001e for e to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands [Music] one whenever you're ready y whenever I'm good okay no here Ben ysep here here here TI here gon absent all right welcome everyone we will start with go awesome thank you so much uh lot of cool updates to share with you guys this month I'm super excited uh but also late happy St Patrick okay so in the last month since we last came in we had obviously Winterfest U but before I get to the actual dance itself we had an even more amazing Happ summer the Friday before um and usually National Honor Society they organized the St balcks event and this time they actually did it during the Winterfest pep assembly which was super awesome and
002so these are just some pictures um of several Stevenson students and faculty as well who shaved their who shaved their heads in in honor of St baldrick's organization and they actually raised about $4,700 which is a huge amount um and obviously takes a lot of like courage to be able to do something like that I I mean I was upset about this short haircut um and then we also had um last year's sfactor winner Nikki Rodriguez Come and sing and some of our seniors Got Talent uh performers as well uh make a performance and this is just a picture of Our National Honor Society board and students who actually um raised money and shaped their heads in our St objects um likewise uh like I said the following day was our Winter Fest um this
003was my last winter fest of Stevenson I really enjoyed it and I think that the common perception among students that were there this time was that the music was like topnotch and everyone was talking about it so um definitely shout out to stugo for kind of curating that playlist in the DJs uh but this is just yeah these are some awesome pictures um that were that were snapped there so yeah very very fun event karaoke room was the highlight oh I didn't get a chance check that out yeah um okay and in in some of in our community that we've been creating here all of our different clubs have been doing some awesome work um first off in honor of Black History Month our black student union um organized operation black history month and they
004had an event in which students from Cross Stevenson came together I think it was on like February 28th towards the end of the end of the month and they had organized food guest speakers um and Dr Haney was there he I think he spoke um and it was just a super well organized event over here we had our national Chinese Honor Society they held their annual beloved babysitting event so they had like 45 different volunteers match with um one child toddler who they got to play like card games with and from the report that I read like on the daily digest and um the National chinis Honor society's social media it said that um all the children were super engaged they had a really really great time and so very heartwarming like activity to just
005be having um and then over here we had our um Muslim Student Association um had their uh Ramadan faston event um and they had like fary who's like a Tik Tok social media content creator and actually this year they had representative nabila Sayed also there um so it was awesome they I learned the term ifar which is like when you break the fast in the evening and so they had a bunch of food organized for several students so it was awesome um and then our best buddies inclusion week was also there uh my co FMP she's a part of best buddies and so she was telling us all the different lunchtime activities that they have um you know near the Pac and the wood commins and so I've heard that that was also a very
006successful event that they had this year um and then in terms of Stevenson events a lot has happened and if you guys remember last time I talked to you guys like oh Kea entrepreneurial showcase the following day that was super successful we had um 22 teams representing entrepreneurs of their choice in different emerging economies and they had their own boots we had teachers come in and judge the different presentations and boots that the students had organized um and so andador and W were two entrepreneurs that won or the students their presentations won we also had our annual um stens organized by computer science club um so these are just some pictures this is actually a picture of represented from the angaza center which National aor Society has worked with and um a community organization called
007code to connect has also collaborated with and so a computer science club brought that representative um he's from around here he's it's about digital literacy that they that they're talking about here and so these are just some pictures but yeah very successful there and then kilometers for Africa this is still very fresh this happened over this last weekend but um they raised $8,000 275 participants um so National Honor Society has been killing with all these events recently um very successful lots of money raised um and then lastly our political action Club had its campaign Fair uh two weeks ago so in advance of the March primary is tomorrow actually totally forgot but yeah that's tomorrow and in honor of that two weeks ago several candidates that are running for office this this year um came
008to Stevenson so we had nebula Sayed representative ditdit um and other like people who are running for like Township Board Etc um also come and had their own like boots and stalls and students from across the school were able to attend uh and talk to candidates and also get some complimentary Costco cake so that that's like a Mr canine staple at all of these events okay um the next thing which I thought was pretty cool you guys can also I think scan this this was a um a virtual cing space that Stevenson has recently added to their website and this is actually a curated playlist for people to listen to um in order to like calm and like it's like a virtual Peace Center just to kind of relax and so this playlist is available
009on the website and there's a bunch of different resources activities and stuff also on this like virtual cling SP so I just thought this was pretty cool to include as well and then in terms of some general updates the Juniors had their Isa testing um not last week with the week before um the second thing is that a lot of us seniors are making our final College decisions a lot of decisions have been rolling in so all those updates are being posted on this Instagram page AG um I'm still deciding I have several more schools coming back in the next 10 days so waiting for those um our host and members are heading to State this Wednesday um students took their first digital sat last weekend um and then student government elections I think the
