001e e test one two three test one two three test test one two three test one two three test test one two three test one two three test test one two three test 789 would you say t he's trying to see how it sounds on our live stream oh join him test 78 test 78 n you sure e e e yeah what's the weather outside e e e welcome to Jerry's cafe we are a destination Cafe and we offer craft food and beverages meaning we make everything fresh on site when you order and all of our food and our beverages are prepared and served by adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and then lastly just say the name Tom here you go enjoy my favorite part of working at jerus Cafe is definitely interacting with
002friends I've met throughout the years and the expressing machine my co-founder Amy Philpot and I opened Jerry's cafe for job opportunities and staggering statistic tells us that 80% of adults with disabilities are unemployed I believe differently and this is the place where our employees can work and feel proud and contribute and can see that they have value and purpose and they are given the responsibility that anyone would be given in a job and we expect nothing less than them to perform at their highest level so we see great success in every single employee and their Independence and their offerings and activities here at Jerry's cafe the large hot white chocolate pumpkin pie with whipped cream it is to die for it is delicious it's amazing well the uh favorite part of uh working here um
003uh is that I get to serve customers my am a cashier they understand to include people with us with exceptionalities I wanted to tell you I've been watching you today you're really good at your job you're doing I always I always like to serve customers customers go first we are super proud of our partnership with district 214 District 24 has been a supporter from the very beginning of our foundation and several of the schools have done fundraising and helped us get our doors open to Jerry's cafe proudly we have 12 or 13 graduates from district 214 schools who will work at Jerry's cafe as our active employees this is where we do our sell prep this is where we make all the salads and then over here is the sandwich Line This is where we
004make all of our sandwiches I have worked here since day one I love it here I love my supportive team members and I like serving customers here is one chicken Min trinian trip salad we know that our community members have lots of choic but we're hoping that you will come and choose Jerry's cafe you when you come inside and engage with our employees you feel a sense of joy and you will start your day feeling the best way that you can with a joyful heart and knowing that Jerry's cafe has provided you with delicious coffee breakfast or lunch [Music] all right Welcome to our 55th year of putting together an incredible community service project through our SOS class here at John hery high school as you can see around me it is organized chaos but
005it is an incredible day for our students to serve our community by packaging and collecting food that's going to be going to local food pantries in our area to support those in need we're really happy to be able to do the food drive here at hery because it really just brings the whole school together and we are able to help our community and bring the energy with everyone here take it out for the past I would say about two months we've been kind of working together with SOS Junior leaders baseball and we've all gathered together we've done bag in tag with L different communities and we've all come together and it's really amazing to see the turnout and then later on we're going to be visiting eight local food pantries and it's really exciting we're
006just thankful for everyone who helped each other along the way it's been really fun it's a team effort but it's been so fun Prospect marching nights are heading to DC we're in Washington DC Prospect marching kns were invited to travel to Washington DC this year for Veterans Day so we're taking the band out um to our nation's capital we're going to do some great tours of some of the monuments and the museums and a lot of the sites of DC um but it all culminates with performances on Veterans Day um so we've been working really hard to prepare and we're so excited for our students to have this opportunity throughout the trip we had a few opportunities uh where veterans would actually see our group of students out out and about and spoke to our
007students um so in addition to uh tour dur ing these places our students were able to actually interact with a number of veterans over the course of the trip which kind of made everything a little more real and genuine and authentic so our first day in DC was really impactful and gave our students sort of a big picture overview of the city and some of the history and really set the stage for our performance day coming [Music] up so on Veterans Day our morning started off with a performance at the Lincoln Memorial there we were right on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial facing the Washington Monument just a really special opportunity for our students to have a a really great place to perform it was an honor to perform on the steps of the
008Lincoln Memorial with the pmk where so much of America's history has taking place the experience was very impactful for me it was a unique opportunity that I have never had before and it was something that I will cherish for the rest of my life one of our students Emily Pollock was also asked to deliver a speech at the Memorial I've always wanted to help people so I'm going to serve my country more specifically I want to become an officer in the military Her speech was really wonderful and got a really great reception at the event in fact after the event was over I had a number of veterans come track me down to tell me how great her speech was and actually they wanted to meet her and take pictures with her because they were
009so moved by what she had to say my father served in the Navy and so he instilled me like the value of um serving and caring for our vet those who serve us and so being able to thank them today and uh Place medals around their poision and welcome them home was really impacted for me as well United States Miracle it was an honor to play at the World War II Memorial today it was such an honor because music is a way to share emotions without using words our performances in DC got a lot of really good responses um one of them a story was told to me by one of our chaperons that there was literally um a marine veteran vetan who was at our performance at the Evo gima Memorial who was literally
010in tears watching the performance and just Express to our chaperon how much it meant to him that this group of teenagers from from the Chicago area had come out there and was was performing um and he was just really moved by it and uh I thought that was just a really neat neat story to hear coming out of the the performance so any trip like this uh takes a lot of time and energy to put together I feel really fortunate that our school was very supportive of this endeavor we had a bunch of parents who traveled with us and did anything they could to make this a great experience for our students um I'm so glad we were able to bring our students to DC uh Veterans Day seemed like a perfect time to bring
011them and uh it really just in the end I think the whole trip turned out really really great and I'm so happy we were able to make it [Music] happen we're super excited to have the 911 never forget mobile exhibit here at hery high school as the truck arrived we had hery Parents out front with some patriotic balloons we had hery students lining the the sidewalks we had some you know many American flags like they would show on the honor flights the spirit was high good morning I'd like to welcome you to the Stevens Siller tunneler Towers mobile exhibit we have a 5050 foot trailer approximately 1100 s ft exhibit we travel our nation to commemorate the the brave sacrifice of the firefighters police officers that gave their life that day in the greatest rescue
012and Recovery effort in our nation's history the reason we're here is at Hershey High School to come educate our youth uh on the happenings of that day but also the the happenings of the days after and to let them know that it was a huge tragedy it was a single largest loss of life day we've ever had it was also the lar largest rescue we've ever had as well but just all the good that has come from that tragic day and they they're going to learn things that they they can't read about uh they're going to hear stories that some have never been told some have been told many times Steven Siller was uh one of the 343 firefighters that died that morning he was getting off duty that morning he's going to play golf
013with his older brothers heard the plane stru heard on the news that the plane struck the building around drove back to his Firehouse squad one located in downtown Brooklyn they had already been dispatched to the disaster he got his gear drove his own truck to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel where he dawned 60 pounds of beer Ran 2 and a half miles through the tunnel mustered up with the rest of the firefighters and gave his life that day honoring his oath that he took to protect life and property so this is about remembering so we want people to remember obviously for adults to remember and for the kids to learn so we don't this forgotten it's not taught in most schools in in America and they have the privilege of talking to people who are there
014you know we can't talk to people who are in the Civil War or these other moments in American history but they can that idea is pretty special thanks for having us and this means more to us than you this means a lot to these kids and these kids would be great they're very respectful they listen it's uh it's nice it's nice to see a special thanks especially to the fdm crew to the Sila Foundation to journey home to district 214 to all of hery I I'm grateful for everybody a special shout out to Bill Dustin for the for the magic Spirit special shout out to Chief Harris All Height police the coolest part about this project was there's like a whole bunch of people that were on it and did it it wouldn't happened without
015a whole bunch of people the list is just too long and to me that's that's actually a good thing to celebrate this is the uh ring Meadows band alumni event so we decided to uh get the band back [Music] together this year being the 40th anniversary of the Jazz and Meadows Festival so it was kind of an opportunity to hey can we bring people back at homecoming I had talked to some of the previous band directors that's Len King in the 70s 80s early 90s we had Bill jastro and David bogs from the 90s then of course Chris booty who retired several years ago those people set the foundation for everything that we have here I I'd have paid money to be here tonight I really would have is it's one of those things I
016i' pay money to be this is the banry where your closest friends were really at in high school so you're with your closest friends and regrouping after 40 something years and going holy cow yeah Mr King is the reason why I'm here today not just that the school but what I do in in life I owe everything to Mr James if it weren't for him I wouldn't have gone to college I hadn't G to college who knows what I would be doing you know some of the stuff that we we're doing right now is like we never stopped doing it you know you know just to be around these guys again and just hanging out 40 years seems like a long time but it seems like it's kind of a short time too you know
017this is fantastic I mean I I knew it was going to be good but not this good 52 of my actual students or in this group I get a lot of feedback from them telling me how much they they enjoyed music program with me and how they appreciate music for for their life that's really special because to know that they are still thinking about me and what what we did here it's it's just very satisfying well I flew back and I'm glad I did you know especially to see Mr King he meant a lot to us he just brought in the Jazz and I mean we had world class you know experience that most kids never would have had you know a real depth of of exposure to great music because Mr King so glad
018I got to see him it's so fun to be back though I love it my family is here they're so excited so is my family yeah my son's here my husband's here so really great if you are on the fence of coming whether it's debating about whether to come or not you should definitely come next time it feels like a long time ago but in some ways like you never left like I'm like okay we're going to go March over to the stadium and we're going to play for the football team so yeah okay [Music] thank you to all the alumni who are coming here today I mean some people are traveling across the country I know one of the directors came from Arizona um that's a testament to really what this event is about
019and it's bringing people together through our shared love of music and how music has changed our lives and shape who we are as humans thank you thank you thank you thank you e e e good evening if you could all take your seats we'll get started with the meeting hi good evening i' like here's my gavel I'd like to call order the uh Township High School district 214 Board of Education uh regular meeting for Thursday March 13 2025 could the secretary Miss keys please call the rooll Mr dling fito heinan kitzer hi here present Ral and Walker we have a quorum thank you so tonight we are having a pledge of Allegiance from the specialized school I'd like to call up Miss Norris [Applause] please come on up everybody okay my name is Valerie Norris
020I am the principal of the specialized schools hous right here thank you for inviting us to the board meeting this evening with me I have students and staff representing the life transition program housed right here at Forest View the Life program Services students aged 18 to to 22 who need additional time and skills to enter the world of work and adult life with me today are Peter W in the Cub shirt Eric Magnuson and mallerie and Samantha matuga my twins also Katie duer associate principal at the specialized schools and and Amy wisnoski who is an instructional assistant but currently student teaching through the Ia to pel program we are so proud of her she is going to be signing the pledge using American Sign Language and last but not least we have Alexa Vogal our
021speech language pathologist who will be using the school issued iPad to demonstrate the pledge using our touch chat program hello how are all right Alexa please start us off with the pledge and let's face the plag iedge Alle 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 thank you very much have a great board meeting [Applause] your name [Applause] forgot thank you next uh is the approval of the agenda can I have a motion in a second please there's been a motion in a second please call a roll Vito Ral dling heinan quiter I Palmer and Walker motion carries 70 thank you next on the agenda is approval of the workshop meeting minutes from February 27th
0222025 Motion in a second please Motion in a second any additions or Corrections please call the rooll Palmer fito dling yes heinan hi kzer I Ral and Walker motion carries 601 thank you next on the agenda is board recognition and before I turn it over to uh Mr Maggi I have a special presentation the Illinois School Board Association of which district 24 Union is a member has 21 divisions each division has a representative called a director which I have the privilege of being the north cook division director on a yearly basis the association presents Awards in various categories to their board leader recognition the association program honors IND individual school board members who attend Association events and professional development activities such as division meetings and the joint an annual conference as well as participation in
023workshops online courses and other training a recently revamped program added a new car category called The Legacy award this year across the state four school board members are Legacy board Leaders with 25 or more years of board service the north cook division had two recipients I am happy to present bill dling with the iasb 2025 Legacy award congratulations Bill come on up very [Applause] okay I'd like to call up uh Patrick Magi for the uh student recognition portion thank you will vice president Walker please join us up on stage uh students as I call your name or group please join us on stage along with the principal and coach or adviser after you received your certificate please remain on stage for photos will Rolling Meadows Evan cwe please join us on stage freshman Evan CIT
