School Board Meeting 5/8/23

001Good evening everybody. It's always good to see the room full. It is. It always makes us feel like, you know, somebody cares. Somebody's hearing us. So, thank you for coming. I know. Well, I got to take it in as long as I can. Welcome to the May 8th, 2023 Board of Education meeting. Can we have a roll call, please? Here, here here. Here. Thank you. The first item on the agenda is written communication. Dr. Davis, do we have any written communication? We have no written communication this evening. Okay. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is student recognition. There's the DECA International Competition winners. Well, um I'm going to ask Jenny Weber and Mitten Patel uh to come and present our DECA award winners. It's always a great night at a school board meeting

002when we can honor um students uh in any way, particularly tonight with DECA. So, Jenny and many you all can come over here to the podium and uh let's congratulate our students. [Applause] You guys can come on up. Yep. All the students come on up. And if you just want to like line up facing the board, don't be shy. They won't bite. All right. Good evening. It is with great honor that I am able to stand here before you to recognize these students who have dedicated so much of their own time in DECA. These students started working on their 20page marketing research plans and community awareness projects or 10 to 20 page business plans within the first two weeks of school even starting. They dedicated their lunch periods, free periods coming in before and after

003school to work on these projects. In January, these students began to practice their presentations with me starting as early as 7:30 in the morning. They have spent time before and after school taking practice tests and practicing their role plays in preparation for competition. As you might know, DECA is a high school competitive business club where students can compete in role plays and written competition. This past March, 28 students attended the Illinois Career Development Conference in Rosemont that hosted over 1,500 high school students from Evston Township High School. I had the pleasure of working with 12 of these students individually on their marketing papers, community awareness projects, as well as their entrepreneurship plans. It is my pleasure to notify you that of those 12 students, all 12 place placed in the top 10 and all 12

004placed in top three in their event at the state competition. Nice. In addition, we had se In addition, we had seven students place top 10 in their roleplay event. Five of those students placed in the top four at state. Those five students along with the 12 written winners earned the opportunity to compete at the international competition that hosted over 18,000 high school students from across the United States as well as from other countries such as Mexico, Guam, Spain, China, and Germany in Orlando, Florida. Congrats to the role plays as well. The following individuals earned a mini award at the state competition in March. Theo Woo took first place in his cluster exam for principles of business management. Aiden Lavine earned a second place in his cluster exam for principles of business management. Max Low earned

005third place in his roleplay for principles of business management. Matteo Cis earned first place in roleplay for marketing communications. Stav Davidson and Lane Curry earned third place for their roleplay two in hospitality service management team decision marketing event. The following individuals placed top 10 overall in their event at the state competition. Joe Gerko uh placed top 10 in sports and entertainment marketing individual earning eighth overall. Eddie Green uh placed top 10 in principles of hospitality and tourism, earning fifth place overall. Due to an individual who placed fourth and was not able to attend the international competition, Eddie was offered uh to compete at the international competition in their place. The following result the following are the results for both the state and international competition. These individuals placed in the top four, earning a spot to

006compete in the international competition in their individual competable competitive roleplay event. The Wu took first place in principles of business management at state. Theo earned international competency recognition, meaning he earned at least an 80% or higher in his roleplay and test. I get them. So those students who earned competency are now going to be receiving their international competency certificate. Max Low took second place in the principles of business management at the state competition. Max earned international competency recogn recognition meaning he earned at least an 80% or higher in his roleplay and test. Josh Ryan took third place in principles of marketing uh at the state competition. Josh earned international competition recognition, meaning he earned at least an 80% or higher in his roleplay and test. Matteo Solis took third place in marketing communications at the

007state level. Matteo earned international competency recognition, meaning he earned at least an 80% or higher in his roleplay and test. So those are the roleplay individuals for the state international competition. The following are the results for the state international competition for the written events. These individuals had to place in the top three at state in order to earn a position to compete at the international competition for their written event. Matteo Le Paglia took first place at state in franchise a business plan focusing in on franchising Pono Ono Poke and setting it up in Glen View, Illinois. Matteo earned international competency competency recognition, meaning he earned at least an 80% or higher in his event. Caleb Gerstein and Eli Kaplan took first place at state in business operations, sports and entertainment marketing, focusing in on bold

008gym and working on a hyperpersonalized approach with their current customer base. Lane Curry and Stab Davidson took first place at state in hospitality and tourism operations research event focusing in on Coma Cantina and working on a hyperpersonalized approach with their current customer base. Maya and Kathleen Carrasco, sorry, did I say that wrong? Sorry. uh took first place at state in business service operations event focusing on paramount plus and working on a hyperpersonalized approach with their current customer base. Campbell Fleming and Monroe Stroth took first place at state in their community awareness project where they created an online platform to discuss to discuss racial inequality within the Evston community. Campbell and Monroe earned international competence comp competency recogn rec recognition meaning they earned at least an 80% or higher in their presentation and written event. Natalyia

009Chick and Ellie Newark took first place at state in their independent business plan where they developed a business called fastly feminine that targeted females and created monthly subscription box for females and their monthly needs. Natalyia and Ellie earned international competency recognition, meaning they earned at least an 80% in their presentation and written event. Maisie Peter took third place at state in her event, Start Up a Business, where she created a business called Shay, and individuals could purchase or rent out Indian clothing for various occasions. Maisie earned international competency recognition, meaning she earned at least an 80% or higher in her presentation and written portion. pictures and videos of their experiences at state as well as international competition can be found on the ETHS DECA Instagram page. That's a little social media plug for you all.

010Um, so congratulations to you all. On a final note, I would like to thank my co-advisors Chris Manila and Mitten Patel. Their work with the roleplay individuals has been outstanding. Looking at the last few years, we have not had many students advance with roleplay. Last year being our first one in quite a while. This year with five students advancing their work with preparing the students has truly been remarkable. I also would like to thank you the board as well as the parents uh for allowing us to continue to run DECA here at Evston Township High School. the opportunities as well as the experiences that these students get from the conferences are truly amazing and something that I hope that they will look back on. Um so thank you again for your continuous support. All right,

011before you leave students um congratulations we are going to give you a pen. So you're going to come around. We're all the board's going to stand. We're going to come around. We're going to need to shake your hands, give you a fist bump, whatever you're comfortable with, and give you a recognition pin for all of your hard work and your accomplishments. So, once again, can we give a round of applause for our students and their sponsors, parents? So come on around and you all can start with and just comes congratulations. Congrats to you. Congratulations to you. Congratulations. Congrats to you. Congratulations. Congrats. All right. Yeah, we have a lot of very exciting board uh business coming up, but DECA parents, students, and families, you are free to go if you if you you so wish.

012All right, have a good evening. Thank you. Wonderful. Yeah, that was Oh. Oh, I know. Don't have some of it. Yeah. It is all right. That That's very impressive. It's really awesome. Okay. I love starting meetings like that. Yeah, that's great. Okay. So we are at item number six, comments from the public. Dr. Davis, do we have any comments? Uh, there are no comments from the public this evening. All right. Okay. So, moving through our agenda. Um, we are at item number seven. So, we have a few foyas. Yes. In our packet, we have seven. We have one from GOBA, one from Andelman, one from Hayden, one from Hirs, one from Lee, one from Harper, and one from Seabold. And they're sponsoring your packet. Okay. Thank you. All right. Okay. So, item number eight, organization

013of the board. Um, the first item here is retire recognition of retiring board member. We have a board member that's retiring. The word retiring is it's a little weird. So, um, it's been our custom to kind of just say a few words about you and, um, I've prepared a few things and then I'll just open it up for board members to say what they want to say. Um, so Stephanie, I'm going to take an opportunity to tell you how much I appreciate you serving and your service to the board, to the community. Um, you've served students, you've served teachers, and your community as a whole. It's really been an honor to be on the board with you. And, you know, I want to acknowledge, of course, over the years we haven't always agreed, you know,

014and our board doesn't always agree because we have different personalities and different perspectives, and that's okay. Um, so we've had some disagreements, but we've all you've you've always put students first. And that I really appreciate. Um we spoke re respectfully. We listened to each other's perspective. Uh so we modeled this um this way to um to have these conversations and that's been really great. So during those times we didn't that we didn't all agree, we found a way I I I kind of said we found a way to disagree without being disagreeable. Um, so that's good. Um, I just appreciate your commitment and your dedication to pursue what's best for students and what's best for our district. Um, that's always been in your heart and that came through throughout the years that you've been with

015us. Um, we've had probably the most challenging years, you know, going through I hate to say the pandemic, but you know, we've we we went through that. That was the most challenging years that any of us would have had to even anticipate. So, um, and we came through and you were a key part of of keeping our board unified. I feel like we we're a unified board. We're engaged in productive deliberation toward an effective being an effective governing board. So, I really want to say it is my pleasure this evening to say thank you to you um for your years of service to the ETHS board. You've been wise. You've helped us develop as an effective and functional board team. Um you remember that team of eight? You know, we've been a team of eight.

