Batavia Public School District 101 Board of Education Meeting November 18, 2025

001Gilbert >> present. >> Gonzalez. Thomas >> present. >> Here. >> Arandu >> here. >> All right. Thank you. We will now do the pledge of allegiance. I aliance 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. >> Right. Tom, are there items to remove, add, or otherwise adjust to the agenda? >> Yes. Um, we are going to amend the discussion section of our agenda tonight and we're just going to move item 8.1 to the end after 8.3. Anybody have any concerns? >> No. >> Okay, great. All right. Thank you. All right. We want to celebrate some students from Hooverwood. How's heroes is a special recognition that celebrates students who go above and beyond what's expected, showing

002kindness, effort, leadership, and a positive attitude in school. Being named one of Howie's heroes is a proud moment that shines a spotlight on our students. Please mal welcome Max and Finn to the podium. [applause] Don't be shy. You have a step stool. Someone's got to have a step stool or a bench or something. [laughter] >> It might be. Is it? Just making sure it's green. >> You have a handheld. There you go. Handheld. >> Come on over here. I'll hold it for you. >> You want to introduce yourself? Go ahead and give them your name. [laughter] >> Okay. Good job. >> What grade are you in? >> I am a friend. >> I am fourth grade. [applause] helping kids uh help with math and I like reading a lot. >> Awesome. [applause] >> A couple

003of special highlights for Max. Um this is said by one of his teachers. Max and a friend saw another student sitting alone at lunch. They were worried the student would feel sad sitting alone, so they decided to sit with him instead. Max is a brand new student to Hoover Wood and he is already making sure everyone in our school community feels included and belongs. Way to go, Max. [applause] Finn has been an excellent example of positive first grade behavior. He's working so hard at school. He's been politely reminding people to look on the bright side when doing hard things. How refreshing. On the way back from lunch, Finn picked up two things that had been dropped by peers while walking in. Way to go, Finn. [applause] >> Thank you. >> You guys want to do

004a picture? >> More picture, please. >> Oh, boy. [clears throat] >> You got it. >> [laughter] >> He just came from wrestling. >> I know. He's great. [laughter] >> Yeah. Go ahead. Get in there. Get in there. >> Yeah. All right. [applause] Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Congratulations. >> Good job. >> Congrats. Nice job. [clears throat] >> Finn. Good job. All right, public comment. So, welcome to the meeting of the board of education. If anyone wishes to address the board this evening, I have a form here for you to fill out and submit to the board. Holly has them. Please put your full name and address on the form. In general, the board will not answer questions or engage in dialogue during public comment. This does not mean we do not value do not

005take your concerns or comments seriously. The board values active community participation in district endeavors and encourages people to engage with the district using appropriate channels and systems designed with your input in mind. Board members are not involved in day-to-day operations of the district and cannot engage in district indivi business individually. If you have specific questions or would like to further engage with the district, you may submit your questions using the link on the website and the appropriate staff member will communicate with you. Superintendent Kim, are you gonna walk through us through the rules or are you Holly today? >> Holly, >> I don't have I believe you are. >> It's right here. >> I'll read it. How's that? Okay. Speakers will be called up in order of submission. The first form received is the first

006person invited to speak. When your name is called, please come to the podium so that you can be heard. All individuals speaking will be limited to three minutes. A three-minute timer will be started once you are settled at the podium. At any time during the meeting, written comments may be submitted to Holly op. Um, and keep in mind if we end up I don't know how many we have, but if we have >> we have six. >> Six. Okay. Then we probably won't get to 45 minutes with our three-minute time. Okay. >> Speakers should conduct themselves with civility and respect toward others. So, please call up the first person. >> Thank you, President Meadows. The first person is Howard Miller. Good evening and uh thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak out. Uh

007for those of you who don't know me, I'm a former high school Bavia High School teacher retired in 2011. Right now in my retirement, I'm involved with uh rapid response teams in the St. Charles Geneva team as well as the West Chicago team. What we are is we're on call to go out and look for ICE uh Border Patrol and HSI and the FBI and the whole group uh referred to as Migra by the uh immigrant community. We're not allowed to interfere. We're there to just make sure that somebody's not being overly abused and recorded. As you know, the city of Betavia last week passed an ordinance to prohibit Migra from using city uh lots to stage. King County Board yesterday uh made a provision to do the same thing. The best thing in my

008opinion, the best thing this board can do to teach students, and that's what we're here for and what we did, is the importance of standing up for what's right and honoring all citizens of Betavia, that they have equal rights and we'll do whatever we can to protect them. Thank you. >> Thank you, sir. Our next speaker is Casildo Hueer. Good evening, board. Uh, thank you for allowing me the time to speak. My name is Cassildo Quas. Um, I am from Aurora, though I have friends that have uh kids in this school district, and that's why I'm here. I'm speaking on their behalf. Um, we're living in different times right now, dangerous times where people's rights are not being uh respected. Due process is not being met. And you know, I read through your mission statement,

009your vision statement, and your commitment. And one stuck out to me. We commit to a safe and inclusive learning environment for all students. That is your commitment. That is the the commitment of the community also to keep people safe. If you pass an ordinance or resolution to keep ice from your property, you'd be in line with the trust act just like Aurora passed it, Evston, um other cities, Chicago, uh they've passed similar legislation. We at the city of Aurora also passed it. I am the deputy mayor of Aurora, too. I deal with these problems on a daily basis. I have seen firsthand where a parent is ripped out of a car and their kids are left in there. I don't want to see that on school grounds. I've seen it on school grounds. It's heartbreaking

010and I think it's the duty of everyone to do the right thing. Don't look at your heart only. Look at the law. The trust act states that your resources are yours. They are not of the federal government. They are your resources. And it's up to this board to keep the students safe so that they can learn. My wife is a teacher. The one thing she hears, "I'm scared to come to school." That shouldn't be. Kids should never be afraid to come to school. I know that some people say you're going to give them false hope by passing something like this, but actually you're giving them some hope because you're showing that you have compassion. You're showing that you have a heart and you're doing the right thing. And I urge that this board does pass

