November Board Meeting 2025

001Okay, we call our meeting to order at 6:31 p.m. Roll call, please. >> RA, >> yes. [clears throat] >> Espinosa, >> yes. >> Shider, >> yes. >> H, >> yes. >> Landers, >> yes. >> Reynolds, >> yes. >> Rise for the pledge. >> I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [clears throat] >> The motion for approval of the regular meeting agenda, please. >> I'll make a motion of the regular meeting agenda presented. >> Second. Roll call. >> Trader. >> Yes. >> Espinosa. >> Yes. >> Rap. >> Yes. >> Reynolds. >> Yes. >> Landers. >> Yes. >> C. >> Yes. >> All right. This is our opportunity to um have public comment. So

002I see we have a few people have joined us this evening. Opportunity if you'd like to share any public comment this evening >> about the tennis court. >> Tennis courts. Yeah. >> We're we're excited that the city's going to take it over. We live across the street from it and we used to watch years ago there were used to be people over there all the time. We'd sit out front watch these kids playing and and adults And now there's nothing. >> Nothing. People take their dogs in there to walk them and poop and pee. [snorts] >> But that's about it. So we are very happy that this is happening. >> Good. >> It's uh I would I would love to see them bring this tennis court back to life. I mean, we lived over there

003probably 40 years across the street from the tennis court, and it it's fun to see people come in there and play golf with their families and friends, and then it just kind of went stagnant, and nobody's there anymore, and it's just running down, becomes a weed patch, and kids are in there. They've already tore one of the nets down the last couple of weeks. They get in there riding their bikes, running to the tennis courts. Well, we chase them away a lot. >> Yeah, there's many of them. I chased many of the kids off that golf course for >> It's tennis court. >> Yeah, tennis courts. I'm sorry. You know, you guys see him out there doing >> we couple weeks ago there were a bunch of kids over by the high by the track

004over there. They had the garbage cans out. They were kicking them around. So, I was let the dog out and I yelled over there, "Hey, stop it." They took off running. >> Good job. Well, thank you. You're our our bonus security volunteer security team. >> Yeah. We don't I don't try to be hall monitor over there. But I see kids up the missed if I run them out of the box. Sure. >> And some of them are willing to go. Sometimes you have to threaten them. The police are going to come and get them. Then they leave. And you know, I you know, it's just unus. And there's the avid uh tennis players over there will tell you these are the best golf courts than the ones in this new high school. And the reason

005for that is Strobble Avenue Golf Course doesn't have the wind problem at the high school. >> Wow. Yeah. Yeah. >> Well, thank you for sharing your opinions tonight. Um I did also receive five emails and one inerson visit from community members. All five or all six of the encounters were all positive in support of two also lived nearly adjacent and appreciated the opportunity to have the revitalization of a run area. So that is what we have received as far as public feedback to this point. But thank you very much. We'll be voting on that just in just a little bit. Nothing else as far as public comment that you're >> No, ma'am. >> Okay. Could we have a motion for consent agenda, please? I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda uh including 5.1

006disposition of minutes for October 2025. 5.2 payment of bills 5.3 district treasures report 5.4 inerson activity fund report cafeteria report 5.5 the personnel report 5.6 Six. Authorize payment of remaining routine bills November 2025 bills. >> Second. Roll call. >> C. >> Yes. >> Landers. >> Yes. >> Reynolds. >> Yes. >> Comedas. >> Yes. >> Espinosa? >> Yes. >> 6.1 foyer requests. >> Uh, no new foyer requests. >> Moving on to 6.2 administrator reports. >> Yeah. The only thing I want to add before we start our presentations is u we had a a really uh robust Veterans Day lineup um each building um doing quite a few things. Um I know that I've already had some correspondence with the high school district about um maybe doing something cooperatively next year. Um and uh so I think

007that I think that that we're going to make we've always done a nice job in the past um of coordinating different activities and um we're going to make sure that we give attention to that in the future as well. >> And now we'll start with Blackstone. >> Get the clicker. >> You get the clicker. >> Hi. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> All right. Hi everybody. I'm going to talk to you about one of our new programs that we have at Blackstone this year, um that's come out of our school improvement program. Um every year at Blackstone, well, we have a school improvement committee and um it's made up of various teachers that are on there and we look at things that we want to try to improve within our building. And what we do to

008figure that out, what we need to work on is we do a a needs assessment survey. And so some of the questions we ask all of our staff each year, we we want to know about like our school programs. We want to know about technology, building and grounds, professional development, curriculum, and staff and student wellness. So we want feedback on what's working, what we could maybe change, what we can maybe add. Um we've had a ton of stuff come out of this in the last several years. Um after we do the needs assessment survey, we take those results and we sit down as a team and we look at okay what goals do we have? Typically we have three to four goals per year. Um like the technology piece, we'll take that to our um

009district tech committee. Um professional development, we'll take that to like if it's building stuff we can do, we will do it within our building. But um bigger things like we'll take to the district professional development committee and talk about this is what we're needing, this is what teachers want. Um so it's we get a wealth of information. So um from last year's needs assessment survey and this year's one of the things that we talked about was attendance. Um I know this is just being at the IPA conference in October. This was kind of a a topic amongst a lot of administrators that attendance is becoming more and more of an issue in schools and getting kids to come to school. So, um my school improvement team, we wrote a goal last year that we worked

010on last year and we were continuing this year and one of the goals was to improve student attendance to decrease chronic truency and chronic absenteeism rates. Tyler's going to give you all those numbers in a little bit so I won't steal his lender. Um, but we want kids in school. We are we also are very much aware that these kids at Blackstone are five, six, seven years old. So, it's not it's it's more the parents than it is the kids getting them to school. But, we want we want to talk about it with kids. We want kids to be excited to come to school. We're hoping even if just a couple of kids are like, "Oh, no. I really want to go to school today." Because we do have kids that just stay home. Just

011stay home. Um, but we want to decrease our unexcused absences. Okay, we got kids are sick. We don't want kids in school when they are sick. Um, they don't feel good. They're not going to learn when they're there sick and we don't want them getting um others sick. So, when we wrote our goal, after we write goals, you write activities of things you're going to do. So, these were our activities that we uh started with last year and this year. Um, we want to educate parents on the importance of school attendance and how it affects academics. We, um, talked about beginning to discuss parent night activities for the future. We've had parent nights in the past where it's been like come play bingo or come to a book fair or a reading thing. Um, we

012really start talking about having parent nights to teach parents how to help educate their child. Like things are very different than they used to be. Um, So there's a whole new way of doing school and we want to try to educate parents to do that. Our last activity, we wanted to establish a process for parent communication and education regarding attendance concerns. Um so one thing we put together, we sent home um information and guidelines at the beginning of the year because we started talking and I did talk with some parents last year about questions they had about attendance and um do you know about truency? Do you know the difference between excused and unexcused? Um, and we found that a lot of our parents knew, but we found that a lot of our parents did

013not as well. So, we sent home a little um packet at the beginning of the year. Um, it was rather lengthy. Um, and I hope parents took the time to read it. We tried to cut it down as much as we could, but we just couldn't cut some things out because they were super important. Um, we went through how to report absences. Um, the definition absenteeism and chronic truins. We talked about truency letters because in our district we send letters home um at midterms and at the end of the I almost said quarter trimester and if a student has five or more absences, we send a letter home and I always will send out an email and say okay because I always get phone calls. You're going to turn me in for true and see

014Johnny had, you know, the flu for five days. That's excused. Like we're not worried about those things. And I say, "Believe it or not, I send those letters homes and some kids are up to 40." Um, so, you know, we kind of tried to explain that a little better that I I would tell parents my own kids got them. I would send them home with my own kids when they were at Blackstone because they were always sick. So, that was kind of funny. Um, we talked about truency, how [clears throat] and when it can be filed, and we explained the difference between excused, unexcused, pre-arranged absences and tarpies. Um, so it was rather lengthy, but what we did was we had parents sign off on it, that they read it, and um, turned that back