024made an impressive debut at the state level qualifying in both the 50 freestyle 100 yard brush stroke he showcased his talent by earning a state medal finishing fifth in the 100 yard brushstroke and seventh in the 53e his remarkable performance sets the stage for an exciting future in School swimming congratulations Evan and Coach Monica chiaa [Applause] well El Groves ju Elkgrove High School junior Julia coren uh please join us on stage Arro High School junior Julia coren is the ihsa state champion bowler in the wheelchair division after placing third in 2020 24 Julia was determined to achieve more she dedicated herself over the summer putting in the hard work and preparation to elevate her game this season she dominated the competition shattering a 10-year ihsa state record with an incredible 990 series score cross six
025games averaging 165 per game Julia your dedication and perseverance are truly inspiring congratulations to you and coaches Christopher massio and Tim Mell congratulations w [Applause] will Rolling Meadows Jaden raml please join us on stage sophomore jayen RL made history as a first ever district 214 and MSL boys bowler to earn an ihsa State medal his impressive third place finish came with a 12 game total of uh 27 78 pins averaging 226.50 per game congratulations to Jaden on this incredible achievement uh congratulations Jaden and Coach Jim [Applause] voes will hery is m Maria Reyes please join us on stage in gymnastics Maria Reyes qualified for State on all round as a freshman after a very successful State series she finished third in floor exercise at the state competition huge accomplishment for a freshman in joining a
026team coming off a state championship last season congratulations Maria and Coach Shannon Barrett [Applause] will prospects Viola panetto and wheeling's leaf berket please join us on stage Viola is a two-year wrestler at Prospect and the first Prospect girls wrestler to medal at state after advancing to State as a junior she returned her senior year with an impressive 39 and2 record with her only losses coming to the state champion along the way she defeated a nationally ranked opponent to reach the semi final round we are proud of Viola's historic accomplishments and the character she represents our programs with Leaf a junior at Wheeling High School and a founding member of the Wheeling wrestling team has been instrumental in its growth and success a fierce competitor she earned a spot at the ihsa state tournament last season
027and returned stronger this year winning six tournament championships and reaching the finals in three more including the ihsa state finals with 116 takedowns this season her dedication extends Beyond competition as she trains year round to refine her skills Lee's perseverance and Leadership have brought Pride to willing High School leaving a lasting impact on the program congratulations Viola leaf and coaches John Bassler Angelina graph and Tony P will the hery boys wrestling team please join us on stage first up Rodrigo Aro Cole and seli vgo barinowski Ernest zambala TJ Emery III uh Drew Frank [Applause] Victor gagos Elijah Garza Everett gorus Nino kavaris Luke klanis Harrison la Nick Larson Danny Layman Connor malga Grant malga Max Muka medal Anthony Orosco Diaz Gustavo Kos Jonathan slmo Frankie tago Nolan variano Ric variano Yanni V Ben zebron hery
028wrestling had a standout season finishing fourth at the ihsa state meet in Bloomington Illinois the team reached the final four following in the semi-finals to eventual state champion Mari Academy along the way the defeated Grant in the ihsa team sectionals in Edwardsville at state to secure an ihsa trophy hery has now won three stage Issa Regional titles and four consecutive MSL East championships they claimed the overall MSL tournament championship for the third time in the past four years additionally Elijah and Max were both Allstate wrestlers Elijah played fourth at state in the 132 pound division capping off aning outstanding seeding with 44 wins his dedication to the offseason paid off overcoming challenges with der determination a key contributed to the team State trophy he proved he could compete with anyone Elijah will continue his wrestling
029career at Harper College while studying fire fire science Max placed fifth at state in the 144 pound division finishing the season with 47 wins a three-time ihsa individual State place winner he has amassed over 150 career wins and served as team captain for three seasons lean the Huskies to a fourth place team finish this year with an impressive 4.75 GPA Max will attend the University of Chicago to study applied math computer science while continuing his wrestling career congratulations hery boy wrestling team and coach was Matt bogus Manny Ramirez Joe rsak and Eric [Applause] shinhoster Buffalo grows Sasha hkv could not be here tonight Sasha became the first ever BG freshman to place at the ihsa wrestling state finals he finished the event in fourth place after quality wins over State and nationally ranked opponents he
030finished his season with an overall record of 34-4 with 32 of his victories being either technical Falls or Falls and was the MSL champion at 113 pounds congratulations Sasha and Coach George Baris in competitive cheerleading her's Avery Hinman could not be here tonight she has earned a prestigious honor honor being named to the Allstate team the Illinois High School cheerleading coaches organization and the Illinois cheerleading coaches association recognized the outstanding achievements and exemplary skills of cheer leaders throughout Illinois selecting only a few through rigorous evaluation process this honor showcases Avery's dedication passion and athleticism representing the Pinnacle of cheerleading Excellence of the state congratulations Avery and Coach will hson [Applause] for the Buffalo Grove uh State cheer team recognition out of respect for several team members who are attending a memorial service for a Buffalo
031Grove Alum and former teammate we will be moving our recognition of the competitive cheerleading team to a future meeting while we are not celebrating the team tonight we do want to acknowledge the incredible accomplishments at the ihsa state championship in Bloomington over the past 14 years this program has built an impressive Legacy 14 top 10 finishes 13 top five finishes eight State trophies four state championships this year they continue their tradition of Excellence earning their eighth State trophy with remarkable second place finished at the ihsa state meet we look forward to honoring the entire team together at a later date [Applause] this past fall musicians from all of our district 214 schools competed in the ilmea district 7 audition process for the opportunity to qualify for the State Convention in January based on their talents
03215 students were selected this year for the 2025 L ilmea Festival while there students took part in rigorous rehearsals in preparation for their honors All State concert with the following musicians Stu Student please join us on stage as I call your name for honors course from elgrove high school Anthony [Applause] Chambers for honors band from elve High School Sam centor and Max [Applause] WK from John hery High School Assad CH [Applause] chadri Shane chesus unable to be here tonight Ethan Cho from Bago high school and Otto Hammonds Lauren oi o and Randy and Ray Reus from Rolling Meadows high school for honors Orchestra from John hery High School Grace [Applause] Fuller for honors Jazz man from elgrove High School Federal Pingo from John hery High School Jack obrebski [Applause] Kyle Park unable to be here
033tonight future m music educators seminar from Roy mows High School Carris Kim and Shane Sutton congratulations students and directors Vince jaldi Ron fito K shenna SAS Watson Mora Brown Spencer H Christopher kusmanov Christopher Barnum and Elliot H [Applause] congratulations for [Applause] well Rolling Meadows Daniel bolish please join us on stage sophomore Daniel bolash represented district 214 at the Illinois High School theater Festival as a member of the All State company for production the prom the allate production is a celebration of the best of the best theater performers and technicians from across the state Daniel was selected based on his interview and demonstration of tactical skill over 300 over 300 other students during this production process Daniel miked 42 performers and 48 individual instruments helped design production sound effect and served as a qab operator for
034the performances congratulations Daniel and sponsor Stephanie [Applause] Zars well out Groves Olivia [Applause] bro prospects Dylan [Applause] May Shara [Applause] sakis Sydney strling [Applause] James [Applause] galanis and Claire windup as well as wheeling's Ari Ellis please join us on stage Alro senior Olivia brd's dedication and talent have made her a Cornerstone of our speech team for the past three years competing in the most challenging section in Illinois she has consistently risen to the occasion proving herself against the toughest competition in the state Olivia pushed herself and her teammates to improve all season long and her tenacity earned her a trip to the state competition finishing as the ihsa fourth place informative speaker is a testament to her hard work Prospect Junior Dylan may play second in dramatic interpretation and fourth in Pros reading in dramatic
035interpretation Dylan took on the role of a protagonist and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in Pros reading Dylan's selection how to talk to a widower showcased his ability to interpret the literature through verbal and non-verbal communication Prospect Jr cha stakis placed fifth in extemporaneous speaking where she explored current events and delivered a persuasive speech with only 30 minutes of preparation Prospect senior Sydney strling placed fourth in radio speaking crafting a professional five news broadcast from provided packet in just 45 minutes Prospect seniors James gallanis and CLA wi coup play second in dramatic duet acting performing an 8-minute scene with nothing more than two chairs in lungs a story about a couple Coming to Terms the loss of their unborn baby Wheeling senior Ari Ellis had an outstanding senior year in speech showcasing consistency and determination
036performing a TED Talk piece on equity and books she won four tournament championships claimed MSL Regional and sectional titles and finished a state runnerup in Oracle declamation congratulations students and sponsors Steven Kella Bonnie kale Chrissy Johnson EMT NE Michael picy Francesca Cheryl and Barrett Winston congratulations [Applause] sh good evening everybody I'm Lenny Walker I'm proud to serve as the vice president on a school board of d214 you know it's ironic that we're doing both tonight I have four kids that went through d214 several several years ago uh three girls and a son three girls were into Athletics my son was into Fine Arts so tonight I really like being here to congratulate everybody and join everybody so tonight we celebrate two groups of students those excelling in Fine Arts and those excelling in athletics while
037the disciplines may be different they share a common Foundation of dedication perseverance teamwork and Leadership artists and athletes alike commit countless hours to perfecting their craft pushing their limits and overcoming challenges both groups Inspire their peers Elevate our schools and bring Pride to our entire Community whether through performance competition or creative expression they do certainly enrich district 214 with their passion and excellence recognizing the students we also recognize that success has never achieved alone so I would ask everybody parents grandparents Guardians extended family and siblings to stand for a moment [Applause] please we certainly know the sacrifices and unwavering support that you have been in essential helping reach the level of all these student athletes and find our performance tonight we thank you for all you do and the contribution to the community thanks for
038being here tonight and all your continued support of the D d24 programs we celebrate everybody's accomplishments tonight look forward to even greater successes ahead thanks for joining us tonight uh that concludes the student recognition portion we're going to recess the Board of Education meeting for a few minutes you can join us if you want in the boardroom for the rest of the meeting but thank you and have a great evening [Applause] [Music] members are you ready are we good to go thank you uh we're reconvening from the auditorium where we had board recognition or student recognition excuse me uh next on the agenda is public comments and no one has signed up next we have a uh superintendent report Dr row all right uh thank you well I'm going to start with uh another recognition
039just a little bit more of an intimate one for the board um the Illinois Association of school boards uh recognizes programs acknowledges school boards when they that learn and practice effective governance behaviors as identified in isp's Foundation principles of effective governance the north cook division of the Illinois uh School Board Association has presented seven Awards to or Awards to seven districts that uh that are exemplifying board governance um I'm proud to announce the district 214 board of education is the recipient of the school board governance recognition award this is the um the eighth time the district has been recognized for this award in the sixth consecutive year so thank you for uh your engagement and in the continued professional development opportunities as well as the guidance that you provide to the district uh got our
040plaque is updated and at the conclusion of the meeting we'll all take a photo together under our logo here but congratulations thank you and then the only other topic I have is one that's just uh another topic of Celebration it's really neat it's something that that uh that I believe is new um yesterday U former special educ ation Teacher of the Year Nicole McCormack hosted um a craft fair empowering entrepreneurs with disabilities at Forest viw uh education center there were over 20 businesses owned and operated by students and young adults with disabilities including district 214 Schools District 211 schools uh glenbard schools barington and nsseo uh it was crowded yet a wonderful display of what our young people can accomplish was a perfect time to celebrate them during the disabilities Awareness Month uh so I
041want to thank Nicole for continued leadership uh and what and the opportunity she provides for our kids and the Love U that she gives to them on a daily basis it was a great celebration for what our kids can do uh we were really proud to be a host and be a part of it that's all I have thank you Dr roow uh next on the agenda is board member updates Mr dling would you like to start yes get it turned on thank god um you know I've attended a number of things since the last board meeting what the one yesterday that uh superintendent Ro mentioned was amazing was the first of those functions held in this room uh it was hard to believe what some of the uh students had had developed and and
042really were selling it was really truly amazing and gratifying the other events I attended um I'm amazed at like the Jazz in The Meadows or uh uh the marching band color guard that was at rolling medows last I'm amazed at the number of parents that are involved that make this happen we could not do it with the staffs we have although they do a great job with everything they're organizing but the the parents are just so critical to what we do the other thing was I was at the robot Rumble over at Rolling Meadows couple weeks ago I want to uh credit the CTE instructors from all of our schools for setting up the cage that the robot Rumble takes place in and for setting up the whole place that was that was a lot
043of work on their part to set it up and then have to take it down uh just all for the students that's what it's all about so that's my message the uh the students the parents uh that's what we're about thank you much thank you Lenny Mr Walker would you like to go a couple announcements just to make so the d24 fall internship applications now open Juniors and seniors for the upcoming fall semester can apply to participate in an internship students can access the application through School links then um the deadline is fast approaching to apply for scholarships over $100,000 in scholarships are available to seniors including opportunities for trades women and stem and the Dr David R Schuler redefining ready competition deadline to apply is tomorrow at midnight that's all I have thank you