011something for the safety of the kids. Thank you. >> Our next speaker is Jeremy Denio. >> Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. I am a resident of Betavia, a parent, proud parent to two BPS 101 students, one of which you'll meet in a minute or two. Uh, I'd like to commend the board for discussing and exploring the options available to it [clears throat] involving, you know, an anti- ice or an ICE-free school zone for our students. I'd like to encourage you to continue to explore those options, but I'd really want to encourage you to take action. I'd like you to look beyond what the Safe Schools for All Act provides and go further. create a policy that protects our students and protects them even more than what the state is providing for

012within that law. I I think what you know the the prior speaker said these are truly unusual times and they do require special enactments and actions by leaders like you guys. And I I want to allow all students the opportunity for safe, inclusive and quality education. And and I think that we all agree on that here and that's why you probably took this, you know, the opportunity to join this board and provide that for all students. So please take the job seriously and do what you can to really stand by your mission statement and provide that safe, inclusive, and quality education for all students in Bavia. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our >> next speaker is Spencer. Good evening. I am I'm a Well, first of all, I'm Spencer Deisho. I'm a 14-year-old eighth grader

013at RMS. I know I will never put it as elegantly as my dad put it, but um I'm just here to kind of speak in support of this. I guess I'm here to speak in support of a policy expand. See, I'm going to start at the beginning. I'm here to speak in support of a policy that would limit ICE operations in our school. I know Illinois just passed a law that would designate schools as ICE free, but I want to see a policy expanding upon this. I know that some laws have already been passed to limit this, but I've talked to my friends. I've talked to my community. We want to see action from our community. We want to see action from our leaders and not the state. Well, no, we still want to see

014the state action. Sorry. But we also want to see action from our local representatives. We want to see action from everyone. Everyone here. We've seen action from the city. We want to see action from the park district. We want to see action from anywhere possible. Now here, sorry. Please give my friends that like security going to school knowing that not only their state supports them. Give them that security that their whole park district uh not park district school board supports them. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Our next speaker is Kate Cuno. >> Hello. My name is Kate. I have three children in uh Betavia public schools and I will try to not be repetitive because most of people already said what I wanted to say. So um I did send you an email earlier

015about the HB which does require and it takes effect in 2026 that school boards create a policy and it outlines exactly what they need to include in that policy. But in addition to that, I'd like to see signage on school property highlighting that ICE needs to identify themselves, needs to have a judicial warrant, and a written purpose for why they are there. And they should all this policy also needs to include training for our all of our staff, not just the teachers, for if they see ICE. Because if we pass this, but we don't give anyone the tools on how to enforce it, it doesn't mean much and it's not going to help much. So, I'm really urging to expand on it like everyone else has suggested and make sure you include mandatory training as

016well. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Our final speaker is Parker Junis. >> Good evening. Thanks for having me. Uh my name is Parker Junkis. I live in Aurora, but we're Betavia School District. I have a young daughter, so she'll be going to Betavia schools. Um, I really want just wanted to come and show my support for an ICE free policy in our schools. Um, it's really your responsibility to adopt a really strong policy that protects the students and aligns with the law itself. Um, as you know, Illinois's passed a law uh, the Safe Schools for All Act, and this was signed into effect in August and it will go into effect in 2026. So, there's time, but as most people have said, you really should expand on this. But some of the key points

017are ICE can only be on campus with a warrant. They have to have identification and uh they have a written statement of purpose. Um, but really there should be more than that because uh these kids, it should be so safe for them. They should really just know that they feel comfortable. they shouldn't have to worry about these. They're they're young. They're not adults. They shouldn't have to worry about this. Um Illinois is free education for all. So, it doesn't matter what your immigration status is. You should get an education. And even if it doesn't affect just those that have a questionable immigration status, right? It affects everyone. There's going to be kids that were born here and obviously know they're not affected. They're going to see this and they're going to be concerned for their

018friends or themselves. Like why would we allow masked agents with weapons on our property? That's just crazy in my opinion. So, um I really hope you guys take into strong consideration uh the law. It's not really an option. It is a requirement. It's more also that we hope that you build on it and continue to grow and show your community some uh some faith uh and listen to us for what we all want. So uh thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> All right. No more correct. >> That concludes public comment. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. BPS partners, Mr. Ray. >> Hi board. Um, I'll be brief. Uh, in regards to the request for an immigration enforcement resolution, I'm not going to belver the point and I'm going to let the

019public comments uh speak for themselves, but I would like to reiterate two specific things. Uh, number one, it is the right of every child, regardless of immigration status, to access a free public K through2 education. Number two, the fear and uncertainty of the times we live in are indeed impacting our students and our staff. The BEA knows this because both students and staff have told us this. If this is something the board chooses to take action on, I would offer you this model resolution from the National Education Association for your consideration. You should have copies being passed around right now. The language of this resolution does two things. First, it acknowledges the policies we already have in place. And second, if adopted, it would serve as a powerful reminder to our students, staff, and their

020families that we will continue to prioritize and are committed to ensuring a safe and stable learning environment to the greatest extent possible. If any board member would like more information on this model resolution or any of the resources available through both the IEA and the NEA, all you have to do is ask. Additionally, at last month's board meeting, there was a rigorous discussion on district cell phone policy. Many of our association members heard that discussion and walked away with very different takeaways as to what the intent of that discussion was. I know that some information about current policies will be provided by some of our building administrators at next month's board meeting, but I would kindly ask that if in fact the board is looking at changing or modifying these policies that you actively seek

021formal input from our members. And if the association needs to gather that data for you, all you have to do is ask. Finally, the Battavia Education Association and our Union siblings in BESPA are working together in support of the Illinois Education Association's Feed Illinois initiative by contributing to the Thanksgiving blessing baskets program and the healing hunger weekend backpack meal program. Our efforts are in solidarity with local unions across the state in order to ensure that no student goes hungry. And it's not just the BA and BES, but it's awesome to see uh all the similar efforts that are happening in like every building in our district. It's a beautiful thing. All of that being said, I'd like to personally thank our community outreach coordinator, Amy Nelson, for all the help and assistance she has provided

