001Tess. I will now call back to order Lake Forest School District 67 Board of Education meeting for April 22nd, 2025. May I have a roll call, please? Miss Engleberg here. Mr. Mr. Adamo here. Mrs. Shan here. Mrs. Bernal here. Mr. Reis here. Miss Yan here. Mr. Kurr here. Motion carries. I will now ask 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 move right into our favorite portion of these board meetings which is the school spotlights. And so Megan, I will turn the floor over to you for the Everett spotlight. All right. So, we're going to do things a little bit differently today. Um, I'm Megan Agenra, the principal at Everett, and
002we have been highlighting engagement strategies within our PD for teachers in order to increase the level of engagement for students within our classroom. As such, the students are going to actually walk you through an engagement strategy that they've been doing in their classroom. And then also, there was a presentation that was shared with you because I know we only have 10 minutes and this is probably going to take the whole time. um that highlights what a classroom looked like before this work and then a video of the classroom after the work and then the students responding to how many times they were able to participate within that class period. Um so that you can just see the increased levels of engagement from these strategies. So without further ado, the students, Miss Ellia, [Music] we would
003like to teach you a strategy that we use in our classroom. The strategy is called around the room and back again. The goal is to remember as many ideas that were shared with you as possible. When the timer rings, you will go back to your seat. So, we're going to pass out. Ready to pass out? You can all come out. Yep. You want to go pass out pencils and a person at the tables right along there. Want to go pass out? So, we're going to give you a post-it and you are going to write something that you love about district 67 on this post-it. Just try one thing. Are you tell and you have one minute to write down something You can do you want to participate? Are you going to write? You want to
004write? You were going to write about Oh, no. Teddy was going to do that. You're not going to do it. Okay. So, we've been using these timers as part of these strategies to keep kids on track, to give them a visual of how long they have to do their think work and then their writing work. So, you have about 17 seconds left to finish your thought. Um, and then they'll tell you what's coming next. [Music] When we say go, we you are trying to travel around the room and share as many ideas with people. You will also listen to others. If you can't if you can't find an open partner, be listening on other conversations until you are able to share. The the goal is to remember as many ideas that were shared with you
005as possible. When the timer rings, you will go back to your seat. As soon as you are sitting, you will use the paper in front of you to record as many ideas you heard. All right. So, we actually want you to stand up and come to the middle and participate if you don't mind. Yeah. All of us. Three, two, one. Yeah. Wait till they're all up and then we can One, two, three. Okay. Ready? One, two, three. On your mark, get set, go. Okay. You might need to help them. Yeah. You know, cuz you're the teacher, right? Do you want to pass these out to their seats while they're sitting so they have something to write down? Please. Wait. [Applause] Oh yes. Okay, we're done. [Music] So, you should have a piece of paper at
006your seat right now and it's looks like this. It's things we love about district 67. And your job is to write down as many things as you heard your peers share. So, one thing we tell our students is if you're done and there's still time, then you can start adding your own ideas to the list, even if you didn't um hear those from a peer. So, you should not be done writing until the timer's up. Keep going, Dr. Montgomery. You can go on the back side of the page, too. All [Music] right. So, one of the things uh that we use this for in our classroom is like when we use a um when we do CKLA and use knowledge, we often will think about what we heard in the read aloud and maybe one
007of the interesting facts and then the students will all share something that they found interesting in the readaloud and then they will do an around the room and back again and then when they go back to write about that topic, they have a lot of ideas. Um, and one of the things that we have found it to be really successful with is that instead of calling on one or two people, which is how, you know, in traditional classrooms it's done, and we might have heard from two of you what you love about district 67, we were able to hear from almost every one of you. And then when you you get ideas, it also helps you think of other things. Even as we were making our lists, we came up with other ideas based on
008things we heard other people say, too. Um, another strategy that we use in our classroom that our kids like a lot is is called quiz quiz trade. And after we've um done maybe we've read a chapter of something together, they write on a post-it note a question that they think that if if someone carefully read the book or that chapter, they would be able to answer that question. And it might be something like why did the character choose to do this or what order did he do these things in? And then they'll write their question on a post-it and then they put their hand up, they uh pair up with a partner who needs somebody and then they ask the question. Um they their peer answers the question and then their peer asks them a