010campaign period Ends Tonight or like and voting starts tomorrow and so that's just been super fun I think it's so interesting like this year I've seen a lot of innovation in the campaigns like people like different candidates are like meeting up outside of school and recording campaign videos together and like endorsing each other it's just super unique something that I haven't seen in the last three years but yeah social media has been blowing up with a lot of these infographics and I'm sure if you're on their building you've been seeing those as well in regards to field trips um this was just our teaching young children class had the opportunity to travel to Walt Disney Magnet School and teach seven second grade classrooms and this is a picture of our future educators of America um
011FCCLA and teaching young children class again who attended the fourth Educators Rising conference at Illinois State University so yeah some cool field trips as well and then in terms of academics our mck trial team they traveled down to Bloomington um at the annual mle M mck Trial Competition there they took home first place and then yesterday or on Saturday they took home a second place in the entire State um so that's also a huge win for our mock trial team um over here's our debate team they've also been doing well this is a picture of them at the Illinois debate Council which was the final Tournament of the year um this is a picture of our Key Club they attended the um leadership convention in Springfield a few weeks back um where I think some
012Stevens and students were also elected to this state Key Club Key Club organization board and then our math team competition they placed first across the entire State as well yeah and then Athletics um this is a picture of or an advertisement for the girls who lift club which had their first meeting this year um just a week back and that was a huge success um over here is our PWC um fitness challenge um there just seems to be a lot of innovation with the PWC social media collaborations and a lot of new activities and they had Jasmine's gift cards as um kind of prizes over here is just a picture to show you guys I couldn't find anything too big but like essentially spring sports are well underway there's a girl soccer game going on
013right now um and like triy outs happened and all the teams have been formed um and then pickle ball which is actually it's it became it was the competitive team was formed this year A lot of my friends like are in this like there is like this huge pickle ball C going on recently um but they actually um Isaac and his teammate s they took home first place um at the competition and this is just a picture of our table tennis team which took home third in the state championship both of which this Isaac is in he's he's awesome he's taught us all how to play pickle ball um and then in ARS we had our Baroque Ensemble concert over there another choir concert over here and then our honors band had the opportunity to
014perform at the um Highland Park High School wind Symphony and the EV along with the Highland Park wind Symphony and Evanson Township High School wind Symphony in Chicago so uh very cool performance opportunity for them yeah and then the last thing I wanted to do is uh talk about Catalyst and our advocacy I'm a part of kist I'm the director of policy here um and we've there's been a lot of really cool updates so this is these are just pictures of our trip down to Springfield uh two weeks ago for the advocacy day and so we met with different legislators about 50 um across all of our members along with the Illinois prevention Network to advocate for increased regulation on substance sub substances whether it be in regards to advertisements or appeal and then the
015last Friday we actually had a super cool event called um the legislative lunch and so essentially for that we brought in middle schoolers from all the six feeder middle schoolers schools and we had like representative D Naila Sayad once again Joanne Johnson from the um Buffalo Grove Village board all of that but we had a US senator in presence uh Senator Dick the last time he was in presence was 2004 at Stevenson um and so 20 years later he was here um and it was very cool to see like I there's pictures I couldn't add them on here but there were like middle schoolers sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with like a US senator who's talking about the work that they're doing in the US Congress um and he's the head of the agriculture committee there and so
016just a super cool opportunity even for like us high schoolers to be in the presence and like I had the opportunity to like escort him into the room and so it was like a super memorable experience and um I think we're all super lucky that we had so many think we had about like 15 legislators come to the building on Friday and I don't know if you guys saw there was like so much like Personnel and since he's like leader dick Durban in the Congress I think the security like Secret Service was there I don't know there was like so much going it was Secret Service yeah so it was very cool but I just wanted to Spotlight some of that but yeah that's pretty much it for this [Applause] month I I am so
017the is this like the fifth year in a row the math team or sixth year in a row that they've I don't know about previous years but the math team seems to be killing it like they are they're always doing well but yeah always yeah maybe they'll be here you see if they can count the number of times thank you so much that was amazing thank you nice job thank you get a cookie on your way out do we have any visitor statements tonight any visitor statements tonight so now we have our Awards yes we're very excited so um uh it seems it's as if it's each month uh we have the opportunity now to present Ambassador Awards and for those who may be unfamiliar our ambassador awards are awards that are given by the
018Board of Education to students who um have succeeded at the very highest levels either academically or curricularly um and tonight we are super excited uh to be able to recognize um a a student uh who had a perfect ACT score we'll get to that in a minute but we also have the unique opportunity to recognize some repeat uh state champions for our chess team so Troy take it away yeah hi everybody great to see you so we are going to invite in our um three time consecutive three consecutive year uh chess state championship team which is absolutely amazing so we have a lot of kids to celebrate we're going to get them all in and then we've got a couple of stories maybe we'll tell uh so I've got uh svi [Applause] Adali Sanjay advani