044um Mr Hinman yeah I've been busy it's springtime and all Educators seem to be real busy I attended the robot Rumble that was very impressive um I attended the iron Heights hearts of gold um and we were very well represented there with I think four or five educators is being recognized um also attended a North cook iasb uh dinner and there was a very good discussion about Ai and kind of where it's going and um how it's affecting education um was very impressed with u two events at Wheeling High School they did a science fair this last weekend and they did um RC drill competition um in early February I believe and those are big projects but they handled them with Prof professionalism as expected and uh everybody raved it how well it was handled
045um today I was at uh the state of the village breakfast at Arlington Heights and uh it was I'm from my Prospect but it was good to see all the things things that the village of isington heights is involved in um and I'm very much looking forward to going to the United Center on Sunday to watch um Illinois High School ice hockey um the Buffalo Grove hery Wheeling combination team is uh playing in a championship game um this morning after the state of the Village um breakfast I went to the Mount Prospect public library and they had a um discussion and looking for input on what other things they can do with um human surfaces and Community Connection Center that's currently at busy highway and alanin um there's lots of things human servicewise health carewise
046um and the there's a little Library there also uh it's an impressive um facility and it's very well located for some of the apartments kind of on the south side of Mount Prospect but I think there's also conversations that um can be had uh we had one representative from Prospect High School um Danny I can't remember his last name but he represented the high school very well and um I think he's well positioned for uh Communications between the library uh Human Services and Prospect High School for the village of M Prospect um and that's the end of my report thank thank you Miss Ral thank you um starting off with uh last Tuesday March 4th myself and Miss Cara Kendrick hosted the parent teacher disciplinary advisory and behavior interventions committee that is a meeting that
047is held and required by the state once a year and wherein we discuss the policies that the state has issued over the last year regarding behavior interventions um to other polic policies that were discussed were the new bullying policy which indicates that we must reach out to parents or Guardians within 24 hours of bullying and the second policy update was regarding racism and that the district must have a policy which it does um regarding behavioral interventions um a lot was covered um a lot of collaborative efforts with Miss Kendrick and her staff um in the student services that that represents the dean across the all the schools so our um all seven schools sent representation uh of a Dean along with a parent from that school and talked about their efforts um and how they
048have been meeting and updating policies and making sure that everything is um like in all the schools and similar and such uh they actually talked about having a Dean swap so that they can see all the great activities that they're doing at each school and then bring it back and discuss and Contin Improvement there other targeted supports like reach and alop um car Solace was discussed things that have been communicated through emails and and just reiterated um and finally we touched upon attendance um and had a great discussion there um there have been some interventions that have been put in place and and we're seeing a decrease in our unexcused absences so kudos to the staff and especially our student service services and Deans um and looking at the data a little closer there is
049um the excused absences are are trending upward and so um I I I do want to point that out because I think it's important for our parents and Guardians to be aware that you know we're we're an education district and the best way that we can support your students and and that our staff members Excel is in-person learning so um I I do know that sometimes you know there there is sickness and I our family went through a bout of viruses but it is important that your students are in class and and our staff is there to support and and they do try to reach out so um if if there are concerns or questions don't hesitate to reach out to our staff as well so again I want to thank the Deans they do
050an outstanding um efforts throughout the year uh and for attending this meeting again thank you to the parents it the meeting was a little over two hours I believe um seems to run a little long when I'm there but that's great it was good to hear the participation and I also really want to recognize and and acknowledge the staff that came there was a good representation from Buffalo Grove High School as well as Rolling Meadows and and they had a lot of good Insight so thank you for that um I I also attended uh switching topics to the Illinois Junior Academy of Science uh competition that Wheeling hosted I was invited to be a judge which I just absolutely en enjoyed um I I finished my judging and then had the opportunity to walk around
051and talk with students um in the field of science myself it was just exhilarating to see the work that students are doing and the collaboration um watching the students even from so they're all lined up in the gym in the Fieldhouse with their presentations and they're going through the scientific process which is great to see because I think sometimes when we leave and go out into the field we try to identify the answer before we actually walk through the process so I was good to hear about experimental and control variables and everything I'll quit babbling too much sorry um it it was just great uh there there were topics from um low temperature paint so that we can put paint on our houses that'll lower temperature to um tar tarine they're talking about um making
052trans parents uh skin so they can do intervenous and things like that um just uh the life of strawberries just just great um so kudos to Kim Milligan uh Greg Wallace and the whole science staff out at wheeling and uh a retiree Carol Bol Bouvier sorry um she comes back and organizes special judges and it is it just continues to show that our staff is exemplary even when they retire so thank you for that it was a great weekend okay I'm finished thank you thank you and thank you for serving on that committee uh Mr fioro please yeah I'm going to start with the uh breakfast today um it was nice um having a d214 table there and uh I really appreciated U mayor Hayes um in his last meeting as the state of the
053The Village um he gave us a shout out called um the quality of Education in Arlington Heights specifically specifically Township district 214 as being one of the reasons why many people move into the The Village I thought it was a really nice gesture on his part to recognize the fact that we do offer the best in education around um I also attended the uh skills and Innovation Fair it was my first time I was a I was the Virgin board member there and I must say I was incredibly impressed you know there there were so many opportunities for our young adults to go there and learn about possible professions that may be down the line they would be part of um some probably require college education and some don't but the fact that so many
054vendors were there they spoke very highly of our our students and how they acted professionally a lot of them were very engaged and it was just a great opportunity I'd like to see more of our more of our students there including our life schools I think that would be important to include them next year and I want to give a shout out to Barbara Kane and Angela farza they were two of the U staff members that I talked to like I said it was just an incredible experience I was only there an hour and I was just overwhelmed with how well it was run and how many opportunities the kids had and then last but not least um I know this has nothing to do with uh our district but it does have to do
055with the school board so last night I attended the District 57 uh board debate School Board debate there's six candidates for four open spots and um what impressed me more than anything was the Civility and respect that these six candidates showed each other um to the point where they seem to agree so often it was seem to be almost a Love Fest it was very impressive and in today's world where negativity and just animosity toward toward each other this was a a bright Sunshine moment for not just just the world in general to see six candidates get along you know respect each other compliment each other and even have one candidate at the end in her closing comments tell the audience that no matter who you vote for of the six candidates you're going to
056get four really good board members and that was very impressive so I appreciate um that refreshing um 45 minutes last night and I I see our board being very similar in a lot of ways to that so that's my update thank you um I'm GNA be try to be brief here I'll I attended a lot of things that the board members have also mentioned uh but one thing was the uh attended the uh District 's dance concert the other night at elgrove high school where all of our schools uh had at least two dance performances what a great night a just unbelievable night and I love how they recognize the seniors at the end um in the hearts of gold we did have a student that received a hearts of gold uh award uh I
057uh Prospect Orchestra uh presented at the Symphony Center on February 17th and they were there with two other schools what a venue to hear our students play at the Symphony Center well worth the trip I was uh really pleased they were there with uh Downers Grove South and oalen Township High School and uh kudos to all the students at Prospect who participated and um just one think today I got uh my Illinois School Board journ in the mail and I just want to point out that there there are two uh articles in here about uh uh CTE Career and Technical education and they got uh they talk about U Automotive welding and Machinery but and Health Care are the services that are really needed um and they give a nice graph about uh students that
058uh have that career pathway and there's also an article I know we passed this uh a few meetings ago about Vision 2030 goes into it a little bit further so when you get your um uh Schoolboard Journal um interesting reading thank you board members so now we're at um uh uh action items so we have 1011 can I have a motion and a second please second a motion in a second any discussion please call a roll Palmer I fito yes dling yes Hinman I Ral I Walker yes and kzer I motion carries 70 thank you we are at 1021 um a motion and a second please so moved second motion a second Mr Keeley thank you very much this is a restatement of the uh preliminary Financial guidelines for the fiscal year 26 budget uh
059that we reviewed at the last meeting we have no substantial updates for it um as you know will be coming back June 12th with the tentative budget uh and then once board meeting dates are established for next year uh we anticipate the final budget coming to the September board meeting board members questions call the world heinan I fito yes dling yes Palmer I Ral I Walker yes and czer I motion carries 70 Motion in a second please for 1022 so move second Motion in a second any discussion please call a roll heinan hi Ral hi dusing yes fito yes Palmer I Walker yes and CER I motion carries 70 thank you Motion in a second please for 1023 so moved second motion a second discussion please call a roll Palmer I heinan I dling fito
060yes Ral I Walker yes and grer I motion carries 70 thank you 1024 a motion and a second please so moved second uh Mr key thank you very much I'll give a brief uh introduction and then uh the members of the quest team are going to do a a brief presentation and followed by Q&A with the board um as you see in your board packet we do have uh a recommendation to approve a contract with Quest Food management um we've had discussions here at the board over the last couple of months about uh this particular process with Christine froy's um retirement and uh looking at uh the outside industry for some management uh uh support and U happy to say that that we did have a good uh turn out for this with some strong
061local companies um we had uh an extensive uh committee or uh task force as we like to say uh of eight members a couple of them are here this evening uh to support um the work that we've done um we went and tasted food at several different high schools uh got a sense of what those operations looked like uh what the vendors uh were able to bring to the table for us and uh before you this evening we do again have that recommendation to uh approve the contract with food cons uh with with uh Quest Food management uh as presented and that's again in your packet I believe there were a couple board questions that we have answered and I'm going to turn uh the the floor over to uh Nick sakaro from quest uh
062he's the president of quest and he will uh give us an overview of their company good evening uh thanks for the opportunity to be here I appreciate uh appreciate the chance to come chat with you guys a little bit about Quest and more importantly about our vision for the program here uh at district 214 before I go any further uh I want to introduce fenel Patel our uh senior vice president of Business Development um it's funny he's sitting in front of the folks from PMA Fel used to work at PMA and may have been in front of this group um talking about some PMA work in the past but glad to have all of our friends here tonight so um I want to start I'll I'll talk just a little bit about Quest um and
063who we are but I'll keep that as brief as I can because I know what's probably most interesting and important to you all is um what do we want to do for the district and and and what are our thoughts and and and what do we see for the opportunities here for the district so a little bit about Quest um we always like to start by talking it just very briefly about our mission vision and values um to us as an organization these are way more than just words on a wall um they really it especially if we look at the values um they are incredibly important words to us and Hope hopefully kind of frame up what you all should expect from us in a partnership um we know that we're here because of
064the food and because of the food for the kids we know that's why we're here um the foundation of that from our perspective is the partnership that we build with you and the partnership that we build with the community and with the administration and in that partnership we're going to have great days we're going to have days where the where the students are super excited about what we're serving um and then we're going to have some days that we have stumbles and we have missteps and and evitably that's how every relationship work works and every partnership works and what we hope that you all will find in us as you look at those values and look at words like integrity and responsiveness and accountability um is a true partner that's going to be here over
065the Long Haul with you is going to take accountability when things don't go right and is going to work really quickly to make things right um when those things come up and and that over time when we look back at how this is evolving um that we see a lot more good days than bad and again that we see quick responses when ever uh whenever we do have those missteps or need to adjust um we have been around for about 40 years um this this year is actually our 40 40th year anniversary um and the founding of our organization was in uh High School Food Service here in Chicago land and it still is very much at the core of uh of who we are and what we do um we work with over a
066hundred schools in school districts I say schools and school districts because we also work with um quite a few private schools and broal schools um in and around the Chicago land area and we're based in Lombard so we're uh we're we're all local which which we think is super important for a partnership like this um our portfolio so we have over 20 high schools in Chicago land public high schools that are off the national school launch program like district 214 is um some of those uh districts we'll talk about in just a second main Township High Schools we've been with since 2005 I think it is uh Glenbrook we've been with since 2006 we're just completing our 10 year with uh Glenbrook Riverside Brookfield High School we've been with for uh close to 15 years
