001All of the adults from there will be coming in. You can't join Daddy, mama. Hello. She's so excited. I don't want I will now call back to order the Lake Forest School District 67 board of education meeting for October 28th, 2025. May I have a roll call, please? >> Miss Engleberg >> here. >> Mr. Adamo >> here. >> Miss Fitzgerald >> here. >> Mr. Lavin >> here. >> Mr. Reis >> here. >> Miss Yan >> here. Motion carries. >> Good evening. I invite all members of the board, administration, and community to stand at attention facing the flag with their right hand over their heart to recite the pledge of allegiance. We are going to start off with our student spotlight and I will turn it over to Susan Milk. Thank you and welcome. Thank you.
002>> While they get themselves organized, I will simply explain. We decided to present. As you all know, we are all working hard on bringing Portrait of a Learner to life. And that is one of our school improvement goals at Sheridan that all students will be able to demonstrate understanding of the competencies. The way that we decided to do this is that each grade level is going to teach the school about one of the competencies. We started with fourth grade being the teachers as the oldest and most experienced and able. So on what day was that? Last week, Wednesday maybe. Um we had uh a shark house event and they presented to the entire school about critical thinking which was the first one and then it was followed by our domino challenge which we will show
003you at the end. Um, but I'm going to turn it over to these amazing fourth graders who are going to teach you a little something about critical thinking. You can introduce yourself. >> The portrait of a learner's six competencies help prepare students in district 67 to lead successful lives. Learning and showing these six competencies in our everyday lives help us prepare for our future. Today, our focus is on understanding and demonstrating critical thinking. Have you ever heard of critical thinking? Well, you have probably used it once or twice today. You can use critical thinking at school, at home, during sports, and everywhere. Critical thinking is using your experience, knowledge, and creativity to make smart decisions. Critical thinking is asking questions instead of just accepting what you hear. It's okay to be wrong as long as
004you are learning. Critical thinking is also seeing others perspectives and being mindful of how our actions impact others in the situations you are in. Here are some good examples of how we use critical thinking in our everyday lives. You use crit you use critical thinking when you play sports like football to think about what you're going to do. You can also use uh it to help to think about how the other team is doing defense or offense. Using what you know can help you win. You can use critical thinking when things get hard. Using critical thinking when you using critical thinking can help people in almost every way. In math, you should always make sense of the problem before you just answer. For example, breaking down big problems into smaller steps to help make it
005more manageable. Critical thinking is also making smart decisions. For example, you can use critical thinking in school because you can use what you already know to get better at something. One tip for you is to always question things where they don't seem logical. For example, don't trust everything you see, especially if it's not from a good or trusted resource. Another tip to use critical thinking is by making a plan before actually doing something. This will make you help safe and reasonable decisions. >> Next time you see something that doesn't make sense or feels wrong, find evidence and think before you tell your friends. Remember to always think critically. So in this particular event then we all transformed into our houses and um families and constructed our domino challenge using some very critical thinking. We ran
006out of space. They had to figure out what to do with it, how to line everything up. So this was how we put critical thinking into action. It's a little loud. Just a warning. [cheering] [screaming] >> [cheering] [screaming] >> That was 517 boxes of cereal that was then donated to fill a heart for children and to help them eat breakfast. Right. So, we also talked a little bit about how we hit a few other competencies in that experience as well as citizenship and empathy and everything like that. So, thank you very much. Thank you guys for coming, staying out late, all those things. Nice job. [applause] >> Thank you very much. Everyone did an excellent job presenting this evening. >> Do you want us there? >> Yeah. Please join us. >> [applause] >> Thank you
007everybody. >> [snorts] >> should probably take this with me pro. >> Yeah, it would be hard to do the rest of my work. >> Susan, I did have one question. >> Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. >> How many tries did it take to get the serial challenge right? Was it the first attempt? >> That is a great question. Um, we had one false start, but other than that, then it went. >> Yeah. Well done. It >> was the first time we've ever done it in the gym. We usually do it on the black top, but um it was too windy and we knew that would create too much challenge [laughter] >> and the uh the kids brought in the cereal boxes. >> Yep. We've done this. This was our fifth year doing it. So, we do
