001of the Mount Prospect District 57 Board of Education. Can I have a call to order and roll call, [Music] please? Vice President Choke here. Member Dorner here. Member Fay here. Member Qualch here. Member Leto here. Member Nelson here. President Bennett here. All right. And can we all stand for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. So, we're going to start this meeting off with some board recognition. Um, So, oh no, it's back on. I guess I will rule the roost. [Music] Okay, here we go. Thanks, Mark. Um, we'll start with a recognition for staff appreciation week. All right. May 5th through 9th was staff appreciation week.
002A time dedicated to celebrating the incredible people who make each of the schools in District 57 such special places to learn, grow, and work. To all of our teachers, instructional assistants, office staff, administrators, support staff, nurses, social workers, custodians, physical therapists, and every team member who contributes to the success of our schools. Thank you. It takes each and every one of you to provide the exceptional level of education and care that our students receive each day. Throughout the week, each school found unique and creative ways to honor their staff with treats, lunches, decorations, gifts, raffles, games, and moments of joy and appreciation. These celebrations were a reflection of how valued you do are, and how much your work means to our students, families, and community. We are deeply grateful for your hard work, your heart,
003and your unwavering commitment to the success and well-being of our students. Thank you for all you do this week and every week. And now we'll have a recognition for our Special Olympics team. All right. Well, Coach U Katn Olsen could not be here tonight, so I'm going to go read at the podium and then we will have our special athletes come up. Okay. All right. So, get ready. Oh my good. I've already failed by forgetting to bring the Okay, there we go. All right, so we are joined by some amazing guests tonight. Our incredible Special Olympic athletes. Um were four out of over 1,000 athletes that competed at the Region B Spring Games this past weekend on May 10th. We are grateful for our volunteers, our athletes, their amazing families, and the community for their
004support in making this incredible day possible. Each one of our athletes meddled in each of their events. Woo! We knew they would and they did, which was the 50 meter race and the softball throw. And so when we celebrate you, if you want to come up and we will give you your certificate and then we will take a picture with the board. So our first honore is our guy Sammy who got silver in the 50 meter and bronze in the softball throw. So Sammy, nice work. You want to come on up? We're proud of you and you're showing off your medal. You're the best. You're the best. You're the best. And then Yes. All right. President Bennett Hill. Yep. Yep. We need some We might need you to teach us how to do this. All
005right. Teddy got gold in the 50 meter gold and softball throw gold. So, I don't think Teddy's here tonight, but we are proud of Teddy. All right. You can help me. You can help me. Do you want to say Kaylin? Say Caleb. Caleb. Caleb. He got bronze in the 50 meter and gold in the softball throw. I don't think Caleb's here. And then will you say Conor? Conor. Connor got silver in the 50 meter and gold in the softball throw. So we are so proud. So Sammy, will you do the picture with the board of education on behalf of all your buddies? Cuz we are proud of you. You want to keep this? You keep this. Let's give Sammy a round of applause. That's right. And we are so grateful for you guys being here
006tonight. Sorry. I'm sorry. And we'll do a picture with the board in the back. Do you want to say anything? No. Okay. We're just so proud of you. Thank you. All right. Great work. And thank you to all of our staff too who were there and such champions and we're just so impressed with the community around this. We are going to say we are so proud. All right, let's go take a picture. Okay. All right, let's do it. Sorry. I know. Can you hold it up for the camera? [Music] You said about I know. And then next we have seventh grade. Thank you so much for all of our Special Olympic athletes. Um it's wonderful to have you representing our district and in such wonderful fashion as well. Um next I'd like to invite Coach
007Laura Giuliano, coach of the seventh grade girls um volleyball team at Lincoln Middle School to come on up. All right, there we go. All right, good evening, Dr. Gore and members of the board. Um, thank you for inviting the seventh grade girls volleyball team to be recognized tonight. It is truly a privilege to be here and to celebrate an incredible season with all of you. This year's team had a remarkable journey. At the start of the season, the girls came in with varying levels of experience and understanding of the game. But from the very beginning, they showed determination, enthusiasm, and a willingness to grow. Throughout the season, they developed not just their determination or sorry, their volleyball skills, but also a true sense of teamwork and perseverance. I'm incredibly proud of each and every player
008on this team. Their competitive spirit and dedication made this a special season. Now, the team finished with an impressive 9-1 record in the conference, clinching the conference title by just one set. Um, but they didn't stop there. They entered the conference tournament with a competitive spirit and showed resilience and unity throughout their matches. Watching them compete and experiencing the energy from the girls and their parents and fans in the stands was something I'll never forget. Um, in the tournament, the Lincoln girls won their pool 4 and 0 and then advanced to the semi-finals against London. After splitting the first two sets in an intense back andforth battle, they dug deep and won the third set to advance to the finals. That semi-final win was so emotional and exciting, it felt like they had already won
009the championship. Some of the girls were already in tears, and I had to remind them that we still had one more match. Um, but they weren't done. Um, in the final match against River Trails, Lincoln rose to the occasion once again and won the tournament. I'm pretty sure my [Music] ears I'm pretty sure my ears were still ringing from all the excitement um for the rest of the weekend, both from the girls and the stands. Amazing amazing stands this year. Um, I'm truly grateful to have had the opportunity to coach this amazing group. Their growth, their heart, and their support for one another made this an unforgettable season. Congratulation, girls, on a well-earned and hard-fought season. And thank you again, Dr. Gore, and board members for your continued support of our students, our teams, and
010our school community. Do you mind reading out the names, Coach Juliano, and then we'll do a picture with you and the girls in the back. All right. All right. So, come up if you are here to get your certificate. All right. Leah Anderson, Sienna Anderson, Michelle Gmanuk, you're good. You're good. Uh, Kayla Krueler, Susanna Lazaruk, Ashley McKenna, uh, Miesa Ordonius is not here tonight. Um, Nicole R. I will butcher her last name, Maria R, who's also not here tonight, Talia Russo, um, Ansley Welter, Amelia W. and Juliana Zap. Oh, wait. And Denisa Zaharia. We also had two wonderful managers, um, Malia Cle and Leslie Martinez, who are not here tonight as well. Thank you, board. going to take just a minute so anybody that wants to leave can leave. All right, moving on. Now we
011are going to have our student board member report from Zoe and Michelle. Oh, it's actually Sure. [Music] Just wanted to say something. While you guys are getting ready, you guys continue. I just wanted to say congratulations. Also, Michelle, double duties, you know, student board member, volleyball. How do you make the time? Congratulations. Um, I'm Zoe. And I'm Michelle. And this month, we have met together numerous times in which we've created a student board member contact survey where kids can voice their ideas and opinions and have started making a website and video about us. We have also started the creation of a newsletter that we will most likely send out later this month about the student board members and where to reach us. Um, for the future, we want to set up a Zoom meeting with
012some of the teachers who will help organize the cultural fair at Fairview in hopes that we can learn about some in hopes that we can learn something about their progress and try to make ours as amazing as possible. Our goal for the rest of the year is to try and get students from all of the district 57 schools to get used to the idea that we're here to help them and or and we're open to any suggestions that they have or if they just want someone to talk to. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions, Chris? Well, first of all, thank you guys. Awesome job and thank you for your continued dedication to the district and volunteering your time. I think it's this is an awesome program uh already and uh
013can't wait to see uh uh what you guys do in the future. Uh just a question on I love the idea of the of the survey. Can you maybe explain just that you don't have to go through the whole thing, but like what kind of questions are you asking? Are they are they kind of like open text? I just can write whatever thought I have or are there specific questions that you're asking and there are multiple options to choose from? Um, so like it's going to be anonymous, but like it's going to ask their name at first, and then it's going to be like open-ended, like what they think like their opinions are on like any suggestions that they want to have. Um, and it also like asks if like they want to talk to
014us like in person, like do you want to like schedule like a meeting with us or like a Zoom meeting? Yeah. Oh, cool. Excellent. I think that's a great idea. Fantastic. And can't wait to hear uh what you guys what kind of feedback you get. So, awesome job. Thank you. Any other questions for our board members? All right. Thank you so much for um your service to us and you may go home if you would like. Actually, I was just going to add while Zoe and Michelle are packing up, they it was funny at our last meeting because we ran into some technical difficulties that we wouldn't have known between having collaboration on certain technologies between seventh and eighth grade and we were so lucky to have Mark Fior, our director of technology, come and
015help us. And it was so funny because what is the rumor about Mr. if you were among some of the Lincoln students um that he is artificial intelligence and they were like he's a real person. So the man the myth the legend Mark Fior who some kids believe is AI and we I know he's better than AI. So he appeared and he helped us and I thought that was fun, wasn't it, to talk and so um Mark and I were reflecting how we so enjoyed that conversation. I know Mark did too, but how like it's fun for us to be kind of crossing some of those lines between just some of those formalities that we have. Um, so obviously the work and all the great ideas they have and all the fun we're having together,
016but so much of just kind of the unexpected fun and laughs that we have about like breaking down some of the student rumors about what what what the organization is and and we had lots of good times. So maybe Mr. Fior will be coming to more of these meetings because it's good to have him. So that tells me Mark's not showing his face in the but all the kids know him, right? Mark Fior is a very famous name. Three emails from him every All right. Thanks you guys. Um now we have reached the community comments portion of our meeting. So District 57 Board of Education welcomes community participation. In an effort to both listen to our stakeholders and keep the meeting moving, I want to remind every everyone of our public participation procedures and guidelines
017which is available in board policy 2 colon 230. Individuals wishing to address the board can do so during community comments portion of the agenda. Individuals should provide their name and limit their comments to 3 minutes. Please remember that this is not a dialogue between you and the board. The board is in listening mode during this time. Individuals wishing to contact the board of education are welcome to do so via the district 57 website under the board of education tab. Individuals should behave with respect and civility towards others and abide by port policy 8 col 30 visitors to and conduct on school properties school property. Do we have any community comments? Seeing none can move on. Let's move on to our staff and superintendent reports. First is the consolidated district grant. Great. Um well, in your
018packet you'll see um a memo from Dr. Vandar and um she can provide an overview and then if there's any questions from the board, I know she'd be happy to answer them. This and I'll just give a brief overview. So the consolidated district grant is um kind of the overarching grant that we complete and then once this hopefully is approved um by the board then we complete all of our other federal grants. So this is for lowincome professional learning special education um as well as multilingual learners. So this is kind of the overarching grant. Does anyone have any questions for Dr. Vonharp? Just one. Are there any significant changes from this from last year to this year in this grant? Yeah. No, I didn't think so. I just want to make sure. Thank you. Okay.