016And so, we will miss you, Stephanie, and I wish you the very best. So, who's next? Gretchen. Yes. To read this a little bit off my phone. Uh, to be honest, I thought that uh Stephanie would be around for more than one term, so this farewell seems sort of sudden, even though it's been four years. Uh, I'm sad to see her go, but excited for her new adventures as she wraps up her advanced degree at Northwestern while juggling her work there and still finding time to spend with her adult daughter. I also hope she manages to find some more time to enjoy lake swimming this summer. A fun fact about Stephanie that I did not discover until we found each other floating in the lake at Lera Beach. Um, I did not know Stephanie at

017all uh when she joined the board. So, she was very much an unknown quantity to me. The bulk of her service came during the pandemic, which you already mentioned, which was not an easy time for schools, even ones as strong as ETHs, and it was not fun or easy to serve on the school board during that time either. Despite those difficulties, Stephanie's always contributed thoughtful comments and inquiry during our meetings, both closed and open. I've been continuously impressed by her patience and her active listening skills. Those are tough skills to develop in such a public role as the school board, more so in a passionate community like ours. She did a great job jumping into this work, has been a consistent and persistent voice for our students, particularly students of color and others who are

018marginalized. I thank you for your service and I know I'll be seeing you around Evston. Thanks, Stephanie. Pat. Um, well, Stephanie, I um agree with everything that's been said thus far. I uh I think it really um it is a special person who decides to do this job and to put themselves out there um to step up. I mean, we all love ETHS. Lots of people in the community do, but it is definitely something different. Takes an extra special something um to make that that commitment. And um so I'm really grateful that you did four years ago. Um and I think that uh you know serving with you has been a privilege. Um it's been interesting as everyone has already said which I also was talking about I wanted to talk about is that it's

019been an incredibly challenging time to be involved in any school and to be a school board member. um not I mean certainly the pandemic and all the other things that we've dealt with um in tandem and as a result of and I think again that a special person will take that on and you didn't know we were going to have a pandemic um but you certainly rose to the occasion um and I think our students have benefited and our our district has benefited and I think that as a board um you know I I always say we're the best board in town. Um, sorry, the rest of the boards in town. Um, but but I really mean that because I feel like we we come together and we work together with a very singular mission.

020Um, and that is our students and the staff that support them. Um, and so I feel like you've done that um throughout these last four years. Um, and I think that the strength of our board isn't based on any one of us, but based on all of us. And if everybody's pulling that that weight, it really makes a difference. And and so you certainly have done that. So I really appreciate um your willingness to do this to step up um and the way you did it um and the way that you continued to make us a strong work together so that we are a strong entity especially during these more challenging times. Um, so it's been it's been great to serve with you um as a person individually as well as as a whole and

021serving with us and um I I know you'll go on and do lots of great things from here and I look forward to seeing you around town. So, thank you very much for everything. Liz, thank you. Stephanie, um, thank you so much for your service on the board for the last four years. Um, I have valued your sensitivity and your insight into student matters, always asking thoughtful questions and bringing new perspectives to our discussions. I appreciate your ongoing commitment to the students of ETHS and your ability to work collaborative collaboratively with the school board. I've also enjoyed your humor, your friendship, and your positive outlook. I'm wishing you all the best as you complete your master's degree and hoping that you'll have more time to swim in the lake and to garden. And lastly, thank

022you for the many rides to the schoolboard meetings that you've given me. Um, I've always enjoyed chatting with you in our car rides. And for those who don't know, Stephanie and I are neighbors. We live four houses away from each other. So, you are welcome to come hang out on my patio anytime. You, too. Okay. Hello. Um, so I remember being in this room watching you run um, four years ago, uh, when I just wanted to come here because I knew a couple of the candidates and, um, and so it's kind of interesting now to be able to have been seated next to you on or, you know, at the table and to serve with you. Um, and one of the things that I keep thinking about is the um, gathering that I was honored

023to be a part of in your home and how it just reflected your um, just your friendships and your diversity of people that you have and it was such a beautiful moment. Uh, and I just I really valued that and then I could see that come to life in your questions and the way that you were a part of our board. So, I love that and thank you for um, having me in your home. Um, and I also think about the ways in which we discuss things um, in our retreats. And I, um, thank you for your curiosity and your calm. There's a, um, a really special way of being that I think has helped us. Um, and so, thank you for that. Um, and good luck. I mean, it's going to be fun whatever

024you're doing next. So, good luck to you. Yeah. [Laughter] So, you remember our conversation at Collectivo? Yeah. You were convincing me to run, right? Cuz I had doubts. I had questions. And I was like, "Ah, Stephanie, I don't think so. I think, you know, this might be it." And she was like, "No, Mo'Nique. No, you got to do it." And I don't know what happened. I mean, I don't know what happened. You didn't call me. and let me know. Um, you know, um, but what I appreciate about you, Stephanie, and we ran together four years ago, um, did know each other, but what I appreciate about you is your willingness to have courageous conversations. And not too many people um would step into that space and and leave it there. Like we don't talk about

025what we talk about, right? And we talk about things, we disagree on things, we come to a common place about misunderstandings. um we learn from each other and and I believe that started when we started campaigning together four years ago quietly like under the current right um and and so that's always I don't know that gives me hope because like we all said we don't have to um we shouldn't all think the same way right I think that's the strength of this board But we should be able to talk about it. Yeah. And um you and I have done that over and over again, right? So I appreciate that a most about you and and will um miss that ability to be able to do that. Um I mean you're not dying or nothing, right?

026Okay. So, um, and I know you will stay in touch, but but I truly appreciate that about you. Um, and you're doing something I thought I wanted to do, and that was retire off this board. Um, so tell me how it is. All right. Tell me how it goes. Um, but yeah, good luck. I know. I wish you the best and good luck. Yes. Yeah. Wow. So, would you like to speak? I just want to say things. Okay, you can. I just want to say how much I appreciate all of you and how much I've learned from all of you. I I um had been sort of working sort of at the very grassroots level, teaching myself, reading a lot, learning a lot about equity, racial equity in particular, racial justice in particular, and feeling

027like um I wanted to have a bigger impact and have conversations that you don't necessarily always get in sort of town halls and community workshops and and um this work is really work in action with students. And you know, I joined the board in 2019 with Liz um as new members and with Mon'nique as a um continuing member. And it was all very new then, but I knew that it had a lot of possibility. And I was excited to be with um so many experienced, committed people that I had a new level of learning to go through and I was excited about that. My daughter was a I guess a junior in high school and it was nice to be um in the same community from a slightly different perspective as she was and to

028you know take advantage of her wisdom and her perspective as a student to help me guide my own thinking about things and um so I'm really grateful for that. And then we had the pandemic and that was a whole new a whole new thing for all of us. And I was just so grateful to be among professionals, people who, you know, the teachers and the staff and the administrators here are just are just incredible and I really saw that in action and it was very inspiring and it made me feel very proud to be part of this community and part of this board. So, um, so I just want to say I just can't even I can't even quantify how much I've learned from all of you and how much I am taking away with

029me. Um, and if there's anything I can do um, in the future to help or support, I will do. And, um, yeah, I'm not dying. I'm not going very far. I even told Liz she could borrow my car if she wanted to. She needed to get to the board meetings. Um, so I I just thank you again for everything. I hope to stay in conversation with all of you because we all have a lot more learning and dialogue to engage in with one another. So, thanks for everything. Thank you. [Applause] So I remember that you said that you would do whatever because you know there's always the work and something and committees and we got you. Thank you. All right. So now we are um just going to review the board elections and um there

030are resol we have to um do the resolutions declaring results of the elections and we'll start with the 2-year resolution. Um can we have a roll call, please? Oh, we need a motion. Okay, thank you. So could we have a motion? Second. So, it's been moved and second. Liz made the motion. Pat Manel second. You get to vote for yourself. Yes, please. So, what? We're confirming the election. Oh, it's the resolution. It's a resolution declaring the results. Yes. I mean, yes. Are you sure? [Music] Yes. Yes. Thank you. And so now we need a motion to um declare the resolution for the foyer. So moved. Second. Roll call, please. Yes. Yes. Parson. Yes. Okay. So, now we will go into an adjournment um of the retiring board. Um I'm I've called for a motion. Wait,

031what do I do? Call for a motion with the roll call vote to retire the board into sin and die. So, could I have a motion to retire the board to sit and die, please? So moved. Second. Roll call, please. Yes. Yes. Okay. So, I'm gonna ask Dr. Davis to assume the role as president prom. You bet. And uh what we're going to do is we're going to do the uh the the uh oath of office right now for the board members who were just newly elected. So if you'll join me at the podium uh we will do that. Good. All right. Please uh raise your hand. Repeat after me. I say your name. I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully discharge do solemnly swear that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the

032office of member of the board of education the duties of the office of the board of member the board of education of Evston Township High School District 202 in accordance with the Constitution of the United states in accordance with the Constitution of the United States. the Constitution of the State of Illinois. The Constitution of the State of Illinois and the laws of the State of Illinois to the best of my ability. to the to the best of my ability. I further swear that I further swear that I shall respect taxpayers interests by serving as a faithful protector of the school district's assets I shall encourage and respect the free expression of opinion by my fellow board members and others who seek a hearing before the board while respecting the privacy of students and employees I

033shall recognize that a board member has no legal authority as an individual has no legal author authority as an individual and the decisions can be made only m by a majority vote only by a majority vote at a public board meeting and I shall abide by majority decisions of the board while retaining the right to seek changes while retaining the right to seek changes in such decisions in such decisions through ethical and constructive channels. Congratulations. Amen. Welcome. Yep. Just go ahead and go a long way behind the screen. Here's your official Oh, it's not All right. I'd like to call the meeting back to order and ask for a roll call vote. Auntie, yes. Livingston, what what is this vote on? New board. New board. The new board. We're back. Okay. Back to order. Yes.