009question, they answer it and then they trade questions and then go off to find another partner. And we've just found that instead of having one or two kids engaged at a time, it's a short amount of time where everybody is actively participating, they're moving around. And it also has just increased their um learning of the content just because they know that there's accountability for what they are what what we're teaching and that there's going to be a way for them to participate too. All right. How about this one? This good? No. One thing I'd like to mention as a specialist teacher is that it's very different a relationship with students who come to your class for one hour a week and then you know come and go come and go come and go and sometimes
010the engagement level is not the same as a classroom teacher who spends time with the students every day multiple hours. These engagement strategies have been incredible things that I thought for sure students were engaged in science. They were ready to go. You'll notice in the videos that Megan sent you the difference when you're using strategies in the instant within the first five minutes of being in class, every student has already participated. Every student has already had a chance to engage numerous times. So these have just been fantastic for all of our classes. Can I take this out? Yeah. Hi, I'm the instructional coach at Everett. Um, my name is Jesse. So, fun fact, I got to see this in real time in Mrs. Small's class with the Civil War in their unit and they did
011some brainstorming about Clara Barton and all the contributions she had. So, I learned a ton that day and saw how everybody was engaged when they went back to do their writing. They had full pages of just thoughts they had collected from everybody. And for me, one of my favorite parts about working at Everett is the willingness for all the teachers to just jump in and try new things. And as the coach, I'm really trying to partner with teachers. And they are being so amazing at coming to me and saying, "Let's work together. Let's bring this to our classrooms. Let's bring this to our students." When we went to the training, one of the questions that was asked was, "Can anybody hide in your classroom?" And that has really resonated with us when we think about
012trying to get all learners engaged in doing the thinking work, doing the talking work, so that they're just having more contributions and nobody can hide. Everyone's voice is being heard. So that's been a really beautiful part about all of these strategies as well. All right, so I'm going to leave you with um this came from our strategic plan which trickles down into the building into our SIP plan. So this was our goal too. Um and so where is that going? We're going to continue with engagement strategies for the rest of this year and then we're going to expand the toolbox next year and continue with engagement strategies being a focus in the coming years because we're just seeing such a positive impact on our students. So that's it. Thank you so much. Thank you so
013much, Megan, for you and your team for all the excellent work you guys are doing. And thank you especially to the students who are brave enough to show up and speak tonight. Speaking in public is not always easy, especially when you're the youngest people in the room. So, thank you. And if we could come up and get a picture um with the board, if the four of you could come up, it'd be wonderful. just going to move into a brief president's report. Um, one of the things I wanted to comment on this month is communication. Um, communication is of paramount importance to the board. Um, both incoming and outgoing communications. Um, it's very important for us to have a dedicated and and invaluable communications department that timely and accurately communicates information to the community. Whether
014it's good news or bad news, it's very important for us to communicate with uh the community, whether it's students or residents of Lake Forest, to get that information out there. Uh, but the other thing that's equally important on the communication um issue is communication from community members and from students and parents. Um, and and we've seen it a number of times when we're out in the community speaking, whether it's in informal events at a soccer or lacrosse game or at uh the board president coffee or at um, for example, last week we hosted an event for math instruction in that curriculum. Just great questions from community members. And community members sometimes say, "I wish I had more communication." And uh, communication can be very subjective because some people say, "My goodness, all I hear are
015from 667 emails. Please stop." Other people say, "I want more." So, I would encourage the community if people want more information, reach out. If you have questions about board policy, board priorities, reach out to a board member. If you have questions about your own students or more specific issues, please reach out to your teachers or the administration. We're always happy to receive feedback and hear what the community is concerned about, what parents are concerned about, and we will continue to do our best to push out timely, helpful, informative communications. So with that, I will turn it over to Dr. Montgomery for the superintendent report. Thank you, Mr. Remis. Uh just a quick shout out that today is Earth Day, and we made a theme for this title slide around that. The image that you see
