001Martinez. All right. All right. United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, moving on. Our next agenda item is public comment. Um so um would like to address the board. We haveated sign up, please. And I'll just remind everyone that um comments made during this time not protected from potential legal liability. As a reminder, the board will not respond to or engage in dialogue with individuals choosing to make a public comment. The board reserves the right to limit the length of public comments uh which meetings. So individual comments are limited to three minutes for a total of more than 30 minutes alive period. We also ask that all comments be made respectively and in a manner that does
002not thank you. I appreciate your introduction there. Good evening. I'm Taylor. I'm the local 73 field organizer for the community. I'm here tonight to give you an update on the areas that still remain of concern to us. The first one is following the labor laws that give the union access to work sites for our members and representing the members in our in workplace. The agents of the union have had some struggles with access uh to the members of the work sites. At one point Jack Rutherford forced me to leave the school, but not always. Um I have about 30 other units that I nobody makes this hard. Um, I go through the school process at the office. I never have trouble anywhere else about Pennsylvania. But I think, however, we've got it worked out so
003that the administrators, Bill and Jack, will follow the labor laws that allow site access for the union conditions of members. But it's been a hard push to get there. We are still working on having the administration respect the rights of our stewards as they participate in employee interviews. I am witness Jack telling one of our stewards they couldn't speak or ask questions uh which labor laws and court cases have settled the right of a steward. The agents of the union are empowered to ask questions point out mitigating situations and the like. Secondly, uh concern continues about the treatment of employees. Our members have been disciplined and and currently being disciplined in arbitrary we feel. Um here are a few names that our stewards remember as folks who have been treated poorly, forced to resign or
004terminated. Uh Jennifer, I just spoke with her last week. Uh she was just like Molly Sexton who needed some accommodation for work and was moved to a position that forced her to not be able to do that. She couldn't drive. She could walk to Nathan Hale. She would walk there from home. No problem with that. And then the wingers were floating that she could not do that position. Maria for one we've talked about before Dina Sue Grace Matt Junior Davon Jones Elizabeth Ronnie Christina Frankie Ricardo Rihanna Jesus Olivia Ernesto I encourage the board to look into how these how this administration distributed their employees, your employees. And the third item is our petition that we handed you in October at the 21st board meeting. And our group gathered 900 signatures from this community in 11
005days. These are folks that have children in these in your schools. Uh folks that are from the communities that feed in here. So I dropped these off and please encourage the board to give us a response. Uh the other handout I'll hand to the president of the board here is the handout I went over with uh Jack and Terry Tish and Bill at a meeting in November. It stipulates the label labor law. I highlighted this bill in my code so you have a copy of that as well. Thank you. Thank you for your time. All right, at this time I do not public comment sign up. So we will move on to board member comments. Are there any comments from members of the board? Okay, hearing none, we'll move on to our commendations and recognitions.
006Um, first up, I'll invite our student board to deliver It's up to you. We would like to present our 8 award to Noah Rodriguez uh for responsibility, kindness, respect, and leadership. He is a an amazing student in class and gets his work done on time and is always helpful to his So, I'll read um on behalf of uh our great award for Ker Middle School. Our representatives are here from events today. unfortunately from Kura and Nathan Hale schedules did not did not allow. So um uh on behalf of our board members at uh Crim Middle School, we'd like to recognize Israel Manuela for the uh award from her middle school. Again, showing responsibility, kindness, respect, and leadership. And from Nathan Hill Middle School, we would like to to recognize Isabella Gals for showing responsibility, kindness,
007respect, and leadership. And I will say the representatives from um from Nathan El Middle School immediately responded with this name um with with glaring reviews on what an awesome amazing student, friend, mentor, and peer that Miss Sabella is. So here you presenters and congratulations to our award winners. Uh we'll move on now to our street national winners and winter grade winners. Good evening everyone. We are thrilled to share some inspiring news from our afterchool math program heroes. Blue Streak, the adaptive educaming program we used to sharpen math fluency, recently crowned its national champion for December. Veterans Memorial Middle School took home the prestigious Blue Streak Monthly Trophy, outperforming schools across the entire United States. The contest measures the highest average of equations mastered per student, spanning everything from basic addition to advanced fractions and decimals.
008Congratulations to program leader Miss Latne and the Veterans Memorial Middle School heroes with the highest average of mastered equations in the nation at 95.3 equations. Great job. And please stay. We'll take a photo after. Okay. Thanks for all your hard work. Um, as members of the veterans winning team, uh, we have first place winner, um, Annabelle Mendoza. Is Annabelle here this evening? All right. Well, congratulations. In second place at veterans, we have Trinidad Aaron Marcial. Is Trinidad here? Congratulations. Trophy's right that way. Congratulations. And in third place, we have Martinez Lazelle Franklin Jr. Martinez here. All right. And in addition, we are happy to announce the winners of the Cook County School District 130 and Blue Streak winter 2025 challenge over winter break. Blue Streak awarded a trophy to the Cook County School District 130
009students with the most average equations mastered over our break. Congratulations to the following three students. In first place, we have from Kerr Middle School, Adrienne Agular. Adrien, are you here? Congratulations to Adrian. In second place from Paul Rivier Primary School, we have Ava Sariah Carter. Ava, are you here? Come on down. Congratulations, Ava. And just stay right here. Photos, please. All right. And finally, also from Paul Rivier Primary School, uh we have our third place winner, Artisers King Jones from PRP. All right. And if we have all the winners up front here for a photo, then we'll quickly pick one and move right on. Thank you again to all of our heroes champions. Wait, wait. Stay there. All right, at this time I would like to receive an award and any opening that up to
010anyone who would like to participating. We are moving on to presentation next and I know we have a dog in the audience. So if you want to stay and see what the job is all about, that's fine, too. But if you're looking for a ticket, our board winners and our board members First up is George Washington School and I'll invite Miss and it's up to you wherever you Good evening. Welcome to George Washington. Um it's a pleasure to be here to share the exciting things that are going on at our building. So if you've never been here, welcome to George. We are the only altered school in the county school district 13. Um this is our mission and vision that we were able to collaborate and recreate with the staff here in George Washington to
011keep our focus on um our compassion and helping our students engage in an environment that they feel safe and comforted in and supported. So about George Washington, we are probably the newest building in the district. We were built in 2001. Side note, I removed from Nathan Hale Intermediate as a teacher and I taught fourth grade in 2011. 202, sorry, 202. And there are still some original teachers that are still here from 24 years ago. So, it's time to do that. I've really been back home. So, and with an amazing staff. Also, we have 38 staff members and we are the only kindergarten through fifth grade school in district 130. We have approximately 223 students and we are definitely a PBIS school where we teach our students to be respectful, responsible and safe. And then we
012throw in the caveat of be um some things that are new in our building and what's going on here at George. Last year we were able to have an updated sound system so that we can hear announcements. we can hear all of our safety protocols and procedures and that's been really helpful especially in this gym/ lunchroom area that you're in now. Uh we have updated our school improvement plan with our um sorry instructional leadership team who were able to participate and we've all implemented calming corners for our students that just need sometimes a timeout. They don't need to leave the the classroom. Sometimes they just need to go chill out for a few minutes and rejoin the group for regulation. Um, and we do strengthen working on strengthening our PBIS. Every day we start our
013morning with the morning meeting where we have responsive classrooms to our students needs that are positive and an invite in inviting environment where we use second step to work on our social emotional learning. Um, if you did enter through our main doors, you may have noticed those beautiful posters. We have a color room here which is really all about building community K through five. Each color represents a characteristic and then we have students working together K through five again to build community and relationships within our school. We will have quarterly wings, quarterly incentives or quarterly celebrations that do involve our color crews. And um Miss Morsimo who is on SMA brought it to us last year and we luckily had Miss Vanheel and Mrs. Nagel take over while she's out. Every child has a picture
014up there. They're all part of a team and they know the team that they're on. So I'm thankful for that. We do have PBIS quarterly celebrations. Last semester we did have a hot ch hot hot hot cocoa and a snowball snowball fight in the gym with our fuzzy things and the kids just absolutely loved it. Um we do have attendance incentives. Um so this year we decided to do not only focus on our math fluency but we're also focused on increasing our student attendance. And so, not only by making phone calls and outreach and checking in with the counselor in the morning, but we're also kids who have perfect attendance for each month, they're being recognized and they earn a brag tag that they can put on their backpack that they just love. So, we're
015excited about that and it has shown to help. So, we're going to keep going forward. Um, and we do our student of the month and our AMP. So, our arts, music, and PE teachers also get together and collaborate on students of the month because we know some kids will excel outside of the classroom in different areas that they're really good at, and we'd like to highlight our students as much as possible. Um, okay. So, I'm just going to briefly talk about we were targeted in 2024 and the reason that we were targeted was because we were 9/10en of a point with our ELLL population. So, we were overall 45.30. That was our designation in 2024. But I'm so pleased to say that this year we are no longer targeted. We are commendable and will continue
016to be commendable. We will continue to be commendable um through the hard work and the dedication of the staff here at George Washington and our families and our students that put in that hard work as well. Again, I do attribute this to all the teachers in the classroom for the hard work that they are doing to support our students and our families at home who have joined the challenges the math school and the reading initiative. And so, we're just really excited about that and we're just keep trying to move forward. So, all right. Our school improvement was submitted to the board last year. It was approved and also approved by the Illinois School Board of Education. Um so again this is just repeating what I said but we do have four goals that we have
017in our um SIP plan and that is to work on increasing our ELA our math and fluency our social emotional learning creating a safe environment and also attendance. So we are trying to hit those goals regularly. We discuss it through all with all of our staff members not just our um leadership team. We always bring that back and share and so it is a group effort. Um, we do we have implemented a professional learning community here at George Washington where we are student driven and we talk about data. It's not about what we taught, it's about what students are learning. And we ask ourselves these four questions. So, what are students supposed to know? What do we want them to know? How will we know if they learned it? What do we do when students
