001You need at least one person. Miss It just keeping I don't think testing. I know. All right, I think we can start the the live stream. Yeah. All right. Good evening and thank you for your patience. Um, I invite all the board members, administration, and community to stand at attention, face the flag, right hand over the heart, and recite the pledge of allegiance. Thank you so much. And again, overdue and I apologize once again. So, um, pass it on to Dr. Lonard for our student spotlight for district 115. >> Awesome. Thank you. And this is our second district 115 spotlight of the school year. We're only going to do about five of these, so it's a very special night, I know, for our nominees as well as this month's winner, this board meeting's winner. So,
002the district 115 spotlight is something that was developed um to identify students who exemplify the mission and the vision and the values of Lake Forest High School. And that really is about character um about inspiration and about making a difference in our community. So, the students who are nominated are nominated by their teachers because they are actually exhibiting these values. This month, we had four students who were nominated. um Ellie Villan Noeva, Campbell Gore, and Tyler Clays. And about Ellie and Campbell and Tyler, I heard all about their resilience, their intelligence, um there that they've been an inspiration to other students and their character. But we had one student who was nominated by two different staff members. And that student who's here tonight is this month's spotlight winner. This month, we are going to recognize
003as the District 115 board spotlight winner, Gavin Stakes. Congratulations, Gavin. I have lots of great um characteristics of Gavin that were part of the nomination. Um compassionate and positive presence, resilient leader, knowledgeable, and engaged learner. But I'm not going to do the talking because both Mr. Jacob and Miss Lorenz are here to speak about why you are so awesome, Gavin. So, I'll hand the microphone over to them. test. Hello everyone. I have gotten to know Gavin through seventh period arc environmental geocscience with Mrs. Loren as well. Um, when we went on a field trip to Ela Farm, Gavin quickly established himself as the leader in participation, active listening, and content knowledge, not only in our class, but in a mixed group of about 10 students from several sections of environmental geoccience. Gavin is our anchor.
004Every day, he fights adversity and wins, and still has positive energy left over to share with others. It is truly a blessing to have him in our class and to see the positive effect his presence has on other students. When Gavin graduates, we will sorely miss him, but we know with all the intelligence, character, leadership, and resilience he possesses, he will go far after he walks across the stage. Good evening. and I'm Michelle Lorenz and I want to thank you for the opportunity to recognize one of our outstanding students this evening. I have had the privilege of knowing Gavin um for the past three years and during that time I have seen tremendous growth and maturity and a confidence from him that just exemplifies the Lake Forest Scout way. Gavin has truly become an anchor.
005We both share the same sentiment in our classroom. He leads not by being the loudest voice in the room, but by being consistent, reliable, and someone others naturally look to for guidance. I myself look to you for guidance, Gavin. His presence sets the tone. He's steady, positive, and focused. Gavin brings a wonderful energy to our classroom. He's bright, thoughtful, and deeply personable. Um, he's the kind of student who can adapt to challenges with a very calm and flexible mindset, which is what we again want to see in our students as they're getting ready to launch into his senior year and onward. Um, Gavin often meets all the expectations and exceeds them. What stands out the most for us is not just your academic ability, Gavin, but the way that you treat others with kindness, respect,
006and genuine care. You're a student who makes our classroom a better place just by being a part of it. Mr. Crane, we are incredibly proud of the work you have done and the growth that you continue to show. Gavin, you're very deserving of the student spotlight recognition, and I am so grateful to be able to celebrate with you this evening and your family. So congratulations, FRIEND. >> GAVIN, would you like to say something? >> Um, >> I love it. >> I don't really a speech or anything, but I just wanted to say thank you to everyone. And go scouts. >> That's always good. Gavin actually have an we actually have an award for you. So, if you can come up and take a picture with the board um as well, we will take a picture
007together. Congratulations. uncle. Thank you. and you have been waiting a long time. You you're free to go in between before we begin. Thank you so much for waiting. Thank you, Miss Lorren, Mr. J. Thank you for the nomination as well. Right. Well, that was cool. So, thank you. And so, uh, it's time for president's report. So, that's a good time to clear the room. So, that was awesome. clear clear the room for me. Um so just a couple little things and then I will um uh Annie Annie Helms uh our vice president was unable to be get back in time from uh DC trip she was needing to do for her firm and so she uh wrote a couple little things um that I wanted just to read out real quick and then I'll do
