001Welcome everybody. Tammy, could you please call the role? >> Here. here. >> Here >> I'd like to welcome all of you to this the regular March 10th, 2025 meeting of the Geneva 304 school board. It's always nice to see a full house. I know a lot of you are getting awards and some of you are proud parents of people getting awards, so that's even nicer. So, welcome sincerely. Next item is the pledge of allegiance. The flag is right back there and Miss Forbes is going to lead us. >> I pledge alce 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. >> Thank you all very much. U there is an attendance sheet when you came in.
002If you'd like to register your attendance, you may sign in there at any time. Um, next item is approval of minutes. I know there were two small corrections submitted. Have you had any other corrections submitted, Tammy? Does anyone have any corrections at this time? A motion to approve or accept >> Forb. So moved. >> Wait a minute. We I think we need a second. >> Second. Okay. >> So, I called in a little bit late. Do I have to abstain, Larry? >> Uh, I'm not going to beat you to death about that, but if you you to be safe. >> Okay. >> I >> abstain. I thank you all. Recognition, awards, presentations, and public hearing is next. And this is the tradition of excellence for GHS students. Um, Andy, would you like to introduce? >>
003Yeah, Mr. Rogers going to come up. He has a lot of students to uh acknowledge tonight. Full House, obviously. Uh, many familiar faces because there's some kids who we see getting recognized uh multiple times, which is pretty cool. So here, but for those of you who haven't been here before, here's what we're going to do. The board's going to make their way around the table. Um, Mr. Rogers is going to brag about you a little bit, then come up and shake everybody's hand and get your certificate and then hang up uh hang out up here by the screen and we'll do a photo op and all the good stuff. So, I'll pass it off to Mr. Rogers while the board makes their way around the table. >> Thank you, Dr. Barrett, and thank you very
004much to the board for the opportunity to honor once again students who are doing great things at Geneva High School. Uh we've actually got two waves of recognition to do tonight. We're going to introduce three groups here first and then we're going to excuse those who are being honored and then we're going to bring another wave from the room next door and do it all over again. So we're going to start tonight with the National Merit finalists. In other words, these are really, really smart kids. Um, this group of five seniors at GHS were part of or back in the fall of 2023, they along with about 1.3 million other juniors in the United States took the PSAT exam. And this past fall, we were notified that these five seniors had achieved recognition as National
005Merit semi- finalists. And when we learn that in the fall, that means they have to fill out an application and then we are notified in February as to whether or not they have become a finalist. Needless to say, the five semi- finalists that we were notified about in the fall are now being honored tonight as National Merit finalists. Uh I met with them a few weeks ago. They've received a certificate from the um National Merit Scholarship Corporation. And tonight, it's my honor to recognize these five students. And once I get them all up here, I'll describe just a little bit more about how prestigious this academic award is. So, for starters, please congratulate Evelyn Gibbons, [Applause] >> Ellie Grancherov, [Applause] Nick Grimes. [Applause] >> And finally, Ethan, I'm sorry, not finally. Ethan Ryan is next.
006And finally, Vitali Starkov. All right. So, as I said, 1.3 million juniors took this test. About 16,000 of those students were uh notified that they were going to become semi- finalists. And then I don't know exactly what happens between September and now, but according to the statistics shared with us, about 15,000 have now been honored as National Merit finalists, which means these students rank in the top 1% of students, high school seniors in the country. So, congratulations to these amazing academic accomplishments. We will honor this group one more time at their senior awards night as well because it's a big deal. So at this time, Mr. Baker is going to take a quick photo. Parents of our National Merit finalists, if you'd like to come up and when Mr. Baker is done, feel free to
007take your photos. We got one more active camera here. All right, congratulations again. All right, quick question. Are any of the staff members from the Scaldic magazine with us tonight? Excellent. Great. Just want to make sure before we get started. All right, so National Merit, you can be seated. Thank you. Next up, Geneva High School has a literary magazine and that magazine is titled The Scaldic. And the Scaldic the 2024 Scaldic Literary Magazine earned two outstanding honors. First, it received all-American status from the National Scholastic Press Association and it also received from the National Council Council of Teachers of English a first class distinction which puts it as one of the top seven magazines in the state of Illinois. And we have with us tonight some of our staff members. Some of those staff members
008graduated. They were members of the class of 2024. But the folks we have with us tonight were juniors at the time that this magazine was put together. So for starters, if we could please congratulate Danielle Nasser, Claire Tottman, [Applause] Bo Church and Cameron Wineninski. And it's my pleasure to introduce the Scaldic Magazine sponsor, GHS English teacher, Mrs. Heather Peters. And I will add this is uh this is not unusual to have the Scaldic magazine earn an award. It is a tradition to have the Scaldic magazine earn numerous honors and awards. So congratulations Mr. Peters, Mrs. Peters, on the amazing awards that this magazine continues to garner year after year after year. Mr. Baker, would you do the honors? Thanks. Come on up. >> Back of my head. All right, congratulations again. Next, we have some
009amazing artists in our midst tonight. And these students earned amazing awards from the Scholastic Art Competition that they entered their work into earlier this school year. And I'm going to recognize these students. They either received an honorable mention in this very, very large art competition or a silver key award or a gold key award. So, I'm going to recognize them, let you know what they earned, and then I'll give you a little more background on the Scholastic Art Competition once we get them all up in front of the room. Okay. First, congratulations to honorable mention award winner McKenzie Benedict. earning a silver key. Caitlyn Cassidy Wyatt Curry earned honorable mention. Also earning honorable mention, Ryan Fontana. earning a gold key and an honorable mention for two separate pieces of work. Drew Hosman earning a gold
010key. Willow Hul, honorable mention winner, John Kazlowski. [Applause] Honorable mention Von Lden Schlagger, [Applause] earning a gold key and two honorable mentions. And for the gold key work, earning an American Vision Award nomination, which I which I will explain in just a moment, is Emma Nolan. [Applause] A gold key winner, Morgan Reed. And finally, a silver key winner, Miles Shepard. I don't believe the teachers were able to be here tonight, but I want to thank GHS art teachers Danica Fami and Mr. John Christopher. They do an outstanding job. They are just one of four two of four, not one, they're two different people. They're two of four art teachers at Geneva High School that do a fantastic job and they help these students with their entries. So, thank you and congratulations to them. Quickly, just
011a little bit of history. The Scholastic Art Awards. You can take the picture. That's fine. You can take the picture while I brag about them. I just want to share some history about this program. The Scholastic Art, it's actually an art and writing program, but our students obviously were entered in the art program. This Scholastic Art competition was founded in 1923. So for more than a century, it's inspired bold ideas and creative teams throughout the country. And if you go to the if you Google Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, it is an amazing program. These students competed in the uh Chicago suburban area region. And as I mentioned a moment ago, uh Emma Nolan was nominated for her work. Um what did I do with it? Oh, here we go. The American Visions Award is
012a prestigious honor that represents the different geographic regions of the Scholastic Awards. Jurors from each region can select up to five works to be American Vision Award nominees. So, from the Chicago area, only five pieces of work were nominated. Emma Nolans was and it is going to be judged in a in another uh competition in New York City uh I believe this spring. So we're keeping our fingers crossed that perhaps Emma is going to win yet another prestigious award. So um an amazing art competition that these students have entered and been awarded uh for their fantastic and creative work. So, congratulations again to all of our artists. Parents, it's your turn. All right, how everybody look to your left. Hold on. One more camera. Everybody look to your left. >> That's right. >> Everybody good?
013All right. Congratulations again. All right. Now, if we could, in order to make room for another wave of honores, if our national merit, our artists, and our scaldic folks could please excuse themselves. Congratulations, and thank you all very much for coming. We really appreciate you coming to receive this award. >> Thank you. [Applause] Thank you, sir. All right, here we go with round two of our GHS student recognition tonight. Uh this next group is all athletes and we're going to start tonight with our uh boys wrestler who qualified for the IHSA boys state finals at the University of Illinois. Please congratulate Joe Pettit. Joe competed at the IHSA state meet on Thursday, February 20th and Friday, February 21st, as I said, at the University of Illinois. Um, few highlights about Joe's season. He was the
014conference champ at his 285 pound weight class. He's just a little guy. He was also crowned regional champ at the uh St. Charles East regional. He then went on to place third at the Conan sectional which qualified him for the state meet. And then on Thursday evening at the University of Illinois, he won his first match by pinning his opponent in less than a minute. So congratulations to Joe Pettit. Oh, by the way, he finished the year with a record of 38 and five as an individual. So congratulations, Joe. And I want to congratulate head coach, Mr. Tom Chernich. All right, coach and Joe. Quick photo. >> Wait, parents, you want to take a picture? You good? >> There we go. Next, Geneva High School was very fortunate to have two girls gymnasts compete and
015represent Geneva High School at the IHSA state gymnastics meet on Friday, February 21st and Saturday, February 22nd. Congratulations to Reese Lackey and Julia Swareski. So, a little bit about Julia's season. She competed at the regional where she finished in fourth place in the vault. that automatically qualified her for the sectional. She also was an atlarge qualifier in the or all-around competition, an atlarge qualifier on the uneven bars, and an atlarge qualifier on beam. And then at the sectional, Julia earned fifth place in the vault, which automatically qualified her for the IHSA state finals, which was held at Palatine High School. Congratulations on a great season, Julia. Reese Lackey at the regional placed second on the vault, second on bars, third on the beam, first in the floor exercise, and was second in the all-around competition,
016which meant she was an automatic qualifier in all of those events to the sectional. Then at the sectional, she was first on beam, first on floor, and third in the all-around competition, and then went on to place fourth overall in the state of Illinois on the floor exercise for the second year in a row. Congratulations to Ree and Julia on an amazing season. Thank you for representing Geneva High School so well. The girls are coached by Kim Hosman, who I don't believe is able to be with us tonight. So, here's our photo opportunity. Mr. Baker, >> thank you for letting us >> next. There we go. [Applause] Finally, this is always one that I feel like I have to clarify because although we don't have a swimming pool, we do have an amazing group of
017swimmers at Geneva High School. They swim for the uh West Chicago, Geneva, and Betavia co-op. And this year we had three boys represent Geneva High School on that team at the IHSA state swim meet which was held Friday, February 28th and Saturday, March 1st at the FMC Natiatorum in Westmont. First, congratulations to Brady Jordan. Next up, Sam Ortiz. [Applause] And finally, Nathan Walkington. All right. And now I'll tell you what they accomplished in terms of getting down to that state meet. Brady and Sam and Nate were all on the 200 medley relay team. So three4s of that relay coming from Geneva. Obviously that co-op swim team suffers if we don't have Geneva guys. Let's see. Um now I'm just going to stick to what what each guy did because it doesn't line up right here.
