001foreign [Music] Township High School district 205 parents and Guardians my name is Dr Bob McBride superintendent of Lockport Township High School this is your board meeting brief for the Board of Education that at least partly was in this room the porter room on Monday May 15 2023. one of the things I want to acknowledge about our board meeting on Monday night is that we welcomed two brand new members and a returning member so congratulations to Dr Veronica Shaw a returning board member who was recently elected this spring and two brand new board members Marty boersma was elected to our board as was Dr Sandra Shimon Rogers and at the end of this board meeting brief you can transition over to a short video introducing Dr Rogers to you as a new school board member let's
002get into our Board of Education meeting we started here in the porter room but we very quickly moved down to the East Campus cafeteria we had so many people that we had to acknowledge 80 plus individuals with national or state accomplishments I need the list from the agenda to be accurate with you and that always also reminds me that our agenda is always posted well in advance and I would invite you either to to come here be with us in the porter room to be part of to the meeting or visit us live stream all of our meetings are broadcast live stream very accessible from our website the porter room it really is I mean in the uh cafeteria it really is stunning to me that we have had so many board meetings that have
003started right there in that cafeteria we've had so many students to acknowledge and when you think about what our students are doing how they're doing it and that they're earning National and state accomplishments let me just read this list to you we congratulated another Eagle Scout Ben carabelle national award in the Boy Scouts of America State accomplishments in girls power lifting and boys power lifting group interpretation in the state of Illinois we congratulated that team and that's the dramatic portion of competition for theater in the state of Illinois winterguard part of the extension of our Marching Band program we had a state championship and then nationally competing Winter Guard team skillsusa which involves construction technical skills design skills state champions and placeholders there in the state of Illinois we recognized two students who will be
004skillsusa officers also idea Illinois design Educators Association students who achieved top first second third place Awards in those areas the robotic students are Vex robotics team did an amazing job here in the state of Illinois so much so they could qualify on the world stage in Dallas Texas and then finally we acknowledge our high school retirees this year people have devoted almost their whole career here at Lockport Township High School to Leading teaching caring for our students it was a joyous occasion and it was a great way to start a Board of Education meeting we returned here to the porter room and very quickly we fell into public comments and our public comments had a serious and intense issue for the most part it was a discussion about books that we have in our two
005libraries Central and East and this is a time in our nation where books are a topic of com conversation art what is the role of art what's appropriate art who has access to Art Is there anybody that can say nobody should have access to that art our state is about to enact a law that prohibits schools from removing books from its shelves but we heard from parents who were concerned about some of the content in some of those books there was a rich discussion about Should students have access to that content challenging difficult uncomfortable art and we heard from others who feel that choice is important where we stand on that issue is that we do believe the choice for our students choice for our families is important we also believe that parental controls are
006important and we do have parental controls for parents with their students in our libraries and you'll be hearing about that quite a bit in the fall in terms of A Parent's Choice to put on their students account any restrictions of books they would not like to have their student check out parents can also access what their students are reading through the library and then finally quite some time ago about two years ago we put our catalog of all of our books right online so anyone can look them up see what the content is in those books we do believe in parental controls we also believe that if there's anyone who has a complaint about any of the books in our libraries we are absolutely willing to talk to initiate a process of conversation about those
007materials we very quickly then after uh public comment moved into a series of reports and I won't brief all of those reports here for you in this video but there are two that I would certainly like to highlight the first is our treasurer's report uh Mrs Stephanie Croy our director of Business Services gave a very important report on our five-year Financial projection it's important for us because in many ways if we're a ship the ship of knowledge that financial report is our Rudder it helps us steer clear and straight to avoid deficit spending and to avoid debt and to always balance our budget the decisions we make like last fall with our budget and our Levy are all designed to avoid deficit spending and debt spending especially when we look forward in 2024 and 2025
008at Financial circumstances that we'll see in this country we're predicting that we'll see in this country that could create debt situations and deficit situations that Financial forecast I'd encourage you to take a look at it in that board document it really shows how we have that steady line of responsible spending what it does not include is any new debt or any new um Bond issues if we move forward with something that we're talking about with our board about renovating and revitalizing Central that would involve a conversation with you our community stakeholders about taking on new debt to renew that building to restore it to preserve it for another 50 years another important report we had was from Mr Matt dusterhoff our director of Technology this night might not be the most glamorous report about buying
009technology and buying student Chromebooks and buying teacher laptops but if you think for a moment you might be watching this very video on a computer maybe on a cell phone and your computer and your cell phone might be as much of a part of your daily outfit is any shirt or outfit you would wear as part of you technology is really the backbone of what we're doing it's a building that exists in in the air Wi-Fi but it's become so important in terms of a modern education Mr dusterhoff briefed our board about how right now we are reloading releasing repurchasing all the necessary technology for our students to be ready next year when we open our doors in August for another school year those are the two most important reports uh from the evening we
010are in a period of great excitement here at Lockport Township High School as we begin to exit our seniors and I hope that if you are a senior parent your message to your child is end strong and with respect respect for yourself respect for your school respect for each other walk out of that graduation with your head held high and don't do anything it's going to jeopardize your chance to walk across that graduation stage we're also in a period of celebrating just all of the Great accomplishments of our students and I hope that you are sharing in that as well thank you so much for tuning in to this board meeting brief for the board meeting we had right here in the porter room on Monday May 15 2023 thanks so much hi and Sandra
011Shimon Rogers I am a chemist by trait I am a dean of academics and student issues and faculty um I've chosen the route of chemistry as a result of Lockport believe it or not it's actually Mr posters who's no longer at Lockport he was my chemistry teacher I was in the honors classes and so forth so I have two sons one started this year and the other one is starting next year so why not get involved and know what's going on with them I attend the board meetings anyway and it's a good way to give back to the community and my alma mater so I'm on the higher ed side of things so I'm at a university where I see the quality of the education that's there and the students coming in they are meeting
012some of the goals but not as many as we'd like them to and it's not their fault but what can we do to help our students become better prepared for life in general for college for the trades I'm a big advocate for women in science and engineering and of all minorities and with that they just need a cheerleader and that was my big thing and they went from barely surviving in college to actually graduating going on for their phds they need the cheerleading they need the support they need the guidance they need to know how to ask questions and the right questions so I think that's something that has to start even younger than high school but it would be nice to have the discussions here and have it even go back to the younger
013grades