034Here. Yes. Here. Yes. Savage Williams. Yes. All right. Now, I'd like to do the election of officers. So, I will take nominations for the office of president, vice president, and secretary. Nominations need not be seconded. Each nomination will be voted in the order of their nomination. And once a candidate receives a majority of votes of the board, four votes, the election process is over. I would like to call for nominations for the office of president of the board of education for a oneyear term. I would like to nominate Pat Savage Williams as president of the school board. Are there any other nominations? I'm going to close the nominations and call for a vote. Yes. Carson, yes. Cars, yes. Savage Williams, yes. Now, I'm going to have the new president assume the chair. Thank you. Now

035I will take nominations for vice president of the board of education. So I would like to um nominate Mon'nique Parsons as vice president of the board. Um because nobody could fill those shoes. So that's why you had to run this time. Um, but in all seriousness, um, we couldn't ask for better leadership, um, from Pat and Mon'nique. And, uh, why why stop a great thing? So, thank you for all that you do, Mo'Nique, for the board and the community. And, you know, I adore you. So, thank you. So, the end. She's She wins. Well, there's just another couple of steps. It's Chicago. Whatever. It's Chicago. Um, are there other nominations for vice president? Hearing none, the nominations are closed. Can we have a roll call, please? Yes. All right. Congratulations, Monique. All right. So now,

036um, I would like to take nominations for the secretary of the board. I'll nominate Pete Davis. All right. Pete Davis has been nominated as secretary. Is there are there other nominations? Hearing none. Can we have a roll call, please? Well, I'm just Yes. The only Yes. Thank you. So, could I have a motion to appoint Kendra Williams as schools treasurer of the board of education for a one-year term with a compensation of $1,000? So moved. Second. Can we have a roll call, please? Yes. Okay. Thank you. All right. We have just a few other things to do and then we're going to take a little break so we can get into that beautiful cake over there. All right. Uh just a few more res resolutions. Um so we're at item G, resolution ratifying acts, contracts,

037policies, and bylaws. Could I have a motion, please? So moved. Second. Okay. Roll call, please. Yes. Yes. Uh the next one is resolution designating signatory. So moved. Second. Can I do them all together? Oh, good. Wonderful. Okay. So, let's do all of these. So, there's that one. Then there's a resolution regarding check signatures. Resolution establishing regular meeting dates and place. Uh, resolution ratifying approved depositories and resolution establishing I'm sorry, resolution establishing dates to review close session minutes. So, it's resolution 1 through six on the agenda. So, moved. Second. Roll call, please. Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa. Okay. The next item um before cake is um review of student election and oath of office for student board representative. So um I have here recognition of retiring student board member. However, our student board

038member is not retiring. You won by a landslide. So, congratulations. So, I will say um that it's been really great having you as um our student board rep and uh you know, usually we we just have a rep that's here for one year, but I'm really excited to see what will happen year two. um you know the routine now. Sometimes it takes a few board meetings to kind of get to know what to do, when to speak, and just the flow of things, but you've got it. You know it. Um so, thank you for agreeing to serve a second year. Um I think I speak for the board when I say that. And uh thank you for bringing what we do to the student body. Um we we're always listening to your report because you

039really provide that information to us. You provide that that liaison that that communication to us. Uh you are are in in a sense you're our link to the students. So thank you for for doing that. All right. So um Dr. Davis um Well, first we have to vote on the resolution. That's right. Resolution declaring results of the student election. So, can I have a motion to accept the resolution, please? So, moved. Second. Roll call, please. Livingston, yes. Yes. Okay. The oath. Come on up, Nicole. We're gonna do it again. I promise it's a little less than the last. I say your name. I Nicole Yao. A student member of the board of education. A student member of the board of education of Evston Township High School. District 202. County of Cook, Illinois. County of Cook,

040Illinois, do solemnly swear to support the Constitution of the United States to support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Illinois and the Constitution of the State of Illinois and faithfully discharge the duties of the office to which I have been elected. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. So, I invite you all for cake. We're going to take about a 10 or 15 minute break, take the cake, and then we'll come back and finish our meeting. And there's plenty of cake left. So, I'm sure if anybody wants to take cake home or even eat during the meeting, feel free. Okay. So we are at items for information. This is the serious part of our meeting. So the first item is the report on school-based health center and uh Dr. Campbell.

041Yes. Uh we're going to have uh Amy Crow and Joyce to come um who work in our schoolbased health center and run the schoolbased health center to um share their annual report. Right. knew we were here such a happy night. Yeah, we have a lot more good news. So, good. Yeah, I think we saw many of you last year and now there's some new faces. So, thanks for having us back. All right, so we are a schoolbased health center. Um, I came here seven years ago and I would go around saying, "Yeah, we're we're a health center. We're a clinic. Uh, we're a clinic." Because that's a term that folks could identify with. And I think in recent years, I've started using the term schoolbased health center much more in hopes of educating folks on

042what school-based health centers are. I'm pretty sure this board is very familiar with the term. Um, but I've also got the definition up here as stated by the National Schoolbased Health Alliance. Um, many of you know that we are a partnership between ETHS Northshore and the city of Evston and we've been that partnership since 1997. We have been providing primary care services for all ETHs students since then. um really with one of our main goals to keep students in school. And so we work closely with the nurs's office. We have uh started working closely with safety and we have been working with teachers for well over a decade in um educating our students on health and we are happy to continue that and kind of level up a little after 28 years. I think we

043g that we gave you our mission last year. I'm Amy Crowe. I'm a pediatric um hospitalist at Evston Hospital who also is the medical director of our amazing um schoolbased health center. So, um, our mission that we wrote was we welcome and provide care for all ETHS students, empowering them to take agency of their own health care practices and optimize their lifelong physical and mental health. As many of you well know, uh there has been a pretty sharp increase in the needs of mental health services for this age group. And so up here are some of our actions in direct response to that. Uh we have one social worker that works at the school-based health center and we increased her hours um to 32 hours a week. We have also started offering art therapy group

044sessions through open studio project which I know was also doing general art studio uh for students at the school but ours was a little bit more focused um in providing art therapy. We have also brought back acupuncture. Prior to the pandemic we were offering acupuncture services through the integrative medicine department at Northshore. Um and we have brought that back this year. Uh this year we have also helped on board Northshore's psychiatric program. It is called Bridges. That's the name of the program and they are a counseling and psychiatric medication management program to see students on site here. And um I think we talked to you about that last year that that was our dream and um it actually came into fruition this year and and thanks to Northshore and thanks to ETHS for finding the

045space um we now have a way for kids to get access to um psychiatric care in a way they never had before. So it's great. Yeah. And I also want to give a shout out to Julie Portoi who is a social worker that has been working here for over 20 years who has been with Bridges this whole time and now her whole team is here. Um in terms of uh our focus on reproductive health, we continue to provide like free and confidential access to all forms of contraception. We still partner with Eerie Family Health for long acting contraception or larks. Um and we still do uh have a role in providing health education um in the ninth grade sexed it used to be called. Um and we work with Lur Children's on that and we've

046uh that's come a long way in terms of the quality and um progressiveness of that education. And then um we still have a uh SDI testing and prevention as one of our main uh goals particularly with the rise in rates um nationally and locally among teens in those diseases. So we have a a campaign every year for testing and prevention but we provide that all year all year round. Um I think you know there's like a an attack currently there's an attack on um sex education, access to reproductive health, gender affirming care um in this country in many places and we feel you know um grateful to continue to do what we're doing um and we've been doing it for 25 years and will continue to do So, also for well over a decade, we've

047been doing what we've called wellkits, which is a wellness program. It's it's evolved over the years from a weight management program to simply just a healthy lifestyle program for any patient that wants to u have some guidance or some support in achieving their goals related to nutrition, related to fitness. Um and we find that focusing on improving your sleep, coping with stress and managing your sugar intake uh really affect many aspects of one's health from physical to mental. Um and that is now available to anybody that is a health center patient. We continue to collaborate and take that information, you know, from what we do with Wild Kids from the exam room into the classroom uh with the PE department for our 10th graders. We do the sugar show which has been done in some

048of the elementary schools, but uh we go we dive a little deeper into the topics around it uh for 10th graders. Um, also along the wellness piece, we were able to give flu vaccines to nearly 300 of ETHS staff. Um, we did that last flu season. And we do also offer this service for our student athletes where if they uh get injured while playing a sport and even if they're off season, uh they can come to the sports med medicine clinic on site at the health center. One of our main priorities is uh transition to care and what that means is talking to our graduating seniors about ensuring they know how to get their health care after they graduate. So questions like do you know what your health insurance is? Do you know if you