018Brady was also a member of the 400 free style relay. Also qualified in the 200 individual freestyle and the 100 individual backstroke. Sam in addition to that 200 medley relay team was on the 200 freestyle relay team, the 400 freestyle relay and also swam the 50 individual freestyle. That's the race I think I heard everybody telling you. You don't breathe, right? You just swim from one end to the other. No thanks. and Nate was a member of, as I said, of that 200 medley relay team. So, I'm extremely proud of these gentlemen. They do a great job all year long. It's a lot of dedication getting over to West Chicago High School to swim and then back from West Chicago every night after practice and then doing a great job of representing us. And I
019noticed they didn't mess around. You guys have some very sweet jackets with already embroidered and up to date for 2025. Well done. Only problem is it's got a wildat on it. Yeah, that is a problem. >> But but I know Mr. Han, if he hasn't already delivered, is already got I know he has some swag for you as well, representing GHS to make sure that West Chicago doesn't get all the publicity, right? Yeah. No, but we appreciate, we really truly, all kidding aside, we appreciate the partnership that we have with West Chicago and Betavia to make that co-op possible. So, congratulations to our swimmers. And Mr. Baker. Another photo. >> Now, girl, guys, there's a lot of pressure. You saw how the girls posed. Let's do a good job. >> There we go. >> Thanks,
020guys. >> Everybody good? All right. Congratulations to all of our athletes. And that completes our recognition for tonight. I can tell you I'll already be back in April because the DECA students did amazing things this past weekend and I'm sure there's more to come. So, thank you again for this opportunity and thank you all for coming tonight. [Applause] This is the only place. Okay. And next, Assistant Superintendent Laam and Matt Johnson will present to the board the preliminary transportation budget for 2025 2026. Welcome, gentlemen. Good evening. So, I'm here presenting the as you said the preliminary transportation budget for July 2025 to June 30th of 2026. Our transportation team consists of Todd Laam the assistant superintendent of business services. Myself as director of transportation, Adrien Ramirez as the assistant director of business services, Brandy Lanzeratada
021the assistant director of transportation, Kelly Madden the routing and planning supervisor. Kendall Callahan our administrative assistant. Jeremy Beckman and Fidel Delgado as mechanics. and Philip Carter as extra help. So for the 2025 school year in 2026 staffing, our office and shop are completely staffed. So that would not change. Uh we are if full staffed would be 67 drivers and eight bus monitors. We do have two different fleet plans. Uh this would be dependent on if our state bid buses arrive for the 25 school year or not. Uh the 20 the state bid buses were a lower cost. So we went out for those the previous year and they did not arrive in June July as anticipated and have been pushed out several times now. Uh I have been assured a few times now and they
022are continuing with it that it should be arriving at the they should be completed in the end of March and arriving in April. If the state bid buses arrive this year, our fleet will consist of 20 72 passenger propane buses, 25 72 passenger diesel buses, 20 30 passenger gas buses, four 27 passenger gas buses, nine 21 passenger with lift gases, and four white activity buses. If the state bid bus order does not arrive, the only thing that would change of those numbers is we would be down to 15 30 passenger buses instead of 20. For the preliminary budget, our revenue sources are local revenue uh anticipated at $3,317,500 and state revenue of 1,250,175 with a projected total of $4,567,675. This is coming from property taxes, interest income, rider fees, bus sales, uh and state transportation
023claim reimbursements. Our projected salaries and benefits are at $2,996,925. This would be compensation for our office staff, drivers, monitors, mechanics, and then benefits such as pension, dental, and life for our office staff and mechanics. Uh the professional services projected total is $225,550. This is for staff training, professional fees, software, and bus repairs. The projected supplies and materials total is $372,825. This is for copier, paper, office supplies, fuel, bus parts, and utilities. Our projected total for capital purchases is $1,400,100. This is for bus purchases in support of our fleet management plan. Our projected total for other services is $8,000. Our contingency fund is anticipated at $40,000 and non- capital purchases projected at $10,000 for a total of $58,000. This is for stuff like tools, shop equipment, technology, or contingency fund in case we have a major
024breakdown such as an engine or transmission. Uh this is the five-year comparison as how we've been doing. Uh we had the highest in 23 24 uh total revenue of $5,197,000 and we have been steadily decreasing with that revenue along with our as you can see in the expenditures they have been going down each year as well. >> Quick question for you. >> Yeah. >> Um if you look at your capital needs that's where the new buses are. Um and if we look at the 2425 with the budget if they don't arrive I guess it's five buses that'll just be shifted into the 25 26 year at that point >> that is correct >> and this will go down in this year >> um do we have any in the local uh projected sales of existing
025buses once those come in or is that all for next year to to to move you know to get rid of some of the older buses? Uh we have already been reaching out to other districts and companies that are interested in our older buses. So we do have a plan to sell off older buses as we get our new ones in. >> So if we do we need to have these new buses come in in order to be able to service all the students or are we if we don't get it, we just hold on to the old buses until they do come in. What is >> We would hold on to the old buses as we come in. This is replacing older fleets at older buses that have either been having more problems than
026others or higher or higher mileage buses. >> Is it a one forone swap out? >> Uh yes. >> Okay. Thank you. So all of these comparisons they go through our these are our compensation for agreements, benefits based on current elections and market cost, purchase services estimates and reduction a reduction in external external services, supplies, materials and reduced cost for fuel, utilities and bus parts. Capital includes funds for new bus purchases. Other objects includes compliance testing and capital projects and subject to change based on construction schedule contingency added for large cost part failure and non-C capital budgets reduced for tools and equipment. Any questions or comments? >> Yes. Um the question is is there a threshold for mileage where you say once they reach x,000 100,000 I don't know is there a threshold rubric or anything
027you have to determine that it's time to move another bus on. >> We don't use the mileage per se. We're trying to get the buses on a five-year plan. And so, generally, we replace the ones out that are the higher mileage, but I work with the mechanics and talk to them and we figure out which ones are the most problematic, have been breaking down the most. And if the buses have been breaking down more, we'll take those out of service before we take one of the higher mileage buses. >> Okay. So when you say breakdown, is that um the new buses are you making choices where those buses may have more longevity so we don't have to go through a cycle like that over and over? >> Absolutely. >> So what what's the plan for
028that? How do you do that to know that? Okay, we're not going to get this type of bus because it's problematic. What's what's the source of getting some that are more reliable? I don't want to use the reliable, but what's I'm just trying to understand How do you make that decision? That decision. So the problematic buses we are getting rid of. Sorry, I lost my train of thought there. >> Sorry. I lost. >> So Dr. Brooks, one of the things that we do is that when we decide to retire a bus out of our fleet, we typically look at not only just the mileage, but how many times it's broken down or just some overall issues with the particular bus itself. So, if it has higher maintenance or large demand from uh care from our
029mechanics, then we'll flag that as a bus that will move out of the fleet sooner than later. So, it could have low mileage, but it might have more uh issues with that bus. It doesn't perform up to what we would consider standard. So, we'll prepare that for sale and then we'll move it out of our fleet. My question >> I'm sorry. My question was more of if those buses are problematic, how do you know you're not going to get new buses that have the same problem? Are you getting a different make or model? How does that work? >> Well, we have them by different fuel types and different uh models and providers. So, we don't always buy the same bus. So, it's not so much that the buses that we buy are problematic. It's just
030like any car. Sometimes you buy a car that maybe has more breakdowns than another. Uh doesn't mean that that's a bad product. It just means that that's not up to maybe the best manufacturing. So, uh, we use different fuel types. We use different buses. They all come in and we inspect them and then we move all the equipment from one particular older bus to a newer bus such as cameras or the safety issues that we have and then we prepare those uh to be surplused. >> I think I think um this might also be helpful to know. Um, so you as you heard Matt share, we're trying to get on this kind of five-year renewal cycle, right? Um, and we used to be on a much shorter renewal cycle when we could two-year when we
031could sell those back much more easily. >> Um, so we we're trying to get on this fiveyear cycle. The the challenge with that has been um the supply chain and so uh you know COVID did a number on all that. So right now we have many not many several buses in our fleet that are older than that fiveyear cycle. So I think one of the ways that we get to what you're getting at is when we, you know, really implement completely the fleet management plan that Todd's come and talked to you about before. We're minimizing that by making sure we're replacing everything on a fiveyear cycle so we don't have um buses that are outside that window. The reason we picked that window is to try to avoid some of those bigger expenses, if that
032makes sense. >> And we also keep some of our buses in reserve. So, if we do have a bus that breaks down, we automatically have one on our transportation yard that we'll replace it with and then bring that bus back in for uh review and maintenance. >> Thank you. That makes more sense. Thanks so much. Thank you. Anyone else? >> All right. And then last but not least, uh we were able to file with the Illinois Propane Association for a rebate on our propane purchases this year. And we got a rebate of $10,000 for our fueling station construction and $60,000 for the purchases of our propane buses for a total of $70,000 rebate this year. >> Thank you very much. Appreciate the report. I think you can all see that even something so apparently simple
033as a school bus involves a lot of thought and and careful consideration of cost. And I'd like to add that I hope whoever's going to buy our used buses doesn't listen to this meeting. >> No, they all have to go through safety language as a safety review and we don't sell any bus unless it's us up to full standards. >> Just the facts. >> All right. So item three, you guys are looking like you're ready to to talk. Item three is uh panorama pilot near and dear to my heart. Well, uh, Ann and George are getting, uh, ready here. I just, uh, I guess I would just say I know, >> um, to to the board and to our community attendees. Um, we've got a lot of important topics tonight. Long meeting tonight. This is,
034you know, March is one of these meetings where we have or months where we have one meeting. So, you know, sometimes there's going to be more more agenda items, but a lot of good things to get through. So, looks like uh Ann and George are getting ready. They're going to tell us a little bit about um a platform that some of our schools have been piloting um to help give us better insights into how kids are performing and uh what we can do to support them. >> Good evening. It's good to see all of you. Um tonight uh George and I are presenting on Panorama student success which is a platform and initiative related to problem solving and providing to supports to students across all tiers. So Panorama is a systemic cohesive approach to looking
035at our data and looking and determining how we are going to support each and every child as the whole whole child from their social emotional needs to their academic to their functional. Um it is a comprehensive platform that staff can use um to look at where students may be struggling and how we can best support them and it integrates our data from various sources um so that we can look at a holistic view of student performance. So there's three things that we're going to talk about tonight. One is data integration, one is the userfriendly interface and the other is actionable insights. Um it is important to recognize that for this we've had four pilot schools that have piloted Panorama Student Success this year and those are the schools listed up here on um the slide.
036So we did two elementary schools and then both of our middle schools for this year because we wanted to start off small and see how this went and at those Oops, sorry. Back. There we go. At those buildings, we identified core teams from each building. And the core team was made up as of our administrators and our problem solving um team members, which consist of psychologist, student support specialist, um counselors, reading specialists, and those groups got together and they were the first ones to participate in professional development and coaching around this system. So really what this is, it's a system. It's a data system, but it's also a system of how we operate in the building. So how do we run problem solving meetings? What data do we look at? What things do we consider?
037So Panorama is not just a data platform, which I will show you it in a minute. It's a whole way of doing business to support students whether they're at a tier one level or they need higher levels of support going up to special education. And when I talk about support, what interventions need to be put in place, right? Reading interventions, math interventions, behavioral interventions, things to support them social, emotionally. So the panorama, this is a framework on kind of where you are with your development in the platform. Our goal is as a whole district to get over to phase three. So this identifies four key areas where um we are starting in this journey. So really looking at um how many domains are we looking at for a student? So they're maybe performing poorly academically.
