Geneva CUSD 304 Board of Education Meeting 01-27-2025

001the regular meeting of Geneva 304 school district for Monday, January 27th, 2025 at 7 p.m. Bonnie, could you call the role? >> I I mean here. >> Here. Here. >> I'm here as well. here. >> Here. >> Thank you. Next. Welcome. We're glad to have you all here. It's always a delight to see people in the audience. And later on, if you miss it, you can always watch the TV show. Um, in any case, there is a roster in the hallway. If you'd like to register your attendance, you can sign in there. Next is the Pledge of Allegiance, and we have some fine high school students to lead the pledge. United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisibley for all. >> Thank you gentlemen and ladies. First

002item is the approval of minutes. We have um uh three sessions. The regular session of January 13th, board retreat January 17th, and also executive session on January 17th. Is is there any reason to break any of these out? >> Yes, I I was not at the retreat yet. >> And uh Bonnie, have you received any corrections or additions? Thank you. Are there any at this time? A motion to approve the regular session for January 13th, please. >> So move. >> Second. I >> I. A motion to approve the minutes for the board retreat January 17th and the executive session of January 17th. So move >> second. >> I >> abstain. >> I I >> I. Item three, recognition, awards, presentations, and public hearings. >> I think we got to do the executive session first, right?

003We did. >> We'll begin with Geneva High School. Uh, what makes your school special? >> Good evening. Thank you very much for this opportunity and I have a question. Do you have a few hours? No. Um, I'm going to do my best to stay within the tri time very brief time parameter that was given to me. But those who know me well know that I could in fact talk for several hours about what makes GHS special because I think the list goes on and on. Uh but I want to focus on really three things tonight. Um caring, community, and respect. Uh first, the caring nature of our students. Um during the holiday season, more than 20 extracurricular clubs, honor societies, or athletic teams um gave of their time, gave of their talent, fundraised, collected canned

004goods, collected things for the food pantries, and I'd just like to highlight a few of those things uh tonight. First, the GHS Vocex students, the girls soccer team, the ambassadors club, the enrich and empower students, and the speech team accounted for more than 200 volunteer volunteer hours as they helped with the Betavia Access toy drive. The Gene Geneva High School Scrubs Club collected and donated toys and gifts to the Ronald McDonald House at Central Depage Hospital. Our Social Studies National Honor Society collected donations and food to create meal baskets for local families in our school district. The student council made care packages for 12 families of GHS students who are identified by our counseling and advising office. The list goes on and on, including the Key Club, who collected basic necessities for the community Santa

005project along with more than 1,400 items for the Salvation Army. These are just a few examples of how caring our students are and how willing they are to give of their time and like I said their talent as well. And I'm certain that that like I said that this list could go on and on. I don't know if you're aware of it, but more than twothirds of our GHS students are involved in some sort of extracurricular activity at some point uh during their high school career. And I'm confident that at some point wi with their involvement in one of those extracurricular activities um that they will perform some sort of service project during their extracurricular experience. So I think it's just amazing the opportunities that our students have and not only that they have but

006they embrace them and they jump in head first and just are so willing to give of themselves. And as I speak about students tonight, um I have to also share that while I think it's a given that our staff is a very caring group of people. They establish amazing relationships with our student body and they help our kids succeed. But I couldn't pass up this opportunity. Uh it was like I'm I'm a big believer that everything happens for a reason. And on Friday, an email popped up in my inbox from an instructional assistant who we were very fortunate to hire last year. She's bilingual, and we have hit the jackpot with this uh employee. She does a fantastic job of helping and advocating for our Spanish-sp speakaking students, of which we have more and more

007each year at GHS. and she wanted to share the following about 10 of the teachers that she works with at GHS. And so bear with me as I just read this brief message. Friday afternoon, out of the blue, unsolicited, she shares, "I would like to express my gratitude for all the effort and support you give to Spanish-sp speakaking kids. Your your work truly makes a significant impact on their lives, and I know it can go often, excuse me, go unrecognized. I understand this may sound cliche, but I want to emphasize just how important the little details are. Whether it's a video with translations, a reading that has been adapted into Spanish, the patience you show by giving these children extra time to process and complete tasks, or letting them do work in Spanish so they

008can understand what they are learning for later translation into English so they can practice. These gestures mean more than you might realize. They create a world of difference in the lives of these kids, helping them feel included, supported, and understood. It makes me happy to share classrooms with amazing teachers, and I'm proud to be part of Geneva High School. Thank you so much for your dedication and for the positive influence you have on these kids' lives. The difference you're making is invaluable. To me, that's just again one little snippet of what it's like to work at Geneva Community High School. Speaking of community, um I have bragged for years uh throughout my career when I'm with administrators or other colleagues from other school districts or when we're interviewing prospective teachers and when someone says, "What's

009it like to work at Geneva?" or "What what can you tell me about Geneva High School?" I have always said that the support we receive from our community is second to none. Uh, in fact, one of the statements I make almost every time we go to hire a teacher is that our community has extremely high expectations for us, but we are so grateful for the help and the assistance that our community provides in helping meet those expectations. But tonight, I just want to highlight some of the things our students and our teachers do to support and promote community within the walls of Geneva High School and also within the boundaries of our school district along with at times the greater community outside the the school district. For example, our science department hosts a second grade

010science day in the fall for Harrison Street School students, and we are currently working on a second opportunity for H Heartland Elementary School students. Our horiculture classes collaborate with Western Avenue Elementary School to help with their community garden. Our AP and environmental science and biology teachers and students attend the Battle of Brush Piles coordinated by the Kain County Natural Resources Committee. We also have family and consumer science students in our child development classes who run a preschool for uh preschool age children each semester. We have our music students who the band, choir, and orchestra all partnered with our Leos and Lions Club and performed at our Lion's Club uh pancake breakfast in our cafeteria in early December. And it's one of the highlights of that obviously for the little ones who come to see Santa

011Claus. That's the highlight. But for parents of those kids, they just rave about our music students and how great it is to have them present for that event. We have business students in marketing classes that have a pizza challenge every year and partner with Aurelio's Pizza and then donate the money that they raise. Our art and family and consumer science uh students and teachers uh have for the last two years had what they call an empty bowl fundraiser. Ceramic students make bowls in their ceramics class. And our family and consumer science students make five or six different types of soups and they invite the community to come to the cafeteria and eat and take a bowl home with them. Just a really neat idea again that just promotes community and just really exemplifies what we're

012all about. In terms of extracurriculars, our boys and girls cross country teams were very proud to share with me that on an annual basis, they contribute their time to the Fox Valley Marathon. They run a first aid station for runners along the way. Uh they host a fourth and fifth grade mile run every year for students in our community and they volunteer at the Chicago Marathon every October. Finally, tonight I'd like to highlight the word respect. It's another thing that I have always been very very proud of as u someone at Geneva High School. Um it's just amazing to me how kind our students are, how respectful they are of one another. And uh that's being highlighted this week when we shine a spotlight on the word respect at GHS with our first ever respect

013week. And here tonight, she not going to present anything, but I want to make sure I give credit to Kayla Swanson. This idea was hers. And it kicked off today with all of our staff members wearing these respect t-shirts. And we also had some cameo appearances by some of our uniquely aabled students on our GTV broadcast to kick off the week. And the week culminates with the pack the stands basketball game featuring our United Vikings basketball team and they will be taking on our ghs boys and girls basketball teams. It's a little twist on that game. We've been competing against other high schools throughout the season, but we're going to have the what I would call kind of the grand finale of the unified basketball season this Saturday at 4:00 um featuring, as I said,

014our boys and girls basketball teams and our unified team. And tonight, I've asked two members of our unified basketball team to just come up and and say a few words. I'd like to first introduce Olivia Hagen who has done a fantastic job of mentoring members of this um members of the unified basketball team. So, we have to share a microphone. So, I'm going to stand over here. Come on up, Olivia. Olivia, if I could just ask you a question. Why did you choose to get involved in the unified ba Vikings basketball program? >> Well, over the summer I went to a Young Life church camp and we have kids with disabilities there as well. And I found myself constantly getting in trouble because I'd be with them the whole time when I'm supposed to be

015doing other things. And I just being with them brings me so much joy and happiness. And it's just a judgment-free zone. And knowing that we had this basketball team here at the high school, it was it was an opportunity because I no longer could only do it during the summer. I could do it every Tuesday or Wednesday of the week. and then tournaments on the weekends. And so being in a judgment free zone where I can be myself and be with them was my favorite part. >> What have you gained from being a part of this program this year in its infancy as it's a it's their first season. What what are you taking away from your experience with them? um seeing how much like I can do even an hour a week seeing them

016like change from in what was it we started in late October early November and seeing how far they've come each practice before they didn't know how to shoot they didn't know the rules of the game and honestly neither did I because I've never played basketball before but watching them now we're going to play a game Saturday and the last game we had they were doing everything. They were getting back on defense and we barely had to remind them. And seeing how much they've changed and not only like their relationships with the other kids on their team and us as like coaches, it's been special to create bonds with them and just overall see how they've excelled as players on the court. >> That's great. The next person we'd like to call up to the podium

017and Olivia is gonna ask Pablo a couple of questions. Pablo Drab, a member of our unified Vikings team. >> Pablo, what was your what's your favorite part about basketball? >> I like dribbling. >> You like dribbling? Who do you like to play with on the team? >> I like Kendall. >> You like Kendall and you like shooting? >> Yes, I love it. >> You score a lot of points. >> It was awesome. >> Yes. >> How many points you score? a lot every game. >> 40. >> Yeah, he he has scored. >> You've done a good job, right? >> Oh, yes. >> Are you excited for our game on Saturday? >> Um, sure. >> You are the stands. All the >> That was awesome. >> Yeah. >> Space Jam. >> Thank you, Pablo. Good job.