008the report. and she just wanted to apologize that she was not able to be here this evening uh due to the work commitments and she's especially sorry as she considers the discussion around the adoption of our annual tax levy as one of the most important decisions that we as a board make. As an elected official and a taxpayer, I take this responsible responsibility very seriously. The public should know that this board asks difficult questions of the administration every year before taking this vote on the levy and it is not something that we rubber stamp or take lightly. At this same time, we know again as taxpayers who care about our property values how important is to have a top tier school in our district. It is with this in mind that I'll write my voice
009to support the tenative levy. Even though I cannot be here in person to vote, I'll be present in the December meeting when we make our final decisions and look forward to casting my vote at that time. So, thank you Annie for writing that up. All right. Uh so, good evening. Thank you all for being here tonight. Um I wanted to begin by acknowledging uh Veterans Day and recognizing the meaningful assembly that was held earlier today at Lake Forest High School in partnership with Lake Forest and Lake Bluff American Legion Post 264. to our veterans and to our families who have supported them. Thank you. Your commitment to service, sacrifice, and country is an enduring example for our schools and our broader community. We are grateful for the values you model for our students and for
010the standard of integrity, courage, and civic responsibility you set for all of us. Tonight, Drs. Montgomery, Leonard, and Fitz Simmons will share the details behind our exemplary designation from the Illinois State Board of Education. So, I will not preempt their presentation. Instead, I want to simply say great work. This recognition reflects the sustained commitment of our teachers, staff, and administrators, their drive to strengthen our educational system, refine our approach, and invest countless hours to make this truly a truly exceptional place for our students and our community. In addition, I'd like to preview some work that has been underway for some time and related more clearly to communicating our financial philosophy. Prior to the referendum, we made important updates to our fund balance policy and shared our intentions on how the referendum would be executed, including
011potential contingencies based on what we might learn as the construction progresses. Regarding our construction at the high school, we are now approaching a midpoint of construction phase one. And as we do so, we will bring forward an updated financial outlook and reinforce the principles guiding our approach. You can expect this work to unfold over the next several months. And finally, on our portrait of learner, we plan to reconvene our tri- district portra portrait of learn planning group in March of 2026. This session will allow us to revisit and refresh the work created several years ago while also gathering meaningful feedback on how our communities perceive the progress to date and the direction we are taking. We'll use this time to reaffirm and refine our strategies so that they can continue to align with our shared
012aspirations and path forward. More information on this effort will also be shared in the coming months. As always, there is a great deal happening at Lake Forest High School, and the entire team continues to deliver exceptional work. The depth and complexity of these efforts make it difficult to capture everything in just a few comments or a single message. I also want to note how much this board appreciates the work of our communications team. Thank you for the consistently presenting information in the ways that allow our community to understand, reflect, and engage on their own terms. We will continue to get all of the information out in the ways we can. And if there are things that you need as a community to see or better understand, please ask or call. I am, we are here
013to serve and be your voice. Thank you. This concludes the president's report and I'll turn it over to uh Dr. Montgomery and his team. Thank you so much, Mr. Noble. Uh I appreciate uh your report as always and look forward to the work ahead particularly as we dive deeper into the financial forecasting for the district. Um tonight's superintendent's report uh will um cover numerous topics starting from the report card and finishing with upcoming events. I cannot believe we are in November and it's getting dark at 4:40 but it is and we are excited and grateful because it is the month of gratitude. So we will start with the uh report card itself. We had been talking all fall and excited about the results that we were seeing on the back end that were embargoed that
014we could not share with the community. Thankfully that time has passed uh since October 30th and we have been talking about it an awful lot as we continue to get deeper into our analysis of analysis and communication with the community of where we landed. uh and this is uh I'm thrilled to say that this is actually our fourth year in a row uh where we have achieved the exemplary status and I'm going to uh kick it over to Dr. Fitz Simmons as she starts a discussion about um how we fared in the individual categories. >> Thank you Dr. Montgomery. This image here is a representation of all the different indicators that the state will weigh and value in terms of how we receive that designation. So you can see at the top our score of