067so some really long uh extended Partnerships with some of your peer school districts which again we think is a really important reference point we also have over 25 uh prio high schools that are off of the national school lunch program here in Chicago land and so the experience that we have from those nearly 50 uh schools that we've been serving for decades we think will really help inform some of the work that we we hope to do here at uh here at the district and in our proposal which I think some of you had the opportunity to see uh we had several examples I'll give a couple here in just a second of a pretty strong track record of growing sales growing participation and also growing participation in uh free meals of the free eligible
068students at so many of the schools that we serve we think it is it is so important uh especially as we look at schools that are off the national school lunch program that we not only design uh programs for students who can afford to eat and and who can afford to pay for their meals but also for students who rely on free meals for a really important source of nutrition so it it is super important to us that we we look at all of the populations of the schools that we're serving so some of those growth examples um we'll talk about main Township High School for just a second in the years that we've been there we've seen about a 40% growth in sales uh and about a 20% growth in uh free meal consumption
069we like to see both of those numbers Rise um again that tells us that we're designing programs that really appeal to uh to the entire School population we love showing these numbers at Glenbrook uh We've more than doubled sales in the time that uh that we've been at Glenbrook over their prior operator and we've seen about a 40% growth in free meal participation uh which again we love to see both of those move together and then I think Niles is a really awesome example of seeing both of these uh move together we've just finished our sixth year at Niles we've seen again sales uh more than double and we've seen free meal participation absolutely take off um at n so to see both of those move in tanm is really important to us and is
070a huge part of what we hope to do here uh at district 214 I want to talk for just a second about Lake Forest High School because it's a really relevant example to uh district 214 so uh Lake Forest High School has been partnering with us since 200 I think it was 16 uh that we 2017 excuse me that we started at Lake Forest High School before we started at Lake Forest um they were completely self-operated just like district 214 is and what prompted them to bring us on board is exactly what's happening here they had a very talented beloved long-term food service director uh nutrition services manager who was retiring and as they were looking at how do we find the right person train that person support that person all of those kinds of
071things to replace this individual um how do we do that as a district and so um they brought us on in part because we had been working with the K8 District district 67 um for over a decade at uh at that time and we did exactly what uh what we're proposing that we do here uh we brought a food service director on board that's on our payroll and then all of the hourly team members remained on the district's payroll and they still are nothing has changed um so you know we we respected that from day one and that is still the way that the that the model is working at district 6 or District 115 um prior to our arrival they had relatively low sales and participation the district was subsidizing the program annually so
072they were pulling money out of the education fund to help um off set some of the shortages in the uh in the lunch program and we were given a pretty clear mandate um not only to to uh do a great job of transitioning the program in terms of what we were offering to the students but also to make the program financially viable and sustainable for the district um so that uh the the the lunch program The Food Service program really was supporting itself so in the time that we have been there um sales have grown about 140% um since 2017 super proud of that um we saw 70 over a 70% increase just in the first year Alone um so huge huge lift in just the first year in uh in sales again all of
073the hourly team members are still on the district's payroll we have continued to evolve the program year over year over year based on what the students are looking for equipment set the training the skill set of the team um you know this is a long-term uh this is a long-term game uh what we want to do and what we're able to do in year one is not going to be the same as as what we're able to do in years three and four is the skill set of the team um continues to grow and evolve and we've been very close we've worked in very close partnership with the district as well in enhancing some of the dining spaces um obviously it's a much bigger lift here with so many schools uh but we look forward
074to working with you all and and the leadership and the facilities team here to um to think about what we can do to enhance the spaces as we uh as we work to enhance the program so uh here's just a few pictures of uh what some of the committee members were able to see uh of some of our food options that we have at some of our some of our locations those are actual shots not stage ones um not things that we found on the internet um so just a little bit of a visual representation since uh the folks in the room here weren't able to get out and see uh what we what we do uh what we do on a daily basis so for district 214 enough about Quest we'll talk a little
075bit about what we want to do here specifically so our program our philosophy uh really is to use uh as many hold ingredients and cook as much scratchmade food as possible I'm not going to tell you that we're going to be completely rid of processed food uh french fries as an example we're not going to be uh hand you know cutting uh potatoes and making like french fries from scratch I just I want to be honest with you guys uh I don't know how to make our own mozzarella stick um so some of those kinds of things that we know kids like we're going to see some of those convenience items that are processed but the core of the program we're going to see you all should expect to see um more and more scratch
076Foods uh whole ingredients and and that those become a bigger part of the program over time as the skill set of the team continues to ramp up to be able to use those Foods in the program we'll see more of a mix of both assembled to order and grab and go Foods so today's high school students have grown up in the era of uh Chipotle have grown up in the era of Starbucks they are used to having things customized for them they're used to being able to get things very quickly high quality um and and as you all know far better than I do um students today are busier than they ever have been and so we have to make sure that the program really adapts to meet their scheduling demands and their needs and
077really what we're trying to do is reflect the kinds of eating uh offerings and and places that they're frequenting outside of school in the school environment so again those places like the Panera the the Chipotle the Starbucks those are the kinds of experiences that we're trying to mirror here the grab and go options I'll just mention very quickly those are things that are going to be made on site here they're not things that we're bringing in from another you know commissary or or a truck somewhere else um we understand although we have a lot to learn that every school is very unique in the community here and so the customization of menus we do not take we never have taken as an organization the approach that there's a one-size fits-all um for all locations we
078uh brought the administration the the committee from 214 to Maine Township high schools and those three schools all have different offerings because of the different uh you know requirements requests uh cultural backgrounds all of those kinds of things of the schools that's going to take us some time to learn um but we're excited that we have the existing Dining Services team members and the students to help us uh help us along the way and and make those adjustments as quickly as possible um we've had a lot of conversations with the committee about uh meals for athletes especially athletes who are traveling for away away games ways that we can provide dietary support with our register registered dietitians um on our team to support both in season and out of season um uh sort of training
079table if you will um so excited to offer that as well and then again uh real deep commitment to robust offerings for students that qualify for free and reduced lunches and of course the district will have ultimate say on all of these things um our job is to bring recommendations to the table um make our case help the district uh sort of weigh pros and cons and ultimately the district will retain control over over all of these kinds of choices for the people uh we think about you know food people uh as as as uh sort of the first two legs of the stool of the partnership here um our proposal is that we are going to we we are are seeking to bring on both a a manager and an executive chef so uh
080and and we believe that we can do that uh in a way that still makes Financial sense for the district this is a as you all know a big district with a lot of service points and a lot of buildings expecting one manager um to do the work that that we think we will need to do in terms of building build skill set um training uh connecting with students quality assurance all of those kinds of things it's a big job for one person so the addition of the executive chef will not only help with things like menu planning but will also go a long way in terms of making sure that we're um doing our job to build the skill set and train uh the team that are currently here uh serving the students on
081a daily basis we want to be really thoughtful and leverage these next few months uh to work closely with the district around how this trans works we know that this is a an unnerving time for the current Dining Services team we know that um we go through these transitions even if the dining services team members are transitioning from say a sedexo to Quest there's always a lot of um angst about is my job being eliminated are my hours going to change is someone going to mess with my pay all of those kinds of things and so we want to work with the team here to get in front of the team and really start to build that relationship and build that trust and be really thoughtful about how this transition is going to work as
082soon as humanly possible um we know this is a scary time and the sooner that we can build that connection and and and build the trust with the team um the smoother this transition is going to go and and the more the students will benefit from it um and and the faster the students will benefit from it we've talked quite a bit about culinary training um for the team members that's a great skill set for us to help them build whether they're staying with the district long term or not um it's a great way for them to feel better about you know their capabilities and and uh and their own professional development um for uh for all the hourly team members here the other the last thing I would just you know reference as a
083local organization we have um about 1,00 team members here in Chicago land we have over 150 salaried managers here in Chicago our entire corporate leadership team is in uh is is in Lombard um we have access to a ton of resources that we can we can bring to bear here to support the team with you know opening the school year training large catering events um you know gaps um special events that we might want to host all of those kinds of things that we're excited to be able to offer to the district as a local organization with the wealth wealth of resources here uh on the people front to really help support the team on the ground and then lastly on the Community Front um so food committees are an enormous part of our identity
084as an organization so um this is getting out with the students um really hearing what's working what's not working new menu ideas they have um giving them the opportunity to taste and Sample ideas that we might have learning more about the kinds of places that they like to go outside of school we also hear all kinds of interesting things about things that might prevent them from eating like did you know that your second cashier at this school is uh doesn't know how to work the register and it takes us too long so we don't go through the like there's all kinds of things that we learn from uh from these student committees so it's a great opportunity for us to engage with them and really understand what the barriers are to get them to eat
085um and ways that we can improve the program we want to get these moving as soon as possible so that we can have some baseline information um to help support our planning as we go into next school year we would love to get this uh at least the first round of these done before the end of the school year um we have technology opportunities as well for students to provide feedback my customer voice scan a QR code you can rate your meal you can provide feedback about your experience um we have we will have this available to all the schools we understand you guys are doing something like this um similar to this right now as well which is great um and again very community-driven U menus and and plans for what uh what each
086individual schools uh program is going to look like we know it's going to look um somewhat the same but we also expect that it that there will be some unique differences for uh for each one of the specific locations and then I think our job is to be uh in really close clear constant communication with District leadership about how the program is working what's not working where improvements need to be made made how it's performing financially all of those types of things um and because of the uniqueness of this partnership at the end of the day all the money is the districts all of the revenue is the districts all of the expenses the districts it really puts us in a great opportunity to make sure that we are um coming to the table as
087as partners and allies in being super transparent um from a reporting standpoint so that we're all on the same page about where the program is and where where we'd like it to go so uh financially uh I'm just about done here thank for thanks for your patience you know as we Benchmark the current sales uh at district 214 against those 20 other uh high schools that we serve in Chicagoland that are off the national school lunch program and we look at the free and reduced lunch eligibility rate here um and compare it to some of those other schools we think there is a significant opportunity for sales growth that's not going to happen overnight um I mentioned that we saw a 70% lift in our first year at Lake Forest High School that's kind of
088rare um it's very rare for us to see Zero sales lift um but 70% is a big number it will take time but we do think that over time that there is a significant we think potentially seven figure um opportunity to gross annual sales here and we're not talking about growing sales by raising prices we're talking about growing sales by getting more students to eat in the program um again this is all based on Benchmark data of those other 20 schools that we serve so uh now we understand there are unique constraints at every building facilities all those kinds of things that we'll have to work hand inand with both the dining services team and school leadership to understand how to navigate through those nonetheless uh our experience tells tells us that there is pretty
089significant opportunity there we also see some opportunity on the food cost side and this is very common for self-operated programs this is no insult whatsoever the to the way the program is being run right now um as we look at the current financials it looks like about 50 cents of every dollar brought in is spent on food um as an organization um we're significantly below that um significantly below that we have pegged our projections for the first year or so in the low 40s um so we we've I think in year one we pegged our projection around 42 cents of every dollar coming in is spent on food as an organization we're ways below that but again we know this transition is going to take time just that savings alone even if sales didn't grow
090is about a quarter of a million worth of uh worth of savings annually which would more than cover the cost of uh of our fee so we see some opportunity just on the numbers uh and only visiting two schools uh with both the sales and the food side I think as we dig into the program more we'll continue to see more and more opportunities um and we'll have to continue to Pivot as uh as we learn so uh last couple of slides here um you know our proposed Arrangement very similar to what we have at Lake Forest High School where we employ the management team um we pass through the cost of of that management team uh to you all um we have also offered to pay all of the vendor invoices directly so that