018Good job. Thank you, Olivia. >> Thank you to Olivia. Olivia and Pablo for coming out tonight and representing their team. Uh if you are looking for something uplifting that will put a smile on your face literally for hours and hours in my opinion, come on out at 4:00 on Saturday afternoon. It is it will be unforgettable. I promise. Um and everybody at school is looking forward to it on Saturday. And uh as I said, Kayla is the architect of respect week, but Kayla is our special Olympics um essentially athletic director. She came to us with a proposal last year to put this team together. And u honestly, we said yes. Uh but we thought we were just going to take little baby steps, but this thing has just taken off and it is uh a

019phenomenal addition to our programs at Geneva Community High School. So thanks to Kayla for all of that. Um, in keeping with that theme of respect also, uh, and and one thing that, um, Olivia didn't mention, we have, she's a junior, um, students have an opportunity to take a PE class called, um, they can be PE leaders and work not only with some of the uniquely aabled students in our VOX program, an instructional program, excuse me, but also we, for those of you who are unaware, we have Mid Valley special education students in our building as well and they have been in our building for many many years and we have a great partnership with them also and they take adaptive physical education in our building and our PE teacher provides opportunities for our high school

020students to work with those students as well and u Mr. Dr. Hen, our PE department chair, wanted me to share uh kudos to two GHS students that he is particularly proud of who work as peer leaders. He said he wanted to acknowledge Brennan Anson and Kate Wood who serve as peer leaders for our adaptive PE class at GHS. Brennan and Kate and the other peer leaders go above and beyond each day to create meaningful opportunities for our students to learn, move, and participate in various activities. Their dedication and impact on our students deserves to be celebrated. this would be a wonderful U and he is just so thrilled to be able to highlight them and um Mrs. Forny is our adaptive physical education teacher. She does a phenomenal job with those students as well. Again,

021as Scott mentioned, creating just lots of meaningful opportunities for our regular ed and uniquely aabled students to work together on a daily basis. Um, one thing I'd like to highlight about respect week, uh, is while we've focused tonight on the relationship that we have with our uniquely aabled students, um, Kayla and I, I think, were featured on GTV today with a couple of sound bites. And I think we both shared a common message that this week is not just about the relationship that we want to build and continue to grow with our uniquely aabled students. But what I stated is that um I think it's so important to recognize that Geneva High School consists of students who uh are all different shapes and sizes and colors and varying degrees of ability. And we want to

022make sure that we're respecting and recognizing all of those differences and being respectful of all of those differences as we work our way through each school year. And again, as I said earlier, I'm very proud of of how we consistently do that. This is not something that we think we need to necessarily uh create. There's not a problem that this respect week is addressing. It's instead reinforcing some great habits that already exist amongst our students and staff at GHS. Um, finally tonight, again, in the category similar to the email that I received on Friday, um, I want to conclude tonight's presentation by introducing you to a young man that I was just introduced to just a week and a half ago. Um, and again, I had no idea that I was that this was this

023was coming. It was just a chance encounter between Greg, who I'm going to introduce here in just a second, and I on a Friday afternoon a week ago this past Friday during a class period. I was walking down the hall and Greg and a friend were walking down the hall as well. So I said, "How's it going, fellas?" And they said, "Good." We kept walking and all of a sudden Greg stopped and said, "Mr. Rogers, how are you? Kids will always say, "I'm fine. How are you?" Just, you know, to be polite. But the fact that Greg stopped in his tracks, turned around, and specifically said, "Mr. Rogers, how are you?" caused me to stop in my tracks and turn around. And I said, "I'm great. Thank you very much." And then Greg, unsolicited, offered

024some information about Geneva High School that I was just so impressed by. And but and in the moment I said, "Well, that's great to hear." And I walked away. 5 minutes later, I thought to myself, "Wait a minute. A week from Monday, I have to present to the school board. What a great opportunity to introduce a young man who has some amazing things to say about GHS to the board." So, at this time, Greg Terasuk is going to come up. >> Thanks for being here. >> Yeah. So, Greg, I asked you or you know, I said when you said to me, "Mr. Rogers, how are you?" I said, "I'm great." And then you unsolicited said to me what what did you say? >> Well, I met Mr. Rogers in the hall and you know, I

025haven't really talked too much with Mr. Rogers. So, it was just like it was it was a good thing that I saw him in the halls. So I stopped by and I told him I'm like I just moved from Vegas and ever since I moved from Vegas it's just it's been like this amazing like the school in general has been amazing compared to what I what the school that was in Vegas like when I went there freshman year it's just like I never had really goals in my life and I never felt like the education was there. So, when I went to when I finally moved here and uh and went to this high school, I felt like what's it called? I actually feel like I have goals because now it's just like I've completed

026I got my permit already. I'm already listed into Fox Valley Academy Center to be a to take fire science and become a firefighter. Like that's a goal that I'm already wanting to do. And in general, this school, I had expectations for this from the previous school that I just just came from that it wasn't going to be a good school. I was like, it's probably going to be the same. I didn't have any high expectations. But when I came here, every the students were nice. The teachers were very welcoming. I feel like they've been really helping me like on the my education. I I just feel like in general overall, everything about the school is just like it's really good. And I that's why I stopped Mr. Rogers in that hall cuz I was like,

027you know what, Mr. Rogers? I'm like, I really like this school and I'm willing I'm excited to sit here and spend my junior year and my senior year just here and in that school. So, it's really amazing, but >> we're glad you're here, Greg. >> Thanks. [Applause] >> I hope you agree with me. I felt that was just an amazing way to conclude this evening's presentation. So, thank you very much to these three great students who joined me here tonight. And um I don't know if these other presentations have resulted in some questions being asked. I'm happy to answer questions if you have any. Uh but I guess I would just conclude that um I I have a tremendous amount of pride in Geneva High School and I I only chose those three themes tonight.

028We could go on and on and talk about all sorts of other things that are great about Geneva High School, but I thought these three things were were very timely and um we had some students who could really do a great job of representing what it was we were trying to get across tonight. So, thank you very much. [Applause] >> Does anyone have any questions? So uh Mr. Rogers. Uh, thank you for that opportunity for us to see this as I was listening and and uh is it Olivia? Is it right? Yeah. So, uh, we have this thing uh that we hear every now and then. People say, "I feel your pain." Uh, and compassion is what they're trying to say is that to suffer with that's compat in Latin. So it's I can see

029not only caring but also that you have students undoubtedly that feel the pain of others >> and and making it come to life. That was just another thing that I saw not just caring but a little bit above that compassion. >> Agreed. >> Thank you. >> Can can I ask a question? Can we cancel our presentation that we have that that we have to do next with that? Can we bump that? >> Uh, no. Is a part of the agenda. But for all you GHS students and and what you said, I I liked having goals. If you have goals, no matter what your age, you'll do well. I encourage you all to keep having goals for the rest of your life. Having said that, the next thing Thank you guys so much for coming. Thank

030you. >> Thank you. >> Somehow everybody figures out they don't really have to stay. >> Well, that was very interesting. The next item on agenda is a presentation on middle school enrollment and staffing with Dr. Barrett, Terry Blue, and Dave Carly. And I see Dr. Barrett has made his way to the podium. Um, so we are all awaiting your presentation. >> All right. Thanks so much. Uh, nice to get to stand over here for once. Uh, um, so this presentation has been a while coming. We've talked about this at several meetings um excuse me last year and this year. Uh and you know the work that we're going to talk about today really um started with our middle school team before I even started this role and started in earnest for me, you know, kind

031of day one getting the ball rolling. So, I'm going to have an opportunity to talk about some of the big picture ideas uh behind some of the enrollment and um staffing uh kind of plans and processes we've been working through at the middle school. Um and then Mr. Carly and Mr. Blue are going to get into the weeds and talk about some of the specifics from the middle school level and some of the things they've been working on with their staff. So um you know from a big picture perspective and and from the district perspective you know we put a lot of work into our strategic plan last year and developing our strategic plan. Um you know this updated mission vision and values all came you know was a part of that process. Um and