016on the screen is of some kindergarteners and first graders in the Sheridan Garden Club. With the support of the AP and parent volunteers, students cleaned up around the school's perimeter. Second graders created cork windchimes. The third graders inventoried the trees on the property along with Lake Forest City Forester and our own directors of facilities, Mr. Dan Mortonson. And then our fourth graders traveled over to the beach to help with cleanup as we get ready for uh summer season that will be nipping at our heels or is nipping at our heels. Tonight's report is covering numerous topics starting from staffing and starting with staffing and ending with uh information around the uh new or the high school musical that's coming up this weekend. Uh the Cinderella uh we will start off tonight uh with staffing and
017we have two exciting u information experiences for you. The first we hired had the opportunity to board approve Dr. Andrew Fenton last uh month's board meeting at last month's board meeting and tonight we're welcoming him. I would like uh Dr. Fitz Simmons though to do the honor and give some background about Dr. Fenton and then hopefully give you the chance to say a few words at the end. And if you didn't know that surprise, we're excited to hear from you um for a few moments. Well, we have the good fortune of having Dr. Venton with us and this was the first exciting hire that um I was able to be a big part of with Dr. Georgia in this new role. And it's one thing when you have someone that's applying and wanting to be
018here. It's another when you have them rise to the top in an interview process and then it's another when you legitimately call seven plus references and they rave about the candidate. And so the combination of all of those things really was what is making me and the entire team so excited to have Dr. Fenton join us in July. Um currently Dr. Fenton is the principal at Carlton Washburn School in Wetka. Um we had over 80 qualified highly qualified candidates that applied for this position and Dr. Fenton definitely rose to the top and and we know many people in common who just spoke so highly of you. I can see we're making you uncomfortable. So um but he definitely brings an extensive experience in curriculum and in development and also um he stood out in terms
019of his personality, his ability to connect with the team of interviewers and also just his history of working closely with educators to implement many not only different curricula but also just make change systematically. We're also excited about the fact that he brings a a strong middle school background and even one in changing an entire schedule. So, we are excited to talk to you and to tap into that knowledge. Prior to being in Wetka and at Carlton Washburn, he also served in Oakrove. You may remember when he was um in Oakrove with Dr. Lonnie Lemon. And then he also worked with Veil Keyzer at Twin Groves in um Kilder. So, a lot of connections there as well as Round Lake. I believe you were at Round Lake as well. Did you know each other from there?
020Uh, I was an incoming principal and he was an upcoming. Yes, he's very well known and we're very lucky to have him. Um, bachelor of arts in elementary education from Lake Forest College, a master's in educational leadership from Concordia, and a doctorate in educational leadership from Western Illinois University. It didn't say this, but I believe he's also a hockey player. Yes. Um, so what we would love to do, I would love for everyone to join me in welcoming Dr. Fenton. And if you would like to step up to the podium where the other friends were, then maybe you could just share a few words with us and welcome to the Lake Forest family. There we go. Can you guys hear me? All right. Well, thank you so much. It's um it's an honor to be
021here. Uh Lake Forest has a special place in my heart. It's like Dr. Fitz Simmons said, that's where I went to college and it's been last week when I was visiting one of the schools. It was like a weird flashback to driving through the streets in my old Honda Prelude that I took to college a while a long time ago. But um the schools are awesome. The people that I've met are amazing and I'm just really excited to transition from being a building leader. This is my 10th year as a principal into the district uh level leadership and excited. I've met a lot of the different principles. Megan's awesome who's here tonight and just can't get can't wait to get to meet families, community, and um all the staff and get started July 1. It's
022been a great transition so far. It's a little bit of juggling trying to finish up at one school. we had construction, so I have students till June 16th. So, um, we're bearing down with middle schoolers in May. You know, we're we're going to get there, but thank you. I didn't prepare a whole big speech, but just wanted to say thank you and thanks for having me here tonight. So, that's perfect. Don't leave. We do have a little welcome package for you. And maybe we can take a picture. Yes. All right. Maybe later in the meeting, our board will be asked to approve the contract of Miss Kimberly Routan. My recommendation for the next principal of Cherokee Elementary School. Uh Renee is going to give some background about Kimberly, but know that we are inviting her
