001history teacher we good no she got yourass oh sorry I'm now we we call the meeting to order at 6:31 roll call please me US present R present Landers here C here Trader here sposa here Williams okay to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all the bread thing it's so we get donations um for the um blessings blessings yeah the backpack blessings and then when we go through the donations some of them food is expired and so we take that out so yeah sometimes people give it to animals like they're so that's why we leave it in here for the yeah we leave it in here for the teachers for whatever yes toast yeah so
002science experiment there you go there you go see we learn something new every day all right we have a motion to approve our regular meeting agenda please esposa yes cader yes Landers yes yes yes okay we have any visitors for this even comment okay good evening well thank you good evening to you too okay then could we have a motion to approve consent agenda please I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented 5.1 disposition of minutes for February 2025 5.2 payment of bills 5.3 District Treasures report 5.4 interest and activity fund report cafeteria report and 5.5 the Personnel report second Landers yes yes yes sposa tra yes do you still want to keep exact there or you want to it yeah we can move it back we have a motion to move
003item six to what like 9.4 um I would have it as um oh we need of that 8.1 right yeah it 81 I'll make a motion to move the executive session to prior to 8.1 Trader yes espa yes vanders yes R yes yes yes okay so moving on to 7.1 fo U none okay move to our North report fantastic so we have a lot of nor representation so just right hello I'm be the assistant principal here at Northbrook and I wanted to share you guys can look at the screen back there don't mind um just some things that we have going on here at North Brook some cool things that the kids are doing and just to share those things with you guys today um first is our student of the month program you can
004see all of the students that have received the award one of the things that we added this year was the signs for the yards which is really cool we actually saw one today um in a yard so kind of neat to see them out there um seems like the kids are enjoying it they get a certificate um they get a McDonald's um coupon as well it's really gone over going over well um Athletics uh you can see representation of all our sporting teams there um One new thing for this year is we started cross country in the fall um they had a pretty successful season uh we have the pulley cross cross town classic um where you can see one of thect where we donated um $1,000 to the food pantry here in L um
005as part of that activity um just some different things going on we had a sixth grade field trip um to a hockey game Halloween dress up uh the student council held a carnival um open to the public uh the kids had a great time at that staff giving some musical entertainment during the Lunch Period playing instruments um it was really cool the kids really enjoyed it um you see the prek kids coming over oper trick-or-treating on there the band and chorus um our enrichment program which each grade level has half hour of enrichment each day um you can see some other things the garden um the blender bike uh Sarah and Brandon we're a big part of that which is our latest addition to that program where the kids we will be making some fresh
006smoothies um with the blender bite there so that'll be interesting to see what that brings in April um uh fifth grade doing some a projects through their enrichment program um we also had the rubby Bridges walk to school day um lots of really cool things that are going on to egg drop um for eth grade um some really um awesome things going on within the enrichment program um in the classroom um we we added in our cross capat room Mr Dalton's room we have a student who is doing jokes on Friday um Emily CL Clark has kind of Spar had back for us uh we had our first joke I think this last Friday um went really well over the loud speaker reading them over the loudspeaker and so then the engagement part is then
007the other students when they see him they're like oh great joke like that's to get him his communication going so um it's it's been a lot of G it's really sweet they come around to us usually and we hear the jokes and they practice kind of the pacing of it um they also in that same class started a coffee cart and hot chocolate cart on Friday so staff can order a drink the kids deliver it um just kind of a neat program uh six uh sixth grade some science experiments that they're working on um our ad program working on some flower arrangements um we had a veteran a speaker come in and talk to the whole school um again led by Sarah hle sorry um Spartan smart this year um one of the things that
008um I thought was really cool was we did the dodgeball tournament this year um involved the kids we had about 74 kids participate um it was a great night um to see you know greats 5 through eight enjoying the same activity um it was definitely eventful and then those students students um just this past Friday had the ability to play a team of teachers so the two winning teams first and second place joined together and then they competed and we're happy to report that the teachers won um so that was pretty awesome the kids enjoyed that we have our Spartan smart assemblies uh we do one every trimester uh then we had like I said the one last right you can see the picture in the center where the kids are going over kind of
009those core values of that program um there was confetti cannons at the last one um it was it was pretty cool and then you can see some pictures of the kids we do weekly drawings on Fridays um with their smart and smart tickets um another thing to recognize obviously is those that have received recognition for their efforts um these are our eighth graders um Canon delao AA mfy Lumen Cel and mallerie Beck all receiving Awards um over the past few months and then obviously very proud of our staff I'm lucky enough to be part of the staff it's an amazing group of people to work with uh Megan gatsa the 40 under 40 award Paula Dy the IPA principal of the year uh Angela Kent and Jeff Strauss both the regional Office of Education excellence
