001here >> Here >> thank you. I'd like to welcome you all to this board meeting. I know it's cold out there and so you're probably grateful to be inside where it's warm and hopefully you came for more than that, but we're glad to see you and always glad to have you. Next is the pledge of allegiance and the flag is in that corner and Paul Rinsky will lead us in the pledgece 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 hallway if you'd like to register your attendance and please feel free to do that. Item two, approval of minutes dealing with the regular session of January 12 and the
002executive session of January 12th. Have you received any corrections for the is does anybody have any corrections at this time? Hearing none approval of the minutes motion. So moved >> second. >> item three, recognition, awards, presentations, and public hearings. Number one, tradition of excellence for GHS students. Something we're all really happy about for the Scaldc literary magazine. So, Mr. Rogers is here. Come on up, Mr. Rogers. Uh, uh, the board will make their way around here. Um, and Mr. Rogers will brag about you and then he'll give you directions to come up and, um, shake hands with the board and we'll do a photo op there. Take it away, Mr. Rogers. >> Thank you very much, Dr. Barrett. >> Yes, sir. It's my pleasure to be here this evening and we appreciate the board giving
003us the opportunity to honor students who have done great things at Geneva High School and we're going to start tonight with some artists in particular uh terrific photographers. Uh these students that we are going to introduce this evening submitted artwork and placed in the annual scholastic art competition which is uh always the results are always announced in January. Uh the students tonight either earned a what's called a gold key, a silver key, or honorable mention. The gold key winners will have their artwork move on to national judging. And if their artwork is deemed uh worthy, it will be on display, I believe, at the Carnegie Institute in New York City, if I'm not mistaken. And uh so that is quite an honor. And uh before I go any further, I just want to thank uh
004GHS art teacher Danica Fammy and Mr. Christopher uh for their leadership in submitting student artwork to this Scholastic Art competition. I also want to add that all of these students artwork is being displayed in an exhibition at Downer's Grove North High School in February. So we will publicize that as well. So at this time I'm going to introduce the students and as they are making their way through the line I will um share the title of their artwork and also the award that they won and some of them have won multiple awards. So first Morgan Kennedy Morgan earned two silver key awards. one for a photo >> of her father, Mr. Kennedy. And that's the title of her photograph that was entered, Mr. Kennedy. And the second one was called Elevated, which was experimental photography.
005Again, Morgan earned two silver key awards. Congratulations, Morgan. Next up, next earning three awards was Van Lounger. Van submitted Anna Hill, which earned a gold key award. Submitted another entry called Detached Back Streets, which won a um silver key. And then Cyclical Symphony, which earned honorable mention. Congratulations, Von. Next, Miles Shepard. Miles is here. Great. Miles earned a gold key and a silver key. His first entry, Erica, earned a gold key. and his second entry called Stop the Clock: Stills of an Urban Landscape: A Portfolio earned a Silver Key award. Congratulations, Miles. And finally, Sage Wilson. Sage earned a gold key award for her entry titled Tattoo. These outstanding artists uh have made Geneva High School proud. This is a longstanding art competition and we're very proud of the entries that these students submitted. Congratulations
006to all four of you. Again, >> they're not used to being behind the C or in front of the camera. Yes, feel free to get up and take a photo. >> Mr. Kennedy, you were the one photographed. This is your chance to take a photo. >> Thank you. Congratulations. Next, we have the pleasure of honoring students who were the uh contributors to the 2025 Scaldic Literary Magazine at Geneva High School. The title of that magazine was Ubiquity. Geneva High School's literary magazine, we were informed back on January 14th, earned an All-American award from the National Scholastic Press Association, NSPA. The magazine earned four out of five marks of distinction for writing and editing, photography, art, graphics, design, and concept. This is the seventh time since 2010 that our magazine has received an all-American rating. As
007if that wasn't enough, and that was the reason why we scheduled the honors tonight of our Scaldic um contributors, but between then and now, we have learned that the magazine has earned yet another award. They earned a first class rating from the National Council of Teachers of English. This distinction puts us in the top eight magazines in Illinois along with Stephvenson High School, Lyall, Lions Township, Neapville North, Fairview South in Skoi, Homewood Flossmore, and St. Ignatius College Prep. Before I introduce, well, I'll introduce the uh teachers and sponsors of this terrific magazine here after I introduce the students. Um, we are fortunate to have a number of current students who contributed to the success of this magazine. And usually it it's flipped over. Usually the uh contributors are oftentimes a little uh little more experienced.
008They're seniors and they've graduated by the time we receive these awards. But tonight we have a long list of students who did a great job of earning these awards for the Scaldic at Geneva High School. Starting with Addison Brinks. Jay Hecman, Hunter Knobki, Hope Monu, >> Bo Moritz, Danielle Nassra, Maddie Nelson, Finn South, Claire Tottman, and Cameron Winszaninski. would also like to honor and congratulate Heather Peters, Geneva High School English teacher, and Mr. David Howell, also a Geneva High School English teacher. We very much appreciate these teachers dedication and the expertise that they lend to these students in helping them be successful compiling this magazine every year. Um, if you have not yet seen one of these magazines, I highly recommend that you reach out to Heather or Dave. Uh, they are really, really impressive.