008it every October. Um it actually was started that first year was a student who is now gosh maybe in eighth grade maybe in high school. She brought she saw it um somewhere online and brought it to us and was like hey can we do this? I said sure we did it. Um we also brought all of it in and everything. Um but every year we've increased the number of boxes that have been brought in that we've donated. Um, one year when we were partnering with Pause for Patrick, we did um, dog biscuits instead and donated it to um, shelters and things like that. Uh, but yeah, we've done it for 5 years. The first one we did inside around the hallways. I don't know why we did it that way. Um, but everybody couldn't see
009everything. So then we moved it outside. We' done it outside for most of the years and then inside because of the wind. It's fun. They look forward to it. >> And I want to Thank you. just touch on and Susan I don't want to delay you more but um I want to emphasize that these competencies are not optional and they're really speaking towards durable skills and there's more and more talk um especially from the World Economic Forum report around what students are going to need as they move on to college and career and critical thinking is one of the biggest determinants of success. So as you see us put more and more energy and focus on the competencies as well as academic excellence, know that they are not nice to haves. They are must haves
010for our students as they are growing up. >> Yeah. I mean and we really were able to demonstrate like we did truly run out of room and had too many boxes and that's how they came up with the solution to kind of have a V that came together and then went into different directions and met. That was not the plan. has never been done before that, you know, typically we have all the room to spread out on the back black top and we don't take all of it. Um, so they had to figure out what do we do with the rest of these boxes to line them up. So yeah, >> thank you. [snorts] >> All right, we will move on to the president's report. Um, I want to offer a few comments and thoughts
011on test scores. They're going to be result uh released over the coming month. Um, we're going to hear some information tonight. We're going to have some more information on Thursday when scores are released. And so, anticipation of that, um, want to provide, you know, my thoughts, I think the board's thoughts on on the view of scores and metrics. Um, one is test scores are incredibly important, but they're not the only measure of student success. There's lots of measures for student success and whether or not uh we're doing a good job educating our kids, but certainly these test scores are a very important metric and they do mean a lot to us in terms of measuring how we're doing in the classroom. Um secondly, while the results are embargoed, um I think we can safely say
012that we're happy with the results. They're positive. Um the test results are not the result of just one year of work. They're the result of multiple years of work and a continuing trend. Um, lots of people have had their hand in getting us to where we are today from Dr. Montgomery to Dr. Fitz Simmons and even before Dr. Fitz Simmons, Dr. McHugh, um, and many, many others that that I'm missing. Um, but most importantly is the teachers. None of these scores happen without the classroom work and teachers being willing to embrace change, embrace new curricula, embrace new direction. So, thank you to all of those involved in helping us accomplish this positive direction. Um, finally, and most important, this is not mission accomplished. You know, this is a positive sign. We are on the right
013track. We're heading in the direction. Um, by by no means are we declaring victory. There's lots more we want to accomplish. We want to continue to see scores go up and I'm confident they will continue to go up because I think we're on the right track. So, I look forward to those scores being released on Thursday. With that, I will turn it over to Dr. Montgomery and Dr. Fitz Simmons for the superintendent report. Thank you, sir. And you helped expedite the report because the first item on my message was just a reminder that Thursday these scores will be coming out and more information will be forthcoming at the November meeting. Tonight though, uh we'll kick it to Renee to talk about the fall assessment report which is included in the board um agenda. And this
014is looking at data from this fall. Remember that the report card that's coming out on Thursday is how we our summitive rating of last year's data. So we are going to move forward tonight and talk about fall assessment around how our students are performing this year. >> Yes, thank you. And Mr. Ramos, you are so right. This is a culmination of a lot of great work that's been happening over the last few years. And also we would be remiss if we didn't thank the students and the families for all of their hard work because they actually did this. Um so we are thankful for our teachers, our students, our families. And also a huge shout out to our coaches and our coaching program. That was a dream of um Dr. McHugh and Vale Keyser. The
015coaches have helped us so much because we can have a vision. we can spotlight and triangulate on data we want to look at, but between the building leaders and the coaches, they did the hard work on the ground floor. So, we're really pleased for what what the the value has been through our coaching program. So, thank you for the support of that. >> And I'll add that when we were looking at building out coaching, uh some of you remember these were big discussions from the board at that time to make the additional investment in staff. And I hope the previous board members when I talk to them, they will indulge me because it is paying off now in a big way. And I think they were monumental in some of this success. >> Absolutely. And