022uh as we've undertaken this initiative and for all the great work that she continues to do. She's an absolute rock star and our district and community are incredibly lucky to have her. So, let's all continue to keep showing up, supporting one another, lifting up our community, not just during the holiday season, but every day of the year. Go Bulldogs. Good night and good luck. >> Hey, Drew. All right, we do not have a BESPA representative tonight and student amba ambassadors Ka and Grace. The floor is yours. >> Hey, did you miss us? >> It's been a long time since back together. >> Alrighty. Well, thanks for having us. We're so excited to be back in full action together. Um, first of all, uh, we just want to say we're excited to see the many uses

023come in in the coming future. See the juniors that are going to take our positions when we graduate in May. Very excited to graduate in May and we're excited to see who gets to fill our spots. So, as our usual format goes, for sports, we've had a lot of things happening. Uh, winter sports are starting and fall sports are ending. So, we have a lot of wrap-ups and startups. Um, for winter sports starting, we have wrestling and baseball. There's some P or not baseball, basketball. There's some pictures on there. Our teams are all getting together doing bonding activity. Preseason's pretty much ending and they're going into full effect. That's pretty exciting. The fall sports are over. Besides football, which we have a fun update on that later, but we can see the picture in pink.

024That's for tennis. Their season just ended. Um, we have esports. They've been super successful this year. So led by seniors Dom Allen and Bryant Johnson, the BHS Mario Kart team qualifies for state finalists at NIU next weekend. David Williams and Dylan Mayo qualified for the IHSA state semi-finalist in Balhalla this Friday which will be representing the Battavia Esports. We also want to congratulate the Marvel rivals esports team led by seniors Andrew Deabella, Liam Cervantes, and Jacob Cooper for their victory in Romeoville. They're going to be moving on to IHSA state semi-finals on November 23rd at NIOU. And then we also have a lot of cross country wins that have been happening. The girls cross country team won 13th place at the IHSA IHSA state finals. And then junior Avery Hacker placed second overall, tying the

025program record for the highest placing individual in state finals. Our boys also had four runners come away with personal records. That would be Gavin, Aaron, Luke, and Peter at state, which made it the first varsity team in Battavia history to have all top seven under 16 minutes and the first team in Battavia history to have all top five under 15 minutes and 30 seconds for the three miles. This is the second highest placing in Batavia boys team ever. And then Kaia has a personal comment from a member. So, I got a text today saying, "Uh, we getting hype from the turkey trot. Add that in for comedic effect." [laughter] >> It works. They're very excited about that one. [laughter] On top of that, we're also very excited for our football team. They are going on

026Saturday against St. Rita for state semifinals. If they win this, they're going to state. We all have to be there. Cheer on our football team. There's great spirit there and we're excited for them. Uh there's also been IHSA honorable mentions to Gavin Pecor and Ryan Meyers. So, they're doing awesome this year. Uh with that, we have our clubs and events. Also, a lot of those. It's been a busy busy season. Um, currently there's an attendance challenge happening at the high school and the seniors are winning. We won uh for this term which just got to say it's pretty awesome. We're the best. >> We're the most improved. [laughter] >> Well, it's for the most improved. So, that means we're starting from >> No one showed up at the start and now we're getting there. [laughter]

027>> We're getting there. We're getting there. But improvement is still great. [laughter] Um, there's also a lot of bake sales happening. There's a lot of cool spirit there. So, Key Club, it's holy month for the Kan Neoscience Research Foundation. They raised like over $200 the last time. They also raised, I think, around $800 for UNICEF. So, go Key Club. Love Key Club. >> Yeah, you do. >> Yeah. Um, and then also there's a women in business event happening that always is huge success. It's run by our uh counselors at the high school. It's not only business, but also just women leaders in different fields. So, that'll be happening this week. Um, BSU had an Adolian dance group event. I don't know if I pronounced that right, but I did see pictures and it looked really

028fun. They had drums and different dancing lessons. So, that was awesome. Youth and Government, uh, that's the picture on the top left. Uh, they went to their pre- ledge session and presented bill ideas. The team is growing really, really well and they're very passionate about what they're doing. As always, Grow Up is holding their annual single moms drive this winter. We're still looking for donations. This is for any self-care items. It goes to United Way. There's a picture of me painting a box in the top middle. Um, we have those boxes all around the school, but if you want more information on how community members can get involved, uh, reach out to Deja Harris. She'll have more information. There's also the NHS snowman uh, showdown. So, they're collecting different food drive items and then they're

029going to have the different teachers run around the school in snowman costumes. So, it's awesome. And then this week there's a Scholastic Bull meet. Um, that'll be great. So, lots of club activities. Okay, first to start off, raise your hand if you saw The Little Mermaid. Tell me I did amazing. [laughter] Thanks. Um, yeah, that happened. Um, and the next show actually started. Auditions were on Tuesday and I'm assistant directing that one. So, everyone should also come see that one. It'll be pretty cool. It's hilarious. It's called The Government Inspector. Um, all three band, choir, and orchestra had their music concerts. Um, and Winter Wonderland is coming up where everyone performs in a big like 2hour long concert all together. And so, I don't know, I think it's one of my favorite things. Festival of

030Carols, you'll see us last year. That's on December 12th and 13th where we all just kind of dress up and sing a bunch of tunes and it's really pretty. Um, marching band is over and they went to BOA and they actually did really good. Grace wouldn't tell me the score that they got, but I think it was really good. Um, and we had an improv show. This is actually really early in October, but we brought in um the Asiggo improv team and they opened for us and I thought it was really, really cool and really nice. Okay. And RMS some things. Um, their basketball season is starting. That's actually my little brother up there. Isn't he so cute? Don't tell him I said that. Um, show choir season is starting. Oh, that's also at the