019Thank you, Dr. Vanderhar. Um, now we get an update on growing future educators. All right. And, um, Karen Schwarzald, our HR director is coming up and Dr. Bandahar as well who are going to give you an exciting um summary of some of the work that they have been collaborating on with our district staff to grow the future educators for our district. Good evening. Included in your board packet is a memo outlining some of the opportunities we have as a district to grow future educators or to give future educators opportunities within our district to work alongside our amazing professionals um in the classroom and to have experiences from high school through graduate school before they finish their degrees and are ready to be hired hopefully in district 57. So, we have a great video that kind
020of outlines what we're doing and will hopefully give you some perspective as as to what's happening. Thanks to Heather, the amazing Heather Serno for making it. In district 57, we're proud to support the next generation of educators. As we face a nationwide teacher shortage, it's more important than ever to create opportunities for future teachers to learn and grow right here in our schools. Through the district 214 education career pathway, high school students gain realworld classroom experience by working alongside our incredible district 57 staff. You're working alongside a future educator and teaching them some of the path that you've already been down different strategies in place, seeing um how pair of professionals deal with, you know, the kids and vice versa. We have an SLP, so she's able to see those strategies and you really get
021to co-e with someone who can make an impact on the future of education. For us to be able to sort of like foster that in her, it's like the whole reason why you would want to sign up and do it. These early opportunities can spark a lifelong passion for teaching. It's been really helpful to get the field experience while I'm young before I go to school, just to reinforce the idea that I wanted to go into education. It was amazing being able to get this hands-on experience. It just it just really confirmed for me that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. My senior year, I worked in elementary schools and a middle school, and that was also very valuable to my experience because now I know I'd like to work with
022middle level students in that age range. We also welcome college and graduate students into our classrooms as part of their training. Is good, right? So if two solutions mean there's two intercepts, so is it graph 1, 2, or three? Mentoring isn't about having all the answers. It's about listening, encouraging, and offering someone the space to grow into their own voice as a teacher. You know, you got to watch me and we got to talk about it and we got to like reflect on here's why I do this, here's why I said that, here's why I chose this. Working with Joan, I saw she had a lot of values with her students and that was something that, you know, resonated with me. For most of these students, many of which are District 57 grads, it's the
023first time they see themselves on the other side of the classroom, not as a student, but as someone who could teach, lead, and make a difference. Mrs. Juliano would specifically put me with students who were struggling and have me work with them individually. And a few times we would start off really rocky or rough and as we went on and the students started understanding the content more and I felt like I was really helping them and I really felt like I made an impact and I know that's something I want to do for the rest of my life. These placements range from short-term observations to full semester student teaching experiences. What makes this all possible? the dedicated educators in district 57 who go above and beyond to mentor, support, and inspire future educators. Like, I
024looked forward to my internship every single week. I don't want to think about the end just yet because it's so overwhelming. I know I'm going to miss them, the kids, especially my mentor. Their impact extends far beyond the classroom and helps ensure that students today and tomorrow continue to learn from exceptional professionals. I am so so grateful that I got to work with Mr. Castello. It was life-changing just seeing how he approaches teaching and how he's an advocate for these kids, not just a teacher. He really cares about them and you can tell it was incredible to get to witness that. [Music] We are so lucky that we have amazing educators in the district that are willing to take their time away from their classroom. And we know it's it's a lot of work to
025have another person in their classroom to mentor and spend the time that they need to to really support them. And we're so fortunate that we have so many educators that are doing that and that we hope we'll continue to do so. We're we definitely can answer any questions you have about either our high school D214 educator prep or student teaching or practicum experiences in the classroom. I just want to say thank you for sharing all of this. I know we had questions early on kind of like how many people were in the pipeline kind of coming out of the pipeline and um it was great to see all of those students that were in the classroom at a variety of different points in their um education career from the students who are saw some of
026Molly's classmates in there to um students who are in college. So, um I think just on the working in district 57 piece of that, um do we have any ideas of kind of like that next step of or how are you guys thinking about that as you think about these students that are in that pathway? Yeah, I mean I think that as they finish, we have encouraged them all like please contact us when you're in college and you're ready to student teach when you're finishing college. I just came from a online career fair. That's what I spent my afternoon doing. And I talked to three different former grads who are looking for jobs right now. Sadly, none of them were looking for jobs I have right now, but um we I'm always we're always so
027excited to speak with D57 grads. Um but one of those steps is is really encouraging them as they're finishing looking um at we what we've done in the last few years. We've hired several teachers from student teaching as well as a number of pair professionals, some of whom turned into teachers. So, we definitely think that that's a wonderful way to go. I know Principal Hefner and I have already started talking about what what we want to do to make sure that we have as many kindergarten teachers ready to go as possible and bringing in some student teachers specifically that last year before um our full day kindergarten opens up because we know we're going to have a bunch of kindergarten positions. So, why not get great people in that we can train and hopefully know
028that they'd be a wonderful match for us. Yeah, that's great. Um and and thank you to those teachers that are hosting these student teachers. I I know that is both a really rewarding experience but also really hard because you are, you know, taking on someone else and really helping them and mentoring them. So just a shout out to all the district 57 staff who has taken on that that role. Thank you. Great. I just want to add to we appreciate all that our teachers and educators do for our students and it's clearly it's clear how much of an impact they make on these students lives. I know I work closely with the DD14, oh my gosh, D214 career pathway um coordinator and it is so fun to get emails from him like, "Oh, can you
029reach out to this teacher? You know, this student wants to go back into that classroom." And so, we are so excited about continuing to expand that partnership. And thank you again to Heather for creating this to just highlight the the experience that these students are having and the impact that our teachers are making. So, we're excited about that. Pam, thank you. I just wanted to say thank you and how exciting and wonderful and heartwarming it is to see that you've gone to such a higher plane with this and it's it it takes um takes a lot of um energy to do that and it you're just making it so much better for everybody. So, thank you Chris. So to echo what Jen and Pam said, I think this is just an awesome program. I mean,
030it's we've all said this, but I mean, our staff is really the lifeblood of what makes our district great and and the fact that we not only have excellent teachers, but those who are willing to be mentors as well and give of themselves that way is it's awesome. I mean, it's it's really cool. And and I'm assuming we're going to hire every single one of these uh kids when they graduate, right? Um the only question I had is are are we are is there uh any feedback we're gathering from the participants you know at the end of the year just to you know continue to make this program even better. Are we getting their feedback on you know maybe what are some things we could do even better or differently? Is that something you guys
031are collecting? Uh so I have gotten that feedback from the district 214 coordinator. Um so we've made some changes in just in the way that we are approaching and in reaching out to um candidates. I think we are always looking for ways to expand this program and so just even this recognition um so we're continuing to find ways to to improve that but I think that's an area we can continue to grow in. Awesome. Thank you. This is great. Anybody else? No. Okay. Thank you. I want to just point out that in that video there were three Westbrook graduates that are have declared education majors in college. So they Yeah, that's exciting. We're tracking that data. Don't let them out of your sights. No, we aren't. All right. Now, we're going to have a presentation