019[Applause] Edward [Applause] danilan Jay [Applause] Fang Aon gan uh Addie [Applause] JW so Sophia [Applause] pashman he uh samya mantry Augie seu son congratulations get a good one William Wang [Applause] Tu tumer yes absolutely amazing team and we have two coaches Coach Ken wallik and Coach Vincent Springer so we're going to do a couple things but I just thought there's some facts here that I think are really interesting so while I've got everybody here um so from what I I think my research tells me that we have finished in the top 10 in the state 23 times um I also believe this our fifth championship and our fifth Championship our first championship came in 2007 and8 one person who's not here today that I do want to recognize Scott Oliver helped begin the program and
020has worked since 1979 um to build the program that we have and we're incredibly proud and we'll get a chance to say that here but just in front of all of you what an amazing coach he's been and and Steward he's been throughout this whole program so now what we're going to do before we go running off we're going to shrink this group up because we want to get so if I could get maybe some tall in the back get a few people in the front coach is over here so if I can get a few of you to step out in the front here you go and we're going to get a families will get a good picture of the whole team hold your things up like this guys if you can everybody sobody
021in I'm gonna get out of the way all right let's do uh do some photos and then I bet the board has a couple of questions I think we should take a picture of them that's actually that is awesome it's all about the parents and fans exactly J jimie did you get a picture no this one's official for the socials one two three awesome all right so if I if I could have everyone turn around um I then maybe back up a step or two um do we have any any questions you guys would like to know three time state champions I have so help me understand your preparation how do you obviously you play a lot of Chess there's no question do you do you focus on strategy what what is it that you
022do that's unique and prepares you so well as you describe it I mean we prepare every part of the CH like open strates as all of them combin makes a great CH player so we have to prepare them all yeah and is it were you're researching games that people have played is it that you sit down together and kind of figure out what what works how oh we do them both yeah you play each other also we look at top CH players games is it an aggregate score that WIS State each of you have to score what's the for yeah so you play eight players uh and then board one has 12 points and all the way down to board eight is five points so it's a total of 68 points so you need 34
023and a half to win okay so it is a team team and are you guys playing people who are ranked similarly similarly to you is that is that how it is okay so they're rankings same way as all around yeah and in the championship match how many points did we score we we tied the last round but we want to tie I love it sort of went to overtime in a way yeah that's amazing so how many of you are graduating seniors just you one other person and you going to play College uh yeah oh yeah and where are you going um I still haven't decided oh okay this is the current state champion by the way of adults and [Music] [Applause] students so we can expect the rest of you back next year state
024champ I hope so for four why not printing them up right now well thank you so much all right can I get one more big round of applause thank you so [Applause] much thank you guys for coming we've got one more award to give out today we're very excited it has also uh it has also been our tradition for a long time to celebrate our students who um are able to earn a perfect score on the ACT test so this year we are so thrilled to celebrate with Diana Tang come on forward Diana one two awesome thank you very much they might have a question or two for you so if you would like to turn around anybody have a question you're a junior right now yes I am and you're already looking for colleges
025yeah actually they're looking for her yeah with the6 they'll find you very is this the first time you took the test or it this is in your last day so did you know you you did well when you walked out of the test or did you have questions that you weren't sure about I wasn't really sure because especially after the first time because I didn't do that long but um after I saw this store I was like goodness fantastic but how how did you prepare yourself doing act you use your KH Academy to practice or you just used a physical book or go to some tuto Center or just by yourself um I I mainly just did some practice test sounds pretty easy for you okay great job all right one last round of applause
026for Diana thank congratulations for thank you congratulations oh that's awesome janess all janess is way to go you did it okay I can't I'm getting there hold on thank you sorry all right so um did you make it if that was the best part of the meeting the second best part of the me uh is always our curriculum team presentations and as you know each month uh we have a uh department and team uh come and share uh some of the amazing work that they're doing related to um social emotional learning and so tonight we have uh members of our fine arts division here to join us and share a little bit and so John I'll let you kick it off and introduce the members of your team yeah I think we're going to start
027off with introductions this kind of thing before you all got here we trying to figure bigger team we had to loc just move the chairs out ready yep we're ready all right so ladies and gentlemen thank you for allowing some time to talk about seal and art Stevenson High School um one thing that I absolutely love is the moment you walk into Stevenson you can just feel the creativity on the walls we have over I think 500 plus works of art and we talk about the student voice survey but we have to realize like that is student voice all on our wall and that's just decades and decades and Decades of it and uh often you hear about the talents of the students but really it's it's credit to the the teachers the art teachers
028in our program we go to the slide I go on the next one real quick um and it's because the sequencing of our program and careful collaboration and the scaffolding the skills and uh I've been here 14 years and we've been doing a really great job with social emotional learning and how it's invented in curriculum and Fine Arts it's just been so very natural to the artistic process how you're an artist how do you create how do you reflect um and you're going to hear a lot of that today but what's great about the is how they go above and beyond that to really Express student identity use of choice and and building community so you can see over 20 classes we offer here and different Pathways to get college level experiences through our AP