031high school. That's where I was before this and that's where I'm about to go back to after this. Middle schoolers were in the uh musical. That's Alice Mamingo right there. I love her to bits and pieces. She's amazing. And they had auditions for Legally Blonde and I know I didn't tell you that. Um, wrestling is starting. Their cross country teams were very successful and they had a Veterans Day assembly and it was it was a very nice assembly if I say so myself. >> All right, on a not so fun note um we have some info on AI policy within the school district. I think this has been an issue that we see pretty prevalently um at the high school just with students using it. Um a lot of teachers definitely have expressed concerns because

032it's a hard to flag them and when they do it's hard to keep the people who are using it and aren't using it. Um, so we just want to bring that to the attention that that's definitely an issue happening both among students and teachers um with what's being used, what assignments are going out, how things are being graded. Uh, I know I personally, in my own opinion, do not like the usage of AI and I think it definitely is detrimental to our education and our future successes. So, we just want to bring that to the attention um, and make sure you guys know about it. Kai, do you have any other >> We don't necessarily have a solution for any of this. Um, but we just thought that you guys should know about it because

033it is happening every day we hear about it. So, >> yeah, quite a lot. But that's all we got. >> Thank you. [applause] >> Okay. Consent again. Agenda. According to our board policy, we designate a portion of the action items on the agenda as a consent agenda for those items usually that usually do not require extensive discussion before board action. These items are generally routine, recurring, and can be [clears throat] grouped together for efficiency. Steve, would you please walk us through it? >> Yes, absolutely. And uh before I start, I just want to reiterate what was said at the beginning of the meeting with 5.8. Um we uh had some dates wrong in there. The uh correction is that the work will be done in 2026 and with completion for the 2627 school year. Uh

0345.1 and 5.2 is the approval of the October 21st, 2025 meeting and close session meeting minutes. 5.3 is the approval of the November 6, 2025 special meeting minutes. 5.4 is our monthly uh personnel report. 5.5 is the monthly payrolls and bills. 5.6 Six is the destruction of closed session recordings from April 9th and April 24th of 2024. We have an abundance of donations which we're most appreciative uh of. Thank you to Stage, the Dunham Fund, BYA, Ruth Coin, Bobkumer, Office Depot, Beefy multiple times, three times over, and Mary Bruno for all of their donations. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 5.8 is the aforementioned authorized application for the fiscical year 26 school maintenance project grant. 5.9 is the approval of the 2026 2027 school calendar, one of Brad's favorite items. 5.10 is the Betavia High

035School graduation agreement with NIOU from 2027 to 2029. And finally, 5.11 is the approval of our consent agenda. >> All right, board. Any questions, comments? >> I I have a question about the grant 5.8. Is this like an annual thing or is this like a one time grant? You come. Okay. >> Do you want to just There's people here. You want to just Would someone want to just elaborate what the grant is? >> Josh can do that. [laughter] [snorts] >> So, um, that grant is something that the state of Illinois allows school districts to apply for for capital projects. So, this particular item was already approved by the board uh at the last meeting when Mark presented. And this is just a way to get some funding to help with that. And it's a $50,000

036match. So, we've got to at least do a project of $50,000 and then the state matches that. >> Thank you, Josh. >> No problem. >> Kristen looks like she's ready to ask a question. [laughter] I had a question uh that I emailed but uh the graduation agreement with niu the reason for the three years if that's just typical or if there's a discounted rate if for a longer contract. >> It's it's pretty typical for those uh to have a three-year contract with them. That's what we've done in the past. We'd like to lock in the date because that place is so popular um that you don't want to lose your spot. uh otherwise we could kick to some other day. So that's why we're doing that. The biggest change with this contract is the need

037for ticketing. So we've never used ticketing before. There's unlimited tickets, but we have to go through a ticketing system because NIU requires. So it'll be a little bit more because printing tickets. Any other questions? Okay. Hearing none, I will entertain a motion to approve all items in the consent agenda as presented. [clears throat] >> So moved by Aaron. >> Second by Danielle. Cindy, please lead us in a roll call vote. >> Meadows, >> yes. >> Gonzalez Thomas, >> yes. >> Arlandu, >> yes. >> Kilberg, >> yes. >> Motion passes. Thank you. Reports. Foyer reports. Come >> reports have been presented to the board in our board book. Um does anyone have any questions? >> Okay. Next is treasury report. >> The expenditures and revenues for the month of October are included as long as well

038as the investments and our fund balances and uh nothing out of the ordinary other than that to report. Okay. Thank you. Any questions on that? All right. BPSU Steve. You're trying to Rosh Shamu. Who's going to talk? >> No, no, no, no. >> Okay. >> This is very planned out. Craig, >> I can tell. [laughter] >> This is Ming Shelby, our director of uh professional learning. Um and uh we're here to talk a little bit about BPSU. If you want to hit the uh >> slides, >> the slide, >> that would be awesome. >> The one that's in the report. the one that's in the report. Got it. And we also have a few special guests who are uh one is a BPSU graduate and one is a current uh BPSU uh participant and they'll

039be sharing a little bit um at the end. So, uh, BPSU, uh, is something that came out of our, uh, contract bargaining in, um, a couple contracts ago and, uh, it really, it really, uh, uh, was one of those things that was a beautiful thing in the bargaining process of interestbased bargaining where, um, we had a problem of we wanted to address professional learning that was focused on the right work. um while doing so, not having our uh staff members necessarily go into debt because the traditional model in schools as uh many of you know is that uh uh teachers and staff members acquire um degrees which can cost 20 $30,000 and that moves them over in the pay scale and uh then they can earn more money. Um and they can do that they

040could do that from a myriad of different schools and things like that. And so we came up with a very creative solution to kind of to kind of meet the needs uh of professional learning uh increasing compensation and kind of some unintended uh needs of like building community of learning together and things like that with uh this solution. And so this is something that came out of bargaining and uh I'm I I feel very fortunate in my role that I' I I was a part of like being able to create that with my colleague Ming here um as well as our adjunct professor over here uh Brad Newkerk. And so uh we serve as the primary instructors um and uh it's really been a blast. So what exactly is BPSU? If we can go to