038What's their attendance look like? Are they here to learn? What's their social emotional standing look like? um if they have poor attendance and they're getting good grades, what does their state assessments look like? So really being able to look at that whole picture of the child is so important. Um we also have many of us are now in phase two because we are ready to adopt this f fully on for next year and those would be our four pilot schools. Some our other schools are more are we're at phase one and we're really thinking through what are our problem solving processes at these buildings and what data are we using to support our overall um student population in learning and meeting their goals and that includes school-based practices and then our district leadership um investment
039as well. So all of the leaders involved in this are fully invested. However, we haven't brought on those other four schools um to move farther over on this continuum. I think George is going to show you how it works so it'll help you understand this better. Well, I will say I don't think George is going to show you how it works. George is going to show you how it works so you can better understand this. >> Well, I'll try my best. Thank you, Ann. Uh so, the first part of this is data integration. And anytime we add any type of platform or or or new product that we're looking at as a team, we always try to look at this through the lens of the teacher, the administrator uh or that that team that's sitting
040around the table. Is this product going to provide us with the information that we need, the data that we need to support our students? And so when we look at data integration, imagine a a table of uh teachers and administrators and student services me uh members sitting around uh a table problem solving and trying to identify students that need support. There are multiple things that we sit around the table and we look at first. One of those is our MAP scores at the elementary level or Ames web at the primary level. And this is where our conversations begin. And as we sit around the table, oftentimes more questions come up. So if we find a student that's struggling in in let's say uh math and reading or oral reading fluency in Ames web or math,
041there are more questions that say, well, how how are how's the student performing on their state assessments? What does their attendance look like? And previously, what we would do is bounce between platforms. we'd log off the map platform and log into um the AR platform or we would uh access a spreadsheet that our awesome technology department put together and we'd cross reference with a uh with a spreadsheet that they gave uh or we'd log on to e- school to see what their attendance looks like. So in a 5 10 minute conversation we are accessing multiple platforms uh to get the information that we need to help us make the best decision for that student. So, Panorama helps synthesize all of this information and we can do this. I have to give props to our technology
042department, uh, Michael Wils, Kathy McKe for taking all of the data and, um, really I mean, essentially working magic in bringing bringing it together. So, there we go. So I mentioned I as an uh an area and then ES school uh plus as a place that Panorama will uh pull data from to synthesize this information for our teams. And so the interface is what we'll get to next. We can look at data from multiple perspectives. So we can combine all of this data as Ann had mentioned earlier to see if we have a student that's struggling in reading but they're also struggling in coming to school their attendance is poor. Well these are two areas that we you know we will certainly provide interventions necessary for that student to improve reading but we also have
043to you know work to find a way to get them to school because we can't learn if we're not in school. And so these are different ways that we could look at this data and the way that Panorama has it uh laid out for us is very user friendly. We click certain things that we want to see. We could search by population. If we want to look for our only at our students with um special needs, we could click and sort by that. If we want to look at uh students that are um uh let's say struggle with attendance and see how their attendance compares to their map scores, we could look at it that way. But multiple views, the first one is that balcony view. Principles, administrators could look at the big picture on
044how their school is performing. So we have set benchmarks in place for each area academic ac uh attendance and behavior. So when we look and we see that 88% of students for example at uh Geneva Middle School North they're meeting our targets that we have set on all the areas that we're they're that we are collecting whether that be MAP I AR or grades from the teacher's grade book in middle school. We could go a little bit deeper if we want to say, "All right, let's take a look at students that uh at the middle school uh how are they performing in math only?" Well, we could see here that 99% of our sixth grader, sixth grade students are performing on target at Geneva Middle School North. We could get even closer here and we
045could look at a specific um set of students. By the way, these are all madeup uh names. These are all Ann's family members. So this is playground data. Need to put that out there. So we could look at students that uh have uh are need support in academics and I think the target we set here at least getting AD or NF at least in one it's going to make it red and we could see what their attendance looks like and what their behavior and referrals look like. Furthermore, we could look at uh just generally speaking, eighth grade students across the board. We could scroll and see an eighth grade classroom just to see how are they performing in other classes. Okay, so this is nice for a teacher to see is this student struggling only
046in my class or are they struggling in other classes? Is is there a pattern here that we can talk about and bring at the table? Again, all of this information, you know, previously would require us to connect with another teacher, pull up a different report, access e school, log on the map, and come with, you know, when I was at Mil Creek, I promise you, I had a spreadsheet that had about 52 columns in there, and we'd have to scroll left and scroll light uh right and apply all these filters. But now we have them in easy to view uh displays. But we could also get uh so detailed at the student level. And so once we've identified a student here, then we could say all right now we can in the upper right here,
047we could create an intervention plan. Okay. And so this is where Ann can take it uh you know what happens at this because once we've identified an intervention plan that's where we begin the progress monitoring and uh really keeping a close eye in asking the very important question is what we are doing working. So when we get to this level like George said of the problem solving team and we decide that a student does need an intension so a service outside of the general education classroom or a service within the general education classroom to support them in making progress. We would easily create an intervention plan within the panorama system. So right now again we're creating intervention plans in a separate system. So we're going to get data in one s or multiple systems. we're
048creating intervention plans in a separate system. Those intervention plans and all that data doesn't always carry over with the student when they go on to the next grade level, the next school, etc., etc. So, this is nice because all of our students will be in this platform and we'll be able to pull up any student or any building. So, um when we think about intervention planning, we look at the um trends and we identify specific areas to support the student in. So, some students may need an intervention in reading and we would provide them with um perhaps Lexia or Spire or a a reading intervention. Some students may need interventions in social emotional learning or like we said um attendance and sometimes we don't have a boxed intervention, right? Reading interventions are pretty, you know,
049we have a a variety of reading interventions. We have a variety of math interventions. those academic, but sometimes we struggle to identify what are we going to do to teach the kid to make this area better. And so what's nice about Panorama is it has over 700 research-based strategies that we can implement to support a student in a variety of areas. So for example, if I was looking at this, I would um select my intervention type. I would identify the goal for that intervention and how often we're going to progress monitor that intervention. So think about it from like a goal for you know yourself. So um if my goal is to um eat healthier and I'm going to eat you know of this many servings of fruits and vegetables and this many servings of
050meat. I'm monitoring myself as I'm I'm setting that goal. But how am I going to make sure that I do it? Well, I'm going to take steps to fill my refrigerator with healthy food, take out all my unhealthy food. So, I have all these strategies that I'm doing. So, think about that. You know, when we're thinking about a student that may need an intervention in emotional regulation, um we can easily click on social emotional learning, specifically emotional regulation, and several strategies will come up for the teacher or the team to implement for that student. um to support growth in that that area. So this would just be a a visual of kind of what those strategies look like when you click on those on the screen. And then we would progress monitor the students. So
051like I said, what is their line their trend line going for? So if we want them to read more words per minute, what does that trend line look like as we're implementing that um intervention? So it tracks multiple data points. So this is an example of a second grade student whose goal was to improve their oral reading fluency. So you can see that we started this intervention back in October and this is where we are now. All of the dots are their data points and then the blue line can show their trend line as well based on what our goal was. Um, so overall the benefits are, you know, improved student outcomes, a holistic student support and efficiency for all of our teams and our educators um and in doing really good problem solving um
052and and not uh making sure that we're efficient in looking at our data and we're timely. So >> yeah, and I think the I'm going to add on to that and the efficiency here is uh a key thing that I think of when we look at uh students that are going from um second to third grade within a building. Communication is easy. Our teams are right there. We meet often. Um but there are times when um students that perhaps struggle uh move to the middle school. This is an anxious time for everyone, especially the student and the family. And what what is great about Panorama is that no longer will the middle school call. I mean, of course, they're always welcome to call, but ask, "Hey, you know, tell me a little bit about Johnny.
053Um, we're noticing that he's struggling. Can you share with us some of the interventions that they uh that you've put in place?" Now, Panorama has they can go back as far as the student has been serviced and see, you know, what interventions have been in place, what things have worked, what strategies have been put in place for that student. And that communication as they move throughout our school system is there for for elementary, for middle school, um, and eventually high school. So, as we move on, um these are the Yeah, these here are our pilot schools and Ann kind of mentioned this is where we are with regards to uh you know our um our pilot schools. This next year, we're going to involve a little bit more our teachers. We're going to start moving
054more towards phase three, but next year our remainder four schools will start where our pilot school started this year. So, uh, we will be adding on Williamsburg, Hartland, Fabian, and Western Avenue. Um, and they will start right here, right at phase one. Um, so the the benefit of these, uh, four schools that we're adding on, they will not experience the road bumps that we we had, you know, with the initial group that piloted. Um, because, as you can imagine, getting this data um onto Panorama so it could reflect exactly what we're looking for. Um it's there's a lot of trial and error and our pilot schools have kind of worked through that and got this to a point where it's it's ready for the next four schools. So I think um >> setting our cut
055scores, identifying our problem solving processes um those are all >> Yep. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um but like George said, our pilot schools I they took on the challenges. Um and they had obviously more challenges than I think next year's pilots will have. Looking, you know, determining our cut scores, looking at our problem solving processes, thinking through what kids do we bring to tier 2, what kids do we bring to tier three, what interventions are we using, how are we tracking our intervention plans? So, um we've worked out those kinks with those four schools. And I can't tell you how many times I've said to George, "Thank goodness we started small." Um because we really were able to move over in those phases and and um really have some crucial conversations around um what are we
056doing and um are we going to continue that? Are we going to change that and how are we going to make this best for all our students and our teachers? Um I do need to give a shout out to our technology department. we have worked hand in hand together to get this um it's been a heavy lift. So, thank you to technology. I can say that learning and teaching technology and student services, we have just been um collaborating and working together with our school teams and it's been I think a wonderful pilot and we're looking forward to next year um on boarding those four elementaryaries. Do you guys do you have any questions? I had a couple of questions. So, does this not apply to our high schoolers? It's just for elementary and middle schoolers.
057>> So, as I say, our high school and our preschool, they will be our next considerations. Um because yes, um it does apply to our high school. I think we just have other things we have to consider because their t their data points are very different, okay, >> than an elementary and a middle school data point. Obviously, we have grades, but um we're not doing the math at the high school, but we're doing ACT. So, I think there's just a and we have a lot of um SEAL. How are we capturing that? So, just some thinking. >> Okay. Yeah. And then um have we seen in the schools that have piloted this that we've seen that we've captured more students because we now have succinct data and we found like maybe there were some kids
058that we were missing that now that we see it in a different way and can view it all together that we're finding some of those kids and can help them out. >> I think I think that answer could be yes and no. I think that um I think we're >> Ann, may I >> I think that I I think it's hard to answer that question. I think we've always done a good job with our child find. I don't know that we've always thought through what the issue of the problem is and looking at the whole child. I also want to say that we want to make sure that we're basing our decisions around data, not so much feeling. And so our last thing that we want to do is pull a child out of tier
059one instruction when they may not need an intervention. So really or if they're at one school if they, you know, would if they move to the other school, would they get the same support? So having consistency across the board? >> You agree? >> I would add to that that instead of more or less, we're identifying the right students. >> Okay. Um, and that's kind of aligned to what Ann was saying in terms of looking at, you know, the the consistent identifiers across our district for all schools, >> right? And then each school is the same. >> Okay. >> And I think the other big piece of this that we get to is that tier one. So if you're noticing that, you know, several of your students are struggling in in a certain area, that's more
060a tier one issue, you have to go back to the the general ed setting and be like, what's going on here? Maybe we need to put supports in. Oh, for all of our students, >> right? >> Okay. And then one last question. So the interventions, who owns that? Like is that the teacher specifically and then they're the ones who follow up on it? And then what how do we loop parents in or what is their involvement? >> Yeah, sure. Um I I I would say that your answer is it depends. So tier 2 interventions can be begin in the classroom uh with the classroom teacher. Anytime we have a student that is receiving a tier 2 intervention, the classroom teacher certainly would call and uh keep the parent in the loop on you know what
061they are seeing and what they are trying in the classroom. As soon as we move to tier three, then we're moving to a more intensive uh intervention that can be a reading specialist. Um that could uh be delivered inside or outside the classroom at that point. Um to which at that point I think that specialist then would be communicating with the parent. Um we always say your child will not reach tier three and the parent should you know will be surprised at that point you know. So there's always communication to and from but it depends on depends on the level of the intervention. It depends on the intensity of the intervention. Um the intervention can be a school psychologist, it could be a social worker, it can be a counselor. All dependent on what it
062needs. So I guess it depends whoever is is leading it in uh the intervention. What does Panorama call it? It's the the champion, right? >> they call it the champion of the intervention. So as soon as we identify a champion of that intervention, they they would essentially take the lead in communicating. >> And I think you also had a question about just general ed teachers um and their access to this. So we are on boarding our gened teachers um for those pilot schools starting in April. So we just started with our core group so they could work out the kinks. Now, we're going to put it this in the hands of our GenEd teachers so that they can look at this. Now, they've seen it up on a screen as they're doing problem solving meetings,
063but they haven't had it at their fingertips to really manipulate that data on their own yet. Um, just we're that's why we're still kind of in phase one or phase two for some of those areas. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you. Yeah, >> thank you for the presentation. Very interesting how this all came together. Uh, one of the things that caught my eye is that you have access to 700 plus research backed strategies. Is there any way that you're for the pilots you're limiting or you're coming up with your own list of maybe some ones that are that maybe we should try first before we look at these other ones or I'm just curious how you're going through all those. >> Um, well that is a goal um to create our own district list
064that are kind of our top strategies. That is not where we're at now. Um we actually just started dabbling in those strategies within our last coaching visit which was maybe January. Um but again we can also create district intervention banks so we can fill those in as well. Yep. Dr. Hubs. >> Yeah. Just small question. So I I think you introduced it in another meeting but it's fascinating u what you have going here. So does this or maybe I should frame it differently. Is there anything on the horizon that this might be um applicable to generative AI? I mean in terms of your decision decision decision making I'm sorry. Um is that something that it may have capability three years from now for I don't know. I'm just >> Yes. I mean, I'm part of
065the Panorama newsletters and user groups and I know that AI is a topic in that and I think that they're probably interfacing with some AI to get some of our strategies through the system. >> Yeah. Because generative AI which is not just your generic AI would help you will help a lot of us actually with that problem solving time saving but not necessarily making decisions for you as an educator. >> Correct. One other thing is I I can say this manifestly much different from punishment and reward. I can see that these interventions seem to have a lot more as you say holistic. It's not a binary uh proposition. So that's very good. >> Thank you for this presentation. >> Yeah, just a couple questions because it's the first time I've heard of Panorama. Um so
066just I'm trying to still get my head around this. This is a system that will incorporate the data for all students in in elementary and at for right now middle school, but it'll be used primarily to focus on students who need extra support that may be struggling. Is that am I am I understanding this correctly? >> Yes. Yes. That is absolutely a simple >> I'm still at the simple stage. Okay. >> Yes. >> All right. So a couple questions then with this, you have these dashboards. Yeah. >> That you showed and could be used. >> Will they be shared with the parents to help them understand where their child may be struggling or what you think may be um a primary driver of of a problem or something like this? I mean is this a
067is this a tool that's going to be used not only internally but also externally with the parents and and discussing this and moving forward? >> Yes. So all of this data is shared with the parents now but they get multiple reports. Yeah. >> So they'll get like their map report their IR like this. So this will be able to if the parent wishes they can see like a whole print out of their whole child and identify it. It's really pretty cool. I can't pull it up because it has student identifying information. But if you click on a student name, it'll show everything related to that child. So, um, you know, their IEP status, their 504 status, their ELLL status, their grade level, um, their progress in math, their progress in reading. It'll show their attendance
068by day for the entire school year. Um, and you can look and be like, well, why are they missing every Friday or what's going on on Wednesdays? Because they seem to miss Wednesdays. What What don't they like in their day? Um, so it's very helpful. >> Okay, I'm going to switch my question a little bit. >> I would add to that probably you can also print out reports that show how they're, you know, progressing towards, you know, the goals that have been set and the interventions that have been put in place. So they can see their child's progress over time as well. >> So now going to switch my thought process a little bit. I see he's not here. It uh is this a set on the existing SIS system? Ah he's there he is
069standing in the corner. Okay. Is this a set is this easily set on? I mean it since we were able to use it or is this a a significant roll out with the current SIS and then if that's the case a significant roll out since we're switching SIS's in a year and a half is is does it make sense to do it now or wait till we have the second SIS system and so you don't have to go through this all twice. We've talked about these same We've asked ourselves these same questions. >> I I assume you have. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Um we And Mike has a microphone. I'll let him >> pick it up. >> Oh, we're doing a >> No, Mike sitting right next to Tammy is a handheld. >> Oh, okay.
