001This is the regular meeting of the Geneva 304 School Board for February 23rd, 2026. Bonnie, could you call the role? >> Here. here. >> Thank you. I must say it's nice to see an audience that's just the right size for this space. We're we're usually either way too big or way too small. And so I'm happy to see you all and I'm glad you're attending this meeting. I'll try and keep it as reasonably short as possible. Having said that, next is the pledge. Flag is back there. Jackie Forbes will lead us in the pledge. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> There is an attendance sheet in the lobby.
002If you would like to register your attendance, you can do so by signing in there. It's not required, however. The next item is approval of minutes. Um, we have minutes for the regular session February 9th, 2026 and the executive session February 9th, 2026. Have you received any corrections or additions to these minutes, Bonnie? Does anyone have any at this time? Hearing none, I'd entertain a motion to approve. >> So moved. >> Second. I >> I thank you. Okay. Next item on the agenda, recognition, awards, presentations, and public hearings. Number one, the tradition of excellence, GHS students, girls gymnastics. Mr. Tom Rogers is there. He is >> ready to say nice things about you. >> This is an exciting one. >> This is so >> No, of course. >> As we're getting ready, I know some
003people know exactly what to do here, but for some of our new uh some of our new uh students we're going to recognize. Here's the plan. The board's going to come around front. Um and your principal is going to brag on you a little bit. And then when it's time for you to come up, you'll start at the end with Mr. Choy and shake hands uh with all the board and then we'll get you your certificate and take your photo here with the backdrop. So, Mr. Rogers, take it away. >> Thank you, Dr. Barrett, and thank you again to the board for this opportunity to honor yet another great accomplishment at Geneva High School. And this one got greater since we sent the memo a week and a half ago. So, it's not often that
004we get to celebrate someone like we are tonight almost immediately after their big accomplishment. So Reese Lackey, who I'm going to introduce in just a moment, qualified for the IHSA state finals. That's a big deal in itself. But as of Saturday evening, here we are tonight celebrating the ninth individual state championship in Geneva High School history because Ree is the Illinois High School Association state champion in the floor exercise in gymnastics. Reese, I'll have you go ahead and go up and shake hands. And while you're shaking hands, we'll make you stand. After you're done, you'll stand in front of this backdrop. And I'll read the uh I'm going to read the script that I read this morning because once we learned that Ree was a state champion, we planned an exciting recognition ceremony in the
005Viking Commons first thing this morning. So, uh, obviously you all know that Ree now you all know that Ree is a state champion. U, but Reese has competed at the state competition all four years of her high school career. As a freshman, she was part of our Gene Geneva High School team that finished third in the state. She then followed that up with four with a excuse me with a fourth place finish on the floor exercise both her sophomore and junior years. She then put an exclamation point on her career this past Saturday. Uh throughout the season, she was near the top of most competitions and she was a part of the team title. We earned a regional championship as a team at Glenbard at the Glenard South regional. She then qualified for the state
006competition as the all-around sectional champion at the Lake Park sectional and then also was the first place finisher on floor and beam at that same sectional. So this past faline high school and competed in the all-around competition where she did quite well. She then also though that afternoon scored a 9.35 on the floor exercise which finishing the day she was tied for fourth place. She went on to continue competing on Saturday and needing her best performance of the year. She in fact did not disappoint putting together one of the best routines of the year improving her score to 9.6 and was crowned IHSA state champion. Congratulate Congratulations again to Reese. We also want to thank and congratulate her head coach, Geneva High School's head gymnastics coach, Kim Hosman. Kim, please come on forward as well.
007Now, Mr. Baker, you may take pictures of We'll take one of the two of them and then maybe we'll take one of just Reese as well. I don't know. Maybe. Sure. Last chance. Congratulations again, Ree. At this time, I will call up Mr. Blue from Geneva Middle School South. He has some musicians to introduce tonight, if I'm not mistaken. All right. Thank you, Mr. Rogers. >> Hi. Well, nice to see everyone. Thanks for having us back. Um, so good evening. Thank you for allowing us to come out and highlight two of our students and two of our staff members who have made Geneva proud. Uh, Ela, give me a second. Elena, I Elena and I have fought a three-year battle on her name pronunciation that I'm going to win tonight. Elena uh, NI and Sawyer
008South participate in the Illinois Music Educators Association. All State Junior Choir. Almost 2,000 students from around Illinois auditioned in the fall for their district level choirs, which Elena and Sawyer both participated in. Uh to be selected to the All State Choir, a student typically scores in the top 2% of the students auditioning in their district. We were very lucky to have both these students uh in the group this year. Similar to the high school students who I think you recognized uh at the last board meeting uh member as a member of the all state choir, Elena and uh Sawyer performed with students from all around the state. They then learned five new songs uh rehearsing a few weeks ago on a Thursday and a Friday morning and with the director from Northeastern Illinois University. They
009gave a fantastic performance on Friday, January 30th in the Poria Civic Center Theater. So big day. big day and parents were like they were fantastic. Unbelievable that kind of choir. Um so I would also like to highlight the work of Mrs. Hibler and Mr. Hibler who are the two choir directors on the middle school campus. They obviously work closely uh with Elena and Sawyer on their singing skills but help all of our choir students strive to be the best they can be. Uh many of our other students from both North and South participated in that District 9 choir festival uh back in November. Uh so thank you for letting us come out and highlight our program. Uh kids, you want to come on up and uh and Mr. and Mrs. Hibler as well, please. Uh
010and be recognized Today was actually I asked this morning. Wait, do you want Continuing on with the meeting, item three, college and career planning resources, Doug Drexler and Sherry Clatt and Mrs. Sims, I think, getting connected up there. So, >> mine will be brief. My regular disclaimer, keeping the microphone close to your mouth so our friends on YouTube can uh hear and understand all the great stuff that you're sharing uh when they watch it later. >> All right. Thank you for the opportunity. Uh you are correct. Um you're going to hear primarily from Mr. Drexler and Mrs. Clatt talking to you specifically about school links um the program that they are proposing for adoption. um actually a replacement to a a program that we currently have. I want to just share and situate this within
011our strategic plan goal for um college and career preparedness for our students. uh as you'll hear from them tonight, this program you will empower um our district to meet the state mandates for some of our reporting as well as provide the opportunity for us to better, you know, track our students post high school and align them to opportunities to connect with, you know, personnel and professionals in the careers they have interest in and help them with uh college and course college selection and course selection as they move towards their um postsecary goals. So with that, I'll turn it back over to you, Doug. >> All right. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this evening. Um, so as Mrs. Sims indicated, this is the software that we're looking to adopt called
012School Links is really about preparing students to be to have a plan post high school. So, our goal is for all Geneva High School graduates to leave high school with a workable plan that is based in reality and is well informed. So, uh we work very hard to do that. Uh and as Mrs. Sims indicated, this is a replacement piece of software. So, rewinding about 15 years uh ago, we adopted a program called Naviance, which I know some of your kids have have used. uh and at the time it was really the only product only product in that uh category uh and I think it did enhance the college search process and the college research process uh for our students. Uh however a lot has changed in 15 years. Uh first of all Naviance is
013no longer the only product in that category. There are a number of options. uh and two at the national level and the state level and the local level there's a lot more interest in building career awareness earlier in a student's career. Uh so we thought it was a good time to look at alternatives to determine are we on the right path or do we want to select a different product that we think would better support goals in this area. So you know the end goal of this presentation is the recommendation for school links but I want to talk a little bit about the process we used to get there. So before before we started looking at products we did determine what are the criteria we wanted to utilize to evaluate these products and I'm not