041the next slide, this is like a very very general structure of what it's all about. It's a I I would compare it to a two-year hybrid masters program, meaning we have some uh in-person meetings. If you ever drive by or come by ARJ on a Wednesday, pretty much 34 Wednesdays of the school year. Uh pretty which is pretty much every Wednesday of the school year. We are in here >> Other than the homecoming parade, which we [laughter] learned year one, Ally would remember that. Um and uh there's one other time. Oh, we have our our thing that we do, our culminating activity, which Ming will talk about a little bit. Uh, that's another time we don't meet here, but we're here from 4 to 6 every Wednesday, and we run two cohorts simultaneously. Um, so

042year 1 was just one cohort. That was kind of our learning year. Um, and right now we're in the midst of cohort six is in year two and cohort 7 is in year one. And so they meet every other week. In between weeks, they have assignments. Um, again, if you've taken any kind of online hybrid course, you typically have readings, you make posts, and then your uh classmates comment on it. Um, and so that's what kind of happens in and and and one of our our uh uh uh core um ways we operate is we read different texts. Am I jumping into your stuff already? Yeah, >> this is what we do. Um and uh I'm on fire. Right. Here we go. So uh and when we read those core texts uh there's a lot

043of uh uh uh off not in-class discussion but then we also sometimes discuss the in-class. So if you're looking at like the general structure this is what it's really about. The the main focus of this uh uh two-year hybrid masters program is teacher leadership. And what we're trying to do is build a community of teacher leaders um in our system to really move all the right work forward. Um and so you see that embedded um in in both years. In year one, we really focus on maybe uh uh uh the classroom improvement and that sort of change and and um I don't know. I think it's probably gotten more intense, Ally, than what you experienced, but we we give a lot more like uh uh we meet in class and we say, "Okay, we've we've

044we've talked about this strategy. We we've modeled the strategy. We want you to go try it in your class and then come back and tell us how it went." And what's really fun for Ming and I is people uh uh staff members have videoed stuff and then brought it back and showed to us or they'll be like, "Hey, I'm doing this in class on this on Tuesday at uh uh first block. Would you come and come and check it out?" And so we get to experience that kind of stuff. In year two, we want to take that uh that sphere of influence beyond just their own classroom and say, "How how are you impacting the people around you?" Um in our system, um you'll see the third thing. It says teams and PLC. We are

045a school district that believes that the best way for us to uh uh support our kids and move learning forward for our students is collaboration, right? And so, um we want our teacher leaders to influence uh their teams to collaborate around the right work and the right things. And uh it's funny now because we're now in cohort 7. And so we do a lot of things where it's like, hey, we talk about this, we talk about this concept, we interact about it. Now we want you to go back and talk to your team about it. Well, if you were a Spanish teacher at Betavia High School in year two, you might have had one teacher coming back and talking to your team about this concept. And then like in cohort 4, we had two more

046Spanish teachers. And so then they did kind of had the same conversations and you can kind of see how and I think we still have Spanish teachers. We [laughter] pretty much had the whole Spanish department. I don't know why I brought that up, but uh uh it's really fun to see how it kind of spreads. And so we really believe strongly and it's embedded in both years about working as professional learning communities and and what is the right work during the collaborative time that is carved out of the teacher schedules um to again move student learning forward. And then lastly in year one um we just start tapping into a culminating research project. I'm going to try not to say much about it because you're going to talk about that right? I won't I won't

047say anything more than that. And then in the last year we really focus on the application of that action research. And I'll stop there. So let's go to the next slide. >> So Steve already gave you a sneak peek a little bit about some of our core learning experiences, but on the slide, these five quality feedback, highquality pedagogical techniques, professional learning communities, collective efficacy, and reflection are really embedded into each of the learning experiences each Wednesday that we're together. Um because we believe that if we equip our teachers with these great teacher leader skills, they can take it back, be awesome leaders for their teams and really awesome leaders for their students. So to break down the core learning experiences even more, um diving deep into it, we offer two trainings for our teachers. The

048first one is adaptive schools. they get to go four days in the summertime um where they learn about what are effective facilitation strategies for groups and we've had people say like oh I was really skeptical about it or I'm a psych like what will I get out of it and we'll get emails like okay that was the best part of BPSU I take so much of what I did from that and help facilitate my teams my 504 meetings IEP all that um and then the second thing that they get um that's an official training is crucial conversations so maybe some of you are famili familiar with the work of crucial conversations. Um, and we work through what are those hard conversations because what we've discovered is that it's really easy to be like, "Oh, can

049you believe that Steve did this?" blah blah blah blah. >> She does that a lot. >> A lot. Yeah. But what's even harder, but even more effective is to have the conversation in person like, "Hey, Steve, this is what happened." And so, we want people to be open and aware of these conversations and not hide from them so that we can function really honestly and cohesively together. Then the second part is the leading teams. So we have curriculum week where our BPSU leaders would facilitate and lead those teams. So sometimes you would have a first grade teacher leading eighth grade math or a high school Spanish teacher leading third grade ELA. Um and it's not about the content but about building the capacity as a leader. Um and this last year they got an even

050more interesting task where they uh got to present at institute day or lead one of their um SLT meetings and just continuously equipping our teachers with leadership opportunities. Then the next part is the different texts that we read. Steve gave a little hint about some of them but some of our favorites are Learning by doing which is a PLC book, Dare to Lead Bnee Brown. She's a favorite. Maybe some of you are familiar with her. Um, Upstream by Dan Heath. He's half of the dynamic duo of the Heath brothers. They broke up during that brief stint, so he wrote Upstream on his own. Um, Mindset by Carol Dwek. Um, and we've actually had a professor come zoom in and talk to us from University of Houston. She studied under Carol at Stanford University, got her

051PhD and did 20 years of mindset research. So our students got to benefit from the expert of a actual researcher who is doing this work. Um and then think again by Adam Grant who um you're probably familiar with his work as a pen professor. Then um our culminating event is that our uh BPSURS they do a 5 to seven minute TED talk style of their project that they've been working on. Um the first year we were like five to seven minutes, five to seven minutes and then would go on like for 15 minutes kind of like what's happening now. But um we [clears throat] learned and got it like even more tight and tight. And this last cohort um Stephen and I were talking that they're only really required to do two cycles of learning

