001to It's important. I will now call back to order the Lake Forest School District 67 Board of Education meeting for September 23rd, 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. Miss Burgger. Mr. Burgger >> here. >> Motion carried. >> I will now invite all members of the board, administration, and community to stand at attention facing the flag with their right hand over their hearts to recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So tonight we have the student spotlight from DPM and I will turn it
002over to Sam. Thank you so much. I'm just going to get our screen up here so we can follow along. Come on now. There we are. All right. Good evening. Uh, thank you so much for hosting us. Uh, I'm Sam Pollson. I'm the 78 principal. I'm joined by Mrs. Karly Harvey, our 58 assistant principal, and our wonderful guests who you'll get to meet in a moment. This is always a huge uh highlight for us during the school year. uh we know that the real stars of the show are here to share about their experience at school. So we will talk very briefly just about some of the focus areas that we are engaging in at Deer Path. Some exciting stuff to share and then we'll turn it over to our friends just so they can
003talk about their experience as a student in district 67. So today we really wanted to focus on just a handful of things that we're really trying to get off the ground at Dear Path, no pun intended, with our wonderful space theme. Uh so be brave, reach beyond is the theme of our school year and this quote I thought really resonated uh in a time when we want students to embrace perseverance and show their wonderful abilities to rise when challenges are at their toughest. That rigor is something we've really tried to stress with the adults of how can we elevate the bar for students to rise up and extend themselves and reach it. And also being a kid is hard, especially in middle school, and how can we help them navigate things beyond just the classroom
004and grow as individuals, too. And that really connects to what I feel is our northstar as the district, which is the portrait of a learner. So, the portrait is something that we've been slowly injecting into the school and trying to make it come to life more than just something on the wall, but something that kids know and talk about. So the portrait competencies is something that we've slowly been incorporating and I have some wonderful examples of some what our teachers have been doing. So here is a series of photos from various teachers. So you'll see this is a portrait of an artist. This is from one of our new art teachers, Mrs. Fontana. And each example going around the star is one of the competencies and what it means to show that in her classroom.
005And then across some of our other classrooms, we started to create that as well. also portrait of a Latin scholar, portrait of a musician, and really trying to establish that no matter what content you teach, no matter what class you're in, this is a chance for you to develop these things on top of academic excellence, but the characteristics we hope every child has by the time they graduate as a senior in high school. Mrs. Harvey, >> another way that we've been working to make the portrait come to life for students is just through our everyday behavior expectations and the teaching behind those things. Uh, one thing that we put in place at DPM this school year is this graphic you can see here. They're called guidelines for success. It was one thing that we felt
006was missing from Dear Path. You know, at Cherokee, they have be respectful, responsible, and safe in every common area and into classrooms. And so classroom expectations are taught around those three things. At Everett they have soar and at s o a r stand for different um things that students can hold themselves to and they kind of transcend every area in the school. Teachers can talk about how to embody those things. At Sheridan it's show your spark and that's their acronym. So we have put into place we are DPM and being dependable dependable positive and mindful. Um and we put that into place at the beginning of the school year especially about how can you be dependable positive and mindful in the lunchroom. How can you be dependable, positive and mindful in the hallways? Teachers have
007taken this into their classroom and partnered it with their champs expectations for their classes. And we took it one step further and we thought, how can we begin to teach kids how these things can help them reach those competencies in the portrait? We're talking a lot about the portrait of learn students. And so when you are dependable, you're showing things like citizenship and communication. And so we're continuing to have lessons through our classes and through our advisories around this. And then teachers are coming back to this um when they're giving positive reinforcement to their students for meeting expectations and also referring to it when we need to fluently correct students. So it's a new thing you come to Dear Path you'll see around our classrooms and in our hallways. We also want students to experience
008what it's like to embody the competencies of the portrait. So, one amazing opportunity we've already had with our fifth graders this school year is our field trip to Boundless Adventures thanks to the spirit of 67. And this has quickly become an annual tradition that we really look forward to. So, it's a very um wonderful experience for all students, but I think particularly with fifth graders in the time of the school year that it happens, three elementary schools coming together and people making new friends at a new campus um and having an immediate opportunity to get to know their teachers, but to also get to know each other and work cooperatively together. So, one of the things we did when we were there, um, after we came home, uh, back to school, I should say, we
009had time for students to reflect on the experience with their advisories, so in small groups. And I know that it's probably hard to see some of these things, but I'd love to read the way that we tied the portrait into this field trip for students and how they could reflect on their growth with it. So, one of the reflections that the student filled out says, "How can you use what you learned in this experience in other life situations?" The student wrote, "We all did some scary courses and that can help us be more confident. We also had different competencies um listed from the portrait. Which one of these things did we need to um the most to have a successful adventure day?" This student chose empathy and why most people including me were scared but
010we encouraged each other and we regained our confidence. Yay. Another example about how you can use what you learned from the experience in other life situations. I can do hard things. Be confident in your in ourselves because it makes you think you can do it in hard times. Another competency a student correlated it with was confidence. I think confidence because you could have more fun if you tried stuff instead of doing nothing. What did you learn about yourself? I was frustrated on the blue. That was the most challenging course they could access because there was a hard obstacle. Then I felt pride when I was finished. And so I just love not only these student responses but also how they're reflecting and talking about these competencies in their real life. And while we have our