032of our bond sales. So Bob Lewis is here from PMA to present to us. I know Dr. Gore introduced the last presentation as exciting. I'm going to also introduce this as an exciting presentation about our bonds um at the same level of course and just different um so thanks Bob for being here. I really appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you for having me here. And I think you're right Jason I can't advance this. So we'll we're reviewing the plan of finance that we have discussed with CFAC and the board on a handful of occasions. So as a reminder, the project is being funded from a variety of sources. First, approximately 1.5 million to 2 million each year occurs in the district's annual budget to cover capital expenditures that just happen on an ongoing basis. So
033for three years, one and a half million of that will be pledged to this project. And then there's an additional 4 and a.5 million uh excuse me, that totals up to 4.5 million. And then with the district's goal to maintain fund balance between 30 and 50%, with with a goal of 40%, the administration estimated it could contribute 1.5 million of that fund balance to get to a total of $6 million to go to the projects. And then periodically the district reissues its non-referendum bonds for capital projects. And the $6 million is the amount that can be issued in on a non-referendum basis without increasing the bond levy on the non-referendum debt. So that 6 million added to the other 6 million gets to $12 million that's going towards the project in addition to the bonds
034that are approved at referendum. Now, the non-referent bonds do require some proceedings to occur to get to get the authority to sell those. Specifically, those proceedings are a hearing. It's a it's like your budget hearing or your tax levy hearing. And then there's also a 30-day petition period. So, the board would pass a notice of intent to issue these bonds an amount not to exceed $6 million that gets published in the paper and uh in that 30 days of 10% or more if you're a registered voter sign the petition then well then you'd have to go to referendum to sell those bonds. Now, that's does not happen very frequently. I've been doing this for over 28 years now. I've had that happen twice. though to uh one of my clients and we anticipate uh as
035part of doing this bond process for this next series of referendum bonds to have the board go through those two proceedings because the authority that you create to sell those non-referendum bonds is good for three years. So it doesn't mean we have to sell them immediately but we know that those steps have been completed. So anytime you want to sell those bonds in the next three years we can do so. And uh we're not anticipating that you would do that probably until sometime next year uh just to see how the projects are coming along. You know, if it if things are coming under budget, you don't need all six million. You know, that's a choice that the board can make to sell less. So, there's no reason to sell those now uh this early in
036the construction process. But it's nice to get the proceedings out of the way just in case you have an issue with them. You know that you may potentially not have that $6 million even though that possibility is remote. Okay, next page. So, this graph is a review of the plan of finance. Those dark blue bars on the lower left column represent your current non-referendum bond payments. The lighter blue bars that go across the bottom where um they've been shaded, they go with those would be the reissuance of the non-referendum bonds to net that $6 million. So you can see how when you take that with those dark blue bars, the payment stays consistently going across. And then we sold the first series of bonds at the end of last year. Uh that represents that I
037think it's purple lavender maybe. Um and that was an amount just under 15 million. You may recall where you did $15 million just so you could have some money for projects, but also if you sold $15 million or less in a calendar year, you'd be exempt from some of those restrictions from the internal uh from the tax code that you can't earn what we call positive arbitrage um and keep it unless you meet an exception. And one of those if you sell $15 million and less. So that $15 million was bought and the investments were laded out to take advantage of that exemp exception and hopefully you'll earn uh interest greater than the rate that you borrowed at. And then the green bars represent the proposed 2025 bonds. That's been adjusted a bit from what
038we had last fall. I'll explain why in a moment. And then the 2026 bonds are the even darker blue color that's on the top. uh the reason for the adjustment. Um actually if you just go to the next page, this is the detail that flows into the graph. I'm not going to really spend a lot of time going this. If you're into the numbers, those numbers total up to make the picture that you saw on the prior slide. Uh if you can go to the next slide, that's the summary. So at the end of last year, we're anticipating 14.5 million, then 28 million, then 42.5 million. Well, we have the draw schedule, examined it a little bit more carefully. I think we even updated it a little bit on when you actually need the funds.
039So, we made some adjustment to bump up the size of the next financing from 28 to 35 million and lower the size of the next financing. And we believe each one of those would hit additional exemptions that uh would allow you to keep any positive arbitrage you earn on those if there isn't. you know, interest rate environment has shifted since then. So, you may not earn positive arbitrage on it. Indeed, it's it's hard to predict. While when you sell the bonds and those bonds are sold, the rate in the bonds is locked in. That can't change. Well, your investment return is going to fluctuate because you're going to have uh investments that mature before you need to pay an invoice perhaps because things always slow down. Uh you you're going to have liquid balances in
040your construction fund and those will be variable. So as interest rate policy change, those liquid balances could go up. They could go down in what they're earning. So you can't predict at the outset whether you have positive arbitrage or not. But it's nice to know that we meet potentially meet the spinown requirements if you did have positive arbitrage. And those spinown requirements are you had to spend so much every six months of that particular borrowing. They're looked at all independently. And so since we last presented to you in December, there has been some adjustments in the market. We talked about then, you know, I was I'm always asked like, "Well, what do you think interest rates are going to be?" And, you know, when I was out here, I'm like, "Well, we just had a
041presidential election. There's a lot of uncertainty with what those new policies would be." We sort of knew that tariffs were on the table. I don't think anybody imagined at that time that what the tariffs were going to be and the impact they would have on markets. Uh the bad news is is when tariffs the larger tariffs are first announced the reciprocal tariffs as all of you are probably keenly aware that would cause a lot of disruption in equities and saw what happened to our 401ks. Um treasury rates and mun bond rates and for a couple days actually fell. They went down and then things got really volatile and treasury bond rates and municipal bond rates started going up and started going up really high. municipal bond rates the following week went up over.9% or 90
042basis points in three days. We didn't see any we didn't see it go up that fast during COVID and it was just a liquidity crisis at the time. Um uh exchange trade funds were having to dump bonds to raise cash because people were pulling their money out. So if you people are pulling out money out you got pay cash and the way you get cash is you sell your securities. Well, that there wasn't enough buyers to buy all as many bonds flooding the market since that time. That's the bad news. The good news is markets have stabilized. We've sold probably, me personally, I think 10 bond sales since then. They all um were a lot of bids. Uh interest rates were higher than they were in mid-Marchch, a little higher than they were at the
043la end of last year, but they're not as bad as they were at the beginning of April when the tariffs were first announced. So, uh, that's why you see the total debt service estimate was 136.5 million is now about a million dollars higher at 137.5. The impact to the median homeowner during the referendum campaign that bottom row was estimated $711. Back in December, November, December, that estimate was 675. So, a little bit higher than that today, just around 680. that's always going to fluctuate until you get the all the bonds sold. So, uh let's go over the next slide which is the timeline. So, we presented the CFAC already. We're presenting to the board now and we're anticipating the next steps to be on June 18th. We had asked the board to approve a parameters
044resolution to authorize the referendum bond sale and not to exceed amount of 35 million. And then those next two steps on June 18th relate to the $6 million non-referna bond. The board adopts an intent resolution for the working cash bonds to be issued amount not to exceed 6 million. President would sign an order calling for the bond hearing on those. Then the those two documents get published in the paper as required by law. We'd anticipate the referendum bond sale being no earlier than June 23rd. And we'll talk a little bit more about that date, specific date here in a moment. And I'll come back to that. Uh if the bonds are indeed sold that date, the closing of the bonds would be on July 16th. That's when you'd receive the additional 35 million. July 17th
045is when the board would approximately July 17th. I I have the squiggly there because I don't know if your meeting date was set when I put that date in there. So that may be subject to change. But around that time, that July meeting is when you'd hold the bond hearing. And then July 21st is when the 30-day petition period would end for the working cash bonds. And then you'd had the authority to sell at 6 million whenever we wanted to in the next three years. It would require one more board action to approve the sale, but the public proceedings, if you will, would be accomplished. Now, the sale date, you know, one of the questions we discussed at CFAC is the specific timing because you don't necessarily need the funds in June. um you will