052where they're like, "Okay, I'm making a prediction about if this strategy will work with my students. Let's try it and then let's do another cycle." In this last cohort, they did multiple cycles, like three, four, five to continuously try to figure out what's working, what's not working for students. So, that was super cool. Um, and so this is like very high level, as you can tell, this composite. Um, we celebrate our grads with this certificate at the end. Um, so it's proudly presented to the end. I'm sure Ally is hanging up probably in her EC room. Um and then this there a lot of hard work goes into these two years. So on the left is the composite of each of the students and um their cohort and who they are and it goes in

053out in our CNI monthly newsletter saying hey give a shout out to this cohort um give them a high five all that kind of stuff. So that's really fun. So then our action research. Um you notice Brad right here. He's uh coaching one of our teachers, Nikki at RMS. Um Brad doesn't really like this picture, but you know, it's we think it's great, so it's still up there. Um and what this is a process that they go through with their action research. So it's really cool kind of what I illustrated earlier about the um different cycles. Just to give you an idea of how many [laughter] people have participated um in BPSU, you can see the numbers here. The number on the far left is year cohort 1 through 7. Um in year 1 we

054had 30 students and we realized that was like a little bit too much to manage. And so we've kind of found our sweet spot between 20 and 23 students. Um but you'll also notice on the far right that's the number of our staff member who staff members who have applied. Um and so obviously there is a massive demand from our teaching staff for this program. The last two years were about as many um staff members who have applied to be in this. And what we have to do is we sit down uh Brad uh myself uh uh Drew Ray and Sarah Barrett. We sit down and we do a draw and uh so it's done. There's there's no bias. There's no any anything like that. And we do a random um um draw of our

055staff members and if your name is drawn, you get in the program. Um, and so, uh, we're very proud of the fact that, um, it's got some stickiness where where people still want to be a part, um, of BPSU. And I think we have a couple, you can skip that one. And then just we've just, this is just highlighting, we're going to have two people come up here brief uh, uh, in a minute here. Um, but there's been some really great benefits to BPSU. One of the things that we really didn't even anticipate was just the community that we built. um that picture there which is probably up there without their permission but they did send it to us over district email so maybe there's some way we can do that but what happened is

056like one cohort one cohort we had two staff members who were pregnant and having children and they ended up having their children and then um they became like fast friends they were not in the same building not even in the like in you know they were across the district at all they became really good friends because of BPSU and then like their kids' first play date was with each of their children and they sent that photo to us just as an illustration of the great community that gets built with these uh tightlyk knit groups in BPSU. Um that's a copy of an original uh uh uh leadership manifesto. It's one of our uh uh mindset culminating assignments um where people get to be creative and and determine like what is my commitment um um as

057I've learned through this. There's tons of collaboration and then something that's really really important to us is we don't have staff members going out and getting rando classes and masters and things like that. they're actually getting uh focused work on the work that we believe in aligned to our strategic plan um to best support our students. And so we we have our our our teacher leaders that go through this really focusing on the right work and we're really proud of that. So I believe with that we have two special people here. I'm going to call Ally uh Bilski who cannot wait to speak in public um up first. She, poor Ally, she was one of the people that were in uh BPSU cohort one and we kind of learned by doing, right? We made mistakes

058along the way. We survived a pandemic together. We were in person and we were online and all sorts of things. So, she's just going to tell a little bit of her story. >> Okay. >> My name is Ali Bilsilki and I'm currently in my 14th year of teaching at the Early Childhood Center. I have a specialized instructional classroom in the morning and a blended classroom in the afternoon. I was part of BPSU cohort 1 which I joined during my eighth year of teaching here in Mattavia for many years. Continuing my education kind of felt out of reach. I was a single mom and financially it just wasn't possible. I had also moved to Battavia in 2014 um away from my hometown which meant I no longer had access to like easy child care. Um so

059it really put continuing my education really out of perspective. Between 2017 and 2022, I went from being the youngest teacher on staff at the early childhood center to the most experienced teacher because of retirements. So, there was a lot of time when I just naturally was pushed into leadership roles and we were hiring a lot of new teachers. So, we've grown we've grown so much since then and I think that being part of BPSU was so important. Um, when the opportunity came up, I was generally excited because I truly believe that that program was out of reach for me. The core model removed so many obstacles. I could learn in my own district, stay close to my family, and build skills that direct that directly supported my rapidly growing early childhood program that I was

060a part of. Um, one of the most valuable parts of BPSU was the learning opportunities that connected educators across all levels, early childhood through high school. The kind of professional development is very rare to find. Usually, we're at things and they're like, "We'll just kind of make it seem like early childhood or it's, you know, make it seem like high school." Um, it allowed us to interact with colleagues beyond our own buildings and learn from each other's perspectives. The leadership focused workshops and outside resources were especially meaningful. They helped me refine my delegation skills and support new staff while applying what I was learning directly to my team. Although I didn't have the chance to work directly with Angie Southerntherland during BPSU, several of my co-workers did, and they often shared how supportive and accommodating

061she was to them. Even from a distance, her guidance mattered and she consistently worked to find resources and supports that aligned with topics teachers were exploring in their projects. That impact carried throughout the entire cohort. My time in BPSU wasn't just helpful, it was also truly transformative. It allowed me to grow as a leader and better support my colleagues to contribute to the kind of learning environment our youngest students in Battavia need. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity and it has meant so much for my work and my growth here in Batavia. >> [applause] >> And now I'm going to call Sarah McHugh up. She is uh in cohort six. So you got the perspective of a cohort one uh student, if you will. And now we have somebody who is uh in year

062two and uh right in the midst of their research stuff, right? >> Yeah. >> Let's go. >> Hi, my name is Sarah Mchuan. I am the adaptive physical education teacher and the leadership program teacher at the high school. Being part of the BPSU has been a special experience for me. I applied for BPSU after hearing others about the great camaraderie it builds among staff from different buildings and the incredible number of strategies that they took away to use in their own classrooms throughout the year. After being accepted, I read through the description of expectations and seeing part about the TED talk made my heart skip a beat. But while I'm still nervous about presenting my action research, I'm really excited about my topic and the potential findings that could benefit my students and strengthen my