009And again once again to this group of students and uh if any of our graduates from um last year are happen to tune in uh I'll just real quick Julia Castenmeer, Cecilia D'Angelus and a Ashley Machelli were also contributors to this magazine. So congratulations to all of you on a terrific job. upside down. >> Thank you again for the opportunity to honor these wonderful students. We appreciate you being here. Have a great night. And yes, you are free to go. Mr. Rogers. >> Thank you. >> Oh yeah. Have you guys >> Yeah, 100%. Okay, item two on this agenda, the Fox Valley Career Center student experiences from Janet Sims. >> Thank you for the opportunity tonight. Um, I'm actually going to speak very little and I'm very appreciative to have several Geneva High School students
010who will be here up here joining me to share uh their experiences. Let me get connected. While Shanet's getting connected, I just want to thank um her for putting this together, but more importantly, thank the awesome students who are here to tell us about their experiences. Uh you know, this is um an area that we have talked about a lot at this table, but have not had an opportunity to hear from the students who are really getting this experience. So, um I know the board is grateful for this. I'm grateful for this and you know uh it's awesome for us to hear about what you're experiencing and as you're planning for your future. So thanks for coming and also I think um just for us and for the community awesome to see again as happened
011so many times the unique diversity of experiences that kids are having the kids we got to recognize a bit ago and now these these young people and what they're working on. So this is great and Mrs. Sims thanks for getting us started. I would also just um because it's my job, keep that mic close to your mouth so that everyone can hear you when they're on when they watch you on this great video. >> Thanks so much for coming. >> Absolutely. And thank you again. Thank you to the board and Dr. Barrett for this opportunity. Uh so um why Fox Valley so in their catalog they actually have this mission statement uh which their goal is to ensure that they are preparing students for whether it's post-secary continued education or post-secary work that they are
012collaborating with our the local high schools in Kain County and providing opportunities for students to gain lensure to gain experience excuse me um and then to also start to you know begin to kind of dab their dab their toes into a career path they're interested interested in. Uh they offer 11 programs and within those 11 programs there are 31 course pathways and so the programs are listed there and we have student representatives from six of those program categories. Um in Geneva we have students that are participating this year in 10 programs and in 17 of the course pathways. And then uh Gina Lee from the high school shared the following numbers with us. So, uh, we've been pretty consistent around that 50, you know, number with the students participating at Fox Valley Career Center. But
013I hope what you'll hear from the students who are participating from this representative sample is that for them, it's meeting a need that they have and an area of interest that they have. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to our student guests. So, they're going to introduce themselves, talk about the program they're in, and just answer a couple of questions. Um, I'm Katherine Davidson. I am in the basic nurses assistance training program. I chose the Fox Valley Career Center because I hope to go into medicine one day. And my advice for other students is to take a chance on the program and not pass it up. Um, hi. Is am I close enough? I don't know. Okay. Um, I'm Elelliana Dressback and I'm in the cosmetology 2 program. I took cosmetology 1
014last year. It is a long program. I am 900 hours out of 1500 hours out of a cosmetology program. Um, why Fox Valley Career Center? I think it's really important for people who are not planning to go to college to have the opportunity, who know what they want to do to experience things that they're actually going to use in a career. My future plans right now is to become a cosmetology, well a mortuary cosmetologist, meaning that um I'd be working on inbalmed people. Um my advice for others is to really just look into other options besides college because there's a lot more careers out there than people realize that don't involve college as main pathway. interest. >> Hello, I'm uh Moren praying and I am in criminal justice and law enforcement one. Uh I chose
015Fox Valley Career Center because I'd always been interested in criminal justice and law enforcement. Um and I had before I had like taken the class, I'd been mainly interested in becoming like a CSI. Um, and I thought that that would kind of go hand inhand with law enforcement. Um, but like now that I've taken the class, I have definitely been more open to other options and um, in like the law enforcement, I've been more open to becoming even a police officer. Um and advice I have for others I think would be uh definitely is if you have any slight interest in taking the class is to take it because it's a great opportunity to learn handson um and it's just a even if you're like if you're not sure it's just um it gives the
016good baseline knowledge of your uh potential career that you want to pursue in the future. Hi, my name is David Zikas. I'm an electrical systems 2. I chose Fox Valley cuz it seemed super interesting to me because it was a class that got me out of Geneva and then it got me a class where I got to work with my hands. My future plans are to go into either commercial electrical or go to be a lineman. And then my advice for others is it's a great course. You get to learn a lot and it really strengthens all your abilities. >> Hi, I'm Sophia Stewart. I'm in fire science 1 and EMT. Um, I took this course this year cuz honestly I had a lot of room in my schedule and I was um interested. A
017lot of my friends were in the fire service. So like looking at what they were doing, I had gained interest, but I didn't like want to commit to anything right off the bat. So doing fire signs here was like a good place to start with like not a lot of commitment of like I have to do this in the future. It's like a good place to explore. And then for EMT, it was it's a great program. It's you at the end of the year, I'll be able to take the national registration of the NRMT, the Yeah. the certification and I need that to be a firefighter. So, it'll it goes hand in hand and it's really good. It sets you up for everything you need to become an EMT. And yeah, I've really loved it.