049have health insurance? Do you carry your card with you? Do you know who you see regularly? Do you have a primary care physician? um do you know the difference between urgent care and the ED? And uh we we take care particularly with students who uh might need mental health services after they graduate or reproductive health services if they're moving out of state. Uh we do pay a lot of uh you know personalized attention to our students and ensuring that they are able to get health care and know how to navigate health care once they leave ETHS. Uh we are we continue to search for opportunities. It's pretty insane all the uh potential opportunities for essentially what this is is is health literacy. Um ensuring that students gain that. So, we'd love to learn more about

050school links and um these like it goes handinhand with financial literacy and how that is approached in various classes and we'd love to be able to integrate and incorporate um principles of health literacy into those as well. Um many of you might be familiar with the Aspire program that started last year. We uh really try we we come across a lot of patients that say you know I want to go into health care and we uh really try and funnel them into Aspire. So that is what we like to do for in terms of like our postsecary planning. Um many of you might not have heard of EL Center ambassadors. They're our youth advisory board and they've been in existence for at least seven years, but they've really not picked up steam until last year

051when we were able to partner with Lyola University Chicago's Parkinson School of Public Health. They've been uh helping us by giving us public health interns and really these are college students that are trying to uh get their masters in public health and they come and work with our youth advisory board for a semester and they have really kind of breathed new life into our youth advisory board and so this year they've done a lot more in providing peer education on blood donation, STI prevention, mental health awareness. Uh this is something that we hope to continue to impact our students with. Um just to orient you to these numbers over the years. So um at this point we are seeing we are on track to see more unique patients than ever before for 2022 to 23.

052Um and uh the encounters are sort of similar to last year in terms well we we're on track to be similar to last year but we're reaching more individual patients than ever before which is nice and we're we're at or above oh sorry at or above the prepandemic levels. And I would attribute that to attribute that to just the increased need for health services and and my hope is that more people are just aware and informed of what the schoolbased health center is. And you can see on the next slide um the breakdown of the visits. So um this is just part of this year but um we see we see physical six visits, reproductive health visits, mental health, well kits and acupuncture. So the whole gamut. Next slide. Um so we're we're at the

053forefront of um sort of the front line of prevention education for the public health crisis that we fa face right now. The one we're particularly focused on this month is fentanyl overdose prevention. So So you know fentanyl is now the leading cause of death from 18 to 45. So, this is the time right now to do that education in high school. Um, we just brought a an really um amazing program to all juniors and seniors. So, we learned um about everything there is to know that we need to know about fentanyl and how to stay safe um because accidental overdose is um you know uh on the rise. So, for example, 100,000 people died last year. So um and um we we're also very focused on gun safety and violence prevention. We can start where

054where in our lane which is asking the questions and learning about um confident confidentially what what um what guns are in the home and and are they safe? you know, we can teach about gun safety and how to how to keep gun, you know, guns and ammunition separate and locked and we can provide gun locks if necessary. So, we can start within the the public health domain that we work in and then we can get involved in the community and further in further avenues. Um, and then we mentioned before about reproductive health services and and gender affirming care and our role in those. So, next slide. This is just a nice um thing we wanted to one of the things we wanted to leave you on is a letter we got from a parent recently

055um just talking about her her child starting this Friday. She's she was saying our child my child will begin taking a number of AP exams. He's looking at colleges and he's excited about his future. It's entirely possible that without ETHS's amazing health services, we would not have gotten to this point. Honestly, without the team at ETHS combining social and medical services, I don't know if my son would be alive. Next slide. So, I leave you with a photo. This is our phenomenal social work um therapist, Yolanda Kim Kim. And what I want you to know about her is that she's in her office where she does therapy, but it also happens to be our kitchen. So, it's a tiny little closet-shaped space. And um she's put in mood lighting and beautiful tapestries. But um this

056is just what what what we mostly want to say about this is that we have far outgrown our space like many people at ETHS and many departments. But um uh we don't have enough room for all that we do and all the people that we serve and um so uh we want you to just know know that and know that this may be may be something that comes up in the future. So there that's you want to say anything else about that? Yeah, I mean I know I know um the health sciences wing is is well underway and um it'd be beautiful to have like a Northshore wing where we are located not on the complete opposite end of the building from bridges. Um what's really helpful is that we are so proximal to the

057nurse's office. We do work quite closely with them. Um, but we can't have all of our mental health services housed in our in our current place that just has three exam rooms, you know. So, now that mental health has grown so much and we've expanded and now we have psychiatry and we just don't have any sorry, we just don't have any space for it. Um so maybe there's a vision we can all come up with in the future for for um uh a bigger center that that crosses over between all these services. So I have any questions? Yeah, we love questions, comments, questions. Thank you so much. Yeah, I I just uh this is this is powerful. Um, and I and I hear I hear your concern regarding space. Um, I think that you are

058doing a phenomenal job. I I'm extremely impressed um by our school-based health center and thank you for that definition. Um, I I wrote it down. I'm going to try to get that again. I think I might have missed some of the words, but um that whole achieving health equity among children and and adolescents. It's important because we know especially during the pandemic that that really was lifted up. It was so clear. It was so obvious um those those disparities just really made a difference in life and death um for so many people. So, thank you for that. Um, I did want to ask if you could explain a little bit be the difference between encounters and patients. I think I knew, right? Um, but can you just kind of help me understand that? So, patients

059are those who are registered to use the clinic who actually used it. Okay. And then encounters are the number of times we've seen them, but they may have come for many. Each person may have come for several encounters, which is why that number is higher. I see. Yeah. The encounters are are visits like the number of visits. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Other questions board? Anybody leave? Um what what is the um how are you doing on the number of students um registered for the health center? And I think related to that, maybe a sense of I mean, you offer and do so much, but how well that that message is getting out to students and families, right? I'd say little less than half of the student population is registered and about half that number

060and walks through our doors at any given point. We have really tried to be visible in as many avenues as possible to inform students and families. We do like to start with the parents. We try to be visible at the various uh parent info nights like incoming freshmen information night, course selection night, all of those events. Um, we also try and get in as many classrooms or fairs or summits uh to inform students of our services. What we've not been up on are like creating cute Tik Toks and things of that nature to have like a social media presence, but we'd love to get there. Other comments, Pat. That sounds like a job for the youth advisory. Yes, most definitely. Um, so mine wasn't so much a question, just as a thank you. Um, because

061we've talked a lot about through the pandemic and since the the heightened need for wellness among our students and the challenges that they've been facing and continue to face. Um, and so it's just great that you're here and that you're helping um, certainly on any level, but particularly with the mental health. I'm I'm really glad to hear that you've expanded and sadly she's in the kitchen, but you know I it's really those things are just so important and so the more um the more options our students have the better because we certainly are seeing that they they need those options. So I'm really thankful to you. So that's really my my point was just to say thank you. No, it's so helpful to have that backed by the school as well. We we see the

062themes of healing all over the place and it's uh we see it as one of the schoolboard goals and we very much appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you. Thank you again. I was going to say without our health, we can't learn and Yes. Um so, anything we can do to keep keep kids in school and keep them learning. Yes. I love the emphasis on um as students leave making sure that they understand how they can access healthcare. I think that's amazing. That's great. It's huge. Huge. Yeah, it is. It's great. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening. Yes. Thank you. All right. Our next item is the sustainability update. We're going to invite um John Crawford and uh Clarence Gregory and Kelsey, you're coming up too for sustainability. And Kim, are you also

063Nope. Okay, just these three. All right. Thank you for having us. I'm John Crawford, director of operations and sustainability. Clarence Gregory. Uh 18 days counting down. John Crawford's replacing me. So you guys are in great hands with John Crawford in this building. Yeah. Hi, I'm Kelsey Bini. I'm the new assistant director of nutrition services. So we're excited here to talk about sustainability here at ETHS. Um the first thing is what is sustainability? Um I think if we p took a poll in the room here, no one would have the right answer or the same answer. But uh here at DTS, we look at as reducing, reuse, renewable, and recycle. Um you could also add some more Rs to that. Rethink, repurpose, um reusable. But that's that's how we look at sustainability. How we reduce our

064energy usage is uh through our SEM program. It's strategic energy management. We started this uh in 2019 and I think we actually reported on it right before COVID uh February 2020 were our initial results and uh happy to say it's we're we're going strong in it still. Uh we're now entering year five. Um and the focus is on low to no cost initiatives that equate to real energy savings. Um, we work with coaches from KMED, Nyore that help navigate some rebates and incentives on those savings as well. Uh, here's how we show some of our SEM electrical savings. Um, year one was 2019. We reduced our electricity by over 330,000 kilowatt hours, which was a 3.6% reduction off of our 2018 baseline usage. Um 2020 we increased that to one over 1.2 million kilowatt hours