032that really led to four key goal areas right that you know we've talked about a lot. our enrollment and staffing, uh, college and career pathways that we just heard Greg talking about. Um, you know, cultural competencies, which I think we just heard some about, um, and our community engagement also, which I just think we kind of heard some about. Um, what we're here to talk about tonight really, uh, falls into this first area of enrollment and staffing, right? So um you know kind of two overarching goals within that enrollment and staffing band are um reviewing and kind of right sizing our staffing with our enrollment trends um reviewing our master schedules and how we are staffed uh for um for that and then evaluating our demographic study and looking at our staffing and our facility

033capacity. Right. Um, we've talked a lot about the demographic study already this year. Um, and I'm going to get into that here in a minute, but it's really these, uh, you know, these two areas that kind of drive that work, right? We've had enrollment changes. We've tried to evaluate what that enrollment is going to look like long term with our demographic study. Um, and now we're kind of taking that ne next step. So, as you'll recall, we again we did the demographic study. We got district projections uh over the course of um you know, for theoretically for the next 10 years. And the meta message in this, we've talked about it before. I don't need to go too far into the weeds, but the meta message is our enrollment has been declining for some time,

034right? Um there's a lot of uh factors that go into that. Uh lower birth rates, more folks aging in place, things like that. Um but our our enrollment as a district has you know declined over the last 1015 years. Um and then what our projections tell us is that we're going to level out and be pretty stable over the next 10 years. Okay. When we look at that at the middle school level, obviously we've also seen those numbers come down. And what we uh see happening is over the next several years those numbers are going to continue coming down, right? Um and then they'll kind of level come back up a little bit and level out. Now the important thing to think about and we may have talked about this before uh the reason those

035numbers are coming down is just because we have smaller cohorts of students metriculating through the district, right? Um, and I'll I'll show you some of those numbers here in a minute, but that's why it's not that we are losing students. It's not that students are leaving the district or anything like that, right? But it's that the group of eighth graders is bigger than the group of seventh graders and that's bigger than the group of sixth graders and so on all the way down, right? So, as those groups kind of metriculate through the system, you're going to see those numbers come down at the middle school level. Um so again, what's the challenge that we're trying to work through here? Um again, it's that declining enrollment and it's a national trend and it's a Geneva trend.

036And then at the middle school level, that challenge is um combined with uh the middle school model, the you know, how you staff a middle school. And when you combine those two things, what you basically have is you've got fewer students, but if you don't change the model, you have fewer students going into the same number of sections, right? So that's or the same number of classrooms basically, right? Same number of teachers. So fewer students going into the same number of sections or same number of teachers. And that's really the problem we're trying to to figure out here. So again, beginning almost right away last school year, we began reviewing some of this enrollment data. We didn't have the demographic study information yet, but you know, we started talking about these trends because they were

037already there, right? We already knew how many elementary kids we had. We already knew how many kids we had in second grade, for example. Um, and we started talking with the middle school faculty and I, you know, came over to the middle schools. We pulled the whole campus together and I talked with them all and and we had some conversation. We talked about the challenges that you know this situation meant for us. We talked about different potential solutions we could look at. Um and we've tried to maintain ongoing discussions at the campus level with a representative group of faculty and also uh Dave and Terry have spent a lot of time talking with individual faculty members and talking with their their faculty as well. They'll talk a little bit more about that. Um, so big

038idea here when we're talking about what we're going to do to address some of this uh this challenge. Uh, and you've probably heard this from me before uh too when we've talked about some things. We need a model that is three things, right? We need a model that is reasonable. Um it it maintains sensible class sizes and staffing levels um while taking care to make sure we're supporting and keeping our current awesome educators, right? Um reasonable is is an important target here. Um there's no goal. We can't have super small class sizes. We can't have super big class sizes, right? We don't want to be uh you know, you don't want to run too tight or too lean. We want this thing to be reasonable. And we also want to make sure we're um supporting

039and keeping all of our awesome middle school educators who are currently here, right? Um we also want a system that is equitable and strives for consistent experiences um and appropriate experiences across the campus and across the district. Right? And that's something we've talked a lot about. We don't we don't want a system where one school has a very different experience than the other. We've tried to we're trying to actually bring that together more, right? And you'll hear about some of that. Um, not just today, but in plenty of our work in the future. So, we want to make sure that those experiences are are equitable. Um, and also equitable, uh, and appropriate with our other levels, right? We don't want the middle school to get, say, too out of whack with, uh, the elementary or

040the high school, right? Um, and then last, uh, sustainable. So, reasonable, equitable, and sustainable. We want we we need to make a change. The LA the system that's currently in place has been in place for a long time decades right that is sustainable. We don't want to make any changes that would require drastic upheaval uh in the future if some other changes happen. You recall earlier this year um we talked a lot in some board meetings about um the potential of a large new development happening out west. That didn't come to fruition uh necessarily, but as we talked about at that time, it could right sometime it could come to fruition. Um, and we want a system that's sustainable so that if we makes make these adjustments now to address our challenge that we don't

041put ourselves in a pickle. If a year from now they say there is going to be a neighborhood and there's going to be all sorts of new kids, we would have to, you know, blow something up. We don't want to we don't want to do that. So those are the kind of three big idea goals here. So here here's one way to think about this. We have a model designed right now to support what we would call 20 sections and four teams of students at the middle school level. If you think about um you know at say sixth grade, right, we've got white and blue, white and blue at each of our two buildings. And each of those is based each of those teams is basically made up of five core teachers, right? So when

042you put all those kids in those classes, you basically got five sections per team, two teams per building, that's 20 sections, right? That's how that model is currently designed. Um, and again, this system has worked well and it's worked well for a long time going back 20 years when we had about 500 kids per grade level, right? The good thing about having all those sections is you could disperse those kids out through those sections in a pretty equitable way. Um, but as our enrollment continues to decline, again, if we don't change the model, what we're looking at is we're having fewer and fewer students transition into that same number of sections. And so, here's here's a way to look at this, right? Remember when this model was currently or was constructed, we or at its

043peak, we had about 500 kids. That sounds right, Mr. Blue. Right. >> Yeah. About 500 kids per per grade level going into those 20 sections. Now, with the decline we've seen over the last decade or so, you see that number at the middle school is more around 400, right? You see 413 eighth graders. That's how many eighth graders we currently have. 427th graders, 408 sixth graders. And then you see as we get down to elementary, you see those numbers drop again. Right. So now you're looking at 345, 353, etc., etc. So we've got fewer and fewer kids going into the same number of sections. So I'm going to pass it off to Mr. Carly here. He's going to talk a little bit about what that would mean and then we're going to get into some

044of the plans we have. Thank you, Dr. Barrett. Um during the spring of 20 uh 203 or 23 uh middle school administrators presented the current chart that you see on the board uh to our faculty and staff regarding possible class sizes. If we look at the third grade class which is now our current fifth grade class on on campus um the class average would be about 18 or so in CLA in in a 20 section um campus. As we looked and we started talking and planning for the future, we knew we had to do some reduction and reducing u of sectioning over the next few years. Where we've been since 2006 when our second middle school was established, we had about 20 sections per grade level here on the middle school campus that represented, as

045co uh Mr. Barrett said, uh 10 sections per school. Those 10 sections were split into two teams, a blue and a white, at each grade level. With the declining enrollment and looking at the sectioning at the elementary schools, building district and GA representatives of administration and leadership uh met and understood that we needed to do something and create a plan to to decrease uh the sectioning at the middle schools. So last school year in 23 24, I'm going to send a lot of years to you guys. Uh, middle school South went down to nine sections at the sixth and seventh grade. Okay. Using a retirements that occurred the year before going into the current school year. Last spring, middle school North had three retirements. So, North decreased our sectioning at all grade levels to nine

046sections. To continue this plan in the upcoming fall next year, middle school South will be going to down to nine sections at eighth grade, making all grade levels at both middle schools even at 9 and a total of 18 sections on campus from 20 to 18. Next slide. Looking at the 2526 school year, we will be removing the team label blue and white at the sixth grade level. All incoming sixth graders will be on a grade level team. We'll be keeping the blue and white team name only at the seventh and eighth grade level for one additional year. The purpose of this change is to allow time for our staff and administration to learn new routines and supports and establishing meeting schedules to support our students. With that change, we are still looking to keep

047student classes within the grade level area, but there are a few outliers that will occur in the upcoming school year. 26 27. Middle school south will have three retirements. So, their scheduling will move down to eight sections per grade and north will stay the same with nine. Currently, we're meeting with our exploratory staff on campus, our fax, art, tech, and languages, and we'll be planning to move back to semesters instead of trimesters during this school year, the 26 27 school year. Mr. Blue. >> All right. So, um, how does eliminating the teams impact the schools? Well, we've been doing teams for a long time. And so, a lot of the things we have developed and created have been based on that idea. And so, we're kind of going to have to take a step back,

