001[Music] Hello, Lockport Township High School District 205 parents and guardians. My name is Dr. Bob McBride, the superintendent of Lockport Township High School District 205, and this is your board meeting brief for the board of education meeting we had right here in the porter room on Monday, September 15th. Before I tell you a little bit about the board meeting uh this past Monday evening, I do want to take a pause about school safety. As many of you know, I hope all of you know if you are parents and guardians on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 16th, we had a lockdown. It was an error. It was a mistaken lockdown alarm. Even when we have a mistake, it occurred at 4:23 p.m. after school hours. But as many of you know, we have students who are
002practicing in band. We have students who are athletes. We have clubs and activities still meeting. We still have administrators here at East Campus and at Central. We have buses in motion. That lockdown goes on. We lock down. And even if we believe, as we did very quickly, that it was an accidental dial of our lockdown system, we act with the police as if it is real. We were so pleased that the Lockport Police responded immediately and you should be glad that we have the Lockport Police on our side. They assisted us and a small team of administrators to do a protective sweep of both the outside of our campus and the inside of our east campus. We lock down at Central as is our procedure to ensure total safety of our entire district. We don't
003like when these things happen. We apologize when they happen. But we are certainly glad that every single person involved from students to staff did everything necessary to keep ourselves, our campus, each other safe. The best thing that I can say is everyone did their duty. Everyone locked down. Everyone got to a secure place. And the Lockport Police were very impressed by the safety measures that we had. and we were very impressed by our partnership with them. I do want to emphasize that just like we did on September 16th that Tuesday afternoon, we will send you multiple messages. We will always tell you exactly what is going on. If it's a drill, we'll tell you. If it's a misdial or an accidental alarm, we will tell you. And if we ever, we hope never have a
004real safety emergency, we will tell you. Always. That's our commitment to you. Thank you for being our partners in school safety. We appreciate it. And please know every single day we're thinking about keeping your children safe. So, let's jump into the board meeting. Actually, the board meeting did not start in the porter room. It started in the east campus cafeteria and really with a historic moment. Last May we had a historic moment and this September we had a historic moment that reveal a strategy our board has been engaged in for the past four years and that is to ensure that every student as many students as possible we hope 100% graduate Lockport Township High School college ready and career ready. We had 431 students who achieved a national distinction of being an advanced placement scholar.
005This means that they've taken three, four, five or more advanced placement tests and scored at a above proficiency level that could qualify them in college for college credit. This has paired a high water mark for our district with what happened in May when Joliet Junior College acknowledged us as the top dual credit school out of 26 high schools that serve into Joliet Junior College. We offer more dual credit than any other school. Our students earn more dual credit than any other high school. Juliet Junior College advanced placement. That's the college preparation portion of our college and career goal. And it's an amazing feat. 431. We are very happy to be profiled by ABC News for that incredible accomplishment by our students and thank you to you uh their parents. There were two important issues that
006I want to highlight for you in the board agenda that have deep impact in in our district. The first is something that I shared and that is moving east campus to an 8 period day next year. We have new mandates of study coming from the state of Illinois that require us to offer our students more class opportunities. But also after a whole year of research last year, we realized that in comparison to many school districts around us, our students do not have as many opportunities. And we know that the key to success, the key to learning, the key to the best high school experience is being with our teachers. So we have proposed to our board of education an 8 period day moving from a seven period day and the costs associated with that. If
007the board approves that and moves forward, we would do that in October and we would implement that in August of 2026. The board is currently considering that and trying to decide whether they'll give that the green light or they'll have us slow down and maybe move along a slower pace. Our recommendation, my recommendation is superintendent, is that we move forward and make that change. The other important thing, one of the most consequential things that we do is our board of education 70 approved a budget for the fiscal year of 2026. It's one of the most important things that we do. It's an $87 million budget that fulfills all of the needs of our students and really that entire budget is focused on educating your children. What we try to do after approving a budget and
008being very conservative of the budget, we look immediately at the tax rate that it will generate. And again, our tax rate lowered. We've been lowering our tax rate for almost 15 years. We have one of the lowest tax rates in the state, one of the lowest tax rates out of township high schools in the entire Chicagoland area. Of course, that tax rate is applied to the value of your home. We estimated for our board what we see in terms of our tax levy that we'll approve in December. And we do see a 4% increase in our tax levy. You might say, why is that? There's one reason. It's the value of your home. If you have an existing property, a home that's been around for quite some time, we have traced all of our township
009supervisors and we know that they are increasing the value of properties by 6 to 7% in this next tax cycle. What does that mean? That means even if we have one of the lowest tax rates, 1.72 in the state, when applied to an increased value of your home, it will generate a larger tax bill. We control the tax rate. We do not control the assessed value of your home. We also have new homes that are being built in our 65 square mile. They come on to the tax role. They contribute actually more taxes that very first time that they come on. Existing homes, new homes, increased value of those homes is what's driving our levy. We've done our very best to be conservative, to approve a budget that is conservative and a budget that would
010generate a low tax rate. Again, 1.72. We are doing our part to be very good financial stewards of your hard-earned money and what you contribute in terms of your treasure to support and educate our youth. new school day schedule, new budget moving to a tax levy in November and December that we will approve. Thanks so much for listening to this board meeting brief from September 15th. And again, thank you so much for being in communication with us, being in partnership with us, and being the best possible stewards of your children, especially when it comes to school safety. Thanks so much and go Porters.