029program and that pass it over to our amazing Visual Arts team to introduce themselves hi I'm waren Connelly um this is my 14th year at Stevenson um I am currently this year I'm teaching photography 1 photography 2 Advanced photography and digital design and AP photography and digital design going going hi Maria to Young this is my fifth year here at Stevenson I teach art and design digital art and design one photography one and photography 2 my name is Patrick Fairchild this is my 29th year here at Stevenson uh I teach most of the digital art and animation classes but I also teach the advanced drawing painting and mixed media class I'm Katie hyen um this is my ninth year here at Stevenson I'm also a Stevenson Alum um and this year I'm teaching AP Arts
030um the traditional media class as well as Art and Design Ceramics and advanced 3D um I'm un Kim this is my second year here I'm so lucky I get to teach whatever they tell me to teach smiling attitude I'm Tim Myers This is my 33rd year of teaching here at Stevenson and this year I'm teaching AP art history art history one art history two sculpture painting and last semester a couple of art design classes and and this is my final year congratulations I love teaching you can [Laughter] stay hi everyone I'm Crystal Sabah and I'm also an Alum here I've been teaching here for 26 years and I teach art design drawing studio art uh Ceramics as well as Nos and Jewelry you already saw this so we're gonna move on um so the why
031we team Focus so I'm sure by now this is a very familiar graphic the building student agency wheel um our team specifically wanted to focus on identity and belonging and how that works in our classrooms um and as part of our Department's goals projects and initiatives for the school year we are focusing on Equity diversity and inclusivity in the classroom so with all of that in mind with looking at identity and belonging we wanted to tie it to the portrait of The Graduate um we really wanted to look into commitment to self and to others so within commitment to self we really wanted to dive deep into how we um work through helping students work through identity as well as choice in our classes um and then with commitment to others how we include different
032types of team building activities and opportunities as well as pure critiques to help build that Community feeling within our classrooms um so trying to gather more data from our students always a good thing um giving them opportunities to um share their voice um we created a really short survey that we sent to all of our semester one students back in December of 20123 so a few months ago um and we had over 500 students respond um we had some questions that were modeled after the student voice survey such as the question up here how much do you feel like you belong in this class but we also had some open-ended questions where students could provide like written feedback and really put their voice into um the questions that we were posing to them um so
033as you can see for this particular question we had over 90% of our students um respond positively about how they how they felt about belonging in our class uh we use chat gbt an AI tool to help summarize all the 500 Plus student written responses about what belonging means to them to create these five main response categories such as feeling comfortable and accepted connecting with others being respected and valued fitting in enjoying the experience uh we received a lot of different definitions for what um belonging meant to the students it was really interesting actually just seeing all what they felt like belonging was in an art classroom uh we pulled a couple of them here though just so you could see so one of the things we just wanted to show you was an example
034of a team building activity that we do in our classrooms we all do something different um throughout the course of this semester um this is an example from one of my Art and Design classes I did an activity with them I think this was the second day of of class so Art and Design is an intro level class mostly freshmen but we do get sophomores Juniors and seniors in the class um and early on I wanted them to work on communicating with each other feeling comfortable talking to each other and just having fun and being silly um so I'm going to share a video with you in a second just to preface the video um each student group there's a group of four has a marker tied a marker with four strings tied to it
035and then I put a picture up on the board and as a team without touching the marker they had to draw what was on the board so they can only pull or release their string which you have to be able to talk to your team members and work together to create the drawing so I'm just going to play the video they like to try to cheat and get really close to the marker but it was a really fun activity it was low stakes it wasn't about making the prettiest picture was about learning how to communicate with people you just met having fun and just being a little silly in the art room on the second day of class um in studio art we have like an assignment where they're they're learning about themselves and they're
036kind of delving into their own personal symbols and we do a lot of like brainstorming activities and sketches but before that I have them do an identity Circle um where they're you know kind of figuring out which parts of themselves they wanted to highlight and then within their small groups they ended up sharing with with each other sharing out um and this was these were just some of the results from from the students some of the finished pieces but along the way like halfway through I have them do like partner critiques where they were kind of silently like writing out um writing out things about like their use of media and composition and value and then they share out verbally and at the end then we had like a large group group critique so it
037was nice you know and everyone's different and um it's just a joint to see what they do um so in all of our classes we've created a variety of assignments that provide the students with Choice um and here you can see these are some examples from my Advanced photography andal design class um in this class I start by actually surveying them and ask them some questions about their interests um and maybe even a question about maybe one person you want to be in a group with and then I pair them together they actually do some collaborative research they present that research to the class and then they have to set up an installation in the classroom um together as a team they have to collect all the supplies materials um and then they're expected to
038all photograph it and all act as lighting assistants and all act as models for one another and then with the images that they collect they have to go and individually edit them to put their own personal artist voice into it so they have to find a way to create variety between each piece um they're using visual references and then we do a critique um so there's a lot of layers to it there's the collaborative aspect there's the research aspect there's the own artist voice aspect um so it's kind of forcing them to work as a group but also um a community and as Marine was saying I mean choice is a big part of the art curriculum throughout um students have a lot of opportunity to choose to create something that's important to them that's