018Um future plans. Um, I am gonna go to a fire academy after this because I did fall in love with firefighting through this program. And my advice for others is probably make the most of it. Like take all the opportunities that they like hand you and kind of like what you put into it is what you get out of it. Um, I'm George. I'm in the fire science program, and I also picked uh the program to have a hands-on class that kind of gets me out of Geneva, to be honest. Uh but uh anyway, my future plans, I'm planning to continue at Fox Valley with the EMT class next year and then kind of follow the first responder pathway after graduation. And my advice for others is to just take advantage of all the resources
019they offer because as Sophia said, you uh get out what you put in. So before we turn it over to questions, I would share that u one thing that all these students had to do that would be important for anyone else considering is you do have to plan. Um if you happen to have extra time as Sophia shared, that's great, but otherwise our students have to really that sophomore year plan their schedule around opening up time because typically it's three class periods that they have to have available to participate in Fox Valley programming. Um so before we turn over to questions I again want to thank these students for sharing their experience and the benefits they have gained from Fox Career Center. Um and I hope one of the things they realize is that you
020know with the skills they're learning not only are these going to be applicable to um wherever they go in the future but for many of you you will have multiple job offers upon finishing your program. So um that's wonderful. So any questions for any of our participants or for me? Well, thank you very much. Did you have a question? Okay. >> So, what we've heard in the past is the re some of the reasons we don't have more students taking this is because of the difficulty on scheduling. >> So, how how do you solve that longer term so that if there are other students, they can actually take advantage of this? >> Yeah. So, the scheduling is kind of a two-part problem. So number one is if they've got to plan accordingly because you still
021have to get in your you know graduation requirements. So it's important when they're you know working their you know corg academics in uh but also we have limited spaces available to us at Fox Valley Career Center. So I know Dr. Barrett has shared that he's been in conversations um with you know the new director out at Fox Bear Career Center as well as some local um representatives about looking for ways we can expand some programming to make it more available not only to our students but maybe even perhaps some students in some of our surrounding high school districts. But um so it's a two-part. So again, they just have to plan the schedule accordingly so that they have the appropriate amount of time available in their schedule to be gone but are also still meeting
022those academic um requirements. So that just requires them having that conversation early with their counselor and their parents um for um course selection periods and then also just um it is very quick. I know um Mrs. Clatt has shared uh you know the department chair of counseling advising that you know like for example for the nursing program we get we get eight seats and it is a first come first serve. So once those eight are up they're up. Y >> so I was going to add if I just add on to that real quick. I think um you know it's kind of a two-part thing in terms of expanding those opportunities as Seanette said as we've been working with the Fox Valley Career Center and remember that's part of a consortium where multiple districts work
023together. So, one of the things we're looking at in the the more short term um to give kids awesome experiences like these folks have um is are there ways we can expand some opportunities now at the career center so there could at least be more seats available and then longer term are there other ways we could expand those opportunities and maybe not have them be maybe they don't all have to be in that same physical location so that then maybe uh our students wouldn't have to give up so much of their schedule, >> which could then maybe open some of those opportunities to more kids. That's a longer term solution with a lot more things to try to work out. Um, but those are kind of the that's the two-pronged approach we're trying to take
024on that. >> And and where is it located? I I don't know. >> Um, it's out it's attached to the K to Kalin High School. And I would if you've not been out there, they'd love to give tours. It's >> they would love >> it's a great facility. And do we make uh take care of the transportation for the students or >> for some programs? Yes. For others they have to provide their own because it depends on where their um program is offered. If I like cosmetic for >> Yeah. So like my program for example, I'm actually in Dalb um and my transport my transportation is not provided and if there was a way to provide more transportation my guess is that the cosmetology programs that are contracted through Fox Valley would definitely be open
025to taking more students. Um they have talked about wanting to take on more students and they know that it can be really frustrating with the transportation. Thankfully, I have one other student and we carpool. And the timing it takes for my program is different. I'm there from 2:30 to 7:30, three days a week in eight hours every other Saturday. So, there are other constraints within that for my program that make it hard. I don't know how many other programs are like that at Fox Valley, but cosmetology is one of them. I think your point is really well taken and it it's important to point out because so many of these programs are very unique with different lensure and credentiing. Um you know these young people it's not just like a normal school day for any
026of them. There's all sorts of unique experiences that as Shaunette said they're getting like amazing life skills doing a lot of grown-up stuff that a lot of their peers aren't doing. um because they every one of these has unique expectations because of the credentiing and um the different requirements for your program versus your program. Um so that's a lot on these young people and also a lot on the career center to try to manage and facilitate all of that and they do a really great job of of of doing that for kids. One thing I wanted to share is I spent some time at the career center a couple of years back and I did a tour. We did some interviews. It was a great experience, but I didn't realize how unique of an experience
027this is. I think we are like one of two or three of these career centers in the state. Like there's not very many and sometimes they're not even like directly affiliated with high schools. It might just be like a standalone kind of thing. And there are not even many across the country. So, I'm grateful we have this experience for our students and that we're continuing to look at how we can grow that and make that even better. >> Anyone else? I want to congratulate you young people for focusing on something that you're very interested in. I'm sure you'll agree it makes studying easier and more fun. So, good for you. >> Again, thank you to our student guests tonight. I know they're all very busy, so I appreciate their time this evening. You are free
028to go. >> Thank you so much. Great job. Oh, wait a second. All right, item three, student discipline data and Scalia. >> Yeah. Well, Ann's getting connected here. Um, and I'll give her the reminder to keep the microphone close to her mouth, too. Um, the this is some data that I'm grateful to Ann to be here to share. I think it's um pretty informative. Um, and here's a little bit of the context. You know, every month the the board gets a report on some discipline and you know the suspensions that have happened in the district. Um, and from time to time we as a a team here have had conversation about that and what is this really telling us and what can we drill down into this a little bit. Um well there is a