014going to read this to you but just to draw your attention to the first two. Student engagement is really really important. So, if we've got a a piece of software that has all this information in it, but students don't find it engaging and don't want to dig into the finer details, it doesn't really matter. Uh, so we wanted the student engagement to be very high for both college and career information. Uh, and then we wanted it to manage the college application process really well as Naviance currently does. So we didn't want to lose ground, but we wanted to enhance what our students are experiencing. So school links is is essentially a central platform that's bringing together uh three different kind of components of the the development of this plan. Uh first of all, learning experiences
015that our counseling and advising department kind of curate for students over their four years of high school. And you you'll hear more about that from Mrs. cl in a moment. Uh we also embed a lot of career resources into our personal finance course which is a requirement for graduation. So that class will be utilizing this product product as well. And then also students and parents are looking at this process as well. They obviously have a very vested interest in the plan being a good one. Uh so they're going to be able to access these resources as well. And school links has a number of different modules that can be customized by our counseling advising office in terms of when in high school students will experience these uh and develop some understanding of what their interests
016are, what their skills are, and what some some great options for them might be. So, I'm going to turn things over to Mrs. Clatt, who's going to go into a little bit more detail about the kinds of activities that students will engage in with School Links. Thank you. So we'll start with the college exploration. We have been pretty happy with this component in terms of our current platform Naviance, but as uh Mr. Drexler referenced in looking at school links uh through the presentations we've had and through the sandbox activities, it is just far more user friendly and engaging uh for students. So uh you know when we give presentations to students through the career exploration our goal is to have them find the right fit. So when we're talking to school students about college what
017is that right fit and what does that mean? Of course there's a financial fit there's an academic fit. What are those important components to a student when they're researching for colleges? So when they're able to go on to school links like many other programs, this one has a very robust um search engine where their students can answer questions and then receive a list of colleges that meet that criteria that they have entered and then students are able to get a snapshot of the schools that are referenced. So sometimes navigating a school's website can feel overwhelming. uh this is like going to the college fair and receiving the you know little handout that you can take home and put in your bag but instead you have it here to take a look at. So you know
018it's going to include everything from admissions requirements um information about their different majors on campus. Um just some fun features. It will also have a scattergram listed and that's a data point that students are able to take a look at. um other Geneva High School students that attended this university, they're able to look at where that student fell academically. So, if they want to have that information, they can access that as a piece of the puzzle. Uh it also has a walkability scale, which sometimes students can find on schools websites, right? So, this is just a fun thing to look at with students. If you're going to walk campus, what are you going to be able to see from one side of campus to the other? And then ultimately, students are going to save their
019schools. this is going to be their platform where they're saving schools they're in in interested in attending. And then when they move into senior year and they're ready to say, "Okay, I'm not just interested. These are my schools I'm applying to." We then on our end as counselors help students request official transcripts when they're needed. And then they also will use school links to request their letters of recommendation. So not only is it a school platform, it then becomes our platform to submit any school related documents directly to a school. School links will also sync with Common App, which is a the application many most of our students will use. And so by syncing that, it also just really streamlines that process for our students. When it comes to the career piece, this is where
020I feel most excited. Navian unfortunately we're not sure where it dropped off at some point but the career piece is just not as robust and we don't feel that the interest inventories are very user friendly. There's often a very lengthy paragraph that a student needs to read and then answer some questions but I think you know there's a lot of interest lost as they're reading that paragraph. So the career interest inventories are are just again more accessible. there's a you know would you rather you know swipe left swipe right you know students aren't used to being on platforms where uh they're able to engage in that manner so uh there's going to be opportunities actually this is what I love the most I'll say this first when a student first logs into school links they're
021going to complete a an interest inventory and it's going to be considered their onboarding so it's ultimately a personality assessment a brief one and that's going to personalize their profile. So then later on when I log into my profile, however I answer those questions, whatever comes up on my profile is going to be related to that. And then the more I do, the more I engage with the system, the more it's going to give me links to, for example, if you know, if it cames up that I was going to be an educator, I think that's a great idea. It is going to then show videos. It's going to show potential internship opportunities. It's going to link me to other information about certificates that might be required. So, it's going to continue to to engage
022uh to evolve as I do more and I engage more with the system. So, that makes sense. Um, but again, the interest inventories are going to lead students to different careers. Ultimately, they're going to focus on career clusters, those 16 career clusters. So, it's not going to necessarily say I should be in an accountant, but it's going to recommend something in business and finance and that let me explore the different pathways. If I'm not interested in a 4-year degree, if I'm interested in going into work right outside of high school, it's going to give me what that pathway is and what is required and then continue down all the way through. you know, what type of opportunities are you looking for after you have received potentially, you know, a bachelor's degree or beyond? As it
023gives re uh recommended um careers, it will also show, okay, if you want to, if this is the career you're looking at, what are some college majors? It's not always obvious what I'm necessarily going to major in. And then we'll link to school. So, I could keep talking because I get really excited about this, so I'm going to stop. Um, it also really has expanded in terms of their trades and their military. another area that we just didn't feel Naviance uh kept up with. I'm really passionate. My son was in the Navy and I learned how important it was for him to understand what the ASVAB was, what career opportunities he would have, and that is ultimately how he chose the branch he was going to serve. So, that's something we really want to make
024sure we stress with our students. Um, so I talked I think already about the career interest inventories. Again, uh the more we engage with them, the more our students engage with them, the more it's going to increase their profile and give them opportunities to to just explore even greater what is out there for them. We follow obviously the place framework. This just means that we're making sure that our students are following the correct grade level uh curriculum, making sure that it is growing with them. Um, as was mentioned before, everything that they engage in will be saved in this one profile. So, as we work with them, freshman through senior year, we will continue to have that engagement and they can continue to reference back as we follow the curriculum for each year. Um, and
025then as Doug mentioned already, it's parent accessible. This is a wonderful piece. Parents will have their own account and when they log in, they are not able to edit. they cannot take their own personality interest inventories but they can review the results um from what their parents have or what their students have completed. Um and it's also just a great platform for dialogue right a student is going to open up these are the schools I'm looking at these are the careers I've explored so a nice way for them to engage in that as they're talking about their plans and then from there um just want to take a look at some other details that we have other um aspects and I'll pass that over to Mr. Drexler. >> All right. Uh, another thing that impressed
026us, uh, about School Links, uh, they had a lot of kind of finely tuned details that we weren't necessarily looking for as our core requirements. Um, but they're listed here, and I I'll use the last one as as a good example. Students most of the time need letters of recommendation for college admission, and Naviance facilitates that process. but only from internal existing faculty members. So if a student is requesting a letter from an employer uh or somebody from a church or community organization, there's really not a good system for us to handle that. So we felt another advantage of school links is they've thought of a lot of these things and clearly responded to feedback that they have gotten from other schools uh and have a lot of these little features built in which we
