001[music] Hello, Lockport Township High School District 205 parents and guardians. This is your board meeting brief for the board of education meeting that we had here in the porter room on Monday, January 26th. My name is Dr. Bob McBride, proud superintendent of Lockport Township High School District 205. Let's get into it. Like so many board meetings that we have, we started with a recognition of Dr. John Greenan. John Greenan was principal here at East Campus. He moved into the district office as our assistant superintendent for personnel. He's in his second year. You might wonder why we had a board resolution honoring him. Well, in his first year, he really did an incredible [snorts] job, and that was noticed by his statewide organization. We're very proud that this week Dr. John Greenan received the equivalent of
002rookie of the year award in the state of Illinois for being such a strong newcomer [music] in the assistant superintendent for personnel space here in Illinois. Very proud to have him on staff. We also had two major issues that are just such important issues relative to the student experience here at Lockport Township East Campus and at Lockport Township Central Campus. One has to do with human beings and their social emotional needs. The other has to do with the things that keep the lights on, keep the heat going, keep our facilities in top-notch shape. During my superintendent report, our social workers joined us. More and more social workers have become an important component of what we do as a large public institution. We provide social, emotional, and mental [music] well-being checks and well-being work with our
003students. Many of of us know that if you're not emotionally well, emotionally regulated, how can you possibly learn? We did a study of our social workers and learned incredibly the case loads for our social workers are the highest in the area. You might say, well, well, how high? Our social workers have almost 900 students for every social worker in the area. [music] It's way down closer to about 400 500 students per social worker. What we've realized is that that's really put our social workers in crisis mode. They have to work with students in our special education department to fulfill individual education plans and they have very very little time left over for students to proactively work with them to offer seminars to recognize and maybe in a preventative way acknowledge social and emotional difficulties that
004our students are having and that are very real and really impact families maybe just like yours. So, I brought to the board a recommendation to double our social worker staff as we begin the process in January, February, and March of looking at staffing for next year. I believe, we believe as an administration, I believe our board believes that the social and emotional well-being of our students needs as much attention [music] as the academic well-being of our students. The second important issue that I brought before the board for their consideration and their feedback is our ongoing work with facilities master planning. We want to be the best stewards of these marvelous buildings that will live on long after I am gone and many of us are gone. They'll be a permanent asset for our students, for
005our community, for you, for the future. And we have an important responsibility to be good stewards of them [music] and keep them in the best shape. Just like your home, we have needs. You might need a new furnace, a new roof, a new kitchen, new plumbing, a new electrical panel. We face that except a much larger square footage at Central and at East. So, what we brought to the board again after talking about this in December on January 26th, first and foremost, infrastructure. We have to deal with major mechanical that needs to be replaced. We have to deal with bleachers, for example, that need to be replaced and have outlived their lifetime. Have to. We also brought before our board important work that we still have to do at Central [music] Campus. And then finally,
006we brought before our board modernization of parts of East Campus that is just essential to continue to support the student experience [music] at a modern public high school. We're moving forward with a 10-year plan that we hope our board will approve. Why? Because there's a real cost to enaction. The longer we put these projects off, the more expensive they [music] will be. Also, we have to be the stewards of this great community asset. And then finally, buildings and their quality do support the student experience. Just like social workers, the place we go that's called school has so much to do with how we behave in it, act in it, use it, and [music] feel about it. We want to be those good stewards. And we also want to do it in a way that's responsible
007for you to use all of our financial tools, whether those are cash reserves or appropriate debt, so that we keep the impact on our property taxpayers [music] as reasonable and low as possible. Hey, the fact of the matter is, as you know, as a homeowner, repairs, replacements, renovations, they're not free, and often times they're not cheap. But we hope to do it in a way that's responsible for you, responsible for our school district and future-minded for every student who will be coming through here [music] in the next 10, 20, 30 years. Finally, weather was big news around here. >> [music] >> Uh we've had a very very difficult spate of cold and snow. First and foremost, I want to thank our bus drivers, our grounds maintenance and um custodians for doing such a fabulous job
008keeping our lots clear, keeping our walkways clear, getting our kids here during very very tough conditions. [music] And I'd like to ask your help if you could be sure to read all of the communications that [music] we send out directly to you via email, put on our website, send out very uh quickly, as quickly as we can, either by text or social media, so that we keep you informed about why we're deciding what we're deciding. We work with our transportation. We work with the National Weather Service. We work with feeder superintendents and we work with superintendents in the area to make the best [music] decision possible. Thank you for being engaged in that. And finally, Friday, January 23rd. What a night. If you were here, you know what I'm talking about. Veterans night. We had
00977 veterans that we were able to celebrate. Four of them were World War II veterans over 100 years old that braved that crazy cold to come out to have a family banquet with us and to allow us at a Friday night basketball game to put the spotlight on them and say something very simple. Thank you for your service. [music] It was an incredible community night and something that we should all be proud of as Porters. [music] We ended the evening with a nice win over Lincoln Way East and that was great too. Thank you so much for listening to this board meeting brief for the board of education meeting we had on Monday, January 26th, 2026. Go Porters.