010and education award and then Sarah hle um illo State Board of Education Award of Excellence and the ISU Legacy teacher award um super proud of all of them um for their contributions to our school Community um great people to work with and ask for a better team and then Paula is going to talk about school Improvement yeah so this is um we kind of wanted to throw this in we've been really raging our brains with trying to give kids as much homework help as we possibly can um we are just really finding that they're going home and they're doing extracurriculars they're doing a lot of things but the homework time isn't always there or they don't feel confident their skills to do their homework so um we do the after school program two days a
011week so during a school Improvement meeting um I think in maybe January February um it was talked about maybe maybe mornings would be more beneficial um our first bus arrives at about 7:21 is the first bus and they don't stop after that um so we started a Monday Wednesday Friday 72 5 a.m. till 7:55 a.m. there is one teacher in the fifth grade Hall one teacher in the sixth grade Hall and one teacher in the seventh and eighth grade Hall not mandatory um kids can just come in they can get help or they have just the time in a quiet room um the first day we announced it for a week before we started it um the first day I think we had maybe two kids in the second day it was like 10 in
012each room now they're full um and we have also so um we are in the hallways when they're sitting there we're like you have a missing assignment get in there like we are really finding the people that we have to um Monday Wednesdays and Fridays are just hustling to find those kids and look at those grades and go it's not going to hurt you 15 minutes you have that math assignment done before you walk into class um I think it's I think this is actually going to be more successful than the forced hour after school um they're finding this like a little bit more calm and inviting versus you have to stay because your grades are bad so um I will tell you the fifth grade room is the biggest one um for the fifth
013graders where they um run in and they didn't finish something and they want to finish it and then they go outside and they know they get to go run and play um so it has really I I can't tell you how successful this has been in a little bit of time that we've had it so um speaking of fifth grade um do you think maybe you can update a little bit on oh sure on just share what you think you is appropriate sure I'm just on the transition of going toart sure um so is inate that was like that that was a rough transition for me um so um next year for fifth grade it's going to look a little different it's going to be content Specialists just like sixth seventh and eth um so
014we talked about it with the teachers they were so on fire and on board we had originally thought we were going to slow roll this and take a year and plan it out they jumped at it fifth graders are ready they are it's the end of fifth grade is um they're too big for their desks and they're just like Rats on a sinking ship because they're in the same room all day with the same people and they are ready to move around our fifth graders already move around a lot more than most self-contained um schools classrooms do elementary um so they are used to that um we said to the teachers how how do you want this to look um we gave them a lot of choices um we know we're pretty sure we know
015who's going to teach what but there will be um due to the reading series they need about 90 minutes a day of reading it'll be split up into two groups so that they aren't in one room for 90 minutes so they will go twice to reading they'll go to math social studies science um PE explore it took us about three months to recreate our schedule because it didn't fit with fifth grade being self-contained with um teachers getting preps and team and um the explores and making all of that work so after about 3 months and a lot of people putting their eyes on it we've come up with a schedule we feel really confident about that probably won't work but we'll figure that out on day one next year um but we feel really good
016and really excited about it next Wednesday afternoon um Tyler Pearson I and Beth will be meeting with the fifth grade staff for a little afternoon problem solving they have a lot of questions I have a lot of questions what will this look like how will this sound um we feel like we are going to give fifth graders the best and the most to get them ready um and to to ease all of the transition issues that we have um and I I think that we couldn't have asked for a better team to kind of pilot this and again this is an uh this is one of the outcomes of Tyler Pierce he did some he did some deep Dives on some schools that were really high performing similar demographics to us um but reading a
017map through the roof and um when when he spent some time with with one of the schools in the south suburbs that that he's just ex excelling that was that was a big that was one thing that they kept coming back to they actually departmentalized down to kindergarten we're not talk about that but U but our thought was you know to departmentalize down some and so we'll have continued conversations with next year of what is that look like then at Lincoln does it go to Blackstone um just kind of have a lot of those internal conversations um like Paula said not something that we wanted to rush into but the fifth grade teachers were like let's go okay yeah it's honestly um they I was excited about it when I heard about it but I
018also was like okay let's toss it around when we talk to them and kind of the first few questions that came about you know you're thinking globally schedule is the biggest thing and they were just totally they are just I I don't even have words for how excited they are so um they're already prepping they're getting training in some curriculums um they're they're doing all of the um ground work to start next year so what okay so um I'm Sarah hle I think I've interacted with everyone in the room at some point um but I am eighth grade social studies and I'm Meg I'm the counselor also I know a lot of you um we run the career day together which was yesterday so we wanted to come and just kind of talk about what
019that looks like and all the organization that kind of goes into it um so that's kind of what this slide is here um there were roughly 270 students we take all of our seventh graders all of our eighth graders and we include the seventh and eighth grade Holy Cross students as well um this time we had 38 careers represented we supposed to 40 but there were some last minute cancellations and um some people not show up on time so that's how that went down um 47 speakers total um we start in the fall by giving out a a form for students to we have careers listed on it and students can go through and tally which ones that they would be interested in they picked 10 um we put a spot in there for them