027think is going to be really great for our students uh and our staff. Uh we did our due diligence talking with other districts who were using all of our finalist products. Um and that really confirmed that school links was a good choice for Geneva. Uh we heard very clearly that it was an engaging product for students. uh the technology worked as intended uh and that the training was uh effective for the onboarding process and when issues did arise which is always the case with software uh they were responsive to those uh challenges. Uh once we narrowed down the uh product list to one and we felt as adults uh that this was the product for Geneva uh we wanted to confirm that with students. So we did a couple of focus groups with current seniors
028who have been through this whole college career planning process with our current piece of software. Um and basically what we did we gave them sandbox accounts and asked them to go through and replicate the career exploration activities and the college activities that they had already done. Uh and it was really fascinating to just sit back and watch and listen. So very very clearly they indicated there's more information in school links. It's better organized. It's much easier to navigate. Um they really like the ability to customize uh font and color and all kinds of other variables uh to make it theirs. Uh and then a few quotes I thought I would put in um from seniors like one, I actually enjoy this. Uh two, I wish I would have had this a year ago. Uh, and
029my personal favorite, this is sick, which in teen lingo means it's really good. Um, so universally, all of the seniors that were in these focus groups felt that this was uh a really good tool. Um, so the students and the faculty and our references kind of all triangulated and came back with the same conclusion. Uh so in terms of costs, our current provider we're spending about $9,000 uh a year. Uh school links is about $8,000 a year. So essentially the same price point. Obviously there are some onboarding costs and training costs during uh year one. Um school links does give us some potential down the road should we want to expand and add some different modules, but we're not recommending these right now. um with synergy implementation, some of those features in synergy are really
030kind of in the same area as some of the additional modules. So we really want to vet school uh synergy first to see if that is going to meet our needs. Uh so we're not recommending anything other than the base product at this time. So, our planned implementation uh would begin on July 1st um when the fiscal year begins and then counselors would get up to speed uh very quickly because August 1st is when the common app opens. So, we'll have students really wanting to utilize this product uh as early as August 1st. Uh and then we will gradually roll out training for other grade levels uh as well. Uh so that's that's our uh initiative to uh pursue school links. So we'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have. >> I
031just had a question about the roll out. I think the the system sounds great and I think this will be helpful for our students and our families. Um I think we're throwing a lot at our families this summer with um the system roll out and then this one. And I really just worry about those seniors. So, what will they have to use over the summer when they might be trying to do some college visits since the training won't roll out? Will they have access to Naviance? Will they be without something? And have we thought about how we can communicate that to them so we're not leaving everybody in this like limbo period with both systems? >> Yeah, that's a great question. So, there will be a period of time this summer where they won't have
032access to Naviance and they won't have access to school lakes. So we will need to communicate that very effectively uh as we get towards the end of the year specifically with our juniors. Uh I Sherry's want to come up here in a second but uh they school links will be able to capture and import the existing data that we have in that system. Um so we won't lose that. Students won't lose that. They will have access to that in the fall. And then Sherry wants to add something. I just wanted to add that we're currently conducting junior conferences and we are letting all of our students know that Naviance is not going to be accessible to them for most of the summer. Um we are really gearing a lot of our students to use uh
033big future which is on College Board's website. So that is still a very good that's for their search engine. If you're still looking at schools, you still want to access schools. Um, and then really turning it over to introducing them to Common App because that's where they're ultimately going to start entering all of their information. The um, essay prompts will be available soon. So, we are making sure they have that information now. Um, and then we also have another PLC with all of our juniors before the end of the school year where we're kind of wrap back around with that information. >> I think that sounds great. I think um in I it might have been um curriculum night at the high school, the counseling department did a great presentation for parents that went over
034Navvian, which I personally found very helpful. So maybe thinking about how we communicate to parents because, you know, some of our seniors are on top of or juniors, soon to be seniors are on top of it. Some are not realizing that that's approaching quickly. So just looping them in to help help out with those kids. Yeah, go ahead. >> Just a quick question. Um, on the part of the support for careers, um, how most students, maybe most, but many students probably don't really know what they want to do and don't really know what they want to study since most go many students go in with undeclared by the time they go into college. Um, if this takes if if if a student shows some interest in a specific career, but is it passing fancy? Does
035the algorithm allow them the flexibility at some point to say, you know, I really don't want to be a CSI agent today, you know, because I I saw another program that I like very much on television. and allow them to to to to pivot and to find a um you know a different direction or is the system such that it it continues to because that's what they put in there first and that's what it knows continues to kind of drag them down the one rabbit hole. >> Right. Yeah, that's a great question. So, uh there's a couple different ways that students would navigate that one. Some of these surveys that students take at different points. the most recent one is the one that is most applicable to their profile. Uh but students can also retake
036those over time. Even if they're not they haven't been pushed out at a certain time, students can go in and say, you know, and I know I'm not scheduled to retake this until my junior year, but I'm going to retake it now. Um but the other thing is all of these all the information about all the careers are always available to students and when they start looking at those it also starts populating their profile like oh I see you've been looking at accounting a lot. It's going to start feeding them more information about accounting. So it's it's very responsive um to what students are using the program for. So uh two questions. The first one is um kind of along the same lines as Paul was mentioning. Once the career, you know, exploration happens and
037um to use your example of um an educator, does it take it to the next step of here some um for your universities or some university or some some different things, does it take it to that next step that or that have that um school of study or whatever it might be? Yeah. >> Yeah. The short answer is yes. Yeah. So it I I'm not familiar with the specific algorithm that they use, but that will be part of the developmental counseling curriculum. They start kind of general and then they move towards specific as they get closer to senior year with colleges and careers. Uh so that those co two hopefully come together at graduation or before so a student has a direction when they graduate. >> Sure. Okay. Um because hopefully 100% of our students
038are career bound. So >> Right. They all they all need this information and have a direction to go. >> Yeah. And and it may not be a four-year university where they're so would they would they have it geared toward a trade school or or an apprenticeship or whatever it may be. >> Yeah. And that that's one of the things we liked about School Links as well. They had much more robust non-traditional careers um compared to some of the other products we looked at. >> Great. Great. Thank you. And then the second question is um in terms of the roll out how does the roll out look for a student? Is it during PLC time or is it uh continuously throughout? So that's the first part of the question. Second part is is there a um
039is there any not monitoring but is there some some sort of ability to see if a student you know are students using this tool or whatever? >> Yeah. So the priority is absolutely going to be on our incoming seniors. So, we're going to hit the ground running with them. Uh, I think maybe even probably before that first PLC, even during registration week, pushing out some information to help them get ready. Uh, and we'll have some early adopters as well that are probably they can't wait until August 1. They want to have everything lined up before that common app opens. So, uh, we know we're going to have to have that accessible to students in early August. Um and I I forgot this the second part of >> um is there ability to see the students
040that are using or are not using it. >> So it it's really very clear. You can see which students have completed a task, which ones haven't. You can send reminders just to those that haven't completed it. Um so very user friendly from the adult perspective as well to know who has and hasn't followed up on their information. just like we will have our junior conferences. So we will give a an overall presentation to our students during PLC but then all seniors will sign up with for an individual senior conference and that's really because we can give that big presentation and that's just a great overall introduction to it but until they get it in front of them. So we'll go through it and then throughout first semester we offer snacks and apps in the commons.