011special fifth grade guest with us tonight at Darpath, we've really made some intentional moves this school year to really make sure that the transition to middle school has been really positive for all of our students coming into fifth grade. Um Dr. and I especially noticed um knowing some of our elementary schools so well, we noticed um some opportunities to make sure that this transition was even more seamless than it had been in the past. So, some things that we wanted to share with you tonight are some of the things that we've put into place. One of them being grade wide, the whole fifth grade, every student has an organization station. They call it a OS for short and Emma Cherry was so nice to bring a visual tonight. So every student has something like this
012to help and every teacher in fifth grade has collaborated to not only label it and organize it the same way but maintain its organization, have checks on the materials that are in it and help students maintain the system. So they have all their materials with them in an organized way throughout the whole school day. Um and one of those tools that they also are using are planners. In the past, it's been a choice if the student wanted to keep track of their assignments in a planner or simply use Schooly, maybe you put it in their iPad. And we certainly want students to have that independent choice and to be independent with that by the time they leave Dear Path and head into high school. But one thing we noticed is that fifth graders were not
013ready to independently make that choice when they came in. So, every fifth grader has a Dear Path planner that they are using every day. and teachers have um in fifth grade have all come up with a system to only not only make sure that it's filled out within their class but is complete by the time they end the day in their extended learning period. Um and then we have always had executive functioning lessons. We've always had lessons but we've done it in a more um systematic and structured way in fifth grade this year where they have these lessons weekly and they are grade levelwide. So it is not dependent on which teacher you have and what lesson you get. um they are across the grade level. So this picture you can see students that on
014Monday just got an email or a lesson on email etiquette and how to send messages through their emails and in schooly because those are new skills that fifth graders need to learn and they learned the four components of a successful email and they are talking about it with um an engagement strategy and then they got to practice it. You can see a screenshot. This one's kind of funny. says, "Dear Mrs. Ryan, how was your weekend? I will not be at school for a while because I'm moving to New York and then coming back after. I hope you understand. Thank you, Haley." And then at the bottom, she wrote, "Not really." But she did display that she had all four components of the email that were taught. These are just a few examples. We have a
015lot more, but I'm going to not just take it from me. I'm going to let you hear it from the students and their experience so far. Are you ready? Make sure this is Hello, my name Oh my god, sorry. Hello, my name is Hannah and all the teachers at DPM have been so supportive and kind and have helped me adjust to this new school. The OS is very useful because I have a whole bunch of classes and I couldn't carry everything in from one class to another. The LS helps a lot and keeps everything organized for me. Miss Mobile and Miss Bulgren have helped a lot. Miss Mobile makes lessons fun and Miss Bulg helps us with teaches us different strategies we could use. Power School and Schooly are new and I'm honestly still learning
016them. They are really helpful to check your grades and find missing assignments. Also, using a planner helps me because I get a little extra information just in case if I don't read Schooly. Hello, my name is Henry. I thought that DPM was going to be like same old same old effort that we get to go from class to class in a line, but it's not. We can walk in the hall by ourselves and be way more independent. All our teachers help us write in our planners. If I forgot what my homework is, it's in my planner. I can look and say, "Oh, now I want now I know what it is." I like the organization station because all my things are together. I don't have to need I don't have to carry loose folders and
017notebooks from class to class. It's all in one place. Mrs. Pival is very caring. Mr. Smith and Mrs. Peral both encourage you and they give you courage to try different things. Hi, my name is Emma. One great tool we have in fifth grade is our organization organization station or OS. I had one before in fourth grade, but it's helpful now because at DPM we have so much classes. I don't have to carry lots of folders. I don't have so I don't have to carry lots of folders around. Everything is together and I have my homework all in one spot. We're learning about volume and math and we get to use new new tools we didn't get to use before like cubes and special whiteboards. DPM is definitely better than elementary school. We get to walk
018around by ourselves and go to different teachers, not just staying with the one teacher all day. We also have our own lockers and don't have to share cubbies. We have to keep our lockers organ organized. Hi, my name is Lily. I really like having a locker at DPM. I originally was really excited about the bells and passing periods and not having to walk in a line. DPM is sort of a big maze. My teachers helped me by walking us to encore classes, but now I think it I have it all figured out. The teachers are really nice and they're always there to help me. They give me really clear directions on what to do and when to do it. Power School is really exciting. I love being able to check my grades. Thank you. >>
019So, those are just some examples of the bravery that our students are exhibiting every day to come here and speak in front of our wonderful board. That takes a lot of courage. So, kudos to you guys and just thank you so much for having us. A lot of great exciting stuff to come at Deer Path. Can we ask the students or may we request the students to come up and get a picture with the So, one comment I will add is as the parent of a fifth grader who went on the boundless adventures trip, it it was a fantastic opportunity. So, thank you to Deer Path for facilitating that and thank you especially to Spirit for funding that. It's it's a great opportunity for the kids. So, thank you and thank you to all of
020the speakers. You guys did fantastic. Thank you. Right. We are going to move on to the budget meeting or the budget hearing. May I have a motion to adjourn to the 2025 2026 final budget hearing? >> So moved. >> Second. >> May I have a roll call vote? >> Mr. Odamo? >> Yes. >> Miss Yan? >> Yes. >> Miss Angelberg? >> Yes. >> Miss Fitzgerald? Yes, >> Mr. Burgger. >> Yes, >> Mr. Lavin. >> Yes, >> Mr. Reis. >> Yes. >> Motion carried. >> All right. Am I turning it over to Dr. Hermes for the budget hearing? >> Oh, all right. >> I'm sorry. I was looking at the wrong direction. So, thank you, Britney. Thank you for using a Mac. All right, I think we're good. Good evening. My name is Britney Jardis. I'm