029a group it's a it's a board committee technically the parent teacher advisory council that has to meet um you know has to meet every year. Uh obviously some board members sit on that and at a recent meeting with that group um the parent teacher advisory committee had an opportunity to review some of this data and have some good conversation about it. And so we thought given that that conversation often or comes up from time to time here, we thought it'd be valuable to um share some of this data with the board and community as well. So I'll pass it on to Ann to jump in. >> Good evening everyone. I will preface this by saying this is not going to be nearly as fun and exciting as that last pre presentation was. Um but I
030will do my best. So, I just want to start out um with um our district vision and mission, right? And when thinking about discipline, we also have to remember that discipline and consequences is oftentimes coupled with positive reinforce. It's always coupled with positive reinforcement. And some of the things I'm going to be talking with you guys tonight about are our last resort. Um but it is our job right to make sure that students are empowered to succeed and so and we have to remember that there's many skills that people must have to be successful and it's not just academic skills. Um so just a little bit about our district. I wanted to put up here our district demographics. Um so most of the information I'm going to be sharing with you is from 2425. Some
031will be from the previous year, but this was the demographics as on our district report card. So, we had 4,964 students and this is how our students kind of flush out demographically. Okay. So, when you're I can always go back to this um if need be. So, tonight we're going to be talking about inschool suspensions and out of school suspensions primarily. Um this gives the data from the last two school years. Um so we have gone down significantly from 2023 24 to 2425. Um so we had 117 total incidences of an inschool or out of school and the following year we had 91. Um I think the biggest celebration is that our out of school suspensions and this is our number of suspensions went down significantly um from one year to the next. I don't
032I I don't I'd have to talk with our building leaders to ask why. Um you know I don't have any reasoning behind that data. I will talk a little bit about some of the things we have in place that are supporting students that I think is why our suspension rate overall is significantly lower, which I'll get to in just a minute, compared to other districts. So, this is I'll just give you a moment to I have a chart like this for 2324 and then again another one for 2425. um ISS is in school, OSS is out of school. So these are giving you the the offenses or the most common offenses that we are seeing. Um so when you look at fighting assault, battery, violence without physical injury, some of those words sound very like
033battery, assault. Um, I will tell you a lot of these are falling into like a fighting um probably, you know, what we would consider a school fight or some type of um physical contact but without physical injury. Um there so there are a lot of also um we have to report on harassment, we have to report on bullying um to the state whether they're founded or unfounded. I'll get into that in a minute, too. But just a little overview of kind of where we're falling. And I'm going to pull up the next year. And it looks similar. Um, so again, we still have some of that fighting. Um, and then drugs are oftentimes what are popping up. So our inschool suspensions I'm showing you this um by year and level. So the purple is 2324
034in school suspensions and the blue is 2425. Um so for example at the elementary level we had 18 inschool suspensions in and then in 2425 we had 11. Um so that's where the students get an inschool we're now calling it intervention. So they get to spend time in a space in school. They do get their work given to them and they are able to make up all their work. um if a student receives services such as social work um speech things like that we do provide those services during the day as well during that inschool suspension. So there's our numbers and yes, the high school did go up from one year to the next. But I think the next slide will give you an answer to why because when we look at our out of
035school suspensions from one year to the next, our high school out of school suspensions significantly decreased. So I think some of the things that we were considering as an out of school, we've also adjusted and thought how can we support these kids in school. Um so that's our out of school suspension. Now make sure you understand too that out of the elementary or any of these 15 out of school that that could be composed of five students total at our elementary level. Um so this doesn't talk like number of like account of students that is just the number of incidences. Okay. And I can go back to any of these when we get to questions or I mean do you have any questions now that you want to ask because I know this is a
036lot of data. No, I'll keep going and if you need me to go back, I'm happy to. So, our out of school suspension or our percent of students receiving out of school um suspensions is extremely low. Um so this is the number. So only 6% of our students received an out of school suspension in and in 2425 only 3% did. So we had 28 students who made up a number of 65 incidences and 13 that made up 39. Now, what's concerning about that is that you would think this would impact them more and they wouldn't do things again, but um we're kind of seeing the same trait, right? Um that it's a small number of a students but perhaps a higher level of incidence, but overall a significantly low percentage of our entire student population.
037This breaks it down demographically. So I'll just kind of let you um digest this when I So the first part is the percent of students suspended and out of that percent so 6% so 77% of 6% were male 33% were female. Um, so this just gives you our dem overall demographic based on those incidences and students. And this Hispanic Latino, they can identify as this separately or in conjunction with another race. So that's why those numbers don't necessarily add up. Okay. So our district maintains one of the lowest out of school suspension rates compared to the 576u districts across the state. So our state has 576 school districts and we rank like I think I counted I think we're 31st on the list. So out of those 576, there's only 30 school districts that have
038lower suspension rates than us. Those school districts may be unit, they may be a secondary district, or they could just be a K8 district. I broke it down even more. So, in the 386 Illinois unit school unit districts, we rank sixth for the fewest out of school suspensions. So, there's 386 unit prek through 12 and out of those unit school districts, we're the sixth lowest. So, that is a celebration. We have very few students who are getting um out of school suspensions. We don't report in school suspensions to the state. So those number we don't have that data. So I think what I can contribute this to if if you were to ask me and I think some of the teachers here is that we have really um strong partnerships with our family. We have
039cohesive programming and we really have successful interventions and programs. We work very hard to make sure that we um enforce positive behaviors and make our students feel successful. The other thing that we've done is we've had improved consistency and incident reporting across the buildings. So what I mean by that is really having conversations at a leadership level like how are you coding this? How are you coding this? What would you do in this situation? um making sure like even with technology that we're coding things correctly in our student information system. So we have found consistency in our approaches um everywhere from how we document it to how we enforce. Um so I think this is a for for a very um kind of negative topic. I think we can have a huge celebration as a
