001All right. Um, welcome back everybody. We are uh back to regular business. And so we're going to start with uh um our new new board uh after the education committee. So, thank you all. Welcome all. uh we're going to step into uh superintendent's report and assistant super and slashprincipal report and Matt is going to drive and lead that. Thank you sir and welcome to the new board members. Excited to have you uh with us and thank you for your active participation in the education committee. Uh tonight we'll be covering numerous topics and I will uh I'll be covering some Patrick will be joining me as well as Renee as we go through the 12 topics. Don't be uh concerned about the amount of topics. We will get through them as efficiently as possible. Sorry about
002the feedback. Okay. Uh the first uh thing that I'd like to touch on is that we took a small group of both 67 and 115 members uh largely uh 115 to a trip to both the Google headquarters at Mountain View and Stanford. I think it was last week but the weeks are running together right now. The focus was artificial intelligence. So we had a day uh at the Google campus where Google was talking about how they were innovating through artificial intelligence and then Stamford presented the second day with their lead researchers about what they are seeing in trends and covered a whole bunch of topics including you know cheating at the collegiic level down to K12 to robotics to advances in medicine. Uh it was an incredible visit. The nine participants, eight or nine participants
003are currently synthesizing all of the data that we have received and then we will put it in a board update or a future presentation of what we gleaned and what um we hope to integrate into both districts. I was really proud of this visit and excited that there was such a great interest from our instructional directors who I know are championing great work in the districts and um excited to see where they take this experience. It is no secret that we have been focusing on how we are communicating to our community around uh fiscal responsibility and there are two new items that are on the horizon in that realm. One is a video series much like under the hard hat, but this series is focused on uh it's called beyond the budget and it's focused
004on school finance, educating our communities around how school funding is uh how it occurs, how it is impacting taxpayers, and uh hopefully a better understanding of where we are as a district and the why behind some of our protocols and procedures. And I want to thank both Mrs. Oakley and Dr. Hermas for uh their leadership in this initiative. We also have decided to dedicate on an annual basis one of the um uh community newsletters solely to school finance. And that should be hitting mailboxes soon, like within the next week to two weeks. And I'm excited to get your feedback. And we're going to call it the bottom line. Um, and I want to hear from community as well as the board of did we hit the mark on this this annual report around school finances.
005Phase one construction continues to be underway. The bulk of the construction right now is happening in the world language wing and soon as summer hits it's going to explode and touch many other areas of the building itself. So, think of things that I've talked about in the past, but just to jog your memory, the robotics lab, renovations to the special education department, the first phase of the science labs, roofing, exterior wood trim, and the beginning of the window restoration will occur right after commencement. Uh, so you will see a great deal of activity coming back and forth. Um, as a reminder to our community, all of the contractors that are on site have gone through extensive security and background checks and please look for more information in um the episode 12 of Under the Hard
006Hat. I want to take some time in the presentation to highlight some of our amazing students and they have been receiving state accolades as of late for the math uh team science olympi olympiad in the future business leaders of America and to put it into perspective the science olympiad was uh we had a student finish in first place uh in ecology we had a student second place in chemistry and then one in fourth place in anatomy and physiology so you can see how we're leading leading the way in science olympiads. The math team was eighth in state and that was the highest finished in 10 years. So couldn't be prouder of them. And then future business leaders of America, four members placed in the top 10 at the uh future business leaders of America state
007leadership conference and three members qualified for the national leadership conference. So it is these things happen. It's it's almost like at least this is my experience. are having clapouts all the time about students that are doing amazing things and you almost get desensitized and you have to pinch yourself that some schools only have this once or twice a year. Um we have uh students doing amazing things and earning honors on a regular basis and we shouldn't take that for granted uh as community members um and as faculty and staff. And tonight we are excited to honor two very special students. They are under the national merit realm. And we have first Albert G. Albert is a student at Lake Forest who has been recognized with the Fizer scholarship. He's only one of 830 high school
008students to receive a corporate sponsored award and it's an amazing achievement. Um Albert is actually going to be starting school at Northwestern and majoring in economics this fall. Um but he's also a valued member of the swim team and the math team and he balances that academic rigor with so much extracurricular excellence. Um we are very proud to honor Albert tonight. And then also with us we're excited to honor Elizabeth Sylvve who has been named a winner in the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program earning the prestigious National Merit $2500 scholarship. She is one of only 2500 school high school seniors and um this was from a pool of over 15,000 applicants and she is obviously also incredibly talented. She's balanced a rigorous academic world. But wait till you hear all of these things that she
009does outside of school. She's a committed member of the math team, French club, JV tennis, track and field, dedicated scree racer with the Wilmont and Aspen Valley ski clubs, and just being named to the Illinois ski team at the Western High School Championship earlier this year. And she is last but not least a teaching assistant for AP World History, which I just got to experience the TA program today. It is amazing. I'll be speaking about that very shortly. She happens to be the daughter of one of our newly elected school board members. So a special you look very proud to dad. I would like to give a special shout out to Xavier. Xavier uh this doesn't happen often. So on there was a field invitational at LFHS that was hosted on April 26 and one
010of the IHSA officials took a moment to recognize outstanding character and this official who had been carrying the special sportmanship award baton for some quite time felt it was finally uh the right moment to pass it on and we're proud to share that Xavier was the um most wonderful and deserving recipient the end of this sportsmanship award. Xavier also was one of the individuals who participated in the exit interview round table. Um for those of you who remember each year I do a small group of seniors and eighth grade students. I give them an opportunity to visit with me and say what could I do better? What could we do better for you? What are we knocking out of the park and we shouldn't change? Uh and I was thrilled by the students who participated.