021the director of fiscal services here at Lake Forest School District 67 and 115. And in partnership with Whitney Drager, the director of business operations, we are pleased to present you the 2526 budget hearing. So to begin the budget hearing, we want to provide a reminder of the legal requirements around Illinois school district budgets. As you may recall, at the August Finance and Operations Committee meeting, we took significant amount of time to review the tenative budget, at which time it went on display for public inspection for at least 30 days. At tonight's hearing, we're going to outline the changes that have been made since that tenative budget and provide a recommendation to the board to adopt the 2526 budget, which legally must be done by September 30th. So, the first side of the budget that we'll
022review is our revenues. All Illinois school districts have three primary sources of revenue, which we put into three different buckets: local, state, and federal. Your local sources are going to be your property taxes, CPPRT, impact fees, interest income, and any other fees such as student fees or food service fees. The next source that Lake Forest School Districts gets is state funds. This is going to be unrestricted funds, also known as your evidence-based funding that's coming out of Springfield. any reimbursements for your mandated categoricals, for example, transportation, and any restricted use grants that are coming through the state. The final source is going to be your federal revenues, which are restricted use grants. So, think about IDEA and title funding. And we also get reimbursement through Medicaid for various services provided to our students. So when
023finalizing the 2526 budget, we updated our estimates for revenues and expenditures based on new information that was provided since the tenative budget went on display. The bold red font on the screen outlines the one minor change that we updated for the tenative budget as it relates to revenues. So for this fiscal year, we have updated our estimates for funding source called rate. It might be a new revenue source uh and maybe not pointed out because it was an adjustment to tenative to final. We wanted to make sure to discuss it. So is a federal program that provides schools with discounts for various technology supplies and services. And essentially the intent is to help their districts grow their digital learning resources. One note about this funding, which is going to be, we estimate $22,000 for the
024fiscal year, is either going to be received in a reimbursement check back to the district or it's going to be a credit on invoice that we pay for those applicable - supplies or services. Aside from a minor adjustment related to -ate, there was no new information that warranted that we needed to update our tenative revenues for the final budget. So this slide remains unchanged and our estimates remain the same for tenative. All right. So how does this uh shake out for the 2526 final budget? With that minor change, our final operating revenues are estimated to be just over $49 million. The intent of this slide is to show you your comparison of your tenative budget totals to your final highlighting that minor adjustment of our federal revenues. Overall operating revenues increased by 22,000 from tenative
025to final. Or another way we can look at it, it's 4.2% increase from our unodudited actuals last year. We're currently in our audit to make sure that that 47 million that we have recorded is accurate. That has increased our budget by 4.2 two from the prior year actual. Another important note to point out is because school districts follow funded county money is transferred between funds for specific expenditures. So for example, the operation and maintenance fund makes an annual transfer to debt service to pay any outstanding debt. So you'll notice at the bottom I do plus transfers between funds to show that money is moving. That's not new revenue. it just looks like it's revenue when you're transferring it between funds. So when we put all these items together, total revenues with our transfers for the
026fiscal year are projected at just over $50 million. Before I move to the next slide, I do want to pause a moment to take a time for you to review this. Let me know if you have any questions. All righty. All right. So, so to conclude our revenue portion of the budget hearing, we wanted to provide a further breakout of our revenue sources for the fiscal year. As we talked about earlier, the district's revenues comes from three primary sources with local revenues accounting for 95% of our operating revenues. within our local revenues. Property taxes remain our largest source, accounting for 93% of our local revenues, and that's going to come in, we estimated, just over $43 million for the fiscal year. I think this underscores the critical role our property tax owners have, whose tax
027contributions directly support the district's financial stability and the ability to serve our students. Now I'm going to turn it over to Whitney and she'll review the expenditure side of the budget. All right. Thank you. Um I'm going to go over our expenditures. Um as we are a school district, we invest most of our dollars into human capital. Um as we're here to educate our students. So here you can see just a quick snapshot of what our expenditures look like. We have 70% that go into our salaries and benefits. It's also important to note within our professional services, there is a small amount in there that for any of our 115 shared service employees, 50% of their salaries and benefits are also in there. This is how we're required to report um the shared services. And
028as Britney had mentioned, there's also the transfers that are part of this. Again, those are not real dollars. They are just moving from one fund to another. Um during finance and ops, we did go through a in depth with all of our objects, which are salaries, benefits, purchase, services. Um, I won't necessarily go into depth here, um, but you'll be able to see a lot of our high ticket items within each of these categories. Um, just a quick example, you have our certified staff, non-certified staff. Um, our stipens are within the salaries. Um, one thing to also note is what we are doing this year in order to be able to track our projects a little bit differently is and we are separating out the various projects based upon how they are funded. So any
029in fund 60 we are which is capital projects we are um going to show all of our capital projects that are funded by the debt service um extensionbased uh funds. Fund 61 is going to be any capital projects that are funded by operational debt. And fund 90 is our fire prevention and safety fund. This will be any projects that are funded by our life safety bonds. Um this slide will be important as we go further on then you'll kind of understand why I'm going through that. Um what's important to note is between the tenative um budget that we went through in depth at the finance and ops meeting. Uh we did have lots of changes. So I do appreciate all the work that our budget managers did because we did ask them to go back