018haven't learned it? And then finally, what do we do when students have learned the content? So, moving forward. So, it's been a shift. We're still learning. It's a process but we are going in the right direction. Uh change is never easy as we know right sometimes we just want to dig our heels in and not change but we really are pushing ourselves with professional goals from the staff. Students are writing personal goals for learning and we are definitely working on our teacher efficacy to shift our focus to a positive mindset here. Um, no day is perfect, but we really do try to support each other as much as possible and support our students and our families as well. Um, so I would like to thank Mrs. Nagel, our our teacher. She put together a little
019clip for everybody. It's only it's just under three minutes. So, please enjoy and see the wonderful things that our staff and students do here at George Washington. So, thank you. All right. Sorry. Sorry. Fall is here. Hear the yell. Back to school. Ring the bell. Brand new shoes. Walking blues. Climb the fence. Books and pins. I can tell that we are going to be friends. Yes, I can tell that we are going to be friends. Walk with me, Suzy, through the park and by the tree. We can rest upon the ground and look at all the bugs we found. Safely walk to school without a sound. We safely walk to school without a sound. Well, here we are. No one else. We walk to school all by ourselves. There's dirt on our uniforms. We're chasing
020all the ants and worms. We clean up and now it's time to learn. We clean up and now it's time to learn. Learning books and shows people through the teacher marks our head against the wall. The teacher marks our head against the wall. They're color. We don'tice any time cuz we don't notice anything. We sit side by side in every class. The teacher thinks that I sound funny, but she likes me when you sing tonight in my bed. While silly thoughts run through my head of the bugs and alphabet and when I wake tomorrow, you and I will walk together again. I can tell that we are friends. Yes, I can tell we are just wanted to say it's a pleasure to serve this community in the county district 130 and to be part of
021George Washington staff is amazing. Um definitely have rough days but we try to have a positive climate here indoors and try to lift each other up. So the kids are the best part of the day. So I won't do it with the video and thank you. Good evening board members. uh in early December I had the opportunity to attend the symposium about recently district 121. Uh of all the presentations that that uh I was able to get into, one in particular really really struck me. Now I don't I I'm not able to to speak about this in great length or butcher. So I invited the program director for tooling, Mr. Brian Johnson, to come speak on this. Good evening everyone. My name is Brian Johnson. I'm director of finance for Creek School District and also
022the coordinator of our healing pause therapy dog program. We're just here to talk you through our program and hopefully encourage you to consider, you know, maybe getting a dog or two for your district. Um, so first RT Biscuit is seven. He is a Boston Terrier. Snickers is three. He is a lab pitbull mix. And then Russell is two. You're welcome to tell me what type of dog he is. Best guess is a wheaten terrier poodle mix. Um, all three of our dogs came through a program in Bvard County, Florida called the Paw and Stripes Therapy Dog College where the dogs live in a prison. and they're trained by inmates. The inmates get certifications to allow them when they're released to have some credentials to get a job at PetSmart dog, things like that. The dogs
023that don't necessarily make it to the therapy dog level. They work with a no kill shelter. Those dogs then go to the shelter to be adopted out. So, it's a win-win all around. Um, and we'll get into a little bit more of the logistics there as we go. So, our program started with Gracie, the principal of our alternative school, just thought, you know, these kids go through some rough things. Maybe he'll bring his dog in and it'll help out with the students. And it was such a resounding success. Our head of safety and security at the time, heard of the Paw and Stripes program, looked into it. So, our program, the Healing Pause, officially started in 2020. Um, two gentlemen went down to Florida, went to a week-long class there, came back with those dogs.
024Um, Biscuit, who you saw in the prior slide, was one of those. The other dog has since left the districts, which we'll explain that in a little bit as well. But since 2020, the dogs have been back. The timing of that was pretty great. Biscuit and Lucy had an opportunity to acclimate to the buildings. And then in March of 2021 when the pandemic, we were allowed to have students back in class, they were able to come back and have the dogs there for a little extra support as everyone kind of navigated what a new normal looks like. So the timing of it could have been better for our district. Um, and again, I mentioned we're county, Florida. It's a nonprofit program. The only expense for the dog is a $100 fee to transfer the paperwork
025of ownership from the sheriff's office to the new owner. So, as I mentioned, they work with the Oakill shelter. The dogs are trained by inmates, and that was that was a very surreal experience. As you can see, these gentlemen are dressed like the hamburglar, which is a little peculiar, but other than that, we just interacted with them. They were guys that did a great job training some great dogs. And we we just talked about the training, how it was going. Got to know them a little bit. They got to hear that Russell was coming home with to a family with kids. And it was such a great thing that they got to watch him graduate. You could tell what that meant to them. So, like I said, other than our expense of going to Florida
026and that $100, the dogs were provided at no cost. There are other means. We have people that have gone through and got the dogs trained independently at their own personal expense to go through the American Kennel Club training program. So there are other options. This is just something that has worked for us and we've had great success with the dogs from this program. Um so certification and training all the dogs see receive their K9 good citizenship and all our dogs also receive the good citizen advance designations which are pretty similar. You have to do sit stay. The dogs have to walk with you and adjust speeds. There's different um things that they actually tested us on when we didn't know we were being evaluated. So it was pretty intense while we were there for that
027week. They only test tested us at end on a few things because throughout the week we had done things like we went to a mall, they had to sit in a food court and not try and eat people sandwiches. Um, which is, you know, it's ongoing training that we're we're going through. But then actually Russell is certified as a law enforcement victim advocate therapy K9. So what that means is if a judge would allow if someone's being deposed in court, he has an additional certification where he could sit with someone, especially children, it's really a great occasion when someone's being deposed, especially a child. So if it was allowable, he could either be with them while they're being questioned or meet them before and after just so they they had that extra love from the
028dog to help ease them through that traumatic experience. Um, our program overview, the dogs, two dogs are full-time in a building. I'm in our district office. Russell's with me every day and people say, "Well, why do you need a dog? You're not with students all the time." one, I'm the only one not tied to a building, so I can get on the move a little more to the buildings that don't have dogs. And also, as you may have seen in the crowd, staff also benefit from this. And it's not just for students. And that's something that people tend to forget when thinking about a school. The staff benefit as well. And it just adds that little extra something. And again, it just I'm tied to my desk doing spreadsheets and accounting. Now I'm out in
029the buildings. people know me as more than the guy who sent them their dog in two points a year. So, it's it's helped me to be part of a bigger community as well, which has been great. So, the benefits of therapy dogs just reducing stress and anxiety. It just adds that little extra something. decreases emotional trauma, increases student empathy and compassion, decreases retaliatory violence, which we've seen at our high school where now the deans, they can use the dogs to help talk with kids and and kind of break that tension if there are things that people are upset with each other over. improves self-esteem and academic success, which we'll get into in a minute, some of the things we've done, and provides opportunities to develop positive relationships where again, you've got a dean of students
030historically might only talk to the kids who are having some issues where now they're talking to students not because of those issues, because they just want to come and pet the dog. And it's just again, it's a win-win all around. So, in the life of a therapy dog, this is pretty much it. Russell's going to lay by me or he we don't have students in our office. Everyone's comfortable. He just kind of wanders around. He'll go and visit people. He's kind of the Walmart greeter at the front door. Security yells at him sometimes cuz he's trying to jump up while people are trying to get in. But again, we have those positive reinforcement events or things happen that are negative, we can respond to those as well, which I mean, that's really where these dogs
031can add some great value. And then community events. We've done partnerships with police and fire department for safety incentives and things and coloring contests where students get to ride in a fire truck to school with the dogs. And we we've done some cool things there as well. So, student incentive programs, Snickers is based in our middle school. They have a their PBIS good behavior dollars. Students can cash in and have a snack with Snickers. or we've done reading with Russell where students can read to Russell or Russell and I can read a story to them and it's just again a nice thing. We talked about attendance programs and you can get your bra tag. We've got little trinkets from the dogs for those kids maybe that oh you've been in school all week and that's
032been the first time this year you could come see the dog and get a little coin from him or a coloring page. We've done coloring contests in the buildings and again um some of the community partnerships I mentioned the fire prevention week and things and then we have worked with other districts where they've had you know tragic events with students and things. Our superintendent's great with letting us go help out those in, you know, neighboring communities as well. And again, I've mentioned what these dogs can do. I've seen Russell wick tears off of the little girl's face and break that tension just enough where she'll now listen to a counselor to go get her the help that she needed. And there's countless stories like that. I try not to get emotional about it, but it's
033hard because I I I can't speak enough what a great program this is. So again, some of the questions, more of the logistics, where do districts get the dogs? I mentioned the Pause and Stripes program in Florida. I couldn't recommend that enough. They're great there. It is an intense program. You are going to be in a prison for the week, but you learn a lot. You meet a lot of great people and it's it's all in where day one like here's your dog. Take him to your hotel room with you and it's just it's sink or swim and and they do a lot to to support you. So, what the program costs, it's really up to the district. We do have a small expense reimbursement statement for handlers. I do receive an additional statement as
034a program coordinator, but that's up to you. It started kind of as a voluntary basis. The district covered the expenses to be in Florida for the week to get the dog and then it's kind of evolved as we've went. Um, what do we do with students and staff who are afraid of dogs? Part of our registration process because we have the dogs is making sure parents are comfortable and then there's just a list. you ask the teachers when you go into a building. Um allergies, again, you just kind of coordinate with the building and you just you're as respectful as you can be. There's going to be people who are afraid and you just, you know, all of our dogs have crates in the office where they're based. We'll go put them in our office.
