about that motion and why a different option might do something. >> So my

105choice would be F 2% CPI new property. Um, and the reason I say that is I understand that we do have um responsibilities and that we need to meet with our students. Um, but also we do have um a type of uh uh loyalty to our taxpayers. Um, so as a school district, um, I think that we should look more closely at our budget and see where we can make those cuts without burdening the taxpayer, but still taking some, you know, the 2% CPI. >> Thank you. Any other discussion? Um, I know that obviously any decision to increase property taxes is uh difficult and uncomfortable and un it's difficult for the families in our district. Um, I think that the point though about the uncertainty of federal and state funding is important. I think that,

106you know, um the federal funding when there's obviously we all know what's going on in Washington with federal funding with the Department of Education. You know, there were promises that if the Department of Education was cut that that money was going to go back to the states, that the feds were going to give that back to the states. Well, that's never happened. That's never been talked about happening. And if it's not even been talked about happening, I don't see that happening. And so I think that the uncertainty of federal funding is um substantial and that's why I would support the um 2.9% that was the subject of this motion. Any other discussion? If there's no other discussion, then I think we can call the role on the motion, Miss Stanford's motion to um take the

1072.9% plus new property scenario C. >> Miss Haley, >> no. >> Miss Stanford, >> yes. [clears throat] Yes. >> Miss Chavez, >> yes. >> Miss McCall? >> Yes. >> Miss Bennett? Yes, >> Mr. Carpenter. >> Yes. >> The motion passes with five yeses, one no, one absent. >> All right. Thank you. Moving on to item 7 C. Inspir Cobra Administrator. Is there a motion and a second to approve item 7 C? Inspire Cobra Administrator. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Is there any discussion? Can you please call the role? >> Miss Stanford? Yes, >> Miss Chavez. >> Yes, >> Miss McCall. >> Yes, >> Miss Bennett. >> Yes, >> Mr. Carpenter. >> Yes, >> Miss Haley. >> Yes. >> The motion passes with six yeses when absent. >> Thank you. Moving on to item 7D,

108donation of a 2005 Buick Saber. Is there a motion in a second to approve item 7D, donation of a 2005 Saber? >> Second. >> Any discussion? Can you please please call the role? Miss Chavez, >> yes. >> Miss McCall, >> yes. >> Miss Bennett, >> yes. >> Mr. Carpenter, >> yes. >> Miss Haley, >> yes. >> Miss Stanford, >> yes. >> The motion passes with six yeses when absent. >> Thank you. Item 7E is the classroom cruiser donation acceptance. Is there a motion and second to approve that item? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Thank you. Any discussion? Can you please call the role? >> Miss McCall? >> Yes. >> Miss Bennett? >> Yes. Mr. Carpenter, >> yes. >> Miss Haley, >> yes. >> Miss Tanford, >> yes. >> Miss Chavez, >> yes. >> The

109motion passes the six yeses, one absent. >> Thank you. Item 7F is the curriculum associates I Ready reading for Marshall Middle School. Is there a motion and second to approve that? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, can you please call the RO? >> Miss Bennett? >> Yes. >> Mr. Carpenter? >> Yes. >> Miss Haley? >> Yes. >> Miss Stanford? >> Yes. Miss Chavez, >> yes. >> Miss McCall, >> yes. >> The motion passes with six yeses, one absent. >> Thank you. We're moving on to item agenda item eight, the planning and development consent portion of our meeting. May I have a motion and a second to approve the items in section 8? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Thank you. Are there any consent items in section 8 that

110board members wish to have pulled for separate consideration? >> Seeing none, would you please call the role? >> Mr. Carpenter? >> Yes. Miss Haley, >> yes. >> Miss Stanford, >> yes. >> Miss Chavez, >> yes. >> Miss McCall, >> yes. >> Miss Bennett, >> yes. >> The motion passes with six yeses when absent. >> Thank you. Moving on to item number nine, which is the IASB items pro that proceeded through governance committee. Um, is there a consensus to have the board's delegate vote in favor of the changes to the IASB constitution and in favor of the IASB resolution? Is anybody opposed to or believes that the board's delegate should not vote in favor of the I of the changes to the IASB constitution or in favor of the IASB resolution. Okay, everybody is in support