041Um but it is a great drop in. We have a lot of students come to drop in and and so we're there as well to drop in to answer any questions and we'll continue to monitor. We monitor when our students are because I know which of my students are planning to apply. So we monitor when they're recoming transcripts and and just those overall usage reports. So we'll follow up with them in multiple ways. It won't just be that PLC presentation and like emailing information out. Then is there a is there an app for our students to utilize for school links or is it just through their >> Yeah. So there is an app um and a lot of the features uh like Mrs. Clatt's talking about at at a PLC meeting uh a lot of
042the activities can be QR coded and very very mobile friendly and that leads to not surprisingly higher completion rates of these tasks on the part of students. >> Great. Thank you. One more question for me. Um I I re recognize that when this gets rolled out, the focus will be on the rising seniors um that are going to be needed needing to use this. But once you have it rolled out, is this opportunity or is this um app available to be investigated, used or looked at by let's say um the juniors or sophomores at that point in time? Do they have access or do they have to have special? >> Does every student have access immediately? I guess what I'm asking. So, so that's a great a great point. So, every student will get access
043in August, but in terms of directed activities we want them to engage in, that'll take a backseat until our seniors are up to speed. >> And there is um even opportunities for this to go lower if we want to have some conversations about that in the future, right? So, um you know, like even down to middle school. So, not there right now, but as you know, as we continue to talk about some of this career pathway stuff, it's uh this tool has that capability if that's something we want to be thinking about down the road. >> All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate the information. The program does look good. >> Thank you guys. >> So, Larry, is this on the agenda for approval later on or is it did I miss it in part
044of the >> This is not on the agenda for approval at this time. Okay. just on for information. Um, and we can share more information about that later. Largely the approval part, you know, it's below that financial threshold. >> Sure. >> So, it doesn't need that kind of approval, but I think what we've thought about is um, we wanted to make sure, you know, you and the public had had the opportunity to learn about it. Um, partly because of how it's tied to our strategic plan goals and everything. Um, also we might maybe we'll include it in when we share the uh, you know, the textbook information and those resources later this spring. So, it's kind of included in all of that. >> Sorry, I must have misheard. I thought I something about approval. >>
045No, that's okay. Okay. Sorry. >> Thank you. In any case, u, now on to item four. I see Shanette is here adjusting the microphone >> test. I've never done that before. Sorry. I apologize, Robin. content curious social studies that I do want to thank um Mr. Drexler and Mrs. Clatt for being here today and for the team at the high school that have worked on the previous program that they shared with you um so diligently this school year. So uh yeah, thank you for the opportunity to come back again with a content curious presentation. Um this was something that uh came out of our department, Department of Learning and Teaching uh because we come to you frequently asking for resources or asking for um you know summer curriculum time for our staff to work on
046the things that we asked for you to support purchase of. We thought it would be of value to come back and start sharing with you departmentally or course based um what we do with those materials. And by we, I'm going to turn it over here very shortly to the experts uh that um are in our classroom that are utilizing these materials. So, we have representation tonight from um our elementary with uh one of our instructional facilitators and we have our instructional coordinator from the middle school and we have our department chair from the high school who will be speaking to you specifically about social studies. So again, we just want to take the lens from the stuff to what happens in the classroom. So, um, they're going to be speaking to you tonight about kind
047of four discipline areas that span across our, you know, kindergarten through 12th grade. Um, as you can imagine, once they get into high school, that can splinter off into, um, areas of interest based on, you know, what gets peaked by certain classes that are required and then what path students want to take moving forward. But the four big buckets are civics, geography, economics, and financial literacy, and history. So tonight they're going to talk a little bit about like just history as it relates to kindergarten through um 12th grade and talk to you about kind of what the exposure of content is and where students can go um if they're still interested after those introductory courses. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Jill Marsh, one of our instructional facilitators. This is always
048the worst part when you come up to the microphone. Um what's that? That's true. Um, at the elementary level, um, our grade level standards that are outlined in the Illinois social studies learning standards, um, have sort of a thematic approach to them, which is extremely beneficial. As you may know, our elementary day is, uh, very short and it is jam-packed with all sorts of content, curriculum, activities. So, I would say the biggest challenge for our elementary classrooms is trying to find time to fit it all in. Uh however, these themes help us do that um because they are um thematic in nature and it allows for more overlap especially in the social studies areas with our social emotional uh learning standards and secondstep curriculum as well as um our reading curriculum or newer hopefully new
049soon uh reading curriculum. And you can notice when you look at those uh grade level themes at the elementary level, they really start at that individual level and it helps the students understand their um individual world and grow to their family, their community um out to our state level at the ill or at fourth grade where they learn about not only the um history of Illinois but all of uh the states and the regions in of the United States and then it kind of branches out to more of a global perspective. Uh these uh themes align really nicely with our current curricular resource which is the TCI social studies alive curriculum. Um and these grade level themes overlap really really nicely. So it allows teachers um to teach that content. Uh they utilize uh there's
050a digital platform that the teachers utilize to uh for their own planning. Uh the students have access to a social studies uh student journal which is kind of like a workbook uh textbook feel to it and it also um comes with lots of hands-on activity opportunities that the teachers can utilize as well um for their content. So that's elementary. Hi everyone. Uh my name is Trevor Hiddman. I'm the instructional coordinator at North Middle School. I also teach sixth and seventh grade social studies. And yes, I know the irony of saying six7 in this day and age. So I have to say it all the time. Um so the elementary school does a fantastic job of building that foundation for uh for social studies. What I like to say at the at the middle school is
051we start building the house and we focus on those those core disciplines you see in the bottom right which Sea talked about but we apply those to those themes in sixth, seventh and eighth grade. Um but that's just the the topic. So what we teach middle school kids is not just to learn history but to do history and and apply it. So on the bottom you know the experience of what these kids are going to get. We us we typically start inquiry inquiryheavy. We we have a a question in history and the kids will investigate that. Um they'll evaluate primary sources, secondary sources. Um they're going to they're going to look at all kinds of viewpoints to that and then come to a thoughtful balance conclusion and possibly possibly an argument with that. So um
052identifying multiple perspectives. So, we're trying to give them kind of a a nice preview of doing history. And so, an example of that, uh, should we celebrate Columbus Day? We're doing that right now with our sixth graders. And the grade is not yes or no. They they can say yes or no. The grade comes from them articulating that. So, they look at the primary sources. They look at secondary sources. They look at uh things from today. What What did Columbus do? What didn't he do? what are some opinions and then they write their conclusion based on that. So their grade is based on a thoughtful conclusion based on facts, proper sources and then this also leads to um current events and things that come in. So then the debate comes and we we teach that
053um different things. The the another one on the bottom there was was the constitutional convention a a success? Uh, so in seventh grade, we focus heavy on the Constitution. And so they they did some things in the at the convention just to get the the Constitution ratified that maybe people don't necessarily agree with, and that's okay. But why' they do it? What was their reasoning? And so it really um helps them understand history uh in a different way and allows them to apply those skills in the 21st century. Um so now I'll turn that over to the high school. Hi everyone. I'm Lucas Roas. I'm the department chair at the high school. It's good to be here. And just as Mr. Hman mentioned that elementary school sets up the middle school for success, I think
054it's the same thing with the middle school setting up the high school for success. Um we're really trying at the high school now to um I think there's a broad theme of um transitioning from just acquiring knowledge to using that knowledge to create arguments, using that knowledge to participate in your community, using that knowledge to affect change. Um so it's um just like while we don't have classes called civics, history, geography or economics um these four disciplines are seen through many of our core classes and our electives. um for civics uh students or Illinois requirement is that students take a half semester of civics and that's our US government course they they take junior or senior year and really um I think this idea of um yes teaching students about our political system but more