035They can go in the crate if they need to. Um the dogs are insured through just our general insurance umbrella policy. We did work with attorneys to develop handbooks and policies and procedures before we rolled out the program just to make sure everyone was on the same page and we will cover there. Um, so who owns the dogs? That's where it gets a little tricky. Russell is my dog. Russell is not Creek Mon School District's dog. And we've had staff that got dogs that then went on to a different role. The dog leaves with that staff member. So that's hard. Our goal is to have a dog in each building, but it's a forever moving target because if I move on, we just lost onethird of our current team. So, we're always trying to expand
036and get people more involved and it's just it's it's hard to get people who are willing to do it because it is it's fun and it's great, but it's it's an extra level to your day that does get a little complicated at times. So, what are the steps for you to start your program? Step one, showing up to a presentation. Step two, inviting someone here. I'm happy to talk you through and get you in touch with the people that we've worked with or I've also just talked to other therapy dog groups regionally and gotten some great feedback there. It's a great community. Everyone's going to be willing to help you because everyone wants to see this type of program expand and improve. So, with that, if anyone has any questions, I'm happy to. I've got
037cards if you want to take some time and email me down the line. Again, we're happy to help any way we can. So, thank you for for having us. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Are there any questions for Mr. Johnson? I I think it's a wonderful program. I've seen when I was on the 218 board um that they brought therapies off in for some of the schools and I've seen the impact they can have. So, thank you. Yeah, I was asked to mention that I did graduate from Nathan Hale. So, this is a little special for us to come back and you know try and get this going and a community that helped bring us to where we are today. So, thank you Hearing no additional questions, we'll move on to our
038next agenda item, promoting high expectations and aspirations. So, I'll ask Dr. Gray and Mr. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm looking at the wrong people. Very, very sorry. We said we have to follow the dog. Um, good night. Thank you for having us here, Dr. M. Um, colleagues, everyone that's in attendance tonight. Thank you. We're going to talk about two very awesome, very wonderful programs. I'll speak first about the anchor uh academy where I'm the proud principal of and then um Heather will talk about ICP which is also a wonderful program. But uh Anchor didn't know this until I started but um Anchor stands for achieving knowledge and citizenship through hope, opportunity and resilience. Sounds like a lot, but I can tell you once you start really working within the the program and getting a chance
039to meet the students, uh, you see what this is all about. So, uh, one of the things I did put on here, and I'm not going to go into great detail about this, is the MVP of Ankor Academy, and that is the mission, the vision, and the purpose. I can tell you though, there's a lot of um overlapping themes here. And so the big the big pieces are just the collaborative piece and really the more personalized um support that we can give the students that come to our building. So, and I say collaborative because it's the students working together with us as the staff and really helping them to uh not only achieve their goals, but to make sure that they are headed back to their home schools, which is what they all want to
040do. That's their that's their number one goal is to get back to their home schools. But the the MVP here is uh where we really put our a lot of our our stock in because we want to make sure that it's a it's a personalized experience for those students because when they achieve their goal, we achieve our goal. Uh so where do the students come from? Well, we work with all the middle schools, so sixth, seventh, and eighth grade to welcome those students who struggle to be successful in schools where they're at. Uh but really uh one of the big focuses uh one of the focal points that we've uh actually been able to really work on since the pandemic has been attendance. And so a lot of the students that started the year with
041us, they started the year with us because of attendance problems. They were struggling to get to school. uh they were missing a lot of school and um so really helping them come and be in a smaller setting, having them be able to work on not only those academics but some of those social emotional pieces was key and uh we started with eight students at the beginning of this year and already five students have transitioned back to their home schools. So uh they have done a great job of meeting their goals and I'll talk about some of those goals like here in a minute. Um, but we really, and I know I said attendance is the one of the big pieces, but there might be some other reasons why we have students that attend Acre Academy.
042And really, that's where the where the joy comes from because we help them find ways to be able to improve upon whatever that was. I had really got them to anchor and help them to get back to their their home schools. So, really, what's today look like? Well, anchor academy. We are a full functioning school. All right. We're self-contained. Everything's in a one of the smaller the green uh Greenb Bryer school building. And I we're on the north side of town, kind of tucked in. Like if you were driving past it, you probably wouldn't even see us because we look like we're part of the neighborhood. But uh we have an awesome lead teacher, Norin Hayes, who does the bulk of the academics with our students. They also receive PE art and music. We share
043those teachers with NHI. Um so we're happy to have them. And then we have a social worker who we share with Whittier School uh who is able to provide some of those goal setting opportunities and have works with them on a daily and even weekly basis to make sure they're progress monitoring how they're doing towards their goals. But really the day starts they come together. We have morning meeting. We have breakfast. And then we get into our amp time. It's PE. It's art, music. Well, we just finished with art. We're in music for this semester. And then we get into the the core subjects. Then we have lunch together. And then afterwards is science, social studies, and then enrichment time, which is some time for them to either work on some items that either are
044going to extend their learning or there might even be some catchup pre-teaching activities to help them uh help those students that might need that. Uh so how do they get back academic or attendance academics and social emotional attendance we strive for 90%. Um we're talking major attendance issues for some of these students. So to have them come here and be there at least 90% of the time is a big big ask for some and we're really working with families too to help them to achieve that. But on average over over the course of a month we have over half of our students that achieve that goal. So that's that's big. academics. They're keeping on track. They're working with Miss Hayes. They're working within all the classes to make sure they're staying on track with their
045academics. And then social emotional, they're setting those goals. They're meeting those goals. And then they're uh all that together to help them return back to their um home schools. And when we do that, we actually have a meeting, a transition meeting where we invite uh the uh team from the home schools. We invite the parents, we sit around, we talk about what's worked, what is the plan to sustain that success and to make sure that when they go back, they go back ready and then they're they're ready to just hit the ground running. And so far, when they when they when they come back, they stick back. We tell them, "We love having you here, but we don't want to see you. graduation. You want to make sure you're doing what you're doing to be
046successful at your home. Uh MVPs, we talked about mission, vision, and uh purpose, but the MVPs, the most valuable people. We have some great staff that work with our outstanding uh students. Miss Hayes, I talked about a teacher. Uh we have a pair professional, Miss Viviana Velasco. Miss Mowski, our social worker, we share with Miss Okconor, physical education, we share with NHS. Miss Nagel for art, NHI, also Miss Schuler for music who we share with NHI. Um, Miss Patty um is our secretary and the absolute glue and make sure the building standing and everything's moving forward. Uh, we really enjoy having her. Miss Maria Alo is our custodian. Uh, we shared her with um our other Greenwood so we Mr. Jose Marcato is our maintenance and he's always there whenever we need anything fixed or
047anything plowed or salted. He is awesome as well. So, the MVPs really working together and working with the students to make sure that they meet their goals. Um, real quick, I know I'm I'm wrapping up here. Here's some pictures of some activities we've been doing. Miss Nagel, the we started with Larry in the bottom corner there. He was our scarecrow for the City of Blue Island scarecrow uh contest. So, we grabbed together some scrap, made a pirate looking scarecrow. Uh, this is our our group working with Miss Miss Barry on some instructional technology. They were programming robots and had a great time doing that. And then because they like making Larry so much, we made Stan the snowman and he was standing up until we had a really bad windstorm about a week or so
048ago and he just couldn't handle it anymore. But um some of those activities really bringing the community together and helping them to uh work together um as a team. So uh really enjoy again proud to to work with the anchor uh students and staff and I'm proud to work with district. Well I am going to first of all I am Heather Gray. I am the principal of specialized student services. Um so I am principal of the ICT program. if I can. Um, so as many of you know this program though this is the intensive communications program which is what ICT is. Um, we're designed to support students with autism or andor I should say significant cognitive disabilities. Um, this self-contained program allows students to learn within their home district while receiving indiv individualized support tailored
049to their unique needs. Um, and I'll talk a little bit more about what that means of being at in the home district here when we go through um a sliders further. Um, students in the ICP receive help with communication and language development, academic skills, social skills, daily life skills, um, sensory needs. Um honestly whatever they come to us with we are working with everything about them in the whole child. Classrooms are highly structur structured and predictable. They're there for helping students feel safe, supported and ready to learn. Um I have a dedicated team of professionals uh that work together. It's a very much of a collaborative group. Um that means and it is when you I read off these you will hear all the people that play a big significant part in our team. We
050of course have our special education teachers. Um we have language therapists, speech and language therapists. We have a social worker. We have occupational therapists, physical therapists and our very dedicated pair of professionals who partner with the families to help students reach their full potential. Our curriculum is different. We do do an alternative curriculum um which is designed specifically for the needs of our students. So our curriculum is designed to meet the individual needs of students with disabilities. We focus on helping each child learn and grow in ways that works best for them. Progress is carefully tracked through observation and data collection so families can see measurable growth over time. And we share that continuously with families, not just at parenting conferences or um at report card time. It is a daily communication we have with
051our families. We use a variety of teaching strategies along with unique learning curriculum. Um these approaches work best when learning is structured, predictable, practiced regularly. In addition to the classroom learning, students participate in monthly field trips that help them build real life functional skills um in the community. Um each child's program is based on their individual level and supports their cognitive, social, and emotional growth. Lessons are planned step by step to help students build skills successfully. It is really important to point out here that every lesson these teachers take their time to develop something for each individual child. It is not even though we do lots of whole group things. Bottom line is when they come to the teacher and they're we're moving around center to center they are getting what they need individually not
052just from their IEP plan but from the knowledge of everything else that we want them to learn. you know, your IEP goals. As many of you know from working with kids with IEPs, that we do focus on one or two very specific goals and objectives, but of course, there is so much more to be learned in um the classroom. Family relationships are important part of our program. Teachers communicate with parents daily to share successes, progress, and any challenges we have. Families are also provided with resources and guidance to help support learning at home. And that could be in ways of where parents can come in and we've sat down with them to go through how to set up schedules at home, how to create a regular routine that they can help their child do. One
053something like that we do at school that they can then also do at home and we can be consistent helping to build their their child's skills. All right. So this data here is um from the DM. The DLM is the diet commandment learning map. It is the alternative assessment for IR which is what every student in the state of Illinois takes. But there is an alternative and it is very specific for children that have a cognitive um impairment but they also have an adaptive impairment. They have communication. They have a deficit in communication. They have a deficit possibly in self-care, in life skills. It is a combination of things. I give you that information, but I also need to say too that within ICP, not all of my kids take the DLF. They the state
054is very particular about who qualifies for this alternative assessment. Um, and so we do have to kind of check our boxes too to make sure that even though a child may need a lot of supports coming from our program, they still may be very capable of participating in the AR. So, we do have kind of a combination of kids that take one or the other. Of course, it also begins in third grade. Um, and excuse me, that this past year in the spring of 2025, there were throughout the district, meaning that ICP and kids that are in out placement programs, Easter Seals, Elum, um, DLP are part of this profession because even place children out because they need another level of support. They are still our students and we still do all their IEP meetings.