01593.49 put us into that exemplary category. And I'll dive into a little bit more about what some of those indicators look like and why we did or did not receive those full points. So in the next slide you'll see specifically that we had an indicator of chronic absenteeism that you may have noticed went up from um seven was it 7.9% last year. We were we were excited about how that was declining and now we're back up and that um unfortunately we are at 9.3% this year. So that affected our ability to receive a full 10 percentage points. We had a an 8.24. What that says is that 9.3% of our students are considered chronically absent. That means that they miss 17 or more days of the school year, which represents 10% of their learning. And
016we always say the best ability is availability. So we ask parents to be sure to send their students to school because that attendance really matters. In looking at our graduation rate, we did receive full points, but you may have noticed that we declined slightly to 96% this year. This was a direct outcome of some of our scouts continuing into the transition program, which simply means those are some students with IEPs or paperwork. They just weren't ready to receive that diploma yet, but they are continuing on in that program and we're very proud of that program and we've invested a lot of time and people in that program. Um, in terms of our climate survey, this is we did not receive full points here either, but this is an important message for parents. The climate survey
017is one of the surveys that the state mandates that we take. It it indicates how we're feeling as a community. Many of our board priorities and our strategic plan metrics are set around this. This score here of 4.32 represents our um fact that we did not have full participation. We need to have 95% or more of our students taking this and um staff taking this. if we have optouts and we had record optouts last year that will give us a lesser score. So just a reminder to our parents that by not taking it or our students by not taking it that actually indicates a a form of culture which the state values and that also helps us really change our programming and do everything that we can to make this um an amazing place here
018at Lake Forest High School. Um, jumping to our next slide, you will see that the board has identified a consistent set of comparable peer districts to ensure that we're benchmarking our performance against schools similar in size, demographics, and expectations. So, this comparison here highlights how our students perform relative to these peers. So, for example, you'll see in the top left, that's our ELA proficiency score. And at Lake Forest this year, 85.5% of our students met or exceeded the state proficiency benchmarks and that was for ELA. In the second square, you'll see that is our math proficiency. 77.6% of our students met those uh benchmarks. That is with our state rightsized proficiency marks. So what we want you to understand with that is in Dr. Leonard will pro uh provide some more information on what that
019looks like with the old concordance table from SAT to ACT. But this still here if you see against our peer districts it still shows this is how we are fairing according to our peers. And also at the bottom you might notice by contrast science did proficiency wise decline a little bit. We're still comparable with our peers, but that is because the state when they right sized, you'll remember, they actually raised those cut scores, ultimately showing a slight what may look like a decline in proficiency. But those are important messages for us to know. We have to focus very strongly on what we're doing with science, our career pathways, and making sure we're preparing our students for the demands of the future. Um, and as a reminder, the state accountability measure reflects only 11th grade performance
020on the ACT. In in that regard, I'd love to turn it over to our students who are with us. I know one of you was maybe going to speak just on your experiences with the ACT when you were juniors. >> Yeah. Um, I took the ACT. I took like multiple tests and I took one originally in uh September last year just like kind of set a benchmark for myself because I took the PSAT through the school instead of the PACT and um I didn't score well on that. So I went in my mom signed me up for the um the workshops on the weekend that Mr. Hayan um I'm blanking right now. >> Mr. Abrams. >> Yeah, Dr. Abrams set up for us. So, I went and took those and that improved my score a
021bunch and I also got a tutor outside of school who helped me out a lot and I got my score up to where I wanted it to be. So, um I think overall I had a positive experience. I took, you know, more tests than I obviously intended on taking. But I mean I think it's a it's a positive to get to where you want to be since it's such an important test for us students. But I've also been hearing some feedback about those diagnostics. And um I know some people were a little angry about how there was it like you took half digital and half paper in the in the fall this year. Obviously I didn't take that, but I know that they were a little bit angry by that because that's not exactly preparing
022them for it. So I think that they would rather either have an option for full paper or for full technology. But overall, I think I had a positive experience and I'm really glad about all the resources that were available to me and just all the support overall from the faculty. >> Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. That does speak volumes and is a testament to everything that Lake Forest High School offers to our students. And as I uh right before I turn over to Dr. Leonard, one of the things we wanted to just share is as a reminder, proficiency means the percentage of students who are meeting or exceeding those standards. Percentile really is a ranking within the other schools in the state of Illinois. We just happen to extrapolate those peer districts.