055so pushing them to be active participants pushing them to be active citizens um students in our government courses all complete a we call it a civic action project where they have to investigate a local project you may have gotten emails um from students in the past. I'm sure some people in this room have. Um, but they through this research and through this um collaboration and interviewing people, they learn to um figure out ways that they can affect change in their in their community. Um, history um at the history level, we have uh students take world history freshman year um and then US history their sophomore year and then there's history electives that they're during their junior and senior year. But really um it it goes back to this idea that um we've mentioned here that
056it's not so much about just acquiring history. It's about creating arguments and creating your own perspective and defending those your own perspectives. Geography is another great um opportunity students have. We have many geography focused courses. The most notable of those is our AP human geography course that students take freshman year um or students have the option to take freshman year. Um and then economics as well. We're really proud um of the fact that we have added AP macroeconomics in the past few years. We have students take regular level economics. But I think the big theme just to kind of put this all together is that we want students to um start applying their knowledge rather than just obtaining it. Any questions? Anything for the participants? >> Everybody's being pretty quiet. I hope you had a
057chance to see the high school play American history a bridge. It was very funny. Anyway, Paul. >> Okay. Um, when I was looking at your presentation, getting prepared for it, I thought back to the the dark days of 1970s when I was in junior high school. and history ended at World War I. And then I saw history still ends at World War I when I saw your your presentation. And it bothered me a little bit because the pace of change and the impact of that change is significantly faster doubled or trebled what has happened in the first 150 175 years of this country. Yet we don't prepare. It doesn't seem and maybe you can tell me I'm wrong, but it seems that we're stopping before when things really get going and you know when when
058all of the things that have happened and all the way from civil rights movement to the cold war to the um the invention of the computer and coming with AI and many other things that you could you could dig into that is going to have I think a a lot more impact. on our future children's lives than western expansion. Sorry, I don't there's nothing wrong with western expansion. Um, but I I'm I'm just wondering, should we not should we not be taking this forward and and and making sure that before our students get to high school, they are we have sat and and and gone through our history with them. Okay, maybe we can't get maybe we can't get to the 2000s, but maybe we can get to the 1990s, right? and all the impacts
059and the changes that has have on society, on politics, on on culture, on everything that that that we do today, technology. Um, I I just like I wanted to throw that I sent you this ahead of time so that you could be prepared for it. >> Um, because it bothered me a little bit after I read that. >> No, thank you for asking and thank you for sharing. So, I would say it stops at 8th grade there. it does continue at the high school and I would you know invite my colleagues to come up and share. I think the other way that some of that gets addressed especially you like you said AI we take a topic that I mean through this like inquiry model of these were the circumstances that allowed this to happen
060in 1970 are there similar circumstances with this event right now in 2026 where maybe perhaps the same thing could happen and so I think that's where that like inquiry and research where students are kind of piecing the past with the present um they can start to to do some of that and maybe get at some of those topics that are more timely than you know stop being I mean I can share my father was just amazed that I never learned about the Vietnam War in school he being a veteran he's like why did you not learn about this I don't know you know standard didn't explicitly stay Vietnam war I don't know but anyway so um and I think the other reason for our students that I guess I would argue that I think that
061they're prepared is we are fortunate to have such low mobility that our students come through our system kindergarten through So they do get an expansive, you know, exposure. Again, not a some of the modern stuff you referenced. Um, I think that happens more in some of those elective courses if that's really like piqu their interest, the history or in more of like a current events kind of a situation than a more traditional standard history course. But again, in those elective areas, that's where they can get more and deeper exposure to some of those more current historical realities. Yeah, I I I kind of assume that's where we're going to go, but I have again an elective may only hit about 20% of the students. >> Mhm. >> And then there's 80% that may never study
062about that >> to go beyond. Yeah. >> To go beyond the beginning of World War I. And I just I'm struggling with that. >> Yes. >> That's that was my comment. Yeah. So, I think um I think it's a good point. Um and I think what maybe Mr. Henman was going to mention that eighth grade US history does go up until World War I and then high school US history that it's a required course for all students picks up. Um actually we jump a little bit back. we go we start late 18 late 1800s with the progressives in the guilded age and then we we're really pushing every year to try and get to at least 20 2008 the financial crisis. Um so there is I think a a full as best as we can
063do a full scope of US history throughout the whole district. Um so I think I think we're pushing for that and again like we said it's it's hard because history keeps going every year and we have more and more to add. Uh but our goal in US history has always been to try and get to 2008 financial crisis set up kind of the post that post world that post financial crisis world um with the elections of presidents throughout the 2010s 2020s. So um we do our best but it is a good point I think it's something we should always be striving for is you know are we giving students the best full experience of history in at every level. And just from the the middle school perspective too, um it becomes a quality over quantity
064issue as well with how much in depth do you do something and how far you can go with with everything else. But um I can tell you at the middle school too, we incorporate a lot of that um you know 20th century material with the constitution. Uh right now we're doing Supreme Court cases throughout history that includes all you know really high up. Uh a lot of teachers do current events as well. So we bring that and try to apply it to something um of today especially in seventh grade with with civics and that that we do. A lot of that is brought in through things. Uh we have uh Junior Scholastic magazines which always have uh topics of the day. So we we bring that in as well. But um yeah, it's certainly a
065good point and something to to revisit. Excuse me. But um those are some of the things and how we incorporate those. And it it's funny because every day I find something comes on the news and it relates to what we're doing and we we pull it up and then we talk about it. So they're getting some exposure but the depth of that in middle school per se isn't like it would be at the high school too. >> Thank you very much. >> We got one one more. Yeah, sure. So I wanted to commend um uh your presentation of of giving context to history and as not necessarily the same thing what Paul was talking about when and I think about western expansion for example uh many children form their um opinions of certain groups of
066people based on contemporary times now. So if it had not been for say the defeat of um say Napoleon in the Caribbean, we wouldn't have had the re revolution of the Haitians and that led to of course Napoleon uh selling Louisiana purchase which of course really expanded western civilization I mean western part of this country. So, I think I commend you by asking that rhetorical question of not necessarily about Columbus, but contextual. I I appreciate you um doing that, but as I was listening to Paul, I agree that there are some things that are linked to our past, but it wasn't necessarily Lewis and Clark that did the great deal, but it was maybe the Haitian Revolution, which many children don't know that. I didn't learn that till I was in college. U but maybe
067it's not time for learn. But anyway, but I appreciate the context that you've given. That's >> and yeah, thank you again for the question. >> Anyone else? >> Okay. Well, thank you very much. As the saying goes, you have to stop somewhere no matter what you're doing. And I think this presents a possibility of an elective course with history, say from World War I through today. Something to help the department might facilitate. The next item on the agenda is public comments. I have one here. Um, Erin Se Erica Segre Serect, please. I love it when we have public comments. It's always nice to hear from you. >> Good evening. Uh, this my name is Erica Syrect and I am the president of the GSSA, the uh Geneva Support Staff Association. At this time, I would