065which was a 13.4% and 2021 over 1.8 million uh which is a 20% reduction. They we changed the way we're looking at our baseline and model. So that's why we don't have 2022 numbers yet. They're combining those with our current 2023. So, we will see those next year at this time. On the natural gas side of things, um you'd see our 2018 baseline usage was over a million uh therms. 2019, we reduced 100,000 therms, 222,000s in 2020, and 348,000 in 2021, which is a 31.3% reduction off our baseline. Now I want to emphasize this is on low to no cost initiatives. Um temperature setbacks, space temperature um you know setting a standard space temperature in the summer uh and then setting a different one in the winter. Um greenhouse gas emissions. Uh 2018 baseline we

066were over 10,000 tons of CO2. Um, you can see 2019 we reduced that by 7.9%. 2020 20.8% and 2021 we are 31% reduction on our greenhouse gas emissions. Um, which is phenomenal. For those that are more like the financial side of things, uh here's our electricity savings, our natural gas savings along with the incentives that we earned by by reducing. So you could see in 2019 almost $100,000 in savings. 2020 almost 250 and 2021 almost 360 over $360,000 in savings. Thank you. So tonight I'm just going to be providing an overview of some of the efforts made by our nutrition services department in promoting sustainability. Starting with our student cafeterias. Thanks to the collective effort of the ETHs waste reduction committee and dedicated student volunteers, we were able to implement um a composting station in

067East Cafeteria. Um, and I'll also mention just to go along with the composting that our department doesn't use any styrofoam and most of our disposable items including napkins are compostable. So, a lot of the waste that we are producing is able to be composted and turned into something else. We've transitioned in uh districtwide to reusable trays. And this also reduces our single-use paper plates. And as many of you know, throughout the pandemic, everything was prepackaged, individually wrapped nationwide for most K12 food service departments. Uh I think we took a different approach coming out of the pandemic. Uh and most of our food here is served bulk wherever possible. So our condiments are in reusable bulk containers that have pumps on them. We also have um all of our fresh fruit and vegetables in large hotel

068pans and that way students can serve themselves. Um our utensils are all in bulk like machines so you can just take what you need. They're not in prepackaged containers that also contain napkins or sporks or knives or utensils that students are not using. This next slide is really interesting and this is something that gets me very excited. Um, the Illinois State Board of Education received 241 proposals from school food authorities all over the state totaling over $10 million in um budget requests for different projects. And we were fortunate enough to be awarded one of the 66 proposals that was selected. So, we are awarded $21,000 to install bulk milk dispensers in all four cafeterias and then also purchase reusable cups and dishwashing racks so that we're able to not replace milk cartons with plastic cups

069that get disposed of. Um, along with that, in the grant, we asked for four food processors to take whole produce and then chop it down into, you know, sliced carrots or shredded or what have you. So then we're not purchasing pre-cut produce that comes in plastic packaging. And this also allows us to purchase more local products um that come whole and that are not able to be processed ahead of time. So it's also helping reduce some of our um carbon emissions because food's not traveling nearly as far to come to our school district. talking about the bulk of milk a little more. I know some people find that to be an interesting thing to implement. Um, but this is a really common thing in most college campuses and a lot of the ETHS students are

070planning to go to universities or some other form of education afterwards and if there is a shared dining hall, they likely have bulk milk. You don't see the little cartons in a lot of college campuses. And I will add that we are not able to um compost the milk cartons. So those are landfill. So we get to reduce all of that and it feels a little more sophisticated drinking out of an actual glass. Um there's a few statistics from the Midwest Dairy Association and it shows that we can reduce packaging waste by up to 91% by volume. So that's pretty impressive. And um students claim that the milk tastes better because it's colder and actually increases consumption by 50%. So milk is good for our students and they're likely to drink more of it. We'll

071see if that's the case here. Um but we're excited to test this out in the next school year. Also, our milk current milk coolers are like 22 years old, so they're in need of being replaced. Uh in our staff dining room just six weeks ago, we implemented a new Foreverware Trashless Takeaway program. Some of the staff may have tried this. Um it essentially works like checking out a book at the library. Staff put down a $5 onetime refundable deposit. It's linked to their staff ID and then they check out takeaway containers from the terrace, use them, they can take them home, take them to their office, and then they scan them back into us and that same $5 gets recycled every single day. And the only reason we collect the deposit is so if people

072want a refund at the end of the school year, we're easily able to contact them and we know which um containers are checked out to specific people. Um, the alternative would be to use the glassware that's already in the terrace and that's always available to anyone that decides to dine in with us. We're trying to use more of that in our catering program as well, especially for smaller events since we have um a wide variety of different plates, cups, and all that kind of stuff to use without having to do paper product. Uh, one fun fact about our department, in the past 10 years, we have not increased our budget for paper products, which is I think is a testament considering all the inflation that we've experienced um especially for um products like paper plates,

073napkins, that sort of thing. In our central kitchen, we've been composting for the past six years uh 40 totes annually, which equates to 13,000 pounds or 5,000 gallons. And we hope to continue to increase that, especially when we look ahead to adding the compost stations in all four cafeterias. Uh we serve meals to district 65. We prepare them, we order the food, and then we send it off to district 65. And I think we do a really great job of being sustainable in that practice as well since the food is served in insulated containers in large hotel pans that are then served to the students on the line when it gets to the school instead of individual um like hinged takeout containers. And that's roughly 26,000 meals per year that we're serving in a sustainable

074way. Looking ahead, I just mentioned, but we are hoping to compost districtwide. We will need a few more um volunteers in order to staff them at the different um cafeterias. Uh and then we're also hoping to eliminate plastic water bottles. We've already started selling boxed water in the cafeterias and in the staff dining hall. Uh and then with additional grant funding in the future, we're hopeful that we can offer reusable flatwear to students as well. I'm going to hand it back over to John. Thank you. Okay, so the the most asked question uh solar panels at ETHS, where are they? Um we did some solar feasibility and roof assessments earlier in the year. Uh we are we have 159 different roof elevations here at ETHS. Yeah. And currently uh nine of those roofs are currently

075acceptable for a solar array. Um, so not a very good percentage there, but and that's that's not just due to uh existing conditions, but most of our roofs have the mechanical spaces on the roof. So that uh creates some shading issues where it's not really um acceptable for a solar array to produce a meaningful uh kilowatt. So the the nine roofs that we do have uh acceptable it would be a a solar array of about 539,000 which would be a 7 and a half% annual offset. Um because of the roof assessment we knew which was the best roof that needs to be done that would be good for solar and that 10th roof is the roof over G220 G230. It's a flat roof and that roof alone would be about a 3 and a.5% offset.

076So add that to that to the original nine roofs and you're at you know almost 800,000 kilowatt hours. Uh we did also have them look at a carport array. Um I don't know if you've seen like Michigan State Ruters. Um they have some beautiful carport arrays which are a lot more expensive. Um but just the middle sections of our parking lots would produce a 1.2 going to a 1,282,000 kilwatt hours, which would be a 19% offset. Um, so which is pretty good. So what's happening right now? Uh, 100% of the electricity we purchase is guaranteed renewable. Um, we made that investment earlier this year. We were at 30% and we increased it to 100%. It is costing the district more money, but the more communities, the more school districts that demand it, the more the

077energy provider has to invest in it as well. Uh, majority of ours comes from a Texas wind farm, which is an interesting fact. Um, we also applied for a $50,000 matching energy efficiency grant um through the state board. We we we got it. So, it's $100,000 that we're installing LED lights this summer. Um, which would be about 520. We have over 6,000 LED lights in the building. Um, 2,000 more and we will be complete. So, this is about 25% more of what we have left to do. Um we completed a KMED public school carbon-f free assessment uh which was an indepth look at our operations, our facilities, our mechanical systems and we get actually receive this port report next week. Um it'll be an in-depth report that will provide a clear path to how we

078could become carbon free. Um they'll also pro provide us with grant opportunities um rebate opportunities and it once it opens the state of Illinois construction grant this allows us to apply for that. We recently partnered with Echoship which is a u a company from Chicago that collects gently used Amazon mailers, padded mailers, bubble wrap, packing paper. Um they redistribute it to local businesses. Um, we have that located in the main office and we filled the bag already the first week. Uh, landscaping at ETHS is now one Marcus is laughing. 100% electric battery or robotic. Um, some of the robots work better than others right now, but uh, we're working on that. Um, technicians come out every day and monitor the cut. They know if something happened, if kids shut them off, open them up, etc.

