001[music] Hello, Lockport Township High School District 205 parents and guardians. My name is Dr. Bob McBride, superintendent of Lockport Township High School District 205, and I'm here in the porter room where we had on Monday, November 17th, our November monthly board meeting. I have a few points just to bring up and I appreciate you listening in. First, I want to congratulate our girls swim and dive, especially Bella Barrett, who finished ninth in her event at the IHSA State Series. Also want to congratulate our girls volleyball [music] team who made another trip. They did it last year, they did it this year down to the IHSA State Series where they finished third in the state. So proud of those athletes. And then also, Porter football is on a [music] roll. They will play Asiggo in the
002semifinals of the Class 8A [music] Championship Series. Good luck to Porter football on Saturday night out at Asiggo. So much to celebrate. [music] And speaking of celebrations, we did begin our work here in the Porter Room on Monday, November 17th with resolutions [music] that acknowledged elite academic students. We have a number of students who have attained [music] a perfect score on the American College Test, [music] the ACT, a perfect 36. That's an incredible feat. Very few students in the entire nation are [music] able to accomplish that. We also congratulated all of our students who achieved national merit commended status. What that means is they took a test by the college board, the PSAT and MSQT, and out of about 3.5 million students in the nation who took that test, our commended [music] students ended up
003in the top 1%. Incredible. These are Porters who have [music] achieved elite academic status right here out of Lockport Township High School [music] District 205. There are two agenda items that I think are particularly important for [music] you as community members and for you as parents. The first is that our board voted to [music] approve our tenative tax levy. We passed a budget in September [music] which declares all the expenditures that we'll make in the fiscal year 2026. [music] The tax levy through Illinois law to leverage property taxes to fund a public school system [music] is the mechanism that our board uses to actually fund that budget. Our [music] chief school business official, Stephanie Croy, presented the tenative levy to our school board. [music] That levy is a 4% increase over the 2024 levy, [music]
004but that doesn't mean that it's a 4% increase in your taxes. It just means that this year's levy is 4% greater than [music] last year's levy. Actually, what determines how that expresses itself in your taxes [music] is a combination of two things. First, our tax rate. We control that. [music] We continue to lower our tax rate to be one of the lowest in the state. This year's tax rate of 1.73 is lower than last year's tax rate and actually last year's tax rate was lower than the year before as well. That's one factor, [music] the tax rate we set. The other most important factor is when that tax rate is applied to the value of your home. [music] Township assessors in Homer Township, DUP page, and Lockport are telling us that home value will increase
005by 6 to 7%. [music] Lifting our tax rate into your property taxes. [music] Obviously for you, that's good news, bad news. It's great to hear that the value of your property is increasing, [music] but it also means that when our low tax rate is applied to the increased value of your home, there [music] is a slight raise that we don't control through the assessment process. [music] What I would tell you is we've taken all the steps to be a fiscally conservative [music] district. We end every year with a balanced budget. We are not deficit spending at all. Our debt is low despite the construction that we've been [music] doing past summers, both at central campus and at East Campus. And most importantly, I am again recommending this year that after we pass the [music] levy
006that our board does something called a debt service abatement. Simply put, instead of asking you as taxpayers [music] to pay our debt payments, we will use cash reserves [music] to pay those debt payments. That saves you roughly about $50 [music] to $90 on your tax bill every time that we do that. We're trying to be fiscally conservative. [music] We're trying to make sure that we supply programs for our students that are meaningful both in the classroom and outside of the classroom. [music] We're also trying to be incredibly transparent. I would highly recommend that you go to our board agenda from November 17th. It's available right on our website. [music] If you look under the tenative tax levy, you will see an outstanding description [music] of what is involved in creating and approving that tax levy
007and asking you for your treasure to fund [music] this very important enterprise called public schooling. Second agenda item I'd like to draw your attention to is [music] public schooling. On October 20th, we went over a student academic achievement report. November 17th, we turn to the state of Illinois's report on our performance, [music] the Illinois school report card. I would recommend that you consult that as well. There are so many things [music] to celebrate. We have large increases in English language learning. [music] We have large increases in uh math. We've maintained increases in [music] science. So in reading, math and science, we had gains. [music] Also, our students in English langu language arts had average growth. In math, they had above average growth. As a matter of fact, our math performance was better than 77% [music]
008of all school districts in the state of Illinois. We have bright spots in advanced placement participation, [music] dual credit enrollment, and more. But we also always have to present to the board [music] areas where we need work. And all of our data points to we need to deepen our work with complex [music] reading proficiency. Meaning our students can read, our feeder districts have done a great job, [music] and our students can read it at a high level. But every single year they're in high school, they get more and more and more [music] difficult reading material in a variety of different disciplines, social studies, [music] science, English, math, architecture, music. And it's our job as teachers [music] to ensure that those students know how to handle, read, infer, conclude, analyze [music] from those complex reading materials
009so they're ready for whatever they do [music] after they leave Lockport Township High School District 205. We're doing that work instructionally, [music] adding an extra period next year to East Campus with an 8 period day and putting that focus on complex reading proficiency. [music] Again, I'd invite you to go to the Illinois school report card and look at what's happening with Lockport Township High School District [music] 205. Thank you so much for listening in on this board meeting brief. I'm happy to deliver it [music] next week. Please remember that students have no school the entire week of Thanksgiving. It's a new addition to our calendar. So, [music] please be thankful, be grateful, enjoy a week with your students at home. I'm grateful that I can serve you and I know our board and our staff
010are [music] grateful as well. Thank you so much for listening in and go Porters. [music] Beat as we go.