015in. So, we kept that because, um, we want to be able to have those conversations with parents and make sure that, you know, they read it, they understand it, and they were encouraged to reach out if they had any questions. Um, one thing we we did do um, talking about unexcused absences with the um, Lasell County Regional Office of Education, we have a truency officer here in district 289 that goes to many schools. [clears throat] After seven unexcused absences, we can refer a student to truency to the truent officer. We didn't want to wait till we got to seven unexcused. So, our committee came up with kind of a plan of after 5, um, we're requiring the parent to attend an attendance meeting with the principal and the classroom teacher just to kind of say,

016"Hey, we're at five. What can we do?" Is it is it your kid that's you're not getting here? Or is it a kid problem like you can't get the kid out the door? Because I I'll help talk to that kid and I've done that. Um, or is it a parent problem like can you just not get your kid here? Um, so we want to try to help them. What's the plan? you know, what can we do to support you before we have to say, "Boom, you're at seven, now we're turning you in." So, we want to, you know, give them that heads up. Um, then we talk about how paperwork can be filed with ROE and, um, how it could lead to an official truency hearing if needed. Uh, we send this home. If you

017have kids in the district, you've probably seen this. This is something our nurse um nurses came up with that we've sent home the last couple of years. when to stay home and when to return as just a general reminder um for our families because we get lots of questions about you know well should they stay home should they not when can they come back um we are trying to do a lot more of parent education sending little tidbits home with calendars and baref facts and just random things um facts that we're finding out there about if attendance really matters and how it can add up and affect a child's education. Um, this is one that I think is really, you know, you don't count it up, but when you look at this, two days a

018month doesn't sound like a lot, but if that happens all the time, they're going to miss over a year of school by the time they graduate. Four days a month would be two years. And again, this is not for those kids that get sick and they might miss a couple days a month. This is for more of our chronic um kids that just aren't coming to school for one reason or another or unexcused. Um so we're just trying to share facts about how important attendance is, how it affects ch um children's education and it's super important to be in school. So we wanted to make it fun. So we started a program and it's attendance hero. So, HERO, we have lots of acronyms in education. And HERO stands for you're here every day, ready, and

019on time. And we did a lot of educating our students at the beginning of the year. Um, the school improvement team put together a slideshow. I didn't put a slideshow in the slideshow. Um, but talking to kids about what this means because they don't know. It's their first time in school. We talked a lot about being here. We want you here every day. Like, why do we want you here? Um, we talked about being ready when you come. Make sure you have your book bag and you have your folder and you have your homework and things like that and being on time. Um, we've had a lot of tardies, too. And um, when we had problem solving meetings, we had a student last year that um was late all the time and his intervention period

020was at the beginning of the day. He wasn't getting intervention. He wasn't making progress. You know, we kind of tied that in. So, we've talked about how important it is and we have um you know, we have posters hanging around the school about being an attendance hero. We have teachers using that term all the time like you're an attendance here. I'm glad you're here today. Um so, we we've kind of started looking at percentages and things of kids in class of of attendance and we stress to the kids if you're sick it's okay. Like, you can't we don't you can't be here. You don't feel good. It's okay if you're sick and you have to stay home. Um, one mom did share with me one time when she brought her son late to sign him

021in, she's like, "You told me I was going to be in trouble and I'm not being a hero today." Okay. So, just trying to kind of make that that connection with those kids. Um, but those are some of the things we did in the student presentation talking about at the beginning of the year. And then we wanted to do something we wanted to start slow and not like implement everything at one time. So, we haven't done a lot, but one of the first steps we take, and we're going to add a couple things throughout the year, but one of the first things we did, I was at um the dollar store one day and I'm checking out and I'm on my phone. I'm checking out. I look over and there's this giant bear by the

022checkout, like as tall as I am. That's not tall, but that's how big the bear was. And I'm like, "Oh, we are the Blackstone Bears. What could I do with that bear? Got to do something." So, I took a picture of it, um, sent it to my school improvement team. I'm like, what can we do with this? We have a t-shirt made. I don't know if you can see, but it says attendance hero. And, um, we are letting classes who have the best attendance the week before. Uh, we have a big celebration before school starts. We did it this morning. This is Mrs. Klein's class. before the bell, like one minute before the bell lines up because I don't want to take instructional time. We get a big circle around the playground and we talk

023about the um his name's Hero. Hero the bear and um the class that had the best attendance the week before wins wins gets to keep the bear and take care of the bear in their classroom for the week. And this was Mrs. Klein's students today. They were so excited. Mrs. Klein might have been more excited. She was dancing with them and everything else. Um but the kids are super excited. And when we're looking at those numbers, we are not um we're taking into account the kids that were excused absences like they were sick. That's not counting against a class to um be able to to win the bear. So super excited about that. The kids are and they were so excited. They were asking me if he hibernates in the winter. They were asking um

024if they have to feed him, if they can play with him. I'm like, "You don't have to feed him, but take care of him." So we'll see if he makes through the year. Um, so that's just kind of how we're starting. We're talking about doing other things throughout the year to celebrate attendance and um, educate parents and our just our overall goal with this is we want kids in school. They can't learn if they're not in school. And so many of our kids um, get the most support when they are in our buildings and don't get as much at home. So, we want to be able to help kids and help them grow socially and academically. So, do you have any questions? You started it last year. >> The school improvement team started talking about

025it last year. We started planning and doing our research and that kind of stuff. We we just this year is the first year that we're implementing things with the kids. >> I think it's fantastic. I hope it serves as like a best practice example pilot for kind of applying it at the other grade levels in age appropriate way. You want kids to be excited. >> So you there's so much out there right now on attendance and incentives. I see, you know, I follow a couple schools on Facebook and one's putting flags out every day um when they have all their kids. They've made a class flag and it's just I think just making kids aware of it and hopefully you can reach at least a few kids that want to come to school more. So

026>> is there a best guess as to why it's an issue now? why kids aren't why there's so much absenteeism. I think that um education's not valued like it like it used to be. And I think that um parents sometimes just think it's okay and they don't realize how much it affects their child just to stay home. Um I think that I think we're seeing more unexcused absences now than ever. How is the trend thing been going on >> of abs? Well, he's going to tell you it's getting better. >> Well, chronic absenteeism is getting better. >> Chronic is still absenteeism's getting better. >> Nationwide, it really kicked off around being home and parents were expected to be the educators and so they lost some of that value and it was hard to come back

027from. >> It was it was already starting to happen but then blind absence of reason and truism. >> Great question. So a if you're a chron chronic absenteeism is you have missed eight 18 10 18 18% yeah >> of your days throughout the year. So you could they could all be excused absences but you're chronically absent. Like even if you're sick you're considered chronically absent because you've missed 10% of the days of school. Chronic truency then kicks in when it's unexcused and And there are those special circumstances where kids miss a lot of days. You know, they're in the hospital, they've had an injury, a major illness. That's that's going to happen and that's understandable. So, we really have taken a look at why kids are missing and trying to help improve that. >> Well,

028I know we've had conversations around too. Sorry, I want to >> uh appointments happen, right? Like my kid has to go to orthodontist is only open during the school day. >> But don't take the whole day. Go for what you need. Come back. Like being smart with appointments that she can like again every hour in school is viable. >> Okay. Thank you. Who's next? Thanks. >> I don't have any really cute bears in my presentation, so I'm sorry. There's no hero the bear in mind tonight. Um, but I kind of wanted to talk with you guys about some of the systems reviews that we've been doing at Lincoln School. Um, you know, with my transition in last year, um, it went from Dr. Lawrence to Mr. Strauss to myself. You know, there's been some inconsistencies.