091the district only has to pay one invoice there's a lot of invoices that run through for all the food and beverage and and Supply purchases uh every month for running a program is large as this one we have proposed a base fee where we would earn a management fee and an administrative fee for running the program um and then we would share in any annual Surplus over we have uh We've thrown out a a threshold of $50,000 understanding that that the district has some uh you know fixed costs things like utilities janitorial expenses um we understand that there are some costs incurred for running the program but um the in the intent with this is to really signal to the district that we want to be a partner in again moving this program to financial
092sustainability and we know it's got a ways to go to get there um lastly we've offered an investment uh and uh some other additional funds to help with some equipment upgrades um we think there's some additional equipment that we can add in the back of the house to help make sure that we can move that fresh food um scratch food program um as quickly as possible uh we know the district has a lot of capital needs and and while we know $300,000 at the end of the day um is probably a drop in the bucket to the district when it looks at the its overall Capital spend again we're we're really trying to signal that we want to be partners and moveing this program along so I know this is really difficult to see um
093but essentially what we've what we're showing here and what we included in our proposal we think this is this is like a multi-year path to to financial sustainability we're not going to get there in year one I'd be shocked if we got there in year two but we think as we get towards years three and Beyond um that there is a real opportunity here to move this program towards one that financially sustainable um which we have been charged per the for the RFP and the and the committee as an important part of uh of what we're doing with the program here there's a lot of moving Parts in this you know pricing uh wage rates for the hourly team members um all of those kinds of things that we'll have to work hand inand with
094the district on um but again looking at our roster of those 20 plus uh well 45 plus uh high schools in Chicago land that are off the national school lunch program none of those schools are losing money so we're confident that we can get 214 to that place it's just going to take us a little bit of time so to wrap up um you know we're really proud of the experience we have serving districts that are like yours we know yours is very unique um but the depth of experience we have serving high schools that are off the national school lunch program here in Chicago land there isn't a single competitor out there that has the the depth or or uh wealth of experience uh that we have in this in in this particular part
095of our uh of our industry and we're proud of that we're excited to bring that here um we think we've got proven track record of of growing sales um growing student satisfaction delivering some great financial outcomes for our partners um all driven by some of those program elements that um that we've spoken about um and we we think that our financial Arrangement really aligns with the motives and the intentions of what 214 wants for its uh for its food service program and we're excited about this opportunity and really hopeful that this turns into a a really lasting partnership where we're adding signific significant value to the district the end thank you um board members want to go okay go ahead thanks for joining tonight couple of questions for if I may so we talk about
096um The Culinary experience do you have any any history or any experience with blending in The Culinary Arts students of our district into the program and how we move them along as well we have some uh we are doing that at some of our schools we have some internship programs that we're doing we have um actually at Lake Forest is a great example we have our general manager that is a regular part of the culinary arts uh an at nutrier is another great example where our general manager and executive chef are actually going into the culinary arts programming and supporting some of the curriculum development doing some judging of things like Iron Chef competitions and things of that nature so we have experience with those Partnerships going both ways it really is kind of unique
097based on each individual School environment but something that we absolutely welcome it's also a great resource for us to understand what the students really looking for and what's really going on with our program what's working well and what's not working well so we would certainly welcome that opportunity okay thank you for that and then um with the tariffs that are looming right we know the projections are based on pre- tariff pricing I would guess right correct so nobody can predict the future how will you handle the tariffs and how will that be handled with our cost per dollar that's a great question um so obviously you know we're dealing with Aven flu impacts right now and so we've had to make menu adjustments for what kinds of things we're doing with eggs with poultry Etc
098the tariffs are scary because of how much it's going to impact produce um which is such a huge part of what we're doing what we want to do with with fresh food right so there's a few things that we'll be looking at so number one our folks are shopping produce from three different produce vendors every week we're not locked into a contract with one different vendor so we have the opportunity to shop that's something that we'll want the team here on site to do menu menu engineering is going to be a big part of what we do to try to navigate through the tariffs we might have to look at some things like hate to say this but are there some things that might be canned or Frozen that we might be able to get
099in the short run that might be more cost effective than fresh um are there some menu modifications I'm just going to use an example like avocados and guacamole where maybe something like that used to be included on uh an international station that now we might have to do a 50 Cent you know upcharge or just take it off of the line so menu engineering and shopping are really going to be the two biggest ways that we can uh that we can try to navigate through this but um it is going to be a a difficult environment for sure for us to navigate through this because of how broad these tariffs seem to be impacting the the food supply chain so ask it in a different way just for clarity for my own sake so we're
100going to be very proactive in it and it's not going to like creep up on us because we didn't act you'll be soon as you get word of it that that's already in motion and I I would imagine like most companies you already have a plan if the Mexican tariffs go up with all the produce that comes in from Mexico you're going to address that and here's what we do correct and and if we're not proactive on that we're not doing our jobs right so that what's really difficult right now is how much uncertainty all of our suppliers are telling us about what products this is going to impact when and how much what they're what we're hearing from our suppliers is like the direct they're hearing from their industry associations is changing daily might
101be an exaggeration but every few days to every couple of weeks what what they think this is going to impact when and how much continues to evolve so we're in a little bit of a vacuum right now to be totally candid with you with some of our suppliers I expect that that will change over the upcoming weeks and we're going to have to be really thoughtful about like what those day one menus look like and what kinds of things we just might not be able to afford to to offer I think the important part then is how are we engaging with the district around communication to the community to understand why we might not have offerings ABC um that maybe we're even there in years past because they're they're just not things that we can
102afford or feel like we can pass those costs along to the students yeah so I support this very much because I think the network of brain power that is coming into the district with your Specialties is going to help everybody however we have to have some projections I would think you know if you're the numbers man I can't believe that you're not on the back of a napkin going okay when lettuce does this tomatoes do this this is what happens yeah we're all going through that now y so I would suspect that you're on top of it and there might be a blip but it's not going to be a devastating no event for anybody involved correct okay I I would point to you just really quickly I mean like postco the the 12 months
103or so postco when we saw food cost just running absolutely out of control if we looked at our organizational performance on food cost during that point in time um it didn't raise by more than a couple tents of a point uh of sales I think we did a great job of navigating through those if then scenarios like you're describing I think again the challenge that we're just trying to work through right now is the certainty of understanding what it's going to impact so that we can make those decisions but yes we're prepared to work through that okay thank you and then I have one last question believe it or not for Dr Ro I just stood up in front of everybody that we ackn tonight saying Fine Arts and athletes so we give athletes food
104to go but the Fine Arts kids got are on their own how does that work I don't think it's that that they're on their own I think it's more of the uh the nutrition for someone to exert themselves like in an athletic competition was where he was going with this point but students that are going on on trips I'm not sure what our current practice is in terms of Fine Arts but right certainly not athletes only I just want to make sure here because I think the intent was like before if if they're sending sandwiches with the basketball team on the way to an away game because of the physical exertion they're provide them with a nutritional option that will fuel their body to be to maintain health and be able to uh to perform
105with their best yep we'll continue to is our students that are playing the the trumpet and the in the saxophone in a Orchestra or band competition they down most people do better when they eat thank you buy thanks for your time tonight appreciate thank you thanks for the questions Mr dling anything yes I do thank you on the uh first proposed Financial Arrangement whatever 250k loan can you explain that to me sure so we're willing to put $50,000 uh upfront into uh equipment upgrades signage marketing whatever we feel like is is needed the 250 the way that would basically work is we would front the cost for if we needed an additional equipment upgrades um Etc and then we would essentially take the cost of that 250,000 or whatever amount we ended up spending even
106if say it was 150 or 200 or whatever we divide that amount over the number of months in the contract and then that just shows up on the monthly bill back to the district um as a monthly expense so it's not meant to be a profit Center for us it's just meant to try to help move along some of the equipment uh upgrades or or Investments that may need to be required to move to that fresh program okay so we got a three-year contract if it doesn't go any further that's 250 that's coming out of that three-year contract correct okay uh last page uh the three-year Financial projection again is three-year contract uh we're looking at um at least your projection shows negative - 258 258,000 negative 47 and positive of 103 M um 50%
107share of any net of any net Surplus obviously with the 103 that's you know what 50 plus thousand piece is that hold true for the negatives you you share in the negatives 50% with us no sir okay thank you very much you're welcome board members go ahead okay thank you for coming in explaining this to us um following Mr ding's comments regarding the three-year Financial projection so you say sales growth for one seven figures we'll say o over this over time okay so not necessarily over these three years correct okay um can you explain a little more so there will be a quest labor charge the quest management fee and the administration fee can you explain a little bit about the management fee and what that is pertains to as opposed to the labor charge
108which I assume is for the executive um chef and direct man the director correct so the labor charge will be for the on-site team the management fee is for all of the time that we're going to spend organizationally supporting our onsite team and the program here so the two individuals here will report up to a district manager there's a whole host of operations support culinary support marketing support um it support all of those individuals that will be involved in supporting that team and the program and we'll have regular contact with uh District leadership here that's what the management fee is for is organizationally the support that we're providing uh to the partnership it's also by just going to be completely candid the management and admin fee is how we make a profit for the program
109um the the labor charge pass through that is just strictly a pass through um it's actual tax fringe benefits all that sort of of stuff there's no markup on that so the management and admin fee cover our organizational cost to support the partnership and the director and the chef they will be will they have offices on our site okay so they'll probably be located here at Forest View I would assume and then they'll go to the other sites okay have you worked with a district that had more than one high school yeah yes and that's the main Township okay for sure yeah all right um and then uh I noticed that for the catering sales um so those are projected to double over the next three years or each year um consecutively okay so I'll
110speak to that just real quick so we have much smaller districts where we are doing 250 to $400,000 a year in catering um we think 50 is a really small number for a district of this size what we wanted to Signal there is our willingness to be a partner to the district to hopefully bring some of that spend onsite that maybe keeps some of the profit margins that are going to other businesses in the area and we know the district wants to be good partners to businesses in the community but if we can keep that margin here in the district then that helps support the overall Financial objectives here I don't feel like we'll be doing our job if that number stays at 50 um we think that's a really conservative estimate but we hope
111there's some opportunity there okay and I would agree with Mr Walker I it would be great if you would interact with our culinary programs um if you have the opportunity tomorrow at Harper they're actually doing a compet I believe right is like a little iron chef competition going yes I strongly recommend the restes thank you welcome Mr figero all right um please leave that up there uh question I have for you um you have these uh increases for Quest labor 6% 5% 5% so just out of curiosity who came up with that number so let me explain that uh differently so the 6% is uh that number is what percent of sales that represents not a 6% raise okay so if you look at for example on food do you see where it says 51%
112and 45% so we're just trying to show over time uh what percentage of sales our labor represents um I think the assumption that we baked in there was a 4% annual increase for our labor okay all right so second question I have is I'm a parent okay and I have a sophomore daughter who choses to usually eat in at hery rather than going across the street so um what would be the average cost um low range high range for your for the cost of your food well it's not going to be much different than what they have what your daughter has experienced ing now okay um so again the district retains control of pricing that's not our decision we'll bring recommendations to the table when we looked at the retail pricing for meals and allart
113options that the district has right now we don't think there needs to be a whole lot of movement now going back to the tariffs question we'll have to figure out offerings cost and where that sort of uh where those things intersect with one another as we head into next year but the pricing model that's place right now we feel like is pretty good for uh what we would hope to offer in the in uh with our program moving into next year and how does it compared to like say say like the main Township they're relatively close to us yes they're same ballpark right in the ballpark and I think we actually provided if I'm not mistaken I think we provided uh main townships and I think one other District's re uh pricing as well for