040district. We have really great kids um here in Geneva and we always have room for improvement but I think these statistics and data are a celebration for us for sure. >> Do you have any questions? >> Questions anyone? >> I had a question. What um what would classify as in school suspension versus out of school suspension? Like when do we choose which? So really what this um what the state regulations say is that they have to be a significant safety risk to themselves or others to be considered out of school or they have to be a significant disruption to the overall educational setting. So those are kind of our two thresholds. Um, so when you're looking at even like fighting, you would see that there's some Oops, sorry. There's some that were coded as a
041in school or some that were an out of school. Um, but I like it's up to the administrators to really think about what is that fighting. I mean, fighting on a playground where a second grader pushes another second grader. We might, you know, and it's repeated. They've done it multiple times. We might look at that as an inschool intervention. Same thing with like possession of a weapon. Well, I'll promise you that a possession of a weapon, this right here, is not bringing like a knife to school to use it to harm someone, right? It might be they have a they had a knife in their bag, a pocketk knife that perhaps they left there and didn't turn into the school. Um, so it's really thinking through the whole situation. >> Thank you. I know the
042data only tells a little bit of the story. So other questions observation the data is interesting and pretty widely variable. It would be helpful if I didn't have a feedback. No. Uh it would be helpful if we had a few more years just just kind of top down view to see trends and things of that nature rather than just two years. >> We certainly can do that. I did actually have some a thought about that was I was kind of wondering what precoid numbers were because I feel like we have gone through a lot um with student behavior as we're our kids have gone through a lot through COVID. So like does that look different positively, negatively? What does that look like? That would be kind of interesting to see to tell that whole story
043based on what I hear from teachers in classrooms. >> I don't know. I'll be honest because I did kind of take a look at some of that data. Although, like I said, things were coded differently. We haven't had consistency, but I don't think you're going to see that in this data because this is our highest exclusionary discipline data. It doesn't represent the kid that is getting a detention or is or is um maybe yelling out in class. So it this is big ticket items here that are causing exclusionary discipline. Um so we do look at that at a school level. Um we look at what we call minor behavior incidences versus major. But again, some of that data is sometimes hard to tease out based on who inputs it and who doesn't and who's like,
044you know, there are teachers that that's just the way of their world. Like they're constantly redirecting, but they don't think to put it in. So yeah, but I'm happy to give you any data we have. I just want to make sure that the data is consistent and accurate and tells the the picture of what whatever you're looking for. So, >> okay, we have all kinds of data. >> Well, thank you very much. >> Sure. >> Thank you. >> Item four on the agenda, public comments. Have we received any requests for comments? All of you in the audience, anyone want to say something? It's your golden chance. Item five, legislative updates. >> All right. Thank you. Uh I do have one bill that was introduced uh recently this month. Uh Senate Bill 2788. It is regarding
045the school resource officer grant. Uh there is a bill out there that's asking the Illinois State Board of Education to establish a program that pays for the salaries and other costs related with a school resource officer. Uh it was just introduced as I mentioned, so the language will probably change. It's not very specific right now. Sometimes these grant opportunities are targeted for school districts that maybe don't have the means that we do, but uh I just wanted to mention that that was one that I found that was new uh this calendar year. And u Dr. Barrett mentioned in our finance committee meeting earlier that it is pretty early in the session. So things are just getting introduced. They're still working on language and obviously once things are filed then they change from now until the
046end of May. So I'll just keep you updated on new ones that I find. And that's my report. >> Thank you. The next item is the superintendent's report. Dr. Barrett. >> Thanks Larry. I just have a few things to share and touch base on tonight. First, um, uh, you know, very timely. Um, just want to talk a little bit about our in inclement weather planning. I put this on, uh, my presentation because, uh, at this meeting last year, I talked about this um, uh, right around a time when we didn't actually, uh, end up having, um, you know, we just had a normal school day when there were some questions about the weather. Um, but I just think it's kind of important for folks who might be watching to really understand about our process. First,
047I think everybody knows we try to be pretty transparent about our biggest priority being having in-person learning um to the greatest extent possible because we know that's the best uh for kids and and best for teachers. Um, but we do obviously have these other options and when we make these decisions um obviously first I mean I think people know they're hard, right? These aren't easy black and white situations. Um there's a lot of thinking and reflecting and and processing a lot of minutia. Um and when we do that, we're really focusing on a couple things. First and foremost, obviously safety uh for everyone and for our kids. Um in addition to that, like what is our capacity as a district to be able to, you know, ensure we can provide the best quality experience. And
048another thing we try to think about is family impact. and and that's a hard one. Um, you know, with Friday's e-learning day, I think one thing we know and one thing I certainly know from uh feedback I received uh beforehand um is that uh some families uh would much prefer and they think the impact of an e-learning day is is much better for their family. and other families think that that's a pretty significant impact and pretty difficult um and would prefer to not have something like that. So trying to balance the safety and what is our capacity to be able to do and what is the impact on all the families in our district. It's really what we try to think through. Um you know then we look at our historical practices. we think about
049what are kind of the thresholds and we also want to be thinking about what precedents have been set in the past and what precedents we could be setting um when we when we make those decisions. Uh again, I think Friday was a great example of um you know, you look at what the thresholds are for kind of weather warnings, what our historical practices have been around those temperatures and what we've kind of done in the past. Um and then it that's what I think made it a pretty clear decision uh for us. Then the other thing we have to do is we do a lot of internal and external collaboration. You know this morning you heard from or not this morning previous to this meeting we heard from Mr. Johnson in transportation. I'm obviously talking
050to him. I'm talking to Mr. Peterson in operations all the time. Um and talking a lot with our neighbors and and my colleagues uh across the county and across the region um to get their feel. and we we really try to work together and I'm grateful for collaboration with those folks too. Um and then another thing that we've tried to improve uh is being very timely and saying when are we going to decide this and how quickly can we tell people when we know um when it comes to something like we had again Friday with the temperature that's a little easier to know. The forecast is a little more stable than say snow where you're not quite sure. So when we know earlier, we know that everyone appreciates knowing earlier and so we try to