029So, we've been working with our school improvement team to review some of our systems that we have in place and continue to improve those at Lincoln school. So, um our focus for growth, we kind of looked at the AR report card, uh attendance data and discipline data. Uh we took that to our school improvement team and we also had um like Stacy staff feedback and perception survey that played into that as well to kind of see what our need was and where we could continue to kind of become more consistent even as a building because we guys have heard of our CSS committee as a district. We also bring that back then to our school and figure out how we continue to be consistent at Lincoln. Um so two of the areas that we kind

030of focused in on um were a consistent discipline system and then improved communication systems or kind of more improved norms as a building. And so that's what we are starting this year kind of honing in on. We identified these at the end of last year and now this is what we are kind of coming up with a plan to target. Um so something that staff mentioned in their perception is they wanted to ensure that there was consistency when they were responding to student behavior. So through CSS we have our pause system that we use with our students and that's used in every K through four classroom. Fifth through 8th grade uses X's but that's kind of the classroom system that they lose pause for certain classroom behaviors. We also have MIRS which are minor infractions

031that happen that the teacher then sends home. We also have ODRs which are office referrals. But when we looked at kind of this whole thing there was a lot of questions of what is what like what is a token? What is an MIR? What is an ODR? And there was a lot of kind of inconsistencies on how teachers were following that. Um we had a behavior matrix but it was basically just here's office managed behaviors and here is classroom managed behaviors. And that still left a lot of questions. So we needed to kind of define communication respon and the responsibilities and next steps that the adults would take in those processes. Uh when I went to the AR conference just in October, um I sat in on a presentation from another school and they presented

032their behavior matrix and it was like ah light bulb moment. And so I brought that back to my APA pride team because they're kind of my team that we focus in on the behavior systems and we really refined that for our school. Um so rather than just having office managed and classroom managed behaviors, we broke our behaviors into four levels. So the level one behaviors are going to be those minor redirectable behaviors in the classroom. These are off task talking students being out of turn or sometimes like just the shutdowns of refusal to work head on the desk. Level two are going to be our repeated repeated pattern behaviors. Um these are behaviors that continue after we've tried to intervene in the classroom and these are where stu uh teachers will document with an MIR.

033Level three behaviors are our significant disruptions or some of our safety concerns. These are immediate referrals to the office where I would then issue a student an ODR. And then level four are the severe unsafe threats. Um these are major infractions that require response and parent contact. Um Brad, do you mind opening up that link at the top so that I can kind of just show what this looks like >> here? >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Um so up at the top, this just really highlights what I just showed you. Um it kind of goes through four teachers. This is the teacher handout, the four levels. Um, you know, it's kind of a disclaimer that this is ongoing. We have new behaviors every single month. It feels like things that we haven't even

034thought about. So, just because something isn't in this document doesn't mean that it may not fall into one of these categories. Um, we also have an SEAL student concern form. So, if we're seeing behaviors that we think our social workers may need to be, you know, called in for, our teachers fill in that. So, I just kind of reminded them to continue using that form so that our social workers, you know, who are also very busy don't forget to touch base with a student if they need to. Um, and then we kind of go through just like our trimester celebrations. Um, Brad, but if you scroll down, I we went through and broke it into the individual um levels of behavior >> here. >> Yep. So, page one is our level one. So, as you

035go across, you're going to see the minor and major problem behaviors. These are things that teachers see in their classrooms. The intensity, again, this is confined to only the student. It's not majorly affecting those around them. It defines what the documentation should be. So, this is going to be whatever the teacher's private documentation is. If that's, you know, writing in the student planner that they lost a paw, that's keeping track of that in their own system. And then what the adult response is. So for level one, you know, we're going to do our tier one classroom management strategies, things that we do daily. We're going to ignore, we're going to have close proximity to that student. We're going to monitor and support them. And then if we need to fill out that form, and then

036the discipline or the consequence would be the loss of a paw. And then if we scroll down to level two, um it does the exact same thing. So now we're getting into more of the behaviors that disrupt others um in their area or this is a repetitive behavior because after we're exhibiting those same level one behaviors again and again, this is consistent and our classroom intervention is no longer working. So that we need to continue to support that student with more restorative practices with, you know, consequences that are appropriate to the ongoing behaviors and support our teachers with making sure they can communicate that with parents to be part of that team. So now we're sending home that um MIR and we're going to make sure that there is parent contact whether that is through

037teacheries, our rooms app, an email, a phone call, whatever that might look like. So each one of the teachers has this. >> Yes. >> So it's consistent across every class. >> Correct. Um so we just kind of did this like I said in October. It was shared out at a staff meeting just to kind of specify all of these behaviors that are listed in minor and major problems were already things that were on our matrix. It was now just kind of refining them as to where they fell in, you know, the whole setup of how we're going to handle those. Um and then they brought these back to teams after our October staff meeting and said, "Hey, here are other behaviors that we're pretty consistently seeing like um academic dishonesty, cheating, you know, where does

038that fall in this?" And so then we added those into that matrix as well. Um and so it goes down through, you know, levels three and four the exact same way. It just kind of talks about um you know, adult responses. You can see with the ODR there's two options. You know, with some of these behaviors, we do want to keep the learning moving on. We don't want them out of the classroom for as much time as possible. So, we're going to write that O.D.R., make sure that I am aware in the office, but we're going to keep that student learning because they're not a disruption to the learning environment at that time. But there may be other times if they're outside at recess, um, if then they feel like there's a severe threat. if

039they are in the classroom and they're disruptive that then the student is removed from that setting to the office immediately for the ODR situation. And then level four, these are kind of our major ones. So that would be a call to the office. We kind of coordinate to make sure that that student is safely secured in the office um to handle the situation with a level four type of situation. Um again, these students might be students who are referred for our TAT team also. So then they would be brought in for threat assessment to the team. Um, so this was kind of step one and just like clarifying that discipline process and then communicating it out to teachers so that there were fewer questions of how certain situations um should be handled. Okay. Um, so

040kind of the next step is looking at utilizing our committees better for communication systems at Lincoln School. Um, very honestly, I walked into all of these different committees and figuring out what each of them how to utilize each of them, relying on Stacy and Paula to kind of model how they're using them at both Blackstone and Northbrook and then utilize ours effectively. So, our school improvement team right now, um, again, we're focusing on our ecas data. So um those are you know our data for IR our fastbridge and then really looking at setting goals academically with that team and that's what we're starting this year is that review and then again reviewing our norms and communication systems if we you know as simple as recess we had a conversation that you know what a second

041grade team has as their recess rules versus what the fourth grade team has as their recess rules. We don't think of those things until someone else new has to come in and you know they they're giving kids ODRs or MIS for something that you know may not be the norm that's expected. So we want to make sure that that's communicated out to anyone who may need that information and so that increased communication of the norms is also important. Um and then our Paul pride committee we're really reviewing our current behavior systems. Again we have the paw tokens that was created through the CSS district committee. Um, you know, we've had conversations that by fourth grade, some of that buy in to the token system isn't there. You know, the reward system isn't working as much.