023to the May meeting just as we did with Andrew uh at the very following meeting. So kick it back to you, Renee. Well, this was the second hire and it was such an important hire. I feel so strongly and connected to Cherokee and it is one of the hires that has made me um lose sleep at night. As we know, I have been thinking about this since I knew that Dr. Kavanagh was leaving. I wanted to try to find the absolute best candidate for that amazing community, those amazing students, and those amazing teachers. And I couldn't be more thrilled to recommend Miss Kimberly Ratan, who will be here with us next month. As you said, Dr. from Montgomery. This was a very interesting process in the sense that we had about 69 applicants who applied,
024many different levels of experience. When we, Dr. Georgia and myself looked at the different applicants, we noticed that there were probably about 20 that we were interested in sending a video screener to. Um, as we sent that video screener to about 20 of those candidates, we got a chance to get to know them a little bit better through that digital process. But in the meantime, I had been conducting focus groups with parents, staff, and students. And some of those leadership traits, as you saw in the survey that emerged, the number one trait was a leader that really embodied and and exhibited um joy, happiness, and was a relational leader that could bring fun back to a school and build relationships and trust. And so through those leadership traits emerging, Kimberly Van was one of the
025candidates that truly exhibited those traits and brought a kind, gentle disposition to the interview process, yet strong evidence of experience as a principal in different communities that were high performing. So, she worked in two different districts prior to us for several years, five in each of the communities. The the um communication will go out shortly as soon as we approve. Um and in those districts, very similar districts to us, she brought them to a blue ribbon status, which is something that we are striving to do here in Lake Forest as well. So, that evidence really hit home with with all of us. In addition to that, she has incredibly high scores that you could tell were a result of her leadership and the wonderful teachers in her district. But we are excited for what she's
026going to be able to do to Cherokee. Additionally, just as I said about Dr. Fenton, while the interview process and the stakeholder voice is critical, the reference checks on Miss Routan were outstanding. People saying that they wanted to hire her, but they couldn't get her. wanted her to come and work for them, but she was um not ready to move to that particular location. Miss Routan is really looking for um a community like Lake Forest, looking for a community like Cherokee, and I am just beyond thrilled to be able to recommend her with Dr. Montgomery to you today. And I would also like to thank Dr. Georgia and Miss Oakley for all of their support in this process. Um, it was just a true pleasure to do this and I'm proud of the process. I'm
027proud of where we landed and I really hope nothing more than Cherokee community can look back on this and say this was the right choice. So without further ado, we can't wait to meet Miss Routan next month. Thank you, Dr. V Simmons. I should uh I should have led at the superintendent's report that in 115 we tried something new that we're actually embodying right now but I didn't share with any of you in that when the superintendent report are happening each month we've started to incorporate the assistant superintendent within it. Uh so that's why you're hearing Renee and I jointly present the same thing is happening at the high school with Renee Erin and I sharing some of the information that we're putting out. The next update will also go to Renee which is an
028update on the Mandarin program. So, as you all know, the high school administration has made that difficult decision to phase out the Mandarin language program. Um the decision is truly rooted in fiscal responsibility and we don't have the numbers to continue the program and that really is coming from a declining enrollment, a dip in that enrollment that you'll see in the rising ninth graders, rising eighth graders, and rising seventh graders. There are low future projections, but there are bubbles. So, we're not saying that the entire history or what we're looking forward to to the future is low, but in the coming years, those um projections are low at this time. So, the high school will continue to offer a robust world language program, including Latin, Spanish, and French. And while 67 doesn't have any at
029this moment any plans to phase out or sunset the program, we know that there will be effects and trickle down um effects for our 67 um Mandarin community. And knowing Mandarin is winding down at the high school. Um we also know that the disappointment in those families, we we have heard from many of them through emails, phone calls. I've been responding to phone calls and emails listening. um trying to think through some creative solutions for those families and to work with them to be heard and also to just understand some of the history. Any Mandarin student who will be a ninth grader or above will not feel the impact of this. They will continue through with the rest of their programming through their high school years. But if you are a fifth grade student or