070>> Okay. Uh so, no, absolutely. the uh the work to do the integration. Um it's really about getting the data in the format that that platform requires like we would with any third party tool. Um this would not be the only platform that we're going to have to really kind of reshape a lot of the integrations we have. So uh does this add any more significant work on top of uh what we'd be doing for any other third party? I would say no. Um so it's you know it doesn't matter if we're doing it now or down the road. >> Okay. I'll have more questions on the SIS later for you. >> And that is a you know we had to think about too like roll out um in PD and thinking about like well
071when we're looking at an SIS system all of the everyone across the district is going to have to be thinking learning about that new SIS system not this coming school year but the next. So what makes sense in roll out so that everyone isn't uh we don't have competing interest with our new initiatives. Yeah. >> I just wanted to ask one quick question. Um I know for time sake but first of all thank you. I think this is very interesting to learn about. I was just curious just off, you know, off the top of your head, have you heard comments from the core teams, um, positive feedback, any negative or, you know, areas that it's frustrating or that they're not, you know, not working well. I'm just curious what the on the ground feedback is.
072Yeah, I think um the great thing about the feedback that it's elicited some great conversations about practices, you know, districtwide in the students that were identified, how we are identifying students across the district. Um we knew uh at the beginning, you know, those road bumps were real. you know, the data that we were looking at was not really matching with what we the data that was, you know, on Panorama was not really matching with what we um were looking at. So, lots of tweaks along the way with our tech department, but once all of those got ironed out and, you know, our assistant principles and school psychologists and reading specialists and principles around the district were able to select and click and view. Um I mean it's been very positive feedback and um they this
073last uh winter data meetings they had this just kind of playing in the background um kind of bouncing between the two and they found that I would say that they they use this as as a guide um and I think that's exactly what we want um and what we hope that our teachers uh and and teams are using it for. So, so far positive positive feedback. >> Any other questions? >> I just have one more I guess follow up on what on on um on what Paul a question that he had, but also um I thanks for the presentation. I um love the idea of uh kind of a singular place where all the data that we have from all these different sources comes into one place where it's easy to to not only capture
074but also to to um make decisions based on the data that we we get in. So that's great. Um I guess two questions. Number one is on the integration or the plans or um and a lot of it might be new to a lot of the parents. So, following up on Paul's questions, do the plans then get rolled out for the parents and and are there options maybe for the parents to if they're um for the parents to or to go through with the educator or is it here's what we think that we should do for your student kind of how does how does the roll out of the intervention? >> The interventions include the parent the parents are part of the team. So um you know the panorama does in my opinion does a
075couple things. Number one it identifies the students that we are uh looking to support. Um and second is that that uh uh intervention uh piece that comes after that. So once we identify the students create the intervention all of this information can be shared with with parents. Here's how we here's how we identified um where the support is needed. here are some goals and interventions that we have in place and over time as we you know Ann shared the trend line we start collecting those data points that are also shared with with parents. Um so when we meet with parents and we try to meet with them you know uh at least you know once a year oftentimes more than that um where we could present you know um how their child was doing and
076not only just tell them but show them. >> Nice. Okay. Good. And then so my second question is since this is a pilot uh is I'm guessing there's a time frame for the pilot to to happen and then after the pilot's a decision on are we continue with this or are we going to not? So what is that timeline like look like? Yeah, I think it's it's it's now we're moving to the second stage with our our uh first four schools and we're going to start our our next uh schools uh next school year or this April I guess. Um and so I think we're moving on full implementation after that. So >> Okay. So the pilot for the first four schools that that we had in here was is over then now we're moving
077into full and then pilot again for the next four. >> Right. and and the pilot for the first four, the work still isn't done. They're still going to have coaching and PD around that to get fully over to that that third stage of implementation. Another thing that um is very important is we have a trainer coach that comes and works directly with our teams. Um her name is Marissa and she helps teams think through this data. So yeah, it's really interesting. You know, um your attendance may be low for this grade level. What does that tell you? What are some things we could do? Is it having an impact on student learning? What does the overall So it's not just like at that individual level, but really thinking from a a building level all the
078way to a grade level of how we can make better outcomes for groups of kids. Um so obviously the in individual level right is is the most intricate level but the big picture piece of this is huge as well to being able to identify like what do we need to work on as a district as a building by a grade level. Um >> that's great. I didn't realize there was a coach or or Yeah. >> Yeah. We have a coach and she her name is Marissa. I'll give her a shout out. um she was a principal and so she has a really good insight on just working through MTSS systems and >> probably seen data from other school districts as well that that helps to good great thank you. >> Sure. Yeah, she's been great.
079>> Anybody else? Thank you very much for that substantial presentation. I sincerely hope that it lives up to its early promise. We're very excited to show you the data as we go on and uh keep you up to date. So, thank you for taking the time. I know it's a long board meeting. >> Thank you. >> But at least it stayed light out for an extra hour, even if we're all rubbing our eyes. >> All right, the next item is public comment. And we actually do have public content. Mr. Brian Maher is here to discuss the TIFF, I believe. Good evening everyone. Um, it's really something to see uh those students that were here and to realize that Geneva is still putting out wonderful students just as they did with our daughter back in the
080day. So, uh, that that that was really nice to see. I'm glad we were here for that. Um so so thank you for this opportunity to speak to you. Um in the packet that my daughter has handed out uh there's an article referring uh district 202's actions against Sugar Grove and the Crown Tiff development which I'm sure you're all familiar with. Uh there's also other supporting documentation in there as well. uh tiff 4 in Geneva uh has many of the same discrepancies as well as other issues as this crown development does. Um foyer requests indicate no records exist pertaining to results uh cited in the studies just as in the crown development and and as you'll see in that attorney's letter. Uh many times it appears that SB Freriedman is the common denominator in these
081uh developments that the developments not just these two actually more uh statewide quite frankly. Um it's my opinion and this is shared by many including legislators that I've spoken with that they work backwards from the preferred result which is a finding of blight. Uh there there's no evidence that this area is blighted uh in the sense of what the act is meant to improve. There's no flooding on this land that has been farmed continuously for over a hundred years. uh understand that the methodology that they used in TIFF 4 could be applied to any farmland in the county. Until this I'm going to use this word made me I I thought twice about it, but until this grift is called out, uh I guess I really can't blame a developer for taking advantage of the
082statute is written. Unfortunately, they're also taking advantage of every taxpaying citizen. Now, here's an example. of uh one parcel out of five showing the result of TIFF 4. It's 40 acres and has an EAV of $10,000. Currently, if we look at only the 23-year lifespan of a TIFF, which of course could be renewed to 47, you have uh your 70% of the A EAV that the district 304 gets would be $7,000 times the 23 years is $161,000 over that lifespan. A cursory re review shows that buildings of this size uh planned for this tiff generally bring in two to four times that in a single year which would be your 70% piece of that. Instead of collecting these increased revenues annually, you'll be forced possibly to raise the taxpayers's contribution to meet your future needs
083in this interim period until the 23 to 47 years plays out. Uh in 2018, an 80 acre parcel in this MIF development was bought for $41,000 an acre. Uh this is a $3.3 million investment for one of the parcels and it seems to run counter to me of the but for requirement of a tiff. Uh would they have invested three million over $3 million unless they knew what the results were going to be in advance about this tiff? Uh and this is true for each of these parcels in this 280 acre development. If we consider the three previous tiffs that the city of Geneva has used, they're dwarfed by this $185 million investment. And that's the projected value of TIFF for that's not counting uh potential uh uh uh interest cost, which you can't lock
084in because this is a payo system that they're using for this. Uh school districts have the most to lose with any tiff district. It is the school district's uh the rate that will fund the tiff district and pay for the budgeted improvements. It is incumbent on school districts to conduct careful independent due diligence evaluating these proposals for the establishment of a tiff district. Districts need to examine the factors that the municipality is relying on for eligibility. Uh take a careful look at the tiff map. ensured that all taxing diffs have been included in the JRB. Uh tiff districts can last for up to 47 years as I had mentioned that's a long time to live with an incentive that perhaps has not met statutory requirements or was not necessary to incentivize development. Uh, the developer,
085previously known as MIF, Midwest Industrial Funds, has already proved they're not responsive to the community by destroying a portion of presettlement oak grove and a presettlement oak grove uh, with trees hundreds of years old. Uh it would be wonderful if District 304 followed their fudiciary duties to the taxpayers and took the effort to examine this huge potential impact of these questionable activities relating to the TIFF as your peers in district 3 or 302 are doing. And I ask that this be put on the agenda for your next meeting for discussion. The taxpayers in the district deserve your attention to this matter and I Thank you very much for that interesting comment. Any other public comment? U Jackie, uh not much legislative activity. >> Yeah, I don't have much of a report tonight. I know we're
086got a long meeting, so I'll just keep it brief. We've had there's action had going on in the Illinois General Assembly, but not a lot of motion on some of these bills. I talked to a couple legislators in the last couple weeks and had said the same thing. So, nothing really to update you on tonight. >> Thank you very much. Superintendent report is next. >> Thanks, Larry. Yeah, a few things to to highlight. Um, again, uh, I know we've got a long meeting tonight, but some important things to to chat about here. And one, I just want to it's like the first topic here is just a little bit of a preview that we'll have time to discuss in greater detail at a future meeting. Um but we've been talking about this and preparing for
087this a lot. So I wanted to get do a little I guess foreshadowing um you know for the board and the community on this. So, uh, you know, as you know, we started the year with our our demographic study, um, and have been working through this facility capacity analysis because we want to, you know, look at both of those two things together, um, as we were looking at our strategic plan and that, you know, first goal of, you know, processing through our enrollment and right sizing our district and everything like that. So, you know, we've gotten a preliminary look at the facility capac capacity analysis and today I just want to talk a little bit about the process um both for um you know for gathering data and then the big ideas uh both about
088the process and about um kind of preliminary understanding of some of the findings that we got there. So the first thing to note is that um obviously figuring out what the cap capacity for all these facilities are in our district. Um there's a lot of variables, a lot of nuances and a lot of interesting assumptions we have to make. Right? This isn't as easy as just uh you know doing a simple calculation and saying this is how many kids we can fit. Um so there's there's not necessarily one right answer in any of this. There's a lot of analysis and thinking that has to go on. So, you know, given that, these are kind of the big questions that we want to be thinking about when we're looking at uh, you know, the results from
089this analysis and when we're thinking about what we want to know here. You you've heard us use these terms before. Uh, we need a system that is reasonable, equitable, and sustainable. Um, we've talked about that when we're looking at our class sizes in the district and when we're looking at our enrollment and um, all of that across the district. That's the criteria that we're building this on. So, one of the key questions here is how close are our learning spaces to achieving our district class size targets? So, I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. Um, what is a reasonable expectation for maximizing our scheduling efficiency? Um, and how can we ensure consistent and equitable experiences, uh, you know, for kids all across our district. So, those are kind of the big
090ideas we're trying to get at here. So in terms of the process uh you know we worked with our architect all of our administrators were involved and helping share data. We got all this data about enrollment, identified uh went room, went through room by room how each space in our district is currently used. Um to you know looked at our schedule, did all of this and generated a whole lot of data which really gave us then the opportunity with the help of our our architects three different calculation models. uh the maximum operational capacity which is basically saying what is our capacity based on how we think it would be best to use our buildings how we're using our buildings right now the designed operational capacity uh which would be what were our buildings designed um