020to write in sometimes if there's something that they want to learn more about that isn't on there and then we tally that and see what has the most interest um then after we kind of teir that down and figure out who we're going to reach out to then we go back to them um in January is that when we have them remember when we did that oh I remember so so we try to we try to manage all that and then still do our regular responsibilities throughout the day as well and so we we time that so that we could get their individualized selections um here's the curated list that we've prioritized give us your top 10 in ranking order we're going to try to hit your top six it doesn't always happen but we
021do our best and so we we got that right before Christmas that's right and we have that two that two week downtime where we just kind of back and forth a little bit and we're like what works what doesn't what does a again the master schedule rules everything and so how can we make this into a master schedule yeah um and we go in there like into the classrooms and just tell them like Pick 10 um obviously you top six are the ones you for sure want but pick four more that you'd still be interested in so that way if you can't get your top ones you're not bmed um you know with whatever else that you are getting um and then we keep that too because sometimes students like I didn't get what I
022wanted we're like oh this is what you picked and they're like oh they forgot you know um but um do you want to talk about the other part the years of career day sure they data share sure um so we create the master schedule um en Richmond RTI did a lot of the physical groundwork of 270 individualized cards and then the students rotated to their individual schedules yesterday with the half day it worked out really well we feel but we have feedback from presenters from teachers and from stud Nots that we haven't gotten to yet but it's there it was just yesterday so it's okay yeah um and so um Megan and I have done this I believe our first one made in 2015 2017 2017 okay so we run every other year because it
023is an undertaking um and so we have eight years of data that we've gathered through each one of these events and so then um the city of mota with their the grant that they you know do all this Outreach and activities said what can you tell us about career interests in kids largely they went to the high school and then the high school referred to us and said they also have something that they're doing as well and so um we pulled the data that we've kept in our Google Drive um for I said here's eight years like you can analyze it for Trends and patterns we haven't gotten that deep into it um so um Annie short with um city of mota took that and said it's going to help us and she was able
024to kind of aggregate it into well this is the freshman sophomore group I can tell this is my juniors and seniors they're going to be aging out um you know and so she said it will help them in designing what they're trying to do with a summer um career program to get kids into businesses and there's unfortunately a group of kids at the high school who didn't get this because of we had it all set but it was March 2020 so we C had to shut it down the first year that we did it together um we did it in the fall but we had several presenters say we give them the evaluation form and one of the things is was this an okay time is there a better time and several people said spring
025um one of them being the um Illinois Department of Natural Resources and they have a really cool educational trailer that they bring that the kids really love so we wanted to continue to invite them um anding better too so that's why we switched it over to the time question oh I think there's another slide pictur oh yeah these are the pictures I I'm going to I'm going to interject yesterday was high energy and so much fun the kids have a ball and they have their lanyards with their schedule they know where to go it's all different people in the building they are engaged they are excited um it was so much fun the um the conservation guys pulled around back in the morning before school and started unloading right at the fifth grade playground and
026it was like the kids were so excited as they were get all their equipment out it was hilarious it was it was just an amazing day and so that's the slide in the bottom left hand corner upper left was graphic design the kids got to manipulate and modify uh the McDonald's logo what would that look like um the upper right is the rer um it's Ali Ray boy from City of minota she does the grant writing she also was just recently elected to the county board so she had that kind of also background pull from bottom left was DNR and they're always very generous and very helpful and then that middle one there um I can't the doctor oh doctor yeah uh so in this instance that's Dr uh Marissa estr O'Brien um a lot
027of our presenters are former North Brook students we we didn't have time we wanted to acknowledge them with a special badge but um a lot of our former students that have gone on to be really successful um at black brothers or the floor is um or in this instance the doctor um we invited um Matt is a meteorologist um out in the Quad Cities and he really wanted to be here but because of the weather yesterday he had to cancel however he did record himself um he had a presentation recorded himself and I did talk to a student today that said that was their favorite session even though he wasn't there in person so that was pretty exciting and then the bottom right hand corner is just recognizing um sixth grade um student volunteers and
028helpers uh they were our Runners escorts um whatever we needed and they would guide our guests down and yeah welcome our guest take them to their location help us anything we help with so as a parent I Heard lots and lots and lots about it good that's what we want all hyped up so awesome thank you for that awesome the yeah so we had um um our initial health insurance committee meeting um with uh Wendy s g and you know it's just continuing the conversation insurance rates are going to go up again um hopefully not like they did last year but still significant you know we're still probably looking you know 10 12 14% somewhere that um neighborhood depending on exactly what the renewal looks like um which you know 10% for us is under