079Uh they they've been named, they have googly eyes on them. There's I'm sure there's more to come on that. Uh once they all are working and and they will come out. They were seeking a American Green Zone Alliance certification. Um as far as I know, there's only one school in the in the United States that is certified green zone. So hopefully we are the second. And then uh this is probably the one the day I got named as uh sustainability coordinator. I got an email from my friends at Etown Sunrise. And uh they said, "Hey, Mr. Crawford, we're Etown Sunrise. Congratulations. When can you meet?" And uh I've been meeting with them every month since. Um, I I think I've given them a level of transparency and open openness that um they really appreciate. Um,

080they're leading a group of students, community members, staff, administration, and and a board member. Thank you, Liz. Um, and I help facilitate this group, but but the kids are leading the and they hope to over the next few months continue meeting and and develop a sustainability policy that hopefully we could pass here at the school board. Um, once we do pass that policy, the hard work will be in in developing a plan to to meet that policy. But and uh before I open it up to questions, I just I have one more thing about sustainability and it has nothing to do with the building. It's more of the sustainability of this guy right here. Almost 40 years at the district. We we were going to say that. I thank you for that, John. We want

081to congratulate Clarence Gregory for 39 years of service. Wow. At Evston. There is not a mechanical piece of this building that's 1.3 million square ft of space and 64 acres that Clarence doesn't know about. So I mean what are we going to do without you Mr. Gregor, Deacon Gregor, thank you. But at the same time, John Crawford is being humble. All these LED fixtures that you see in this room and throughout the building, all the work was done in-house. We didn't contract Electric Joe to come do the work. And most people understand that a electrical electrician can cost you $150 per man per hour. So look at the man hours that the district is putting over. But 600 lamps so far pictures. Oh, 6,000. 6,000 lamps. Other than the parking lot lamps, you know, you

082need to lift for that, right? So, operations department has been doing a fantastic job of Yes. taking care of the equipment, installing equipment the correct way in the building. And you all are a beautiful story because what you ought to also don't know is that um John was an apprentice of Clarence back in 1997. Correct. In 1997. So, uh, John took the job here as an apprentice and has been training under Mr. Gregory for the last 26 years, whatever that is. And so, and now he sits as our new director of operations and sustainability. So, good man. I know Clarence is is retiring, but he he lives right down the street. I know where he lives, and I know what kind of donuts he likes. So, we'll get him back if we need them. Don't

083worry. cuz you won't get the calls in the middle of the night when something's going wrong here. So, yeah. Not to mention, every Department of Safety member has Clarence's number on speed. Yes. Yeah. Well, thank you. Any questions for John? Well, I just want to say thank you to um to all of you really. The report was was great. I really enjoyed the report on nutrition services and all the creative I'm not sure that I understand all of them that deposit you know I just I kind of have to see it but it just sounds brilliant actually um you're really thinking through how to how to save and and um and teaching teaching students really that this is what we do. Um so so thank you for taking the time to to do that and

084and um John, welcome. Thank you. Welcome to ETHS and you know hopefully um we'll continue all of this. Uh I know that Liz is now working with uh it Sunrise Etown Sunrise and and and you are as well. So um Liz and I are going to talk. I'm interested in in uh the request. Um so we'll just have to kind of see um what more we can do as a board. Uh so thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah, I would um sorry you my corner. Um one is I thank you. I what I want to know how the electricity gets here from Texas, but we don't have to talk about it way beyond my thoughts. Um, and I love that our kids are starting, they probably have, but even more heightened what they did

085in elementary and middle. They'll see more of that as um, we're doing this work. But one of my questions is how much does it cost roughly to keep the school going per day, just electricity? Like if we were to estimate on a daily basis? Yeah, that that's a good question. In the in the summer or the winter, right? Okay. So, how about during the summer? Because I have a plan. Let's just not summer summer, but like right now, like a day like today, like a day like today. I mean, I I would have to do the math to figure out exactly what a daily like probably a lot like a Well, and it depends. Yeah. If like the whole building's being used or if we're isolating like one of the things we try doing in

086summer school now is isolating where we are hosting summer school so the whole building doesn't have to run. uh the you know we have almost 60 different fan units in the building and most of them are constant volume so that means they're either on or they're off and like the board meeting in North 112 for example it's the only thing going on right now in this wing and the fans running but it's it's heating or cooling all three floors right um so you know the our systems are old and because of that we really try to isolate where we are hosting afterhour and summer events I'm and I'm shouldn't you guys they're probably going to be like this after I'm done. Um my thought was just that because I'm guessing it's could be you know

087$10,000. I mean it's a lot of money. Um more right. So I was just thinking if there were a day where we dedicated ourselves to not being using whatever pieces as a collective contribution to cutting back the cost and even a day could make such a huge difference. or if we did it twice a year um and participated in that way but as a an community um and maybe it would mean that different areas around the city would have to hold our kids or do different things but I just was I wanted to put a price tag on the idea so that's why I asked that question but yeah I'll I'll figure the math out for you get back to you but you can also talk about our summer savings and not just how we

088run summer school but Fridays which is what we what we do we do that every Friday in the summer yeah so so Fridays Fridays there's staff here. There's no summer school and and so how we you know obviously it might be 90° on that Friday. So it's not like we can't run cooling for our the staff that is here you know operations is here but what we do have is an ice storage machine. So it builds ice overnight and stores it and then when we need it for cooling when we usually use it when electricity is at its highest peak um we then melt the ice and use that chilled water as our cooling. So that's one of the systems that I I I gave Etown Sunrise a tour on and they were amazed at

089it. Now I mean that is that system is now what 20 almost 25 years old. So I mean a lot of our systems are at or nearing their life expectancy. So, it's a it's a great time for this carbon-f free assessment to see how we could address these issues and combine them with replacing equipment as they're at their life expectancy and not just because we want to replace it. So, yeah. Then in the summertime, Kameed notifies Mr. Crawford here on the high temperature days. Tell them what you do, John. Let them know what you do. We do run our we do run our generators and hopefully we don't start a fire like last year, but we do we we also have uh our own generators across the street that can provide electricity for this building.

090So if we run the generators on the five highest peak days of the year, we don't pay any transmission or capacity costs on our electric bill. Um which which comes out to around $300,000 a year additional savings. Yes. What most people don't know is that the school has its own power plant. Yes. Y All right. I I did have one a question. Okay. um you didn't specifically talk about um sort of the trees and the plantings uh around the school and um mostly because I don't know anything about this electricity stuff. I'm going to ask you about what I do know about which is a little bit about trees. Um and I love that we're I think through partnerships planting some additional trees on our property which I think is just always a great thing.

091And I know we're trying to do native and pollinator friendly stuff. I'm wondering if part of that work is taking stock of what's already growing on our property. Um because I'm I I think there are some trees, some growth on our property, including probably an excess of just plain old grass that needs to be maintained um that we could re-evaluate. And the one thing that comes to mind, I could be totally wrong about this, but we did that beautiful new hardscaping mostly, but some landscaping at our front entrance a number of years ago. Um, I don't know if those are Bradford pears out front, but those are like the worst tree ever. It's highly invasive. And if those in fact are Bradford pears, we ought to get get them out and plant something else. So,

092I'm just going to toss that out there because I never thought I'd be bringing this up at a board meeting. Um, but every time I walk by there, I'm like, "God, those should not be Bradford pears because they're just they're horribly invasive. They're non-native and they're they're not the right plant if in fact that's what they are." And we use it's called uh s tree now. It used to be Nells Johnson. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. These guys are professional tree experts. I know. But a lot of these places at one point were trying to unload some of this stuff. No, but they uh Okay. Between them are between I couldn't tell you at the moment. Okay. But between uh them and the city of Evston that's also they go around and check the trees on the

093campus. They put tags on them. Saber Tree puts tags on them and uh then they come in and decide which trees are really bad. Now, a few trees here on campus, the tree company actually came out and put bars across the top because the trees were splitting. I don't know if any those are Bradford pairs. They're they on Lake Street. We got rid of it now. We got rid of it last week, but we work hand in hand and then we stay within budget because everything's a cost. So, no, I got it. I'd be curious if somebody could let me know what those are. We'll let you know. I don't know if those are Bradford Paris, but I did walk the campus with Leslie um Shod. Yeah, she just they just planted 21 trees on

094campus the other day. Um I don't remember her saying those are Bradford pairs because she did point out some other things that she wanted. They may not be. And I'm I'm glad that you're having, you know, you're doing sort of a regular survey because it's more than just adding the new stuff. Um you know, it's also sort of taking into account things that are here that we don't really want to be here, right? Yeah. Um, you know, and and that includes probably the large grassy expanses which, you know, there's some arguments about trying to minimize that and the upkeep that's necessary, you know, including things like water and so forth. Yeah, I'll get a list from Nells Johnson. No, save a tree. Yeah, they're save a tree. Actually, I use them, too. They they look

095at trees in in my own yard. Nel Johnson. Now, save a tree. No problem. We'll give it to Mr. Campbell before May 31st. All right. Other questions, board? If not, thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, great report. Great. All right. So, we are at the district goals discussion. No, no, no. We have a farm. Oh, farm school report. Yes. Sorry. One more. One more. We have Kim Neestra, our director of nutrition services. And Matt, if you're going to introduce Ryan Ryan, I'm sorry. Going to introduce um and we're going to talk about the um farm to school, which I think is also an incredible program um that kind of relates to um what we've been talking about tonight. So, go ahead. Um came right. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for having us. Um,

096I'm really excited to be here because we don't get a lot of opportunity to talk about this very unique program. Um, oh, I forgot I have the the clicker. Um, those are carrots from the garden. Those are not just a picture I found. Um, nice. Yeah. Um, okay. So, our department is made up of a lot of pieces. And when I kind of think about it, our department, I think about it as all these balls in the air. So, I thought this was kind of a cool visualization of obviously the biggest portion of our department is feeding kids, but there's a lot of things underneath that. Um, there's breakfast, there's lunch, um, there's afterchool meals that are free, just so everybody knows. Uh, snacks and dinner. Students have that capability. Um we serve the city