016so I want to also remind everyone that one of the big changes we made this year was moving fall map testing, moving to fall map testing, I should say. In the past, we had done winter map testing and spring map testing. And we had a big process last year. We engaged the community and we engaged our teachers through the curriculum coordinating committee. We had all of those representatives go back to their buildings and their stakeholders and actually look at what kind of data were being collected and how was this in affecting and informing instructional shifts. One of the big takeaways we heard was that we needed to have a benchmark in the fall to guide our instruction. So we switched our testing to fall and this year we don't have a fall growthtogrowth measure. It's
017going to be a baseline for us. This is the first time that we're doing this. We also have some shifts in that the state, if you remember, they switched the cut scores. So, we have now a new test at a new time. We have new cut scores. And then the other interesting thing is that we have new MAP 2025 norms. So, it is a lot of apples to oranges, but we're doing our best to show you what this means. So, one of the things you'll take a look at is that in our wrap our map reading achievement, we have a lot of blue and green on that screen right there. And blue and green ultimately means that that's the percentage of students that are actually in the 61st percentile or above in achievement. Blue means
018that they're in the 80th percentile of achievement or above, nationally ranked. One of the things I'd like to highlight under reading is that we were really focused on on fifth grade last year for both math and reading. If you remember, we were spotlighting those grade levels. All the work that was done from everyone involved. You can see that the work we did that incoming now current sixth grade class this year performed at the 74th median percentile in their peer groups nationally. So that is a direct outcome of all the hard work that was done last year. So in moving on to math we see similar shifts and with this map um the math map reading or math achievement. If you look at fifth grade, since we were focusing on what was happening in fifth grade,
019we had to supplement in fourth grade. And we look at what fifth grade achieved at the beginning of this year in the 85th percentile, median percentile of their peers nationally. That's a huge huge accomplishment and I think it shows what we did in our accelerated pathways in third and fourth grade. some of those shifts that we made, the clarity around how we place students, but the fact that we are coming in with only 2% of students who were performing in the first to 20th percentile speaks volumes to what we're doing. But also the red, we're looking at the red, those are our students performing in the first to 20th percentile. We're really working on our MTSS or those multiple um um the multi-tered systems of support for students who need a little extra. So, these
020are great um ways to start off the year, but if you're interested in reading more, as you said, Dr. Montgomery, the report is will be linked on the website this evening, and you can take a deeper dive into some of the work that we're doing on both celebratory ends as well as the hard work ahead of us. And again, not just test scores. It's a good point, Mr. Reis. Thank you. >> And I will add that with this fall data, this is a starting point. So, while we're excited with where we are from a launching point, we will get data in the spring to see how far each one of these students grow grew, acknowledging that if they're two standard deviations in the fall, we want to make sure that they're growing at that pace
021throughout the school year. So good scores hopefully will be get great sto scores but we cannot ignore the the fact that we are raising the bar with how we're trying to um increase our students mastery >> and just to that's a great point and this fall assessment will give us information on how to shift universal instruction as well as interventions and we will also then take the next pulse check. We do progress monitoring with with Fastbridge, but we will be taking the next pulse check in January with Winter Maps. We've moved that window also a little bit to push it out a little further to be more in line with the rest of the nation and when they collect that data. So, it will be in January and I will be happy to present to
022you again in November for the report card, which again is last year's report, but then in February to tell you how we're doing with our winter scores. And I want to thank you, Renee, for your leadership and for being able to pivot um how often we're testing and in what intervals. That was a direct response to faculty feedback, uh administrative feedback, and um maybe most importantly, parent feedback to try to strike the right balance. >> Thank you. >> Uh moving on, the board heard from Paul Fallon in workshop tonight where he presented the 67 results for the community satisfaction survey. 115 heard uh Paul and the 115 data in uh earlier in their November meeting. The that report for 115 was shared already to the 115 community. The 67 report will be shared uh I