048look at all of our structures, and say, "Okay, what do we do for MTSS, which is how we support kids and identify uh uh different uh interventions and support? Uh how do we schedule kids?" I mean, I've been hitting the go button on blue and white for a long time, and now it I'm not not sure why I'm going to do it myself uh with uh without that little complication. Um a lot of our internal functioning, like, you know, I'll get on the announcement be like, "Okay, six blue kids, I need you here right now. Six white kids, I need you there right now." And everybody just knows what to do. Now, we're going just have to like think of like, even though that's kind of seems like a silly small thing, some things are

049just automatically thought of in that regard. So, we're going to take a step back and you know, we're not the only school around schools around who are going to hover in that 500 to 600 kids zone. There's lots of schools that have about that many kids who basically treat their grade levels as one mega team. You know, truth be told, when I started here many, many moons ago, um we be No, it wasn't. That's that's why they hired me. I was really young. Uh I gradeed out nice and early uh for the interview process. Um it was uh uh like 2002 and we had three teams at the middle school level with when we're just shy of that 1500 number. So one of those teams had about 160 or 170 kids on it. At the

050end of the day we're going to have about 170 180 kids at a grade level. So I mean like we functioned that team was functional. Okay. And so we can function just like that team did by having one mega team at the grade level. Um so what will the community notice? Well, if all goes well, not a heck of a lot. I mean uh we've you know I shifted down to nine sections uh last year and North did uh at six and seven. North did six, seven, eight this year and nothing seems broken from our feelings. Uh, you know, uh, so we're trying to look at everything we do and say what can we make sure doesn't fall through the cracks. Uh, you know, like it's going to be little things like, you know, used

051to be uh, you know, you call a team point person to schedule a meeting with the the teachers on your team. Well, that'll probably fall into like what our guidance counselors uh help to do or what the administrator of the grade level helps to do and say, "Okay, we'll get a team meeting together and it'll just be the teachers of that kid instead of all the extra teachers that are on the team." Um those of you who've had kids at the middle school level, uh if you remember that far back, you know, you'd come for locker setup night and you know it we had it really easy, right? We just say you had six white or six blue. And I just point up or that way or that way. And I'd say it's up there.

052Don't worry, you'll figure it out. You know, now it's going to be like, okay, well, your kid might have a class on what we currently call six white and then a next class on what we currently call six blue, but you've been in our building. The walk from one place to another is not that great. I mean, I think it might walk as many steps to get to your office from here. Uh, so these are little things that'll just once we start doing it, nobody's even going to remember that we did it another way. Um, so I think that's kind of there's a lot of little things we're going to have to pick up and notice along the way. So we're going to have to be very much paying attention to all the little nuances,

053but we're not really we're not fearful of the change. So then the story ends in 2728 when North drops to eight sections. So it's at that point they got a few more retirees a year before we should be able to land where we both land at eight sections and then that's based on the data that's where the story ends for probably a while you know probably probably while I'm here at least uh and then uh once once it's come back up I'm running uh because I want to watch see it go down I don't need to see it come back up um but uh that should stabilize stabilize us for quite a while uh and the community really shouldn't notice notice much different between 26 27 and 2728 because by then we'll have worked out

054most all the bugs. And now you might be saying okay but what about the class sizes? How is this going to impact those class sizes? So this is what we would predict is that most classes by the time we hit that eight and eight uh sections most average class sizes will be between 22 and 24. Um, you know, and these numbers are, you know, for us, they're they're usually pretty accurate in terms of we always say if we say the average is 22, that means our biggest class will probably be 24 and our smallest class will probably be 20. Like we we play or minus two in the scheduling game at the middle school level. So you see those are very reasonable and and I think you talked about reasonable was it reasonable the word

055reasonable numbers and like like Dr. Barrett said we can go back to like how it was when I started here in O2. Class averages were 29 30 kids. Not because we wanted them that way is because we didn't have the space to do anything else. And that's why the board many years ago built north. And so now we have the wiggle room to have it so we can actually have the appropriately sized classes for a middle school because you get too much smaller it you lose some dynamics and you get too much bigger you lose that middle school feel. So we'll still feel like a middle school. It just won't have teams. Okay. Dr. Barrett. Yeah. I think that's um I think that's the key message what Terry just ended with with right. I mean,

056this is still going to feel like the great environment that middle schools in Geneva um feel like. And um you know, I've got to give kudos to these guys. Also, huge kudos to the staff at the middle school and um you know, their representatives who've sat and talked through so much of this work. Uh this is going to require some change for them obviously, right? And some folks have already made some change and started to adapt. Um and uh you know change is hard for everybody. So uh you know that's part of why this through attrition thing has been so important uh and making this change over time. So that's kind of where this is at for now. Happy to answer any questions you might have. >> I have a question. So I know we

057Oh, sorry Larry. Did I cut you off? I think you talked a lot about what the community impact might what they might notice some of the logistical impact but I don't hear anything about the students. So like from an academic perspective from a social perspective from an emotional perspective I know that we do middle school as teams for a reason. like there's been a lot of studies and research around how we should treat and teach kids age 11 to 14 and this sounds more like a junior high almost high schoolish kind of kind of way of going about things. So what does that look like for our students or how are we thinking about what this transition might mean for them academically, socially, emotionally? I'll take a crack and then you can fill them. Um,

058you know, when you think of the whole concept of team of the team's concept is about taking a big school and breaking it down, making it feel smaller for the kids. And over time, we've we've gotten smaller just by the natural flow of things as Dr. Barrett described. So, you know, teachers feeling uh kids feeling connected to their teachers is super important. That's what that small team feel is all about. um you know and uh having kids uh exposed to lots of different opportunities is something that middle school is all about. So our exploratory program for example is something that you know other schools instead of having like everybody be exposed to some of the similar opportunities have kids pick at like sixth grade. You got to pick between this and this and if you

059if you don't pick that you'll never see it again. You know, for us, we build our exploratory program to allow lots of opportunities for kids. You know, they get a little bit of art, a little bit of music, a little bit of uh facts, a little bit of STEM. You know, those are things that are important in a middle school model is to give those opportunities and those opportunities aren't going to change. They they they go from trimester to semester, but otherwise they don't really change. Uh so, we're hoping that just that that small field will just exist in a different way. I I would add I was having this conversation with some folks the other day. I mean I think it's it is important to note that um a big part of the team

060concept is the relationship the teachers have with the kids. And I think as Terry kind of mentioned earlier um our teachers are great at that and um that won't like shifting some of these things about the model won't change how our teachers have great relationships with kids from a functional or structural standpoint. um I think uh important to to be explicit about the fact so what will look different for kids and and this is also what will look different from teachers and that's what they're working through at the middle school campus right now all the kids on a team have the exact same five teachers for every right so all the kids on six white or not even right now but theoretically in in its pure form right all the kids on six white have

061the same social studies teacher and all those kids go around that same social studies teacher, all the kids have the same math teacher and rotate around. Um, in this model that will not be as pure. Um, and so there will be some teachers who are either teaching multiple content areas within their same grade like a elementary school teacher, right? Depending on their lensure and their experience and what it is they would want to teach. So there might be a teacher on a sixth grade team who's teaching some science and some math for example uh to those kids or there might be some teachers who teach um the same content area but at a different grade right um and so that means if you take all the sixth graders they'll still be grouped together their exploratories

062will be together their PE will be together their lunch will be together the they they always are and many of their um their their academic classes will all be with similar peers and that's what some of what these guys will be working on. So you know th those kids might be together in like groups but it might be a teacher who is different for a class or two within that model. Is that fair to say? >> Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. You have this now. So at uh middle school north, I currently have a math class, sixth grade math class that students from six blue or six white come over and work with a six blue math teacher for one section. We've done it since the beginning of the year and it's been it's been fine.

