001[Music] Hello, Lockport Township High School District 205 parents and guardians. My name is Dr. Bob McBride, the proud superintendent of Lockport Township High School District 205. This is your board meeting brief for the board of education meeting that we had right here on the first day of school, August 18th, right here in the porter room. Kind of a special occasion for me. It was my hundth board of education meeting. Uh big mile mark for me as a superintendent for my work with the board of education and my work on behalf of all of you. Before I jump into the business of that board meeting, I just want to make a mention of our first day of school. I am so grateful as an educator that you have sent us children who made that very first
002day a celebratory day, an efficient day, an orderly day, a great day of school where we could get our bus routes ready. we could get our lanyards ready. We could all get in position to get down to learning. I'm so grateful to you as parents. I also want to emphasize something that our board of education has made a special focus this year and that is focus. Separating ourselves from our personal electronics, particularly cell phones, so that in the classroom we are really focused on each other, on our teachers, and on learning. We are asking all porters when they enter into a classroom space simply to take their cell phone and deposit it in something that we're calling porter pockets. Just separating for that 50 minutes so that learning and teaching and each other are at
003the focus right here in the porter room. We have porter pockets. When the board of education came in on Monday night and administrators came in, we all deposited our cell phone in those port pockets so we could really be with each other, focus on each other, and focus on our agenda. Those cell phones were still there when we left, and we were able to check them and connect with anybody that we needed to connect with. So, thank you for supporting that. Let's get into the board meeting. The first thing that we did is we congratulated four students and we swore them in as student board of education members. This board of education has put a high premium on student voice. Last year, we had 26 students who applied to be student board of education members.
004In June, the board interviewed 12 students, and they selected four. Two students, James Wyatt and Ryan Gleason, will be with the board at every formal monthly board meeting. They'll do a report every month, and they'll be part of all the conversations. They don't vote because they're not elected, but they'll be the student voice at those monthly meetings. Two students are on board committees. Abby Carol is on the board finance and facility committee and Evelyn Schladar is on the board curriculum committee. Congratulations to all of them for serving their student body and being our student voice on the board of education. The most significant thing that we did is we discussed the fiscal year 2026 budget. We've been working on this budget really since January, but in earnest since July. We presented to the board of
005education in July a tenative, a draft budget so that the board for two months could talk about that $85 million budget. Every line item in it, it's a 32-page document. We could really dig into what is in that budget. A budget is a declaration to you of what we plan on spending this year. So, you know what we're spending. The board knows what we're spending. We know what we're spending and we can plan accordingly. We have also partnered with you in this endeavor. We have about 1,400 people who in two surveys over two years have participated in some feedback to us about budgeting, about facilities, about finances. You've said four things to us. First and foremost, you have an expectation that we're going to take care of our facilities within our means. Second thing is
006you said, "Hey, facilities and finances, we don't want an additional tax burden." Next thing you've said is please be transparent. That's what we're doing right now. And if you look at our board agenda, that tenative budget is is right there for you to look at. And then the final thing you said is involve the community. We do that through our social media. We do that through our website. We do that through videos like this. Our fiscal year 2026 budget does exactly that. It proposes meeting all the expenses that we need to expend this year on our students without any kind of additional tax burden on you. It also proposes handling our facilities issues at East and at Central without any additional burden on you. Speaking of Central, we are wrapping up about $6.7 million worth
007of essential maintenance construction at Central this summer and we'll conduct about another 6 to9 million next summer to make sure that all of the essential roofing, masonry, and electrical work at Central is complete. But within our budgeting, there is no new additional tax burden on our entire community for that construction work. There's a small part of Central that is not quite open yet. If you drive by, you'll see that there's some scaffolding, but we expect after Labor Day that scaffolding and that construction will be done and Central will sail into the air until next summer when we're back to work on more masonry, more roofing, and more electrical. If you have any questions about our budget, you can go right to board docs, right to our website. You can see that tenative budget that we
008will approve or recommend for approval in September. Another thing that we discussed is rebranding our our guidance, our deans, our registar, our nurses into student services. We are in a process right now where we are working hard to really make sure that you as parents, students, staff members understand all of the wraparound services that we prevent uh issues with students that we provide for students outside of the classroom. School counselors, social workers, psychologists, will county mental health, student discipline, records, registar, attendants, school nurses. We want to make sure that that is a tight system. It's a clear system, but it's a system that you understand and that your students understand. And we're beginning that journey at the beginning of this year, and we briefed the board on it. You'll be hearing so much more about
009that as the school year goes on. Thank you so much for listening to this board meeting brief. Thank you for a wonderful start to the school year. Thank you for the support and attention you've given me as a person and as a professional after 100 board of education meetings. It's amazing to serve you and to serve your students. Let's have a great start to the school year. Go Porters and thank you so much.