091to hold and as you've heard me share before uh many of our actually all of our buildings we use them very differently than when they were designed right we have a lot more unique supports like you heard about Ann and George talking about. We have a lot more unique programming um that you've heard about. We have uh we have our friends from Gelp here, right? We have full day kindergarten, all sorts of things we didn't have before. Um so that designed operational capacity uh you know that's what that calculation would be. And then there's the the state ISBE capacity which would just say they say what's your square footage, here's how many kids you can hold. Uh so obviously this is where we're trying to get that nuanced lens and look at what's our maximum
092operational capacity. So there's a a few key figures that we want to start looking at when we do that. The first is what is our number of learning spaces? And then what is the number of students in our learning spaces? And as we start to look at that, um, you know, one of the pieces of data that we're trying to look at, and you all have heard us talk about this over the year, um, over the last year and a half, what are our ideal class size targets at all of our grades across the district, right? So, when we're looking at these, uh, two numbers, the number of our learning spaces and the number of students in our learning spaces, we're using these numbers over in exhibit A to help us start thinking about that,
093if that makes sense. Right. So, if we're looking at a kindergarten classroom, we're looking at, okay, how many kids could all of our kindergarten classrooms hold if we had 21 kids in each of those kindergarten classes, right? How many how many kids could our eighth grade classrooms hold if we had 24 kids in each of those classes, etc. Right? Um, so that is an idea of how we're starting to look at that data. Now, here's what's important. This next bullet point, our maximum operational capacity assumes 100% efficiency in achieving all of those class-siz learning targets in all learning spaces. Now, that's impossible, right? There's no way a school district could ever ensure that every kindergarten classroom is going to have exactly this many kids, for example, right? Does that make sense? Um, and it's also
094undesirable because even though uh, you know, these are some targets that we've set and we've worked together with our teachers to to figure those out and everything, um, it is inevitable that some things aren't going to match that, right? You you're going to have, for example, calculus BC with the size of our enrollment, you're not going to have 25 kids to enroll in that class, for example, right? Um, so not only is it impossible, it's also undesirable because some classes, you know, you're not going to put more kids in ceramics than you really have the the space for, for example, right? So, it is important to note that, but nonetheless, the data really provides foundation for us to start asking about those key questions. So, you know, given that what are the big ideas that
095we kind of have so far? The first uh that is great. We have sustainable room for growth consistent with the needs outlined in our demographic study. So we've talked about our demographic study. We've seen that there's going to be a little dip in our enrollment and then um you know presuming no significant uh demographic changes in the community. Um you know an increase a little bit. Uh and we have cap we have capacity uh to sustain that. Um, two, uh, we have the opportunity to m maintain our reasonable class sizes across the district. So, I think that's really great news, too. Um, and then three, there is room for improved efficiency and consistency across our elementary buildings, right? Um, I don't think that's a surprise. It's something we've talked about as we've been talking about
096our demographic study for the last year and a half, but um there is room for some of that uh improved efficiency and consistency across our elementary buildings. So that's like the foreshadowing for now. We'll we'll be coming back, you know, to share kind of more information and more data with you, but I wanted to get you thinking about those big ideas a little bit. your first idea, your uh the sustainable room for growth consistent with the needs in our I'm still I'm a little bit struggling with that comment because >> the the demographic study today doesn't show a need for growth. Correct. So are you talking about functional growth, not student uh growth in terms of number of students in >> Yeah, great question. So I'm talking about both those things. One is functional growth
097in terms of um that's not a term I would have used but that's a good one. Yeah. Uh you know as our pro >> Yeah. Thanks. Hang on. Functional growth Paul. Uh you know our programs are going to continue to evolve that way. Right. So we um we know we have more you know special education courses and programs than we've had before. that's likely to continue to evolve, right? So, we've got an opportunity to um do that successfully and without needing to worry, I guess, is the point. Because I think one of the things that could have happened or that could happen in a district that does does something like this, you could say we're kind of tapped out. We're kind of tapped out. And so, I think the the meta message here is we're
098not tapped out, you know, we're we're okay. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. I I just didn't want to send the wrong message that we're expecting significant growth. >> No. Correct. >> The number of students over the next 10 or seven years. >> Yeah. >> You know, if if something happens out west, sure. >> Correct. >> But it's more functionality. >> Yes. And when we, you know, again, when we come back, we'll share some of that demographic study data again. >> Good. Okay. Next, uh I just wanted to talk a little bit about the Fox Valley Career Center. Um, I had an opportunity to to sit at the um advisory board for the career center uh this last week and I just thought it would be appropriate to take a minute to talk about it.
099Um, given you know uh that this is some amazing programming for our kids um and given that um this is so well aligned with our strategic plan, right? you know, we're looking at career career and college pathways. Um, and we're talking about evaluating the exposure that we're giving kids, what kind of programming we have. Um, and what happens for our kids at the Fox Valley Career Center, um, is re really awesome. Um, so as there, you know, we have courses over there. There's welding, there's fire science, there's healthc care courses, there's law enforcement, there's electrical, there's automotive. And um these are programs many of which um like you know none of the districts in this cooperative could could hold on their own right um but because we get together and partner with them we can
100offer some of these opportunities for kids. So, as we're looking at next year and as the staff over there is looking at next year that as is usual there's strong early interest. Many kids across uh you know um the whole area are interested and of course uh there's also limited capacity right um you can only accommodate so many kids in a welding program. Um, so there's that limited capacity and there's also limited opportunity for kids because I think as you've heard us talk about before, um, while it's a great resource also, um, getting out and back can have implications for a kid's schedule. So, um, that strong early in interest sometimes wanes as kids have to look at their schedule and see what they can really prioritize. Um, but they're there there's that strong interest.
101the career center staff um is working to uh get kids um you know look at what their schedule will look like next year and also look for staffing. As you can imagine, some of these roles there are very very difficult to fill. Um the they're currently looking for a new teacher for fire science and um I think Mr. Burchil's been standing with a sandwich board out on Canville Road looking you know he he's trying to find somebody to to take over for that. So it is hard to fill some of these roles. Um, and then last, I just want to thank uh Rick. He's leaving. He's retiring. He's done a great job running that program. And there's a new director coming in, um, Bob Gossich. And, uh, met him this last week. And I think,
102uh, he's excited to pick up where, you know, Rick has taken it to a great place and and really propel things even further. So, good stuff happening there. >> Yeah. Sorry for another comment. >> That's okay. But if you go back to that last sorry your third bullet >> u strong interest limited capacity and you this is nothing new. >> No correct >> the waning a lot of people were interested. No I I wasn't didn't realize about the limited capacity but it's the issue of of how to organize it and how to get the kids there students there and and and back. We can't be the only school that's having district that's having this problem. The other people that are So, if we don't do something different, >> five years from now, we're going to
103be sitting here saying the exact same thing. >> Correct. >> And there are going to be kids that sorry, students that would have really liked to have gone into some of the trade or other opportunities here that are not going to get to. So I think I think somehow we need to put some focus on this um in in the district because this is not new. This has been around for a long this problem's been around for a long time. Correct. And we haven't cracked that yet. No. And we need to >> Yeah. And that's why we're talking about it here today. So and that's why it's part of our plan. I mean I think one of the things that um you know to your point what we can start to look at is what
104is that where is the interest from Geneva, right? So what is where is the interest from here? Um and what can we do to address that? We can't necessarily control what happens, you know, across the whole region. But we can at least look at what some of that interest is here and then look at what's um I guess I would say reasonable and sustainable. Again, you know, go back to use those other terms. um you know it's as an example it's unlikely we would be able to ever build our own welding you know opportunity as an example but where are some high leverage places that maybe we could crack this in a different way that's what we should be thinking >> I just would like to know if other schools have >> and and can
105we learn from that >> yep good question okay uh then uh just two more quick things one I just wanted to because it's this is our only meeting in a month um and we won't be meeting again uh you know until after spring break. A lot of uh big things have been happening right we had a big professional countywide professional development day recently. Um winter activities are wrapping up across the district and you know spring activities are beginning. Um you know we're seeing students uh get engaged in a wide variety of activities. You know you've got concerts, you've got a career day at the middle school. There was a world immersion day at the high school. There was um a career cafe at the high school. You've got kids giving their winter performances. I mean,
106all these things are happening um that really highlight I think what we saw earlier. We've talked about this before, but we saw kids recognized today um in completely different, you know, areas, right? Geneva's got opportunities for kids to do a lot of cool different things that meet their interest and that's pretty awesome. Um, and then last, you know, our big standardized testing time is beginning, right? So, at the elementary level this week, actually, the Illinois Assessment for Readiness is beginning. Um, and at the high school, uh, you've heard us talk about before that we shifted from SAT to ACT this year and the ACT suite for the high school students will beginning will be beginning in April. So, thought it was important for you to be aware of that. Um, and then last, as I'm
107thinking about all that, just kind of a big thank you to to our teachers and and all of our educators in the district, right? Looking back at board meetings over this year, you know, we're seeing great growth in student achievement. We're seeing all these strong programs and offerings. We're seeing uh all these cool things kids get to do. We're seeing kids develop, you know, skills that they're going to need for life and building strong relationships and feeling connected. And that's because our teachers are awesome and they're empowered to do their jobs, right? Um, and they're empowered to do all these things for kids. And I just thought we should acknowledge that. So that's all, Larry. >> Thank you, Andy. I certainly couldn't agree more. The next item, board dialogue topics and pending action consideration. Item
108one, the 2526 finance committee calendar draft. And this calendar has been reviewed by the finance committee and the district administrators and uh approval is recommended. If you have any questions, we can look at that now, but otherwise we've seen this before. >> So I'm looking for a motion to approve. >> So moved. Second. I >> I >> Thank you. Item two is the 2526 preliminary resource adoption policy and it's contained in the packet is in information about assistant superintendent Sims regarding textbooks and instructional materials being proposed for adoption. Approval is also recommended. Any questions or discussion? Motion to approve. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Tammy. I >> I >> Thank you. Item eight, work study topics and future action consideration. Student information system recommendation. Mike Wilks will share information about a recommendation to purchase
109Synergy student information system from Edgypoint. This will be brought back at the next meeting for possible approval. I wondered why you were showing that out of board book. Sorry about that. All good. All right, thank you for your time this evening. Um, we have with us the presenting the uh recommendation for a new student information system are several folks from our review teams here. Uh I'll have them introduce themselves uh when they go through their their slide areas here. But um one thing to to talk about this evening is ultimately how we reached our recommendation. What timeline was this process uh did this process take? Uh how do we get to where we are? What were some of the drivers for considering this change? Ultimately looking at what the recommendation is and then talking about