055We check in on them regularly. We are still part of their life. They are still a part of ours and some of those kids we do hope come back to us after they've spent some time getting maybe some more significant support. Um so in ours the overall we had 31 students that were eligible for the test last year. We had 29 students take the test. I'll explain why there was two that did not. 13 students were from ICP and one student was from crosscat. Um the reason that I put in there that there were 31 students eligible for the test and only 29 took it is because the DM is a test that runs from March to May. So it is a lot of small subtests and some of our kids and it was two
056particular that were part of an outplacement program. There may have been a medical issue that came up that didn't allow them to participate in the test. There is also um I know one of the kids did transfer but they were still with us during the beginnings of that. So hence why that number is still there with us. Um, the next part of this data though shows that our kids, I broke it down into just at our home school, and I'm coming back to what I said before about that, that we place kids out, but being able to have this program, the ICP program here in house is that we are able to service them at their, we'll say it's their home school, even though we feed off of every single school in the district. So
057we have kids from KUR, we have kids from PRP and PRI. Every school is represented over at the Hill campus um for our program. So our kids, if we are just looking at what we're doing in house and who I can see on a daily basis, we are moving up in our proficiency. So out of those 13 kids, our um ELA was at a 14.3% for proficiency. Our math was at 21.4%. 4% and our science was at 16.7%. So our overall proficiency was 17.6%. Um what I also want to share with you about that too is with the DLM testing it is like I said it goes from March till May it is a lot of small little subtests and it is students participated in the way that they can access the test. So, as
058you all all know, when you take a test, it's usually nowadays you sit in front of a computer. The child reads this to themselves. They answer and select the choice. All of the DLM is a one-on-one test with their sped teacher. So, it is also determined before they take the test, how can that child access the test? What do they need to be able to perform at their best? So, they we do do um a student survey before we begin. We do a profile also and it's all based in the um DM so that we know how to get information back out of a child and stuff and that is something we do need to work on too because obviously you know that is a big piece of wanting to make sure that we're getting
059true and accurate data from our kids. I would say that I know those numbers look low and stuff, but I will say that that is a huge like a compliment to my teachers. And what do I mean by that? I know that's not but it's the integrity of the test that they truly are getting answers from the children because they sit one-on-one with them that they do need to make sure if a child's response is just to point that they are paying attention to exactly where they're pointing on the test and not easily saying well I think it's kind of this one instead. So it's I you know I I love my teachers in there and I think they do a fantastic job. Um, chronic absences. I do have good news. I know it doesn't.
060Our littles have are at 80% chronic absent and I'm going to give a little context to that. But as we move up and as we share these things that we are doing to make sure they are attending school, you can see that we make the leap from 80 to 66%. Then we get to our middle school and our middle school kids only. Now I'll say about our littles, not trying to excuse um absences, but they are littles. Chronologically, they come to us at five, six, seven years old in the primary, but cognitively they are still at that behavioral level, the developmental level of like two or three years old. So, my best description of that is many of our kindergarten kids can grab a tissue and blow their nose. My littles struggle with that. So
061once they're congested, they're congested and it usually an absence for them might be one day becomes really three days. Um, and so we're working on that with parents and you can see we do work on that because it does get better as they get older and they need those skills obviously to be able to self-help themselves more um and be you know attending. And this is how this program works. It would not work without all of these people and all of these people are absolutely amazing. We have two primary classrooms which I have to thank the board so much for adding another classroom to us because the clientele of our schools has changed and we need to service everybody. Um so we have two classrooms. I have Miss Carella in one. She is with Miss
062Rodriguez, Mr. Gillette and uh Mr. Miss Carpenter. I also have uh Miss Patty McGold and she works with Miss Pototts, Mr. Casta, and Miss Artega. In intermediate, I have Miss Young. I also have Miss Roland sitting back over there. And I have uh Miss Aina. I have in my middle school uh Mr. Wolf. Then I have uh Miss Davis and Mr. President. And then for our related services, we have Miss Maro and two speech uh pathologists here, Miss Frond and Miss Hagerty. And they truly do make up an amazing team that collaborates very well together. And then I'm going to end on the best part of it all is seeing all of these amazing faces of the kids that are a part of our program and the adults that support them. Thank you so much.
063Um, thank you for that. Um, and I'm I'm married to someone who works in this field directly, so I know how hard this job is. If you could say one thing that you think you your teachers said wish knew about their this job that wasn't included in the presentation, what would you say? Starting from Oh, yeah. Okay. I um I just But I think you all know too. It's one of those is always remembering how hard everybody works all the time. And especially in this program when I said we individualize things every single day for every single child. That's a lot of work. It's a lot of time and your prep time goes way too quick. Um especially when you are making um books and you are making the PEX system that goes with it,
064the icons that go and the visuals that go with it, that's a lot of work. And it may not be critical thinking work in regards of cutting and pasting, rending, and other like that. But it's that and then it's really what I want you to know about them. This is not a little in the question is all of the people that I talked about and I mean every singlebody every single person on that board are so amazing at being creative of how they think about the children, what they learn from the kids and then how they turn around, take those interests and work and come up with a new activity that engages. And I pointed out. I can see her Miss Roland right here. She and the intermediate team, so Miss Young, Miss Roland, Miss
065Arena, they just recently before break had express um and that was a lot of creativity and it was a hit and we used it for all of our kids in the program. Um but it was a lot of work and it was creative and it really engaged all our children. Yes. And I I I right before I took this job, I was the leader. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. to our financial aisent. Something new for you guys this year. I'd like to thank the board for having me come and present the 2025 audit for 25. I am searching. I have been with John for 19 years. It was 20 in June. So basically all my life since college. Um love it there. And we're going to go through this report. Um I think you guys
066got a copy. If you guys have questions, please let me know. In addition, I can call email me as needed. So, we're going to go over school district 130's audit summary for year end 23025. Our audit team this year, you will see Marco, she is your partner, me and then we also had two associates on the audit this year, Lexi and J. The reports that get distributed to hand, you'll see an annual financial report that is your bound financial report. You also get um that we didn't have listed here. You'll have a smaller report which is called the guidance report which is considered a single audit report. We do also do the interview report which is the annual finance report that goes into the end of the year. You get communication and governance letter, a
067management letter. We provide the peer review letter. A lot of these letters we have to provide a so we provide those in the audit as well. the client representation letter and any approved journal entries that we had during the audit. So the communication to the board of management, we wanted to inform you guys that we encountered no significant difficulties or disagreements with management while performing the audit. Your staff is wonderful and we ask for things and we get it very very timely. Um professional standards do require us to make any statements. The statements aren't considered like wrongdoing or anything. These are just things that we they found in the audit that we're making in class. Um they're not material finding related. So we have to do that. So there are just some relation. Um none
068of the correctness statements intended as a result of our speakers and we did not have any fun. If we found something we approved it went during the audit we had no finance. So in relation to the financial audit and in relation to the uniform guidance for the single audit which is your compliance we had no question this year included in that big bond report you're going to see an independent audit report you're going to have the MBA which is your management discussion analysis you have our basic financials which is the governmentwide financials you'll have fun financial statements and then your notes some of the mentor information that we have to provide them is some schedule related to um your budget actuals. We also provide the information for the data report you guys have to do
069annually. And then other supplementary information is your pension and OEP disclosures. So that's teachers retirement system, Illinois school retirement bond, the teacher report and the OK. Those all come from your year. That information comes directly from them and the state for the TRS. We also give you a schedule of assessed valuations. You'll see that in slide as well coming out. Um that gives you your tax levies extended for the last three years and any collections you're receified cash basis financial statements of the governmental activities in each major fund. We had an unmodified an unmodified opinion. What an unmodified opinion means this is a clean opinion. That means no issues during the office. The best opinion we get is it. So the next step is what did these financials reflect? So revenues this year for all
070funds um you had property taxes that came in at 31 million. Evidence based funding that comes from the state that was 24 million. Your restricted federal aid this is all your federal uh grants that come through is healthcare and family services that came in at 12 million. Contributions here in this this is what we consider on payments. We are required as daughters to include that state retirement contribution in the financials. directly from them. We have a collective there. So that payment at 11 million restricted state aid, same thing comes from Isby or any other state parents you may have. On investments, this comes directly from your treasur's office on any interest you receive on your investments that they hold. Personal property taxes, we consider those as replacement taxes. You know that name. Outside of personal