114comparison you guys are right in the ballpark okay all right great thank you yeah okay anybody else uh Dr Ro do you want to add anything uh the only thing I would add would be thank you presentation was very informative very helpful I appreciate all the time and energy and Mr key and the and the team Mr Maggi and Sher Victoria know in the building appreciate the uh the time and then energy you all put into this it was a thorough process um and uh Quest was the unanimous decision of the team I think is an important thing to add um they they blew blew our team away and I think they they've earned this okay okay um coloroll Walker yes Palmer I dling yes fito yes heinan I Ral I and citer I motion
115carries 70 thank you a motion in a second for 1025 please second motion a second Mr key thank you very much this is a uh typical annual dare I say per funter Miss Palmer uh function here for the business office you that we perform on an annual basis so as you know uh we will not be bringing the final budget back for approval from the board uh until September therefore we're uh seeking Authority this evening to act um within uh the the OES of that soon Tobe Set uh U uh budget uh we do as a district encumber our salaries and benefits upfront at the beginning of the school year so um this action by the board allows the operation to continue until that uh fiscal year 26 budget is officially approved and filed with
116the state questions board members col dling yes fito yes Hinman I Palmer I Ral I Walker yes kiter I motion carries 70 thank you uh thank you quest that was a great presentation really appreciate it looking forward to it yep looking forward to it U let's see Motion in a second for 1031 please so moved second motion to Second any discussion call the RO Paul mer I dling yes fito yes heinan I Ral I Walker yes and quer I motion carries 70 thank you uh 1041 please Motion in a second please moved second Motion in a second Mr ulie thank you agenda item is related to repl is it on is it on is that better move thank you thank you Sor I'll start over three rooftop units um will need to be replaced at
117Wheeling High School the ages of these rooftop units are 34 35 and 36 years old um average expected lifespan is 15 years yeah these units are now Obsolete and they no longer manufactur replacement parts any questions [Laughter] okay then huh um so sorry that is that is for this summer this summer oh it's it's 2025 project um so this has been a bugam of mine for a few years now the Board of Education used to get a document from um before your time M that I can't remember it was by school or by rooftop but I think it was by school that had the age of the rooftop unit and when it was going to be um replaced okay I haven't seen that document in a number of years and I'm hoping that whenever we
118get to the construction that that will be something that will be we will be seeing in the future um I mean this is this is ridiculous it's a 15year lifespan and it's 30 years old yeah so it's part of that facility assessment right that was the audit to get all of that information Miss Miss Dak and her team are taking that information and putting it in a digestible format yeah we don't want to just send that facility assessment it's really hard to kind of sift through and read so I've seen one version of the document for just boilers and and it looks great and really easy to digest and understand and they're working through the other mechanical systems as well to be able to share that information yeah it's not necessarily that I need to
119see it but if the document is there and always updated you know when this stuff is coming up I actually think it should be an annual just a brief report to the board of just you get a 10e visual of it and it doesn't have to be a 30 minute discussion but just uh pre presented so you see what's coming because as we've discussed internally it plays a vital role in terms of how we build the budget and what operations needs if we can know you know 5 10 15 years out you know when the parking lots need to be paved or are we just it just a summer we're going to patch or we you know so it helps it's huge it's really vital additionally our um people that live in District I'm sure
120would like to see those types of things so that they can look ahead and and understand what's going to impact the school their kids go to or or other things like the costs that are coming down the road any other board members so what's the lifespan of these new units um you know that off top of your head oh still okay okay uh any other discussion because they're high efficient units will they cost less to run yes well I like that thank you okay we had a motion in a second please call a roll ROK I Palmer I dling fito yes heinan I Walker yes kitzer I motion carries 60 thank you president crater I'd like to ask that we amend uh 10.4.2 approval of Summer construction 2026 authorization um there's no mention in the
121description of the Rolling meows High school student services renovation and I think we need to add it it is in there yeah I know it's not in the agenda item it's not on the agenda but it is on um the board oh book premere y um I apologize for not mentioning it beforehand okay I'll take it out of your pay I'll second the motion to amend the agenda thank you uh do we need a vote on an amended agenda item okay call the RO fito yes Palmer I dling heinan I Paul uh Ral I Walker yes and CER I motion carry 60 okay uh motion and a second on the uh amended agenda item so moved second uh discussion just for those in the audience it it's not written on the um agenda but it
122is in in board book premiere that list it does list Rolling Meadows high school so Mr ulie please thank you so this is that time of year where we bring um following summmer projects uh to the board of education for project authorization so we want to talk through two significant projects really the bulk of the work is going to be at Wheeling High School and some of 26 which we walk through and then there's a a smaller needed project at uh rolling meals High School which will be a very visible project Pro switch to the next side please so the the first focal point is we're continuing with our student services kind of work throughout the district um Wheeling High School is up next and what you'll see in that highlighted area is the entire
123footprint um that we're going to be renovating which includes the nurse's office to the top of your screen all the way down to the main office which uh you run right into when you come in that main entry um a couple focal points with that we're doing a full roof replacement uh full HV AC replacement and a full curtain wall replacement so we're we're getting rid of replacing those single pane windows um we are scheduled to do a spring break start um the difference here you know we did out Grove that was a spring break and then hery was January now we're scheduling spring break that's really due to the asbest abatement required so there's minimal abatement required in this project so we've had our team of Engineers Architects on site um kind of doing
124that preliminary work um so we're comfortable with a with a scheduled spring start so this is all conceptual design um once approved we will start the design development that's when we'll get with the building administrative team uh and start kind of cycling through that design process so that's a full scale renovation nurse's office uh student services area and the main office any questions before I move on yes um my question is I know the Wheeling project seems to be very similar to what we did at hery and so my question is is there anything that we learned from the hery project that we can apply to Wheeling yeah I I think the uniqueness here is this is an almost identical footprint to Elk Grove and so so we're taking those Design Elements and are able
125to apply them the difference here is that elk grve main office was disconnected from that space and already renovated prior years and so the difference will be the addition of the main office renovation in this project and so we're starting during spring break where will the people who occupy that space be housed we haven't gotten there yet that'll be part of part of the design process yes if uh you think about the elro high school renovation of student services they just went all over the school they had signs all over the place of where the displaced person was going to be so um yeah okay so we'll transition to to the next project at Wheeling High School um which is the pool and and we have some photos I need you to think about this
126project from the pool deck down below everything in the pool that you see this is all underneath is what we're talking about here we've had some concrete delamination um due to increased humidity um down below and so this project requires us to kind of um tackle some of that infrastructure that concrete work we're going to take that opportunity to replace all the electrical Plumbing which is really at the point of rusting out um we're also adding additional mechanical components to manage the excess humidity um so this is kind of a refresh reinvigorating um the the guts below the pool um some of the units are are fairly new those will go right back in place so it's it's kind of a refresh we're adding some additional components um but this is another so as we
127talk about Wheeling we're mobilizing for student services this is a pepper project and we'll we'll start tackling the these things as we move through so we don't have a projected start date on this work yet but it'll it'll kind of be in tandem as we mobilize we we tackle abatement we start start student services students start clearing out is when we tackle some of these other projects as well so um again this is just a a significant renovation underneath the pool deck in the pool itself so do we have some learnings from prospect on the pool we can avoid yeah that that project was was was the pool itself um and we're doing everything underneath the pool so it's a a completely different project but there's nothing we learn from that that could be applied
128here I mean if there's lessons to be learned we'll have to see the parallels in the two projects and absolutely do a comparison yeah the oldest pool in the district yes yes um so the question I have is we're talking about underneath but are we looking to do anything on Deck like the you know starting blocks any of the the deck it just looks really looks old old the deck itself is don't throw your gum there yeah that would be cool um the pool in a Wheeling uh we can we are not able to do anything on a pool de itself this pool is Grandfather because the drain inside the pool it's um it's original with a pool that if we will do any type of the work with the diving boards we will do
129anything with the drainage with the anything with existing pool we will have to build brand new B po oh wow okay thank you can we okay can we clean it up freshen it up and paint oh my gosh what' you say what about like paint and Aesthetics yes aesthetic like starting blocks that's equipment like we but the diving boards are at a height because of the depth of the pool itself it's not as deep to allow for for for more height on the diving boards sorry did you say that so the starting blocks could be replaced the starting blocks I believe we can all right okay anything else Mr Julie uh yes we transition to I have two more slides quick ones um the last project is uh the auto shop roof which is 46
130years old um we've had this queued up for a couple years it's we're ready for it um that also includes some HV mechanical work so we'll we'll be tackling cooling uh elements for the the the back of the house cafeteria the kitchen itself uh we're going from two to one high efficiency units for uh The Faculty lounge and then we're adding cooling to the auto shop um I think it was two years ago I went and looked at the renovation and we went into the Autos so um I I don't remember what I know there was something done in auto shop um but we're still renovating Autos um after this are we done with Autos or is there there still more to you didn't throw your gum out did you uh yes two years ago
131we did autoshop we did the main exhaust system we replaced that we also put additional exhaust over there we paint and did some additional beautification and now we are planning to do bring the cooling and replace put brand new two units and the roof and then we'll be done okay thank you anetta goodidea last one Rolling medows High School uh we are having experiencing some subgrade issues on the main entry Plaza right when you walk in so you you've if you've been there you know you've seen the heaving in the concrete and uh we did some investigation thankfully there's no leak in the in the main water line which R runs right underneath that space but we do have some soil issues that we have to tackle um when we go ahead and take take
132care of that concrete we'll we'll we'll finish it off so that mall looking pyramid uh in in the main entry will come down um and again design process we'll start to work with the building administrative team to kind of work through design components the needs student spaces are they eating outside we'll work through all of that um but that main entry look vastly different uh after we complete this project so you're pulling the pyramid down um do we don't know what will go in its place or what we're going to do with that canopy yeah we've looked at some really modern canopy designs um that come off the building um there are a lot of different options and routes we can go with that okay board members okay callor roll Palmer I viito yes dling
133yes Hamman hi Ral hi Walker and czer hi motion carries 70 thank thank you uh 1043 please Motion in a second so moved second there's been a motion in a second uh Mr Julie thank you this is you've seen you've seen these agenda items come at least twice a year so so we've purchased the controllers that was board approved in the fall now we are ready for the installation of a modern building automation system Buffalo Grove is the fourth building in the district that will receive this um you'll you'll see Prospect controllers coming eventually uh as the fifth building um so this is just part of our plan and we're carrying that out uh board members callu Ral I Palmer I dling yes fito yes Hinman I Walker yes CER I motion carries 70 thank
134you 1044 Motion in a second second please so moved second it's been a motion in the second uh Mr ulie thank you this is all of the HVAC components for the for the Wheeling project that we just discussed this is just being run through a purchasing Cooperative with train so it's all the mechanical equipment required for that summer 26 project board members um I got a question so I'm I'm going just borrow something from Lenny so with the tariffs are we concerned with the uh prices that these projects might just get elevated I have no idea but we can certainly start asking those questions yeah because I know we've done a phenomenal job of going out for bid 18 months which is really great we saved ourselves a lot of money and I'm just wondering
135I do know that these units are manufactured in the United States I just don't know how their sourc all those components but I'll certainly dig into that no thanks Chris I appreciate that Kentucky right Kentucky yeah um maybe this is a good time to talk about why we go to Cooperative um pricing would you like to do it or Mr Keeley Tim you want to talk about Cooperative um absolutely yeah as Chris said um it really has benefited the district I know we had some conversations last year about it um so certainly we have certain protections there so what's before you tonight uh Chris correct me if I'm wrong that's locked in so yes um that that again is one of the uh the advantages were there further questions on on um the use of
136cooperatives yeah just explain what a Cooperative pricing certainly use absolutely so uh a purchasing Cooperative is uh essentially just that I'm supposed to not use the word to define the word but um essentially a public body somewhere uh in the country uh would have put out U this product for public Bid And it it' be authorized by that governing body and then um different governing bodies such as school district M municipalities Etc are able to draw on that um provided we're members of it so I believe this one is is it Omnia this particular one I think it is um and so we are an active member of that cooperative and so um you know this could have been bit out in say Minnesota for a completely different um piece of equipment but it set