111of that. Thank you. The delegate assembly is Saturday, November 22nd. Miss Haley will be our delegate. I'll be the alternate. Um, moving on to item agenda item 10, the governance consent portion of our meeting. May I have a motion and a second to approve the items listed in section 10? >> So move. >> Second. >> Thank you. Are there any consent items in section 10 that board members wish to have pulled for separate consideration? Seeing none, would you please call the role? >> Miss Haley? >> Yes. >> Miss Stanford? >> Yes. >> Miss Chavez? >> Yes. Miss McCall? >> Yes. >> Miss Bennett? >> Yes. >> Mr. Carpenter? >> Yes. >> The motion passes the six yeses when absent. >> Thank you. We're now moving on to the closed session consent agenda item, including item

11211A, the workers compensation settlement agreement for PS and item 11B, the HR organizational report. May I have a motion and a second to approve the items in section 11 closed session consent? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Thank you. Are there any consent close session consent items that board members wish to have pulled for separate consideration? >> Seeing none, would you please call the role? >> Miss Stanford? >> Yes. >> Miss Chavez? >> Yes. >> Miss McCall? >> Yes. >> Miss Bennett? >> Yes. >> Mr. Carpenter? >> Yes. >> Miss Haley? >> Yes. The motion passes with six yeses when absent. >> Thank you. Moving on to item 12, student discipline suspension appeals and expulsions. Item 12A, student H0031X-26 would be expelled for the remainder of the 202526 school year through the entire 2026 27

113school year. 12B is P student P0012X-26. That expulsion would be held in obeyance contingent upon an expulsion in obeyance agreement for the remainder of the 202526 school year through the first semester of the 202627 school year. Item 12 C is student H0032X-26. Student would be expelled for the remainder of the 202526 school year. 12D is student H0038X-26. That expulsion would be held in obeyance contingent upon an expulsion and obeyance agreement for the remainder of the 202526 school year through the entire 2026 27 school year. Item 12E is student H0049X-26. The expulsion would be held in obeyance contingent upon an expulsion in obeyance agreement for the remainder of the 202526 school year through the first semester of the 202627 school year. May I have a motion and a second to approve the items in section 12

114student expulsions and suspension of bills. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Thank you. Are there any items that board members wish to have pulled for separate consideration? >> Seeing none, would you please call the role? >> Miss Chavez? >> Yes. Miss McCall, >> yes. >> Miss Bennett, >> yes. >> Mr. Carpenter, >> yes. >> Miss Haley, >> yes. >> Miss Stanford, >> yes. >> The motion passes with six yeses when absent. >> Thank you. Moving on to item uh 13, closed session, consent items, student discipline EIAS. May I have a motion and a second to approve the items in section 13, closed session consent items, student discipline EAS? >> So moved. Second. >> Thank you. Are there any items that board members wish to have pulled for separate consideration? You don't do you, Miss Haley.

115Okay. Thanks. Um, seeing none, would you please call the role? >> Miss McCall? >> Yes. >> Miss Bennett? >> Yes. >> Mr. Carpenter? >> Yes. >> Miss Haley? >> Yes. >> Miss Stanford? >> Yes. >> Miss Chavez? >> Yes. >> The motion passes with six yeses when absent. >> Thank you. Moving on to the next item which is stu superintendent's report. Dr. Jerrett, >> I am sad to announce that Brilan is not going to be able to be here. Uh we love we always I know we all look forward to hearing the student voice and he Brilan did uh attend the last meeting but he like many of our SSAC members is extremely busy and he had a last minute co-curricular commitment that came up tonight and he senses his regrets. And I know you've

116heard a lot from me tonight, but there's one thing I do want to share, and that is it is schoolboard member appreciation month. And I think it should be school board member appreciation week month every month because what you all do is absolutely outstanding for our community. Whether it's making a difficult decision on the best ways to allocate resources at every meeting, difficult efforts that you put into reviewing very challenging student discipline issues, whether it is attentively being active and listening to our community about how we can improve our school district and being just absolutely outstanding representatives. On behalf of our entire team and our community, I just want to express my gratitude for your volunteerism, for your hard work, and for the huge difference you've made in the district. I've been blessed to work