063Um again, it's those communication um between the teachers with administration um and throughout meetings that we we're working on and it's going well. Um, and the kids because we're so um we're all up on the second floor, it's it's not that big of a a change for the kids. Um, I also have a u sixth grade math teacher um a teacher that's a seventh grade teacher. So, sixth graders come down the stairs and go to the sixth seventh grade uh for one class period and it's worked out well. Um and and we haven't had any problems yet. So, um it's it's about the communication between um the teachers, administrators, and making sure that we're keeping an eye on our students like we do. So, >> so I think that part of the middle school model

064is it lends to like some communication or the middle school team model lends to communication about your students because theoretically all five teachers share all the same students. So those teachers meet once a week, twice a week, and then they don't just talk about oh my subject, but here here's what I'm seeing with this student across these subjects. And I think that we've identified some good needs like whether it was like developing the ALOP program or different things that came out of those types of structures. Have we thought about how this new model like how would we would those teachers meet to be able to have those same discussions and foster that same ownership of students when we're expanding our team size? H >> how would I en envision this working out? And again, we

065say words like envision because we haven't done this before. Uh but like right now at the eighth grade level for example in both schools there's a team that's off second period and they meet a team that's off third period and they meet and I would envision that we would still have people who are off second period and people who are off third period and they're meeting and talking about kids and we would need to use like a conduit of like the administrator at the grade level and the counselor at the grade level who we meet with those teams every other week. Uh, and as a way of saying, "Okay, here's what we heard from this group of teachers. Here's Johnny, Joey, Freddy. We got to work on talk about you guys have them for your

066your classes. You know, these second period teachers have those three. You third period teachers, you have those three. Now, let's work out what are we missing? What do we got to do?" So, it's it's those opportunities to meet can still exist. It just won't necessarily be for every kid. all of a sudden all my teachers in the room together but the appropriate staff members like the administrators like the school counselors can make those connections for the teachers and it's also part of like looking at our teaming structures of a team meeting structures like maybe one of those uh our monthly afterchool meetings is a whole group meeting to take care of some of those things too. So it's it's going to be different. we're going to have to communicate differently uh with each other, but

067we got the staff to do it uh because we already have like our MTSS structure built in to what we do. So, we're going to have to do a good job of scheduling teachers into appropriate groups so we can make sure that communication works out. And if there's an oddball teacher who can't make to one of those, then it's going to be okay. How do we include their input about the kids the right way into the process? So that's kind of what we envision probably is the end result. Uh we're not sure how difficult that is, but we love a challenge. Uh so we know what we want to do. >> Yeah, just a couple comments and then maybe a question. Uh first off, I greatly appreciate the fact that you both are looking five

068years out. Um because this is not an event. This is a wave. And I know it sounds kind of trit, but if you're not on top of the wave, you're getting crushed by the wave. >> And the only way that we're going to be ready for this is to be talking about it, thinking about it, trying different things now. Uh because when we really do get to the low spot of of the of the uh of the number of students that we have, we have to be ready for that. And we have to be good stewards also of our taxpayers money. And I appreciate you working with the the certified staff and and working it through attrition uh normal attrition that that would come. Uh I'm also very pleased to see that the first focus

069is with the students and how it impacts the students and how are we going to make sure that we maintain the the level of education that we have delivered in the past going forward. And I really am complimentary on how well you all are doing there. So now I'm going to ask the tough question. Um and that probably you know where I'm coming with this. Um the noncertified administrative staff that also I believe over a period of time is going to have to be shared amongst the two middle schools today. I'm not sure how much sharing there is of some of the administrative staff that you have, but as this as as we continue to go down, I think that's going to be something you also going to have to look at some consolidation work

070can be done at North for both North and South and in certain administrative uh things. So, if if you haven't started to think about that, now is the time to start thinking about where you want to go with that. So I'd like to hear any any direction you have for issues that are outside the certified staff in that in that area. >> Yeah, good question and fair question. So first point uh to note is um that has started as well. Um you may be aware that uh there is there's one shared administrator who currently works between two buildings. It was not like that a few years ago. Um and that was reduced and shared and some of that work I mean he has an office at both buildings um but you know you're right some

071of that work he might be sitting at north and doing some of the work for south or or vice versa. So, um, you know, that is something that has already happened and we've started to, um, uh, implement. Certainly something we're we'll keep an eye on as we will with, you know, at any level in the district um, you know, as as we're keeping an eye on this enrollment thing. I would also share uh we haven't talked about this that much um but as as we talk about that staffing piece uh you just for context because I I do think this is true. I think our district is um pretty uh pretty conservative with our administrative staffing compared to I think a a lot of other districts. I don't think we're overstaffed uh with uh administrative

072staff um in terms of roles um that that that we have. So I I think we're starting from a good place on that I guess is what I'm saying. So fair enough for now. Okay. >> Dan, did you have a question? >> Yeah. So mine is pretty basic in terms of and coming from a parent. So every August for um for as a middle school parent, we would open it up in home access and say, "Okay, Yzi's in 6 W this year. We know the teachers that are in it." So going forward, coming in August, when we open up team access as a parent, we're going to see social studies as teacher, period one, math as teach. Is that the way that it would come out? >> Yes. But there will be greater joy in

073your voice when you say that because what you will not be doing is your child will not be contacting every child they know in Geneva to find out if they're on six white or if they're on six blue because the we I love middle school teams but the one thing I do not love is that day because you have a lot of kids who are upset over really what is nothing because when they all go to lunch they're all together. You know, they have lots of opportunities. They're together. They were like that when they were on teams. They'll be like that when they're not on teams, but we all will not have that day anymore. Uh where I hit the button and I run uh and hope nobody's going to call me over the over

074the weekend. So, that's what'll look different. >> I You want to add something? I think another thing to think another thing to think about with that Dan is um in practice that's a little bit of what's happening right now with some of the changes they've already started to make through attrition. Um, so what might be happening, what might have happened in practice this year on that day is two kids might have gotten uh gone into home access and seen six white, but maybe they didn't have the exact same teachers already because we already, you know, some of those changes were already made. So, it said 6W, but because we had to adjust some of that staffing already, um, they might not have had all the exact same teachers. And so, you know, when they when

075they talk about how part of this is a lot of this might just be in name only, like you might just be taking out the W, but in practice, it's going to feel largely the same for kids. I think that goes back to Stephanie's question, too. I think once once people see and experience this and kids experience this, I don't think it's going to be as um a significant of a change as it might feel like. So, Fair enough. Okay. >> I Oh, after >> I I just want to make a comment. I was looking back at the number of students per grade, and it's hard right now to imagine having one uh section per grade, especially for those who have had your students already go through middle school, but the numbers are there. They

076show that it really will feel the same way as six white does now in three years. um because you'll just be six and it'll be the almost the same number of students. So, I think you're right in that we just have to kind of trust and we'll we'll see what it's like and we can't look at it from our experiences that we've had in middle school because it is going to be quite different and uh getting ahead of it now and thinking about it and making those plans even starting already to reduce the number of sections is showing that that it can work and that I think that our students will will be okay. they'll get through because it'll be almost the same number of kids that they're around. >> Yeah. And I think your

077point is well taken there too, Jackie, when we looked at those um you know, the potential class size numbers. I mean, one of the things you're looking at in there is I mean, uh you know, we've talked about this and we actually spent some time uh the elementary class size committee developing kind of target elementary class sizes that we thought were important uh to to establish in the district. And if you'll remember, one of the things we talked about was um saying that at the primary level, you know, kindergarten, first grade, that those should be our smallest class sizes, right, for for those kids who are learning um just learning school and everything. And so we established those kind of target class sizes. And when you look at some of those numbers, if we didn't

078make any change, you'd be looking at middle school classes in some cases significantly smaller than our targets for kindergarten. Um, and so, you know, everyone we all know like that that can't work. That can't work. And so that's kind of the impetus for all this good conversation that's happened. >> Just one other question. And so now that it's going to go from trimesters to semesters, does that mean that there we're losing exploratory options because we currently have three exploratory classes? >> So uh you may recall from from many years of being in Geneva, uh up until about eight years ago, we offered uh semester courses for the exploratory classes. At sixth grade, it was a semester of art, semester of general music. In seventh grade, a semester uh back in the day was teched, which

079was like your wood shop and stuff. Uh and fax. And then eighth grade, you had some choice. Uh and uh we stopped that practice because we couldn't staff it anymore. Um our our we needed 2.4 wood shop teachers on campus. uh and two was hard to get. 04 got to be impossible as time went on. And so that's why we made the change. And what we did in that change is um we increased the amount of art kids got in sixth grade. So it was a trimester of general music and trimester 2D art, trimester 3D art. And in seventh grade, uh we introduced a class called entrepreneurship. Uh so kids take facts uh STEM and entrepreneurship each for 12 weeks. So basically what we're looking to do is roll back to what we had before

080except no wood shop because nobody teaches wood shop anymore. Uh you know there's just not teachers there's nobody to hire. Uh so we uh we'll end up doing semester general music again semester of art. So, we're decreasing the amount of art time, but it's because you're going from two trimesters down to a semester, but you're increasing the general music time. Uh, you're you're we're losing entrepreneurship altogether and going back to facts and and STEM. And then the eighth grade choices really aren't changing that much. They're right now we have a lot of choices because you got to fit them into trimesters. We'll go back down to like a very basic here's your fax choice. Here's your STEM choice. Uh here's your art choice. Um but it's kind of replicating what we used to do. Uh

081and the only reason we stopped doing what we used to do is because we couldn't staff it. Uh now with this decrease, we can actually staff it because that point4 teched point 4 fax teacher is no longer necessary when you're at uh uh eight sections in each building. Uh so that's why we're going to make that shift. Does that make sense? Yeah, completely makes sense. That was really the only thing I could think of with the switching from seme trimester to semester like as the impact. Are there any other impacts that you all see? >> It it'll when we made that change uh we want uh you know that made a change in when we produced grades and so now we'll we'll fall back to just semester grades is probably the likely outcome. We haven't