042So, how do we then model or shift to a system more like what Northbrook has for our fourth graders so that it is more developmentally appropriate for them. Um, you know, that's not something that's going to necessarily happen tomorrow that we're going to be able to shift, but looking at the big picture of how we continue to evolve this program and make it appropriate for our students and our teachers so that, you know, it is effective because, you know, right now, very honestly, there's spots that it's not effective. And so, we want to continue to improve that. And again, I'm sorry I don't have any fun bears for you, but systems is just as exciting. [clears throat] That's on the head. Do you have any questions for me? Was the survey that we got back

043before these teams and meetings and what you're addressing now or after? >> Um I would say probably during um my guess is the survey was done October give or take probably the first part of October I guess. >> And so with that you know we look at communication being a big one that was identified as an area of improvement. And so we continue to find what is it about communication that we need. And I think the biggest one is is the norms and just knowing what's expected versus it having to be told in every situation once that system is there once the guidelines are there. I feel like that culture then will improve then in that area is kind of the hope. So, >> um I was just going to ask the the matrix and

044that Stacy, do you have something like that at Blackstone? >> So, we all all You're fine. All three buildings um years ago developed like a T-chart. Yes. Minor major. Yep. And then the the flowchart of if this happens, yes, no. >> Um so, we have that. Um I or Paul Elyssa shared I didn't go to the sea same session that Elyssa went to so I didn't see that presentation I was at a different one but she did share that but we haven't looked at it yet. Um >> I'm just I'm just wondering maybe it's something like districtwide across all all the buildings you know what I mean and so that there's not questions of like everybody in all three buildings in the district. This is where false >> we have the um you're familiar with

045PBIS. >> Yes. >> So we have the um >> nonfunded version of PBI. >> Yes. Yeah, I got that. >> So we exact we follow exactly what that is and have the same norms and expectation and teaching the expectations and yeah pretty defined. So >> that was my same comment of like why like I would really want this expectation of behaviors and responses and the attendance stuff of what you were talking about. Like I think when you talk about systemic situations and issues and student behavior responses and attendance are both clearly systemic issues nationwide that the response should be as much as possible consistent across the district. Um and if one building pilots something and it's going well then use it as best practice and expand it out. But I would it's not going to

046be great if it's different >> because like you said it's hard when you go from the second grade recess to the fourth grade recess. But then what happens when it was okay in fourth grade and it's not in fifth grade or the response is so different. >> That's the great thing about having that CSS committee is so then you know even I'll hear something in that and I can go back to Stacy and be like okay so I need you to explain what you're doing at Blackstone because then we need to carry that over here because sometimes you don't even realize that you get living and you know you get running your building or you get you know just in there and you're like oh we need to make sure that we're carrying that through.

047So that CSS committee has been fantastic for those type of things that you know I hear about her program and then we can carry those things through. So I agree. >> Yeah. And I've said this I think before I think hearing from the kids would be an excellent idea too. I know it's really hard for when first to second grade, but absolutely from like fourth to fifth and then even fifth into sixth and understanding like where how they felt supported, what felt different, what you know what was hard because it's so hard for them to make those transitions and what can we do to continue to make it more and more consistent so it doesn't feel like going from a completely different world because it does >> and I know that the committee's helping But

048when you're a parent of all three, it's like three entirely different school districts that you're going to. Whether it's the the frequency of communications, the reactions to behaviors, the events that happen, like it's just so different building by building. >> Yeah, I know. We I know we just had a a big fifth grade student survey [cough] on just that. >> Good. >> Within the last couple weeks. >> Have to remember to ask Paul about it next month. Good. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Mr. Pierce. >> Nope. I I want paper. >> Nice. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> I'm all about data. >> Would you like one to squirrel? Sure. Thank you. Would you guys like >> a copy? >> Who doesn't love data? >> You have one for you. >> Before I

049go over my presentation, I do want to just uh kind of acknowledge we did have a title three state monitoring. Uh it's a lovely process according to the ESL uh bilingual programming. Uh a lot of paper documentation that was due in October. them today with the on-site visitors uh and we'll get their feedback in about 40 days and we develop a plan to fix any deficiencies or any of that. Uh but they were both so incredibly complimentary to this district. They met with all the administrators. They met with uh two teachers every building. They went they toured stuff. Uh they came in last night at town both nights like uh both days uh drove around like they just had nothing but great things to say about this community uh our district and how they we

050embrace our Hispanic and EL population. uh and really like just love to see that it's such a part of who who we are Modota and we're even be a little extra feather in the cafe in there but we shared the video that they had made from the historical museum and society about like you know past Modota they're like that's amazing like and they were like we're going to share that with the state superintendent so [snorts] >> put a Mod on the map you know I think our soccer team did that but >> uh I just want to say like so again then that goes all with you guys it goes with these ladies Brad all the teachers. You know, we don't talk enough about our EL programming, but we are doing amazing things. Our scores

051are doing great. I'll be happy to come back and talk about that in our uh I'm going to try to make this as brief as possible for you guys. I know it's a long night for you guys and long days. Uh kind of want a couple highlights uh coming from the state report card, a little bit about and and some of the changes kind of happening across the board and that stuff. Uh so the report card came out the end of October. Uh the good news, all three buildings are commendable. Uh that's the middle of the road rating. About 70 to 80% of all districts in the state fall into that. Uh Northbrook uh which a couple years ago uh got a targeted destination uh because of our special ed populationing a little bit. Uh

052and since that point we you know we made changes. We had to come up with a plan. Uh we get a little grant money to help focus on that. Uh but we've been commendable ever since then. And you can kind of see the ratings over the years uh going up. We know we're 15 points higher than we were uh when we first targeted. So, Northwork's doing great there. Uh I do want to highlight the chronic absenteeism as Stacy was mentioning. Uh I know Trees about like you know it really did take off around CO uh you know whether that's you know parents not caring, whether that's kids not caring, parents letting kids not care, like there's a whole lot of things there. There's no one thing. Uh but since that peak of right around co

053that that a day bday year if you're if you were in the district where every other I think black zone was 8a bday uh we had 42% of our kids were missing uh 18 days or more and again chronic absenteeism is excused or unexcused it's just days gone days not getting academic uh resources uh we have that we're down to 19.8 That's still too high. Uh but it is definitely trending pretty strongly in the right way. Uh and it's things like what Stacy's doing and I know Alyssa has conversations with parents and uh you we do have a great uh trinency officer uh David Lawson, but again they've been really proactive. I know Paul is doing that too. We're trying to find those things like and I think one of the best things is really

054getting the kids to want to be here and understand why it does matter. We work in prek over here. The kids light up when they're here. you know, it's not the kids' fault when they're not here. You know, if they're sick, that's one thing. But parents have to get their butts and get the kids here to school. Uh, and we work with that. We have those conversations when the kids late routinely. It's like, hey, we know preschool is not required, but we have people on waiting list who would bend over backwards to be here every day. Is it valuable time or setting these, you know, precedents or setting these routines? Uh, we talk about trying to teach them how to be a parent in the school district because we do have a lot of young

055parents. It's one of those things. I don't feel old at 43. that I see a parent at 22 and I'm like oh man. Uh so we are working on those things. Uh so again we're heading in the right direction. Before I talk about the IR and ISA which [clears throat] is a state standardized testing uh for third through 8th grade. Uh there were some big changes this year and we kind of talked a little bit last year that they were on the rise and they officially happened this summer. So the I for ELA and math um it used to have the standard cut score of 750 which means if you scored 750 and above you were proficient. Uh they used the term met expectation or exceeded expectation and it didn't matter if it's ELA or

056math 750 was the magic number. Didn't matter if you're third grade or eighth grade. 750 was the magic number for proficiency. Uh the ISA used to be 799. I have no idea why they chose 799 7800 but they did. That was the that was the old system. They basically went through and what's called reorming. Uh they looked at so many different factors. Uh the state would argue that historically over the last decade or so, we had about the fourth highest expectation for proficiency in the nation. Now that sounds awesome, but because the expectation was so high, we were telling people who would be proficient in 46 other states, you're not proficient. and these are still kids who could go on and be successful in college, all these things. So, it was this push to kind

057of let's reor make it a more realistic score and what it means to be proficient. Uh they also clean up instead of having five divisions of scores, now it's four. Uh and so what happens now is if you're looking at math in third grade, the cut score to be proficient starts at 732 at 735 and it goes up a little bit every year. uh caps out of 745 for both subjects, ELA and math. Uh science. So instead of lowering the score to be proficient, science said, "Heck no, we're going the other way. 13 points higher." Uh so now to be proficient in science, it's 812. And again, that means that in general, like, hey, the state's doing okayish in science that we can kind of raise that. That's also there's not a whole lot of