039meaningful to them a lot of the students uh what's really meaningful to them to them is the the clubs they're in the activities they're in so for instance in digital heart 2 we do a poster project and a lot of students will choose to do a poster for their club or their sport which I think is kind of cool because um they're doing it obviously because it's something they enjoy but they're also doing it for their coach or for their other members so they're they're committing to them commitment to themselves but also to others with this project in painting class uh there's a what you see on the right is the finished product but there's a number of different uh community building activities that happened before that uh one is where every student has to
040choose an artist that they uh for this one uh a landscape uh painter from anywhere around the planet and I try to get them to encourage them to use a descriptor of themselves before they do the the Google searching and then they uh recort to the class um so we learn about each other that way they have to supply three to five photos of uh images that they've taken that they might want to work with and then they uh brainstorm so and I encourage them to choose a place that's special to them and uh so the student uh where she went to summer camp uh was important to them and you really learn a lot about the St everyone learns about each student in the class when they do that um in our classes students
041have the opportunity to have a peer-to-peer critique to share their artworks with each other um we use the following format the th um in small groups where one student shares their artwork in process then each student ask the following question um tell something that you like about their piece ask a good question give them a positive suggestion and you can read a few of the statements of the critiques how it's been U positively impacting in their reading and um one of the final slides um again from the landscape assignment uh this student who wrote uh that quote uh this was uh from the photo that she took on her last day in the Ukraine in Ukraine and uh so very meaningful for her and for and what a life skill for everyone in the classroom
042to uh learn how to listen and how to empathize that's the best thing do for our kids um we've been very excited to share with you what we've been working on so thank you for having us and thank you for supporting the Arts do you have any questions that we could help answer um would you mind going there was a slide that had the three uh projects that students had worked on stud but it didn't say how they were created and how how were those they're stunning and I'm just curious there what what are what are they what are um the nice thing is like all the students that get a chance to kind of experiment with like watercolor and color pencil and charcole and um marker um graphite you know different things to decide
043what they want to use like what types of materials they want to kind of combine um and that takes up like a good like three or four days and then they're kind of like okay they feel comfortable um but then we've done a bunch of pencil sketches too to come up with like their compositions um within their five personal symbols that they came up with too some sort of portal for change um toess us something that's happening in the past or the the future so they're just all innately different and um and just exciting but did you have a specific question so are these so is the one on the left a Charco right here yeah this was done primarily with um you know the really thin like Micron Micron pens and she used just
044a little hint of color pencil and then the second the second one that was mostly marker that's mostly the the alcohol based marker with like just probably a little bit of like fine you know Micron thin black marker for detailing right the heart [Music] and and then on the right that was mostly uh watercolor well I thought that last slide about about teaching how to critique really interesting and the question that popped into my head is like can you guys give me examples of like what what a positive critique like like a student how a student would positively so I can critique Steve's jacket but I don't think that's what you're looking [Music] for but you know what I mean I like to do the the sandwich critique where they start with something very visually
045specific about what they like that they think is working uh for the student when we paired them up and then one thing that they might consider thinking about not not an improvement or like you should do this type of thing but just something that the artists might consider from the other student uh perspective and then following up with uh something more specific than just I like but uh um and with another complement of the work so it's a good way for them to think about things from different perspectives we we've also done work with Liz lurman how many years back was that John probably 12 years um but she helped us to frame it where we start by giving them positive feedback that's specific to the criteria of the assignment and the techniques being taught
046and then we also ask the student a question um because it provides the artist with a chance to defend what they've done um so it helps you to better understand their intent and then that can help you to provide them with the right kind of feedback because if you don't know the intent I think then you might be giving them feedback on something that was actually supposed to be there so um that really helps with the giving them constructive criticism and like Tim said you know we always try to encourage them to take their personal feelings and emotions out of it um and how we're all coming to this critique with with a place of like intent to help one another my question was similar and is do you find that um that that is
047one of the places that has like real high leverage for some of the work you're trying to do in this area I mean I would think that you know as a student like something that they're doing is so personal and then that that seems to me like that could be like a real high leverage moment for self-awareness and relationships building and all those things that you know we try to do I I mean I not to speak for everyone but we also really try to pinpoint that if you're going to take anything out of our classes this is going to help you whether you're a doctor a lawyer a manager or you're going to work for someone you have to know how to provide someone else with critique and you need to know how to