068like to address the board about a recent social media post that was shared on a dormant account without the authorization of our organization. The content of this post does not reflect the official position, values, or voice of the union. As soon as the GSSA became aware of the situation, we took immediate action. The post has been removed and accounts respons responsible have been suspended andor deleted. We have reviewed our internal process to ensure clearer oversight and prevention of a similar incident in the future. The GSSA would like to make take this opportunity to recognize and thank both the present and past school board members for your for their dedication and service and steadfast support of students and staff over the years, especially their advocation and partnership with the GSSA. Our commitment to our school community
069has made meaningful difference and we are grateful for their leadership. We appreciate the board and the community's understanding as we work to uphold the standards and integrity of our union. Thank you. >> Thank you, Erica. Really appreciate it. And the GSSA is an important part of this community and we appreciate you as well. Is there any other public comment at this time? >> The next item five, legislative updates. Thank you. Uh at our last meeting, Dan, you had asked about the number of bills that are introduced to the Illinois General Assembly, and I said, "Oh, I remember there is something years ago about that." So, I did dig it up. Um it was in um the Illinois School Board Journal which we receive as board members and it was actually from December 2022 when I
070looked it up but I I found the article. So it's a little bit dated and I'm going to guarantee that not much has changed since then but they did look at the number of bills that were introduced um compared to some of our neighboring states. So back then um at that time there were 10,022 bills introduced in Illinois. In California there were 4,476. In Iowa 4,975 Pennsylvania 4,185 in Ohio 180. So just a comparison of how many bills in our state that come forward. In the article itself, they did talk a little bit about the types of bills. Um, they talk, let me find the the spot here where they have these numbers. So, uh, that year, IASB, the Illinois Association of School Boards, was tracking education related bills, um, about 289 that they were
071tracking that year. Um, in the state of Ohio, they enacted 101 pieces of legislation total. That's beyond just educational bills. That's all the bills that they had put forward. So the article was talking about some of the the work that they do to help us uh sort through all the number of bills. But it was again eye opening. This was the 102nd general assembly. We're on the 104th now. So we know um based on what Dr. Barrett said last time, it is over 10,000 bills again this year that we're looking for. Uh, in our latest legislative report that we received from IASB via email, it does have the bills broken down by different topics. So, at least you can kind of sort through them a little bit to go through. But yeah, it's a lot.
072Uh, that's why it's even hard for me to decide what bills am I going to talk about when I come here because there's there's just so many. So, I do rely on them to sort of bring some to the top or or things that are important to our district. So, my report last night or the tonight is based on that. I can give a synopsis a little bit about the budget address that was last week and some other bills that are going to start probably moving forward here in the next few weeks. Thank you. >> Actually, I can say that our that our elected uh legislators are we're getting good value for our hard at work compared to other states. >> It's true. If words are the measure of effectiveness, they are very effective. >>
073Right. Having said all that, I think we'll go on to item six, the superintendent report, because I see Andy's got a great new graphic up there. >> Yeah, you like that? Pretty fancy. Just uh touch base with you on three quick things. I know we've already had some great uh presentations tonight. Um but a couple things I just wanted to kind of one keeping you informed on. Um two just kind of make sure we continue to reflect back on with all we're talking about. Um, and then three, just some kind of highlevel big picture reflections I've been having and our some members of our team have been having recently. So, um, there we go. First, I just want to give you an update on the Lox of Camden Hills uh, development. Um, the TIFF since
074we last spoke, the TIFF eligibility report has been completed. Um, and here cut straight from their report. Um the report comp concludes I think this is unsurprising to most of us that that property uh they have said it is eligible to be designated um as a tiff and so given the completion of that report there's going to be a joint review board meeting uh it's currently scheduled for early March we expect it to be coming um and you know I just want to reinforce like our developer donation agreement um that We spent a good part of the summer negotiating um remains critical in this and the fact that this uh you know tiff um this area is be eligible for a tiff and it's going to go to that joint review board. It's a really
075good thing that we established that um and then we'll do our part uh when we go and attend the joint review board. You know, I'll Todd and I are working on that. I'll plan to attend and um you know if I can't Todd will but depending on if they change the date but we'll go and represent the district and we should be glad that we um were able to negotiate that. Lastly, I just want to foreshadow one more time um uh I'll have a separate presentation at our next board meeting where I want to talk a little bit about our attendance areas. Um specifically our attendance area as it relates to this uh property. Um we've talked about that a little bit previously. Uh we've talked about our our boundaries and attendance areas and we've
076noted based on our you know capacity analysis and um you know class sizes and all that that we don't feel the need to um discuss or make any adjustments with our attendance areas um you know as for our current neighborhoods. But with this new neighborhood coming online we do want to have a conversation. Um, and I think it's important to have this not just be part of my superintendence report, but have it be a separate presentation. So, we'll have this be a separate presentation um, at the next meeting where, you know, I can do the whole podium thing and share a lot of the data that we've looked at over the course of the last two years um, to really start digging into that conversation. no need for um any kind of decision- making on
077any of that kind of stuff for a while. But uh you know, I just kind of wanted to foreshadow that and note why you know, us as the board or as this team, we might think, well, Andy's talked about this stuff 10 times over the course of the last two years or so. But, um we really kind of want to shine shine a light on it to make sure folks know what we're talking about. So just want to foreshadow and prepare everybody for that. Uh similarly I just kind of want to highlight our progress that we've been making with our strategic plan and note you know it's been very steady and consistent. I'm really proud of what we've accomplished so far. Um and again it's it's been organic and incremental like it hasn't been a
078check the box kind of thing. And so you have heard and hopefully the folks who are watching our videos on YouTube and all that stuff. Hopefully folks have heard over time all the little ways we have talked about each one of these and made progress and growth, right? In terms of our enrollment and staffing with our class size adjustment and our middle school uh you know adjustment to staffing and and program changing our high school um attrition through master schedule. all this stuff we've done around that area of enrollment and staffing, it's been intentional even if we haven't stood up and said, "Oh, well, yeah, we check the box. We're done with goal area one." Um, same thing with career and college pathways, whether we're talking about our dual credit expansion plan. Um, what you
079heard tonight um with some information about school links and career planning, we are uh actively uh engaging in in stuff in that area. Same thing with cultural competencies. You heard from Mr. Meus recently on that and we've talked about some of the community events that are coming and um again hopefully in terms of community engagement you know about all the opportunities we've tried to make um and I've tried to make to uh have unique engagement opportunities get the word out via different um tools and also streamlining our communication. So I just think it's really important for folks to know these are the things that folks said we should work on and we're working on them. We're making progress there. um you know and the time will come here in a little bit where we might
080have a formal presentation that says here are some of the ways we've checked the boxes in each of these areas. Um but we haven't done that by design so far because we want it to be organic and real and not uh just that. So more more on that to come. Last thing I just wanted to highlight uh briefly is, you know, we've it's been mentioned a few times tonight um uh AI, artificial intelligence. Uh it there's a lot of talk about it. And so recently um this uh I think it was technically like a blog post that came out. It's called something big is happening. Um and it kind of went viral and it got a lot of people talking. Um, and if you haven't read it, uh, it's it's worth reading, um, because it
081really kind of highlights some key factors that I think are important for us to know in this institution and as uh, you know, leaders of an educational organization. One, clearly there is exponential growth in this area and anything that you think that AI can do, it's way beyond that already. Um, and like everyone is just playing catch-up. Um, and because of that, it's likely that this is going to be a, you know, there's going to be some disruption. There's going to be a disruptive force uh, in a lot of what we do. And this blog post that went out, the reason it it I think went viral is because it generated a lot of uncertainty in folks like, gosh, what does this mean? You know, I know I personally am sitting there as a parent