071property taxes, that was too much. And then anything else that wasn't generally in the bigger numbers we included um as refund prior expenses, other income, student activities and such and that was so overall $90 million you guys received this year. So we did a three-year comparison. We only did the top three in relation here. So your property taxes and your PPRT which is your replacement taxes, your evidence-based funding and your federal state. So you guys are receiving a little less on the property taxes side and that's just because as the bills go out more you got to wait for those monies to come in. Um so we're hoping that will reflect an increase next year as the bills went out a little later this year. Evansbased funding which went up about $3 million. So you
072got that in addition from the state this year. And then federal and state aid also went up about 3 million and that's because your funding you receive more of your funding. So expenditures, where are we spending? Instruction came in at 38 million. Support 34 million. Non-program charges, this is um like special ed tuition and things like that, that came in at 4 million. Capital outlay came in at three. Your debt service is your payments directly through your bonds. So bond, principal, and interest, and any lease payments related to co things like that come through the debt service. And then community services came in at 600,000. So expenses came in at 84 million this year. So as you seen revenue came in at 90, your expenses came in at 84. So you brought more in than
073what you were spending. So same thing we did comparison for you guys to see where are we going in the future. We're going for the last three years. You will see expenses are going up as all schools as we all know food goes up, contracts go up, tuition is going up. I have four kids in school right now. So I understand young ones. So um so expenses do go up as the years are going on. Um we have to do improvements of course those are big you know projects and that those always go up as well. So this year we did have an increase of about $2 million in expenses from the last year. But in relation to that your phone is going up by $29 million. So even though you're bring you're bringing in
074your revenue and you have your expenses and we know the expenses look like they they increased for the last year your fund balance is actually going up 5.9 million. So you'll see your fund balance for the whole all the funds started at 62 million. You ended at 68 million. So you did increase your fund balance in relation to that. And this is positive for like I said if you're getting more fun um which is your evidence based funding you do have the federal state a which reimbursement basis. So as you spend those, you get that money in. So budgeted actuals, the first column is your budget. I'm sorry, it get cut off some reason. So first column is your budget. Second column is your actuals for revenue. You'll see we have a little star note
075in relation like I mentioned those state retirement contributions which come from CRS like this. Those are included in education fund. So when you're looking at education fun, you're like, "Oh no, we went up." you have to pay back out that million and that's that's reflected the financials. So overall you only went up or you received more in your than your budget of $2.2 million. So 76 million is what you budgeted you actually brought in more of $2 million and that's like I said relate to evidence based money. So very similar to expenses first column is budget second column is actual. We'll have to back out to 11. So total in actual expenditures dispersed were $6 million less than the budget amount for June 30.5. Um there was less salaries paid about 2.4 million when I
076looked at comparison a little less purchase services as well and then less than five. So that's where the money comes in at those $20. So we did budget a little bit more than what you guys expected this last year. So, as I mentioned, the three-year comparison for the property taxes, you'll see your EABS uh went up. And in case you have the question of why it went up for 223, that's because of the county changed how they're doing calculating their EAB and that's the jump when they made their AAS higher. You also see your tax rates in relation to how they do those calculations. When your AA goes up, sometimes your tax rates might go down a little. And then extended tax levy is what we are hoping to receive as if all residents pay
077their property taxes. So when you look at 2024, that's the current levy that we're receiving um in in revenue for this last audit period. We extended 33 million. We so far got 17 million in just for that levy specifically. But overall in property taxes, you guys got $31 million in. So average collection you guys are receiving is 93%. So as all the residents like I said the property taxes your district is one of my highest district that is receiving more than 90% of their their real estate tax. Other reports that you might see that we're not going to go over today, but if you have questions on, let me know is the management discussion analysis, the notes, your data, that's the cipher, any of the pension disclosures that's mentioned, and then your dentist. Last thing
078I wanted to bring to the attention to the board as well is your AFR profile score. So this is your annual financial report that goes to your uh requires of course annually that we have to give them a financial document outside the financial online report. This is how they do their school district profile. This helps monitor their finances with the school district and helps them see where your school district is um you know laying with all the other districts in Cook County and the state. You guys are currently at a 4.0 4.0. 0 is exactly the highest you can get. You can't go any more of that. And you guys have been really close for the last 5 years. You can see last two years you're at four, I think you're at 3.9, which is
079financial rec recognition. Not everybody is I would say roughly maybe 20%. They're close but not exactly there. This is also you can just find this on YouTube as well. So I thought as positive let's bring this to your guys attention as well if you haven't seen that. So I'd like to thank you of course our office John and Stephanie would like to thank you for of course having us as your office again this year and you know for future years as needed and if you have any additional questions you can call me email All right, let's move on to our architecture project. Good evening. Um while they get set up, I'll just give everybody here a quick brief overview. Um last month the operations team district 13 presented on your project that um the board
080the board had some questions questions. So, the architect is kind of invited here tonight to kind of um offer some clarity, some insight, professional guidance, and then of course answer any questions the board of education may have on the project. Um, so once they get set up, we have uh Jacob Dean and Tony from Under Path here to speak on it. All right. Well, thank you board and district 130 community. I'm going to review uh the door remedial work here for the evening. Um couple overview topics that we want to get through tonight. um looking at the security considerations and the layers of protections that are available for door systems. Example conditions that you have in the in the buildings here throughout the district and our initial recommendations. Our ongoing master planning effort which has
081been ongoing for several months and is slated for completion late summer, early fall 2026. Um some suggestions on prioritization that there are a lot of doors throughout the district. So looking at high level about where we would organize the the priorities and then construction cost estimates as well. Um so when we talk about security considerations for doors and layers of protection it's more than just the doors. When we look at security comprehensively it's camera systems. It's access controls. It goes outside the building for people that are accessing site through the street. Um there's a organization that as architects we all look to um the organization is called partner alliance for safer safer schools pass as the acronym. They've published this diagram which is um kind of intriguing because it shows you that the layers of
082security kind of start from the outside and they gravitate towards the inside. Number one, it's districtwide and that's more process um uh might be priorities that the district or the board sets for how to address security from a high level. And then we get into the property per perimeter which starts at the street or access control onto the site. Eventually the parking lot perimeter which are things like playground areas, sidewalks, uh things of that nature. And then this project is primarily focused on the blue which is the building perimeter itself, keeping the exterior of the building is secure. And then once we get inside the building itself, the plaster of interior partitions, you know, how to address doors of the building, you know, these doors here on the gym, we're beginning to see some of
083those um security considerations for interior like layer of protection. So again, building perimeter, it focuses on exterior doors and windows. And the key is making sure that these doors and those systems, the access controls, uh the camera systems work in conjunction with the building perimeter details. There are many layers of protection and I think what we want to make sure we don't get caught up on is just thinking it's just doors, it's doors, but it's more than I just mentioned. Number one, you know, we have doors, but when you think about a door, they often have sidelights to them. So a pane of glass that might be next to the door. Uh the transoms which are up above the door itself which starts to fall a little lower on the priority scale. So when we
084think about security it's generally from uh the ground floor level up to about 7 foot in height. You know something that somebody can get through a door. When you get up to a transom level 7 8 foot high it's less of a concern because you know it would take time to get up to that to that level. So we also have windows themselves. If we think about uh cafeteria department as an um example, you might have a series of doors in a cafeteria, but then they contain the glass right next to it. And those are just as vulnerable, if not more vulnerable than the door itself. So thinking comprehensively about how to handle those situations and balance that all out in the overall security protocols for the building. From an architectural perspective, I always think
085it's important that everyone understands active and passive um uh supervision. And one of those in the industry is how generally we organize office environments. You think about years ago back in the 1950s60s before we had all these security concerns in the schools, the office was usually in the middle of the building and came into the door and you marched through the corridor and you got to the office in the middle of the building. That changed decades ago where we have brought the office to an exterior wall so that we can have the security bed that a vesting systems. But one of the most intriguing points to that is really the implied supervision that that brings to security. So when we think about active uh supervision, it's things like physical eyes on what's happening outside. Um