082had conversations yet to determine do you throw in a quarter grade? Uh, you know, we used to do quarter grade and a semester grade. Uh, now with home access center and the way things really operate grade-wise, it probably just gonna likely be a semester grade because that seems to be, you know, that first nine weeks comes very fast uh to produce a quarter grade. So, I think most of our staff would rather just stick with a semester grade, but we got to finalize that decision. >> So, how will that Oh, sorry. Go ahead. How will that work for next year since we'll have sixth graders on the new plan and seventh and eighth graders on the old? We're sticking to trimesters. >> Next year's still trimesters. >> Thank you. >> For those of us that

083haven't had children in middle school in quite some time. Can you define for clarification facts? >> Uh uh uh typically when we get to that point will be a quarter of sewing. >> Family and consumer science. Sorry. >> Sorry. I thought you wanted to know the curriculum. >> Another acronym. >> After the meeting, you come talk to me about the curriculum. I'll I'll lay it out for you. >> No. >> Work hard to do. No acronyms because it because it is hard. So, you know, family and consumer science, right? So, culinary and yeah, all those all those great things. >> All right. Uh, any other questions? because I have one myself. But um I I certainly appreciate the comfort level of having the teams where the teachers just rotate the class and everybody's together. As

084we all know, there are some classes that don't lend themselves to that approach. And given my background, I have to ask about foreign language teaching in this new setup. You know, that's one of the eighth grade courses that kids choose. uh we don't envision any change when you look at the numbers like for the most part each building is basically losing about 20 kids at the end of the day per grade level and so when you look at the percentages that's going to work out to be it's like maybe like I can't remember I worked out one day but I can't remember right now like 5% or something along those lines not uh uh not a great uh I'm sorry would be 10% of the kids so when You look at how many kids are

085signed up for Spanish and you reduce it by 10%. It's not a giant dive. When you look at number of kids signed up from French, you reduce it by 10%. It's not a giant dive on kid-wise. We don't typically offer a lot of sections of German, a lot of sections of French. So, if you reduce it by one or two kids, you're really not going to change. We're probably still only going to have one class of German, maybe one class of French. So, we looked at art and same kind of holds true with like the uh band choir and orchestra, right? We got a band with maybe 30 kids in it. If you reduce it by three kids, you still got a band of 27 kids. You're not eliminating the band at that point in

086time. Uh so, our band core orchestra programs, we worked with those folks and said, "Hey, look at the numbers. This is probably how this plays out. we should be okay maintaining status quo in our on what we offer in both the exploratory at the eighth grade level and uh our bandwire and orchestra program because it's not that the percentage of kids who take that class you're only reducing again by like 10% or something like that. So it's not a drastic hit um compared to the sections we offer if that makes sense. Uh, thank you. And >> bun. [Laughter] >> Good. Thank you. I know this was a long a long one, but this is this kind of topic we need to have a lot of time to talk about and thank you for the good

087questions. And yeah, please. >> One of the things that Mr. Belu and I would like to uh say is our our staff, our faculty and staff over the last couple years. Um we we've collaborated with them, met with them, and they're very flexible. They're working through things with us and um they know that um what's coming. They've been informed. We're we're informing them. We're working with them. And we really appreciate how how they're working together with all of us. So, and keeping our students first, that's that's the best thing. So, thank you. >> Thanks everybody. Thanks guys. >> And thank you gentlemen. Next item on the agenda is public comments. Bonnie, did you have any requests for public comments? Would anybody in the audience like to comment at this time? You're welcome. I stand making

088that offer every month. But anyway, so thank you for that. Legislative updates. Jackie, >> I don't really have much of a report. Uh that our elected officials are back in session in the general assembly. I was able to attend a legislative breakfast last week and heard our local legislators talk about some of the priorities, including looking at tier 2 pensions as being something that they've been trying to focus on and and how in the world they could even fund something like that. So, that's really all I have under legislative updates. Hope to have something more uh as they move along in the session. Thank you, Jackie. Next, since Andy really hasn't had enough chance to talk this meeting, we'd like the superintendent report. >> Sorry, having to hear me talk two times in a row.

089No fun. Uh just uh a couple important um but quick thank yous and a couple pieces of information I thought would be valuable uh to share based on some recent events and recent conversation. first um you know last last time got the opportunity to thank our on& and M staff for all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes especially um you know as weather events happen and whatnot uh the same thank you goes to our tech team um as you can imagine in a district uh this large with all these devices all these wireless access points um you know everything that's going on with our network and our firewall and all all that stuff um there are a lot of people working behind the scenes and working weird hours to make all that stuff

090happen. Um, we had a um a a challenge. This was maybe two weeks ago where the network wasn't working right as school started and the way that team was on top of it. The way they figured it out in the middle of the night, I mean, just they're they're like working magic to make all this stuff work. and it, you know, I don't know how the flux capacitor works, but thank goodness they do. And um, you know, they make that all happen. So, we're grateful to them. Um, also, uh, to our transportation team, um, and all all that they do to get our kids to school safe, uh, and, and on time and everything. Um, you know, I'm talking with them all the time uh, and and Mr. Johnson over there making sure that everything's

091working okay and we're getting ready to go. I know Todd is too. Um and we're grateful for all that work. And that kind of leads me into um uh the next topic. You know, a big thank you to our transportation team uh last week, last Tuesday when it was that cold day and we got kids to school. Um, I thought it might be worth revisiting this plan and talking a little bit through kind of how those decisions are made because um I I I think it's it's important to have these conversations and have time to reflect on them as well. This is the graphic we've had out for a long time. Uh, you know, and it just notes explicitly our number one priority is that in-person learning and if we think we can do it

092and do it safely, we're going to we're going to try to do it. Um, you know, we can do a late start, although we know how hard that can be for families and trying to plan. Obviously, we can do an e-learning day and our teachers are prepared. They would have been prepared. I know. And we would have had a an awesome e-learning day last week if we felt we needed to. Um, and uh, of course, you know, last but not least, that last option would be having an emergency day that had to be made up at the end of the year. So, when we get to a day like last week, um you know, first I I sure everybody knows this, but these are these are difficult decisions, right? The these are hard. Um you

093know, I'd say probably in the top five of things that I think are the worst so far of uh this role. It's just it's just tough, right? It's tough. You're you're thinking about a lot of competing challenges and competing interests and one thing that might be better for some kids or better for other kids. Um and and so it's it's really hard to think about and process through all of that. Uh but what we're trying to do is focus on a safety, capacity, and family impact. So when I when we're thinking about that, the first thing we're thinking about like is and I'll say largely me because that's where the buck stops, right? So I'll be honest about that. The first thing we're really thinking about is safety, right? Do we think we can get

094everyone to school safely? When I talk, for example, about our transportation team, you know, that day before I was talking with uh Mr. Johnson a bunch. Are our buses ready? Are they going to be able to start? Are they, you know, is our fleet good? Um, and you know, the answer to all those things is yes. We we also think about, you know, what's our capacity to get everybody here? What's our capacity to um be able to do inerson learning? Are we going to be able to have staff here? You know, on some bad weather days, you might not be able to get enough staff in to have in-person learning, right? So, you think about that kind of thing. Um and the other thing we also do think about is family impact. Um and you

095know uh for some families if we called it some families could could stay home, right? Um some families that would be difficult and that would be a burden on them. So you try to think about how this could impact all sorts of different families. Um, you know, then the other the other piece that comes into play is we kind of think what's our historical practice been and what are our thresholds and where would we be setting precedence when it comes to cold. I'll share here candidly and publicly. Um, historically speaking, when we have those conversations, what you kind of look for is um, we really need to start thinking about it when a air temperature is, um, like a sustained air temperature at minus15 during key travel areas and a sustained uh, wind chill temperature

096at minus30 or lower for a sustained amount of time at those key travel areas or key travel times. Um, that's kind of been where that line is, where you start having those conversations. Um, and as you might recall last Tuesday, that was kind of right there. We're kind of right on the right on that edge, right? Um, and the other thing you want to think about is a precedent because, uh, anytime you kind of make that decision, that might be foundational or a precedent for the next time something happens. So you do when our priority is inerson learning that is one of the things I try to think about. I try to be thoughtful of well if it's just not quite as cold this time does that mean the next time it's there we should

097think about closing too. And I you know personally I hold that in-person learning dear right we only get 174 of those or 175 of those. I want those um don't want to just give them up if we don't have to. Um, we do a lot of talking internally, like I said, talking with the whole team here and I'll be candid, uh, do a lot of external collaboration. I talk with superintendents in the whole area and we talk about what's going on and, you know, what are you seeing in your district? What's your capacity? Uh, when it comes to cold, that's a harder one because some of those things can be so different, right? It depends on your fleet. You know, what's our fleet compared to another districts? If a district is more rural than us,

098temperatures could feel very different. Um, so that makes all of that a little bit um harder, but we do talk a lot um with our colleagues. And uh the last thing really is trying to make um timely decisions about all of this. One of the things we've heard uh from families is if we're going to make a call, uh don't do this at last minute because families need time to plan. And so, you know, we were spending uh most of that day Monday talking about this. So, if we did have to make a call, we would have made it early enough. Um, and you know, we're just going to reflect on this. Uh, every time one of these things happens, it's an opportunity to learn and and reflect um on on how we've done things

099and and we'll continue to do that. Last, I wanted to just uh jump out of my presentation here and share something briefly from the Illinois school report card. And this is actually um uh the impetus for this was at our last meeting um and our finance committee meeting. Uh you know Todd was talking about our district finances actually was with the audit I think um and you know what our district spends on students um and one of the questions uh came up. I think it was Paul who said you know one thing that would be cool for the board and the community to see is well you know like what's the community getting for that money? How does our district perform? um you know in comparison to kind how much money our taxpayers are paying.