082of a kid in college who's studying a subject area where I'm like, "Oh my gosh, like I'm is he in the right pathway and is this thing changing all of that?" And there there's a lot of uncertainty for people and that's why it's why we got to have a lot of ongoing discussions. And so, first, I mean, I think it's important to note um that we are in the district, right? We've we keep re leasing and sharing resources, guidance documents and resources. There's an AI committee in the district. There's other tech committees at all the levels that are talking about this. There's um you know a lot of collaboration and reflection going on. I know just our BLT at the high school just had some conversation about some of the uncertainty and disruptive nature of
083some of this recently. um we are trying to have uh some really good and robust conversations about that. But what we really also want to try to do is make sure we are focusing on why we are here, right? And why we so in all of that, while we think about all of that, we got to think about the the vision, right? What are our aspirations, which is achieving excellence and empowering our kids to succeed? And what's our mission? Why are we here? we are here to make sure we're preparing our kids um you know with the knowledge, skills, and personal qualities to go be productive citizens. And I think that personal qualities is the key because when we focus on like what is our purpose in all of this AI stuff, it's getting our
084kids through this system as good humans who can go be good in the world. And so it reminded me of there's two, you know, I'm kind of a quote guy and I've got a bunch of quotes hanging in my on my office, but there's two that I think are important. There's a lot of uncertainty in with all this AI and we're going to have to have a lot of conversations about that. But the one thing that I think we um what can we do as people as all of that is happening? Um this is one of my favorites. one way or another, we've got to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life and dedicate ourselves to that. And I think our schools are a place schools are places that
085naturally try to do that. And we can't lose sight of that when we're going to be talking about, well, here's all the things AI is going to do and here's how it's going to change. Yes, let's remember that what makes education great is how we help, you know, foster the flowering of humanity. And then I think the next question is what can we do as schools? And this is one of my favorite quotes uh quotes uh and I share this with our aspiring educators every year, our kids at the high school who are trying to be aspiring educators. Um because I think regardless of what AI is and what AI can do, this is the point. You know, when you talk about what are the basics, what are what what's basic to education. What's basic
086to education is relation. It's the relationship between students experience and the new material. It's that connection between humans, between a teacher and helping a kid or a person make real life connection that makes education different from training or indoctrination or just here look at something shiny. The curriculum is the conversation that makes sense of things. And educational systems like ours are uniquely um I think we have we're honored to have the responsibility of fostering that conversation. And so as we're going through this uncertain time and having to navigate what all this stuff does, I think remembering that the curriculum at the end of the day is the conversation that helps our kids make sense of things so they can go use whatever tools are out there at the time. Um, and that's maybe a little
087so boxy. I'm sorry, but I just think in this uncertain time, this is kind of a important thing for all of us to remember. So that's all. Thanks, Larry. Well, first of all, thank you. I haven't heard Joseph Campbell quoted in quite a while, but uh he's a great guy. >> He's still one of my faves. >> He has a lot to say. I totally understand that. The next item, seven, board dialogue and topics and pending action consideration has one item. It is the 2627 school calendar, which is amended. I think if you had a chance to look at that, you can see that it's updated to reflect a half day on the day of the homecoming parade. And Dan, this is one that needs approval, >> so I'll approve it. >> Motion to approve.
088>> Second, >> Bonnie. >> I thank you. Item eight, work study topics and future action consideration. One item there also the finance committee calendar draft. The finance committee has reviewed and approved this draft uh finance committee meeting calendar. They are proposing that for 2627 the finance committee meet before the second board meeting of the month and no action is required at this time. Any discussion? I'll just add that during our meeting this uh earlier today, Dan had a good idea about on the calendar putting a note on those meetings where perhaps the public would be more interested. Maybe we're having a specific budget talk or the date we're approving the levy. So, we'll add that to the calendar. >> Thank you. Any other comments or questions? >> Item nine, board meeting presentation schedule, foyer request,
089suspension report, and out of state trip request. I know one just happened. These items are presented for information only and no discussion is required. Anybody have anything they want to discuss anyway? Thank you. Item 10, the consent agenda. My personal favorite. Uh item one, personnel report, resignations, retirements, leave requests, changes in assignment, full-time equivalent hires. Item two, monthly financials for January. Item three, Microsoft licensing renewal agreement. Item four, gifts, grants, and bequest $12,73. Fabian Elementary PTO for wall climbing system at FES. Item five, gifts, grants, and bequest, $2,1840 for Midwest Trading for GHS horiculture activity. Item six, request to purchase $92,930 ITR systems for intercom system replacement at Harrison and Fabian Elementary School. Uh item seven, request to purchase $415,800 a CDW government to purchase 330 staff devices. I think I heard some discussion about
090that earlier. And item eight, request to purchase $31,53.79 from Greg Communications to renew phone system licensing support. Any discussion? Approval is required. Any motions? So move. >> Second. I >> I >> Thank you. Item 11, board member comments and reports. And I'll start at one end of the other, but I think just for the sake of changing it up, we'll start with Paul and work our way around the circle. >> Okay. Um not so much today. Uh we had our facilities task force meeting um this morning or this afternoon and we continue to work on the 10-year uh plan um maintenance plan and that is coming together and this going to take a little bit of time but yeah I think we have a lot of good projects coming on that are needed and a
091lot of interesting projects that u yeah could actually bring some opportunities for the school and words save some money in different places like our LED projects things like that that are moving forward. Um I just wanted to comment I have also been involved in the discussions that we're having with the GA and um uh that is going from my point of view very well. Appreciate the the commitment from all the people that are involved to to focus on the things that are important and to continue to to move forward in that. So very pleased with this way that's going and uh congratulations to our students that we had up here today. Um I think um they did a great job on both the music and the gymnastics and um great to great to see that
092and and them do so well. >> Um I would just comment on um I really enjoyed our presentations tonight. I always enjoy learning about systems that help prepare students for life after high school, both career um and university routes. So I think that was really great to learn about that. A big congratulations to Ree, our state champion. That was really cool to learn about her her journey in her four years at the high school. Um and then I recently got to attend the health insurance committee meeting. So that's always a great opportunity to sit with um Dr. law and various staff and um from across the district to talk about um any changes, you know, have to be at the table, have conversation with it and how they are relaying information back to their colleagues
093is really great. So, I appreciate being a part of that conversation. That's all I have. >> Yeah. So, echo uh what um Paul Molly mentioned in regard to our uh tradition of excellence. It's always fun to have our our students recognized from a state level whether it's in our e extracurriculars like music or athletics and so that that was awesome. Um thanks for the presentations as well. I always thought think about social studies and how different it is being taught nowadays and it's uh I think it's an interesting time to be a social studies teacher I would I would think with with so much uh you know um I would I would presume would these students are bringing from from their from their homes and the different uh um opinions and different things that that
094so it would be uh I think it's a much different time to be a social studies teacher so um great presentation in regard to that some of the things that uh um in the last several weeks that uh I was able to participate in um uh the PTO u at J Middle School North uh last week. Uh they have a new president this year and uh some of the discussions that were uh they had a lot of discussion in regard to the year-end activities as you would expect for the eighth graders. Um but also uh some conversation about consolidating some of the efforts with middle school south. So that was pretty neat to hear that. Um, let's see. Uh, was able to do be a again a uh for for our DECA students at the
095high school being a practice judge. So, um, they a number of their students are going to state um for DECA and so uh it was fun to be a judge for that again. Um, I'm always amazed at how smart our students are and how um the business acumen that a lot of these students have, which is really cool. So, um, so that was a great activity and, um, hopefully after state we'll get some more, uh, traditional excellence students that'll, uh, recipients that will come before us at the board meetings. Um, let's see. Um, was able to go to a basketball game, um, at the the one that was rescheduled over uh, over the the day off that we had. There's one there was a basketball game, so that was kind of fun to go that.