110the benefits we anticipate to gain by making this change. So, that's the structure for tonight's conversation on the student information system. Uh, I want to be sure to recognize all of the folks who have had a part in this process over the past two school years. Uh, it started last school year. We'll talk about that in just a minute here with our team on the left hand side, our core team. Uh these are K12 representative folks who uh are administrators, support staff, technology staff members um who really took the time to dig into this big question of whether or not we should be thinking about a change. And then this school year, we broadened our scope and we brought on additional staff members from around the district to help us take a look at some
111focused areas uh within the SIS system to really make sure that when we're considering this change because ultimately this is a system that impacts virtually everyone in the school district that we're capturing the right feedback to make sure that we're getting a system that's going to help to meet our needs. And I want to thank all of these folks who have who have done the work uh committed to the process, given us thoughtful feedback along the way. Uh they give me confidence that we are making a good recommendation for district 304. So here is the timeline for this decision. Ultimately, uh it started uh ultimately last school year uh where we conducted an RFI, a request for information, and we uh sent that out to four of the major SIS providers that we know are
112in this area, the Chicagoland area, have a good presence here. We know that there are many, uh districts who are using these tools. Uh and we also know that um those customers who were formerly ESchool Plus, they've gone to these tools over the years. Um through that RFI process, the core team members of which uh we have folks here today uh to talk with you about this this recommendation um they considered two primary questions. Number one, after seeing all the information that came back from those products, looking at demos from those products, did we see a compell compelling information to consider a change in our current SIS system? And if we did then to identify two finalists that we would then have come back this school year and have go through a a more thorough
113and in-depth process with the broader team. Um resoundingly uh that team ultimately said yes we saw enough to say there's a reason to consider a change and the two finalists that we had uh really stood out from the other two. So two finalists were uh very good solutions um good customer bases and uh and and and lots of functionality to to take a look at. So in 2425 we sought volunteers uh earlier this year uh among our school community um to find out who wanted to be part of the process. That's how we wound up with the the list you saw earlier. um we developed an RFP uh and sent that to the finalists to ultimately um submit proposals that describe how their solution is going to meet our our needs. Um we had the
114vendors come on site for multiple days of of presentations and demonstrations. We had our core team members attend all of the the whole time. So basically four days of demonstration between the two two vendors and then our review teams came in for their portions. So if the topic was on attendance uh the attendance team came in or if it was on scheduling the scheduling team came in. Uh so we made sure that we had um basically a a comprehensive view along the way. Uh we conducted customer reference calls. We reached out to districts who were using both of the products. talked with them about how they were using it, what they liked about it, what were some of their challenges. Um, many of the customers uh were ehchool customers. The e school is our current
115SIS system uh that we've had in the district since uh really its first, you know, live year was 2007208. Uh we did technical reviews. We had conversations about uh how their their uh technical infrastructure worked and how we would be able to interact with that to complete uh things like data integrations, get insight into the information the way we need to. And uh you know, both vendors were really uh good and responsive with when it came to all of the feedback questions we had. I really uh do give both of those vendors uh full credit. They were um professional in every way throughout the process, patient with our process, and uh responsive to our requests. So, I want to thank them for for that. Uh lastly, we landed on the product evaluation. After we had
116a chance to make sure that our team felt like they had the information they needed to make a recommendation, uh we then worked to uh ultimately develop the recommendation you're going to see here tonight. If we do move forward, um then next school year would be a data conversion migration year. A lot of uh training on the product um primarily by support staff, administration, those who do scheduling, attendance, the kind of the setup if you will of the SIS system. We'll make sure it's configured and ready for that 2627 school year. uh by and large um the largest group of of our users for the SIS system in terms of uh staff goes our teachers uh they'll p primarily be introduced to the new SIS system likely at the the start of that 26 27
117school year to make sure that they're working with the current classes and students and set up the way that they need to and so that the training is fresh for them to go into that school year. So that's what the timeline has looked like or and could look like here going forward. And with this, I'll turn this over to Mr. Blue. >> All right. So I was here when we first adopted eh school back in 2006. Uh so I was part of the the group that helped implement. And so when Mike called and said, "We want to review whether or not we need to make a change. Will you be a part of this?" And I said, "Yes, because that way I could derail the change because I'm an old dog and I've spent like
11818, 19 years invested in this old program." And you know, guys like Doug and I finally got good at it after a while. So like, no, I don't want change. I will come derail things. Uh, but then he he kind of talked me into it because uh uh eh school got bought out by Power School, I don't know, like maybe eight 10 years ago, something like that. and we thought we'd see some change in what eh school look like and some more development and we haven't really seen that and then Mike uh shared with us that well they're only committed to eh school till 2030 like power school is so this change whether we make it because we want it might just come because they want want it right so and I always like to
119be in the driver's seat of change uh so uh if it's going to happen to me I'm going to help be a part of it so I of course join Mike and And I can't wait for the meal he's going to feed me after this late night. Um, now being 06, it was great times back then. We were so impressed with each school about how parents would be able to log in to this thing called the internet uh and they would be able to see live grades of the kids. and we were uh I remember being on my Blackberry and having the calendar invite come up for this because as you might know the iPhone wasn't invented till 2007 and here's the thing not much has changed in e school since then I mean like
120there is not great parent interface that occurs with all the modern technology we have you know I mean again resistant to change I don't think I got an iPhone till iPhone 5 but like you know like other people were like, "Come on, let's use this thing. Let's use our devices more." And we haven't seen that out of uh eh school. So, when we started to see these vendors that Mike brought in, I think a lot of us were like, "Oh, wow. Okay, you don't know what you you're missing until somebody shows up to the party and tells you, right?" Uh so, that's a big thing is the the our challenges of today is there's just more expected of us out of a system like this. And some of the uh things that uh some of
121the things that Mike has to work on in the background, the integration and Kathy and the folks in the tech have to do like your question about how does Panorama integrate with this. Some things are easy uh for all systems, but like eh school has been hard in a lot of different ways for our tech to integrate our other programs. So, uh these more modern programs that we looked at were really things that were going to help us move along. Um, finally, you know, again, back in ' 06, we were so excited because a lot of folks were also adopting ES school and so we had a nice little user group. I knew people Mike's uh old predecess, you know, uh, prior Mike uh, new people. Uh, we had a network. We could call people.
122My mom was a dean secretary. She would literally call my secretaries and be like, "Hey, it's Patty. I need to talk to you about and they're like, "Oh, Terry's here. We'll give." No, no, no. I want to talk eh and they would talk because there were enough people using it and slowly everybody's kind of moving away. And so if if we don't make change, we're going to be the ones who are like, "Nobody's calling. Uh, and you know, I like it when nobody rings my phone normally, but uh, in this case, we don't have anybody call for help either." So, we got to got to get with the rest of the area and kind of make some change for that reason, too. Doug. >> All right. Good evening. Uh Doug Drexler representing the high school
123this evening. Uh so we've actually been providing feedback on eh school for several years uh to Mike uh because of its limitations. Um you know, one of the things that really hit home to me, we've been hiring people, teachers, counselors from other schools that are coming in with experience using some of the other tools besides eh school. And for them it's like coming in and hitting a brick wall. Uh eh school is not terribly user friendly. Uh there's a lot of information in it but it requires some knowledge about how to get to certain information. Uh and when you saw the slide from Panorama earlier today that is the exact opposite of the system we're currently using. So there's a lot of clicking a lot of navigating to different portions uh of the program. Uh,
124as Terry alluded to, that the focus seems to be with eShool, they're on a maintenance plan, right? They're not on an innovation plan. Uh, and it's it's logical to think that they are eventually going to be sunsetting uh, this program. So, as a parent in the district myself, uh, I see what I have access to as a parent uh, in e school, and it's great for a 2007 standard. Um but seeing the opportunities that are available for communication to parents in the newer products uh infinitely better uh than the kind of communication we're able to do with uh e- school. There's a variety of other features as well uh in the the newer products specifically with uh health information tracking uh and other information about our students. Uh but ultimately this last bullet point I
125think really sums it up. our needs have evolved at a faster pace than this than e school has. So if we continue on the current path, we're just going to become more and more divergent from what we have and what our needs are. Um the analogy I would make, it's kind of like a used car, right? We're driving the 2007 eschool car. Um, and it runs, it gets us to point from point A to point B, but it lacks all of the features that have been developed in automobiles in the last two decades. Uh, and we've heard from the mechanics that they're maybe going to stop making parts very soon. Uh, so I think, you know, having driven a few cars to the end of their lifespan, you kind of know when it's time uh
126to start shopping for a new vehicle. And that's kind of where we are with student information systems. Uh so this next slide uh is kind of uh piggybacking on the last slide. The last slide was areas of feedback we hear. This is kind of the opposite. Areas of greatest need that we want our new program uh to solve for us. Really give us some space to grow and innovate within uh this technology and communicate both internally with our staff and faculty but also externally uh with parents. Um, and we want teachers and counselors to have easy access to information that helps them make better decisions. So these newer solutions kind of flatten the curve of getting information about students in order to make decisions and that's very powerful. So ultimately it's going to make us
127a more efficient and effective organization uh for the benefit of our students. And at this point I will turn things over to Mike. All right. So this is the uh the recommendation. Ultimately the solution that came out on top in terms of uh the evaluation process was product called synergy uh SIS and it's from a company called EDUPoint. um this solution ultimately uh when it comes to our highest weighted criteria some of the points that uh Doug was referencing earlier uh this product one or tied to thirds of those uh areas uh when it came to looking at holistically functional u capabilities things like the comprehensiveness of a solution how well it scales uh what functionality it offers to attendance and behavior and scheduling and uh grade reporting and such. Um ultimately, Synergy won 72%
128of those areas uh when our uh review team rated this. Um and the areas that it won in are notable. These are things like scheduling uh and course management, grade reporting, teacher and family functions. And these are ultimately the bread and butter of SIS system. This is what makes uh the system valuable at the end of the day. Uh it's what we need. Um and when we asked our team to uh ultimately decide, you know, if you had to pick A or B, which solution would you pick and recommend? Um ultimately 71% of our team uh said they would recommend um synergy. And so uh this data seems clear to me that uh ultimately this is the direction that makes sense from our our team perspective, our district perspective because it's uh it's addressing the
129areas that we believe we need to address. When it comes to the finances of the solution, uh this is what the estimated costs are over five years. Um and just keep in mind right now we're using average numbers. Um there are detailed items that we will um be able to break out in more in more depth here uh in the April uh board meeting here. But ultimately I just use averages for this slide and this captures the the costs over the five-year period. Basically year one is that 2526 school year. This is the year of implementation. So the costs associated with year one in this in this solution are those associated with the professional services training the work that needs to happen to get us from our current SIS system to this solution. Um years
130two through five, these are the annual ongoing expenses of the solution. And you can see I broke those down to um show you what the annual software uh subscription costs would look like and also what the uh annual hardware or infrastructure costs would be. Uh the recommendation would be to um have Edgupoint ultimately host the infrastructure for the district. Um in total this five-year cost is just about $540,000. Um, and when you compare that to what our current solution cost is, that cost is roughly $65,000 a year. Uh, so that's $315,000 in software subscription licenses and support. Uh, the note here is just that we host that infrastructure locally. So, um, it runs on our local data centers. So the data center cost or the infrastructure related costs that kind of hard to break out.