023And now a very important consideration is growth because next year our report card will be shifting considerably with the algorithm and how we are designated and growth will be a critical component for us to consider. Uh we have very good news with that though this year. Thank you. Great. So um thank you and thank you for talking about the ACT Ethan. I know that um even with the preac on the weekend, we're experiencing some challenges because we can't give a digital pretend. So um there are still some things that I know that the state and the ACT corporation are working through as well. Um so great news and this is something that is actually available on our school report card, but it's not part of the metric yet. It will be and I'll um talk
024about what we are expecting or anticipating the state to do with student growth as they've already published that. But when you look at student growth for Lake Forest High School, again, a metric that's published, um, on average, if you look at our ELA student growth, our students grew more than 67.1% of similar scoring students in English. That might not seem like enough, and it's certainly not enough for us. However, that makes Lake Forest High School number one in growth in ELA, in the state of Illinois. That's number one in districts and number one in high schools as well to include selective enrollment high schools. So I think number two if you see there's the University of Illinois that's their lab school at the University of Illinois. So these are very selective schools that's um that
025are actually part of this ranking as well. I believe there's 703. And then if you look at math we have more good news. On average our students grew more than 61.7% of similar similar scoring students in math. So that makes us two of um Illinois school districts and four of Illinois high schools. One of the four Illinois high schools is New Trier High School, but it's only the freshman campus that's number one because actually the state reports separating them out. Still, they did very well as a district. Um, but that is the campus that's actually over um Lake Forest High School. I know that's a campus that one of our board members knows very well too, especially last year. Um, but that's something that as we look at the data, we celebrate the growth of
026our students because they really are exceptional and as we have evidence now exceptional to the growth of other Illinois students as well. So, we're very proud of that and we're eager to see how growth actually um works in the calculation moving forward. ACT concordance and this is something as we look at the board's priorities around academic excellence. This is something that we worked hard on at Lake Forest High School. Not only when you hear Ethan talking about the opportunities in ed committee, the board and other ed committee members heard a lot about all of the different programs that we've stood up at Lake Forest to support students in the ACT to include tier one interventions in the classroom all the way to more to more targeted interventions where we are um voluntelling students to come
027to some ACT opportunities. Certainly, they can opt out, but we want to make sure that every student has the opportunity to do well. So, as we're looking at the board's priority in academic excellence, we know that we need to grow in our SAT, now ACT scores, knowing that the state shifted to ACT this year and that they would be looking at right sizing the metrics, we wanted to have an honest and transparent look at how how did that 11th grade cohort grow because we are accountable to the board's priorities. The only metric that we had really was the ACT concordance data and this was developed with the college board and the ACT corporation together. It's something that's promoted by the state of Illinois. This is the only way for us to really measure cohort to
028cohort during a transition year. Um, and as we look at that, we see that last year's juniors, this year seniors, we have three of them sitting in front of us now. In math, they grew 3.8% to 69.4. Um, and then in English 72.1%. Um, so that's a 3.9% increase. Our board's priority would have us go about 3.9%. So, we're slightly short in math, but we're working on it. And we know um as we have actually um grown our math program to add more classes, um we know that that's a target that we will hit. I'm going to say this, this is probably the last year that we're going to look at concordance like this because we now have a baseline. We have this year's juniors and we have right-sized metrics. So, moving forward, we're not
029going to keep doing this concordance to the old data. But we just wanted to show the board that we are working to improve and grow and that all of the supports that you are supporting as a board certainly are helping our students. Thank you. So what's next? This is something we're keeping our eye on our eyes on. We have more than one eye our eyes on um as a team and this is really thinking about how ISP is moving and redesigning the report card and what's essential um for schools. And what we see here, um, this is a draft that ISB has pushed out to school districts and this is what they're seeking feedback on. And we see still see the proficiency marker being a percentage of it. But then we also see the composite
030growth being a percentage of it. So we know growth is going to be in the new calculation. Graduation rate will remain in the calculation. We're doing very well as Dr. Fitz Simmons reported. English language learner progress which is currently in the calculation. Um we expect that that will probably be a larger chunk. We just don't know how much. Um and that is something that we focused on is um um incentivizing our staff members um to receive multilingual endorsements, continuing to explore ways to incentivize staff members to do so. Um and consider continuing to offer more multilingual lang multilanguage learner classes and integrated classes as well. Um, we also see that we're seeing a shift. I don't see chronic absenteeism here. They're actually calling it consistent attendance, which is a different measurement. I don't know which