086the access controls, the camera systems, those are all more or less active points of supervision. The implied supervision is just the fact that that office has an exterior connection and somebody might think that there are eyes or imagine that somebody's watching them. That's the implied supervision that when we think about a door project, how does that uh play out in the overall security aspects of the district? As we move inside, I think it's important especially on some of your larger campuses like the Great example of it is a compartmentalization of the building itself. These buildings can get so big and to be able to have um a lockown scenario where you know certain area of the building has been cleared or has been deemed safe while others are still in some kind of you know
087security overview. Um that's important and Nathan Hale is a perfect example of that. So as much as we might get caught up in the exterior door component, we also need to be looking at the sub levels of compartmentalization of the doors inside the building itself. Certainly access controls and surveillance systems that I mentioned the emergency preparedness and implement implementing and policing. The policing is important because if you have staff or students or anyone propping doors open, you basically throw out the whole idea of security systems. So having good district policies, making sure everybody is trained on um you know what the protocols in the building are and following through on that is going to be critical to implementing any kind of uh districtwide security approach. We are in the early stages of planning this entire
088uh door project for the district, but um I want to make sure everybody is clear on the different levels of doors. Um level one is an industry standard. It's still a standard in the architectural practice for schools, which is uh a vision panel door, typically aluminum because they're more durable than a hollow metal. They don't rust out. That's aluminum doesn't rust, but it's but they're just more of a adorable door. Um that's typical in the industry and the reason for that is um the door has vision to it. So you can see what's happening door. That's important when we think about not creating an obstacle if someone can't see the other side or have a clear uh path of vision. We take these doors on the back of the the example and we were saying
089we're going to put a solid or near solid door in as a replacement to address security. I as an architect would be just as concerned that I can't see what's going on the other side of the door. There's an emergency going on here. I don't know whether somebody's standing on the other side of the door that wants to do harm and I can't see what's happening through that door. So, we tend to still rely on this type of door system. Um, in a brand new school building or some retrofit application, that door has um safety glass in it, so tempered glass. Um, if somebody breaks the glass, it doesn't shard falls into pieces. Um, that's a typical. We do have certain districts that have opted to move up a level to um a level two
090security door, which the bottom part of the door is a metal, typically hollow metal in this case um with tempered safety glass that could be changed to be a laminated glass um which is harder to break. A laminated glass is what we have in our automobile on windshield. So when you think about that breaking, you've seen that before. It all folds together. It's hard to get through. Level three security might be a door with narrower lights like the doors we have here in the gym. So definitely harder for somebody to get through. Um the light panel could be laminated with tempered as an option. And then we get into things like level four and there's there's doors beyond this. They tend to fall into a prison type door. But level four security in a school
091environment might be something that is bulletproof or in today's day and age where we use it more often is in a storm shelter. So schools as of 2015 have been required to provide new schools or significant renovation projects are required to have storm shelters where a flying 2x4 going at a certain mile per hour can't impale the door to come through. Um, so those are kind of those level four security um, uh, secure doors and that would definitely have a laminated or glass and that type of door. So we will need some direction from the district with clarity on how far you want to go on the levels of door protection. And the other thought process when you have balance with this is not every door needs to be treated the same. There might be
092certain doors that want to be a certain way with other doors in the in the building that go in a different direction. So I think this is just helpful to talk about the types of doors and make sure everybody understands the levels of available the district example conditions that we have um here in district 13. Um this is your Lincoln school. So these are those industry standard doors that I mentioned to you that have a vision panel um top and bottom. We also have side lightss and transoms that we have to deal with these doors. Um in terms of the security project could be changed to one of those next levels up that I was mentioning. They could also be retrofitted. We have done a number of school districts um throughout the area that have
093installed a um it's it's a retrofit laminated glass. 3M is one of the manufacturers and we have some of the product out here now in certain buildings, but it uh it tends to slow down. That's what it's made for. Slow down an intruder. Um, it's not bulletproof, but if somebody was trying to get through that glass, it would take them uh minutes, which allows you to have the first responders respond generally in time to to solve that situation. Now, Lincoln is what we call more the newer building stop in the district. So, these are kind of hitting a lot of the industry standard security measures that we put in place. um you come into a vestial system there, you're greeted by um having to check into an office directly before you get out into the
094corridor system. So there may be some incremental improvements that need to be done at a facility like Lincoln or here at Washington that needs to be considered. You do have um many of the office environments that have the transactional counter when you come into the main entrance and we are seeing um many more districts implement uh security glass in front of the desk. Not everybody but um that is something that can be looked at and that that should be thought about in the door. You can just stop at the exterior door and you have it taken to that to that uh level of full security of protecting that that front end environment. And these can be phased in over time too. They don't necessarily have to be done all at once, but something to think
095about. We have um power beer intermediate or power beer uh intermediate school which has a little bit more of a challenge. we started to get into this the older stock of the building where we have accessibility issues getting into the front door. Um this is a great example of you come into the building and you're immediately greeted by a stair on a landing and you have two choose to go up and down a corridor system. The office is on the top floor of the building. So not anywhere near where um you know the public can be embedded there at the main entrance. So that's a problem and that should be solved comprehensively. Um definitely not something that can be solved overnight instead of taking money thought process. It's part of why I mentioned that district
096master plan is still in progress because this is all being looked at comprehensively um as to what to do in a situation like this where we don't have the office on the main floor. This isn't this is an example that I mentioned to you. This is at the same building there. We've got uh an environment where we can address doors, but then immediately expands the glass and consider how to handle that situation. The inside of that we also don't want to create prison environments for our schools. So that's the hard balance um that needs to be considered when we talk about these projects. The solution in my opinion would be blocking out the windows and lose the windows and natural light because that's going to be a detriment to a conducive environment for academics to
097happen. So they're hard decisions. This is that veterans memorial. So you have your big expanse of glass there at bedrooms and you come into uh the vestibial and then you're immediately into the corridor system building. The desk is on the other side of the wall. This picture here. So you come through the vest system and you're immediately in into the corridor system building without going through that office vetting process. Some some solutions there that will need to be met. And then we do have security systems in some of the build the um the metal detectors which uh in your uh the report was recommended to move those into the vest themselves. So you know you do the metal detection which in the building the corridor system those out of the vested before the person gets
098into the building itself. That's a problem because the vest simply aren't large enough. So changes to the whole vest system need to be made to accommodate those systems. So initial recommendations from our end um we definitely need to make sure all the entries of the building are secure. Um it's going to take a multi-layer approach to do that. Um we need to have secured vestibules. We need to move to that trend at every one of the buildings um that are going to be operated by the district and we need to have um centralized and accessible lean office locations because that's where that's where all the activity should happen at the front door. Who's in the building? Why are they here? And they can check that they run their driver's license for the systems. All those
099things need to happen in an area that people can easily get to and the staff knows what's going on. We should be looking at security glazing where it's needed. So that film that I mentioned about applying the glass so that we balance out natural light where we want it. Um but have the security glazing where it's needed. And we need to do this balanced approach and actively pass the super supervision. So, um, again, the overlay, the camera systems, the access controls, and doors where it's needed. Um, and where possible have that vision from an office out to a site to see who's coming onto the site, why are they here, is it a familiar face, parent, or does that person look like they're suspicious of someone problem? um that goes so far in the security
100world before somebody gets out of the car and you know you can generally tell by their face whether they are there on business or whether something suspicious that's happening. So that's all part of that passive supervision that needs to happen that um doesn't necessarily even cost money in certain cases. use that thing and being able to have those systems in place. The compartmentalization very important over the building itself. Um that compartmentalization typically deals with something we as architects call corridor doors. So it's a corridor door system that might be midway in a corridor to be able to lock down and isolate areas of a building. And the dangerous thing about that and why this is not just a one, two, three, a gun and why, you know, why can't we just put a door here?