137a significant discount and uh allows school districts or public bodies to uh streamline the procurement process okay coloroll viito yes Palmer I dling yes Hinman i r i Walker yes czer I motion carries 70 thank you now we have a couple discussion items um Miss CRA you want to talk about the job there sure last Saturday morning we hosted for the third year in a row we hosted an educator job fair uh here at Forest viiew we had 518 Educators uh sign up to come a couple cool things this year um our some of our Center Schools and the local elementary schools in uh in their surrounding communities uh saw what we've been doing for the last couple years and so they piggybacked on that and the weekend before our Sunder schools got together and
138hosted an elementary job fair here and I think we helped one another so there were 300 Elementary candidates here the weekend before and like I said 500 with with us um we also uh the Personnel administrators that I uh work with met the day before the job fair and traded all our openings and so it was cool like when I would have a social studies candidate come up uh to be able to say you know we don't have any social studies openings but I know they have one at Main 207 and they have one at glenbard so we really helped each other out so another another great event with a great turnout thank you um 1221 um Dr Ro all right um so what we have before you is a first read of uh some
139proposed changes to board policy that is step one um in our uh sponsorship and uh and fundraising fundraising sponsorship and fundraising um ownership in the district as you know when we negotiate iated the or up negotiated the new contract with the Education Foundation one of the aspects that the Education Foundation managed was uh fundraising and sponsorship um and a number of years ago uh Mr Magi and team had a um had an outside agency conduct a study on what opportunities existed for the district if we were to bring in sponsorship and um and and naming rights um around around our district and they to the tune of of seven figure capabilities in terms of uh fundraising potential so uh so Mr M's continued on that actually I'll hand it over to him and let him
140explain the breakdown uh and why things are separated the way that they are and what we hope to accomplish with it y so uh traditionally everything was Consolidated into uh policy 880 gifts to the district and so what we are proposing is separating gifts to the district which is your traditional fundraising um that schools can still do uh in addition to the work of the Education Foundation that supports the district theou governs the relationship there uh then another policy around advertising and sponsorship and then the final one would be honorary namings all of that already existed in policy 880 but we thought it' be cleaner to separate out into 880 881 and 882 after the policies are discussed and adopted we will then do a comprehensive review of all the administrative procedures Rel related to
141gifts to the district um advertising and sponsorship and then again honorary namings so we just wanted to provide some clarity around those three separate topics uh board members discussion can't I have to be honest I haven't read 880 recently so I I'm going to ask for a little background that fundraising pertains to the students within the schools or just in in general so the school district can receive gifts and donations to to the district we we traditionally have and um what this does is just kind of updates that language around it so majority of that language is already existed in terms of what our schools can do okay has less to do with like the mechanisms for fundraising and more um about the guidelines and parameters and beliefs around it okay and and it doesn't
142necessarily discuss distribution of funds or anything it does not okay all right thank you I I'm a big fan of the idea of of sponsorship and Partnerships yep and with the capital projects and a lot of other things that we have going on in the schools I I know there's a lot of other districts that have gone that way where they have sponsors of their theater their their athletic fields and stuff like that and I I have no problem with that and and And discussing with legal counsel they really do believe that that is a function of the school district itself than let's say uh um uh the Education Foundation because a business is looking for um um it's part of their business model they're it's advertising that's what they're are looking to do and
143so that really cleared it up in some of our conversations with legal council and the Education Foundation if there's a gift that is um that you know the board would like to honor someone their name by for a facility that would be handled under honorary uh honorary namings of that process yeah and and and I think that as long as you have um parameters and strong guidelines um I think that would definitely serve our our school district very well and that's our next step to dig into all the procedures all right thanks so this like all other policies will uh live under first reading so it'll be back uh for the next two board meetings second reading the next board meeting then approval the second meeting in April excuse me thank you okay 1222 who
144wants to go first Mr fito or Dr Ro Mr Fido is our representative at uh NSO I'll let him take this uh yeah so I uh sent out the nsseo updates after the last meeting and then subsequently the next day was our finance committee meeting which I know uh Tim also participates in so I merged the two together but the organization structure for nsseo we're we're I would say at best were a little bit of a impass with uh some of our our board members from other districts um we have a committee of the whole meeting on March 31st in which to discuss this further and then we will probably have another conversation on April 2nd at the regular board meeting um I'm not quite sure of the timeline of when um we will come
145up with something and because you know having that March 31st Committee of the whole meeting it's under the 48 hour guideline whatever you want to call it to allow us to vote on on April 2nd so it certainly is going to go into May um there's just some questions that um some of the other board members have not had addressed to their satisfaction I guess I would call it um I know that uh Dr Shaw had did say at the last meeting that herself and all superintendant are fully supportive of the of the new structure but uh we just do not have um all of us on the same page as of yet so I think this the best way to describe it um respectfully the only thing that I would add is just that
146um nsso conducted a comprehensive strategic planning process with an outside partner uh hya and the um the governance adjustment was an output of that strategic planning process that involved you know 50 plus people students or staff um member districts as well as uh current board members that this was a a collective effort that uh that came out of that group so uh I believe the will of the strategic planning process uh should be upheld in my opinion um Mr fioro do you need any kind of uh up or down from us or no okay it wouldn't make sense because um the current draft form um it does have some shortcomings that we we have addressed um minor things like uh the number of meetings when they happen electing officers and stuff like that um those
147are some changes that I think are definitely going to be needed but um I'm not quite sure where we're g what's going to happen at the next couple meetings it it could it could get a complete overhaul they could get uh I think there's some concerns they could go nowhere it could be a 44 tie and if it's a 44 tie then we all know what that means that means it goes nowhere so important to note that nsso I believe is the only Cooperative in the Chicagoland area that does not have a two-tiered government structure and and I have talked to to Dr Meg and and I know there is some frustration because the as as she said at the beginning the restructure of the boards the operating governance board that was critical to the
148the Strategic plan so basically the Strategic plan is on complete hold until we resolve this and I think that's where she has a lot of frustration um board members questions okay thank you for the update so we're at uh 1223 Dr Ro all right so at our at our last meeting uh two weeks ago on the 27th of February their workshop uh we presented um had a very you know comprehensive discussion on our Capital Improvement needs and the facility maintenance plan $860 million facility maintenance plan and broke down um and had an education session and a conversation around what our options are to fund these projects um and one of those topics was um was to use some of the fund balance that the district has accumulated um and we wanted to do is come
149back tonight because um we wanted to to to t tackle this topic and we've invited our partners at PMA to come back and have this a conversation around just this singular topic so there was some understanding the district has had a uh a white paper that it has followed and adhered to since 2012 um that mandated the district maintain a 51% fund balance and then it initiated certain actions that needed to occur if the district um fell below that and the reason that that uh that white paper was in existence I think is really important because following the housing crisis of 2008 uh school districts across you know the country were in in dire need because of the the recession that we were in and District my understanding is district 214 was was not immune
150to that uh and was on the verge of of needing to issue tax anticipation warrants so a comprehensive strategy of of increasing the fund balance for the rainy day fund um should this happen again or in response to cook County's um delayed property tax collection collection and payment we needed to be sure that the district had enough cash on hand to last three and four months should there be a delay in the payment of our property taxes so there's good reason why um this this white paper was put in place the reason we bring it up for for a topic today is um Cook County has has been more consistent um and the district has accumulated we're sit at about 53% fund balance uh now and given the the state of of of the need
151of the capital Improvement plan that we have our fund balance is is a mechanism that um that I believe we we are going to have to utilize to some extent um as a part of our financial strategy um something that that is that we'll have a discussion question about this evening but just to frame the entire thing there there are some projects um that are on our list on our needs list that we needed to get uh get going sooner rather than later um that we would like to use utilize some about $10 million of fund balance for the summer of 26 projects that we'd like to have Mr ulie bring back um at the next board meeting for consideration um but before we go into that in detail we wanted to really ask you
152know Tammy and Tim from PMA to come back and and revisit this topic and and go into detail about our current status of where we are and I've asked them to um go you know give an explanation as to where they think we can go responsibly in respect to where we've been on how far we we can push the fund balance um and not m not disrupt our credit rating and not disrupt our our bond ability uh so you have an understanding of how how low we can push the fund balance for these capital projects um then we can have a discussion from there and and see where we are so welcome back guys thank you great thank you Dr roow and thank you guys for allowing us to come back and dig a little
153bit deeper um to begin we wanted to just get a sense of um where the fund balances kind of give a a framework of based on the district's um five-year projections where we would be at year end and where we would be at your low point for any given year so since the last meeting since the workshop we did update these charts to reflect the updates to the district's um five-year projections so these are going to be current to what's expected for the end of this year and going into FY 26 and 27 so what we can see here is at the end of this year we would expect your fund balance to be at about 54.5% so that equates to almost 100 well 199 days cash on hand at year end but we know
154with the cash flow of the district how you receive property taxes how you spend across a year your low Point's going to be in February of each year so with your current projections we would expect your low point to be in February again at about 39.3% so the reason you have your fund balance the reason the policy was put in place initially is taking into account where your low point is going to be in any given year so 39% equates to 143 days still a comfortable fund balance um building in some of the projects that are currently forecasted to be done we're showing your fund balance going to 51.6% so still above where your white paper is listed at at that but just for clarity that that that 51.6% would be if we approve the
155additional 10 million that I just referenced for summer of 26 correct so that would be outside of that right in the fivecast model or front line model no that's included so we have updated that model to include what uh Mr Julie is is uh bringing back to the board next uh week um so that would be an increase from what the model was when we showed it at the workshop and so I I raised that point meaning can you put that in English a little bit Yeah because if you're saying that the um the Janu the June 30 of 26 is including the 10 million in the model does that mean it's after we've paid it out and got Mr Julie some cash so last get Mr Julie some cash so the last uh board
156Workshop uh we presented uh known information at that time since that point in the last I don't know have we had a couple of weeks here um Chris and anetta have provided us with up to-date based on the most recent pay apps they're actual cash flow for their projects um there were significant adjustments um in our favor because when you're doing forecast you use conservative numbers until you get the real numbers um so what we're doing is uh the original one had $15 million of Summer 2026 projects Mr Uli has a uh a list of priority items that is actually 25 million um based on the information at the workshop you know obviously Chris and his team they're working months in advance so they're working on under the assumption they have 15 million when we
157reconciled in the last couple of weeks and noted um the addition funding availability based on um the reduction of projects changes of of uh you know for instance when they went out early with hery this year I think Chris you you quoted like a seven figure savings on that um we had the original estimate in there so some of it was just to clean up of numbers and get us more accurate and so to answer your question and Poss in an impossibly long answer yes uh that includes the additional um $10 million for those projects so now seeing these numbers we know that next month Chris is going to bring those back and it's still within the numbers that you're seeing here okay thank you I think to Dr Rose Point even having those included
158with in the projections you would still be above that stated 51% ending fund balance in the year um so you can be comfortable and I think for context of this conversation what will be helpful is on this slide what you can see is any additional construction spending right so we took a $10 million um number there if you spend above what's currently budgeted what's currently projected that equates to a an impact of 3.2% on your fund balance from the last slide so anytime when we're looking to say how much can we spend going forward we want to have an idea of what is the effect on that fund balance so at this point at the end of um fiscal year 26 June 30th 2026 your fund balance is at 51% anything that would be need
159needed additionally going into future years you would expect to be under that that 51% number right unless savings come in from somewhere else um based on current projections we would expect you to go below that 51% you would want to add before okay so really just addressing the Cook County tax delay again and and we can take into account what we just looked at on the last slide um but for Cook County again we've seen some delays where typically they should be issuing taxes or collecting taxes on August 1st and March 1st of each year and that has a direct implication for the school district because you receive your distributions as they have taxes come in um what happens when they move that deadline to December 1st or January 1st as it's happened your fund