030to their budgets and do a lot of fine-tuning. Um there was a lot of changes based upon how we ended last year. There were also a number of changes based upon final figures that had um that we didn't know at the tenative budget time where we did know them at the final budget. So um some of our um changes here, we were able to drop our repair and maintenance based upon how we ended last year um by 8,000. the special education transportation. This saw a large decrease of 115,000. Reason behind that is because we had less students that needed transportation for this year compared to last year. Um and we were able to get that kind we were able to get that information in. um related services. We were able to drop this 165,000 and
031this is in part to bring in the instructional coach position inhouse and also some adjustments with our speech position at True North. The others um here under supplies we have our utilities. Based upon trends, we were able to drop this 25,600. And this is going to be for your electric, your um your gas, and water. Capital outlay. We had cafeteria equipment that we were able to drop. We originally had that budgeted in our food service account. We were able to get that funded um based upon our capital projects. So, we were able to drop this 33,000. Another big drop that we saw was in tuition of $95,000. That was just based upon adjustments that were um done based upon our special education uh students. And so you can see we had lots of adjustments within
032special education. So this is where it's important to note, you know, as students are coming and going, we have to fluctuate based upon their needs. And so we can have a huge swing one way or another based upon those needs. >> Can I just ask a question? The tuition is that like tuition that we pay to True North or where >> it could be tuition that we pay to True North or it could be if we're outpacing any students. >> Um, one more thing, the special education transportation because I thought all families pay for their own bus transportation. So, is that not the case for the special education? >> For certain special education students, that's not the case. We do have to fund that as if it's written into their IEP. Um, here's just kind
033of a quick snapshot. Um, when we are looking at the tenative budget to the final budget, I did highlight where we did see our changes. Um, so with all of our budget managers, we were able to um drop the budget from tenative to final by about 615,000. And as I mentioned earlier, we had talked about our different uh capital project funds. So what we're doing on this slide is we're really taking out the fund 60 and fund 90 as those are funded by different dollars. We are taking those out so they don't really skew the picture too much. Um so here you'll see that we are having we're looking to have a positive impact to the fund balance of 1.3 million. This is intentional. Um, a couple years back, I believe it's a couple years
034now, um, when we added Cherokee, the Cherokee edition, we intentionally dipped into the fund balance to pay for this. And so we are currently in the rebuilding the fund balance years. And so this is why there is an intentional increase to the fund balance. Um, so between that funding model and also with our DUB and our life safety bonds, this all of this strategy really helps us to avoid um going out for referendum as we're able to address the facility needs. Um, last slide. Next steps are to approve the final budget this evening. And if there's any questions or if there's any if anybody's looking for some financial information, we do have uh lots of financial information and contracts on the website. And I don't know if there's any questions for either Britney or I.
035>> Yeah, I have a question, Whitney. Um in we went to Moody's in connection with our to get a affirmation of our existing AAA bond rating and we reported the cash and fund balance will materially strengthen over the next five years. If you could go back to the last slide that 1.341 is that what we would when you said that that's what's going to wind up going to the fund balance. Is that right? >> Yes, that is the intention. That's that's delivering on the promise we made to Moody's or was maybe wasn't a promise but on on what we expected to do for Moody's. Is that right? >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Of course. Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you, Britney. Whitney, >> thank you. >> I should say we we
036do have an opportunity for public comment now on anything related to the budget hearing. Seeing no members of the public here wishing to comment, we can move on. I have a motion to adjourn at the 2025 2026 final budget hearing. >> So moved. >> Have a second. >> Second. >> May I have a voice vote, please? All in favor say I. >> I. I will now call back to order the regular meeting of the Lake Forest Comm Lake Forest District 67 Board of Education meeting for September 23rd 20 excuse me September 23rd 2025. May I have a roll call, please? >> Miss Yan >> here. Mr. Burgger >> here. >> Mr. Reis >> here. >> Miss Angelberg >> here. Mr. Lavin >> here. >> Mr. Odamo >> here. Miss Fitzgerald >> here. Motion carries. >>
037I'll now give a brief president's report. Um what I like to use this time for is just to report on what the board has been up to behind the scenes. Some of the things that are top of mind for us, some of the things that we've been working on. Um, and one of the things that we spent a significant amount of time on this this afternoon into the evening is we had a bit of a extended workshop mini retreat where we discussed our views on the role of the board, our our responsibilities, our obligations, uh, but also where we want our attention to be, where we want our priorities to be, what is important to us individually as board members, then collectively as a board. Um, and one of the ways this all gets gathered
038together is in setting our our board's goals for the district. Um, and they're not just um undefined aspirational goals, but we try to have them very defined and specific metrics. And this is something that we created um 18 months ago now was the first draft of the the board goals. Uh, and it's always been intended to be an active living breathing document. Um, we adjust as we meet goals. we adjust as we uh maybe realize the goals were not the best goals to to target in the first place. We're always taking a fresh look at where we want our priorities to be and and that's where we spent a lot of time tonight talking about um adjusting our metrics for academic excellence for culture in the school and for fiscal responsibility. Um, and one thing