097of Evston um summer camps and obviously we talked a little bit about our sustainability and composting prior and we have our staff dining room vending district 65 lunches. So there's a lot of things and they kind of overlap sometimes and sometimes they're completely separate from each other. So but I was here to talk about the farm to school program. So that's what I'm going to do and um I have like I'm excited about it. It's our passion for sure. Um, okay. So, here's our I think it's funny because it goes from the 1920s to 2009, but I don't know much about prior from 2009. So, I can only put down here kind of what we've done thus far. So, um, in 2009 we started the edible acre one. That's when the hoiculture class started. And

098in 2012, that's when we kind of took it over and and Matt came on board full-time and we were able to set up a crop plan and begin to establish harvest and, you know, con consumption of of the harvest that we have and water was put in and a lot of different things went on. Then uh um is when we um took the management over of the greenhouse and some of you might have been at the 10 year anniversary party that we had. Um that was great to show showcase that 2015 um we started the orchard um we had a grant to What was that grant for exactly? That was to get the urban agriculture class greenhouse. No, I'm sorry. I can't remember what that grant was actually for. I apologize. But that's when we

099also started our um CSA. And for those of you that don't know what a CSA program is, that's community sustainable supported. I always mix those two up. Agriculture. And we'll get into that a little bit more in a second. But um 2018 we had our first harvest of the or on the orchard and we became certified naturally grown. So we're organic practices and you can go into a little bit more about that. Yeah, it's a bit of a subset. So we have USDA USDA organic certification certify certified natural is kind of a step below that. It's more peer reviewed. So, not quite the same credentials as USD organic, but it kind of puts you in that same kind of wheelhouse a little bit. It just shows that we have best practices around how we grow

100our food. Is it organic? Is it sustainable? Is it ethical? Um 2019, we established the edible acre 2, which is right by the field, the football field, and started our seedling sale. And also, I think we were talking about how 2019 must have been a crazy year because I there was many things that we did. Uh when I put this together, it was interesting. We must have really been rocking and rolling. But the we also put new shrubs and plants in at Edible Acre 1 and Edible Acre 2. Um the ETHs Foundation gave us a grant to do the renovation of the greenhouse and that's when we had our tenure event. And then 2021 we um we had the Boy Scouts actually we'll go in a little bit that uh planted grape vines at Edible

101Acre 2 on our pergola. So that's fun stuff. Okay, here's some um garden info and stats. So those are our four low locations and the square footage of each location. the size um the bed number of beds but the size of the beds are different sizes and that'll be like your two versus one um there's about 50 trees a blend of apples and Asian pears at the orchard and then the Greek house. So it's really good to meet all of you. I actually surprisingly enough have been working here since 2012. So time flies when you're growing vegetables. So, um, I'm just going to kind of go through some of the ways we partner with the students because obviously that's a big part of what we what we do and how we want to make an

102impact here. Uh, surprise, just as a little side note, um, so I've been an urban farmer now for over a decade and the interest from the student body on all levels from college to high school, uh, all across the whole country is really kind of soaring. It's very ironic. there's kind of like a back to the land movement from all shapes and sizes of people, too. It's not just like one demographic. So, it's just kind of interesting that we're kind of going back to some of this stuff. Um, so we've engaged the student body in lots of different ways. Um, community service club. I'll just kind of go through this list. Uh, throughout the year, students are getting their credit after school. They kind of come out and spend time in the garden. Um, the

103urban egg class has really become kind of our main bread and butter. So, I don't know if you guys know, there's four urban act classes, about 60 students. Um, so they come out to the garden for one day a week in season um for one block period. And so I help co- teach co-e the class with the teachers. There's two teachers. Um, and that's really kind of a cutting edge program. There's not many schools there's not many schools in the area that can that have this facility, have this amount of space, have this. I mean, it's arguably one of the premier high school garden programs, surprisingly or not. Um, and so the class just really kind of helped to emphasize that. Um, that started off with one class, two classes, now it's four. So, that's

104really good news. Uh, special ed transition folks come out. A lot of times what we'll do is we'll teach the teacher some basic things to do in the garden and then they'll kind of help facilitate with their students kind of different garden tasks. uh senior studies. Countless senior studies students throughout the years have come out and studied and volunteered and kind of taken us on as a project. Uh fun little fact. So last year was our first apple cider press. And if you hadn't if you haven't had fresh apple cider, you're not living. I don't know what to say. But it um so all all the classes did this. So they took the blemished apples from our orchard and we mashed them and pressed them and then all the students actually drank it right on

105site. And it was like super the students were super engaged. Wow. Um it was kind of really good, clean fun. So we hope to kind of keep doing that as years go on. Yeah. They said it was the best day of their life. That's what I That's what I said. That's what you said. I I have a very boring life. That'd be cool. Oh, sorry. So we also work geometry and construction. I think we're missing a slide that's or a picture they're Yeah, we are. So they've helped us throughout the years build compost bins, helped us build the pergola. Whenever there's like a new raised bed that needs to be rebuilt because it gets rotten, they kind of come out and help us do that. So they've been a good partner over the years. Sorry,

106I don't know what happened to those pictures. Graphic design club. So they made all of our logos and they do flyers for different events um that we put on throughout the years. And so these are kind of outside partnerships. Do you guys all know Village Farm Stand in Evston? So, it's basically a brick-andmortar farmers market, 365 days a year. They source from local farmers all throughout the area. And so, we've become partners with them. So, as part of our CSA, um, we've offered supplemental things from them. So, you can get your eggs, you can get your protein, you can get your fruits from them as an add-on to our CSA. And what that does is makes the CSA much more robust. So, it's almost like a one-stop shop. So folks that get the CSA don't

107have to go to the grocery store for as much things, right? Um and it's all locally sourced, all ethical. Um so they've been a big partner of ours starting the last year. Um what was cool as well is we started selling produce to them when we had extras. So if it didn't go to the cafeteria or didn't go to the CSA, they sold it for us and they market it as ETHS produce. Um it had really good sales because we had the cuteness factor of being from ETHS. Mhm. Um but all seriousness, our produce was at a quality that was pretty pretty good, pretty high, right? Um so they were really enthusiastic about that. Um Kim kind of already spoke about the naturally certified certification. Um that was a cool thing we did. In the

108center is a picture of the grapes. So that's on our pergola in EA2. Uh so last year was our first little harvest of of grapes, Concord grapes. Um, and those we had actually had enough to go into the CSA boxes last year, which is cool. So, that'll only continue. Eventually, there'll be like a total shade canopy over the whole pergola and the students won't be in the hot sun working, right? So, um, and then mayor, we can't skip over mayor's summer youth deployment program. So, we've been partners with them since 2009. Each year it's five to seven students in the summer. Uh doing about 15 hours a week working in the garden. Uh getting paid kind of the going rate for that for that job. Um and that's been a really good program for students

109to kind of get their hands dirty kind of in a more professional way. So they're kind of getting hands-on life experience. Uh so this summer we'll have seven students. They're all signed up to go. That's been a really good partnership over the years. Thank you. Yeah. Uh, and then speaking of the CSA and seedling sale, it'll be our fifth year doing the seedling sale and our eighth year doing the CSA. So, there's some fun pictures of that and there's the village farm stand add-ons in there. We have cute stickers and we really try to put some extra effort and touches into it. Um the the CSA and CN sale both brought in about $20,000 in revenue which is really helpful um just to help us kind of subsidize what's happening and um having this wonderful

110knowledgeable man with us to help um with this program. So it it really helps with subsidize that a bit. Um the path ahead is we just want to purchase more local and market that accordingly. So we were fortunate enough to through Matt and the Matt at village farm stand um meet a man called his name is Marty. He is going to be a great liaison between the farmer and us basically um to bring in local produce to the school. Unfortunately, our state is pretty behind on a lot of that. So, he's uh we're kind of kind of going out of rogue and doing our own thing. So, hopefully the state can catch up with us someday. Um they speaking of uh federal money, we did get um supply chain assistance funds is what they were

111called. Um there were federal dollars that were given to us um after COVID that were only supposed to be used for local produce, local um milk, anything that's unprocessed. Um rice, things like that. So that's a bonus, but um that hopefully that'll grow with time. And then those are some other really I mean look at that child. That's just and that's at the our greenhouse event. That's so cute. I love that one. And I have to promote the seedling sale to all of you, of course. So, I hope you can make it. Uh, those are the dates. May 19th, May 20th in the South Cafe Courtyard. We used to have a pre-order, but we're unable to do that this year, but in the future, we will. You never know what happens with nature. Sometimes you

112don't have that capability. And um lastly, I just wanted to thank the board and the district for being such a support for this program throughout the years and allowing us the flexibility to even have it. It's very unique um especially in the Midwest. So, I feel very grateful and and just very proud of where we've gone. And I just really want to thank Matt publicly too because without him we would not have this program because there's a lot of schools everywhere that don't have a sustainable program put in place and they want to but then the parents come on and then they leave and you know how that all goes. So we're we're very fortunate to have somebody that's that's here that is fully committed to this program and as we are. So thank you.