031way the state's going to go. We're going to continue to focus on attendance mattering and making sure that our students are coming to school and understand availability is the best ability. I like that uh Dr. Fitz Simmons, that was really good. Then climate survey continues to be a major part as well. So, in its participation on the climate survey, we can't say that enough. Uh most recently, we're really proud to report, speaking of proficiency in ACT, um Mr. Leniak and Mr. Hayne led a virtual ACT night. I think we had over 70 people logged in. I think over 80 at one time, but 70 consistently throughout. Some great questions were asked um and the many resources that Leforce High School has were shared with the community. That is something that was recorded and is available
032to the community as well. Um just in align in alignment with the board's um goals, we also have upcoming presentations at the next few board meetings. We'll do a thorough assessment report. Uh Mr. Lesniak will be doing that in December. He'll talk about dual credit um and he will also talk about ACT, SAT proficiency, and concordance more um in more in depth as well. We'll also see in February um that's all right. Sorry. We're also we will also see in February Dr. assassin will lead into the post-secary landscape report talking about college and career readiness and um our pathways and then Mr. Burke Halter and Miss Malik are back with our extracurricular and activities report in April. Um something that was really exciting that we hosted a few weeks ago was a strategic update with
033the superintendent advisory council. We also had the spirit of 67 present. And we invited members of all three boards, district 67, district 115, and district 65. And we had a really great turnout. Probably 50 or so community members were there in total, and a number of Lake Forest High School's team was there. We did plan, of course, to tour um the new the newer parts of the building uh from the referendum and from the project over the summer. But what we really wanted to do was lean in to the board's priorities and the board's current strategic plan and receive feedback from the community on how they thought we were doing. Next slide. Um and so we had we got a few key takeaways uh from the community members who were there and stakeholder feedback is
034crucial to our goal setting. One of the things that um really surfaced were of course that we have um strong academic a strong academic focus, but they also want us to expand and think about expanding career pathways, mentorships, being really clear and how that counts on transcripts, how we're actually supporting students in their understanding of that. Then also um one bit of feedback as we think about increasing AP participation, as we think about increasing ACT scores, understanding that that's not the identity of every single student. This was strong feedback from um the advisory council and how are we making sure that every student sees themselves at Lake Forest High School. Another big thing um very excited to see the extracurricular goals that we have in the board's priorities and that there is that investment in
035ensuring students see themselves whether it be on the field or on the stage or on the court. Um but understanding that we still need to focus on student wellness. some of our students are feeling very overcommitted and overwhelmed and we even heard that from some of our student reps and ed committee. So, how are we making sure that that's part of our goal setting? Um really looking at the dashboard, the board priorities, the current dashboard in the website, the board priorities and the strategic plan and um the advisory council and the members who were there that day. They see it. They see the plan and they see how it aligns and they're thankful and grateful for a hyperfocus on academic excellence, for a focus on seeing every student, but making sure that that's really clear
036to the community. So maybe creating some um other avenues for us to create more streamlined documents so the community sees these are this is the through line and this is the hard work of district 115 that we're answering to and for um year-over-year. And then they just expressed a deep appreciation for the work of Lake Forest High School for our focus on academic excellence and for the board's commitment to it. >> Is this me? Well, it's so >> today. Erin, you can do >> I can, you know, because I have a veteran on the stage today. >> I have a veteran at home. >> This was our Veterans Day ceremony. And I really think I mean, we've had uh over the last five years, this is just it's an awesome day because American Legion Post
037264 partners with our school. They plan with our school. Ashley Malik um leads leads alongside them. Um today was just a really special day as we heard from a Lake Forest College um football coach who is a retired Navy Seal of 28 years and gave an absolutely amazing speech about his time in service. it was real and it was his time in service. And I um I was reminiscing about years past whenever I would hear my husband um talking about service, especially service during combat and talking about that with his colleagues as well and his fellow his fellow officers and soldiers. So um it was just an incredible day. Um and uh Gianna Kurr was the winner of the American Legion Award, but we had a number of other scouts who were honored for their