029$200,000 and so talking about significant you know amount of money and so um so then we should get our renewal um about the third about the thir week in April so we have another meeting set for right after spring break and then um by that time we should have renewal um our broker is going to look into um other carriers to see if we can you know leverage some other carriers against Blue cost Shield um you know continue to look at um Poss joining Cooperative to not only stabilize our rates along term but also having being in a Cooperative is the only way that we can U be in that we can have Blue Cross Blue Shield and have cvsn network of course that's huge for M that's what we have great um so just
030continuing those conversations also looking at at adding um a second plan um to our to our overall offerings and so just lots of lots of really good conversations um kind of in combination with that um we're trying to add something every year to kind of ramp up you know Wellness offerings for our staff and so um at the end of April we're going to have a uh a biometric a biometric screening on site and so anybody who is well actually any staff member if you don't if you don't take the insurance and there's a fee for it um but the high school has done this every year for years and it's very successful and so um every year you you come and if if you have Blue Cross Blue Shield there's no charge and it's
031a it's a fasting 7 point blood draw biometric screen so it gives people constant consistent data on their health um a lot of people don't utilize their their annuals jacket so um really hoping to promote that um you know we might do a few things that kind of incentivize that but just just to try to get people to think about their help so we'll continue those conversations so you said about the BC screening is that going to be like one of like in one of my previous was one of the steps that each year you had to do the bi you do not no you're okay like we had to do it as one of the steps in agreement they like aggate data common findings you know I don't think so just would be nice
032to be able to know like you said we want to do something different every year like if if physical exercise is something like maybe we work with a local gym to help break down rates or you know that looks like yep I like all those conversations so whatever primary concerns are yeah if we can if you know this the biometric screen is something that we can put in place and do annually and then you know next year we'll have conversations about putting something else in place and then next year so just kind of build on what that program looks like great I love it okay so now we will need to call for um our executive session motion to go into executive session for the purposes of student discipline and thank you 658 she's right
033behind you gles all right resuming we Sorry motion for the milk rate increase unless anyone has any questions was in the US yes rers yes C yes Trader yes SP the meeting dates for 26 is that it was in proposal it's the same other than switching that the one for thee correct question concerns about the schedule we have a motion for that please make motion go ahead I to approve meeting dates foros yes yes excitingly could we have a motion for Reemployment of first second and third year teachers I'll make motion to uh approve the Reemployment of first second and third year teachers as present Trader yes C yes Spinosa yes commas yes R yes commers yes even more excitingly could we have item 8.4 granting the 10e status for our fourth year teachers I'll
034make a motion to approve the granting of 10e support to your teachers as presented second yes Landers yes yes Traer yes congratulations to those teachers and we'll move on to item 8 five action item please bus suspension I'll make a motion to approve the Student Bus suspension as present Landers yes Trader yes yes yes 8.6 our agreement with fly Food Services any questions motion please to approve service agement for yes1 future yeah as I put in my update um just kind of an awareness of you know um we've heard a lot of things in the news lately right um with respect to what's going on the federal level with respect to what's going on at the state level um really starting to hear some conversations now about some state level corations um just want to
035make sure that everybody is kind of at least it's in the back of your mind about how that might impact us really right now as it sits the conversations that are happening with federal government um really probably don't have the potential to impact us here um nearly as much really U when you look at our big Federal sources our title sources or idea special education sources um those were revenue streams long before there even was a Department of Education right and so if by some odds set of circumstances there truly is no Federal Department of Education most people would think that those Reven sources continue to flow in a similar fashion to they did before so really when you talk about Federal funding you're talking about some of the I'm going to say lesser kind
036ofil like eate um I don't know if you remember but a couple years ago we actually connected our um buildings so all of our main networking U functionalities here at North Brook and we actually ran fiber from North Brook to Lincoln and from North Brook to Blackstone probably A2 or $300,000 project and we were able to fund it all through I think we end up paying like eight grand or something said and so we don't have fit through EAP that much that often I think last summer we probably we probably um I don't know probably between 30 and $40,000 worth of hard order we were able to get at a much discounted rate because of e rate and connectivity that deals with that um that that very well could be a funding source that goes
037away um over the next few years there's a Medicaid reimbursement through the federal government that you know 75 80,000 a year that has a good chance of of going away and so yeah at the end of the day in a whatever $16 million budget $75,000 not is going to break the bank but none of those things help right any any loss and revenues is not the state funding uh is really where it gets you know a little more precarious it's the something back up so when you look at the main Revenue sources from the state there's there's what used to be called General state aid I called that CU I'm um but now it's called evidence-based funding evf and so in the last four five six years there's been a significant amount of money been