051do uh as good a job as we can of um doing that communication. Um so you know, if we end up having to think about this more, we will. Um but I just think it's important to kind of reiterate our process. Um and we're going to obviously reflect. Uh we you're never perfect. Um and we learn each time we do it. and what we learned from Friday and uh today we'll take that into consideration as we look in the future. Um it's not a not a black and white issue. Uh also wanted to give you some updates on the La Fox of Cmpton Hills development. We talked a lot about this um earlier this year and you know we did the developer donation agreement that uh we settled on and I just wanted to kind
052of touch base on two key facts. one, as expected, um we learned this last week that village of Campton Hills has formally initiated a study um on the feasibility of establishing a tiff for the development area. We anticipated that, we talked about that. Um you may recall we built that into our developer donation agreement because we wanted to make sure that the district and the services district could provide the district could provide to potential students from this development. We wanted to make sure we were supported to do that if a tiff was established. So, we're not surprised that um they've taken this step, but we thought it was important to publicly acknowledge that they have formally done that. They've engaged in consultative services with a firm who evaluates uh uh land for potential tiff. Um
053what that means is a joint review board will be um meeting here at some point after that um consultant completes the evaluation. We have a seat on the joint review board and we'll be sitting there. Of course, also remember that as part of that development developer donation agreement um uh you know we have some obligations at the joint re review board table um given uh what we negotiated in that agreement. So that's all going to be happening and in play here. Todd and I have been talking about this a lot and and working with our attorneys who met with you uh earlier this summer. So, we're going to keep that at front of mind. Um, and and we'll certainly keep you in the community informed. Uh, the other thing I think um is important to
054be thinking about here, and we talked a little bit about this um uh and we're going to have to come back and talk about this, and when we do, we'll come back and have this be its own kind of agenda item. Um, but we need to start, I think, now that this is getting a little further down the road, I think we need to start having some formal conversation about uh the implications for the attendance area or the boundaries for the district. you know that we discussed earlier this year um you know maintaining our current boundaries uh based on everything we learned from our demographic study and our capacity analysis maintaining our current boundaries um for all the neighborhoods that are currently sending kids to our schools. Um and so we're we're sticking with that
055uh for the foreseeable future and and we think that's that that's a good way to go. Uh we also recognize that this is an area that currently doesn't send any kids to school and so we want to start having some conversations for what is the best attendance area for this potential neighborhood should it eventually come to fruition and come online um and start generating students for the school district. What's the best attendance area for those uh for those students? So, um, obviously we're going to look again at the demographic study and the capacity analysis to contribute to that. We need to think about what our programming needs are long term as a district and do some proactive long-term planning if we need to make some decisions about the most appropriate attendance area um, uh, a
056school of attendance basically for that attendance area. the best time to do that is before there are any families or kids there to be sending kids who we would have to make any changes for, right? Um so that's why I think throughout the rest of this year as we learn more about the development, that's when it's going to be really important to have some of those conversations because you don't want to start having that conversation after things start getting established and families start moving in. If does that make sense? >> Okay, >> quick question. >> Yes, sir. Um, has the developer yet released what type of homes they're going to be building? >> It's a great question and and no is the answer. We have not seen I mean we we've seen general we get
057kind of general information but um this as yet to my experience and maybe Todd you could speak up if if you've seen something different than me but I have not seen you know typically when you're at this stage the developer has specific models out with specific floor plans and things like that. We've only heard like general information. Well, about this many square feet, about this many bedrooms. Um, we've not seen any floor plans or models or anything like that. Todd, that have you seen anything like that? >> We we have not. We just seen a mixture, I think, of single family homes and some more town home town homes of some type. >> Yeah, vast majority was going to be, sorry, pardon me. I think was 700 single family and about 150 or so. um
058town homes, but that because that's going to be the you're asking because that's the key factor, right? I mean, that's going to tell us a lot about how many potential kids could be generated. And that's the beauty of our demographic study, right? It tells us a home in this general area with this many square feet and this many bedrooms is likely to generate this many kids for the, you know, 0.2 kids or whatever uh to the to the district. So we really need that information to to start understanding that. It's a good question. So more to come and this will be its standing agenda item. It's or its own agenda item at this point. So um people can know we're having that conversation. And last just you know we've done a lot of facts and
059and thank yous. One one more I wanted to kind of highlight here today briefly is just um the use the partnership that we have with the community and the use of our facilities. We've talked a lot about our facilities um over the last several meetings um and a lot of needs that we have in our facilities, but also um the generally high quality of them. And one of the things that we know about that um or that proves that is how much they're used by the community. Um our community partners in a wide variety of ways use our facilities a lot. Our grounds um and our buildings. Um and that's awesome. I mean our facilities are part of this community. It's not just a well kids leave at 2:15 or 3:00 or 3:30 and then
060they're done. and our community our community uses our facilities. Um, and I think that's really great and really important. First, I think, you know, we do it in a lot of formal and informal ways. Formally, I think, you know, we have a lot of formal programming partnerships. The park district has the friendship station preschool. They have kids zone. Uh, they have camps. Um, you know, we have a lot of formal ways that partners like that or like the Mid Valley special ed co-op use our facilities. Um, and we that's really awesome. And we also have myriad community- based programs and activities that take place in the facilities all the times. Whether that all the time, whether that's specific community groups or, you know, scouts or our feeder athletic programs are all got a lot of