023think in the principal's newsletters this Friday. It'll be shared sometime this week. I think the medium is the principal newsletters for those of you who are interested. Um, as a a reminder for those of you who maybe didn't watch the 115 board, uh, there was 300 adults that were surveyed. There was a 5.65% confidence uh, interval of 95%. What I would ho hone in on uh, are three data points. One is 65% of our population feel they have a high ROI for the taxes that they're spending. to 67% are saying that they rated either excellent or good for the quality of education and 75% feel uh that the districts are safe for their young people and they rated it either excellent or good for safety. You can take a deeper dive into that information as
024uh as much or as far as you want to go as we release those reports to the community. Thank you for those individuals who took the time to participate in it. Um this is a statistically valid survey which is exceptionally important to us as we make decisions moving forward as administrators and then recommendations to the board and how you guide us in this work. The grateful market looked a little different uh on October 19th in that we uh housed it at Lake Forest Community High School. We had Lake Forest, like Bluff, Nwood, communities coming together to support Waggan, uh, families in need with fresh produce, uh, pantry staples, meaningful connections were made, um, through this experience inhouse and then, uh, they were delivered to the Wikian community um, after the um, packing happened on the
025Sunday, the 19th. Uh, so it just looked a little different, but the impact was just as great, if not greater, as we helped support our neighbors to the north. There was a joint board coffee with Mr. Reis, Mr. Noble, and key administrators at Gorton. Uh, if you remember, the board of education is committed to three to four joint board coffees throughout the school year. Uh and those are opportunities for community members to essentially have walk-in conversations or um uh unplanned conversations with the board members and administrators. There was approximately 20 people. Uh sometimes we have one uh sometimes we have 20. It depends on uh uh people's availability and their interest. It was a exceptionally robust conversation over the better part of two hours plus. And the topics of this uh conversation were uh career
026pathways is where we started. Then we moved into special education support and multi-tered systems of support that uh Renee just referenced and then they there were questions. Yeah, that was career pathways and trades. Sorry, same thing. Um or I meant the same thing. And then the construction project and they wanted to know how that progress was happening at the high school. So varied topics. Uh it was we saw some new faces and I would encourage people to take advantage of this because it is much more informal in that you can um we can expand more on how we are doing decision-making process and get real-time feedback from our constituents. On Thursday of last week, we had a learning walk at the high school and we in uh invited board members from 65, 67 and 115,
027members from the strategic or the superintendent advisory committee, members from the PTA in 67 or AP in 67, foundation and spirit I think were invited. We had a great turnout. The first hour was with Dr. Lonard and her team talking about goals and strategic planning and where we are with progress. Second hour was in classrooms, seeing new spaces and also just seeing classes in work or in the works when kids are in session. Remember that this initiative was a byproduct of people in the community wanting to see what was happening in classrooms when school was open. So, we've been working hard throughout the last several years of creating opportunities where we're inviting people in in maintaining safety and security, but we want to get community members into classrooms and see um the great things that
028are happening. I think uh both Megan and Monica were here representing 67 and u I know that it was a great experience for me to hear feedback from the community. Erin sent out a survey to everybody that participated and then she will be processing that information to help guide the work in that district. I'll finish with upcoming events. There is a band concert on Thursday the 30th at the Peek Gym. There is a um guided conversation that I'm having with Jeff Celingo on his new book called Dream School: Finding the College That's Right for You. If you I would even recommend students, high school students attending uh so parents, grandparents, students, if you want to know what the current landscape is for the college search. This will be I think a an informational evening for
029you. I'm working on questions right now with Mrs. Oakley. I finished the book over the weekend. I know uh Monica's already finished it. It was incredible. Um and I learned an awful lot. Uh, Mr. Odama, you finished it, too. Um, it it's timely. It's on the charts for New York Time bestseller. And at the very least, I think you'll walk away with at least one or two things that you didn't know about how to support young people going through this exceptionally stressful process. That's next Monday, 7 p.m. at the Gorton Center. And I thank the Fan Network and Gorton for helping to put it on for the community. Orchestra concert is on Tuesday, November 4th. And then remember that there is no school on Friday, November 7th for a staff institute day where we'll be