046be starting to pick up on the expenditures. But a couple things to keep in mind and why we picked that date is, you know, when we sold the $15 million bonds, the investments were placed on those bonds that locked in the rates and those securities were laded out over the next several months or year and a half or two years to try to maximize that benefit. So, if some of these expenses come up, if you don't sell these bonds, you'd have to break some of those securities, which may or may not be at a a loss or a gain. Uh, the next reason to consider selling the bonds in June is by selling them, you're locking in the rate on a significant portion of the bonds that you the voters authorize. And when you lock
047in the rate, you're eliminating some of the risk that you don't ultimately meet the the pledge to the taxpayers. And third, while we can't predict what variables are going to affect the market between now and then because things are stable now, but in early or mid July is when that 90day reprieve on the tariffs and the rest of the world ends and then we just entered a 90-day reprieve with China, that's after that. Well, if we're at a point we're not seeing a lot of agreements coming into place, you know, maybe that would cause things to get disruptive again like it was in early April. uh and from a historical basis, the months of June and July in the municipal bond market, you know, the municipal bond market is a national market, right? It's every
048state sets up their own rules for their local units of government to sell municipal bonds. So, collectively, we all make up the municipal bond market. Well, bonds are maturing all year long then all across the country. Well, when those bonds mature, municipal bond investors often times when they get paid back principle they're owed or an interest payment, they want to reinvest that in the municipal bond market. Well, the two biggest months for reinvestment are June and July. So, we know demand will be higher in June and July. So, all things being equal, that should be a better time to sell bonds. Um and so from a historical basis technically th that's a good period of time to sell. Um it may not mean interest rates are lower than they are today. It just means it
049on a relative basis to treasuries. They're going to be stronger historically than they are in the other months. Now what if we get to that date? Nothing says we have to sell on June 23rd because that parameters resolution that's authorized by the board names delegates to approve the sale. Those delegates are two administrative officials, superintendent and I always forget your title, assistant superintendent for finance and operations and then the board president and vice president. And then you get one of each of the elected and administrative officials to sign off. So I you're not giving me authority to go sell them whenever I want. I make recommendations to those delegates on when to sell them. If things are looking good leading into June 23rd, then we perceive it's a sale. things are volatile because I can't
050predict what interest rates will be before or after that. But I do know I never want to sell into a volatile market. You know, for example, when that week of April, some advisers still advise their client to sell their bonds out in California and they got one bid and the next day things had stabilized some and another firm went out and sold the bonds and it was 75 basis points better. I don't know who recommended that they sell on that balto market, but I would never do that, you know, because you don't want to be in a situation where you only get one bid. You want to get a handful of bids to ensure that you're getting the best rate on that day of sale. So, I think that's the last slide. Yes. Other than
051the disclosure. So, I'll pause now and see if there are any questions uh from the board. Does anybody have any questions? Pam, hi. Thank you. It was a great presentation. So, my question is a couple of weeks ago there was talk by um in by by people who are savvy with with the markets that um global investors were dumping their investments and that that would our treasury bonds. um that it's not just United States, America that that um maintains a healthy uh interest level by investing, but we rely heavily on global economies. Has that stabilized a little bit? I'd say it's stabilized, but they're pro we're pro some people's um uh what's the word I'm thinking of? um surmise that we may be in the midst of a paradigm shift where uh usually in times
052of crisis people demand US treasuries you know it's a flight to quality and treasury rates fall and that's what happened the Thursday and Friday after tariffs are first announced yep treasury rates went down and then over the weekend this concept of sell America trade that meant sell the dollar sell the US treasuries sell all the equities so you had equities falling and treasuries falling mean the price yield going up the following week and that usually never happens during times of disruption. So, you know, you see things little things out there like trades that used to be denominated in dollars, you know, foreign exchange trades or trades between two countries not involving the US, they'd still use the dollar. Starting to see more things like that where they're not using the dollar. So, um but I'd
053say largely as of now that has stabilized. Treasury yields uh came down today about nine basis points. I'm not sure if that was because a good PPI report that came out. PPI, which is a producer price index, it's like inflation at the wholesale level was came down the most it has since 2020. Yeah. So that probably led to the rally we saw in treasuries, but treasuries are still, you know, about 4.4 and maybe I think in mid-March we were sub four. So they haven't recovered completely and of course our market is tied loosely to what the Treasury market is doing. Yeah. So something to keep definitely keep an eye on. You know there was a big there was that worry is Japan dumping treasuries is China dumping treasuries. Exactly. I don't think anybody was ever
054fully able to make see confirm if that was an objective effort of I mean not objective but an actual effort of them to do that if it was just coincidental that you know the timing or were they really trying to hurt us by dumping treasuries? It might have been fear. It might have been our fear looking at that and saying, "Okay, so this could happen. If it could happen, it's going to happen." My other question is, um, oh gosh, uh, it was it was about the interest rates. So Jamie Diamond said yesterday, day before that we're still heading for a recession. Yes. Yeah, that was his assessment. Correct. I don't mean to scare anyone. Sorry, Kim. I just want to say thank you again for coming and for explaining these sort of lofty concepts to
055those of us myself mostly that you know isn't as familiar and has a hard time understanding. Um I'm personally really pleased to know and have a better understanding about the flexibility involved in this process. Right. There's so many variables in terms of the construction timeline and like you said when we need the money. So the idea of, you know, there's different layers or factors involved as to when we could procure that and have it, I think is really helpful to know. So I appreciate you clarifying that for us. You're welcome. First of all, I I always love your presentations, Bob. So thank you. If I could ever get a hand on that spreadsheet you showed, that would be amazing. Um can you I I may have asked you this before but can you explain again
056the arbitrage exceptions for spendown? Yeah that means what the definition of spend down means that's committed cash not spent cash right so if we issue a PO to somebody that is that considered having spent those proceeds or do we actually have to have handed over a check for you have to hand over the check. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, we have to have been invoiced and and paid it for it to Okay. Yeah. So, strategic and and if you could advance forward a couple more slides. Uh so, those are the exceptions that apply to your situation. The first exception we took advantage of if the 15 million. You can't we can only do that once. Your amount's too big. We can't you know, you're not going to spread your construction period out and over a large
057long period of time. And so, the one that we're trying to hit with the other two is the second one there. And you have to hit each one of those. So you you can't hit the 10% and then miss the 45 and catch up by the 75. So we believe that though if you go to the next slide and this is a lot of numbers and I think Jason will send this all to you. Yes. Oh, it's in the packet. And um this is where we're showing you hitting the spin down requirements. You know, the biggest one that is uh there is highlighted for the second bond series is which when you get to quarter 4. So that would be the 20 12 month. We're at 56% I think is the estimate. And if you
058back up to the prior slide, uh it's always forget the percentages. It's 45%. So we have an 11 um% cushion there. an earlier iteration when Jason and I were going through scenarios, we actually were maybe bumping up the second series to I think we were close to 40 million and that number was, you know, maybe 48% or something like, well, that's a little let's put a little bit more comfort room in there. Now, it may be that you borrow at 4.25 25 or something and you end up earning four and you end up having a little bit of negative arbitrage anyhow. But if you end up, you know, borrowing at 425 and you end up earning at 450, you you know that by hitting spin downs, you get to keep that extra 25 basis points.