048accept it we as teachers are given critique you know when we're giving given our evaluations and we're supposed to be self-reflective and find ways to even critique what we're doing um so we really try to help them to understand that and that's why even within the student voice we're trying to articulate that to the students that these are the most meaningful moments within the classroom and we've noticed that at this beginning it gets a little it can be nerve-wracking for the students but they tend to want it and then they tend to do it organically without our instruction and without the um the organized or like structured aspect to it they are constantly asking for can we have some time to critique because they they really want the feedback and they they like the feedback
049about it cuz TR gives me feedback all day long so um it's good that sometimes you deserve it yeah normally um the one thing I want to share really quickly with the the give a suggestion it's more like um could you have thought of this in a different way could you have cropped it this way could have could you have used a different color or could you have used a different tool instead of that little section right there St just kind of do you them like prompts or yeah these are the prompts yeah and the kids are kind of used to it and then they actually kind of enjoy the critiques because they look forward to it like oh I never thought um I thought of it that way and now I know what to
050do to the next project and so it's kind of like this continue Habit in the course that they actually can continue on it also reinforces the things we say to them because sometimes they'll say oh yeah young already told me that're like oh okay my friends thought the same thing the children tell me about this picture do you get a lot of students coming into these classes who this is kind of their first experience with art I mean I know they take it they're younger but so they don't come in like this necessarily world yes it's really important too like in those int level classes to really build that sense of community and remind students know we're all artists in this room even if you don't think of yourself as an artist you are an
051artist you know how to put pencil to paper and write your name you're an artist and building that sense of community and knowing like someone might be you know coming in with more skills than you but you have things that you can show that student so we need to all work together to build and help each other grow in this class on a personal got question this is going to be very antiac so the the slide with the student voice data was awesome and it was overwhelmingly positive you mentioned you got a lot of discursive feedback from the students and the questions that you asked I want and I wonder with those very few that aren't feeling a profound sense of belonging if you got any insight from that discursive feedback about what the barriers
052might be I I mean I don't know if we got feedback what I thought was interesting this related to that is like there are students that said because we had other questions that said what's the overall energy level or positive or negative for this class and there were a couple I saw that said you know what is your definition of belonging and was like if I'm really good at doing something in this class it's like interesting and it said you know do you feel like you belong to this class you know somewhat not really what do you think of the energy of this class oh very positive so like it was just really interesting seeing sometimes how it was similar and sometimes how it was like contrary to what they said they still sounded like
053it that they were enjoying it but they for some they would say well it's because maybe I'm not doing as well I don't belong like there were just so many different like I said it was really interesting seeing what their definition of belonging was was very interesting I but maybe you can talk to just on the outside like sometimes because the artwork around the school is just such high level and High Caliber and like what it's in the sometimes examples around the room it's hard for some people to realize the process and the education and training that goes into that and I think that can be really intimidating I remember I've been in your EXC me I was in your class it's like oh I'm not good enough because like this you know and like
054and it's like no just give yourself a second yourself that oh no it was just like interesting seeing their like thought process too with that like seeing how like they would say we don't belong but giving the definition of their belonging but they still have like positive experiences we just got to see more so what they were thinking and why with their answers the gobble girls have had five of you as teachers and they have walked away more confident and more creative because of what you've done so thanks the kids helped each other too I was recently telling having them all walk around look at each other it's like my yoga class on Sunday seeing the person next to me do something right helped me do it better it's like we're all here for each
055other to pick each other it's a good sense of community thank you all so much and Tim thank you for uh what you said 33 years unbelievable yeah I was I'm just so much younger so but congratulations thank you for everything Youk you and thank you for all the professional opportunities that you've given all of us but uh it's a special place and feel been able to teach you that thank you thank you team we appreciate [Applause] you was child really yeah it takes some bravery to put things out how's your child doing um am is about to [Music] graduate she did do a language all the way through yeah Doug teaches first grade there awesome did you know that no I did not know that that's awesome see Tim and I were UI together
056uh yeah with me and then and then okay um absolutely amazing um that was really cool that was um okay next item under curriculum instruction assessment is our um textbook recommendations and last month uh Mark uh brought forward uh recommendations for the 20 24 uh 25 school year so tonight we are bringing those forward for your approv looks like we lost the attachment p on the book but I know everybody had a chance to see that on the next page no I'm looking at it got it oh you got it okay mine broke anyway we're bringing that forward tonight for your approval okay can I have a motion to approve so move second any [Music] questions no but they're so expensive and again I think I asked this last time that's not a printed book