030above for the 2526 school year, they will be given the opportunity and have been given the opportunity to change languages if they so choose. Also given the opportunity to stay in the Mandarin program. Um Mr. Pollson and Dr. Shin have reached out to each family individually as has Dr. Kavanaaugh. Um and then essentially at this point we are asking for families to give us their decisions if they would like to change out of the language by next week the 30th. So um we are currently like I said meeting with families listening to the concerns and doing our best to try to find um as many solutions as we can to prevent some of the disappointment. Thank you very much. I would like to move to now the 67 AP meeting where our very own chief
031technology officer Jordan Salis gave an update. Jordan's been doing a little bit of a road show with some of the edte uh with the AP both the high school and the elementarymentaries to talk about some of the changes that we are implementing for next year. Uh some changes uh came from the feedback that Jordan received through different working committees around what our parents and guardians would like to see in terms of changes of technology. The first one being the student iPads will not be going home with students uh over the summer. And additionally, we are not sending home iPads to our students next school year, grades K through four. Uh the middle school students will still be having access to their iPads at home, and that's largely due to the curriculum that's being offered at
032DPM. So, I'm proud of that partnership with the community and our real-time responsiveness to the feedback we've been receiving. Moving on, I'd like to talk about a second uh outreach that we did from technology switching to family math night uh which was last week where uh Vale and a team of staff members both in 67 and 115 talked about the pathways from middle school to high school uh for our math opportunities at LFHS. This is an an example of how we are trying to educate our families uh so they can better understand what options are available, what possibilities are on the forefront and in an effort to allow them to be equipped to make the best situations for their families. Today, this morning actually, uh we were um I was at DPM doing the student
033shadow day. Some of you may remember that I do uh student shadowing once each school year. Uh once at 67 and once at uh 115. And this year uh I had the pleasure actually this morning of this year I had the pleasure of spending time with seventh grader Quinn Jeffers. We were in science ELA. It was blocks and then we also we finished with art. And I will tell you that um I had a blast and it was a great start uh to my day. And I want to thank Quinn um and her classmates for indulging me with um letting me try to be fun. And I've learned some new cool phrases that I'm going to try at home. Uh I'm always practicing my uncool dad phrases like RZ or Ohio or MIDI or these
034things that that the students are using I just don't understand. So I try to help them coach I asked them to help coach me. Um so my children can at home continue eye their eye rolls. Um, we did a slow motion video because we're practicing, uh, inertia, uh, the first law of Newton's motion. And you see that video there, and I was having a blast as a former high school science teacher. We are collecting feedback for our students around student dining, and we instituted our happy or not uh, kiosk that was at DPM a couple weeks ago, and it will make an appearance at an elementary building um, this still this spring. And additionally, Quest uh food management services debuted Tasty Tuesdays where they are debuting uh new food options for our students to gather
035feedback on changes that they would like to see around uh options to the menu in the coming weeks and school year. Last Thursday, I think was the day April 17th, we had a joint board president coffee. We had about 30 people attend and the following uh topics were covered. uh an overview of elementary learning by Dr. Fitz Simmons, safety and security, Cherokee principal search, D115 referendum construction update and LFHS mandarin decision. As a reminder, all of those topics organically come out of what the people in the audience wanted to learn more about and then the team and the board presidents were happy to provide that subsequent information. Moving forward, uh, some news from our newest parent organization, our gardening to grow, uh, thanks to a generous grant from the spirit of 67. The parent organization,
036Gardening to Go, recently brought in expert gardener Lisa Hillenberg to lead an exciting workshop for our DPM sixth graders with the theme of growing our food from start to finish. Students got their hands dirty exploring the world of gardening from planting to harvesting and everything in between. Uh, please make sure you stop by the Garden Market in Market Square on May 10th to visit with Garden to Grow. This weekend, we have our spring musical, Cinderella, and I want to make sure that our elementary families know that uh the matinea performance on Saturday uh includes a meet and greet with the fairy godmother, Cinderella, and uh Prince Charming. So, be sure to stop by and see the students and their exciting successes. Uh, coming up, we have our spring sings and our DPM spring orchestra that