059Okay. I see the spreadsheet. I I was talking about the actual Excel file that I Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh, yes. Got it. Um, no, that's great. And I just to echo what Kim said, I I it's good to hear the flexibility explained here. I mean, it's nice to know we're not boxed into we have to do this on the state or we're in trouble. So, yeah, I think that's comforting for us and the community to hear. I would I would think so. Thank you. Yep. I mean, I was just going to really kind of say with that what Chris said. Um, but thank you for your presentation. um you answered my questions as you were presenting some of those little extra tidbits with the interest rate and holding off if need be and so that
060was all good to know. So, thank you. You're welcome. Thanks, Bob. You're welcome. Thank you for having me here. I just wanted to say thanks to Bob who um presented to CFAC in April and now came out here and I know has an hour drive home. So, appreciate you being here um and helping us through this. No problem. Hopefully not. All right. Thank you so much. Um, now we're move on to the district safety audit recommendation. So, Dr. case is going to talk a little bit about the memo that's in your board packet. But just to frame the context, this was at the recommendation or the um direction of the board of education for administration to um seek out um different firms that could conduct a safety audit and make a recommendation tonight for the
061board's consideration. Um we wouldn't need action taken until a month from now. So this would be just our proposal. No, absolutely. So yeah, we uh were able to reach out and talk to a couple different vendors um who do this work. Um and I can tell you that I've worked uh with Randy Braverman who works for West 40 who I've been working through um for this proposal. Um he puts together um conferences every year I was saying um that are safety conferences that are free uh of charge for all school districts, police personnel to come to. Um vendors are usually there. you can see the what what um other districts are doing and they always bring in speakers. So, um they have monthly meetings as well. So, we we get to get together and talk
062about different things each month. So, it's um it's a great opportunity. He himself has done um I I forget the number off top of my head, but it was I want to say 10,000 different safety audits. Um you can see that it's inclusive of everything I think we'd want. Um it's it's conversations with front office staff about procedures. It's um bringing in a door hardware expert to check the the building. It's obviously walking the building with our facility supervisors and and talking to teachers and understanding exactly what's going on and then coming back to us with a presentation. Uh he'll come to you um during a close session as well to present uh the findings and talking about just next steps and then um also help us um as needed with those next steps. You
063know, what what do we want to implement? What don't we want to implement? um you know what's what's priority and how do we make it happen and how do we then get connected with the right people to make it happen. Um so the the uh proposed contract is in the board uh packet and we would if depending on the conversation today then bring it back next month. This work would be done in the fall which is probably we we I asked all the vendors and they all kind of agreed that that's that is the time when you you probably want to do this. Um not at not in May. It's probably not the best time to to get that data, but um you know September, October is a good time to come in and then
064have that information questions, right? Um I just had a few questions uh related to the safety audit. One was um if you could remind me when the last safety audit was performed, who performed the the previous audit and if there was like a recommended frequency for performing audits. Yeah, absolutely. So, the last audit um it it kind of spanned over a couple years uh because COVID uh took place and so the final conversation I think in with the board in the closed session was right before I came on board. Um so that was the spring of 21. Um so the the audit happened I think over about a year and a half prior to that just because of what was going on with co um it was done by our architecture firm at the time
065so it was green associates um that had uh conducted the audit um and the when we've asked um either vendor um you know experts in the field or I know when we talked to the police department as well um 3 to four years is what I believe they said. Kim, I know we've discussed sort of in the planning for this the I guess the X factor of Lincoln and how that building and presumably sort of in some aspects at least of the culture of the building will be changing as we're doing construction. When we were looking at vendors to do this audit, was there any um I guess were they informed of that? I would assume so, right? And then um was there any sort of commentary or um kind of troubleshooting ideas that were
066presented to deal with that sort of blip? Um I think so. It's a combination. I think absolutely they know that we're building a new building and so as we do the audit, we'll be having those conversations and be talking through really to make sure that the new building then has what we're talking about. That's already started happening because we've met with the police department. And I'll give you an example of just um some places of like where doors are located, things like that that the the police department gave us um some feedback and we actually went and changed, you know, what our blueprints look like. So um so we have already um implemented some of the feedback u or I say all the feedback from the police department, but I think this would be an
067opportunity for us to um do the audit for the current Lincoln because that's what we'll do. but we'll look at the plans as well for the new Lincoln and then we'll have those conversations. So, as they come back and say, "Well, at the at the current Lincoln, here's recommendations we'd make." We'd make sure that those are for sure implemented in the new Lincoln. And I think too whether there might be any vulnerabilities associated with just the construction process like I know there will be lots of safeguards about fencing and things like that. Um, but I think it'll be good to have somebody kind of have an eye on that and be able to speak into like how do we really secure this space knowing that there will be, you know, vendors and contractors in and
068out and extra curiosity maybe from the community about what's going on. Um, so from that perspective and given what you said about being able to sort of look at the plans ahead of time and sort of pre prepare, right, prepare pre-plan um, for some of the security challenges of a new building. I I think it'll be a good thing to move forward with. So, thank you. I mean, when does this plan to be started and how long do they think that will take? Um, so they we would start it uh September, October. Um, and so it takes um it it's about a day in each building. Um, and then it would be I think that it was about 3 weeks to get the report. So it doesn't take too long to get to get everything.
069Um, it's just about getting the people in the building and walking around. Anybody else? Thanks so much, Dr. Case. All right. Next we are going to have an update from the about the district equity leadership team. All right and Dr. Vonar take it away. And we are also joined by Sarah Derski. Sure. So in your board packet you will see a memo that's an update. Um so this year we worked on four goals or priorities that were identified by our district equity leadership team or DELT. Uh so translation and that's expanding access to school information for families. So we did that through um our parent square as well as pocket talk and again it's outlined in your memo. Uh we also looked at student data and analyze both academic and behavioral data uh system. So
070we developed a glossery of terms with links related to equity uh and and we're continuing to update that as we can. And then we also talked about um Lincoln Middle School and enhancing the school climate and culture. So that is outlined in terms of the work that we've done. And then uh in April or May, I can't remember when we met last, but we determined next priorities. Uh and so those include special education and student safety. So on the second to last page, you'll see the the questions that that Dell posed and what our focus areas will be. So that is the very broad overview and Sarah Tiberski who is my co-f facilitator and I are open to answering any questions you have. Any questions? Go ahead Chris. Thank you Dr. V or Dr. Vonner
071and Sarah. May as well have you ask a question. So, uh, in the determining the next priorities, I guess I was a little surprised to see student safety there because I I guess the last time we had talked about the survey that was done at least in Lincoln, it didn't seem like that was something that was very high on the maybe I'm I'm just not remembering that, but can you maybe speak to that? What or or maybe provide some context as to what what does that mean? What are our students not feeling safe about or Yeah, any broader context you can lend to that would be wonderful. Sure. Um so it was we actually used the original safety audit safety audit on the top last one equity audit um to uh rep prioritize some goals.
072So we had actually used the original questiontorming that we had done um if you remember back around this time last year we talked about that um and uh did another uh prioritization with the group. So walking around and picking the priorities that we hadn't yet picked um so acknowledging that we've done some work in some of these areas. So some of them are in progress um but what other areas might we want to prioritize? uh safety came up and looking back at the audit our 95% of our students felt safe um who had completed um the equity audit. So that's good but possibly could be better, right? Um so we do need to do some digging into like why those numbers are there. I think um a lot of the group was interested in looking
073at that based on some of the other things that had come out of the audit and that one just felt like an appropriate next step. Um they were not looking at the actual data. They were looking at the questions that had been posed last time. Um so we'll have to go back and relook at some of the data with them and figure out exactly where we want to go from here. And again, that was from the original equity audit. So it was a couple years ago now. Um, so our data looks a little different and we have some more recent data from the buildings. Gotcha. Okay, that makes sense. Um, and I the other my only other question and this may be hard to answer so I'll apologize in advance. What I I guess that
074what I'm struggling with with this this looks like a lot of great stuff, right? I mean, just on the surface, this all looks like good stuff to do. How will we know that all of these things are leading to the outcomes we want? I mean, is there a way for us to measure success of the delta? It doesn't sound quite right, but you know what I mean? It's I mean like I said it all seems like great things to be doing but how will we actually be able to know that you know 2 3 years from now all of these activities led to something that we can point to and say aha because we did this this is the positive outcome we got. Yes I absolutely that's a great question. Um, some of them are