101It's making sure that where we strategically place doors are the right spots because in a lock down situation, you do not want to be on the wrong side of the door. So, um it takes some effort to make sure that those doors are placed um appropriately and then eventually the goal is carry across every building in the district and how to get there when we have old stock, new stock, things that just don't slip into an easy uh solution path but still have that same approach across all the buildings in the district. Um, I bring these up as examples because these are new facilities that we've recently completed. Everybody's a different pace, different districts and why they do things that way they do. Um, this is Wall Oaks, uh, our school in Planefield. Um, you
102can see there's still a balance of a lot of glass on there and this approach was that implied supervision. This is the office. This is the office waiting area. Eyes out to the sidewalk and see to the front door and is it a familiar familiar face or not? These systems here all have that security blazing in place. Not bulletproof, but um a security blaze and that can slow anyone down. The inside corridor system, you can see the amount of glass. You know, if I'm somebody out there trying to exit, without panicking or in a emergency situation, I can see, you know, I can see all the way to the outside. I feel comfortable about moving out of the building at that point because I can see what's going on. I don't have a solid door
103in front of me. Uh this is Limestone Middle School in Ki that we did a few years ago. I show you this as well because this is a nice photo of it. This is the entire office area with the desk and that's designed to where you can see from the desk out that front area. Um again with all the the door uh system around it the office environment where we have clear vision from the office to see around um through the cafeteria system and the glass in front of it. Again, I think what we have to do is balance the approach with security and what the district is trying to achieve. Um because what I don't want to come to the district with is a solution that just um is too heavy damage. So that
104balance of making sure that you know we can still have inviting buildings to balance the security component out as well. when we This is again a school that's only a few years old. All the security system is in place. This is a cafeteria environment. That wall is a um the film on the glass. Um there's some um tinted glass too, so it's hard to see from the outside in, but the students can see out very easily. So, it still makes it an attractive environment. So I mentioned to you the ongoing master planning effort and I the reason why this is so important uh I have a slide here on it in a minute but it's making sure that we don't spend money to put doors in and then something through the master planning process says
105we need to change this and then we're renewing or spending money on doors that didn't need to be there changes. So, this ongoing master planning effort, you know, we're right kind of here, not quite midway yet, but we've been balancing the health and life safety aspects. Um, Tony with me, she's one of our project managers here with the firm. Um, her and our team have been walking every one of the buildings and garnering the information from health and life safety and physical facilities. Um, this is the nuts and bolts. This is the condition with the roof, doors and windows. The health and life safety. It's somewhat interrelated, but that's more code specific. And then the tail end of our planning effort is the educational advocacy. And that's things like do older buildings in the district
106still function as a successful school in today's day and age? We don't know that answer yet, but we're getting to that point. Um, you know, that's typically the detriment of the old they get no longer function the way they were intended to because so much has changed over the decades and how education is delivered. So those answers are going to shake themselves out over the upcoming months and again we need to balance this project with those fun games. So I mentioned health and life safety. One of the topics we study in health life safety is risk identific identification and avoidance. So that fits on that security concerns, the occupancy and fire rating of doors. On the physical facility side, we've got the technology and security systems that we need to be looking at doors. Here's
107the main points. This is from part of the presentation that I gave a few months ago to the board. But these two topics I think all taxpayers will appreciate. Avoid undoing work that's already done. So, not sping one in your door that has to be taken apart or not put in use because of the change. And I think we all know as homeowners, as um probably homeowners more than anybody, we always want to do more than we have money for, right? We all we all aspire to do nice things in our environment, good things. Um but there are so many needs in the district that have to be balanced out with the budget and you can afford over time. So that's all part of that prioritization that likely needs to happen. We talked about this
1085 10 year plan focusing on things that need to happen now and getting to a comfortable point. And so some of these door items are probably up in this top level 5 years. Um so I think the district being proactive about this door security is is right on track that vision for what needs to happen in five or 10 years. talk about prioritization um our suggestions on a priority one. So these are these are the the doors that should be looked at first as a group and there's three groups that we help them identify. This would be Paul River Primary School, George Washington Elementary, Lincoln Elementary School, Nathan Hale Primary School. Well, the whole Nathan Hale campus, Primary, Intermediate, and Middle School, and Anchor Academy. There are 100 door leaves. When I talk about a
109leaf, there are three leaves on this wall right here. There's two that are paired and then a single door. That's counts as three doors. Um, so when I talk about That's what we're talking about for the number of doors in authority one. There are also uh deteriorating doors that need to be replaced. So these are doors that regardless of a security project need attention. So certainly if we're going to be replacing doors, those need to be figured out security component. There are an additional 34 of those. So 134 doors across the district in a priority one level that looked at. The reason why priority one buildings are on there is they are generally the newer building side and we we know probably from a high level point in master planning that these are buildings going
110to remain in the district for the foreseeable future. Um so it certainly makes sense to invest in a building that we know um where certainty is is going to be around um certainly decades or certainly district for decades to come. And these priorities can shift around based upon the district um and budgetary considerations. Uh, priority two, these are facilities that need updating but don't have extensive accessibility issues like the older buildings have. Um, and they have the potential for adaptability and to remain as educational facilities. So again, just like I mentioned one, it makes sense to invest in the doors and security um for those buildings. So H forest man the early childhood Veterans Memorial Middle School and Greenwood um as being all priority two two level items in those buildings there are a total
111of 43 doors so another 43 total and then priority three these are facilities now I'm not saying that these are buildings that aren't going to be around for the district I'm just saying these are the oldest stock and there's probably more comprehensive decisions that need to be made about um a future of those buildings and the changes that are needed. Um when I mentioned and showed you pictures in the fall of your kids school, we had a office upstairs. We know um a recommendation would be to move that office back down to the main floor. So going in there tomorrow and installing doors to address the security project that in the next couple of years ideally the district will fix that problem, move the office or do something else that will be money that would
112be not well spent. Um so these priority three items were made possibly down the road few years or after some of the decisions and recommendations are made from comprehensive report in the district. So those are um Woodier Paul River School and Ever Curve Middle School again um all the building stock and there are a total of 74 doors across those three buildings and these are doors that are not easily implemented because of the doors that often in that scenario where I said you come in to an entrance and you're greeted by the landing and you go up or down. Now there's six to eight doors in a whole system that need be updated some kind of security mentality to it. So uh just some high cost estimates as the district starts planning. Um these were
113prepared in conjunction with San Construction with us. So I know they have shared um some of these numbers already with the district. Um the material labor cost per door leaf or per opening is somewhere just under $12,000. And that's factoring in the cost. Um including the hardware, which surprisingly, you know, if you're not uh familiar with the cost of hardware, it's one of the most expensive components on a door, especially in a door set like this where we have panic bars on it. Those are not inexpensive. um sometimes somewhere around $2,000 for a set of hardware, right for the district. Um painting, talking, you know, everything that goes to the door itself, including the demo and the old door and um and labor costs. So, this is a number from the construction manager that the
114district um has employed here in the district. So, just under $12,000. And then access control. Those doors not having doors will have access controls, but the doors that do, they're typically going to fall into a $1,800 to $2,600 range. And there's a range there because it's the level of complexity that the district pays for the access control system to it. So all in all, we're probably talking about a little over 13 13 and a half to 14,000 per door. And I mentioned a lot of doors in the presentation continue to address. So it's it's quite a few. So the totals um with those door counts that I gave you priority one security doors was probably hovering some 1.4 million for the doors. If we take care of those deteriorating doors now in priority one probably
115another half million. And then the other two priorities other buildings priority two level at 700,000 and then priority three security. 2. So a total construction cost this is um about 3.8. So I don't know if there are any questions about specific buildings. I do have diagrams here. Question about certain we can look at a question. Yeah, we're looking at the program here. Is your timeline showing for doing all this behind the scenes and say checking out the building. Is there any way to throw more resources at put your result for the master plan for master plan? Yes. Um is there a particular time frame in mind? I mean take what we're geared up for right now. Um, if I explain a little bit, um, we're at the point where we need to have some user
116group sessions with the district. And what I mean by that is there's probably about a half dozen or so user groups from each building that need to give us input possibilities. So, if we take a couple examples, there might be u technology, building maintenance, food service, PE certainly teachers department that principles we need to still meet with each of those buildings and everyone's building in the district and that's just going to take time. Um the most important thing in the master plan is not to rush it and get to it inclusion too fast because you know it's just it's prone to missing something that you know we don't want to do because we're moving too fast. So, I do want to afford the district time to be able to look at what we're preparing and
117meet and shed some insight from you as a district because my my insight is going to be from an architect um with regional experience um you know certainly I can tell you what others are doing and ultimately the district is going to take those places hopefully through a good a discussion share with them. Um, so in answer to your question, yes, you know, we could move faster if we needed to. Um, it's just going to be you're going to have to get together with us quicker and that's probably speaking, but I I'm pretty sure when I actually, you know, it's probably hard to get us around the table, but I think that's something that's important. We need to start looking at this and carve out some time for the user group to spend some time
118with you. Again, we don't want to shortcut or or or do things at a fast pace, but safety is a priority here. It looks like this time table, in my opinion, we want it to be some help in that. I think that may help us get some things we want to get. Why don't we um Tony and I put together our thoughts on that district here? And I could clarify if we were to prioritize the project in you know one two three laid it out very quickly. If we were to have priority one today that priority one could kind of move forward at the same time. Again, I think that priority one, I mean, part of it is the district uh having the funds available to do everything or in prioritization uh schedule like we
119show. So, um there's a lot of doors for a contractor to do that many doors in likely a summer or whatever time that squeezes in. It's a lot of open. So, even from a practical standpoint, I would recommend biting this in chunks. And um I don't see any reason not to hit those bar one levels because those buildings there's one thing we know in the facility. They're always changing. So, it's not going to be a sad requirement. There may be, you know, a couple that have to change down the road, but I would be more worried about coming to you and saying, "Well, the oldest buildings in worse shape and start replacing doors facilities. We know there's they're just right for meeting all these comprehensive changes and it's going to be thrown at something that
120it's not going to be a good situation. I think everyone overcoming the architect of why do that. You know, I I know the taxpayer appreciate you know that that thought through it. So, we just need time. Um, and you know, even when we get through the report and we got the plans, there's going to be the whole back end about how these projects going to be funded. Um, you know, where the where's the funds come from? and just to be able to break that down over the course of years and it it could be even to the point where priority one is broken down smaller or any one of those balance out priority would be safe to say that retro fitting to where those buildings stuck around cash. Yes. Yes. That's why they're priority one
121items because you know in a building like this um we would imagine that we'll remain in the district in service for decades to come and in some cases it might not be a complete door replacement. It might just be some hardware changes that need to happen and that's already kind of been deliberately identified um throughout some diagrams that we've been working on in the district. So, um, there's probably less of a complete door replacement in the door openings. It's just more of a hardware or access control. Maybe some of that glass put in at the desk. So, I talked a lot about doors, but there's some things that kind of creep in. It looks like everyone kind of fits within our budget. elig started this in spring. When would you estimate all 31 ination or
122all sir? So the process for March, I'll start with the design of things. Um it would probably be about one and a half to two months to get all these work done and that's the district that one green moving forward we're moving forward on doors and those doors generally. So just say yes. Then we move forward with the design work and the design work entails um writing specifications selecting hardware very specific with model number information and um the projects. So having the time for me to publicly advertise for bids, hitting a board meeting for you're going to advertise your size probably somewhere between. So we think about that time alone. That's three or four months out there, right? Um we're in mid January and school year is going to be many summer. So what I
123would suggest is probably more of a holistic approach and I know security is a high top would be to look at it as a summer project or break out a small portion of it. The other thing that has happened in school districts and this is a this is a pandemic uh because traditionally it's always been uh for decades contractor board process but that was all from size during the pandmic primarily because of supply chain and districts became a lot more flexible. contractor to come in either after hours or weekends or picking areas of building that contractor working in session if the district has that flexibility that's going to allow you to do more things sooner. So, um the door uh ordering the door is it's probably more of a a week's schedule rather than every
124door that you see in the building is custom made. So, a lot of the shop material but Some of the facilities you might have, you know, whatever it is, but that those could be ordered and probably hire the contractor that's contracted question answer two people out here or two people out here but I would write in specifications the flexibility that you district or not. So I would tell the contract we have flexibility come in after hours. We've got a whole number of districts that have a call no trace leave no trace behind. So they come in at 4:00, they do their work, they back down the next day after this point in January, it's you're pretty you're pretty far into the contract already. especially with not impossible but it's just it's right where this point.