100And the thing that's cool when he said that I was like well that data is out there on the Illinois school report card. Anyone who hasn't been there it's a great place to go and you can see a lot more than just this. Um but there's a lot of great a lot of great data there. So I'm going to jump out of this and just show it to you here real quickly. Um so let's see should be So here it is. uh for example, so uh you can you can look up how school districts comp perform related to our peers around the state um in a variety of areas and based on a variety of criteria. Uh so you know to the question that was asked uh explicitly, how does our district perform uh in

101relation to kind of how much money we spend per student? Well, here's what this is what this graph shows you. So, right here I've got the SAT pulled up, right? So, the SAT, that's the test that our high school students take. That's kind of like the culminating measure of our academic performance uh in the district. Um, and this is last year's data. And we're looking at SAT data uh in relation to our per pupil expenditure. So, how do we perform? That's here along uh you know the left side here, that's along this axis. what's our overall percent of proficient students on the SAT. Okay. And then along the bottom you see what our per pupil expenditure is. So obviously uh you know as you go up on the side that means more kids uh being

102proficient on the SAT and as you go across the bottom that means more money spent per student. Right? So Geneva is uh the red dot right here. Uh and so if you go into the school report card and search by our school, you can any of these scatter plots based on their home school. So here's Geneva is the red triangle. Um what you can see here, what you can see here is Geneva is performing about as high on the SAT as just about any district. Uh this is all the unit districts in the state, by the way. um all the unit districts like ours. So that's districts that are you know K or preK12. Um so if you see how we compare here and each of these dots is another school district in the state.

103Um so you the point to kind of answer the question that Paul Paul asked is we're doing pretty getting pretty good bang for our buck here in Geneva. Um so there are a few schools. Hi. I won't if you hover on them, it'll say who they are. I'm not I won't you know, you can go do this on your own if you'd like. There's a few school districts that perform um higher than us or slightly higher than us. Um but anybody over to the right from our red triangle, that's a district that spends more money than us per student. Um, and so when you look at here, there's just a a handful of schools who spend as much or less than us that are performing better than us on that measure. Now, you can look

104at this at a ver a variety of different measures and you can look at this um in terms of a variety of different um data. You know, you can look at uh lowincome students. you know, you can look at this a lot of different ways, but it is a very um helpful way to look at some of some of this data and to see how our school is performing. So, I thought it'd be helpful to show this to our community and say, "Hey, um you know, we're we're doing pretty good and getting a pretty good bang for our buck that way." Answer that question that was asked and also just point this out as a good place to go look if you're looking to get some data about our district. So, that's all I got

105today. Any questions or thoughts? Yeah. Or anything I shared. >> Yeah. Just had a question. So, as you get together about these cold days, um it's just my observation of just living in Mil Creek as a bicyclist, I know that from Passenger uh recreation uh center going downhill, the temperature drops about four degrees. I mean, it's just it's a fact. Even when I leave home, I know that if I look at the probe on my car, by the time I get to the intersection of Fabian, um it's uh going to be the coldest. As I go uphill, the temperature rises. So, do you look at individual stations like in Mil Creek? Uh because, you know, the different weather stations in different areas. >> Absolutely. And I uh I'm even weird like I'll drive around. >>

106Yeah. you know, I'll drive around and see what see what it says in in my vehicle. Um, and and we we do check what it's like in each of those different locations. And that's part of, you know, talking with our peers, uh, part of our part of that conversation, right? And that's part of why I mean, I'll tell you, I agree with you. I remember a lot of Mil Creek bus duty days as principal where I was like, I know it is not this cold at Western. Right. Right. Right. Right. >> So, yeah, you're right. >> Right. Because um now I don't know what they use. I mean do you weather underground for example shows you a map of all these different reporting stations especially Milreek and others. What do you what do you use?

107>> Yeah I I usually go between weather underground weather bug acue are the three that I I'm looking at the most. >> Okay. >> Just a comment about the the day we had the other day. I appreciated not just that um you know we were we're doing better with getting communication out there early but you also got communication out there saying hey we're still going to have school so it wasn't just about the cancellation but it was nice for people to know because one for you know the children in my house who wouldn't stop asking me every five minutes but also I know there were parents who were looking to try and make plans for the next day so that was really helpful. >> Yeah. Good. We you know what I'd be interested in feedback

108from folks on this too here and and anybody. We struggle with that. Um our practice our default practice on that has been um we're not sending out a district communication unless there's a change of what people are expecting. Um so people may have noted well there was a post but there wasn't a district email. That that was intentional. Um because our worry is again back to that precedent piece. Our worry is setting a precedent or establishing a situation where folks are like, "Well, you didn't tell us we had school today." Well, yeah, because it's the day we're supposed to have school and we can't tell you every day we're supposed to have school. Um that one was one of the hard we split the difference with the social media posting because that was a hard

109one because some districts were calling it and some weren't. typically uh we're more it's more unified than that, right? Candidly, typically it kind of everybody's doing it or or nobody's doing it. Um and so that that communication part is easier. And if if nobody's calling it, then you don't need to send a message out because nobody out there has heard that any other district has has called it when some have and some haven't. Um that's where we struggle with that. So we felt like that social media move was kind of the right middle ground um for people. We're a little afraid that that was establishing a precedent that now any time like now the question is how cold is too cold that we have to tell people we are coming to school right um but

110hopefully that was helpful for folks at least. >> Yes. I'd like to comment on the Illinois report card. I I greatly appreciate you putting that out there. I mean, and I mentioned it to you last time after the meeting that it would be, I think, beneficial. Um, you know, as a community member, we are at times within the community, whether it's at a block party or whether you're at with a group of friends at one of the local breweries or whatever, and when they find out you're on the school board, the first thing they want to talk about is taxes, right? And how much taxes they're paying. And you know it's it's very hard at times sometimes if you don't have the information or where we can send them for the information. And this is

111I think very good to know and I would I would encourage the board to continue to to emphasize this and put this out there for people because it's nice to be able to say look go here and look right and compare us with other districts. And I know nobody wants to talk about other districts and I and I and I understand that. But I mean we are here about Geneva and I think we should be very proud of what we deliver and for what it costs us to deliver because if you look at it there's a state average and we are below the state average for the unified school districts but yet our our returns for that if I if I can use that term are are quite impressive. So, thank you for putting that

112out and I would encourage whoever is going to watch this or other people that bring it up to board members. This is a good resource where you can actually talk facts. >> Well, I'm glad when you asked that question, I thought, "Oh, I know somewhere where that answer is already." So, >> so Andy um now I mentioned this some time ago about uh if one went to Geneva High School and they wanted to know more about you know the performance that school is there a link to the high school or something would that make it easier for the public >> for sure and this is actually this is linked on our website uh the school report card is linked on our website um but the Illinois school report card you know I will um I've

113shared heard candidly in meetings. Um, you know, some there are plenty of frustrations that come from the state level and some of the expectations on us and uh some of the way things change and and uh you know, unfunded mandates and all that stuff. I I'm going to give props to this. I think this is a good tool. I think it's very slick. I think it's easy to look at. Um I think it's easy to navigate and it has a lot of data on it. Um, you know, I could maybe come back and and share different pieces of the school report card at at later meetings. I go into it all the time to look up stuff quickly both for our district or for other districts. Um, because it's a great place to just it's

114not just academic stuff. You can look up, you know, our finances. You can uh look up attendance, how we compare on, you know, it it has a lot of good data in here. Um, and so I'll give the the state props on this that this is a this is a valuable tool and you can look up each school individually as well, right? Yeah. >> So, I guess a short way to say that would have been we're spending a little less than average and only a couple of school districts are performing at our level. We're doing good. >> Board dialogue topics and pending action consideration. We have two policy updates and you have seen these before. These policies have been reviewed by the administration and the policy committee. They were presented for the first reading January