061really robust feeder programs. Um, and you know, they use our buildings. Civic organizations uh use our buildings for things. So, um, we are a nice resource uh for the community. And we're also grateful to have all those partnerships because that's part of what makes uh school community great. Uh so that's all I had tonight. Thanks, Larry. >> Well, thank you very much, Andy. Um next, uh item seven, board dialogue topics pending action consideration. The first item is policy updates. We have 16 policies which are primarily updated and these policies have been reviewed. Are they not working? All right. These policies have been um reviewed by the administration and the policy committee and they were presented for the first reading on January 12th and are being presented at this time for the second reading. Questions may
062be directed to the policy committee chair. Any questions? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion to approve. >> So moved. Second. >> I thank you. Item two, board meeting calendar. These meeting dates are in alignment with last year's calendar and with the exception of the January board retreat. Uh any questions? Motion to approve. >> So moved. >> Second. >> I. Moving right along. Item three, the board action preliminary technology capital plan. The technology capital plan will be presented by Mike Wils. have him >> was presented by Mike Wilks at the last meeting. >> Okay, thank you. >> And so this one is just for uh approval of the plan he presented. >> Okay, >> better yet. Any questions? Motion to approve. >> So moved. >> Second. I >> I >> Okay. Wait a minute. Did
063I get out of sequence here? >> Okay. Item two, proposed hearing officer services. Dr. will present the proposal, >> but we can do them as a block. >> Well, a motion to approve. Yeah. Okay, I got it. The uh 16 uh 22 policies here are updated and rewritten policies. Um this is a first reading and updated and reviewed and in a few cases new. So policy chair will respond to questions. >> I have just um a few that I wanted to call out to everyone's attention for the first reading before approval. So, these are ones, a lot of these policies um just have small updates, some language changes, some legal updates, no major changes, but these three policies are the ones that um we talked about a little bit more. So, the first one is
064policy 480, accounting and audit audits. This one had the option to include a sentence for the AFR to be um submitted by October 15th. We chose not to include that sentence because we are finding that um our auditing firms are not able to complete that the AFR by that deadline. You guys will know we recently had a meeting I think it was in our December meeting possibly where we went over that. So that would not have met that timeline. So that's out of our control. So we didn't want to put that constraint in there right now while the firms aren't able to meet that. And then there's policy 660 curriculum content. This was um the biggest policy that changed. There was added curriculum requirements from the state. So this is mainly around health topics. So
065drug and alcohol abuse prevention across all grades K through 12. U online safety, abduction, and other health topics such as mental ill illness and several other things. So this one is going to be several changes. So take some time to read through that. But we will be hearing about this more as the administration works through how we're going to be adding that in. We're now having to dig back into all of our curriculum across K through 12 to see like are there places where we're already doing this? How do we do this at um an age appropriate in an age appropriate way to talk about these topics and what does that look like? So more to come on that but but that's a big policy change. And then the last one was 6210 instructional material.
066So, this one had um an option for us to decide if we wanted to adopt some alternative language and you guys can take a look at that alternative language. We chose not to adopt it and really it was around um our process for approving new new text and literature for our classes and we it gave us the option to not bring that to the board for approval and just have the administration do that. and we chose not to because we found that that process has been pretty valuable for this board and we've had a lot of great conversation and we've had it's brought other topics to the board because of those conversations. So, we wanted to continue that process, but let me know next week if you guys have any questions on the rest. Those
067are just the ones I wanted to call out to pay special attention to. >> Thank you, Stephanie. Okay, item two, proposed hearing officer services. Dr. Barrett. Yeah, thanks Larry. Um, so you all will remember we've had a lot of conversation about the potential use of a of a hearing officer and we considered this um in potential use of a hearing officer in certain disciplinary circumstances. Um, we actually had a similar proposal that came forward to the board at one point um, I think last year and our conversation was basically we needed to make sure we all were in agreement on what our policy should say about the potential use of uh, this practice. And so policy committee spent a lot of time uh working on that and you all finally uh the policy committee made
068a formal recommendation uh for that and you all voted on that at our last meeting which um brings this recommendation back. So it's just in here for information tonight. The idea would be for you to have an opportunity to review it. Um, and then if if you agreed and were to vote to approve um, you know, approve this uh, offer I guess or this proposal at our next meeting, then this individual would be kind of online. and he would be someone who you had approved as the board that if we felt we needed to use a hearing officer as outlined in our newly changed policies, this would be the individual we would be able to work with to do that. Um, so happy to answer any questions or just uh leave this here for you
069to consider and um could answer more questions at our next meeting as well. Okay, thank you very much, Dr. Barrett. Item nine is information. Item one, item nine is the board meeting and presentation schedule. Item two is the foyer request and board correspondence. Are we working? Item three is the suspension report and item four is out of state trip requests. These items are for information only and no discussion is required. So we will proceed to item 10, the consent agenda. My favorite item one, personnel report, resignations, retirements, leave request, changes in assignment, full-time equivalent, new hires. Item two, monthly financials for December. Item three, the 2026 27 policy committee meeting calendar draft. Any questions or discussion? A motion to approve. >> So moved. Second. >> I item 11, board member comments and reports. Anyone particularly
070like to start? >> How about you, Stephanie? >> Yeah, I can start. So, I just wanted to say congratulations to our all of our students who we honored tonight. It was just always fun to see the different um areas our students are working in and really excelling in. Um and it was really great to see all the artwork that had won some prizes. And I think um our Scholadic magazine is always beautiful, both the literature and the photography in there. So nice job to everyone. Thank you to our Fox Valley Career students who career center students who were here tonight. It was wonderful to hear from them, hear how these programs are impacting them and even just some of the reasons why they're taking those classes. It's really helpful for us to see how we're
071plugging into different students and the the needs they have. So, thank you. Um, we did have a communications task force meeting recently and we talked through several different topics, but the one that um I really wanted to highlight was around our new system rollout, which Mike had already talked to us about the Monday before. So, you know, we already all have information on that, but we started talking through the communication on that piece. It's not something we've talked a lot with our our school community yet, but it's more communication will be coming out as we're ramping up to make the conversion over the summer. And really, the big thing is going to be registration will stay the same. Like that was something that I was really unsure about. So, I just wanted to repeat that