038artwork, too. So, um, and I always have to say year after year at this table, we have a mom of three veterans, um, all three of her sons serving, and that's Miss Oakley. And I think that that just speaks volume about her and Bill and about who they are as people that all three of her sons have served in the United States military. So, thank you, Melissa, and thank you to your sons for their service, too. >> It is. If you have not been to one of these ceremonies, I would encourage you to come to next year's. It is one of my favorite days um because there is an opportunity uh for everybody to be involved. Whether you are we have students on the stage, we have students in the audience. We solicit pictures of
039veterans that are important to uh the faculty uh that have served our families and our countries. And I will tell you, it's um it's a special experience. So, thank you for everybody making it that, especially uh the American Legion Post. Next topic I'd like to touch on is the grateful market, which looked a little different than in years past, but was exceptionally successful in that uh we pivoted from having the event in WKEAN to preparing all of the donated items together at LFHS on October 19th. There were 580 or so uh student volunteers that were participating and we packed uh over 125 bags of toiletries and organized hundreds of pantry items uh that then uh were delivered to the wagon uh community. There was $2,410 of monetary donation collected to support the market. And while
040again the format looked different, the impact was just as great. And I want to thank Ashley and Melissa as we pivoted real time uh to make sure that we could support these communities in need. Beyond the budget, episode two has been released within the last two to three weeks. Uh this video explains what happens after the budget is finalized, including five-year projections, annual audits, and yearend checks, highlighting the district's focus on accuracy, transparency, and fiscal responsibility. Episode three will be coming mid December which is titled understanding the tax levy which is apppropo given what the board action will be in December and it'll break down how the levy is determined and what it means for our community. Earlier this year we released the first beyond the budget video which was an overview of the entire
041budgeting process to educate the community on school finances and show how public funds are responsibly used to support students. As a reminder, this video along with full financial reports and documents are on the 115 website um and are available to anybody's uh who would choose to engage in the topic. I will tell you that we're making a concerted effort uh to reach out more around education of the district finances and fiscal responsibility through the beyond the budget or the bottom line publication. This board continues to challenge or charge the administration to make sure that we are sharing facts with this community on a regular basis and um considering how we can continue to improve how we are managing the district finances. We had a robust conversation tonight at workshop. There will be uh more coming
042as John alluded in his president's report. On November 3rd, which was last Monday, I had the opportunity to host Jeff Celingo, who was the author of a New York time bestselling book called Dream School. There was approximately I'm going to guess a hundred people, more than 100 people that were in attendance. It was probably the most uh it was the the greatest attendance I've seen in a fan event that we've hosted. And we just started partnering with Fan in the last three years. I couldn't be more thrilled that we are part partnering with Lonnie and Fan uh because of the access that she and the network has to really novel thinkers across the country and this book was exceptionally timely to anybody who was looking at uh colleges in the near future or in the
043foreseeable future. Uh so I was pleased to have that opportunity and uh Mr. Lingo said, "Anything we need in the future, uh, please make sure you reach out." And those are great connections for the community as we continue to support all of our families that are going through the college selection process. On October 21st, uh, we had our joint board coffee. This was exceptionally attended to. I think we had around 20 people. Sometimes we have zero. Um, but this time we had 20. And we had, uh, many topics introduced. Um I want to thank the additional board members who are additionally were in attendance from both boards. Uh and the topics that we discussed were career pathways, special education and multi-ter excuse me multi-tiered systems of support and our the status of our current construction.
044It was a great representation of multiple board members from across the districts and community members and it is uh a great opportunity for anybody who is interested in coming to the next one which is in don't have it in front of me I want to say February February which will uh we have this posted but it's an opportunity to have informal conversations with the administration and the board around any topic of interest so I encourage you to attend the next one it is We celebrate uh school board members twice a year and that is not enough. Um but I want to make sure that we acknowledge that on November 15th, it is one of my favorite days is my mother's birthday. Uh that it is Illinois school board member day. Know that um there is
045a second time later in the winter where we will celebrate you again. But I did I would be remiss if I didn't give you the shout out on the actual day uh for Illinois. Thank you for your service. Um uh not many people realize how much work uh goes into serving the community and you see a small portion of the video recorded time together in the regular meeting but it is many many more hours than that and uh without a supportive board we would not have the district that we have today. So thank you for your service. Upcoming events we have our freshman and sophomore fall play uh coming up on November 20th to 22nd in the little theater. We have the alumni panel which is on November that's not correct. It's November 24th. Forgive