057right they've figured out how to you can't get any deals on these things we have we have trimmed back where we can so is there any talk I know colleges now are doing just like a flat feet textbook feed are any of the companies out there I guess there's just so many and so different you know like a subscription service where you subscribe for however many kids you have and then you get access to whatever you need is there anything like that in the high school yeah that's kind of what it is it's flat fee and then you get quite like that and you know what our decision making process has always been is to find the best material for student and each of cont of our to your point the costs are is it
058because the newly published in 20 going to be 2024 new new you know content get updated C the other is too much all right okay you want yes please ready yep no Hi V ysph hi s hi moons I Tire Frost six to nothing we're buying Books Okay um next item is our Personnel section um some information items there for you uh under uh graduate program approvals but as you may remember March in most uh school districts around Illinois is a heavy Personnel month um just the way the It lines up for the year um and so tonight you will see um in the Personnel report um our typical March um allotment of uh teachers who are being recommended for appointment to tenure uh by department and you can see kind of a little um
059bio on each of those teachers so we're excited to bring those teachers to you uh for your approval tonight you can see teachers who are being recommended for a third year a second year um Reemployment on a part-time basis um our uh recommendations for administrator um contracts uh appointments of Faculty positions um we also have faculty resignations um end staff resignations support staff resignations uh we also have tonight um a irrevocable letter of resignation for the purposes of retirement for a faculty member Joe Flanigan um but also our very own Mr Carney uh put his retirement letter in but that's not for for five years so uh no laying up we run through the tape all right we're going to run through the tape um but most definitely five years for Mr Carney uh and
060then um again an assortment of other Personnel items all um to be included in the Personnel report uh under consent and then um we also have tonight um the recommendation for an approval of a resolution authorizing issu of a notice of remedial warning for a 10year teacher uh we had an executive session earlier tonight um and following that it is recommended that the Board of Education approved the resolution authorizing issuance of a notice of remedia warning to 10-year teacher Don Tim as presented could I get a motion so move second all right and our discussion happened in closed session so could we please call second Terry could you please call certainly Ben Yosef yes s i moons I Ty I frost I no I carries six to nothing okay and again the rest of the
061items um will be covered uh in the consent agenda and that takes us to a very thin business section Sean um the first is um I believe a consent agenda item but it's the annual Redal with the illino high school um Association um for sports um ihsa um there are no dues or fees associated with that um so uh that'll be taken under consent but that is in fact an annual um uh renewal if you will um the other two the other two items you have a question or well it says we're supposed to pull um that's if you want to take it out of consent thank you do we want to take it out of cons okay just check it got it uh they and then the other two items I have uh for
062tonight are first readings that will be brought back to the board in April um one is for the approval of natural gas and electricity contracts um as you might recall we purchase our um electricity and natural gas directly from A supplier um at a fixed cost that in fact uh creates or eliminates the volatility associated with Energy prices and um I can tell you in in working with um some of the individuals uh that are looking to continue to have our business or get our business um we have been very fortunate um with our pricing the natural gas specifically um when you anytime you have conflict in the world um Energy prices is Skyrocket and we have been able to maintain a very steady stream and use all that so it works to the benefit
063there'll be more information in the mid meeting memo as well as the April board book um but we've met with three individuals so far um and then the other one is also something not uh not entirely new to the board but that is uh the use of the federal eate program um so this program um allows school districts to purchase um a variet of technology equipment um and we are then reimbursed uh 40% of the cost back from the federal government so this year Doug Doug meets with uh you know Britney and I during the budgeting process we identifi what those needs are um so we put this in in the particular budget um the RFP process was just finished um and we came up with some switches um and wireless access points that we
064needed total cost of all that equipment um which was going to be in the fy2 budget is $337,000 um and thereabouts and then we would get reimbursed about $134,000 back so definitely it's almost like a coupon it's like buying with a coupon it's great but to be clear it's not as if we're oh these are on sale let's go buy them no that's correct these are necessary purchases we would have purchasing these anyway right Fair Point thank you for including yep other than that um and then the last thing is there is a uh slew of Foy requests um Pia and I work together on these and I will tell you I don't know it just seems to be fast and furious uh right now um and we are hearing some of it from our
065peers as well some of these are normal requests that we get every so often um and then others are are are new so proquest that smart uh Pro here one that we get probably about every three months or so correct U so but uh All In All Ships moving in the right direction could I get a motion to to approve the consent agenda pleas so moved okay certainly Moon I Tire hi Frost hi no hi bsph I so I carries six to nothing okay just a couple items for tonight uh the first is some Kudos uh Molly sponseller in our science department was recently reward awarded her doctorate in educational leadership so congratulations to Dr sponseller yeah very cool very nice um about two weeks ago we had included um an interesting article about the
066SAT going digital um and I thought that was really interesting a week ago we found out that Illinois is dumping the SAT so um yeah um and they don't have a digital option yet I'm sure they will at some point but they mean the ACT does not yeah so um hopefully they will I I wonder if it's part of the um the contract part of the bid I don't know but I'm pretty sure if I if I've been following the news correctly I'm pretty sure isby already voted on it but I don't know that for right away next year yes next year so because why not the only good news is that we were in sat in act state for a long time and that you know for those of us who've been around for