030providing professional development. My last last slide is celebrating the work at Everett with the reopening of the sensory garden at Everett. There has been major improvements that have been happening with the support of the spirit of 67 to grow. The um the president of Mariani is also a um a parent at Everett. So that was their involvement was instrumental in making this happen as well. And this was really a vision of the Everfort Garden Club. I will tell you that the garden was dedicated to the one, the only former effort principal, Dr. Renee Fitz Simmons for her leadership in reinvigorating this special place. and I and I think that um it's a testament to her leadership and how much that um her work is carrying on on at that building uh with the help of
031Dr. Igenra. Thank you. And I'm happy to entertain any questions you may have. But that concludes my report. Any questions from the board? All right, we will move on to the first opportunity for public participation. Are there any members of the public who would like to address the board? Seeing none, we will move on to the liaison reports. Uh Mr. Domo, do you have a True North reporter update? >> Uh a short update. We True North continues to work towards a reorganization plan that's sort of coming into its final form and we'll be having coming back to the board in either November or December on that uh in final form. >> Great. Um I'm the legislative leazison on there is no update on the legislative front. I will pass it to Megan for an update
032on spirit of 67. >> Thank you. So the spirit this year um since 25 2025 2026 isn't a home tour year uh the focus is going to be on enhancing current programming. So they have three goals. They're going to evaluate their current initiatives and processes. Um they're going to increase their communication and marketing efforts and they're going to work to recruit to get um more volunteers and to have that whole uh process run more efficiently. Um upcoming events, the Giving Tuesday initiative is being developed and spring fundraising event research is underway for another PAD alignment event. So, thank you to the spirit for all that they do. >> Any questions? >> May I add something to the True North update? Forgive me. >> Of course. There is there will be some districts that will be
033passing a resolution to withdraw their intent to withdraw. So it will be a withdrawal withdrawal of the withdrawal. Um it is an optional um item. I am not going to bring that forward to you. Uh but our understanding over this work with Greg and also Amy Donahghue is that we are going to be continuing our membership in True North under this new structure that will be um far less in terms of cost. It'll be a cost-saving measure for us. Um but I just wanted to say that out loud that you'll see some of the 18 districts going through and making a resolution. I don't think that it's necessary. Um, I think that we can move forward with the understanding that we are going to be staying in True North based on the conversations that Greg
034has had as well as Amy and their representation of both boards with the True North. If any of you feel differently, please reach out to Mark and myself and we can uh throw a resolution on in November. >> Any questions about Metro North update? >> Are those other schools that were originally going to withdraw, they're now staying in? Is that correct? most of them although I cannot guarantee we have to make a decision by the end of November the districts have to so um people are different conversations with their boards uh my belief is greater than 12 of the 18 will be staying in um my prediction is as many as 16 will be staying in >> All right we're going to move on to action items may I have a motion to approve the
035professional services proposal from Hutchinson Design Group limited. >> So moved. >> May I have a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> I have a roll call vote, please. >> Mr. Adamo, >> yes. >> Miss Yan, >> yes. >> Miss Angelberg, >> yes. >> Miss Fitzgerald, >> yes. >> Mr. Lavin, >> yes. >> Mr. Reis, >> yes. >> Motion carries. May I have a motion to approve the professional services proposal from Mechanical Services Associates Corporation? >> So moved. >> Have a second. >> Second. >> Any discussion? I have a roll call vote, please. >> Miss Young, >> yes. >> Mr. Reis, >> yes. >> Miss Angelberg, >> yes. >> Mr. Lavin, >> yes. >> Mr. Adamo, >> yes. >> Miss Fitzgerald, >> yes. Motion May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda items,
036including the three items listed in the published board agenda? >> So move. >> Have a second. >> Second. >> Any discussion? We have a roll call vote, please. >> Miss Engleberg, >> yes. >> Miss Fitzgerald, >> yes. >> Mr. Odamo, >> yes. >> Miss Yan, >> yes. >> Mr. Lavin, >> yes. >> Mr. Remis. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> Regarding foyer requests, um, all outstanding foyer requests have been completed for Frank McCormack, Michael Roast, Janie Jordan, Owen Wang, Jared Pepperbrink, Jeff Brinkat, Academy Research Group, and Ted Baborski. At this point, we have a second opportunity for public comment. Are there any members of the public who would like to address the board? Seeing none, uh just a few announcements. Uh there is no school on Friday, November 7th. That is a institute day. Um,
037the next board meeting is November 13th. At the November 13th morning uh meeting, there will be a meeting of the uh education committee followed by the regular board meeting. May I have a motion to adjourn the Lake Forest School District 67 board meeting for October 28th, 2025? >> So moved. I >> have a second. >> Second. All of in favor say I.