038put into that we've actually moved into tier two um which is which is the tier one is the lowest level where the tier one districts get the majority of the money and so we've we've seen far less increases in that um evf funding I think this year we got an extra $112,000 compared to last year and that Revenue stream is close to $4 million so $112,000 it's not a lot um so even even if they slow down on the amount of new money that's getting put into evf that really doesn't seem that will all that much um they are talking about PR rating some of the categorical grants like special education transportation that will have the that could impact us a little bit I mean you know tens of thousands of dollars here here or
039there where we will most likely be most significantly impacted and um one of the old kind of tried and truths in the world of finances when when the economy and when funding are when everything's really going well that's when you have lots of Greening opportunities right so right now this year we're going to have you know $170,000 in a school Improvement Grant we're going to have whatever the number is $45,000 in a better connections Community Grant we're going to have a $100,000 in um a teacher vacancy Grant right and so as our state as we have the possibility of the state budget getting worse that kind of $400,000 that we this fiscal year those are the places that we're probably most likely going to feel um kind of this turn you know they don't the
040state budget hasn't been finalized none of that's been set none of that's written in stone we don't know we're going to get not going to get U but I just kind of want to put those things on on that radar um the good news is that with kind of the the overall funding model that we have in place uh we should be able to weather we should be able to weather all long as you know pay attention and the state already I mean they're talking about PR rating the pration like we're already prated yep yep we're already more so we owe you a dollar we're paying you 7 cents on it right now we're going to drop that to 59 cents so but there's a multibillion dollar deficit in the state of yeah as they
041look at next year's fiscal budget it looks good all right well let's talk about something more exciting my student achievement yeah no um no for sure um I I gave everybody this U little print out I kind of alluded to it at the last meeting um but just just these are U our fast Bridge uh second through eth grade uh benchmarking scores and the top line is reading and just as a refresher when it comes to fast Bridge 60% is kind of the number that we been shooting for and that's the national average right if you look at the demographics that we have um if we can if we can obviously that not where we stop but it would be a really good Target and something that we that we've been trying to to get
042to um and if you look at reading before Co almost there right um our winter Benchmark in 19 we had 59% of our kids um who were either at low risk or college pathway um and so then Co came in and we we went down to 48 and 21 and so we've continued to come back up since then now now we're we're at 52 we're starting to put some new reading curriculum in place and put um new reading supports in place and so we're we're very optimistic that will continue to Trend upward as well um the bottom line there is math and if you look uh at math this most recent winter of 24 Benchmark uh grades 2 through eight we were at 54% which is the highest we've literally ever been um in that
043so so if you look at um winter of 19 right before Co math was at 50 um and then the next highest was last year 48 and so again year before last we implemented a new math curriculum implemented that with Fidelity lots of supports lots of training and so um you know this is I think this is really good data that says yeah we're not you're never there right but we are definitely G momentum and definitely heading in the right direction so a lot to celebrate is there any specific like gr that isn't like the County Board is pretty much positive gain all the I didn't even ask her to say that um so so one of so one of the things that um you know I was able to go and again thank you
044you know for um having me go allowing me to go to the National Conference just so amazing you come back with so many ideas so um reinvigorated um I got talk to a lot of really crazy smart people about um being able to really and pull your data apart to really um disaggregate it to look at every level not not only what individual what students are doing what are the individual classrooms are doing grade levels buildings the district how does it all work together um there are there are some some districts in the area um more Elementary even lad is doing some really good things um with some data partners and so Tyler Pierce I spent some some time this afternoon um talking with with somebody who we think is really going to be able
045to to dive in and use our fast bridge data to to um to allow us to to take that data and have it be predictive and say this is where these students are and then when they when they do or don't end up that way then to be able to really drill down and see you know which teachers are doing great ulate what those teachers are doing um and then which teachers need more support which grade levels need more communication and so um so yeah so erra is the group and you know we're going to start that relationship here um in the coming month and obviously there's a cost with everything but if you think about the last three years we probably spent pretty close to half a million dollars in and so um it
046it seems what's that what is the yeah so that so the annual cost the cost the finish this year is is $2,000 the annual cost um for a district car size it's probably going to be between 15 and 18,000 year um and again if you're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars that you're spending it's that's that seems like money we all spent to be able to really drill down and to be able to see you know where where we can things around to make even more successful really excited about thatp yeah you I mean like if they you know I mean so it's a per student cost and if we added the high school toer right like oh well it is workes high school different the we pull so much dat from we have