131Those are more capital expenditures. We're doing that uh every six, seven years as we refresh our data centers. Um so uh you know it's obviously going to it costs more than $315,000 to run the >> Do you have any idea what that number is that the infrastructure cost for for the current system? Yeah, I well to do our last refresh back in 2223, uh the total for the data center refresh was $400,000 or thereabouts. Um the SIS system is probably the largest portion of like the storage needs and such of what we host on our our local data centers. It's definitely the biggest system we host. >> So it could be that just continuing the existing system would cost more than bringing in a the newer system >> possibly. Yep. was uh was cost part
132of the evaluation rubric and so how did synergy fall into that? I'm not looking to y the lowest cost or anything like that, but more more value, but I was just more curious on how they fell into. >> Yeah, absolutely. Um price was definitely one of the uh factors. In fact, it was the highest weighted factor uh in our criteria. And what we did was we ultimately took the average of the two costs because, you know, these are, you know, different systems hard to really kind of kind of compare that. So, typically when we have a project like this, we'll take that average cost and then we'll figure out uh 15% or so of their variances. So um ultimately that's how they scored. Uh this solution um was in total more expensive than the other
133solution but when you considered all the other factors of functionality and such um this this came out to to be on top. >> All right. Uh, I'm going to move. >> Oh, I'm sorry. One more thing related to cost and and this is just me not having knowledge or just kind of anecdotal knowledge of SIS systems. Seems like some systems have different modules or kind of like uh I think nickel and dime I guess is probably I don't know if that's the right phrase in terms of these systems. >> Yeah. >> Is this kind of an all-in type thing or is there other ancillary kind of things that get tacked on? >> Yeah, that's a a great question. Um so this solution ultimately addresses um our core SIS system needs um our basically everything we
134we do today with e school or need to be able to do beyond you know just a little bit beyond that. Uh there are additional capabilities and modules that you can add to this solution. They offer um various modules. Both both vendors did uh that type of structure and yes there are costs associated with those modules if you choose to uh adopt those. >> This this is the core things that we need just and then if we want Yes. Thanks. >> All right. Any other questions on finances before we go forward? >> Okay. All right. I'm gonna hand this over to uh to Tim. Thank you. >> All right. Uh Tim Miller, Mil Creek principal representing the elementary uh buildings and staff. And uh I get to talk a little bit about capturing what we're
135most excited about in terms of the benefits that uh Synergy and a new platform would provide us. Um just four of the things that kind of became the themes of what we're looking forward to is just a modern user experience. We heard the analogy of the the buses earlier and the cars and the phone. So just having a more modern uh interface um modern capabilities and opportunities to grow. So like working with a company that can kind of envision things in the future and anticipate those those things that we're going to be dealing with in a couple years and having the ability to kind of pivot and grow with with a company. Uh the customization and adaptability. some of the things that were uh really good tools that they showed us during demonstrations. One was
136how do you track students after you leave a building? It could be for like a field trip, could be for um you're reunifying students in another building. The ability to use technology to kind of track and um take attendance and hold accountability of where people are at were just some of the cool features that uh that we were shown. And then opportunities for efficiency. One of the things that I think teachers, administrators, parents, students love is time to do what we love to do. And having a system that's way more efficient gives us time back to kind of doing the things we love. So whether it's teaching in the classroom or maybe looking at those thorough reports and digging into problem solving and interventions and enrichment, all those things kind of go hand inand with
137having a system that that uh meets those needs. And with those same themes, some of the team members, uh, these are these were the ideas that kind of came to light as you, um, talked to them about what they were most excited about with a new platform. And one is, uh, Synergy has the potential to become a one-stop shop for everything we need. So, one place we can go and do everything. Uh I love the potential opportunity to have students scan an office uh using their IDs IDs and tracking attendance whether they come into the building late, they leave a class, they go from one place to a building to to another. Just again more efficiency. Uh counseling and advising. This was huge. Uh being able to see who's visited the counseling office numerous times
138in a week. Maybe I'm not at work that day, but Timmy comes in and he know we know that he needs some support. So we can kind of check in with with students that in a report that's easily and accessible to our fingertips. And then also just one of the nurses um identified that Synergy has the ability to customize the things that we're looking for and a lot of times what I'm looking for isn't maybe what someone else is looking for and being able to customize those things or it's really powerful tools that we can uh have at our fingertips. So just kind of the themes of what we're looking forward to. So thank you All right. Um, we are looking to bring this recommendation forward to the April 14th meeting. And with uh that
139I'll turn this over for questions or comments. >> Any further questions or comments? Uh, we will be discussing this, of course, next this morning also. >> Yeah. Hi. >> Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Paul. You go. >> So, first question is, um, I'm going to turn in my 19-year-old car. I don't want to buy a 12-y old car. How old is Synergy? And how many years, how long has it been out there? And is there a chance that its current owner will say five years from now, no, we're not going to support this anymore. We want you to roll out to whatever they call the next one. >> Yeah. In terms of uh your last question there, um I don't have a crystal ball. I mean, anything can >> I understand that, but how old
140it how old it is? Yeah, ultimately it's uh I think it's 2010 or so thereabouts is when the the product really started to come on on board. I think some of the first Illinois EChool customers we talked to were back in 2011 12. Um so it's one of the you know newer platforms uh that has come out on the market. Uh don't quote me on the exact start date there. No, >> but um relatively newer platforms that are um that are out there. So and you can see that come through in the design of the system. uh you see that in what they're offering when it comes to mobile technologies. Uh it's very different than what we have today with uh eschool plus. So um and their user uh interface uh they basically have thought
141about people and how they interact with the solution in a much u more modern way than we have with echool plus. Um they even have a kind of a way to do a live edit if you will. Um it's very much like kind of updating Excel from search results. So, if you're doing a search result and you want to just make a quick change, you can do that uh right from those results, that result window, rather than having to go back into another screen and make the change and then come back to your search results. So, when it comes to some of those efficiencies that you can gain, uh you're seeing that come through in a solution like this. >> Is is this their first version or have they rolled out 2.0, 3.0? Where do
142we where do they stand on that? >> Yeah, that's a really good question. I'm not sure how they version their software being mostly software as a service now. I think it's mostly iterative. Um, but I don't get the sense that this is one that has been around for uh multiple u reworks of of their system >> because that's could be a good thing. They found the bugs that made the changes >> and and you're not working on 1.0 10 years later. >> Yeah, it it could be. Um, also I will say, you know, as we've experienced with our current SIS system, um, when you're really fundamentally changing the technology stack that it's built on, that's a that's a pretty big change and that can that can take some time to roll out. So, um, some
143of those, uh, more mature SIS systems that have been around for a long time, uh, that that change to modernize their interface can take significant time. We saw that on our business system and HR system um side where uh that interface has now evolved to where we're adopting a new platform uh the newest platform from that vendor for this and that took a number of years to get to a point where it was usable for us to to adopt. So the the last question I have is more about strategy um with with this moving forward what you implemented customization and ad adaptation is all great and everybody loves that. The reality is it's the killer of all SIS systems because you can't once you start adapting and once you start customizing it makes it extremely
144difficult extremely expensive to move to the next version that they roll out >> and we've seen this with companies like SAP and and things like that if you're dealing with them. >> So there's this there's a strategy two different strategies. one, you stay with your version and you adapt the hell out of it, right? And you make it what you want it and you run that forever. >> The other option is you make no changes and you take it off the shelf and you continue to run it and you have add-ons that you can put. Yeah. >> But they're easily adaptable to move to the next version that comes out. >> Yeah. >> Have we thought of strateging strategizing that? >> Yeah. Let me uh first the customization. I think I'm understanding where you're you're
145coming from on that question. Now, um, when we talk about product customization in terms of what Synergy allows to be customized, you're doing it within the parameters of the system, the way it's programmed, the way it's built. So, we're not developing a custom module or or injecting custom code into the product. We're basically customizing within the box that they allow us to do that in. >> So, there's a black box that you can't go in. >> That's exactly right. Okay. Yeah. Yep. And you're right on uh because it traditional systems that would be exactly the risk you know that you're you're taking when you start to to develop your own branch of that. Right. Right. >> Um but this is staying on that same mainline source code and it's being updated regularly as part of
146that infrastructure hosting uh maintenance plan. >> Yep. >> I had a question about the actual system use. Um, I know we got a lot of feedback from several different members of our staff who I trust on their expertise, but do we know what that's going to look like on the parent and student side and how they may interface with it? Because I think sometimes we in the schools are experts on the system and then parents get to use it or students get to use it and all half of those functions are lost because they can't or they they can't >> Yeah. >> figure out how to navigate the system. So, do we need to whether it's the task force or some other way or bringing to us what that actually looks like, what the functionality
147looks like and how that may interface with non-school experts. >> Sure. Yeah. I I can certainly bring some information back to the April meeting if uh if if the board wants to have that additional information. Um I think the other thing to think about is one of the functional areas that we had was the family functions of the the product. So we did have um specific dedicated time with each product to look at what those family capabilities are and many of our review uh team members are parents themselves uh in the district have had some of that experience and and were able to give that valuable feedback as part of the process and ask the right questions of the vendors. So, um, that certainly was something that we were thinking about. It was an intentional
148group that we we got together just to to look at what the parent uh components were. >> Okay. Go ahead. >> So, obviously this is proprietary software and you only have, as Paul said, some limitations of what you can do or cannot do with it. Um, how confident are you that it's not going to be obsolete within x number of years? >> Uh, I'm as confident as I would be with any of the what the current systems that we looked at. Um, they are mature in their their usage. They're mature in um in what they're they're um doing. Sorry, I'm seeing a message on my screen. An error on this. Anyway, um, no. So basically um it is something that um I don't have any concern at this point. I'm seeing more customers move to
149and adopt this product specifically those that are coming from our SIS system. We had a chance to talk with a few of those customers um as part of this this process. And so uh at this point I see this company continuing to to innovate their product, continuing to invest in the product. And as we talked to those who have been on the product since 2012, those earliest Illinois customers, um, we asked them, "How have you seen the product, you know, change over time?" And and they spoke to those changes with excitement and, um, and kind of a feeling of freshness that the product was continuing to evolve and adapt. As was noted uh, previously, uh, we really weren't experiencing that same level of change over time. Don't get me wrong, E School Plus, you know,
150it may not have innovated a whole lot in this time period, but it did the breadandbut stuff really really well, especially to the complexity that we needed as a school district. So, um, you know, I do want to say that, you know, that that was a mature product that that we've been using. Um, but there's more that we can do and and there's more we're being asked to do that we think this is the right thing to do. Were you saying that this system, this SIS does have mobile capability? Like e school is kind of clunky on the on the phone when I know we know most of our students and most of our parents are using mobile devices. >> Yeah, absolutely. Um that was one of the the things that they highlighted both last
151year and this year they highlighted their mobile technologies. um and they've got technology available for different roles or types of of users that interact with the system um that can do capabilities beyond what we can do with with our e school system today. That is the greatest area well not the greatest but that is a a great area of weakness uh in today's SIS is just the mobile presence. Um and unfortunately there hasn't been really any change in that in probably close to a decade at this point. Will it work with Tererry's Blackberry? >> I I don't think it will. >> I I guess I just more of a comment. Thank you. It sounds like this was a two-year journey for for this group and um the information you're bringing forward was is really great.