11513th and are being presented at this time for the second reading and adoption. Questions may be may be addressed to the policy chair. Anyone have anything that they'd like to ask about the case? I'll entertain a motion. So moved. >> Second. >> I thank you. Next we have work study topics, future action consideration. Only one item there, the 202526 board meeting calendar draft. And these meeting dates are in alignment with last year's calendar. No need to discuss that. Uh informationwise, item nine, a board meeting and presentation schedule. That's a policy coming up. Foyer request, suspension report, and the 2526 budget calendar. And this is really for information only. Discussion is not required, but if anybody has any questions, we'll try onward. The consent agenda. My favorite part, uh, personal report, resignations, retirements, leave requests, changes

116in assignment, FTE, new hires. Uh, item two, monthly financials. Item three, gifts, grants, and requests, $1,239.40, Special Olympics Illinois GHS Special Olympics uniforms and basketballs. Item four, gift grants and bequest, $1,000 from the Humpky Group for the GHS Robotic Club. Item five, gift grants and bequest, $7,12.77 from the Geneva Music Boosters for wishlist request. And if you're unfamiliar with that, the music departments at each school submit what they would like and the music boosters attempt with great success and with our gratitude as well to provide those needs and wants. So that's that is that questions >> motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Second. I >> I >> Thank you all. Item 11, board member comments and reports. Dan, would you like to start? >> Sure, you bet. Um, first of all, want to apologize

117for not being at the board retreat this uh past weekend. Sound like a lot of things got done. It was good to read the the minutes and all things that were accomplished during that time. So, um so that's first and second. Um love the presentations today. I thought they were all very good. Um and uh especially the middle school, I think that's a tough topic um um to embark on and and the way they u the way that it was explained and the reasonings behind thought that it was very thoughtful and it was really really good. Um the only comment I the last thing is on the on the um on the cold day and this might be rumor but I I hear that there were um for the high school students that have to

118park way out in Burgess I think there was a shuttle service that was moving back and forth. So that was really wonderful that for so those students didn't have to walk all the way from Burgess to the to the high school. So, I think uh I think our um a lot of things that we heard tonight about our high school being special and uh that's just an example of something that maybe didn't get announced or maybe a little bit unnoticed, but glad that something like that was done. >> Exactly. >> Watch out, >> Molly. >> Uh yeah, I would echo these were some really fabulous presentations tonight. As someone who has much younger children, middle school is a foreign concept to me sometimes. So, it's great to learn a little bit more and understand the

119thinking that goes behind these big decisions um and the care that goes into them. Uh to our students that were here tonight, fabulous work, fabulous job. I'm I'm so impressed by um by everything that was said. I did want to take a minute just to kind of revisit my comments from our last board meeting. Um, and just to to remind everyone that our community did lose somebody just a month ago and there tends to be this kind of typical aftermath of loss where there's a lot of noise immediately after. There's a lot of conversation. Uh, people are checking in with each other. It's very fresh on everybody's minds and then there's this deafening silence that sometimes comes about when everybody returns to their life and things continue forward and that's natural. That's a part of

120life. Um but for some that silence is so loud internally. Um so I encourage everyone again to continue to check in with one another. Ask each other how you're doing. um share memories, share stories, keep um keep the memories alive and at the front of our minds because that silence sometimes comes so quickly and many are not ready for it or not wanting it. There's a lot of friends and family and community members that are still very much grieving this terrible tragedy. So, I encourage everyone to just check in with yourselves and reach out for support if and when you need it. Paul Molly, that's a great comment. I really appreciate that. Um, today I also want to thank um our principal at the high school and presenting what makes their school special. I mean,

121that was very that was very heartening. But also, I want to thank also the two middle school principles for being here. um they're thinking strategically and and and and I think that's needed to make sure that we act in a in a the right tactical way as things happen to us and if we think it far enough ahead I think we're in the right heading in the right direction. Um couple comments I I would make. Um been a busy couple weeks here. uh theater boosters. Uh we met uh right after our last meeting um February 6th and 8th. I'd like to um encourage everybody to attend uh the play that's coming up, Little Woman. Uh tickets are available. Please uh buy them. Uh this is a little bit unusual because I guess there's a big

122basketball game on the Friday night. This is only going to be on Thursday and on Saturday. So there will be no performance on on Friday. So, if you if you're interested, please please come. They'd love to see you there. Um, I went to my first PTO meeting at the high school and I thought that was really interesting. And and again, um, it's an issue of thinking ahead and I love it. They're already planning for everything that's going on in the spring. I mean, they're for them, winter's passed and they're already into the spring and they're working on the postp prom and they need volunteers. So, and I'm sure that people are going to be reaching out to you. So, please, if you get have an opportunity or you're just interested, uh, please volunteer for that.

123The last comment I'm going to make is um, it's kind of a funny situation. I went to the PTO meeting at Mil Creek High School and elementary school, sorry, and only one PTO member, the co-president, showed up. And there was in sitting across from her were two board members. um Andy and the principal of the middle of the elementary school. And to be honest with you, it was one of the best PTO meetings I was at because we had a lot of conversation and really had a lot of going back and forth. So, um I would encourage everybody um if there's an opportunity to attend your PTO, please do. Um we're there. We're there for answering questions and also to ask you questions. Um and it can be very valuable, I think, to the the

124post folks that attend. Steph. >> Yes. So, thank you to everyone who presented tonight. I love the high school presentation. It's these are my favorite parts of the board meetings. I think that it's always great to hear about the schools and the things that I feel like I get to experience through having kids at three different levels, getting to hear bits and pieces that I didn't wasn't even completely aware of. So, that's just great. And thank you to um Dr. Barrett and the middle school principles. I know it's a difficult topic to talk about such a big shift. I mean, it's been over 20 years since I was at Geneva Middle School when there was only one we had teams. So, it is a big shift and I know there's a lot of thought and

125there will be a lot of learning coming out of that and we'll have to have some really um good reflections on what's working, what we need to adjust, and how we need to address any gaps because I'm sure it's not going to just be smooth sailing all the way. and for our parents and students to provide us feedback along the way so we can make sure we're we're living up to the results that we have delivered every year since, you know, we've been a district. So, thank you though for the presentation. I think it's good information and I'm glad we got to have a good discussion about that. Um, also thank you to all of our groups who donated um gifts this week. I it was just nice to see a lot of different areas

126whether it was the Special Olympics team, robotics or music, just the help that the community offers to those groups and that's always really appreciated. Thank you everyone for the retreat um last Friday. That was I thought a well a good use of time overall. We accomplished a lot in that meeting. And then I got to attend um the blue ribbon flag raising at Hartland Elementary. So, just nice to see some of the things that H Heartland Elementary School is doing this winter to celebrate their blue ribbon award. And so, they did a flag raising and then they had a blue ribbon ball. So, I know all the kids and staff are having fun celebrating a big accomplishment over there. >> Thank you, Willard. >> Yes, I want to um thank the that is uh the

127principal uh Mr. Rogers for presenting this opportunity for us to see and hear and in some way vicariously experience some of this caring and as I uh really feel it's inherent that there's compassion and somewhat like what Molly was saying I think that some of these things these activities that these students are engaged in actually will help promote some healing and I think that the more that we um embrace the fact that we all are suffering uh at some level or another um for a variety of reasons just on a daily basis. I think these u I'm no mental health expert but I imagine that this is a opportunity for them to purge some or dare say darker things inside of themselves to bring out the best of everybody. That's just the way it seems.

128I don't know. Also, I just want to uh highlight if you didn't see on channel 5 news on Saturday, one of our students, uh Geneva High School, Sophia Border. Did you see that? Yeah. She's of the long distance runner. Well, I saw her at church yesterday and I said, "Was that you?" So, I watched her grow up basically. But, uh it's just really nice to all the students um that they could highlight on the news, they interviewed her. So she was featured on the 10:00 news for participating in this half marathon. So I thought it was good representation for Geneva schools. Yeah, >> she's been here for being very fast many times already. Yeah. >> Yeah. Just briefly again, thanks to Mr. Rogers for coming and talking about the high school, but caring community and

129respect. I liked how he put those three different topics out there. community. Every week we or every meeting we have donations that we get from various members of our community and it does show how important our school district is to our community and then we have that great relationship with them and the respect. I definitely want to reiterate come on out to the game this Saturday. It will be wonderful. It's in the contest gym which I think is really exciting because the other games have been in Mac Olsson but to have that game in the big gym and it sounds like it's really going to be a fun night or afternoon. So definitely come on up for that. And thanks um for the presentation about the middle schools. Yeah, difficult topic. And going back to

130community, we all have our memories or our thoughts about how things are at the middle school, but we we have to understand that sometimes things will change and uh we'll we'll come together again as a community as we go through this change. And that's all I have. >> Thank you, Jackie. Um I was at a PTO meeting. I second Molly's thoughts about the community and interaction. We have an extraordinary school district here with a lot of caring people. It's a pleasure to have this job with this district. With that notices and announcement, there are none. Item 13. If someone would like to make a motion. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Thank you ladies and gentlemen.