058state comparable data for science tests and we only do science tests in fifth and eighth grade. That's one of the hardest there's a reason we don't talk about it too much when we talk about IR data and stuff like that when it's a separate test but uh because we don't have data for all the grades and even then you get a snapshot of fifth grade and we'll see again in four years it's a hard thing to truly see. Uh but we do think uh you know again we can see the data that is heading in the right direction. Uh so the reason this all matters if you I don't know if you've been on and looked at our uh score report for online or other schools uh it used to have this cool function you

059can go in and see hey look at your I scores for the last five six seven years >> but now with the new scores you can't compare them because it's completely different scoring >> and so one of the things they've been warning and you know I'll be very clear of suddenly it's a lower score to be proficient so guess what we have more kids be proficient that makes sense Uh so you can't really compare it's apples and oranges but luckily we worked with ECUS uh to you know help us crunch numbers and that will be the next couple pages. Uh they went back and looked at the last four years. So last year plus three beyond that uh and took the new cut scores and applied it to all those years. So you know here

060the top part is the actual crunch of the numbers. The bottom is the you know quick little you can see where we're going. Uh and so you can see you know are we growing? And so as a district uh on math uh we we took a little dip in 2023 but we've gone up every year since. So we are definitely trending in the right direction. Uh and it's one of those things that we had uh data and grade level meetings over the last well I guess it's been a few weeks now but for you know a few weeks there we had meetings uh and we talked about data we looked at data we looked at IR scores for the grades it applied to uh and we're trying to approach it like hey if your grade

061dipped in scores what's going on what can we do uh you know uh in sixth grade we saw a dip in math scores so we're working with the teacher we're talking about professional development like what what can we do to help support you uh and have those conversations Because again data is great. I love data but if it doesn't indicate or help us guide our improvement best practice uh it's not going to be helpful again but one of the things we've been saying all this stuff we love ecas I love IR data data it's just the gray the teachers the admin add the color they're the ones who are working with the kids on the day in day out so I can see a kid score in different programs but I don't know what's going

062on with that kid and so I was talking to one teacher and they're like man that kid is all about farming. All they talked about as soon as they got warm in the spring was being on the farm. Cool. Are they fully engaged and want to take the IR test then? Maybe not. Or if the kids absent a lot or like those are things where the teachers know those conversations or hey that kid really struggles uh particularly in math class and so it's not a surprise, you know, that they dipped a little bit. So those are things that as we continue to use that data and use it more robustly uh we're talking about giving teachers ability to kind of look at the kids scores. uh we talk about maybe using that as a way

063to motivate like hey this is what this you know the program is saying that your projected score is so how do we work to get you to that that score or how do you get you to do better than that score uh and so it's kind of a cool thing that we have that technology and ability uh so we're going to try to really bring that into the classrooms over the next months and next year um if you look at ELA is what we really want to see uh in the district we see that it trended up all four years in a row uh our ELA growth has been really really trending very aggressively up. Uh part of that is I would argue some of the changes uh in preparing kids for the test. Uh

064I know a lot of you guys haven't taken a stand test in a while. Um the language used is very obtuse, very annoying. It's not how people talk. So part of it is understanding what the heck is being asked in the question. That's really important in math and science, but in ELA, like okay, you want me to look at this paragraph, but what are you asking me to find? So one of the things we've done over the last few years is really worked with classrooms to incorporate strategies on how to approach those into everyday every unit kind of things. We don't want to teach to the test but we want to teach the test taking skills and so they incorporate that into their regular unit test and so it's just a normal part of what

065they're doing so they have practice. So something we see on the big bad test I've done this you know so I think that's been one of the biggest made a major difference for ELA. So we are definitely trading well in ELA. Uh but then at kind of the bottom here trying to come out, one of the big things again with ECU is kind of great is they could do numbers and magic that we can. They have access to pull some information that we don't. Uh and so one of the things we always talk about is how do we stack up to people like us, right? I mean obviously we can see how we compare the state average which is helpful, but we want to see how do we compare to people in the same kind

066of boat we are. And so, you know, give you an idea. We are in the 77th percentile for I IEP population, which means we're way at the top. We have a higher percentage of IEP than almost, you know, what almost, you know, everybody except for 23% of the state. Same for low income. We're one of the higher percentage districts for low-inccome. We're one of the highest percentage per population. There's nothing we can do about that. I can't magically make the town wealthier. I can't uh make the kids magically more English proficient. we'll work on those skills. Uh, you know, IEP population, that's based on the kids' needs. Uh, it's who we have. These are our subgroups and we welcome them all and we we take it on with gusto. And so when we look at

067that based off of everything we know, we should be in like the mid to high 20th percentiles for scores, but you can see there we're in the 40th percentile for the LA, we're the 34th for math, 46th for science. So we are outkicking the coverage that's expected of us. you know, to use our ecoris term, we are above the river, which is the projected coal line. We're above that. And you know, as Brad and I were having a conversation, she's like, we all think it's great. There's more room to go. There's definitely room to improve. And so, one of the cool things with Echis is uh you know, they pull data for schools that we want to compare ourselves to. So, when you look at this, I know it's kind of blurious just to stretch

068it to make it look, you know, make make look logical. Um, it compares it to uh other districts. Uh we were able to pick a couple. So we picked Rochelle and Lal uh because either demographically populationwise, low income wise, like they kind of match and especially in this area, they're kind of our closest comparable people. Uh but then the other districts on there uh pull from what Effort finds based off of our things. We we focus on low-inccome, we focus on IEP, and we focus on EL population. Uh and so then you know the last page of the data there is kind of going through and it's kind of showing you how do our scores compare to those scores. Uh and we kind of fall kind of in the middle of the mix with them.

069We outpaced Rochelle and Lel pretty handily. Uh but some of the other ones are do it better than us. And what that happens then is one of my favorite parts of the job is I get to send an email to people in some of these districts like hey what's your magic sauce? We had these conversations and again that's how we first hooked up with North Palos uh last year is again they outperform they have more EL kids than we they have higher low income but they outperform they're like one of the top tier schools uh overcoming all those things and so it's like hey what's going on we have these conversations and and I think you know about educators we like to talk and we we tend to like to help each other >> uh

070because it's not a me versus you it's it's us versus the world kind of thing. Uh, and so we're kind of using the information to kind of guide us to figure out what we can do to continue to improve. Uh, I know, uh, next Monday we're going up to Oregon, kind of looking at what they're doing in Oregon, some of their programming, like what might work be effective here. Uh, again, we're just trying to beg, borrow, and steal the best ideas. You know, best practices are just that best practices. And what's cool is that you can take what they do and make it fit into your system and kind of go, we need a toolkit for this because we had this number of teachers versus this number of kids. And uh it's really kind of

071guide a lot of our kind of creative thinking of how we're approaching it, how we're going to approach scheduling for next year. Uh and then the last page just kind of foreshadowing for next year. Uh so they overhaul the report card for this year. Next year, uh sorry, overhaul the IR course this year. They're overhauling the school report card next year. Uh so this next coming summer, they're going to overhaul, uh kind of the the general stuff. So right now we have three tiers of school ratings. your exemplary which is the top 10% and only the top 10%. Uh the 70 to 80% in the middle is kind of the commendable and then the targeted schools are comprehensive at the bottom. There's no magic percentage there because it's based on how you score in certain

072subcategories. Uh but what's going to be that well hasn't been voted but the proposed change that they're going around giving the speaking to on uh is they're still going to use the same kind of categories to look at how to judge a school but right now it's basically everybody gets ranked. Only the top 10 school 10% of schools can be at the top. Be exemplary. No matter how great you are, you can't be. It's just a top 10 based on scores. Well, they're saying that's not fair because you could be amazing and be left off that list because well, you didn't make the top 10%. So now it's going to be criterion based. And so it doesn't matter what your score is. If you earn a top tier score, you are a top tier school.