113Any questions? Could you um put those dates up again for that seedling sale? Oh, yes. Is it I can't see them. May 19th. May 19th and May 20th. Okay. It's a Friday and a Saturday. So, the Saturday morning and then Friday afternoon. Okay. Thank you. Right. This was great. So informative. All right. Board, any questions or comments? Amazing. It's all It's all pretty amazing. It's I'm I'm thinking about um just all this this these great opportunities for students to learn. Um, and I love the way you talked about the different classes and and you know how they geometry and construction and and uh the just the different um opportunities for for our kids and uh that's great. That's just really excellent. Yeah. Yeah. we drive by the, you know, edible acre and we, oh, that's

114so cool that we have that, but we have so much more than we realized given this presentation. So, it's really amazing. Thank you very much for your work. Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to say um this really exceeded my expectations that the work you're doing is really cool. Um, I'm so glad to to see this focus on nutrition and um the the knowledge and the education around um healthy eating is is so important for our students. Um I was just wondering if you have any um details you can give us about the CSA and is it too late to sign up? No, I actually I should have put that up as well. No, it's not. We have I think four spots left. And then where do we find information about? I can send it

115I'll send it to you. Okay. Thank you. I'll send it to all of you if you're interested. And please follow like give it to friends and family too. Okay. About this as well. Seeing sale. Yeah, that's good. All right. Well, thank you again. Thank you both. [Applause] All right. Yeah. Lots of applause tonight. Kendra. Good night. All right. So, now we're at the district goals discussion. Yes, I know it's really late. Um, so I guess what I want to say about this is this won't be the last discussion that we're having around this and we don't have to make huge decisions. I know you just got it today. It's redlinined kind of big time. Um so I don't really mind if we um delay this discussion and um when we meet again in June um

116we'll we'll all lot more time because this is a big decision and it's it's too big to rush. So um I got it um I think late morning. I think I sent it to you by the time I realized it was on my computer. And um it's just it's a lot to take in. It's good. I think it's really good. Uh Monica tried to um reflect all of the feedback that she received when we met last month and we met for a couple of hours as you remember. Um and I think she did a a good job. um most of the changes or or proposed language was for goal one and goal two. And I remember every conversation that we had, we spent a lot of time on goal one and goal two. So I

117want you to keep that in mind as you look at them. She also made some I thought um good suggestions for goal three. Um so just take a look at it. Uh, and if you don't mind, we'll have a board conversation about it later. And if you want to start doing your own taking your own notes, I know Gretchen, you said that you um Yeah, sorry. I I didn't know that I felt under pressure to respond to what we got this afternoon. So, I was I was like, "Okay, I'll look." And I was having a hard time with the red lining, so I just So, I just sort of removed it. And then I discovered the Google doc and and so then I went, "Oh." And I went into the Google doc and I put

118the revisions in there. So anyway, that was all done in haste because I thought we were under pressure to have the conversation tonight. So anyway, I'm sorry. I didn't realize we were No, no, no. It was no big deal. I just It was I was sitting there. It all popped in and I'm like, "Okay, then." Okay, good. Good. All right. So, everybody good with that? Yes. Great. Okay. Um, so the code of conduct and the board agreements. Um, we decided to wait until the board was reor had did the reorganization of the board before we presented the code of conduct and the board of agreements. And if you you probably don't recall at our last board retreat, we talked briefly about the code of conduct and the board agreements. So what um what I'd like

119you to do is just again take a look at those. It's the these are important documents because they essentially tell us how to do how to behave, how to do our work. Um and we are a governing board and this code for this code of conduct to work all board members need to uphold the expectations described in this document. So, they are posted over there by the door uh because they're that important that we should remember um the code of conduct. So, read through them um and just remember we still I I still love that whole team of eight. Um and now we have a new member of our team but we are a team of eight uh seven board members and the superintendent. And for this team to work well um we have to

120um we have to we have to be respectful this like respectful dissent when we need to um and share our perspectives and listen to one another. Um so those things are important. So, anything else about the code of conduct? Okay. All right. So, now we have the superintendence report. Thank you. What a good night. Um, so let me start by congratulating our seniors, right? The ETHs class of 2023. uh if you can believe it, they were freshman when the fresh when the uh COVID pandemic hit in the March of 2020. And now this is their final week of classes at ETHS. Senior sendoff is this Thursday. Prom is this weekend at Davy Pier. And graduation is on Sunday, May 21st at 10:00 a.m. at Welsh Ryan Arena. Graduation will be livereamed on the ETHs YouTube

121channel. Uh we recently shared with our students in grades 9 through 11. The schedule for their last week of school. The last day for students is Friday, May 26th, which will be a noon dismissal. And the ETHs summer school kicks off June 1st. And our final community talkback of the year is Tuesday, May 23rd from 6:30 to 7:30 at the YW.CA Evston Northshore. Uh in light of the current conversations about community sa safety, the focus on of the May 23rd event will be violence prevention and intervention strategies in our community. And lastly, congratulations to uh the freshman boys track who came in second place tonight at the CSL conference meet. Uh several individuals and relay teams took first place in various events. So congratulations to freshman boys track tonight. And that concludes my report. Wow,

122that's uh hot off the the press. All right. Okay. We normally don't have a student with a brand. We have a So, you know, you're okay. Okay. Go right ahead then. Oh. I just want to say, you know, it's a AP testing season. I personally have a couple tests. Um, but every there's a lot of stress in the air, so students are cramming uh as per usual. And, um, also I'm really sad and I can speak for a lot of my junior friends and sophomore friends and freshman friends. We're really sad to see the seniors go. Um it's kind of weird that you know they're gonna be gone in like four days and um that's the end of their high school career and then thinking about next year for my class the juniors were like

123wow you know post high school planning am I right? Um but that's pretty much it. And then for the student union um Dr. Kinsey um came to our last meeting um to talk with us about goal two um concerning mental health and like 504 and IEP plans and also um plans for the next year as we work on increasing that communication um and promoting transparency between our student body and then all of you all and other administration at our school. So that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Nicole. And I have a little something for you as well tonight. So I just want to make sure I get it to you. Otherwise, I may take it home myself. All right. Uh let's do our action items. Um, so the first item is approval of

124Pride Month resolution and Bretchan's going to read that for us. Yes, I will. Uh, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer pride month 2023. Excerpts from past proclamation by President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Whereas the uprising at the Stonewall Inn in June 1969 sparked a liberation movement, a call to action that continues to inspire us to live up to our nation's promise of equality, liberty, and justice for all. Whereas Pride is a time to recall the trials the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer, LGBTQ plus community has endured, and to rejoice in the triumphs of trailblazing individuals who have bravely fought and continue to fight for full equality. Whereas the LGBTQ plus community in America has achieved remarkable progress since Stonewall. Whereas historic Supreme Court rulings in recent years have struck down regressive laws affirm the

125right to marriage equality and secured workplace protections for LGBTQ plus individuals in every state and territory. Whereas for all of our progress, there are many states in which LGBTQ plus individuals still lack protections for fundamental rights and dignity in hospitals, schools, public accommodations, and other spaces. Whereas our nation continues to witness a tragic spike in violence against transgender women of color in particular, LGBTQ plus individuals, especially youth who defy sex or gender norms face bullying and harassment in educational settings and are at a disproportionate risk of self harm and death by suicide. Whereas we recognize the resilience and determination of the many individuals who are fighting to live freely and authentically. Whereas we affirm our obligation to uphold the dignity of all people and dedicate ourselves to protecting the most vulnerable among us. Now therefore,

126be it resolved that the board of education of Evston Township High School District 202 recognizes the month of June 2023 as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer pride month and celebrates the achievement of the LGBTQ plus community and the great diversity of the American people. Thank you. Thank you, Gretchen. Could I have a motion? Motion for approval, please. So move. Second. Good luck, Lisa. Roll call, please. Yes. Carson, yes. Carson, yes. William, yes. All right. Thank you. The consent agenda consists of approval of amendment international travel for 2324 bise and the China trip. Approval of bid for painting services contract. Approval of minutes for the regular and closed sessions from April 17, 2023. Approval of bills and personnel report. So moved. Second. Roll call, please. Yes. Yes. Okay. Is there any old or new business?

127I have old and new business. All right. Surprise, surprise. Um, this is just a simple um recognition. Well, not a simple res recognition, but an important one. The uh from the Illinois Association of School Boards. It says, "Dear Dr. Campbell. At the North Cook uh division meeting on March 15th, the North Cook Executive Committee was recognized for serving the the division during the 2123 term. As Pat Savage Williams could not attend, please acknowledge her service as a North Cook director at large at your next scheduled board meeting. The Illinois Association of School Boards sinc sincerely appreciates her service to the division. Warm regards from Arlana. A little surprise. Pulled one on me. You 10. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Um polling of the board. Any any other comments board would like to

128make? Welcome, Leah. Welcome to the board table. All right. Can we have a motion for adjournment, please? I move we adjourn. All in favor? I Okay, this meeting is adjourned.