063program. BPSU has had a tremendous impact on both my work and home life. The topics that we explore in BPSU go far beyond the classroom. Their true life skills that I now share with my students and my own children at home. The most meaningful part for me has been creating my leadership manifesto. While I've always viewed myself as a leader, I had recently felt a bit disconnected from my purpose as an educator. Developing my manifesto helped me reconnect with my core values, reignite my creativity, and restore a balance of fulfillment in my daily routine. So, thank you, BPSU. Appreciate it. [applause] Um, in a minute we're going to give time if our board wants to ask any [clears throat] questions, but I would be making a mistake if I didn't say uh Jenny Baron, >>

064uh, who is a speech pathologist. She started at the early childhood and I think she's worked in every school in the district except for Routolo and now she's at the high school. Uh, she was a part of cohort one and um, I would argue or contend she's one of the biggest BPSU champions um, in our entire district. um to this day she still emails us with ideas and thoughts and leadership things. She's incredible. She was supposed to be here tonight. She was not feeling well. Um and uh uh I just wanted to mention her because uh she would have you would have enjoyed her speaking because of her passion for BPSU. So with that, I don't know if the board has any questions, but we are happy to answer them and we absolutely have uh

065two graduates or one graduate and one mid uh uh uh person who would be happy to answer questions, I'm sure. I have a few questions. Uh, so the research projects, are they graded? Like, do you have a rubric or do they just have to present? >> It's worth 1,000 points. [laughter] >> We always say that. We always say it's not graded, but we have check-ins along the way to make sure they're on the right path. And I would actually say that the the grade, if you will, um, there's no formal grade. The grade is they present their findings um, in front of their colleagues. And uh I would say that probably that experience um is plenty uh for for them. And uh I will tell you we we have the um we do it every

066September. So like Sarah's cohort is finishing this year next September, middle of the month, not on um homecoming night. Um, we go to the BAC and we do it in the black box and they present their findings and uh, it's really one of my favorite nights of the year because you get to see in in in about two hours, two and a half hours what all they they've been working on and what they've learned. Um, and it's funny, we've seen people we we we had high school English teachers who were in maybe cohort four and she did her research project and then she had a colleague that she worked closely with. she actually built on her colleagues research and extended it on a ver on the same topic and so it's just cool to see

067Drew Ray actually is another person who is a grad yeah if you have questions Drew you can ask Drew questions um he did his research project too and uh um >> anyway so there it's not graded in a traditional manner um but we definitely spend a lot of time there's a lot of uh uh supports around them to make sure that they are on the right path and and the real grade is what are they learning and how is that impacting their students Um, do they get professional development for this? Like their >> Yes, they get Yes, they get 80 hours at the end of the two years. So, 40 hours each year >> for their uh for their teaching license for their PEL. >> And then what do the teachers get when they graduate

068BPSU? They get an increase in their compensation after completing two years uh which is uh uh bargained out in our contract and then they get a beautiful beautiful signed certificate uh from Tom Kim Ming Shelby and myself. >> Does this I apologize if it was said but does it move them over or up in lanes or do they just get this a one time I call it a onetime payout or whatever? What it is is it's a it's a base salary increase that stays with them the rest of their career because again we don't have the traditional salary and lane schedule anymore. So it basically just buil it gives them a bigger raise for that year and then that stays with them for the rest of their career. And then um so if a teacher

069gets pulled or lotteryed or whatever it is for BPSU um if they already have their masters or second masters or PhD um I guess I just want to say I know we're always continuing our professional development but um do they are I guess I'm trying like uh how how effective is BPSU if someone already has two masters, a master's, a PhD because you said that you're trying to concentrate on somebody who uh maybe can't afford that advanced degree. So, I guess this is the question is like if I already have two masters or a PhD or a master's, how will this help? >> Yeah, >> I have thoughts, but maybe these guys could >> Sarah Ally, do you guys want to come back up? >> Drew, you want to say anything about it? because I

070>> will you come up to the podium please. >> Yeah, we need so people can hear online. No, all good. [laughter] >> My PE voice is not project. Okay. Um I received my master's a couple of years ago in special education after having um physical education as my bachelor's and I can tell you that when BPSU compared to my master's education like Steve had mentioned this is more directed to what the growth for Betavia is where I learned from professors at Aurora University and they were great but it was their philosophies and their thoughts and processes. here. I'm learning like what our community provides for our students and we're all working together to do that same thing. So, I hope that answered your question. >> Thank you, sir. >> Is any teacher eligible? Um or

071are there qualifications that they have to meet to >> uh the current uh again this is a part came out of our bargaining and so all teachers are available. um priority is given to tenure teachers over non-tenure teachers. That's the current uh language. >> I just want to say thank you to uh Ally and Sarah for sharing your stories and coming up. I know that's not an easy thing to do. It's very exciting. Um I have a couple questions. One, I know we're getting that collaboration when the the cohorts are together and going through the BPSU together. Are we seeing once they move through the program, is that continuing on a buildingto building level or have we tracked kind of I'm just curious maybe even can speak to it uh after building those relationships for

072two years if that transfers then once you're through it >> outside of baby play dates. [clears throat] >> Well, yes, [laughter] more on a professional standpoint, I guess, but >> um I think one of the I think one of the things it really helped do was that I felt more comfortable reaching out to peers. So in early childhood some people still don't even know we exist kind of like it's like what you have an early childhood program it's not like the husky proper it's very different and so um sometimes there would be activities going on and I'd reach out I reached out to Routollo actually and their um I forget what class it was but my son was in the class and they made adaptive tools for the preschoolers that I taught. So they did

073a whole lesson they transformed it into toys that preschoolers could play with that have adaptive needs. So it just gives you that confidence like oh I know somebody that somebody's going to know me. I've actually reached out to Jenny to ask for help at the high school because now she has a whole another slew of people there. Um it just it helps because there's so many people with so many different resources. Um yeah, and I mean we had a cohort of 30 people. So there was a lot of different people that I can still talk to today and when I see them I can say hi and not go somewhere and not really know anybody. So it's nice. >> It also helps in our PLC's because we're talking the same language. So we are more