039in particular that I thought was important to bring out and kudos for for Teemo for bringing this up is, you know, we all bring to the board our own perspective on what we think is important, but what's also important is the community perspective and the community's priorities. And one thing that was very helpful for that is the Fallon research that was done where the community tells us what are their priorities, what do they think are important and we absolutely took that into account in discussing what the board goals are. Um, so that was very helpful to have in hand as we discussed where we want our priorities to be and what the metrics should be. And so that's something that the board has been paying a lot of attention to lately. With that, I will
040turn it over to Dr. Montgomery for the district leadership report. >> Thank you, Mr. Reis. Tonight's topic will uh topics will cover um widely varying from the first day of school to upcoming events and Dr. Fitz Simmons and I will uh do this presentation jointly. Uh the first day of school seems like a distant memory, but it's just over a month ago where we welcomed all of our students and faculty back to campus and uh that joy and energy while um a little tired um is still um felt in the hallways and I was a DPM today and I can still feel that energy. So we have not lost that spark and the students are still filling our hearts. Uh, one of the things at DPM every time I'm visiting as of late, I am
041standing in all in the of the cafeteria and how the students are using that new space. So, I want to thank the board and the spirit for the contributions to make that space um feel new and fresh and exciting to be um a part of. Um, I will kick it over to Renee as she talks about connecting with district families. >> Well, thank you Dr. for Montgomery. And as part of our second goal and also a shared value of empowering our communities and doing more than simply academic excellence, we had several community events. One being our elementary parent information nights on September 4th. They were wonderful. We also had our district 67 executive AP team meeting. A huge shout out to our shared services team. Thank you to Dr. Jenny Sturin, Dolly um Dr. Molly
042Escobar and Dr. Christina Tanzy and Mrs. Kristen Tivron with Mr. Jeremy Brown for presenting on a wonderful way to create a successful school experience um and how to come back to school with as little stress as possible. They did an amazing job. It was a wonderful kickoff for our AP. We also had a visit from Winston who is the Lake Forest Police um comfort dog. um he was wonderful to have and also we had our DPM open house on September 18th and district 67 welcomed our new parents with a coffee at the beach. Thank you Dr. Vid Simmons. A quick update on True North and Mr. Odamo may add some flare to this in his report, but the True North collaborative um as I've or cooperative as I've shared previously was exploring the op uh
043the possibility of dissolving the cooperative with 18 member districts all putting in their intent to withdraw from the summer's work with the subcommittee of which I was a member. uh it changed from dissolving to possibly asking the governing board to consider a reorganization plan. That plan was introduced to the council last Wednesday and we went over the plan for reorganization. the reorganization plan. Uh I am in support of which uh many of you know I was leading the effort because of uh the state of the cooperative to consider dissolving. Um, but I am very much pleased with where we're headed right now and hope that the council will consider it seriously with the next meeting being uh in October for the reading the first reading of the articles of agreement, the amendments we're proposing and
044then November a second reading and intent uh to declare the districts that are intending to stay. What I'm excited about is that this new financial model will only incur costs to member districts if they're utilizing services. So, if you maintain your membership, you get to maintain your portion of the fund balance that is in existence as well as um the ownership of the properties that are accumulated within the cooperative. So, several school buildings. So, if you stay a member, you maintain all of your assets. And if you want to utilize services, uh you pay uh only for the services in which you're utilizing. So there is no longer a country club fee. And if you want to walk away from the cooperative, there is no egregious cost associated. Some districts were charged or going to
045be charged upwards of $2 million to exit. Um but if you do choose to uh walk away while there's no financial component you are walking away from your assets both the fund balance assets and the property management assets. I think that is a fair uh way in which to exit an organization. I also think that it increases the likelihood that member districts will stay because the only cost associated with staying is if you are sending the student to a day school environment. It will also require a significant reduction in full-time equivalent. So I had to um educate the council about that but over 50% of the staff will be reduced at the end of the school year and that's the only way to make this work. So we will be reducing the amount of offerings
046which are largely in the professional development and administrative uh lens. The articles of agreement is uh suggesting or asking the council to support a new governing body made up of superintendents that will meet monthly and then the council will meet statutoily required twice a year. So, the council will come together twice a year and then the superintendents will act as the governing board for monthly meetings to provide oversight within the cooperative. Do you have a does anybody have a question about that as I'm talking? Greg might be able to add. >> Do we know how like what are Lake Forest um assets and that are tied up in the funds and the assets um for buildings and and such. Do we know how much of that Lake Forest is tied into? >> 118th. So 118th
047of the fund balance is approximately and please don't quote me on the $78 million. So we have 18th of seven or eight million that we would be walking away from and then the whatever the um sale price of the assets if and when they're sold. >> Okay. >> So 118th of that is what we would walk away from if we would no longer use True North. >> Okay. >> 21 acres of real estate in Highland Park and the the cons presently zoned for not zoned for residential presents challenges about you know getting that to its highest and best use probably administrative and legal issues we have to get there but yeah >> it's almost like we have nothing to lose by staying in is the way the restructuring is looking or >> we're going to
048save a significant amount of saving significant amount financially from restructuring the way this going to happen Matt has worked very tirelessly on this and it has been a lot of late meetings, but is going to make a very positive impact on the next year's budget. >> We will in that in that we won't have to hire additional staff to accommodate our students that will be going there. Is that where the savings? >> So there's savings because of the reduction in staff. So each district is saving um and I'm going to test my memory now. I don't have this in front of me and I'm afraid I'm going to miss it, but one district was like $150,000 savings and another one was $250,000 savings. I can't remember which one was 67 and which one was 115.