067a while the ACT is something that we're familiar with I don't I don't think the the move back to act will take as long as the ramp up to the SAT took for our own organizational learning um so but that has been interesting a couple weeks how many of our kids student students take both anyway you know I don't know that we have a hard number on that um I could I can find out 7 to it's that we offer weekend testing for act a few times a year and we may get a few hundred kids that'll take it you mean act I sorry act sorry act and they would all be both because they are all taking the sat sat is required they all take it and so then they'll come for weekend testing
068and do the act because the article was really interesting about the testing and the the time for the for the SAT I mean they invested a lot of money in that I mean it's become adaptive it's all online I don't know if any of you took the five questions on the New York Times on Sunday um I mean it's it's interesting like it's it's good I just don't understand why we switch back anyway um important dates that you should keep in mind some really great thank you Jamie and Pia for some student profiles that's all fun one can I say one thing about the important dates we're going to be adding one the um Bo board articulation committee is coming back so we have a date April 24th Stevenson will be hosting and what this
069is this is Consortium wide similar to what the superintendent and the principles and everybody body else does we it's getting all the board members and I think superintendent will be invited as well y um just the first one is really just to kind of meet and greet and get to know people and the idea so that we kind of know each other and we start to talk about things like you know it's already been suggested that maybe the Foya thing because other districts are feeling that too and it affects the boards that perhaps there's something we could do through the legislature if we all get together so there's some topics are being tossed around and we're going to spend this first meeting just kind of talking about that what what would the format look like
070going forward what kind of topics does everyone want to see covered in the future do we want to move it around do we always want to host it here do we want to move it around to the other districts all we'll kind of cover all those things in the first one and then we will you know do it kind of for real next year so it's not mandatory by any stretch but um be nice if you're interested in interacting with everybody let me say in the in the previous past when we' have them everybody took their own School we're we're figure that out we're going to figure that out we're g to assign seats we'll have opportunities for everybody to get up and know each we may even play some kind of get to know
071you games find people in the room that you don't know you know those kinds of things and in the strings we can make we can do some yeah we're going to do we're going to do some of that so that people have to interact with the other that to me is the purpose of having this whole ex whole event is not to sit with each other completely agree oh yeah right so everybody should be getting invitations this week but I just wanted to give you a heads up thank you for organizing that exactly um and then finally I included uh just the results of our sectioning um kind of workshops that we do uh the last two weeks of of February each year um you know it um it is a pretty exact science trying
072to determine and right sizing our overall uh FTE for our administrative team our faculty and our support staff um and so this is the result of our um sectioning for classes next year and we try to get down um to each division um what their FTE needs will be uh and we knew that next year would be a pretty significant year for um increases in student enrollment Sean we we think um we'll be up close to probably somewhere between 4750 on the low end and maybe 4,800 on the high end we don't know for sure yet because we don't have our enrollment projections if you know the housing market continues to heat up could be over 4,800 you know it just depends but each year from this point until October is we pick up Troy
073anywhere from 150 to 200 students so right now we're at 4,6 about 40 so even if we just went with a 100 we'd be essentially 4750 right so could be a lot higher than that we just don't know um there is a little bit of wiggle room not a lot but a little bit of wiggle room built into the uh class sizes per division um but our goal has been for the past couple of years as we've been managing this enrollment um swing is to try to keep class sizes the same in some cases they they tweak up a little bit per division in some cases they you know they move down a little bit um it just depends you know on in uh enrollment in some classes so it could be in in uh
074social studies for example I geness it could be if world religions only has 19 kids in two sections that actually brings down the overall average you know on the other hand if you know another class has 28 that rises it up it but for the most part we're able to stay relatively the same just you sometimes see little fluctuations and divisionally speaking in kind of the big four you know core areas anywhere between 22 to 23 kids in a class on average so it's it's a it's a process but the short of it is next year we'll be up almost 10 teachers based on the enrollment increase so that is a lot yeah so and we haven't started to hire yet we have our directors have been interviewing furiously um and they are going going
075going I think math is probably our big um division in terms of new hires because they have new enrollment and they have some resignations retirements so um those are starting to come in good pretty quickly yeah good yeah so overall it's good but I just want to keep you posted next year's projections um Sean Sean actually had this for the last two years if you include last year and this year we hit our FTE projection numbers uh which was around 12 almost to the dot almost to the dot next year um the projections only had one FTE increase I think that's humorous um but we'll see I mean we may not see the enrollment growth that you know we're expecting I think this is the The Big Year the big jump and then we kind
076of toll bit but we haven't but the problem is is we haven't yet received our updated enrollment projection so a lot of this is conjecture until we see that what it's in line what we're seeing is in line with all the decision Insight stuff that we've been for 10 years now they correct you know yes okay year yeah what's that it's the year 4,800 4,800 yeah so it's gonna be tight Dave web says it's time to build a link if you'd like to if he'd like to loan us $45 million six years yeah one more out of here right six years all right that's all I got all right can I have a motion to adjourn move second all in favor post