075more time bound and easier to show that we've made progress in, right? The, uh, translation is an easy one to look to or even our glossery. Those are very specific tasks that the DELT was tasked with and we can show the accomplishment there. Um the other two areas looking at the academic behavioral data and then link um is going to be a little more fluid um because as much work as we continue to dive in and look at our data and try to improve practices each and every year we have new students in front of us. So how we're addressing them is going to look a little different too. So it's having um some systems in place that we can be flexible in in order to continue to address student needs. So the ideal outcome
076in my um view would be to have structures and systems in place that we're regularly looking at this and making decisions based on the students in front of us. So some of this may never fully be done outside of the fact that we have a systematic way to review the information and we're doing it regularly. Yeah. And just to be clear, I you're right, it probably is never done, but how do we know that it is working right? Are we doing the right things or do we need to maybe check and adjust and not do this and maybe do this instead? Right. Absolutely. It's difficult just reading this. It's hard for me to tell how we will know that, right? Like even the example you gave on translation, I mean, yes, we did that stuff,
077which was great. Do we know that that's led to the outcomes that we wanted? Do we have a way of knowing that? Um, so with the translation, we're doing some surveys around uh what that looks for parent squared in particular. I don't know that pocket talk was available about that though. No, no, but I will say um the Illinois State Board of Education um is currently doing an audit of our multilingual programs and today they shared that we are an exemplar school especially related to translation. So that is one indicator. Um we've also had a lot of positive feedback especially from our students and staff and just seeing um students talking to each other about everything and anything academic as well as that those like social emotional piece and making friends. So I do think
078some of it's going to be in the data we see but some of it's going to be more fluid as Sarah was saying. Thank you. Y I think I had had similar questions and so I appreciate you kind of discussing those things further. Um and I can totally understand right some of the I guess softer aspects of the work for lack of a better word are going to be harder to quantify. Um I am curious though if you could indulge me in in trying um particularly with regard to things like the Champs program and the five-star program. Um, I was curious, you know, certainly we've seen and we had a presentation a couple months ago about the impact of that program just on the general kind of environment of Lincoln, but I'm wondering if the
079impact of those programs is extending even to like disciplinary incidents. Are we seeing fewer behavioral issues in the school in light of these programs? Um, so safe and civil schools who develops CHAMPS would say that you could see a decrease in disruptive behavior in the classroom. Um, when taking like a preliminary look at our data, I'm not necessarily seeing a decrease in um our incident logs necessarily. Now, with that though, it would probably behoove us to do a deeper dive into exactly what types of behaviors we're seeing. Are we seeing less significant behaviors? Because um often we use um like looking at major and minor behaviors is a good way to kind of prioritize it because um the minor behaviors although can be disruptive, they're usually quickly, you know, resolved. We don't have to spend
080that much time on it. Teachers can do it, get back to learning pretty quickly. Um major behaviors take up a good portion of the day. Um so the a couple of the ways we could look at that is like through our threat assessment data which I uh did present last year um when we came in July I think it was. Um so that is one of those major behaviors when those are coming up those are that's important for us to be aware of. Um but then also looking at suspensions and other like big behaviors would be a good way to see if we're making an impact. Um the minor behaviors are probably going to always be kind of up there, but we can look more specifically at some of those major behaviors and see if
081we have Yeah, I think I would be curious, right? Because obviously we want to have the maximum benefit from these programs and the the sort of belonging or the overall sense of I enjoy being here is a big factor certainly, but I think in my mind maybe the more important is are we seeing fewer disruptions? are we seeing fewer um incidents that call for like an escalated response? Yeah. Um and similarly then in terms of the translation, right? I mean it's a it's a big deal for parents who don't speak a language or that don't speak English at home that speak a language other than English. I can barely speak English now. um to be able to access information about their students progress, performance, behavior in a language that they can understand. Um I'm curious
082though if those efforts are translating into see what I did there into um like a greater sense of community among the parents that speak a particular language, right? Are we seeing more involvement, more participation in school activities from those demographics? Yeah. Um, and I I can't point to numbers on that. Um, but I do think the schools are making much more concertive efforts to make everyone feel welcome within our buildings. Um, just the fact that families know that they have a way to communicate with us when they walk in the door to with the front office, knowing that our front office staff is mostly English- speakaking. So that allows them to feel more welcome in the building at minimum. Um the teams here in Fairview is a great example of having their recent global gathering
083um in which they were highlighting um and they regularly have different types of um gettogethers and celebrations of different cultures. So, um, building more of those things, um, in and then the other thing that I think the schools have really been good about being intentional about is our, um, monthly heritage celebrations, which you all do a nice job of recognizing, but I think the schools are being more visible with their recognition of it. So, it was always built into our to our curriculum, but now it's in the hallways and you see pictures and banners and people and students can see themselves. So, that feels good. Okay, thank you. Go ahead, Jen. Uh, can you remind me when Champs and the FiveStar program started at Lincoln? Do you know when during? Um, so Champs officially was
084this school year at the beginning of the year. Um, they were doing training all throughout last school year. So, you probably saw a little bit of it within the classrooms, but it was not in like full implementation at the beginning of this year. Um, and then FiveStar was not until November, I want to say. Okay. I was just curious because I as we think about like baselines of like where things started, I think that's important as we think about the data too of kind of like what is both qualitative and quantitative data that we're getting and then when did these things actually kick in because there is a learning curve happening for both students and staff. Um and I know in some of this work like you'll see incidents actually go up because people are
085paying more attention to yes those behaviors. And so I just want to for my own clarity as we look at data coming in think about like when did these things come into play so that we can also think about like where is our baseline and then what are we hoping for in the future too. So thank you. I just wanted to make sure I was clear on when they started. Thank you Pam. I have maybe a dumb question. So I know that um with different languages with world languages there may be subsets of each language. So, dialects and and whatnot. Uh, for instance, Spanish. Um, and Kim could uh add to add to what I'm saying, but you know, um the the way that uh someone from Mexico might speak versus someone from um another
086country might speak, you know, Castellian Spanish versus um Mexican Spanish. So when the when the language is is formed the world language is is there h is it something that is um the common the common usage of the language rather than the the um more formal do you know within pocket talk is that what you're referring to um I'm not sure Kristen I'm not sure exactly, but I do know that it it mirrors often all of the languages that Google has. Um, so I do believe there are some subsects, but I'm not positive. Actually, um, I think Karen can speak to that if she willing to come up. Yeah, sorry. Thank you. They have dialects. I'll say it loud in the mic so everyone can hear. Go ahead. I I just question because in storytelling
087when when people when storytellers from other countries are doing the the English and then their own native language um they'll sometimes repeat it in a second in a second dialect of their country's language and it's you know it it it's interesting and they explain. So thank you. Any other comments, questions? All right. I have actually Oh, yeah. Go ahead. And not to belver this and and I don't want this to sound critical at all because I think this work is amazing, but just to summarate about making sure we defined success or at least progress. I mean, maybe there's no finish line of doing the same thing here. And so when we when we see the next update from the DELT, whenever that is, to maybe have some of that maybe a little more spelled out
088of, you know, this is what we're aiming to do with this. This is the problem we're solving. Yeah, we're not there yet and maybe we'll never be perfect, but we expect to see this result and here's where we are. So, Sure. Thank you. All right. Thanks so much. All right, moving on to the building brighter futures update. Back to you, Dr. K's. Excellent. So, it continues to be exciting times, lots and lots of meetings. Um, a whole day tomorrow as well. Thank you. Um, so just as a reminder where we're at, uh, we've completed schematic design at both schools. Uh, we have completed design development, although we're still tweaking some things here and there. Um, so I I could say we're like 90% complete there. Um, at Westbrook, uh, we had our first meeting with
089the village. Um, we've of course had many conversations with them, but our first official meeting. We've, uh, submitted a concept review to the village that we're waiting just to hear feedback from them. Um, a little different process obviously of addition versus a new building. Um, at Lincoln, uh, since our last meeting, we also had have had another meeting with the village. Um, and we've submitted another packet to them. Um, and have gotten a lot of feedback. Nothing major, but lots of conversation. We actually had a meeting just to talk about the feedback and talk it through to make sure we understood exactly what they're looking for and we can make sure to to um do exactly what they're asking. Um, so that um has been great. If you can go to the next slide. We