125So going through bidding and ordering processually if I'm doing my Yeah, I mean the design is probably okay so much. the opportunity to take off. If you'd like certainly All right. So, moving on to agenda item five. Are there any Monday. I have a motion to s I k Mr. Warner. Is he still there? Uh Mr. Yes. roll. Yes. You get here. Good. You guessed. Yes. Mr. Order. No, you're good. I should have started with approved. All right. Thank you very much. Moving on then to our next agenda item business. We have four days um on our agenda. I want to remind everybody in October of last year um uh Dr. McCay informed me and we shared with the board at the October meeting that um pending guidance from our legal council. Dr. Mc could
126remind me how this goes about this guidance that I forward. Although we haven't been out at all on Yeah. So that that came out of it soon. Um so basically I I have here for discussion I see the options. We could reinstate our committees in membership at our July. Um we could use this opportunity to consider a restructure change membership or we can move to a committee for much. Any thoughts for a move as a basically what other people I agree and it would it would require a radical rethinking of how the committee structure works but it would be essentially more like you said people into the I haven't I I would throw one idea out there not for tonight but um since our board meetings are subject to public agendas Um I would be
127open to allow members. I think if people want to be part of the policy change are open. Yeah, they are they are open public agenda. Yeah. So it wouldn't take away the actual piece that didn't So consideration we could open more but it sounds like we are comfortable with reinstating the membership as yes we would have to indeed Thank you for that. We'll move on then to um agenda item seven item which is our financial audit. This is a recommendation to approve the financial reported by report. Call. Yes. Mr. Yes. Yes. Wonderful. Moving on then to item eight, new business. This is a proposed partnership with VA. Um, the materials were attached to the agenda, but that could maybe ask you to provide a little background about the VA elections process. And I'll just maybe
128te that up a little bit by saying this is in regard to the um once this approval is for professional development actually speak to it a little bit before I go. Um I'd like to begin by saying that um and so um When November 18th, um Jack and I work looking for outside organizations and plans for um ways that we could. And so, um we were able to get in touch with and um he was able you know, share the um information for me to their work. Um, and one of the things I found to be most um helpful is the services that they provide support the entire district um by strengthening and refining not only existing systems but improving staff morale, ensuring consistent data checks across our schools and departments and builds on that
129are already in place and is focused on what we are doing. Um although leadership um it's more about guiding and coordinating the work um primary impact staff um and I was really about the whole organization um department. Um so I shared anything else change but this is highly specialized. As far as the process um process all the materials were attached um a team represented the triple I conference this year. with you. I didn't speak but um thank you for allowing me as I should also start with saying that personselves currently as a company that's the largest best practice education research 2500 high K12 institutions focus just research research. So everything we do is best practice research and what we see across the country. Um in my conversation with Dr. page competition too. Um, this work
130will be very specialized to truly get to the root cause of what we're seeing policy on social media as far as the district to do. Um, the vision of service for you and I the partnership work closely with administrations leaders district research shows this one. Um, and just to be clear, we are a third party company that is really to use necessarily administration of what best practice research says and working through that to ensure that those practices and procedures are sustainable long term. So we are not a consulting company. We are implementation support companies because we want to do administration skills to go forward so they don't need us. that is um Dr. They talked about us presenting at the state which is uh it was led by two districts. We district 200 which has
131about 2,000 staff members and high school districts which have been in the district for us for three years now and their staff retention last years 12% satisfaction satisfaction So the work that we've been doing is getting results and I understand it next to teaching our kids safety and security. The most important thing we have is culture for our teachers so and our staff. So that's essentially how we make sure that discussions There are questions. I I actually have a question since you were standing right here in front of us. I do have a question. Um I I noticed your materials did focus a lot on the the teacher teachers and building leadership. Um is there a holistic look at staff? We know everybody from our custodial and maintenance staff, our repair pros, our secretaries. Is
132there a holistic look at how staff interact together? Yes. So when we sit down and start doing the work, it will spell out. So it will we will sit down with administration with the judge specifically but we will understand where you are now and where you need to go. Part of that work will be in developing the students through focus groups through the building through involvement with teachers and that directly and us working with them and understanding that because we want to develop these processes and procedures going forward with so I think that answer your question but yes our intention would be to ensure that all staff not just okay Are there any other questions? And if discussion or afterwards, please do. So I I do see this as an investment in our district multi-year.
133Um and you know we all know we'll be navigating some major leadership transition in the coming years. support and other baseline and provide a foundation for leadership to take us there. Yeah, exactly. So, um just new business tonight. We are going to keep moving on. Agenda nine is our items. Are there any questions or comments about any of ourformational items? Item B school. And is that the saf program? Yes. Scott, but I know it's related to district schools. Thank you. Are there any other questions aboutformational items? All right, moving on. Moving through my agenda here. I'm sorry. We'll move on to reports next. Um All right. Uh so my report I um It's getting late. I hope we all prepared comments or anything, but I I just want to really talk about a lot of
134things that are best. So, I want to really thank everyone staff and fellow board members for being part of these conversations and considering some of these initiatives. Uh Dr. K over to you for the superintendent report. I just have two quick things. Um I'd like to extend our deepest gratitude to Fred Frani and the trust for us of our clothing items. Obviously the temperatures drop these cold turret and the next bio was opening up but on February second so it's a couple weeks March. All right, moving on. Agenda item five. Any communication from our representative? Hi. Um, it was Miss Maro, the secretary. We just wanted to show support to our um counterparts of the PA that there's a hopeful gratification of their contract. So, we're here to support them and everything else. Thank you.
135Good evening, President Board members, superintendent and district leadership and thank you Um on behalf of the pair professional members, we would like to thank the district and the board of education for the time, effort, and collaboration that went into reaching the district. And at this time, I'd like to thank all I'd like to ask that the negotiating team from our members are here and some of the parents, please stand. Our membership voted overwhelmingly to approve the proposed contract, reflecting strong support for the progress making negotiations. This agreement represents an important step toward recognizing the vital role pair professionals play in supporting students, staff, and schools every day. We appreciate the opportunity to work together in good faith and especially ask for the board's approval for this meeting. We look forward to continuing a positive and
136productive relationship focused on stability, respect, and student success. Thank you. We'll move on to local 73. Oh, I'm sorry. Are you coming up? Sorry. So, I'm involved earlier. Um I I think primarily what we want to convey is that we would have hoped that negotiations are contract wrapped up by now. We've been dismayed by number of delays that have happened. Uh we have requests to federal mediation probably. Uh we are hopeful uh that we can continue in faith. We certainly intend to and careful work in a way that is mutually beneficial to the parties concern but we are we are hopeful I just like to add that we would also I would appreciate uh any questions that the board has those contact information um we respect the the boundaries We're not going to talk about
137the issues that the bar came over to but there are a lot of other issues you've heard about from us that we'd love to talk now it session may have a motion please to go into session uh concerning the appointment matters evidence Iowa security contract security procedures security and discussion. Martinez. Yes, we are back. All right. Thank you. We have some actions after close session. Mr. May I have a motion to appoint school exec serve as the district search firm for our next superintendent? I'll make a motion. I'll second. All right. Uh, Miss McInness. No. Miss Roll. Yes. Mr. Burman. Yes. Mr. Ginger. Yes. Mr. Wner. Yes. Motion approved. May I have a motion to approve 2025 2028 PIE SBA number 43 contract? Make a motion. Mr. Burmeister. Yes. Mr. Gmir. Yes. Mr. Wernner. Yes.
138Yes. One more. Sorry, I had to write down. Can I have a motion to appoint high chart investor to investigate a confidential uniform grievance sent directly to the court on January 12th? I'll make a motion. I'll second. Okay. Uh Miss Ky roll. Yeah. McInness. Yes. Mr. Wernner, no. Uh, Mr. Gmmer, no. Mr. Ber, yes. Motion approved. Uh, we'll move on now to May I have a motion, please, to the meeting. I'll make a motion. Uh, Mr. Ber. Yes. Yes. Roll. Yes. McInness. Yes.