011I have four pages of handwritten notes and I am sharing those with Aaron and Patrick in the coming weeks. Um, but the feel this time I think I I was buzzing as I walked into the office and I talked to Patrick the feel from these individuals are going to go conquer the world was that LFHS was an amazing experience for them and we had a wide array. Mel Walsh did a great job kind of curating students with very difference experiences but they were thrilled with what happened over the last four years and that um filled me with hope and pride of the amazing work that the faculty and the leadership are doing at the building. I don't was it this week or last week I shadowed what's today? Tuesday was it yesterday? Yesterday I'm telling
012you folks the time is moving fast. It is May in school time. So yesterday I had the opportunity to uh shadow Gavin for the afternoon. I saw u with him AP I remember the classes I saw um AP language or English AP US geography and the business incubator incubator. What was it? US what US history sorry and I had a great time. Gavin's an awesome uh young man. His friends are uh pretty cool too. the um business incubator. They were doing their pitches and I sat with the mentor and we were both offering real-time feedback because the pitch night is coming up either this Wednesday or next Wednesday. It's it's coming up soon uh on when they have to actually pitch to the larger audience. So, I had a blast as always and I want
013to thank Gavin as well as the seniors who um helped uh me learn more about the school. Uh, so Melissa helps with her team with Patrick and I think Ashley Malik helps too to try to figure out which student it's it's a junior uh that I usually travel with. Last year I might have visited with two juniors. This year it was just one. And I do a half day because um my attention span waines, you know that. Um and I also think that they're not crazy about me following around all day. So it worked out great. And I try to convince the teachers that there's no supervisory responsibility for men. the superintendent when he's in your when he's in your classroom. Okay. I also had the privilege of being in the school um for almost
014a full day today. It was exciting. One of the things I'm working really hard on this year is that articulation in honor of board priorities academic excellence around transitions. And it's everything to bring 65 into the fold, make sure that 67 is preparing our students for the 115 experience. and I'm working closely with Kristen Carlson and Jeff Sumi on this today. I was invited to come into the English classrooms. I visited about five teachers. I'd like to give a shout out to Mr. Waninger who invited me in, Mr. Leiden for journalism, Mr. Loveliner. Um I was with Mrs. Hersamome and then Mrs. Diling and Mr. Delava and Miss T. So it was an exciting morning. I spent a good half an hour in each class and I saw everything from a very rigorous English lit
015um AP class. They were really preparing for the AP test that's happening right now. Was also able to see students doing mind maps on characters and just plots in their novels. I saw books in kids' hands. I saw incredible pedagogy engagement. Very much a student-led classroom. Mr. Loveliner has this amazing program and I know many others do as we just heard about Elizabeth. But the TA program is phenomenal. And just to see Declan, who I heard was also in Cinderella, that was who I made a a star contact today. It was fantastic. He was so helpful. And I actually thought he was a teacher in the classroom. He was so responsible. And this program is truly just living the portrait. And I saw many elements of the portrait just alive and well. Maybe not formalized,
016but I saw all of our competencies and portfolio work. It was it was brilliant. So, um huge shout out to the English department. And then next week, Jeff Sumi and Crystal Kristen Carlson are coming to DPM for our what we call CII curriculum, um continuous instructional improvement. We look at data next week and they're going to be kind of monitoring and looking at what we are doing and what data we're looking at so that we can try to align some of our assessment and data analysis practices. Um, next just to give the community a little update about Mandarin. This has been something that there are some very, very passionate families in our community and Mr. Noble and myself, we have been meeting with families um, no less than about 15 in person. We've been listening.