037you can see on the screen. And then I think I have a few pictures from Earth Day. And that concludes my superintendent's report. Thank you to Dr. Fitz Simmons for um helping me um make sure we're conveying all the exciting information on the horizon. Any questions for Dr. Montgomery? I have a question. Oh, I was just wondering if you've collected data from the happy or not kiosk in the cafeteria and what it says so far. Well, it's been a little mixed because um and we we do have some reporting by the teachers that are supervising in the lunchroom, but um as you can imagine, there's a little bit of shenanigans um when we roll out a a new um feedback gathering mechanism. Um but actually we're starting I think to see some real success um
038in getting good feedback because I think once the students realize that they can actually have uh input that will influence change um I think we're going to see some really great things. So data uh is uh Jordan's jam. So he's been uh he's been crunching the numbers for us and um I think it's going to be a really important tool. So we're looking forward to getting it out to the elementarymentaries um soon at least before the end of the year. And the hope is that we share the feedback in data form to all of you in weekly updates and then through the board updates and other meetings educate the the changes that were made based on the feedback we received. And I just had a comment. I wanted to say thank you for um really
039diving into the technology piece. I know that that's been something that's been circling in the community as something that was important to people to really um narrow in on and figure out what what is what works and what doesn't as we um you know try to figure out how to implement technology appropriately. So I appreciate that there's all these committees working and that then we're implementing strategies and process based on feedback and then also what makes sense. So thank you. Thank you for saying that and I want to thank Jordan for his leadership. I think our voice in this realm of technology and AI needs to be at the epicenter because things are changing so quickly. The research is also evolving and that we are um caught in between how to make sure our students
040have the tools they need to be successful in a world that is changing at a rate that makes any of our heads speak or spin. at the same time not overexposing them to technology and uh continuing to um get into the stream the screen time kind of vicious cycle that there's they're on it too much. I'll continue with the theme of not a question but a comment and that is um you commented on the the math night presentation and I just thought I attended that as a parent um not just a board member and I thought it was really well done. It was very organized. it was timely and what I found so helpful about it was that it was a true soup to nuts presentation of K through 12 math. Um and so it
041was a partnership not just of the 67 um teachers and administration but also Jeff Sum came over from the high school so that people could see okay if I start on this math pathway in fourth grade what does it look like by the time I get to 12th grade and so it was very helpful informative so um just want to give my congratulations and appreciation to the people who put that together. Thank you. I hope that the board and the community see a theme of outreach and the willingness to lean into conversations about how we are in a state of continual improvement. So, thank you for supporting us in that journey and being a part of it with us. Anything else for Dr. Montgomery? Nope. All right. At this point in the evening's agenda, we
042will have uh the first opportunity for public comment and it will be limited to comments about this meeting this meeting's agenda items only. Please hold all other comments until the following opportunity for public comment later during tonight's meeting. Are there any members of the public who would like to address the board concerning this uh meeting's agenda items? Does it concern an agenda item? Yeah, Mandarin's not an agenda item, but there will be an opportunity for comment later in the meeting, so probably just a few minutes. uh liaison reports. Um just one for legislative and um echoes comments in a discussion that we had in workshop and that is um there is legislation making its way through um the state of Illinois just passed the house and is about to go to the state senate concerning
043the use of Native American imagery for team names that has the potential to affect district 67. We are closely monitoring that and we'll respond accordingly. Um any other liaison reports from either AP or True North? Monica. So the AP is gearing up for crazy season as Megan and I are familiar with. Um teacher appreciation week is going to be the week of May 5th and the spring food drive will be the week of May 12th. So any parents of 67, keep an eye out for communications on that. They will definitely need your support. Uh they are thrilled to welcome their incoming board members for 2025 including AP executive president Sandy Photopoulos, AP recording secretary Katie Salgot, DPM President Jen Fioco, Everett President Courtney Ariti, and Cherokee President Linda Hall. They will celebrate their outgoing board
044members at their May executive AP gathering on May 8th. Thank you. Any questions or other leaison updates? Nope. All right, we're going to move on to the action items. Uh, action item number one, um, approval of a resolution providing for the issue of not to exceed $10 million of general obligation school bonds, series 2025A of the district for the purpose of altering and reconstructing school buildings and purchasing and installing equipment therein for fire prevention and safety, energy conservation, and school security purposes. providing for the levy of a direct annual tax sufficient to pay the principal and interest on said bonds and authorizing the proposed sale of said bonds to the purchaser thereof. May I have a motion to approve the aforementioned resolution? So moved. May I have a second? Second. Any discussion? May have a