049So in the new model from from the entry level in the new model, we will save approximately $400,000 across both districts. And then our cost will only be Yeah. annually. Thank you. And we've already reduced and you saw some of these explained in the budget hearing as well as things that uh Whitney brought up in her presentation of us reducing our services and bringing more things in house. So those savings were already captured. You'll get another $400,000 annually on top of that. And we are only expending fees if we're sending students to the day school which will be approximately a fixed cost fixed cost approximately a range of $85 to $95,000. And it's the true up is uh different in that there will be a flat cost at the beginning of the school year and
050we will be refunded um if there is any um underutilize of those fees as opposed to a true up where they set the bar at $75,000 and then if they go over you have to pay you to true up at the end of the school year. So it's a reverse true up. I don't know what that's called. Um, I'm making up new terms, but it's it's much more Yeah, it's it's much more um advantageous in the model in which we set up to protect the districts so they know that they can budget one set amount and we will only get a refund if not all of those monies are spent. The the group that came together was incredible. There's a 10 of us that came together in a subgroup or a sub subgroup and I
051give many people credit and they did a lot more work than I did. But I'm just happy that I was a part of the process and happy that we found a pathway forward because there are students in the Northshore that are utilizing this that need day school support that by and large we can't offer for a very less than 5% of the population across the Northshore of the member districts. Sorry, that was like a mini report within a report. So, um I hope those of you who are timing me pressed pause on that so I shouldn't be penalized. Next, I will kick it back over to Renee. >> Well, Illinois state report card season is upon us and we are eagerly awaiting the lift on the embargoed scores from the state and our summit summitive
052state assessment will be released soon. Um this is all based on the work that we've done over the year including the IAR or Illinois assessment of readiness um summitive scores. This will be released on October 30th and we will not only be able to have confirmation of our performance but um we'll be able to assess the scores of our neighboring districts so that we'll have a sense of how we are doing compared to our peers. At this time, we really don't know, but we're excited to see that and my team and I will be sharing this report at the November board meeting. Additionally, speaking of the Illinois State report card, we definitely want to share some news that was recently um released by the state. For several years, not sure if the community or if
053our board is aware of this, but Illinois had some of the highest and most stringent benchmarks for proficiency scores. proficiency, meaning those students who are meeting or exceeding the state standards. Um, so high in fact that many times students who were getting to high school, taking AP and dual credit classes or students in elementary receiving good grades were actually being told or labeled on these tests that they were not meeting standards. So, the state went through um a very rigorous 18-month research process. they right-sized some of those benchmarks. So, for example, we saw math and ELA in certain well ELA being lowered, math being lowered in some of our younger grades, those proficiency benchmarks, and then actually science going up a little bit, feeling that some of the students who were taking the science performance
054were actually not mastering but being labeled as proficient. So, we'll see some of those changes. I would like to mention though that even despite the right sizing and the shifts in the benchmark um proficiency cut scores, our scores and our growth were still unpreped in terms of growth and in terms of an increase in our overall proficiency marks. So we are really cautiously optimistic aka beyond excited to share with you soon. Um, and we will, as I said, be bringing some more information to you in October just to help the board and our community understand what to be expecting. And then our November report will be all about the report card. This is also me. Okay. So, around goal one, we have academic excellence. Again, not solely focused on academic excellence, but one of the
055things we are thinking about is how do we make sure that teaching and learning is happening in the most effective way. Um, how are we ensuring that teachers have the resources and all of the strategies at their fingertips? So Kagan training is essentially um a brand name if you will of a different way of making sure that students are all engaged that students are participating that we are leveraging the highest most effective pedagogical teaching strategies that we possibly can. So we're really excited that this is one of our goals and one of our um under our academic excellence bucket. We have five days of training this year. We just had two days last week and we're training teacher leaders to kind of be a train the trainer model. Um 25 educators are participating in this.