017Some of the themes I've heard is that Mandarin, even though they're a small group and a small population in our community, it does really provide an identity for many of these students. And one of the most powerful things that I heard in the themes was that this provides them a chance to put something on their resume for college and in their college application that makes them stand out. So those were some of the themes that I heard and so we understand the passion behind it. And while we have very low enrollment numbers and we've looked at some statistics that unfortunately say when you look at a class in kindergarten, our data has shown that there's about a 16.87% 87% chance that that student will stay, excuse me, stay in Mandarin. It is still something that
018we know these people are passionate about it. So, I'm working very hard with our teaching and learning department and with the high school to try to find ways to provide creative solutions. Maybe not something that is specific to curriculum in the school day, but we are working and we are listening. So, we just wanted to give you that update. These two friends right here, they wrote me a very polite, lovely letter. This is Ethan and Andrew Milzinski and they wrote such a wonderful letter advocating for their um their passion of Mandarin. So I invited them to come into the AC to meet with me and so they met with me yesterday and we exchanged conversation and um I think they left happy. It could have been the donuts that we provided for them but I'll
019take it. Thank Okay, our spring musical was Cinderella. It took place April 24th through the 26th. There was a pre-screening earlier in the week for some of the middle schoolers. So, that was really cute to see a lot of seventh sixth, seventh, and eighth graders coming in and even some of the third and fourth graders uh decked out in uh Cinderella costumes. Uh it was a tremendous production. The sta the stage crew um the production itself uh the sets uh the acting obviously the music was wonderful. Special thanks to our parent organization pals for capturing uh these great images of the performance. The foundation's annual lunchon was held this past Friday at the Nwood Country Club. It's a very enjoyable event. It's the time to celebrate the foundation for all the work they've done this
020year to provide our staff with the resources they need to benefit our students. Uh as Dr. Lonard mentioned in her speech, they have said yes to many, many things the past several years. And these yeses have exceeded over two million have exceeded $2 million in programming and equipment directly to our staff. and we are very very grateful. Harlon Cohen was the keynote speaker. Harlland's a New York Times best-selling author of titles such as The Naked Roommate and Winter Learned. His message centers on empowering adolescence to embrace change and uncertainty when it arises and to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. This message resonated with the parents in the room for sure. Many of whom have children that have experienced transitions into a new community, a new school, or about to transition to a college campus in
021the fall. Prom 2025 will be Saturday, May 17th at Belvidier Events in Elkrove Village. Our prom committee has worked very hard this year to plan a night of dinner and dancing with the theme unmask the night. Our red carpet celebration that was alluded to by Cat earlier kicks off at 5:00 pm. Students should be checking in at uh starting at 4:30. Our summer school begins Monday, June 9th, right after the end of our regular school year. Uh registration for classes closes on Friday, May 23rd. If you have any questions, contact Dr. Ryan Abrams, who's the summer school principal. Uh his email is rabbselveschools.net. Now, on to graduation. Uh, a time we're all excited for. Uh, decorating caps and gowns has been previously prohibited by Lake Forest High School during graduation ceremonies. However, recent legislation, public
022act 103-0463, protects and upholds the rights of students to wear or accessorize their graduation attire with general items that may be you uh that may uh that may be used by a student to associate with, identify, or declare the students cultural, ethnic, or religious identity or any other protected characteristic. Lake First High School will honor student requests to accessorize their graduation attire related to this legislation. uh graduation attire should not be disrupted to the ceremony or disrespectful to others. Uh well, I will also add we are going to be recognizing uh several distinct academic distinctions this year. We've communicated to senior families the specifics that we are recognizing. We're providing the stol and the cords and the tassels associated with it. So, there's going to be a unique uh look to graduation this year, but
023I think it's going to be exciting to see our students celebrate their individual as well as collective academic achievements. I get the pleasure of talking about weather uh which is a topic of interest for me and Annie Helms was right to say that last year I don't like to talk about last year's because um it's always sunny in Lake Forest except for when it's not and last year was one of those years. Uh so after the experience of last year's graduation, we uh the team uh did a great deal of investigation, many surveys, and we tried to synthesize what the community wanted because it has always been an outdoor an outdoor ceremony on the front lawn um or most often has been there. and we were reaffirmed that uh the community that weighed in on