047to take but we also know that as they kids take them less seriously because they don't matter to them how can we get that company to work with us and find the real data is there a way to do that yeah I mean we're going in for each teacher and each child and know AC it more than just standardized testing right don't they bring in grades and state tting yep yeah it will be multip lots of data points it should be more accurate right right the longer that you have a system like Fast Bridge um what's interesting is like when we have student move in and they've been using map or in web or whatever get all of those records and then they take one fast Bridge test it's hard to compare and look at
048their data what they're looking at what we're looking at um but when you have the kids who have been here since we've had fast Bridge um it is just a beautiful beautiful graph to look at of where they're going and what they can do and um but it's that consistency with your testing system that really um I when I pull my data I have outliers and it's exactly what you're talking about where I can see like you were at 62% nationally now you're at 3% what are you doing you know come on you know we will reopen that test and put that kid back in um and I'll be like do you want to be an outlier of your whole life no um so you know we have those conversations but the data allows us
049and we're also small enough to really sift each kid um and and to be able to have those conversations so um nobody wants to have that conversation in my office yeah the other part of it is that um very often if if students don't do well on their fast Bridge benchmarking then they get pulled for additional supports so so we can make sure that they have those those reading and math skills and then when we the time we is opposite en richment time and so and so and so it's it's very much an incentive for them to do well to try on those fast Bridge schoolers to then be able to to be pulled out into the enrichment and they're made aware that that's a possibility before taking that yeah we are we have very
050good conversations about fast bridge when it's coming and what what it's for and um the difference between enrichment tier two tier three classes and you know um what your capable of and where you have to be and so they understand yeah you you hope yeah you know that's you you hope that they you know that this is where they want to be and enrichment classes have really helped us in the sense of it's a huge motivator for a student because they're they're really engaging classes and so it's a huge motivator for kids so so so the so the answer your question is we hope to be better at being able to find that data so I saw a really cool data set at something I was attending recently where in a school they had a
051wall like this and the oldfashioned little library card things you know you would slide into like you would have they had the whole wall of those one for every child and the kids picture was on the front of it and it was such a cool way to humanize data and as they progressed from this like at risk you could see like where the you know they they had maybe put in some additional support as a staff they celebrated as they moved them like up and if somebody moved back then it was like well what what are we doing what additional things and I just think being able to look at data less as percentiles and more as kids and you mentioned more small like being able to have those moments with your teams to celebrate
052when you're able to to move people forward and when those things are really having positive impact that was to me that was very powerful to walk in and see sometimes lose the the person behind the percentage a little bit I think data is a um it's an interesting thing I think um I can speak for North Brook and say that it wasn't so many years ago that we would take fast bridge and they would wait for me to come in and tell them what kids were moving where now there are three conversations prior to any kid moving anywhere um I'm having one with the interventionist over the data I'm having one with the team I'm calling parents um I'm talking to the kids there's a lot of conversation before anybody's moving um and now the
053teachers have they are looking at those charts because they want to see where they're at um it's and so it's become you you have to engage everybody positively with data because it it isn't for everybody um so it's really important to have like a group effort on it student fees sent us some of that but yeah so that's you know that's just what the what the conversation is um you know it it does it's again it's a revenue stream for us um but for some reason and it hasn't been like this in previous years but for some reason a significant portion I would say at least a third of our parents who are I'm going to say eligible to pay fees just aren't paying fees um you know we have last year I think our
054our Revenue was were ,000 and we already know that we're more than $20,000 short on what fees should be paid so so I I know that the high school hasn't had registration fees or activity fees for years we talk about this a little bit last year how do they have that do not remember they voted they voted not and we look at what the facility expenses we it's a lot more expenditures from that and it's three buildings versus one building there's just some fixed expenses I think about Mon Mon a little B tighter I what can you tell us like what measures have been taken when someone does have a fee and they haven't paid it so um monthly bills go out um here's I think I brought this honestly to bring attention the most
055impactive people are eighth graders because they can't walk on the stage if fees are paid and so um it's super frustrating for everybody it's frustrating for my office um it's frustrating for parents and it's a pressure on a kid um and so I will tell you that it is the technology fee it is extracurricular fees um and in general maybe a registration fee but what happens is parents don't care and they just keep rolling it over and so that first day e8th grade year we are on them and we were like look it you have all these fees and it's added up since kindergarten and so we're not talking about $35 we are talking about $800 $1,100 um we have some parents who just roll from one kid from kindergarten a to the next kid
056kindergarten a to the next kid to the next kid and kid number four has a $2,800 Bill and so that's the kid that's not going to walk across the stage and so there's a lot of um for me personally just tremendous sadness about this and I understand it all I pay my bills so I understand this it's really frustrating and hard um and this year for whatever reason our eighth graders have a Hu it's out it's huge um and it isn't that we haven't contacted them the bills haven't been sent all of that is taking place um throughout the year so um I I don't have an answer and I it having kids is not free and I I understand all of that I just um it doesn't affect anybody except for northw in the