056So we're really excited and we will have our next training in January. >> Thank you so much. The technology working group is going to meet next month. Uh and these are 12 community members who will discuss and share feedback on the new K4 policy which keeps iPads at school instead of traveling back and forth from home. And additionally, the in the October meeting, the working group will be looking at uh the AI policy that's in draft form uh that Jordan has been working and collaborating with teams of individuals. So, we'll get and gather that feedback as well. In November, I will be hosting uh in partnership with Fan uh a book talk on dream school, finding the right or the college that's right for you. The author is Jeffrey Celingo. This is a brand new
057book. it uh it was released on September 9th and I think it will be a topic that whether or not you're a 67 parent or 115 parent or a grandparent or aunt or uncle uh it will help pro provide guidance to young people as they're trying to select the right school for them. I think that these types of communities that we serve are predisposed to think there's 50 and only 50 schools you can apply to. And I think the idea behind this book or the premise behind this book is that how do you sift through the countless options and find the one in which is right for your young person. I'm excited to have this conversation with Jeffrey. I have not read the book yet. I think it was just delivered to me today. Uh
058so I'm excited to get a leg up on this. And um if you would like to join us, it will be at the Gorton Center on November 3rd. And I know it will be a robust conversation. Varsity Field Flicks is on the second showing. It's actually the third showing. There's one for the students that kicked off homecoming week, but it is Saturday, October 12th at 25th at 6 p.m. Gates open at 5:00 p.m. Bring some lawn chairs. Bring a blanket and uh we will in partnership with the boosters be showing Hotel Transennsylvania, which is apppropo for the Halloween season. Upcoming events. Please note that there is no school on October 13th and there is no school on October 24th. And you will also see the Halloween uh events at each one of the elementaryaries, the
059Monster Mash, the Monster Mash, the Boo Bash, and the Cherokee Spookfest. All three of those are coming. And then we have a choir concert as well as the conferences. That concludes our report, but happy to answer any questions that you may have above and beyond True North. I actually ask a question about True North. Did we officially vote to withdraw? And if we did, can we and other member districts re-evaluate and take it back? >> So the uh we voted for the intent to withdraw. We do not have to take a vote to withdraw our withdrawal, but we have to let True North know our decision by November if we're planning on staying. And Greg would be the conduit for that information. Uh letting them know our decision. >> The other member districts that have
060previously voted to intent to withdraw, are they happy with this new plan as well? Like are they all on board? Well, so I all on board is a absolute scare me, but I will tell you that the feedback from the superintendent's group uh was that 16 of the 18 districts were in favor of this reorganization plan. The questions and the question and answer session from the meeting last Wednesday I thought was exceptionally productive and there was a sense of gratitude that we found a path forward that didn't resolve in disillusion. So I am exceptionally hopeful that we are on the right track. The October board meeting will yield more questions and answers and that's when the first reading of the articles of agreement will happen. So you have two more votes that the council has
061to take in support of reorganization before we actually have a concrete direction from the council of what to do. If both of those motions pass in the respective months, the new governing board will be in place in January. I just want to follow up on the cost. So if in this new model, would we still be getting services directly to the school buildings or would it just be still supporting the outplacement like the actual True North school? And I know we talked about bringing stuff inhouse if we do stay with True North and in this new model does that then lessen our cost for hiring people to bring the services into our schools? >> I'm going to try to answer your question and if you if I missed the mark, let me know. the the
062cost will be solely associated with outplaced students per student $85 to $95,000. There will be no services that are coming from True North. The services that were coming from True North were largely occupational therapy, uh, physical therapy and professional development. So, professional development will be no more. So, there will be nobody to come in. But we told you that we in workshop that we have an instructional coach that we acquired from True North to to help us in special education coaching. Then the occupational and physical therapy we also brought OT in. So there will be very few things that we need to add if anything. The cost will be primarily if not solely in outplace student outplacement of students. Any other questions for Matt or Renee? All right. Now, we also have another opportunity for
063public comment limited to the agenda items. Seeing no members of the public present, we will move on to the liaison reports. Um, we've already discussed True North extensively. Mr. Domino, is there anything else you wish to add? >> I don't think I have anything I could possibly add. Um, I I will note though, um, tremendous thanks and gratitude to both you and Matt for shephering us through this process. I know we're not across the finish line, but I have no doubt you understood exactly what you were signing up for when you agreed to be the true north liaison. So, thank you for all of that hard work. We appreciate it. Um, there's nothing for me to report as the legislative liaison. Thankfully, Springfield has been quiet lately, at least on the school legislation front. Um,
064Jerry, did you want to give a report on your attendance at the ed committee for district 115 last week? >> Yes, thank you. Uh, I'll I'll be brief. uh the district 115 board, its ed committee sitting as a whole. So that would be the the entire board um invited representatives from uh our district and district 65 uh to uh attend their meetings this year. There are several meetings uh remaining. At this first meeting, there were three uh principal topics that were uh that were addressed. One was what uh the district 115 board called three common themes for improvement. A second was artificial intelligence and a third was a uh pilot program I believe uh a scout uh seminar to provide additional support uh for students. Uh with respect to the first uh item uh three
065common themes of improvement. This was from information that the uh administration had uh gathered and the three categories uh were uh strengthening executive functioning and study skills across all grade levels. A second was improving the transition from middle school to high school especially in academic rigor and placement. And the third was enhancing communication and awareness of available resources at the uh high school. Uh this was uh this information was gathered from a variety of sources including uh fellow board members might recall earlier this year we were invited to uh a uh an exchange uh with um high school students at at Lake Forest uh to uh to hear their their views of how they are finding high school and in particular the the transition. and uh uh we probably met with maybe uh a dozen
