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 this is your board meeting brief for the board of education meeting that we had right here in the porter room on Monday, May 19th. Actually, we did not start here in the porter room. We started in the east campus cafeteria. And the reason we started there was we we needed a room that big to acknowledge all of the people and students that we had to acknowledge. I want to f focus this board be brief on celebration, resolution, recognition. One of the most important things that our board of education does is acknowledge the efforts of our staff and our students. Sometimes I'll ask an audience when we're having a celebration,
002a ceremony, why are we doing it? We could always mail home certificates. We could just send home scholarships. Why gather almost 500 people and over 200 students to celebrate and to recognize. The reason why I think it's so important is because our students are high performing students. They need to know that the community, their families, and their teachers are proud of them and see their success. So, I'd invite you in this board meeting brief to see what I saw. You can always see it because our agenda is always available online. And I encourage parents, community members to look at our agenda online. If you do, you'll see this incredible list of celebrations and acknowledgements. I want to begin with something that is so important for all of us and that's our partnership with Joliet Junior
003College in the state of Illinois. If a student earns in high school a Joliet Junior College credit, that credit is not only accepted at JJC, it's accepted at any state university in Illinois. That's University of Illinois, Northern, Western, Southern, Eastern, any of those very august universities. Some of our students walk out of Lockport Township High School with 12 to 18 credits from Joliet Junior College, putting them almost a year ahead at JJC or at any university. Dr. Klein Nimuo, president of Juliet Junior College, was here to present a plaque to our board because of the 26 different high schools that feed into JJC, Lockport Township High School is number one in terms of the students that we have enrolled in dual credit and students who have earned dual credit. That is a real advantage for
004our students. They are taking college classes before they leave. They're earning college credit before they leave high school. they're taking that college credit with them wherever they go. We celebrated that accomplishment because it really four years ago our board set a goal of increasing our advanced placement participation and increasing the number of students that we have in dual credit. It was a great thing to celebrate. The next thing we celebrated are our retirees. It's bittersweet. Every single year we have individuals from bus drivers to classroom teachers who have dedicated their entire career to Lockport Township High School. We brought those people forward and in front of almost 500 families, parents, students. We had the opportunity to acknowledge them for their service and our retirees mean the world to us and without their level of commitment
005and their years of service, we wouldn't be the quality institution that we are. Then we got into student recognitions. We opened actually our meeting with wind symphony. Our wind symphony has a state level acknowledgement. They played and everybody could hear immediately why our wind symphony is one of the best high school ensembles in the state of Illinois. We acknowledge Vocal Point for their great national accomplishment. We acknowledge off the record, another vocal uh group for their great state and regional accomplishments and national accomplishment. Vocal Point ended up fourth in the nation in terms of vocal ensembles, ac capella ensembles, and Off the Record ended up 10th in the nation in terms of ac cappella ensembles. We were able to congratulate students who had excelled on a national German exam. Over 100 students who had accomplished
006the seal of biiteracy in the state of Illinois, which certifies them as a bilingual speaker. What a great and amazing future accomplishment for them. It was an amazing night. Over 200 students were acknowledged. Our accomplishments with JJC, our retirees, a long list for us to celebrate. We also had the opportunity to congratulate our winter guard along with Wind Symphony who has also had regional, state, and national level accomplishments. Here's the thing. Porters are accomplishing amazing things. We filled our entire East Campus cafeteria with them. And I think you as parents, community members, stakeholders should be very proud that your child goes to a school where elite performance is an ongoing thing. It was a great celebration. We adjourned to the boardroom and there are a number of things that we had to do in May.
007Uh, our agenda included our annual treasures our excuse me, our monthly treasures report, which I always invite you to review. If you want to see anything that has to do with any of our finances, it's all in there. What you see is what our board members see is what I see. We just present it to you. We also came in and we dealt with our consent agenda, which was mainly about hiring. This is a time of year where, as you can imagine, we're hiring many of the people who will be in front of your children next year. But I think the most substantial uh report that we had was from our public relations department. We heard from our public relations director Janette Castillo, our videographer and web master, Eric Slagger, and our public relations assistant,
008Grace Gonzalez. There's a 20page uh report in our board agenda that I think you as a parent and community member should review. It's on our board agenda. It details all the things that we do to try to enhance student achievement by celebrating what is happening in our district. Videos, social media posts, our website, all of that is to put the information about our school district at your fingertips. To make it easy for you to navigate it, to give you information in many different ways from email to video to social media posts to voice messaging. and it really documents the hundred and thousands of interactions that we have over the course of a school year to keep you informed, to keep our school district in the media spotlight, and to celebrate the student achievements that our
009students have. We have a small but mighty public relations team. They complete 95% of our public relations work. Everything you see, hear, and experience, 95% of that happens right here at East Campus and Central Campus. We're very proud of their work. And if you want to go into detail about the reach that they've had into the community and how creative they've been in doing it, I suggest you consult that report. You can find it uh on our board of education page under board docs. Thank you so much for listening to this board meeting brief. It's a very bittersweet time. Uh just as I'm recording this today, I met with my superintendent advisory council for the last time. And as students checked in, I asked students who's feeling bittersweet, kind of sad and happy at the
010same time that the school year has ended. Who's feeling happy? There was a mix of emotions, but we know that this is a time of year of celebration. It's the time of year of beginnings. It's the time of year of ends of ends. And it's a time of year of a swirl of things. We're going to pull all of that together at the class of 2025 graduation on Saturday, May 31st. That will culminate another year in the life of this over 100year high school district. So, thank you for joining with us to celebrate everything that it means to be a Porter. Have a great summer. We'll still be here over the summer working with the school board, but we hope it's a time of renewal, relaxation, rejuvenation, and fun. Go Porters.