090did have last week um our second community coffee um over at the gym at Lincoln. Um and it was great. We had um you know some neighbors show up, some um current staff members/ community members uh show up as well um and talk through this was the first time uh that we were sharing with the community uh information about Westbrook. So we had shared Lincoln in the first one. This one then was about both Lincoln and Westbrook and giving some more information. And in case you missed it, we were going to show the videos tonight cuz I leave them on they just loop at my house cuz I'm very excited. um about it. Not that it won't change. Um if hopefully it's working or we're just going to watch a white screen maybe. Uh I
091think it's one before. Yeah. Thank you. Maybe it's working, maybe it's not. We'll see. Oh no. So what you would be seeing is No, I'm just kidding. So while we do that though, I will say this is exciting. Um, we were we were able to kind of roll this out in a couple different ways. Obviously, shared with the board. Um, but we shared it with the steering committee that's been working so hard. We were able to share it with um I'm trying to remember the other groups. We shared it with the admin group. We were able to show it to our administration building. We happen to have a meeting right before what the uh parent coffee or a community coffee. So, we showed it to them as well. Uh, it doesn't work, huh? I have
092to say it went off without a hitch at the meeting last week. So, thank goodness for that. I even uh practiced this morning. So yeah, maybe just go to the website if we want. Um so I I will tell you though as of course sure maybe that's the issue. Um fun. Is it storming outside yet? I don't know. All [Music] right. I only have so much filler in this time. I'm not sure. U no, but I will say it is continuing to to come together. The, you know, we now have the exteriors that we can look at. Um, not that we're still fine-tuning. We've just started talking now about the interiors, not obviously we have where walls are and things, but about what it's going to look like and and even color schemes and things
093like that as well. Um, I will update you while we're waiting. Um the other thing that's been uh pretty neat is our learning spaces committee. Um we've been piloting furniture at all the buildings. Um and we met last week and that group um we have 11 different classrooms that are piloting furniture right now. And our plan next year um Westbrook's uh got a plan has a plan where teachers are going to be able to get into each of those pilot rooms and and uh use the furniture and and understand kind of what it's like and what they like and don't like. give us feedback um in a long periods of times at um Fair View and Lions Park. They're going to have uh they're going to create they have the pilot rooms right now. They're
094going to create one room next year that will have pilot furniture that that we're going to update based on all the feedback we received this year and then continue to get updates next year and try different things. Lincoln, we're actually excited. We're going to take part of the library and turn it into a mock classroom. We have a space in the corner that's actually the size of what one of the new classrooms is going to be. So, we're going to tape it out. We're going to set it up exactly like what that classroom will be to get a really good idea about how the furniture is going to impact uh the space. Um we are looking at some more mobile storage furniture. So instead of that built-in casework that lots of classrooms have, we're looking
095at more flexibility. So some more mobile storage. Uh we're even going to try we're trying out some different um technology. So we're going to try out some new technology in that space as well so teachers can try see if they like it. Um, so we're excited about that opportunity of just having that mock classroom, but maybe we'll just leave you in suspense. We're going to leave you in suspense, it seems like. Or maybe we want to do Foya and come back to it. Oh. Oh. So, here we go. Um, so that's the current building, the the white outline, and that's where the new building will go. So, you can get a good idea of how it's going to be built kind of around the current building. Um, and I think what I the feedback I
096received from people that watch this is not realizing how much space Lincoln has and um, which is great. Um, obviously we're going to use every inch of it. Um, and so there you can see the site plan. You we're coming off of Lincoln Street. On the right is Cand. Um, so all parking is in the front for uh, both visitors and staff. Um, we'll talk about in the back is where the buses come. Um, so as we go down here and go straight, um, down the sidewalk, um, straight ahead is the entryway. Um, that three stories right there is is the staircase, the main staircase. Um, what we see in front of us is our our threetory academic wing. So you have a sixth grade, seventh grade, and eighth grade on different floors. Um, going
097down the that academic wing on the right where you see no windows, those are the science rooms. So they need a lot of upper cabinets, a lot of cabinetry there. they will have built-ins. Um so, um but then on the outside here, you'll see where they have their windows in their classrooms. Um and so as we go around, we're kind of in the track. We're running on the track. Um and so in the back here is where the um buses will come in and the bus turnound. Um as you look straight ahead, you'll see that's our our maintenance area, that lower one-story red brick. In front of it, you have some enclosures for like dumpsters um or for the transformer, different things like that. Um there's a full dock uh which is something that has
098been needed just in the district in general. We don't have one full deck in the entire district. Um the maintenance building, if you remember, currently it's a a separate building. It's coming, it needs to come down. So that's where you see some garages there. Um this two-story glass, that is the cafeteria. So, the cafeteria has the high ceilings with some outdoor learning uh space outside of it. Uh now we're looking at uh the gymnasium. So, there's storage on either side. Um and as we wrap around um and we've been excited kind of planning this, we met uh maybe last week about the uh the gymnasium and what it could look like. The red brick with the with the uh not as wide windows, that's these are locker rooms right there. Um, and then as we
099move over the red brick that pumps jumps out, that's our fitness room. Um, above there would be like world language rooms. Um, on the bottom here of the red brick is art and computers and project lead the way. Um, and as we roll around here, this is the storm shelter right here and it houses band choir and orchestra. Uh, we're going to fake you out. You're going to think we're going inside, but we're not. Um, but this is where band choir orchestra students would enter in the morning. Um the red brick here, this is on the bottom is the front office and then on top is the library. All the glass there you see the library. Um and then we kind of come back up. So that's Lincoln in a nutshell. Um and then we're
100excited to share the next slide is West or we're just going to watch Lincoln again. Now we really got it working. Um and then here's Westbrook. And so where you see the white building, that's just the current building. obviously not the current color of the current building and we're not changing the color but just to kind of show the the difference. Um and so we're coming down this is that bus lane and so we're coming around the side here and any and now you can see the addition in the back. Um so it's as a reminder it's a current U. So the addition cuts it off makes it more like a rectangle. Um as we're walking down here you'll see the bottom for the lower level is the new multi-purpose room. So used as a
101cafeteria, used as a large group space. Um above it is the library. Um so we're loving all the glass. Um and being able to kids being able to look out. We're kind of in like the playground area right now. So they'd look out at the playground, look out at the field. Um you can see the path still going down. This doesn't show, but there will still be the bridge going over the creek uh and a path going there. Um as we go then along the side. Um so this is uh multi-purpose room on the bottom, cafeteria or uh library on the top. Once you get past the door uh way here, then you we're into classrooms. And so there's three classrooms on the bottom. Um two of which are the art and music rooms specific
102to those subjects. And then on top there's three classrooms as well. And so there's a lot of the exterior matches a lot of existing um colors and brick scheme. Um you know, it's not a different building. It's an addition. So you know, we really tried to match it. Um and then same thing, we're going to fake you out. I think we're going inside, but we are going to go look because it does create a courtyard. And so here's the courtyard looking at the addition. So all the glass is because these are the hallways going to those three classrooms upstairs and downstairs. So it's all hallway. We gets a lot of sunlight inside. And our next step is to figure out really what the space inside the uh inside the courtyard will will what's the purpose
103of it? How can it support students and staff? Um and so we have a meeting plan to next talk about that. What' you say? Gaga pit. Gaga pit. Got that? Any questions or thoughts? I was just going to suggest a gardening club obviously, right? That'd be a great only gnamed hobbies are allowed in that space. with all that glass though. I don't know any other questions, comments. Awesome. Yeah, looks good. It really is amazing. Every time I see something new that you're that we're putting together and actually getting that visual of it, it's it's wonderful work that everybody is doing. So, thank you, Jason. All right. Um, let's move on to our foyer report. Okay. We have received one foyer request between May 2nd, 2025 and May 15, 2025. Responses were sent and the detailed
104report is available in the board packet. All right. Great. We have our second opportunity for community comments. Are there any comments from the community? Seeing none, we'll move on to our consent agenda. Um, now who did the bills? Chris, I did and they were wonderful as always. Excellent. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? Pam makes motion to approve consent agenda. Second. You got to get in there, man. Member Dorner. Yes. Member Fay, yes. Member Qualch, yes. Member Leto, yes. Member Nelson, yes. Vice President Choke, yes. President Bennett, yes. All right. We do have some unfinished business to take action on the fiscal year 25 NSSO budget. Can I have a motion or is there any discussion on this item? No. Okay. Can I get a motion to approve the fiscal year
10525 NSSEO budget? So moved. Second. C. Member Fay. Yes. Member Qualcha. Yes. Member Leto. Yes. Member Nelson. Yes. Vice President Choke. Yes. Member Dorner. Yes. President Bennett Kill. Yes. All right. Moving along. We do have some new business. There's the first read of the IASB policy update issue 118. Um, does the policy committee want to talk about that? I mean, sure. There wasn't a whole lot of substantive updates. I think the past several um, iterations that we've seen have largely been updating legal citations or making some small changes. Um, you might recall, I think the biggest change that was made maybe one or two policy briefings ago was with regard to the language for Title 9, which had changed under the previous federal administration and now is changing in a different way under this one.