066or more students in in the evening. Uh one thing that was particularly interesting I thought uh was the second one improving the transition from middle school to high school especially in academic rigor and placement because among other things it opens up opportunities uh for uh our administration to collaborate uh with the district 115 administration and uh the teachers as well. On that note uh the second item they dealt with uh artificial intelligence. This is a perfect example of how teachers from the two districts and the administration working together uh to try to uh arrive at uh not just a a policy manual uh but also to share their experiences in the classroom uh and uh to develop strategies for teachers to use uh in a obviously rapidly changing environment. In that regard, uh there were
067two students who were members of this committee and um in response to a question from Dr. Montgomery, they uh explained to the adults in the room how they in particular use AI and uh from my perspective, I thought it was uh it was quite enlightening. Uh it was it was interesting also to the extent that they had mentioned one or two things that uh some of the adults weren't aware of were uses that students were putting uh a AI to u which I think calls up the the importance for teachers and administrators in the first instance and throughout uh to be informed in their work by how are students actually using AI uh whether it's uh consistent with an assignment or in some cases inconsistent. And last thing on that topic is one of the
068things the students stressed was very much uh their request uh for um for guidelines what not to do. Uh they were they were very clear in this. They wanted to understand better uh what it was they were uh uh they were not supposed to stray into or how best can they use AI to uh to help themselves. The uh the third and final topic that they dealt with uh was this um uh this pilot program uh scout seminar and and Dr. Fitz Simmons if there's something that I'm missing maybe you can jump in. Um this was very interesting. It it represents about uh I think it was about 70% of the student the freshman first year students uh to receive these additional support services. And in many ways it was a it it it appears
069as a a um uh is we have portrait of a learner sort of a a self-awareness of the portrait of this particular learner. So each student being invited in defined categories uh to get a better view of how they're doing and how they can improve uh their skills, their awareness uh their interactions with uh uh with others uh which uh I thought uh highlights another opportunity I think uh for this district to uh collaborate with um district 115 teachertoteer um which I understand is is uh uh as part of what the effort purpose is of inviting uh representatives from this body and district 65. Uh so uh I thought it was a a wonderful uh opportunity to be exposed to what the uh uh high school is is is doing in these regards and um
070I look forward to the future meetings. Thank you. >> Thanks Jerry. Any questions for Jerry about that report? Um Monica, is there any leazison on report for AP? >> Yeah, there is. They had a very exciting kickoff. >> Excellent. >> Um I had to leave a before the end. Apparently, I missed the dog, which I'm really sad about. Um but it was a a great meeting. It was well attended. Um >> Winston name is Winston. >> Winston >> and I care about him deeply. >> He's adorable. I'm sorry I miss him. Um Renee kind of alluded to it. They were led by Dr. Jenny Serpent. They had a panel of school psychologists and social workers that included Dr. Molly Escobar, Dr. Christina Tanzy, Kristen Tivron from DPM, and Jeremy Brown from Sheridan to speak to
071parents about how to support kids during the back to school transition. They also highlighted ways that students are supported in the schools, which includes everything from having staff presence in the hallways to create a welcoming environment, having quiet calm rooms where elementary kids can take a break and brain breaks and Friday dance parties in the middle school, which also sounds super fun. Um, there's a new section in the weekly newsletters that they called out by Dr. Sturin called the magic of belonging. And I wanted to just read a part from her first entry on September 12th that I thought was good. It says, "Friendships takes friendships take effort. Stress is normal. Belonging grows when we show up for each other. One of the biggest ways we can support students is by giving them the time
072and space to navigate situations and learn from them so they build the confidence and skills they'll carry forward. By keeping relationships at the center, we set the foundation for a year where success and well-being thrive together." So, that's a highlight of her um new section in the newsletter and look for that um along with other ways that they support our kids. Thank you. Any questions for Monica on the AP report. >> All right, we're going to move on to the action items. First up, approval of the 2025 2026 final budget. May I have a motion to approve the final budget? So, moved. I have a second. Second. Any discussion? I have a roll call vote, please. >> Miss Engleberg, >> yes. >> Miss Fitzgerald, >> yes. >> Mr. Adamo, >> yes. >> Mr. Burgger, >>
073yes. >> Miss Yan, >> yes. >> Mr. Lavin, >> yes. >> Mr. Reis, >> yes. >> Motion carries. Next up, uh, may I have a motion to wave the first reading of press issues 118 and 119? >> So moved. >> May I have a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? >> Miss Fitzgerald? >> Yes. >> Mr. Reis? >> Yes. >> Mr. Lavin? >> Yes. >> Miss Angelberg? >> Yes. >> Mr. Odamo? >> Yes. >> Miss Yan? >> Yes. >> Mr. Burgger? >> Yes. Motion carries. >> May I have a motion to approve the second reading of press issues 118 and 119? >> So moved. >> May I have a second? Second. Any discussion? May I have a roll call vote, please? >> Mr. Reis, >> yes. >>
074Miss Engleberg, >> yes. >> Mr. Adamo, >> yes. >> Miss Fitzgerald, >> yes. >> Mr. Burgger, >> yes. >> Mr. Lavin, >> yes. Miss Yan. >> Yes. Motion carries. >> May I have a motion to approve the consent ag consent agenda items listed in this evening's agenda? >> So moved. >> May I have a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? We have a roll call vote, please. >> Mr. Lavin? >> Yes. >> Mr. Burgger? >> Yes. >> Miss Yan? >> Yes. >> Mr. Reis? Yes, >> Miss Angelberg. >> Yes, Miss Fitzgerald. >> Yes, >> Mr. Odamo. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> All right, moving on to foyer requests. Um, foyer request number five of five was completed for Frank McCormack. At this time, we'll have another opportunity for public participation. Seeing no one from
075the public present, we'll move on. Uh, wrapping up, just some announcements. Um Matt also already mentioned some of these but no school October 13th or October 24th for parent teacher conferences. Um next board meeting is October 28th and that will also be a committee of the whole meeting for finance and operations. May I have a motion to adjourn the Lake Forest School District 67 board meeting for September 23rd, 2025? So move. May I have a second? Second. >> May I have a voice vote, please? All in favor say I. >> Yes. >> I. >> We are adjourned.