152So, thank you. >> Absolutely. Anybody else? I would echo Dan's remarks. Nice job. Looks promising. Thank you. All right. Next Assistant Superintendent Law will present the draft of the 202526 staffing plan to the board. Questions can be directed to Dr. Law. This will be brought back at the next meeting just like this because this is future action consideration of the agenda. >> Thank you. And um Mike, would you mind turning the uh projector back on >> or Andy turn it off or muted? >> I a muted it but my computer is focused. Apparently, it is too late for my >> I may still be connected. So, >> Oh, Todd. >> Uh, I mean, I could I do think the board does have it on board book, so I could just speak to that if you
153if you wanted. >> Hey, Larry. Yeah. >> I'm sorry. I had one question. I'm sorry, Todd. Is this line item? I'm sorry. I didn't memorize our budget. So, Your question is, is this budgeted? >> Yeah, >> it will be. >> Okay. >> So, as uh Mike has met with me a couple times, um it will be brought into the budget as he brings in those final numbers to me. >> Okay. All right. >> And we'll implement that. >> Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much, uh, board of education. I appreciate the opportunity. Um the uh staffing plan is an annual process uh that we go through and it typically starts uh in November of each school year when I start to have conversation with uh principles and and department heads just about uh what um
154programmatic changes they might be having that would uh affect our staffing. Uh what uh additional FTE uh might they be needing or or or or wanting. And uh so typically then uh by uh by winter break I have uh compiled kind of a a wish list if you will of all the uh requests and I bring that forward to our cabinet uh for uh more conversation and uh over the course of a couple months we typically will um either uh revise or eliminate uh various positions based on uh further uh information gathering and conversation. And this year, uh, we really whittleled that list down to just one additional FTE, uh, that district administration is, uh, requesting, which is, uh, an additional information systems, uh, analyst. And of course, it's I maybe not ironic or or
155maybe more coincidental that we've we've heard a lot about uh, uh, you know, technology systems and platforms with Panorama and and the new Synergy uh, proposal uh, today. uh and so of course um you know there we we also need the uh the the smart uh human beings uh to run these things. So uh the information system uh systems um analyst uh is really a position that is responsible for bring down uh responsible for supporting the uh management and and operations of uh and just that integration of the district's information systems. Uh as we can tell from today's uh board meeting, you know, in today's uh environment, uh you know, the integration of of these systems is really critical support um uh just to help ensure that that data is maintained um and and that
156the data is maintained and and it's integrated in a reliable uh and just effective manner. uh and those folks that work in these types of positions really develop just a very um integral knowledge of the systems uh that they support and also the people in the processes that are relying on that information and that data uh that's stored within the systems. Um so with that knowledge they're able to you know develop and support processes for uh improvement and and automation. um and really just with their insights are able to contribute just to the organization's overall um uh efficiency. So the district currently employs one uh information systems uh analyst and that really um at this point in time is below an optimal level of of FTE. uh the workload uh just has continued to increase
157and we only envision it increasing even more uh you know as as we go forward. And you know some of that work uh that is uh um you know some of that work and some of that backlog um you know is is at times being assisted by other tech other folks from the technology department. Um but you know that's that's not ideal and that support uh is not uh provided consistently uh because they have their their own roles as well. Uh so uh districts uh district administration is recommending uh that uh we take uh one FTE position that's uh currently vacated and it has not been replaced which is uh a third technology support specialist and repurpose that position as an additional information systems uh analyst in the technology department. uh that would allow the
158department to be uh you know clear that backlog of work uh provide greater level of support and really just be better positioned uh to identify opportunities to implement uh projects that can improve the um insight and efficiency of the uh organization. So, as far as uh costs uh you know costs and potential costs and potential offsets go, uh we would anticipate that the salary for the additional information systems uh analyst would be $75,000. Um we, you know, when it comes to benefits, uh the cost of potential benefits I I I estimate at uh $15,000. It's always difficult to know uh if someone will take benefits or not. And if they do, is it single? Is it family? is the PO is the HMO, but I think that $15,000 is pretty well uh uh you know
159in a range that we can estimate. And then of course we do have the offset of uh the funds that were that had been allocated uh for that third technology support specialist uh who's would be making around $45,000. So, um you really as far as new money, if we're subtracting that uh that $45,000 from the 75 looking probably around uh $30,000. So, uh this is the only position that we are uh recommending uh to the board. Uh and I'm happy to take questions and or Mike Wils is happy to take questions as well since the position will be in his uh department. Uh but if the uh uh the goal would be to bring forward um the staffing plan for approval at the board's April 14th uh meeting. >> Thank you Dr. Law. Questions? >>
160Yeah. So what would be the minimal um training education requirements experience? I mean I'm just ballpark. I mean is it like a master's level person? Is it bachelors? >> I'll let Mike feel that. >> College student. Mike mic m >> sorry. Is it Wednesday? I um so I have to look back at the job description. I can clarify that more with you, but I believe it's uh typically it's a college degree or equivalent work experience as we as the board would accept. Um and it's typically those who have skills in the area of uh database uh programming scripting that's that sort of uh tech you know background uh information systems would be the uh discipline formally but um many folks who may not have that that particular degree develop those skills. >> Yeah. because you
161know obviously in the public sphere um at the federal level they're hiring people that have school education and other things that maybe not necessarily what we're looking for but I'm just saying they can be a wizzle so to speak but I just wondered if you had any ideas of what you >> Yeah absolutely skills are are always important in the work that that we do it's it's you know technology folks come from very different paths uh a lot of times >> and there's also That's just my thinking, you know, because we have so many gifted, talented people out there in the technology field that certainly you have to have some concern for security. Um, the Air Force learned that in the hard way. Uh, people having accessibility to things that are quite sensitive. So, I
162hope that we're looking at some of those safeguards. Um, not just educational level, but background check, whatever you got to do. >> Yeah. >> Yes. And all of our employees do undergo a background check. Um, but I know that Mike uh, you know, he he definitely values safety and security and um, and and Mike know Mike and his staff do an excellent job of of of keeping our data as secure as possible. >> Yeah. Because we're not talking about top secret clearance or anything like that, but I just, you know, that's just a concern. We have a lot of, like I say, gifted people that are doing things on the dark web and other things and then you just never know. So this concern okay any other questions. >> Thank you Dr. Law. >> Thank
163you. >> This will come up at the next meeting for action. Um information item nine in the agenda board meeting presentation schedule. This is number one. Foyer requests and board correspondence number two. And suspension reports. These are for information only and uh discussion is not required but if anyone has any questions it's it's out there. Uh next, my favorite, the consent agenda. Item uh 10 one, personnel report, resignations, retirements, leave requests, change for assignment, full-time equivalent, new hires, uh monthly financials, February, that's a policy thing. Item three, annual resolution for joint agreement as part of the Fox Valley Cooperative. Uh the item four, IHSA membership renewal. Item five, gifts, grants, and requests. $1,235.60 from Midwest Trading Horicultural Supplies. Four pallets of bagged soil to support ghs and was it Western Avenue? Uh, item six, bid
164summary, $77,225.70 for Midland Paper Company District Paper Purchase for the 2025 2026. Item seven, request for purchase, $378,650 for firewall devices and services. Item eight, request to purchase, $575,287.50 to install 1,160 student devices. Item nine, request to purchase 322,200 for 300 staff devices. Approval is recommended. Any questions? >> Motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Second. >> Tammy >> I I >> I thank you board member comments and reports. I spent the past week and a half skiing. So I don't really have too much to say about that. With that brevity is the soul of whit given the hour. Please uh Dan, would you like to start? Do you have any comments? >> Yeah, I'll be brief myself. So uh just a couple of things. Um love all the presentations tonight. I think uh the
165common theme was uh really it was all really student focused and and making sure that that um our students and our parents have have the best experience when it comes to all the things that are important to uh our um our our stakeholders. So that's that's awesome. Um uh I think uh most of us went through the email conversion for for our school um board emails and so I thought that was uh really good and I'm thankful that we we are consistent on on those and then uh yeah just uh I know our our winter season's just wrapping up and and uh spring spring events and performances and sports are all happening starting up. So, good luck to everyone as it gets going on that. >> Um, thank you to everyone. I know a lot
166of information tonight. Um, I just wanted to highlight um, Ann and George, their work with Panorama. I think that's I'm a big fan of working smart and not hard. And when you can find a system to really um, put all of our data together and have it at the fingertips of those who need it is a really remarkable thing. So, I thank everybody for their research and to our schools for piloting that. Um, uh, I attended the technology task force meeting this past week, which Mike spoke about tonight with the SIS. So, thank you to him and his team for all of the effort that you put into gathering that information to really making sure you're presenting the best option for us. So, thank you um to you, Mike. Um, Dr. Hooks, Dr. Barrett, and
167I got to tour the um, Maids JSON, the special education facility at Mid Valley last week. I think that was um it was really amazing. Anybody who has a chance to go over there and see that facility um up and running, it was it was really remarkable. We had a chance to our tour was guided by principal Tanner Seal and an Scalia from here at um Geneva. We got to meet teachers. We got to meet support staff, social workers. Um, we got to get in the classrooms and see the students in their learning environment and got to see firsthand the indep um the independent and um individualized support that these students get and to see their action plans in place and it was really remarkable. The school is colorful, full of murals and um just
168a really cool environment to be in. So watching support staff with their individual students um in in various learning environments was really really amazing. So just a big shout out to that entire team. Um and I really enjoy the relationship that we have with them. Um I thought that was really amazing. Um congrats to our students tonight that received the excellence awards. Just remarkable work across the board. Um, and the last thing I wanted to highlight, I myself as a parent shop around a field trip last week for an elementary um, outing. So, just I know this is the season of field trips and I was reminded at the time that our parents take out of their days to support these field trips. So, a big thank you to our parents um who volunteer their
169time. Um and a big thank you to the community hosts that welcome our students to their um events and uh to their facilities to um have some really cool learning experiences. So, thank you to everyone with those. >> Yeah, I don't have much uh today. Uh but I would like to say congratulations to all the ghs students that were here tonight. It was fantastic to see all the things that they've accomplished and how well they've done in the various sports and also educational uh things that are going on. So, and but I'd also like to say thank you to the community member who came today and spoke u what to on his issue that he felt was important. Um, it's always good to have the community come in and and talk to us and let
170them let them pass on what they feel is important so that we can at least understand what's going out there in the community and what their some of the thoughts are. >> Jackie, wanted to say congratulations to everyone tonight. kind of what Paul was just saying that seeing the different opportunities that our students have and how they thrive is is wonderful. And thanks to all of our presenters tonight, you did an excellent job on everything. It's clear you took a lot of time thinking about what you wanted to talk about tonight and share with us. Uh we had a lot of good conversation on different things and that's always good for our school board is you know folks see that we are learning along with them and that we have good questions to ask. So
171thank you. At the technology task force meeting, we did get the preview of what you saw tonight. And I'm always amazed at how well like methodical Mike is and making sure that we go through everything and these different scenarios so that what by the time it gets to us that you it's a polished product and you're ready to move forward with it. It isn't any there isn't very much left to think about when you do that. So, thank you for that. Uh some of the things I got to attend this uh last couple weeks, the picnic for a purpose, the empty bowls event where they had the soup. I got to take home a lovely ceramic bowl. That was a a nice event that evening. It was good to see so many different people out.
172Um I also got to attend a couple of the postseason boys basketball games and their playoff runs. That was exciting to see them. I missed the last game on Friday, but unfortunately they didn't get to move on. But again, just some amazing um athletes that we have and have done so well this year. And that's all I have. >> Thank you, Willie. >> Yeah, I just wanted to say that uh to echo what Molly was saying that we experienced this uh that's all I can say is an experience going to that uh Maids Johnstone school. Um because for me personally it removed a lot of misconceptions I had based on my previous experience working in alternative schools. Um uh with models that were more punitive rather than just um edifying or helping children to grow
173and transition into the best they can be. As I want to say, Mike, that uh presentation and many others um especially the uh the uh panoramic it just I don't know not trying to be sentimental in the least bit but certainly u it just brings back the thought we have at the very beginning beginning of the school year of mission possible. So when I saw your setup of the two teams, I was thinking about yeah, this is what it requires if you're going to go about a mission, um it's a responsibility, joint respon joint responsibility. So I was really pleased to see those listings of names and you can't get anything done unless you really are willing to listen to the lowest level, the highest person. So I really think that Andy brought it to
174life some of the things we're talking about. And of course the students uh with all the awards, they're showing us what's possible. And so it just kind of like I said in a maybe sentimental kind of way going back to the beginning of the school year, it's uh nice to see as we're getting closer to the end of the school year that the things that we have uh made possible with uh our support. So I'm very much uh want to say my congratulations to all those and the team members of course make things possible. That's all. >> Thank you staff. I just wanted to thank everyone for an incredibly robust meeting in all the best ways possible. I think it was great to get so much different information through different presentations and then hear from
175the community as well and then we kind of saw all of that with um some great recognition for students in multiple different areas at the high school. So, it was just really nice to kind of see that all come together and thank you for everyone who participated in that. I also want to specifically say thank you for the partnership. I think our communication question asking and the answers working. It's just great to have a dialogue around that and I always really appreciate that and learn most from that dialogue through the presentations. Um about a year ago around this time we all approved a trip to for our choir to go to London and Paris and I was privileged to get to Chaffer on that trip with my own kid and I just thought I'd share
176a little bit about it. So, it was an amazing experience for our kids in so many different ways. First of all, they got to sing in two different places in London and one in Paris. And they were all churches, which meant the most amazing acoustics possible. Like, now we got to up the game at the auditorium. But it was just lovely to see that they had some impromptu performances. They sang on the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral just out there for, you know, anyone passing by to hear. They sang for their supper and they sang to one of the restaurant staff that served us so wonderfully and it was really a magical experience from just all the music but also just so great for our kids. I think we talk a lot about our in
177our strategic plan how we like get our kids outside the Geneva bubble and this was a wonderful experience. Not only did they go to two other countries, but just the travel alone and the responsibilities that they had to take on, the the moments they had to step outside themselves and realize, you know, we're a group of 90. It doesn't depend on like we can't operate on one kid alone. All those are just great experiences for them. So, I'm glad that we have wonderful teachers and directors who take a lot of time and effort to give our kids these experiences because I think this is something they'll never forget and they learned a lot of great life lessons. So, it was just wonderful and I think that's a great thing that we do for our kids.
178I also got to attend this weekend the Geneva Middle School South musical, their performance of Annie. It was great. Our own Mr. Blue uh made an appearance in in the musical. So, it was fun to see. And I know that this weekend North has their performance of Wizard of Oz coming up. So, still one chance to see some middle school kids out there doing a great job. >> Thank you, Stephanie. Um, last item before the last item is notices and announcement. I don't believe there are any. Um, I had a chance to go on some of those foreign tours, too, when when my kids were young, and it is a very rewarding experience. If there's no other business or questions, I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> Forbood. >> Second. >> All those in favor
179say I. >> I. Oppos. Same sign. We are adjourned.