024the surveys and the communities that we talked to or community members we spoke to wanted it to remain outdoors and remain in the front lawn. So then we looked at how we could try to ensure that we had a little bit more flexibility should we have a popup rainstorm. If you remember last year, uh, though, I was a bonafide weatherman and failed miserably because a popup storm completely did what the forecast said it wasn't going to do. So, here's where we're going to try to have some flexibility and we're going to push this out to all of our senior families because we want to make sure they're mindful of reservations for celebrations after the event. So 24 hours in advance, we are going to have the ability to move the ceremony 2 hours in advance
025or two hours after. So what that means is the ceremony is scheduled for 1:30. 2:30. Let me start again. The ceremony is scheduled for 2:30. 24 hours advance, we could say we are going to move the ceremony to 12:30 to avoid weather or postpone it to 4:30. So, if you are making reservations as a senior family, be mindful of if you're going to Sophia or wherever you're going. I'm not advocating for wherever you're going, but be careful when you're scheduling knowing that it could fluctuate. by 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, we will make the decision if we are moving indoors. So if if we feel like we can't pivot 2 hours before, two hours after like we planned and the weather is changing, we are going to move indoors. If that happens, the protocol from the
026past will stay intact, which means that parents will rece parent parents or guardians will receive an email with four tickets and they will use mobile entry for those four individuals that they're bringing with us. That is a decision that I really try to avoid making as evidence of I had the pleasure of telling everybody to sit in the rain last year. Uh so we try not to do that. At the same time, um, if it is a light rain, I think we're going to proceed. So, we will be working on this year, our graduates will have ponchos if they need it if it's a light rain to try to make their experience a little better. We have three tents uh to try to make sure that all of our audience who wants to be under
027a tent can and we'll have sound systems that is set up to support the event. This was a multiple month. Essentially, we've been discussing this since June of last year uh to try to land the plane. Good question. So, if in fact you give 24-hour notice and say, "I'm going to do it at 12:30 or 2:30 or 4:30." We come to the next day and now we're going to all hell breaks loose and we're now going to go in. He said, "Heck, does the time stay that you set the day before?" So, if it's 12:30 and you now go in, it's 12:30. It's not getting moved again. So once you set the day the day before that's locked and loaded. You are correct. So if I say 12:30 Yeah. But I just So everybody can.
028So if we say 12:30 24 hours in advance and then the weather shifts, the ceremony will still be at 12:30, but it'll be indoors. I will not pivot again on families the morning of. And this is the what we heard loud and clear is they want to keep it on the front lawn. Um and they are also okay the majority of people are okay with light rain. Uh I would argue that we had a little bit more than light rain last year. So thank you for um your feedback and we will continue to monitor make sure it's the best day possible, but I look forward to beautiful sunny weather um for commencement this year. And I add that I'm a class of 2024 double twin graduate survivor and you all could not have worked harder
029last year and it will be a graduation always to remember and we're still talking about it. So thank you for that. Thank you Gail. If I remember correctly, Mr. Noble was standing on the platform holding and stabilizing the tent as the wind was raining sideways on all of us. And then and I wish Dr. Lonard was here to hear this because I gave my full speech and then she walked up to the podium and said, "I'm going to edit mine because I want to make it shorter." Which got a roar from the crowd that she will never live down. So it was it was a memorable experience. So that concludes the report. Um this is a picture of the annual physics cardboard boat riata that was held on Monday, April 20th. Um certainly a day
030that the students and the faculty look forward to each year. So thank you. Right. Thank you, sir. And only the right side of me got wet, so it was all fine. Um all right. So thank you for that. Uh foyer requests. Uh one of one completed Heather Hayen and uh public participation. So, I'll offer it. Thank you. Uh, none here. So, we'll move on. Announcements. Friday, May 30th, transitions graduation. Tuesday, June 3rd, 2025, finance committee of the whole at 5:00 p.m. Tuesday, June 3rd, 2025 will be the board meeting, education meeting, excuse me, board of education meeting at 7 p.m., both of them right here. Uh, Thursday, June 5th, 2025 will be the last day of school. and graduation as we've been talking about will be on Saturday, June 7th, 2025 on the East Campus
031front lawn. Um, with that, may I have a motion to adjourn? I So move. Second. All in favor say I. I. I. Meeting adjourned.