096And then uh yeah, the last thing was all district orchestra. That was fun to see and it's kind of fun to see the improvement from from the elementary level those students to to the high school and just see the progression. So that was really neat to do that. So anyway, that's all I got. >> That's great. Thank you, Dian Ste. >> Okay, so I also want to echo what everyone said. Congratulations to everyone that we recognized tonight. Really great to see um a state champion. It was exciting to see over the weekend when we got the email saying for the band to be ready to play in the hallway to honor our state champion. Really nice to see that. And then um our music students as well. It's great that we've been seeing lots of
097different types of students come in lately. I even I was um as a parent on a trip and one student was like, "Hey, you've met me at the board meeting." And it was for educational reasons. So kind of nice to like see all that, but also um things I've been up to. So, I got to get a little sneak peek at the winter showcase play from the theater program that um Larry had referenced earlier. Just really nice of the students to put on something a little bit different. It was a comedy this time and they did a great job. But even better, I know that Dr. Barrett often talks about making sure our students are plugged in in different areas. It was just great to see. This was a smaller cast. It was only 12
098students, but um I wasn't there at the first show, but I heard how the whole theater department of students came out to support them and they made signs and they just really cheered the kids on. So, it was nice to see like how those kids stayed plugged in anyway and just nice to see our department doing that. And then I got to um join our band um during their band trip to Disney. And I was there as a parent with my own family, just there to watch and take it in. and I didn't chaperone this time, but I wanted to share with you all like just a little bit about the experience. I think that I got to chaperone on a music trip last year and I got to see the students and get to
099know know the students in um a little bit of a different way than you normally get to, but this time watching it from an outsider, you really got to see how valuable of an experience this is. And I'm so grateful that we're a district that provides these opportunities to our students. Um, so for all of you, not just are the students obviously getting to play their chosen instrument, whether that's in a in a marching in Disney or playing at Universal, but more so you see all the soft skills they're gaining. This is their first time they're away from their parents or maybe their second time going through an airport, staying in a hotel, having to buy their own food, having to worry about all the things themselves, but also like they have to get up
100really early and they have to be on time. And you know what? your roommates aren't up, you better make sure they're up. So, like they're really work learning how to work in a community and how sometimes there's things that people do that just maybe annoy you, but you got to figure out how to work with them. So, I was just really um happy to see our students not only perform well and represent Geneva well, but see them gaining some of those skills. And a million thank yous because we as a district allow our directors to do this with our students and we pay for a sub to be in the classroom while they're not there. But those directors work so hard. They're orchestrating the students and the instruments and all the performances and making sure
101everyone's in line. So, thank you to our directors and our parent chaperones and all the families who show up. It's just really an invaluable experience and I think really ties to our cultural competencies that we we are working on. So, that's about all I had. >> Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to uh thank uh the presenters on the um school links. I learn a lot by coming to the meetings, being a board member of the board for sure, but I wasn't familiar with that program. So, it was very good to have some context of what students are doing now to prepare themselves whe they're going into college or military as I heard from one uh or even going into some sort of a trade. Um and nice to know that there's contextual information regarding
102um user friendly uh aspect of it. I think that was good to know. Uh I also want to commend our students especially those in gymnastics and um those who have a vocal uh talent which I don't for singing. Uh but the idea is that in the backdrop of all that we know we have teachers that are quality that these students couldn't achieve um nearly as much if they didn't have inspiration from our teachers. I really think that they need to be given credit as well because um that inspiration either can you know as we know uh can make or break some students. I'm glad we have the quality teachers to keep them moving forward uh towards not just the goal here in high school uh achieving the highest level but also in life as we
103teaching life skills as well. So um just wanted to say those things. Thank you. >> Thanks. I wanted to uh thank everyone for the presentations tonight. the school links. I appreciated that seniors were brought in to take a look at the new product and give their feedback to that as I was going through the presentation. I thought, "Oh, I hope they ask current students." And then I got to that slide and it was fun to see that it's sick and better. So, I think there'll be a better uptake um on that on that. So, thank you for including that information about that. But I also appreciated the deep dive into the social studies curriculum and looking forward to more in the future to to see what how we we teach our students at the different
104levels um these different subjects. Thanks to everyone who made donations uh to our district. Uh there were some nice ones this time. And then also I wanted to point out that we had um we recognized some students from the middle school which we don't always do. It's usually our high school students. So it was nice to be able to recognize them for some of the accomplishments that they had. That's it. >> Thank you, Jackie. Um, I'll be very brief. I saw the play on Friday night. It was wonderful. It was funny, and it covered American history all the way up to today and all the way back to well before Columbus and a lot of fine old jokes, but my wife and I enjoyed it very much. Um, I hear that the Disney trip was
105kind of sick, to use the teenage phrase >> in both ways. >> I think so, too. Very fun. The facilities task force meeting is doing important work to kind of keep the budget in control as much as possible given the age of our buildings. And it's really fun to be there and um that's really probably enough. We I am constantly amazed and impressed with the students we have and the faculty we have. Everybody's pulling their weight and more and it's exciting to be a part of that. So, thank you all for the work that you do. And that's the board member comments. The item 12 is notices and announcements. There are none. Item 13 is a long thing that I'm about to read, which means we're going into executive session, and that means that you
106are all free to leave. But thank you very much for coming. So, executive session to consider matters pertaining to a collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives or deliberations concerning the salary schedules for one or more classes of employees or specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park, recreational, educational setting, or legal counsel for the public body, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee specific individual who serves as an independent contractor in a park, recreational, or educational setting or a volunteer for the of the public body. However, a meeting to consider an increase in compensation to a specific employee that is subject to the local government wage increase transparency act may not be closed and must be open to the public and posted and
107held in accordance with the act. Having said all that, could we have a motion to go into executive session? >> So moved. >> Second. I >> I >> Well, thank you all. We'll have a couple minute recess for anyone who needs it and then we will go into executive session. Last