160balance is going to be affected by that because the delay of a large portion 90% of your Revenue gets shifted 5 months right so your fund balance is going to continue going down instead of being replenished so what we would expect in a normal year and we picked late November because that's when the biggest effect on the tax delay was um in a normal year we would expect you to have about 63% fund balance in November um which equates to 230 days cash on hand when we saw Cook County tax delays where you didn't receive taxes until late November or December or January that fund balance went down to 22% so a way we can look at that is if you need to spend $10 million instead of 22% you would be at 19% right
161so that 3% shift would bring that down that being said 22% on a a situation that we hope is atypical but we have seen still equates to $80 of cash on 80 Days of cash on hand so when we're factoring in um looking at the size of projects you have knowing that there needs to be additional buyin from the district we want to just account for if we see a delay how comfortable is the district going down from 22% to whatever that number may be so with that I I guess we can start with any question yes I actually have a question for Tim based on what you said so with these big projects Tim I part pardon me for my ignorance here but the cash outlays for these big projects it's over the course
162of time it's not all upfront am I right absolutely Tim if you don't mind going back to slide too that's a great point for sure and so um that's like you know Chris and his team they work with pepper and The Architects to try and figure out how um that project is going to play out so we can have an accurate cash flow so um one component or one mention is how much does the project cost the uh other equally critical is when are we doing the work um because it may not seem like a big deal but um the difference between spending money on June 30th and July 1 can significantly impact um our projections and so it's really just a matter of teaching the model at so when we look at this right
163here I just want to talk um Tim was talking about well what if there was uh you know a delay um one of the things that that Dr roow and I have talked about through this is you know the reason we're having these conversations now is to prepare the board right so we're showing you right here where we are um all things being equal no major significant changes um in in February of 27 right and so that is going to be inclusive of the summer of 26 projects that the board is approving this month and next month um so that's already loaded into these models and so you've got um real quick math you've got almost two years of time um to look for this and so this is um this could be a very
164good time each year for the board to be reviewing this um so as we have these conversations we're not saying right now we're going below 50% um we're not even saying next year in in June of 26 we will unless we add more projects to Summer of 26 of course we've already established that that 18mon time frame in advance is critical to make sure we get good value and good projects um so that's highly unlikely um so again I think um this is more of an exercise to understand you know what our capacity is and to try and give the administrative team a little bit more guidance um as we start planning because um dollars to Donuts Mr ulie You' like to be talking about summer of 28 right now for sure they have there
165are a lot of projects and we and we um simply just want to make sure that we have those guidelines so that we can um begin that planning thank you Tim and back to you Tim thank you I I think at this point we can oh yes I guess I need a little clarification the the reason we're discussing this item is to uh revisit the fund balance minimum white paper and give approval to strategically spend below 51% that's different than you said Mr key um from what I see here uh and that's that's kind of where I'm confused about the meeting where we're at uh we just talked about the budget and part of the things that we have as a budget objective is to have an operating fund balance if we're talking and I
166don't know again where we're at with going below 51% or whatever else I got a number of other questions to ask with that if we're going to spend below a certain amount or if we're going to spend more than we're taking in that means our budget's not balance right I guess um so that's one of the areas I'm I'm wrestling with where are we with with that going into our budget for next year if we're not doing anything until two years from now and and we don't need to go below 51% like we we're going to discuss discuss according to the agenda item then then I don't have a problem with it but I got some other questions uh as well I don't know if we want to address that first or if you want
167to ask my question let address that that point because I think the the we can we we simply cannot accomplish the capital maintenance plan objectives on our annual operating budget we don't have enough excess to add to it to be able to to do as much work as our as our we're capable of doing and if we can allocate like for instance this summer of 26 Mr key and team has identified that there's a $15 million Capital Improvement um capabilities for us in our annual budget and and the purpose of this conversation is is Mr ulie will come back next month with a $10 million strategic fund balance spin down to get to what we believe we need to do in the summer of 26 so in order to accomplish the C the capital Improvement
168needs we have we we're going to have to dip into fund balance strategically and this is just that that conversation so the purpose of they are there are two separate conversations so Step One is um we believe that they could be married together Step One is Summer of 26 that won't take us below 51% but step two of the conversation is um we need need to revisit this because we will need to go below 51% and use the fund balance for future years when when do you need approval to do that when when when should we be voting on that to do that um it it appeared like from what I was reading here that that we were going to uh talk about that or vote on it almost talk the intent is to have
169the discussion about going voting at the next meeting to suspend the 51% white paper Okay in order to in order for the board to strategically spend down that fund balance without triggering the actions that are necessary in the white paper so that we can just be very intentional about using some of it um and then having a discussion with our partners about what is that floor that the board is comfortable with and setting a new floor temporarily until these projects are complete I can give you some feelings from me where I'd be comfortable if you want them now if you want them at a later meeting I can give them at a later meeting doesn't make any differ this this is the time because this is the intent of this discussion because this would be
170a consent item potentially the next I'd really like to know what what's the funds available from our fund balance uh if we take a 5 10 15 or 20% reduction what is that what's that monies that comes out of that comes out of that fund balance in those increments well they as they shared $10 million was 3.2% but I'd like to see the others so that I mean if we're talking about if if if this all we're going to do 3.2 and that gets us to at 50% then we're still in balance with our operating budget but if you're talking about projects beyond that and this gets us to 2026 if we talking about project talking summer of 2027 before we would look to go below the 51% okay but that's this is some of
171the stuff I'm looking for that they can put in their bucket to fill or something uh when we have a mood's bond rating report that uh in 2011 that said we should uh we should have U our operating Reserve serves uh you know at a certain level that gave us a uh an ability to uh handle our bonds at a certain interest rate um dropping down below what is the 4.0 uh uh rate that the isbe rates us at the top of the curve what does that do to us with with our ability uh to borrow uh interest rate wise so there's two things to think about and you mentioned them one is your credit rating and the other is your school district Financial profile score right so let's start with the rating as you
172said you have a a double A1 credit rating from Moody's investor service which you've had for a very long time uh and it was updated five years ago when the district did its last refinancing of some Bond so it's maintained that rating for a very long time Moody's is not going to tell you what that fund balance minimum should be what they are looking for is what is your policy why did you pick that policy that that love and as long as you adhere to that policy then they're they're happy meaning you choosing to make a decision about spending down some fund bals for capital projects they're not going to look at it negatively as long as you're spending fund bals for one-time expenditures like capital projects so they're not going to dictate to you
173what that fund balance level should be now separate from that you also mentioned the school district Financial profile score so as you know as you're alluding to one of the components of that score is what your fund balance to revenue ratio is and the highest possible score of a four means you have to have a fund balanc to revenue ratio of at least 25% so you're obviously well above that now and I would suspect that if you lowered it to something else you know you're still going to be way above that highest possible score within the overall Financial profile score then uh something is wrong with our white paper because our white paper says we got to have a minimum of 180 days cash so there's multiple components to the profile score so that one
174you refer to there is worth a tenth so if you were to that below 180 days you'd have a 3.9 still commendable but not the perfect 4.0 so there are four different components that total up to that 100% of 4% and uh all are interrelated um but separately um calculated so don't we dip below that I'm sorry to interrupt your question but don't we dip below that that 180 days as is demonstrated by this we do dip below systematically during the year and that always happens we go by the end of the year the June 30th measuring there is a test date on it yes it's as of the annual financial report um well again I'm concerned with depending upon where we go with our investments uh what what interest we may lose uh uh
175where we go with the fund balance if if we're going to take away from an any investment process so that's something to be seen I guess later so I just want to be clear Mr dling you had asked because we've got some homework to do I want to be clear you've asked for kind of the financial impact of the percentages so if we were to dip 5% the fund balance what kind of cash does that sure 510 uh 510 and 20 510 15 20 um what is that and then also as we're working um to further this conversation as we're depleting that fund B balance what does that look like on our revenue for our investments um and then the other thing that I heard is uh the impact on our um ISB Financial profile
176score um so we'll have to build that and then these different supposal will will inform us on what that is I I think an important thing for our Board of Education to discuss um I completely agree the credit rating is so critical at some point if the district has to issue more debt or just as good stewards of the taxpayers money we want the highest rating possible that is that is I think we would all agree um where I think the Board needs to to spend some time thinking is that 4.0 profile score which does not directly impact um that credit rating uh it is certainly um a great thing and there are uh very good districts that aren't 4.0 um when we've talked before Dr row and I about this um there are districts
177that will dip below that for one time Etc and I think Tammy alluded to that that you know the credit rating companies they're really interest are you able to maintain your services to your community without dipping into um uh you know debt without issuing um new money uh to keep the lights on right and so again I would just say my my my two cents are I would really like for the board to have a conversation about that 4.0 score and we can continue providing more information we can calculate and see what the impact is um but but again the difference between and I'm I'm not here to tell the board what to do but the difference between a 3.9 Financial profile score district and a 4.0 um I just don't see that being remarkable
178um so again I appreciate the eye on the prize with the moodies and uh the investment I'd be happy to answer other questions but I just wanted to make sure I captured that in my notes um from Mr dling thank you I'll that's a really good point um Moody's is interested in what your financial profile score is but on the other hand it's one tiny thing that they look at because they do their own evaluation with other criteria your socioeconomics other things that have nothing to do with your financial profile scour and quite frankly a lot of things you can't control so they're interested in it but it is far from being a main Criterion what your credit rating is board members anything else well we have a continued discussion oh go ahead uh you
179know you were talking about the stuff that Bill's asking for I guess my focus would be on on the debt if we want to issue debt based on your last presentation if we chose to take part of that 800 million and say let's look at our our wants I mean not our wants our needs and our life and safety projects and focus on that and if if we had a number could we you know could we use debt to finance that and if we did would any of this have an impact on the cost of our debt I mean that's you know what we're here for if we're stewards of the purse right we would want to look at that thank you anything else board members well Dr Ro I think we have few questions
180that need to be answered and uh go ahead your take I was just just going to say we'll bring answers to those questions back at the next meeting and continue the discussion we're not in a rush okay it it's really we're going to continue the discussion we're not really we're not going to put it on next time we will come back and discuss with the answers and just continue talk like like Tim said we have we have time this is not a rush this is a we're playing the long game here to um to accomplish the goal of updating our buildings and how we how we get to Common Ground on how you'd like to use the fund balance I think worthy time and a good discussion no I think I think we need to
181have that discussion now um and really appreciate it and thank you for coming back uh really appreciate the uh the the discussion here pleasure thank you thank you okay we are going into closed session and we will have um action after Clos session so I need a motion in a second to go into close session for the purpose of discussing the appointment and compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in an education setting or a legal counsel for a public body I heard a motion is there a second second motion as second please call roll Palmer I Ral I dling yes fito yes hman I Walker yes ker motion carries seven zero thank you okay um par well do you want her to stay here that in
182a half she's [Music] e [Music] a [Music] a [Music] e [Music] could you tell okay so we're back in Open Session and we're back to um 1311 uh Mr dling I'd like to approval of the transaction reports personal transaction reports please second Motion in a second discussion please call a roll dling yes Ral I fito yes hinan I Palmer I Walker yes and quer I motion carries 70 okay um 1312 please I'd like to move for the approval of 13.1.2 approval of modifications to job descriptions second motion is second discussion please call a roll allmer I fito yes dling yes Hinman I Ral I Walker yes and czer I motion car 70 thank you um 1313 uh Mr dling please approval a resolution authorizing honorable dismissal due to reduction in force of probationary part-time education
183associate member contracts second motion a second discussion please call a roll dling yes Palmer I fito yes heinan I Ral I Walker yes Ander I motion carries 70 thank you motion is second 1314 Lenny a motion to approve Reemployment of Education Association members second motion second discussion please call a roll Walker yes Hinman I ding yes fito yes Palmer I Ral I enquir sir I motion carries 70 thank you to adjourn so moved second there's a motion in a second please call roll Palmer I fito yes dling Haman I rock I Walker yes and Court sir I we are adjourned thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] look