073uh they're going to expand from three to five uh score ranges, but really three of them kind of fall into what today would be called commendable. They're going to make it a little clear like you're kind of like it's kind of being high commendable versus low commendable. Like you're you're getting better, but you still have room for growth. There still be a target at the bottom. Uh that's kind of the big crux of the change there. Uh I know when I sat with them last year when we did the IR uh score changes and they're very honest is that with the kind of uncertainty with the federal government around education and I was expecting this by that you know the state wants to make one change and be done with the report card. Uh but

074until the federal government is a little more clear about what truly has to be used to calculate our scores because a lot of those things come from the federal government. we're kind of like hanging back a little bit and be like we don't want to change anything that isn't going to be legal. We don't want to leave anything in. We don't have to leave it in. So, it's kind of this kind of tiptoeing around figuring things out. And you know, pace of education and bits and spurts. Is there any questions of any of that? Again, I know it's kind of a disjoint, but I want to kind of hit the highlights. Uh I'm always happy if you have question about data, whether it's this stuff, whether it's ever like, "Hey, can you shoot me like

075more specific stuff?" I love data. I'll talk with you. I'll see you next week and I can talk daily with you how or whatever. Like I don't know. I think I think a couple of the things that um [laughter] >> a couple of the things that I want to uh reinforce um in our part partnership with ECRA is [snorts] one it's given us the tools to have really datadriven specific conversations with teachers about their student outcomes and about what their students are learning or not learning. Um And so we've been able to start a lot of those conversations. And the more that the teachers start to use the platform itself, the more that they'll start to be able to use it, um, and try to figure out which pieces in the curriculum they need to

076emphasize more. Um, so we're really excited about that part of it. Um, and then the other one is the fact that these statistical u models allow us to put all of our data into percentile ranks, which really does give you a really great comparison to be able to say, um, you know, out of a 100 schools, you know, where where would you rank in that percentile [cough] ranking? Um, and if you and if then if you're able to use that data, um, you know, Tyler had in here that districtwide in ELA, we were at the 40th percentile. Math we were the 34th. Um, well, you look the year before, yeah, ELA 40. The year before that we were, you know, in the 30s, right? And so we're continuing to climb. We're at 34 in math,

077but the year before our percentile rank statewide was 20 was 27. And so we're continuing to climb. And so, um, it's just it's just great data that, yeah, like Tyler said, you know, we need to celebrate our successes. Um, but and we've got things headed in the right direction, but we still got a lot of work to do. >> Tyler, we have a couple questions and I I know that this might be like a request more data, but I was looking specifically um in grade six in both ELA and math. >> Okay. for last year or for just in general >> in g well I was looking at this yeah the >> but comparing backwards and for both ELA and math it was the lowest score over a fouryear period in both >> um and

078like significant decline and then I looked like year-over-year of that grade's growth and it doesn't seem like that like it kind of seems like they're trending down year over year that class of kiddos when you follow that class year-over-year is that something you could give some more information. >> I can definitely look into it. And again, I know particularly like last year this it's so much easier when it's the junior high because it's one teacher teaching the subject. You can kind of and you can have that more focused conversation about like, hey, what what didn't go right last year or what we need focus on? And that we haven't been having those conversations with teachers and we kind of notic things. Uh but that's definitely, you know, and just like with we've talked before like

079uh with Acro and stuff is kind of cool too is that we can track individual groups like again there's still going to be underperforming groups and high performing groups. uh it's easier to track them than ever now than you know before I'd have to do all these spreadsheets trying to track them down the the charts but I I'd be happy to get more information and kind of look at that and >> I would appreciate it. >> Yeah. >> Well, and it'd be interesting to to see if that's like a high IEP group or you know I mean high eel group, >> right? But you like I guess what I was doing is I was looking both up and down and across. >> Yeah. >> Which shouldn't be that way then because the sixth grade is

080going down. >> Yeah. you could kind of follow them this way down the stairs. >> Follow them that way and then going straight down like it was both ways it was declined. So >> well I know the conversation when I met with uh the fifth or eighth grade team we were looking at this specific data and you talking about like again so like if you're up here in third grade in 2022 then that's your fourth grade score that's your fifth grade student. And so my conversation is when you look at the percentile, [clears throat] if you're in the 40th percentile in third grade, at worst, you would want them to be in the 40th percentile the next year, which means basically they grew, but they grew on par with the state. Uh, and so those

081are those conversations. If they're not growing at the rate of the state, what's going on? And again, sometimes you can pinpoint things to some degree of like, oh, we had teacher change. We had a curriculum. Like there are things that you can logically go, but then it's a further conversation like, okay, but what else is there? Like again, 44% in third grade, then 21, then 26, and now 14. Like that's a huge three years from >> Well, and it's a similar conversation when we talk about math particularly, you know, and ELA, like the seventh grade ELA bump was huge. Eighth grade was a really good bump, too. seventh grade math. Uh, it didn't matter over the years how they're trending, they all bump up in seventh grade. They could be trending down for three years

082and it's gonna bump up in seventh grade. Uh, we have one seventh grade math teacher. She does a lot of hard work. And again, I know the kids don't always love that. I know parents don't always love that. Uh, but like she's good for kids, you know, and it's a hard work, you know, it's it's a truly getchy kind of ready for high school kind of moment. Uh, and it pays the results show. Uh but it's also again one of those things where like it's a piece of the puzzle. Uh and again we do need to look at like what are the attendance rates. We need to look at you know uh you know we do have some grades that have a couple more newcomers. They've been here for a couple years now but they

083struggle uh still especially in ELA but they can struggle math as well. Uh we do have one who's actually kind of really shining in EL math right now because language isn't the barrier because hey I can do math in any language which is cool to see. I'd just be curious what you find out about that one >> and and again I mean it very sincerely whether it's you know again I'll look this information for you and share it with you but anyone else has their thoughts whether it's now three months from now like hey do you have this like please let me know my job is here to serve and now that that first audit's done I got timing [laughter] that access >> I appreciate thank you >> I have no barrier Okay. Um consideration

084for reports committee do not have any. >> Um so action items item 7.1 tenative tax levy. >> Yeah. So um just just the again uh it's a two-month process and so to be able to have something down now um because then we'll go through the truth and ation um advertisement process. Um this will give me an idea of what to um have on their a December levy and what that um turkey taxation hearing needs to look like. Um, all I did was put together numbers based off previous philosophy, which was um that in 10 cent increments, the board was was looking to um take the tax rate from 270 to $3. Um, I also just in my last update put some comparables in there. Um, Relle Elementary, Lasal, Peru, Ottawa. um just to to kind

085of reinforce that this is this is a a positive direction for for the school. Um and so then the the tenative levy that I put together had a projected tax rate of 299. Um just want to know if there were any questions on that >> and if you didn't look at it just to reiterate Roshelle was 309 319 Peru 320 and Ottawa 375. So we still at 299 be a full 10 cents below and that's their last year doesn't account for whatever they go >> correct >> at this year. So we're still >> still moving in the right direction and again this is just the to the tenative so that numbers can be ran can start for the >> Yes ma'am. >> Any questions about it? Can you refresh my memory? We just follow it

086all in wherever it needs to go as new money, but we don't ever have anything new money, but specifically put it towards, right? So, [clears throat] so this so, so this um levy very it's it's one of the it's one of the most um kind of important times where it does strictly follow the fund accounting um system that schools must follow. So there's a So of the $2.99. Okay. Specifically, there's a $144 of that that that money specifically has to go into the education fund. Okay. There'll be 40 cents of that that specifically goes to pay off debt. There'll be 25 cents of that that specifically has to go into building and maintenance, right? And so and so it tracks along each one of those. Um so in in that in in that sense we