072registration will kind of stay the same this year, but the timelines are so important and that communication will come out. But eventually our system is going to shut off and if you are not registered and verified and all those things that are sometimes tedious to do then it's going to be difficult to get back in. So more communication coming out about that and the task force was kind of working through some of the best ways to communicate that effort out. I also was able to attend um our theater booster meeting. They're working on their winter showcase right now which will be coming up um midFebruary and then we'll jump right into the spring musical. So, lots of different things going on to work on that. Um, there's always room to help if you're if you're
073interested in helping out with the theater and lots of good things to come. This is kind of the really busy season for the theater program. So, more to come about the shows, but an exciting time for them. That's all. >> Thank you, Jack. >> Yeah, I'll echo what Stephanie said. It was great to hear from the students in the Fox Valley Career Center tonight. we can hear about the programming that's there, but to hear it directly from the students and that they took the time to come tonight to tell us about what their experience was wonderful. I I learned a lot tonight from them. Uh and congratulations to our award winners tonight. Some great work being done at the high school. Um I was able to attend the Western PTO meeting. That was a lot
074of fun. Um uh there was a large crowd who showed up that night. There are a few incentives that they have to get people to come to their meetings, but there was one young lady who told her mom she wanted to go to the meeting because she wanted to know what happens at a PTO meeting. And I thought that was great. So they they came and they listened to what we talked about. We had some good questions. Um I wrote down what they were from. Um some people asked about the results from the cafeteria survey. Um some of the demographic trends and then the school calendar came up as a topic. So, it was good to be able to talk to them about what was on their mind while we were there that night. I
075enjoyed that. Also got to attend the Unified Vikings night, the pack the plack the place. That was a lot of fun. Uh Mr. Rogers said at the end of the night that he thought that was one of the greatest nights in uh Geneva Community High School history. And I I agree. I think it was wonderful how many people showed up. Hopefully, you saw a lot of the pictures that were on our social media pages so to see the excitement that was in the uh gym that night. And that that's all I have. >> Thank you, Paul. >> Yeah. Um, so I also had a chance to be at the uh communications meeting and um I'll kind of just say that we have the community connects coming up and that is on February 2nd at the
076library from 9 to 10 a.m. And then the next evening um February 3rd uh from 7 to 8 p.m. it gives an opportunity if you want to come in and listen to Andy and talk and ask questions. Uh more people there I think better the conversation. Um, also we had the uh we had the H Heartland uh PTO meeting that I attended and we had they have this real driver as a PTO president and it's Stephanie down there very well organized. I I have to say with that and but I think if I remember right the um principal gave a a very good discussion um there on some of the was it the reading right? No, I forget what the >> Yeah, both the reading and some of the testing that our our kids are
077taking because it's a really big testing season for our elementary students. So, >> yeah. And then finally, um I was at the U theater boosters club and just to give you those dates ahead here. Um on February 13th and 14th, um the theater boosters will uh at the high school will be putting on the complete history of America unabbridged. And um so that'll be on the 13th and 14th and that is a there was a confusion maybe in the in in the uh calendar previously but it is the 13th and 14th are the correct dates. Y. >> Okay. And then the spring musical is going to be April 23rd and 20 uh 23rd through the 25th. And on February 20 6th, I think is no 24th are the auditions for that for any of the
078students that are listening in. So, and it'll be they'll be doing Chicago this year. >> Uh I just wanted to point out uh something really cool tonight. I think when we think of high school students and you know the time in high school, a lot of attention is on athletics and preparation for applying and attending college. And tonight we got things that I find immensely important. We got to celebrate the success of art and literature and we got a presentation on alternate career paths and I think that is super super cool and something that needs so much more attention. Um, I have a young man in my uh in our family circle who felt lost in high school and didn't know what to do and kind of stumbled into a fire safety program. He's now
07922 and he has so many options at his hand. He was accepted premed with scholarships. He has fire departments like fighting over him. He's been an emergency room tech, a paramedic, like all so many wonderful things because he found an alternate path in in the the program. And I just to any student I heard the the message, you know, wanting to get out of Geneva or not sure what direction, this is such an a cool opportunity that we have. So, please consider taking advantage. Um, and then I just wanted to shout out, you know, Friday we had an e-learning day and I can't speak for everyone across the board, but my two elementary students, uh, it went off without a hitch. So, a big thank you to our teachers who planned and prepped and coached
080students beforehand of what to do and and how to do it and the time that they put into that. It was engaging and they both had a really lovely uh, learning experience. And it also speaks to our technology uh task force and Mike Wilts and his team for our onetoone devices. You know, having those laptops, you know, and being able to provide that to our students is really cool. So, I just wanted to shout that out, too. That's all I got. >> Thank you, Molly. One of the reasons I go last is I can mostly just say, yeah, what everybody said because they're all doing important work and it's worthy to hear direct reports. I uh I certainly agree with things about the opportunity to broaden the educational perspective and I offer a little tip
081of the hat to the faculty who provides those opportunities for our students in with a wide range of interest and possibilities. Uh lastly, I would say that I was happy to start discussions with the GA large group and I felt very positive about the atmosphere and look forward to continued conversation with them. So with that uh item uh 12 is notices or announcements. I have none. Does anybody have any? The next thing is executive session. I get to read a long thing and then we uh cease the public meeting. So um I guess I'm just saying that when I finish this, you're free to leave. At any rate, executive session to consider matters pertaining to appointment, employment, compensation, or discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park, recreational,
082or educational setting, or specific volunteers of the public body, or legal consult 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 of the public body against legal council for the public body to determine its validity. However, a meeting to consider increasing compensation to a specific employee that is subject to the local government wage increase transparency act may not be in closed session and must be open to the public and posted as held in accordance with the act 5 lcs. uh discussion of minutes or of a meeting lawfully closed under the open meetings act whether for purposes of approval by the body of the minutes or a semiannual review of the minutes as
083mandated by section 206 all that all that reading instruction paid off at some point uh we now need a motion to go into executive session >> so moved Second. >> I All right. Thank you all for coming this evening. We very much appreciate your attendance.