045roll call vote, please. Mr. Adamo. Yes. Miss Yan, yes. Mrs. Bernal, hi. Mrs. Shoan, yes. Mr. Kurrar, I. Mrs. Angelberg, yes. Mr. Reis, yes. Motion carries. Second action item, approval of a resolution abating the working cash fund of the district. May I have a motion to approve the aforementioned resolution? So moved. May I have a second? Second. Is there any discussion? Jen, I'd asked you through an email just quickly summarize what the action is here. Could you pass that information on just really quickly to the rest of the board? I'd be happy to. So, last month the board approved the issuance of the debt service extension base. So, that was the DUB bonds that we sold. The proceeds from the sale of those bonds, they were working cash bonds. Therefore, they were deposited into the
046working cash fund. So, in order to get them to the capital uh projects fund, it's a little bit convoluted. It's a two-step process. First, we have to abate the working cash fund to the cap uh to the um fund 20. So, the operations and maintenance fund because you can't go directly from fund the working cash fund to fund 60, the capital projects fund. you first have to go to fund 20 and then we can transfer from fund fund 20 to fund 60 to put it where we actually need it in order to do the work that we plan to do. So it's a two-step process. So tonight you are doing the abatement and then we will do the transfer as part of our normal transfer process. But just to confirm every nickel from the bond
047is going towards capital. Absolutely. As I told Carl, Carl asked exactly um asked specifically how the money get there and how long has it been there? And I said, "Well, since I started in the district in 2006, the working cash fund has had the same fund balance to the dollar." So, it maintains it's basically a reserve account for the district and it's 1 million uh $100,64 I think is to the even um and it's been that same amount ever since. So, it stays in there. You can loan it to other funds. You can abolish it if you want to move all of it to the ed fund, or you can abate a piece of it if you want to use it as a transfer to move money to other funds, which is what we're doing
048here. So, it will return to its normal um fund balance once we move every penny of the proceeds from the working cash um bonds that you just sold. When did the DEP bonds close? April something, I don't remember. Right at right after our last meeting. Yeah. Any other questions? All right. May I have a roll call vote, please? Miss Yan. Yes. Kar. Mr. Carrer. I. Mr. Reis. Yes. Miss Angelberg. Yes. Mrs. Shan. Yes. Mr. Adamo. Yes. Mrs. Bernal. I. Motion carried. The final action item is the consent agenda. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda items? So moved. May I have a second? Second. Any discussion? I actually have one question concerning the school calendar. Um, one of the things that I noticed this year, and I'm hoping to avoid it next
049year, I think it has been avoided, but there was I know there's an effort to make sure the schedule in 67 is consistent with the schedule in 115. So, we have common spring breaks and common common holiday breaks where we got a little off this year are on the emergency days and it led to some confusion during the year where 67 is open one day and pe 115's open a different day and people are like, "Wait, am I in school? Am I not in school?" Um, and there's also inconsistency with the different days because, um, I think it creates problems for families that see, oh, an emergency day, let's plan a three-day weekend. Well, their high schooler has a three-day weekend, but their child in 67 does not. So, then they pull a child out
050of 67, which hurts our attendance numbers. And so, in looking at the current proposed school calendar, it looks like we don't even have any emergency days on there during the year. They're just all at the end. And my question, sorry for the long leadup, is am I understanding that correctly that there are no more emergency days in the middle of the year so that we now have consistency between the two schedules. That is correct. Um when we worked on this, I was trying to be the conduit between 115's planning, our planning. I think we did a nice job of aligning all the days. The emergency day built into 115 is on April 23rd. We made April 23rd our institute day. We did put the emergency days all at the end. That is correct. The reason
051for that is because of the construction at the high school and the slightly later start and then we wanted to actually move one of our institute days to the beginning of the year for our Kagan engagement strategy training that you just heard from Megan. That's kind of a non-negotiable with Kagan. So, we worked really hard on getting the calendars on the start dates to align and the end dates to align. If we put an emergency day into the actual school year, that would have pushed us to either start school on the Friday, August 21st, before our first day, which would have been Monday. That would have been very hard to get families to come back, wouldn't have aligned with the high school, and it might have been a hard cell with some of the teachers.