087have no flexibility, right? Where we have flexibility is in our other revenues like the $4 million that we get in in state aid. Almost call it general state aid. Um that we can put anywhere, right? Or um $2 million or a million dollars now that we get in CPPRT money. We have greater flexibility in where we put that. But this is very much by fund. >> This is that graphic. Do you remember that graphic with the dollar bill a little bit? >> Yep. Yep. It's that one. >> Y >> and you can't we always talked about with a levy, you can't go back and get what you lose because it's compounding itself as you go up because there's limits on it every year. So if we go uh it's kind of a icky year, let's

088not do anything. We can't ever go back and get this year. It's now the new year will you lose that. So when you for districts that truly don't need it, great. But districts that have needs like ours, when you look at what that does over the course of 10 or 12 years, that's millions of dollars that you can never go back and get. So again, we talked about the cost of doing business goes up. Costs more to employ people. It costs more to heat the buildings. It costs more to do our transportation, everything. So to expect us to be able to do the book of business at or below what it was previous years is it's just kind of silly in my opinion. So kind of like a cost of living adjustment in a way.

089If there's no other questions, could we have the motion 7.1, please? >> I'll make a motion to approve the tenative tax levy as presented. >> Second. >> Did you say it? Okay. Second, >> yes. Esposa, >> yes. >> Trader, >> yes. >> Landers, >> yes. >> Reynolds, >> yes. >> Item 7.2. This is the tennis court property. Is there any more questions or discussion before we move to the next? >> Um, did we like finalize like the amount? Like I know they said that like these options off the table, but like like what amount of land like what like did we finalize that? >> So So I'm so so I'm going to say that nothing's been finalized. >> Okay. >> Right. And so really um and and the action item that would get approved tonight

090would be um kind of in concept. All of those negotiations still need to take place. an IGA would need to be developed um that would specifically lay out our continued access to it and usage of that land moving forward. And so so >> there's probably a whole bunch of legal paperwork still a ton of work there's still a ton of work [laughter] to be done but we're not going to do any of that work >> unless unless we [clears throat] know that this is something the board is going to do. >> Who would who um all that paperwork who's paying for that paperwork? Us or would the would reimburse us for that or is city paying for that? >> That's [snorts] >> it's a good question. Or or would we split the cost? I don't

091know. We haven't had any of those conversations. Um you know, it's the the only >> it it's not it's not going to be a huge legal bill. Um it'll it'll be a couple hundred bucks at most. Um and so most of that work I will do. Nick and Emily, the city, the three of us will put our heads together and get most of that done. But the proposal was still that triangle, right? The creek coming down. >> Yep. >> Corner. >> Correct. >> So then, but just to clarify because that's kind of what I just asked like so that if we vote on it, we're like deciding an amount or no? >> No. We're saying that we're interested in transferring the tennis court property and then when we get I'm assuming we have to add

092something more than just a pen drawing. It has to be official legal >> description description. >> Well, I just mean because like we have tossed around like we could do this much or just this much or you know what I mean? Like that was part of the conversation. So I just want to know what we're approving. So, so my my assumption moving forward is everything's out there. Um, if the board has wants me to work on something else, um, that that would be good to know. >> It could be as small as just the tennis courts. But then it they talked about putting in parking to accompany it. >> And is that the parking would be more to the >> north? >> It's the north. At one point there used to be >> it used

093to be gravel and asphalt back in the day. Back when Brenda's kids and I, you know what I mean? And it it was a gravel West is definitely what they want. >> Yeah. I don't I don't know that that the >> creek is just like just there, >> right? Because the creek is like right separates the edge of the parking lot and then >> main behind the stadium and the bleachers and then you got the creek. Here's a section of land. Tennis courts are kind of the back of that. >> Yeah. >> So, they put a parking lot between the creek and the tennis courts. So, there' be the tennis courts. There really wouldn't be a lot of like extra. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't do anything >> as long as it doesn't interfere with

094the shop. Correct. >> And that has been brought up repeatedly, you know. So, that would be a consideration >> because at one point there used to be asphalt and gravel there because that's where when teams would play and came and played or >> high schoolers drove their car over there after practice, that's where they parked was on that gravel and that asphalt because at one point it used to be asphalt and then you know then became gravel and so >> I think the only question that like if I remember correctly was one of the things we had said was like would the land on like more like further so bad with directions, but like next to the tennis courts and south like some of that land, but you can't really split it. >> Yeah, that

095would be the map. >> I'm trying >> and I >> took a little tour of the acreage we had the school and I was thoroughly surprised how much >> this is. Um I I basically thought we were a little beyond the playground equipment. >> That's how I I always thought that's all we had. >> No, there's a ton. >> I mean, you go across the creek and there's a whole big opening. So, I'm not worried about losing landal because we have plenty [cough] if we ever want to develop >> if we needed something like undeveloped. >> We have lots of space here on this campus. put something for an activity and then just huge over >> there was always an illusion we didn't have anything sorry >> it doesn't look I mean it doesn't look

096like it I think school so close to the road with the driveway you realize that it goes way back there. All right. So, pending more specifics around what the triangle is defined as, there are any concerns around the overall transfer of the tennis court property to the city >> because that's all the motion's asking for right now. So, I think we can be there and then provide >> the details. The details before there's any transfer. >> Okay. Could we have that motion, please? >> I'll make a motion to approve the transfer of the tennis court property to the city of Mandela. >> In a second. >> Second. Have >> a second. Roll call. >> Kumas. >> Yes. >> Reynolds. >> Yes. >> Landers. >> Yes. >> C. >> Yes. >> Trader. >> Yes. >> Espinosa.

097>> Yes. >> Rap. >> Yes. >> Funded in >> fund 11. Yeah. Um just just real quickly um >> are you ready? >> Yes. Go home. >> Okay. >> Bundle 11 historic. >> See you next week. See you next week. >> Yeah. >> Is is something that we've used as a as to to specifically track things that are leased. Historically, we'd have a lease levy as part of the local property taxes. have done that for years. Um there are things that people used to lease that they really don't do anymore. Um and so and B, there's really no such thing as 111. So we kind of created it on our own. And so um this is just a motion to abolish that and slide all of those um pieces back into front 10 for it

098to go. It's just it's just the Sure. To approve approve the abatement of fund 11. >> Yes. >> Trader. >> Yes. >> Cas. >> Landers. >> Yes. >> Reynolds. >> Yes. So, annually we have our school maintenance grant. Um, and so it's a $50,000 matching grant with the state of Illinois. And [clears throat] so, you basically have to certify that you're going to do um a $100,000 project. You have to put put in 50. The state will match your other 50. Um, we have u some floor work upcoming this summer that I've already started conversations with Jeremy WGman on um the end of the fifth grade hall and then in first grade as well. Both places are carpet that's in not so great shape. Both areas really need to be tiled. Um and at first

099you're like tile in first grade. The first grade teachers when principal Kelly was super excited about it. Um, and kind of historically, we've always had some um some minor humidity issues in the first grade wing and and the tile will really help with that as well. And so that's kind of the slated um it'll definitely be worth 100,000. You know, I guess be 150 or something like that. We will have numbers from from JRP Wegman yet. Uh but then this will certify that that'll be our project that our main go towards. Is it the all the first grade classrooms since that's the old? >> Yep. >> Okay. >> And all the eighth graders are home. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> We do it to ourselves. >> Feel free to go. Okay. >> I was just expecting

100to see him at some point and I never did. >> Probably lost the property in the back. [laughter] >> It's in the >> um Okay. So, and hopefully the state does it because you know one time like 12 years ago they approved all the maintenance grants for several years and never paid them out. But as long as it's work that we were planning on doing anyways and not the money that we weren't spending on spending, >> we're going to do this regardless >> works as a benefit. >> Yep. It's a part it's a part of our I don't know if you recall years ago we developed um a facility plan and it's in lock step. >> Perfect. >> Okay. >> I'll make a motion to authorize administration to submit the maintenance grant as presented. >>