046me. November 24th in the RMA. November 27th is actually Thanksgiving. It's my wife's birthday. I don't know why we have a month of birthdays. Um on the on the slide deck today, but I don't know why I'm sharing it either, but I guess it's just I care about my family, I guess. Uh so we also have Thanksgiving break, which will be here before we know it, which is November 26th to the 28th. And then the band orchestra concert, spaghetti dinner and coral concert is on December 7th at the in the ROA RMA and cafeteria. With that being said, it is the month of gratitude. So, thank you all for everything that you do to support me and I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. >> All right. Thank you, sir. And thank you all. Appreciate
047it. Um, really great news. So, um I don't know if there's any comments or questions for Matt Erin or Dr. Dr. Fitz Simmons. All right, we will move on to Oh. Oh, please. >> Just uh on the fan events. They're so wonderful and I do believe they are recorded and put on their website later. So, if you missed last Monday, I think there'll be an opportunity to see that. It's a great author. >> Good point. Thank you, Gail. I forgot. Thank you, Gail. All right. Uh at this time, public participation. Um so seeing none we're going to jump to the next thing. So uh liaison reports um Edra legislative update um there's a bit more coming probably in December. Uh but we do have a a thing that we're doing with ISB which is recommending
048or approving um items around uh their bylaws or their constitution as they call it. So there's some um preuncterary uh support for that and then they have simply one resolution uh around some transportation stuff. So it's uh not as an eventful year with an IASB but um need needless to say we'll be having that in our um or an agenda down below. Um at this point throw it over to the next uh update on the True North uh cooperative uh from Amy and or Matt depending on any update there. Uh next um week on Wednesday the 19th, we will have a November meeting with True North where the council will be asked to approve the second reading of the updated articles of agreement. The first reading was in the October meeting. There have been changes
049uh through a redline version and while not substant enough to change the first reading there will be an update based on uh feedback from the member districts that'll happen next Wednesday and then there is the ask that by the end of the month every district confirms whether they are continuing to remain in the cooperative or to uh part ways. There was a debate uh between some districts on whether or not they were going to take uh a formal action which I'm not dis not discrediting this at all because everybody operates differently. I decided not to bring to you a motion to withdraw our withdrawal based on the conversations that we had previously. I have shared with True North that bless you that we are intending on staying uh with the cooperative moving forward and know
050that just know that if you read about some districts res taking a motion to resend their withdrawal that's a formality that we don't have to do but some districts are doing and I decided not to based on our understanding that both 67 and 115 intend on staying with the cooperative and I let them know accordingly. >> Right. Thank you for that. >> I'm sorry. May may y >> there's more details. Uh so my mind neurons so December then there will be yet another meeting uh to wrap everything up in terms of the current governance structure and there will be a transition in January should all of these things get approved uh where the superintendent will then be advising the executive directors uh on a monthly meeting and then the uh governing board will be meeting
051twice a year. So it will switch from the governing board meeting by monthly when things are going swimmingly monthly as of late where now the superintendents will take that direct role with the co-executive directors and then the governing board will meet the statutoilially required two meetings a year and thank you for the time from both of you. It's I know it's a bit tireless on that one and the complexity and to try to get it right right sized and right uh right forwarded I guess might have been me. I don't if that's a real word or not. I don't think so. All right. Um on to action items. Uh may I have um a motion to adopt the 2025 tenative tax levy? >> So moved. Second. Um any discussion or do we want to I
052think the give a little context of how this steps in Jen if you don't mind um into then the um ongoing in regards to then what we'll see next month. I know you covered it a little bit earlier but just for the record on this that'd be great. >> Thank you. Thank you. Um so this is the tenative tax levy that you're voting on tonight. This will come back for a final tax levy approval with the board in December. In between now and then, we are going to continue to work some exercises looking at our five-year financial forecast um taking in some conversations, some feedback um that we had at the earlier discussion and bringing that for review to the board um before that final vote. It is a finance and operations committee meeting prior
053to the board meeting in December and that's where we will have that discussion. >> Thank you. And then that would go back to a final decision. I think what March 15th is when we finish. And then that all all of that stuff with the county then rolls into what we see as taxpayers for the May or no June and September payments that we see and that's for then the following year of what you build your budget for. >> Exactly. So this is the final approval will be in the sum in December. That's the final approval of your levy. you have the opportunity to make changes to that levy. Um, you can reduce it, you can increase it past that December date up until the point in time that the county finalizes their final information, which