106Um, so everything is reverting back to what it was. I think those were some of the biggest changes that we saw. Um and then I think we also discussed from last month's meeting the language around the duties of president, vice president and the terms etc. So those are all part of this update as well. Okay. So we will take action on that next month. So at the June 18th meeting. All right. Now we're on to communications. We have the NSSO update. Yes. Well, first of all, thank you all for uh approving the budget so that I can go vote in favor of it at our June meeting. So, thank you for that. Uh the governing board met on Wednesday, May 7th. Uh every year in May, uh is a special meeting because we hold it
107at the Timber Ridge Gym. And as is the annual custom, we honored the group of retirees for this year. Uh there were four retirees this year representing over 65 years of service to NSSCO. So uh certainly a lot uh a lot of experience we're going to lose there. But we had a very nice ceremony with lot of remembrances and um just a really nice time with uh the retirees, their families. Always a great way to lead up to the May meeting. Uh we introduced uh Kirk School's new assistant principal uh Nick Balerk. Uh he's been a teacher at minor school for nine years. So uh now taking on a a higher role. So great to see that. Uh the other major topic uh and we've talked a lot over the last several months about the
108governance structure of NSSO and and what we're trying to do to improve that improve the uh amount of and quality of communication that's going from NS yeah NSSO to the member district superintendent to the member district boards. Uh and so just to recap where where that is now um Dr. has created the superintendent council. I don't know if that's the official name, but might be. Uh I know they've already met once. I think they're meeting next on May 19th. Is that correct? Uh and so really what what the goal of that council is along with the governing board is to work out the best way to figure out a meeting calendar structure that will give us the best opportunity to make sure that NSSO business is being shared with the member district superintendent that they're
109aware of what's happening that the member district boards can be aware of what's happening and so everyone is on the same page before the governing board goes to vote on important topics so that um member district admin has had a chance to weigh in, member district boards have had a chance to weigh in before the governing board members actually go and take action on something. So, as you might imagine, with a uh governing board of eight member districts and a lot of very busy superintendent, trying to figure out ways so that and of course all the member districts have their board meetings on different days of the month. And so trying to structure that so that uh we are doing everything I just said, which is important while not completely crippling the business of the
110governing board by having to wait, you know, 3 4 months to make a decision on anything. uh has been a bit of a challenge, but but we're working through that. So, it's possible that the number of governing board meetings might go down just a little bit next year. We may have I think we're talking about eight maybe instead of the 10 or 11 that we have now. uh kind of remains to be seen but uh working through that and again all with the goals of trying to improve the uh level of transparency and amount of discussion that's going on amongst the member districts which for a co-op is obviously quite important. So um we have some exciting uh graduations for NSSO coming up uh next week. Uh I'll actually be attending the Timber Ridge graduation
111uh next Thursday. So that's always a fun time. And our next meeting is on Wednesday, June 4th. Thanks, Chris. Does anybody have any questions? Go ahead. I don't have a question, but I was just glad to see that Chris will be um connected with NSSO next year. So, Oh, well, thank you. I was actually hoping you did have a question. I I'd much rather answer questions than I know. I It was It was just good. you're so engaged and you're so supportive and Well, thank you very nice. I It's as I've said many times, it's an amazing organization and I love being a part of it. So, thank you. I actually do have a question. Yes. Hey, um it's not in your report, but I was wondering if you could give us an update on
112the HBAC pro Oh, yes. Uh thank you. Yeah. So, we did actually did talk about that that we'll be starting in June. Uh you probably heard, you may not remember, but a couple months ago we talked about the fact that the extended school year is uh shrinking a little bit uh this year because uh Nicholas needed every bit of the time that we had they've allotted to get through phase one of the HVAC project. And even with reducing the extended school year by the uh the amount that we did, it's still going to be uh a very tight push to be done in time for uh school to start in August. So um so that will be starting in earnest though in June. They've actually already started going into some of the classrooms at Kirk
113and um I don't fully understand exactly what they're doing, but they're knocking holes in walls and uh getting things ready to test the HVAC system once it's rebuilt and doing things already as much as they can do while school is still in session. But then that will pick up in earnest uh the day after ESY is over. So yes, thank you for that reminder. Awesome. Thanks, Chris. Um, at Foundation, uh, so we had our last meeting on April 29th. Um, it was a pretty small group at that meeting. So, they were just kind of reflecting on what worked for the gala, what they're hoping for for next year, thinking about changes and updates, uh, looking through a survey that was, uh, put out to the entire community. Um, so hopefully some of you did that
114survey. Uh, but just asking kind of like what sort of activities would people want? um are should they change? Should they do a gala every other year? Right? Like there were lots of conversations happening. Um and so that but the gala did actually bring in um about the same amount of money as it has in the past um which means there's a lot of money for grants. So they are looking forward to kicking off that grant cycle um and getting ready for that. And so their next meeting is May 27th at Westbrook. Sorry. Thanks, Jen. Um, can we start the PTO reports with Fairview? Well, hello there. We had our last meeting uh this past Monday and they're uh doing some exciting stuff at the end of the year. They had their plant sale on
115Saturday and luckily they had their plants come at the right time so there was no no long wait and uh they didn't have to rush things. So, it was very good. Uh they still like I don't know if they still have plants in the front, but I noticed there was a posting that things are half off. So if you want to get a good deal and they're still there, that's a good deal. $7 planter, $7 flats. It's good. Um they talked about um new things that are coming up, the school improvement plan. Uh and then things at the end of the year like fourth grade has their wax museum. I believe it's fifth grade has their egg drop. Uh the chicks hatch for the third graders and uh they're doing their Mount Prospect history tour
116for the second graders. Uh they just had their uh coolest school at Capinaries this past uh Wednesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Thank you. I couldn't come. I was sad. Um I had to do eighth grade activities over at Lincoln and put up a baby wall. That's exciting, too. Um they also discussed what they're going to give for um the for the uh school and they're going to do a maple tree and it could be possibly near that sign in the front. I don't know where they they were walking around to determine where it was going to go, but they did decide on a maple tree. And and then they're also thinking also a curtain at the stage in the gym because right now they have some not quite easy to use screen. So that they wanted something
117more permanent or more durable. That's it. Fun fair is tomorrow too. Don't forget that. That is right. And it's outside. It used to be a long time ago. It used to be all inside on a Saturday. It's all outside. They have an obstacle course. They're going to have some fun stuff. slide. Yep. Well, no, not a slide. There's going to be an obstacle course now. Oh, no slide. No slide. Troublemakers on the slide. It's the Leto girl's fault, isn't it? Uh, but it should be a lot of fun. So, it'll be in the evening all outside here. And I'm thinking I don't know. Does Lion Park have the same thing? Same night, something? No, I don't know. I don't know. Come on, LP parents. Yeah, but I don't know. All right. Okay. And that's it.
118Thank you, Chris. Thanks, Eileen. Uh, Westbrook. Pam Westbrook's um last meeting of the school year was last night. Um, it was it was a lot of uh fun, a lot of I'm always amazed at the the um enthusiasm and the the bubbliness of of the group. They're just so supportive of the students and the teachers. It's it's just it's so peaceful going there. It's such a nice break from the real world. So, um, so there are a few openings for next year for committee heads. Um, they are talking about merging more, if not all, of the PTO website to Parent Square because Parent Square seems to be extremely supportive. Thank you, AI, uh, Mark for helping us with Parent Square. Um, uh, let's see. and uh caparies uh they had a capanaries event and uh
119principal Hefner who was just walked out the door I think um said that he never realized how how much skill was needed to scoop exact scoops for everyone to be equal in the scooping. and he said it was it it was um it was a challenge and and he really enjoyed it and he discovered the wonderful flavors. Uh he bought several pints to take home and then we told him about some of the things that they might not have had like the Guinness flavor or the black licorice flavor, all those wonderful things. He was very excited. So, so it was really great and um you know, everybody there is just so supportive. It's it's it's just so it's so special. It's it's it's like it's like going on vacation or something. I don't know. Um
120we don't have a report for Lincoln since we don't have a current leak in rep. Well, we don't have anybody who went to the last meeting. Um so I will do the [Music] um the Lions Park PTO report. The last Lions Park meeting is going to be on May 20th at 7 p.m. at Mrs. P and me. That's the last for the year and their cabinary night was last night and it was delicious. Yes. Yes. I was sad I couldn't make it. All right, that moves us on to the board president report. So, we did go through um all of the board signups for the 2526 committee selections and board bill review. So, those are up in the shared drive. um our shared Google Drive, all of that information. Uh thank you everybody for volunteering.
121The So just a couple of reminders. The eighth grade graduation is um the 29th of May at 7 p.m. at Prospect High School. Um very excited about that. Hoping everybody can attend. Um we have triple eye conference conference registration is starting in June 2nd on June 2nd. So that's something that's already coming around the t the the bend and there is an EDA mini summit on June 12th that is a day it is a dayong um conference event that has various um sessions and speakers uh Jen and Jen and Dr. Case and Dr. Gore are all going to be presenting at that conference about our referendum success and um it is free for board members to attend. So, if you'd like to attend and uh you can contact Robera and she'll help you get that
122set up. And that's all that I have for the board president report. Um we don't have any topics for board discussion. Do we have any does anybody have any um topic suggestions for future meetings? I actually had a question about the liaison assignments. Yes. Have those all been assigned and squared away and they're uploaded to the share drive? Okay. So we can check and find out which whether we got our preferred selection or I believe Robera, didn't you send them out as well? Yes, I I saw I saw that you sent the link. I did not click on the link to discover further updated. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Okay. So, does anybody have any um topics or dis suggestions for future meetings? maybe just discuss partnerships with uh I know we have a great partnership
123going with the um with the library, but maybe partnerships with other um organizations that would be good, community organizations. And I forgot to mention the author visit for Westbrook has been chosen. It is a local author and I won't I won't spill the beans. Um, but it it is someone who who is well-loved and famous and she grew up here in Mount Prospect and I think she was a D57 student. Okay. Why don't you tell us like a good storyteller keep us in. Does anybody else have any items? All right. Does anybody else have any items that you want to put forward? No. Okay. Um, we have no need for close session. So, can we I get a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. Member Qualch. Yes. Member Leto. Yes. Member Nelson. Yes. Vice President
124Choke. Yes. Yes. Member Dorner. Yes. Member Fay. Yes. President Benill. Yes.