052Additionally, if we didn't if we baked that in at and we didn't want to start on the Friday the 21st, we would have had to come back on Monday the 7th in June. And that was a little bit tricky. So what we decided was that we would not put that emergency day in in April and we would kind of roll the dice if you will to hope that we wouldn't have an emergency day needed in 2627 and that worst case if we had to the I guess least of the worst situations would be that we would come back on Monday the 7th. The other thing to think about is that um and and this is something we probably should talk about at an ed committee this uh in May, but I would love to open
053the topic up again of the um virtual learning options, the the remote learning. And I think when we first surveyed the community a few years ago, we had decided that we would take two snow days and then go to remote learning. And I'm not positive that it was clear to the community that if we don't take the remote learning days immediately, we do have to go back and implement emergency days and we do have to stay later in the year. So I would love to revisit that survey with the community. I also think we asked the community that question when we were coming right off of the pandemic and I think no one wanted to think about remote learning at that point. So, I wonder if as we move into the 2627 school year if
054we revisit that and then maybe an emergency day wouldn't be necessary. Just some thoughts. Thank you. Any other discussion on the consent agenda items? We have a roll call vote, please. Mrs. Bernol, hi. Mrs. Shan, yes. Mr. Adamo, yes. Mr. Kurar, I. Miss Yon, yes. Miss Angelberg, yes. Mr. Remis. Yes. Motion carries. All right. We've had a couple foyer requests in the last month, both of which have been completed. Um, at this point in time, the board will now have a second opportunity for public comment subject to board policy 2230. This opportunity for public comment will be limited to 60 minutes. Um, are there any members of the public who would like to address the board? And now yes. And so I will there's a few rules. Bear with me. I have to read these
055rules, I'm told. Um interested speakers should state their name before addressing the board. Members of the public will be granted a maximum of three minutes each to provide comment on school district matters. Individuals that have signed up for public comment cannot yield their time to other individuals in an effort to give others additional time above three minutes. All those speaking are expected to act with respect and civility and to conclude within three minutes if requested by me. Everyone has a right within reason to be heard respectfully. Members of the public will not be allowed to speak a second time until all members of the audience who wish to speak have been allowed to do so. Public comment should not be redundant and all comments should be directed to the board. To provide accurate response, detailed
056questions posed to the board during public comment will be listened to and taken under advisement. The public is always welcome to meet with school offices officials to receive information, discuss ideas, or express concerns. If the public has any letters or other written materials, they may be submitted to the board clerk for public record. Lisa, our board clerk, will be timing public participation and will advise when you have reached your three minutes. With that introduction, the microphone is yours. If you could step up to the microphone. Thank you. And that's so if anybody's watching the recording later, they can hear it. All right. Hi. So, my name is Trixie Olipki. I'm the mom of the four kids who have been really good and definitely have earned their crayon time. Um, I'm approaching the board and apparently
057in the minority, but we moved to Lake Forest because I wanted the best possible education for my kids. I've worked as a child psychiatrist for the past 10 years in the community. I intentionally chose Lake Forest because I thought I would get a good education for my kids here. I was really disappointed when German was removed from the curriculum. We had actually hired a tutor, hired her from Libertyville and got the kids ready because I value education and I value learning. I am really frustrated and disappointed to see that the high school sunset its program. I would much have preferred if the high school had put its resources into the middle school and resolve the pipeline problem. There's insufficient supply leading to demand. We have four elementary schools and only one offers Mandarin. Eliminating the
058high school program puts pressure on the elementary and the middle school because all of us have to consider what to do with our kids next. None of us want to start over. That might be the intent of sunsetting the high school program. Language fluency is a skill that my kids will always have. It also reflects our l lake forest values within its portrait of a learner. is a skill and fluency that I sorely miss and I regret only having built a rudimentary fluency in Spanish in college. I actually took Latin through male in high school because I'm from a small place in farmland country. We didn't offer a foreign language. In fact, we actually got rid of it when I was in high school. I am so disappointed to see us remove a program. Um
059I moved here to get my kids a better education than I had. I look at our community's demographics and when I was at the Easter egg hunt, I noticed how many families were of an Asian descent. I don't know what those families are choosing for their languages, but I do know that I want people to feel included. This Easter, I didn't bring up our Mandarin program to my sister-in-law. Our nieces and nephews speak Mandarin. I'd hoped that they'd move here. I'm not going to encourage her to come. My job relies on connection and communication. Earlier today, I needed a Spanish interpreter, a Mong interpreter, and an ASL interpreter. There was a barrier, and it was really hard for me to build common ground. I wonder how many of us need to communicate and work with
060someone on a contract in engineering, in healthcare, who is working with someone who doesn't speak English. I strongly support a non-western language being offered in the high school simply because our world has many more um people who speak Mandarin, Hindi, anything that's nonwestern. I can't overstate the importance of offering a world language and strongly support continuing. Ma'am, I apologize. Your time is up. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Couple announcements. Um we have a board meeting on May 5th. That will be the change over from the current board and welcome the new board members. Uh and then on May 20th will be the next full uh meeting of the board of education. May I have a motion to adjourn the city of Lake Forest School District 67 board meeting for April 22nd, 2025? So moved. Have
061a second. Second. May I have a voice vote, please? All in favor say yes. Yes.