054is typically around the March, April time frame. Um, at that point, they will start to prepare their tax bills. Those will hit the mailboxes uh shortly thereafter with uh first installment due in June, second installment due in September. That does fund our 2627 school year. >> Thank you for that. Any uh discussion or questions? All right. May I have a roll call vote, please? >> Mr. Wein Burner, >> I. >> Mr. Noble, >> I. >> Mr. Sylvve, >> I. >> Miss Gamith, >> I. >> Miss Connell Donahghue, >> I. >> Miss Enzer, >> I. Motion carries. >> Thank you. May I have a motion to approve item number two, the architectural service proposal for referendum phase two? >> So moved. >> Second. Um any discussion on this item and Jen if you don't mind for
055just clarity this is obviously an act um this is preparation work for phase two see this is uh so phase two is the will be the second two-year phase of the referendum. So we are currently at the end of almost the first year of phase one. So, we still have one more year of phase one left, but this is the point in time that we are starting to really develop our our plans and reviewing our design, meeting with our stakeholders within the building and kind of drawing up the rest of the um the designs that we need in order to actually go to bid on this over the course of the next probably year and a half. Um we might split that into some pieces versus equipment with long lead times versus uh things that
056are actually closer to the date of construction. But um this is authorizing Perkins a will to proceed with that phase two piece of the referendum. >> Thank you. May I have a roll call vote please? >> Miss Enzer >> I. >> Miss Conno Donahue >> I. >> Mr. Sve >> I. >> Mr. Wein Burner >> I. >> Miss Gam >> I. >> Mr. Noble. >> I. >> Motion carries. >> Thank you. Item number three. May I have a motion to approve the waving of the first reading of policy 430 revenue and investments? So move second. >> Any discussion? All right. May I have a roll call vote, please? >> Miss Cameron. >> I. >> Mr. Wine Burner. >> I. >> Mr. Noble. >> I. >> Miss Denser. >> I. >> Miss Connagu. >> I. >>
057Mr. Sylve. >> I. >> Motion carries. >> Great. Thank you. May I have a motion for item number four to approve the second reading of policy 430, revenue and investments? So moved. >> Second. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? >> Mr. Sylvve, >> I. >> Mr. Wein Burner, >> I. >> Miss Zer, >> I. >> Miss Connell Donu. >> I. >> Mr. Noble. >> I. >> Miss Gamron. >> I. >> Motion carries. >> Thank you. Uh, for the consent agenda, may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda items items 1 through nine as listed? >> So moved. Second. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? >> Miss Connell Donahghue. >> Hi. >> Miss Zer. >> I. >> Miss Cameron. >> Hi. >> Mr. Noble. >> I.
058>> Mr. S. >> Hi. >> Mr. Wine Burner. >> I. >> Motion carries. >> Great. >> Mr. No, >> I just want to take a quick note. >> I was going to say what? Yeah. So, in in regards to the consent agenda, there was one item in regards to that uh for the architecture service fees for the RMA lobby refresh. And what has been approved there basically is the commitment for the work that has already been done by Perkins and will within that. And I just wanted to note from the board's perspective as we discussed kind of our direction uh to Matt and the team is to really look at um future ideas regarding uh what we will or will not do um in terms of bringing those bids forward back to the board. But
059in terms of that work, we're really approving basically to pay for the work that has been completed. And at this point, we'd be looking to see information brought back to us in December for what different revisions or ideas within that project that we would look to potentially consider in the future. But I think at this point that's we're not approving anything at this moment in time. It would be looked to really have you guys to rightsize that project and identify its purpose and its um specifics around the changes that I think some of that have happened and discussed in workshop. And if I may, what that means is that the original timeline to go to bid has been press pause and we will double back to the board in December and after we've processed all
060the feedback we got during workshop and then the board will give us further direction. >> Great. Thank you. And again, thank you for the work that has been done by the parent committees and I think um both pals and applause and the time and energy they've put into it has been really appreciated as well as the admin and the work that Perkins and well I think the ideas have been uh fantastic. It's just a question on really again right sizing this for what we think and I think the school and everybody together needs. So thank you. All right. Uh foyer requests. Um let's see. So Jeff Brinkit two of two completed. Frank McCormack three of four completed. Mike uh Remolo Lona one of one completed. Own Wang 404 completed. Heather Kerr one of one completed.
061Deo Johnson 202 completed. Lalit one of one completed. Philip Milin one of one completed. Uh at this time another public participation window of opportunity. So no no one looking to take that. Thank you. Um so if that with uh announcements uh Wednesday, November 26th is uh Thanksgiving break begins. So, no school there or the next couple days. Monday, December 1st, school will resume. Thursday, December 11th, 2025 will be our finance committee of the whole and board next board of education meeting at 7 p.m. right here at Lake Forest West Lakes High School West Campus Boardroom. Uh, may I have a motion to adjourn the Lake Forest Community High School District 115 board meeting for November 11th, 2025? >> Moved. >> Second. >> May I have a voice vote? All in favor say I. >> I.
062I >> meeting adjourned. Thank you.