057eighth graders honestly everybody else just they just keep moving up and on um with that fee or that debt until the next year and it just continues so um I take it personally because it it just kills me and we have just learned over the years day one of eth grade year we get those bills out we make those phone calls if it's over so much we are making sure to make those personal phone calls um you know I I don't I don't have an answer we did have number of years ago conversations with like a collection agency i' I've gone that route we that we did talk and I don't think that it was necessarily that 100% had to be it's it's are there payment plans is there a settlement is do to get
058something from people so we calculate um when we get to eighth grade year for the bigger um Debs um and we calculate weekly you know $2 a week $6 a week um you know we have a parent this year who had a kid last year and their bill was over $1,000 last year they said roll it we said this is what we want you to do you know I just I don't love that it's all falling on you and I don't know that that's the answer is don't charge fees I'm wondering if like our internal process needs a stronger examination because I think there could be those same phone calls and those same 25 cents a week versus $6 a week like I I mean rolling and and then the fourth kid I want to
059do everything we can to keep it away from the kids 100% um I agree with you and so if that means we go a collections route so it's going to be the the parent that has the repression and not the student then I I'm 100% in favor of that I know that the notet looking across the stage thing is it's just an internal thing that we're doing we can't truthfully withhold anything from them it's not a a diploma or a transcript or any I mean you can't do that anymore so it's just like lunch bees kids can rack up a lunch bill of $2,000 and you still have to let them J they want to J and these These are truly technology extracurricular and registration are the three um and if you just let it
060rack up all those years you know and then you keep pouring it down from Kid to Kid to Kid um what I don't understand are the extracurricular fees I mean that isn't a half to say so I so I'm going to tell you we don't really have that anymore because we're really good about getting those before um at this point the extracurricular fees that are sitting on there from before we were so strict about it um and I have a kid now I think with extracurricular fees that are from siblings this kid has never done extracurriculars so but it's sitting there as an extracurricular because we have to sort you know our money I guess I didn't realize you could just pass the fees to another I feel like that should not yeah it's it's
061it's a it's a horrible um Flim Flam shim sham yeah to get a kid to walk across the I don't think we should do that I that's an internal process I guess I didn't realize we withholding that I I I'm not in support of that at all it's not the child's fault that their parents are not paying their bills and we offer payment plans we offer SK we offer it doesn't make a difference right but that's why I say I think the leverage has to go after the parents that's why when we work at the agency before and you're starting to get certified letters showing up house and you're starting to get settlement offers it's just like you don't pay your credit card it's going after the adult as opposed to going after the child
062right how embarrassing is that for them well it's it's it's almost nerve-wracking I don't even know if they know that's embarrassing as much as like it's something I want to participate in I deserve I've earned right but I even meaning like if that follows through afterwards like I just feel bad well I know I know you do yeah my other question is how many how many how many students that had fees or still have fees on the book because I understand like people that have transferred and you know owe money for whatever how many is it that have left the district also do we have a lot that have left the district I'm just you know I mean because I couldn't possibly why didn't I go through the school like collecting the fees is that
063could that be Less on the individual school and more in the district yeah it seems weird that like a principal would be the one great about like sending out the bills for registration fees and stuff each school yeah each school office handles theirs and they're I also I've never heard of like the passing to a sibling and then like a student being withheld from participating in something when thee was a different two kids coming you can be racked up with $5,000 fine like I know stay on the parents like as a family you owe XYZ but I would hate that I love I I'm 100% in favor of whatever you can do to take it away from the kids and not withhold you know not with anything from the student experience except for like you
064said the extracurriculars if if you're going to participate in we are very I I have really just um kind of put my foot down about that the last couple years we like youve got to pay before we we can't keep adding more of them and and yes the fees might be a prior might be their cing but it's still on that account so I sure curricular is like even if you're like say Teresa's my sibling and she didn't have it paid then I'm sorry you don't get to plug you know what I mean I I don't like that it's it's the adult's problem it's not that students problem I think we have to make adult problem adult problems and kid problems kid problems and I I went through this round and round before and that's
065why I I would be in full support of whatever you can do to I I don't I think saying we're not going to collect anything in the same meeting where we just said we're facing potential Cuts left and right is not a smart decision but I do think that putting the responsibility on the parent and taking it away from the child is I'm super in favor of that I also feel that the principles should be more the accon level just because say you have bad feelings or bad juju with the admin you're counting as you're completely a different voice I haven't heard before that I might respond yep I'll tell you what I do I will I'll sit down and we'll review some procedures and I'll re back some well and how many also here's