101Second. Yes. >> Reynolds, >> yes. >> Sher, >> yes. >> Landers, >> yes. >> RA, >> yes. >> Um, okay. So, we have some discussion items. The library partnership. >> Yeah. I just wanted to um put it in front of you that had some great conversations um with um the director over the library. Um in the past, we have with a grant funding just to provide um library cards for non library resident families. That's the right way to say it. >> Um [clears throat] >> there you go. And so um >> and so we had had it. So um all you had to do was go and sign up and you got a basically a free library card. Um we we no longer have the ability um to do that. with the way our grants

102have dried up. U but we still want to make sure that especially our lowincome students that might be non-residents um can still go and get have access to the library. Um so the conversations that that I've had with the library is to how to make that happen and how to limit it to lowincome students. Um and so those those are the ongoing conversations. >> It would only be those that request it. >> Correct. >> Well, >> we wouldn't like buy them for everybody and then >> No. So So the so the way the the mechanism that we're looking at doing is when a student registers and we register them as um not some a student that doesn't have to pay fees because of their family's financial situation. Then as a part of the registration process,

103they would also get a certified certificate that says, "Oh, by the way, if you take this to the of course, if they're a non resident, um then then the student can take that that certified certificate to the library." >> So only be doing the ones that actually follow through and go to the library. >> Correct. And how we can I interject? >> Of course. You you know if you grants we simply if they would ask we would take their application write it down and issue them cards. We didn't you know everybody that came in we didn't say hey you want a free card you know we didn't do that because then on we don't want to give out cards. We want people giving the cards to actually use them. I mean, >> and um it

104worked really well. And the thing is we also, if you are out of district, it's $82 per family per year. >> Those of you that have property in town know that the taxpayers for the library district are paying a lot more than $82 per year to use the library. So, I know when we have uh would be patrons come in and we say, Let's say they live, you know, outside of Compton or West Brooklyn or something and they're like, you know, what does it cost for me to get a library card? And you say $82. Sometimes they're kind of like, oh, because they're they think that library should be free. Well, >> we got utility bills and we have to buy books, too. Um and we are facing with so many things the funding has

105been cut and um so this is I think the solution that you're coming up with is going to be very workable for a lot of our families. >> Yeah. And I don't I mean quite honestly I'd be stunned if we have two or three dozen kids that do this, right? But I would hate for any of our kids to not be able to continue to be a passionate reader just because their family doesn't have the the money to be able to get. >> So then we do we then we have something worked out because I know it would be per family normally, but if it's just >> per it'll be just this will be just for student. >> So it would be less than the family. >> Yep. And and we have not finalized any

106of those conversations to what that dollar figure is. You know, I'll be honest with you. I mean, this this isn't going to cost us $1,000, >> right? >> But I think it's I I I would I would I would hate for one of those kids to have that opportunity. >> Um, so I have a question alongside that. So, if a teacher in the building in one of the buildings has a um desire to get books from the library, she has to have a card. the individual teacher can check out those. We do not check out to the district or to a classroom. >> Okay. That's why I was just wondering because a lot of a lot of libraries and a lot of have where the district has a card that the district can >> But

107can a teacher that doesn't live here but teaches here in the district come get a card? Because I' I've seen that more than like a district card. I've seen like just using it for your classroom use. >> I don't believe so because laws have changed as far as the library being a taxing body and who we can exempt or who we can exempt from paying an out of district fee. I'm not quite, you know, I'm not an expert on that. That's not beyond my um what I do at the library, but I I know that changed have been employed there. But we used to have teacher cards. >> We do not have this anymore. >> Question. I know we used >> and maybe if it's not something that the library can just do. Maybe it

108can be part of the conversation at whatever that reduced rate's going to be for the student that also if we have teachers that feel like it would be a benefit to be able to use in their and then maybe the district works out the cost of >> Yep. We can have that conversation. >> We had teacher sales like we had we readed a ton of books in the children's section and we specifically invited teachers in to say hey come in if you need books for your classroom library or whatever please take you know take them all out here as many as you want. They were just library was just here right a couple days ago. >> Yes, they were. It's a great partnership. >> Wonderful. Thank you. >> Of course. >> Press policy 120. >>

109Um yeah, uh found it, emailed it to you today. Um printed you off a copy in front of you. Um nothing particularly um controversial. lots of updates on um you know uh immigration operations and safety, personnel issues, uh curriculum, attendance, student records. So if you get bored, we'll read through that the next month. You have a question, let me know. Otherwise, we'll have it as an action item. >> So is this considered first read right now? >> Yes, ma'am. So, um, will you actually read this one yet? Sometimes we highlight the changes, but you're saying that's what there wasn't a lot. Is it mostly? >> No. >> Okay, I'll read it. >> Yeah. And if um if there are a couple things that people want to go into greater detail on and we want to

110have another meeting in December, not adopt till January, >> whatever pace you want to do, that's >> we're pretty much like 100%. >> Correct. It's all developed by school association lawyers. >> Yeah, it's all developed that way. It's just sometimes a policy tells you you must have in plan in place a plan for blah blah blah. And so it's like we might pass the policy but then if we don't >> do the thing it just make sure we did our whole before we pass it. I'm always like I want to make sure that I like actually read that we >> for sure >> did what we said we were going to do. >> Okay. So if anyone has questions I'm pressed to bring them before next month. the association survey. Um yeah. Uh in in

111general terms um the you know the association every fall um does an anonymous survey with the teaching staff and um this last one was um sent to you. Just under 40% of our teaching staff submitted their response to the survey um to to try to make the information as um usable as possible to have as good communication as we can. Um I've already contacted um our association co-presidents. We're going to have a labor management meeting um in the near future as a followup to this to see if we can't um make some of this in a form that we can actually uh make some improvements off of with what our processes are. I did ask the question of did they at least ask which building because it the data set that we were given didn't

112break that down. They said they did. So that will help guide your conversation a little bit. >> Most definitely. Most definitely. >> Yeah. And uh from a number of from a building perspective um I think there were 10 respondents from Blackstone, 11 from 10 from >> What's our total staff? >> Think we have 7 staff and I think there were 31 respondents >> and you guys are going to be in December. >> That meeting date has not been set but it will be in the near future. >> Of course. you compare the previous survey to this one very similar. >> So the previous survey um last year's survey there wasn't one >> right I mean I remember >> and then and then the year before um I would say the survey results were significantly different

113That's what'll be interesting if you can look at it with them like building by building. I would want to make sure that like the two that were not expecting to see significant differences are trending positively and not seeing anything different. and then another one. I mean, it's hard to compare it if it was really really not great and it's really not great and you don't like it's hard to tell, but I think at least it gives you a baseline >> well >> to move forward. And it doesn't mean that you can't or we couldn't go back out to the teachers in the spring and say, "These were noted. This this committee met like here's where >> Yeah. If if if we're going to if if we're going to go through this process, then I think

114it's important that we meet with the association and to make it um a productive >> we do have a purpose for 9.1. Correct. >> That's that's up to the board. >> It's related to that. Correct. >> Correct. >> Yeah. I do think there were some questions that were to be discussed at executive. So >> unless anyone's opposed we could go into some greater detail around that >> forussel second. >> I'll second call. >> Yes. Yes. >> Spinoza. >> Yes. >> Trader. >> Yes. >> Landers. >> Yes. >> Sorry. Already shut. >> Okay. We are back in open session and in time to have a motion to adjourn. >> Second. I'll second. >> All in favor? >> Any opposed? All right, we're done. Anything Brad you would like to add in regards