117with a number of outstanding boards during the time I've been here, and I am extremely grateful that I've had the opportunity to work with each and every one of you and am grateful for your community leadership. So, thank you for all that you do. Um, if there was a way I could double your pay, I would. Uh but we all know that the math doesn't work because you all do this on a volunteer basis and thank you so much for the difference you make in the lives of children from this very very challenging seat that you all share. Thank you. >> Thank you for those kind words, Dr. Jarrett. We appreciate it. Um, the next item on the agenda is board member comments. Um, are there any board member comments, action steps, other business, new

118business, agenda recommendations, or any other matters to discuss? Miss Bennett, >> I have just a few items. Uh, one is serious and one is fun. Um, for um, as Dr. Jarrett said, you know, we have to make very difficult decisions given our financial, uh, status that we have and things that are well beyond our control here at Rockford Public Schools. And so, um, mine is just a forward ask. So, I know tonight we voted to, um, have the sales tax put on, uh, for referendum in March. And just to ask that I would have is that we continue as we have throughout throughout this entire process. Um to be really transparent with the community so they know what those sales tax dollars go to, whether that's a a specific page on our website to be

119able to have allocations to really know that we are using the funds in the way that we intended to do. Same thing with the levy. We're not doing this to do anything extravagant. we really are trying to cover our needs, the needs of our families, pay our teachers and our staff appropriately and equitably. Um, and so it's really important to me moving forward. Um, I know for example the the mental health board, they do a really great job every year of really showing you every single penny that, you know, the community put into their fund. And so, um, that would just be an ask that I would have moving forward. And then my second fun thing is to remind everybody December 2nd is, um, our next committee of the whole and it'll be at Macintosh.

120So, we hope you can join us. Um, we on the board, if people choose to do so, um, same for administration, are going to have Christmas holiday ugly sweaters of some sort. You don't feel free to not do that. That's also great, too. But if you show up and you're like, "Why did nobody tell me?" I'm telling you in advance. So, um, you have plenty of time to be prepared. So, hope to see you there. >> Thank you, Miss McCall. >> Thank you. So, um I just want to to give a shout out to um this Sunday I was able to travel to Valareerezo um University and see uh former Rockford Auburn High School superstar Rakim Cheney lead the Oh, I forgot the mascot. >> Crusaders lead the Crusaders to victory. He even got player

121of the game and then he got the player of the conference for the week. So, um, it was great to see him. And there's another young lady from Rockford Lutheran. And right now, I can't remember her name, but I got a good picture of both of them. She plays on the women's basketball team. So, you know, when I came in there, they knew about Rockford, and they talked about our uh scholars both academically and uh athletically, so it was a good thing. And the Bears won, so two. Here we go. >> That was unfortunate, but moving [laughter] on, Miss Haley. So um it came to my attention I had a community member from the Arabic community approach me and let me know that um well of course it was Mustafa Abdal. So um uh condolences

122to his family but also he had mentioned to me that um uh he that the student code of conduct he would like to see that well he would have liked to see that in Arabic. Um, he had people from his community wanting to see that the student code of conduct translated in Arabic. I don't know if that's done or not. >> I I was thinking it was it is translated in Arabic. Correct. >> Okay. >> Thank you, Miss Chavez. Yeah, I know um Nico had mentioned this, but um now that we are entering the holiday period of December, just to be mindful of all the other cultures that we present our our students and then not everyone celebrates Christmas itself, but other um holidays as well. So, just to be mindful of that when we

123are communicating anything regarding holidays. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. Um, I just wanted to mention that uh I attended a large district president's meeting a couple weeks ago and the biggest I so I just want to report back on that. One of the things that the IASB um has is a advocacy ambassador program for um schoolboard members to get training and tips on advocating for with legislative uh state representatives, congressmen, and I would I'll send that information out to all of you. I think it would be really good if we had, you know, at least one board member to um participate in that. It's like a meeting every month for six months. I think so. I'll send that to you and hopefully somebody would be interested in it. And if there are no other comments,

124then I would take a motion and a second to adjurnn. >> So moved. Second. >> Thank you. Have a good night.