066the other question many are those are also student fees you know that it might be a sibling but they did three Sports you know when do we also go back to what we talked about last year of having a flat fee no matter how many activities that they participated in which is becoming you know is that part of it too yeah it doesn't sound like now extracurriculars are well that's the nice part about working with an agency whether it's a collection agency to it is a lot of times they'll say look we we know this is six years old of cumulative whatever the district's not going to collect any by itself but maybe we can work out something with them where we collect 30% of it and at least then you can wrp books and
067we can like yeah catch back up again and not be trying to collect on 12 years ago is dead yeah and and back to your point uh you know you're exactly right when you know in again in my experiences um when you get to that point and there is you know a heavy or a collection agency or what that's always the same that part of it is again not to relationship I think I think the the building level has enough with new curriculums and you know staff and stuff like that that they they shouldn't have to be worrying about tracking down registration and fees like I think that's yeah that's not you know if it's where they ruin a device and it's $250 yeah maybe the administration can say Hey you ruin this device you
068don't get another one until but then I think it's all back down to the district level whether that puts more on the district um but I don't think I think Paul's got enough you know stace's got enough I I don't think that if we I don't think it's like a work overload I think it's an emotional overload more equals initial speaking out of ter the initial registration fees it's probably fine to do that but then this balance at the end of each year that's doesn't like each year the balance unpaid by the end of the school here should go to our other officer collector and not fall on our building that sound I also don't love it you said it's an emotional tool and I think that makes it harder the more that you know
069about a kid oh I you know there situ it just it just adds to that it makes it harder and harder to me it is we um we ring our hands in our office every day from now until the last day so can we like give you the directive right now that like that's not on the table for this year like nobody's not walking because of like discipline yes but not in grades yes but not parenes like I anyone disagree with that I don't disagree with that because if we're going to look into other alternatives to collect something that will just be taken care of on its own is there is there a way like in East to have a set like an automatic payment like monthly payment they have automatic for like I think
070they pay through the I think I think they pay through teir yeah but they have like an option like to be like an automatic withdrawal oh I don't I don't know about that I hate that has $5 a week thing you don't want to pay I say I purp like hate that extra fee even if it is only a small and I will send a check and I hate checks but I hate that Fe more yeah so there are third party like pay services too like I wonder if looking into something like a lesser there's one through the state of Illinois that's a lot yeah but I don't think I agree with Teresa we we shouldn't hold any congratulations so we clear on that good that officially you just told me what I need yeah
071it's not a policy it's just a procedure just set something up and let us know follow up follow up thank you very much yeah you're welcome thank you us um not accurate if you're just pushing it all know what they have now kindergart what is what's the fees right now as a kindergart and families might qualify for few waivers one year and then not the next year you know I mean yeah um and then um if we're if we're good there um and then the only other thing that I have got to mention earlier um if you're available um put on your calendar for May 30th that's our last day of um um it's our it's our last day we're GNA we're going to have oh when is promotion May 22 can you open your
072phone and make sure May May 22nd 6:00 at the high school there we go I would not be I know you got it two in one week if you could email me and let me know if you're coming just so that we can make sure that we have the appropriate setup perfect I I know I I know on the 30th what was that it was a lunch yeah so so we're at the we're at the golf course again um so lunch will be in individual buildings but then we'll meet about 10:00 out at the out at the golf course and we'll have um a program where we you know celebrate retirees and you know talk about a few different things then we'll have a lunch in out there and then anybody who wants to stay
073and uh play Golf the district will pick up the cost of your golf and it's fun golf is we have a a couple of ladies who put together fun little games on on how to you know you like you throw football off the first te and do something with the tennis ball yeah it's just fun so if you're available please come and hang out and time I did put a bug in Mr M's ear about and I don't know PA like care if we talked about this about the idea of having something we talked about it at the last promotion ceremony but like having some sort of symbolic when they come up on that stage their North for students and when they leave their high school students and it's pretty cool that it's in the
074high school building and like so talk to him about maybe the high school he said they love the idea of having a something that they give them when they walk out that stage to kind of like BL them into the Trojan Community kind of have more of like a community I like Bridge it's almost like a bridging right like from one to another just kind of a cool yeah I don't know when we were sitting there last year I'm like it's really cool that they walk up here as one and they walk off as something different so maybe Mr mine should shake their hand I yeah I think that would be really cool on the other side on the other side you can shake them she pushes [Applause] [Laughter] yours but it is it's Unique
075I mean we are very unique in this state that we have the same kids I mean in a lot of districts where High School is different it's because they're coming from multiple theater districts really we're one Community with the same kids progressing through and I think anything to kind of visualize that is is a NE opportunity cool anything else motion to adj 7:43 make a motion to adjourn at 7:43 p.m second in favor post than