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 on Monday February 24th 2025 every month that we get together with our board there's a number of concerns items issues policies reports that the board goes through but for this board meeting brief I really want to focus your attention on two things that I think that are important for you as members of our community members of this district and most importantly as families first and foremost Central as you know since 2022 we've been asking ourselves a important question as a district what should we do with this historic facility parts of it are 100 years
002old parts of it are much younger it houses all of our freshmen as many of you know we've been on a journey for a year starting with our facilities Master planning Council which met a year ago in February 2024 really to analyze all of our facilities in the district we then went into a formal process of communicating with our taxpayers we held a referendum about this building and fully re renovating it in March of 2024 we got the results of that 13 ,000 people participated in that election that spring we ran a community survey where almost 800 people bothered to write down comments about the future of our facilities in general they laid out a very clear plan for our Board number one deal with the most essential elements of improvement at this facility central
003campus number two please do any facility improvements in The District in a financially responsible way be aware of the taxpayer number three involve the community number four please create a long-term vision and plan from that survey in the spring on May 20th 2024 our board set forth a resolution where it intended to do a number of different things one take some of its fund balances and invest those in facility improvements why take ta cash reserves because cash reserves don't put an additional n you as a taxpayer the second thing our board directed was the use of something called Life Safety bonds this is debt taking out loans that would do facilities improvements on the most essential maintenance improvements that we need to do and we were directed by the board to come up with a
004plan a debt plan that would have no additional burden on you as taxpayers and then finally come up with a plan that will ensure all of our facilities will be in the best shape possible for our Learners as we moved into the fall this year we met with Community groups we held focus groups in October and our board felt that it had very clear direction for administrators like me during the board meeting on February 24th what we discussed intensely is borrowing $15 million in life safety bonds these are bonds to fix essential elements of this building the roof the walls the electrical in the building critical components to any school facility most important the board directed me and our chief School business official Stephanie Croy to come up with a strategy that would have no
005additional tax burden on you or any of our community members we are planning on March 17th on moving forward with that $15 million for one project to completely replace the roof which is well over 40 years old and 20 years past its warranty to take care of all the masonry needs on the exterior walls of this building and to begin the process of replacing the outdated electrical system in the building so that more sophisticated more modern systems can be used in the building as well it'll take us two summers to do this one project one bond issue two summers to complete all of that work that work's intended as I said to have a low tax burden on you you to protect the investment we've already made last summer of doing $5 million worth of
006work on the inside of central keeping Central Open keeping it ready for a concept that in all of our surveying of the community is important to you and that is a freshman center where all seven of our feeder districts can come and they can start their Journey as Porters together before going to E Campus on March 17th our board plans to move ahead with this plan and it's an important thing for our entire community so I'm standing outside of central today to help you understand that and certainly my email our board we are open to any questions that you have the second important thing that we approved our school calendars for the 2025 and 2026 the 2026 and 2027 school year you can see those calendars online and we'll publish a set of essential dates
007for you to know but a couple important things that I would like you to know thank you for all of you who have participated in a survey about the calendars we did put alignment with our feeder districts front center in our decisions we start at approximately the same time as our feeder districts we end at approximately the same time our winter break and our spring break are aligned as well but important for the next two years much like our feeder districts our students will not be attending school the week of Thanksgiving we want to have that alignment because we know that that's important for families please check out those calendars over the next 2 years so you can do your family planning as we try to have a school calendar that helps learning helps students
008helps teachers teach your students thank you so much for listening to this board meeting brief for the board meeting on February 24th 2025 thanks so much and go Porters