074efficient, more effective. Um those crucial conversations I just started that book um and that has already come to play in our PLC's not just for me who's been in BPSU but other people who have been or new people that are entering into the cohort now. So it helps with our PLC's too >> and I just love the fact that you know Ally shared her or I think yeah Ally you went first. So your story about how our teachers have access to this now whereas before depending on your circumstances your opportunity for professional de development by limited or unavailable right so I think that's outstanding and then I would just be interested now that we've been doing this for a while are we like kind of tracking data like on the uh outcomes in the classroom

075as far as impacting students as opposed to if they're going to Aurora or you know it's a hodge podge of all different experiences are we starting to look at gathering data on that just to see how it's trickling down to the students. I'm not sure if that's for the teachers or for maybe >> I can speak to a little bit of it. So my project was PLC and if you really Google it, there's not a lot of early childhood centers that do the true PLC framework. Um and through that two years I was doing it in large time and we've had three different student goals and our students, special ed included, have met 98% of their goals we've written and that's through that process of creating a PLC which was directly from the BPSU cohort.

076So that kind of is your grade is that the students are showing great outcomes from it. Um, and it gives you that chance to kind of work with your team and practice what you've been doing. So I feel like that is a huge piece because that wouldn't have happened had we not had that opportunity. >> So with the action research, right, they start with a question, a goal, and then our teachers are taking my our data throughout like how much are students growing, how much are they learning, is it working, is it not? And Drew, I hope you don't mind me sharing about your project, but Drew thought was he went in with one way of how to teach and he's like, "Oh, it's going to be awesome. They're getting more experiences. They're going to

077do awesome on this final exam." And then they totally flopped. It was like the opposite of what he thought. And so he's like, "All right, no problem." Like, "What do I do from here? How how can I take this information and continue to adapt and adjust?" And um the reason why that his presentation stands out in my mind so clearly is because it's okay to fail and make mistakes and learn from them and get better. And we're modeling and showing our students that failure is information for us to continue to grow that we're not stuck in that failure that we're resilient. We can get back up and continue to improve. >> Yeah. And I and just to add to that, I would contend um you know research is pretty clear. Job embedded learning um in

078in a collaborative setting is about the best thing we have in education. You can Google that and you will find it. Work you you if you Google, hey, is it better to work in isolation or be collaborative in education? What is going to have the most impacts on student learning? There is no research that's going to tell you that it's great to work in isolation, right? And then the job embedded learning, we really feel like with our action research, um, teachers are actually doing the right work of that job embedded learning where they're trying to answer a question or solve a problem or try something new, see how the students perform and then make adjustments, right? That's just good sound instruction. And so what they're getting out of this experience besides all that background knowledge

079and and learning that they're going back to their schools and their teams um and their colleagues and sharing with is they're actually having it play out in real time. And it's been said many times in a school system where the teachers are learning then the students are learning. I'd like to say in BPSU that's what we're that's what we're after. We're after our teachers learning and learning together and then that's going to impact the learning of our students. It's pretty incredible stuff when you really think about it. I just have a a comment and it has more to do with uh what I believe is the significant aspect of this program which is on recruiting and retention of the teachers. So I think having this program and you know we're we're in need of great

080teachers and there's a shortage. So having this program as part of our district I think helps can help in the recruiting of uh teachers. So, and then also from a retention standpoint, you know, going through this program, I I would guess the numbers are pretty strong in that that area. >> Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I didn't want to get into all of the strategies of uh of the program, but certainly uh having teachers earn something that they for a pay raise that they can't take elsewhere does incentivize them to stay here. Um, and uh, it's funny that you say that, Rob, because we've, uh, had the opportunity um, to present on this um, uh, both nationally and statewide on BPSU, and I can't tell you how many people then reach out to us because

081they see the benefits that this could have for their system. So, I don't know that we necessarily that was all part of the master intent, but it certainly has ended up playing out that way um, from from that standpoint. So, I appreciate you bringing that up. and uh I get to do some of the screening interviews of potential candidates and they're brand new to our district and they'll I'll say okay do you have any questions and they're like can you tell me about BPSU and so that's already drawing some people I'm like wait how do you know about BPSU so it is like you said Rob uh an interesting something special that we have yeah >> any other questions the thing I'm gonna the one thing I'm I'm curious to see playing out, no research,

082no request or anything, is as people kind of get in the latter half of their career, right? And if they were going to go get a master's or go get a PhD or whatever else, their opportunity to kind of pay that off dwindles. So therefore, they don't tend to be incentivized to go be able to do those things. And I think this gives a good opportunity for those later in their careers but still want to learn and still want to progress. Give an opportunity that if it's a lottery to do that doesn't have a financial hit that they have to pay off over [snorts] time. So it's a really I hear about it from other districts every once in a while too. So thank you. And this came if I recall correctly out of a

083bit of a discussion over one of our action items before and asked if they could give us a little bit more information if I remember correctly. So, I appreciate you guys taking the time to do that. >> Yeah, and I I totally agree with what you just said, Craig. And and I I would I would I would be upset if I didn't share this. Um, as you can imagine, you know, during the school year, February, let's say, um, it's four o'clock on a Wednesday, and I'm in my office, and I'm like, "Yeah, I kind of want to go home right now, right?" You know, you're like, "All right." And I got now we have BPSU from 4 to 6, right? But I'm telling you, I mean, you know this, we walk out of here at

084six o'clock and we are so jacked up and we're so excited because we have educators who again have taught all day long. They're tired and exhausted, too. And they come in here and they get into it. They invest in each other. They invest in the content. They have great conversations. They're taking actions and doing things. And I will tell you that um being a part of BPSU and getting to build these relationships that are a little bit different relationships than human resources, right? Um it's very inspiring to me and uh so I'm very grateful that I've had the opportunity to be a part of this because it's really um inspired me in the latter years of my career in the same way where I've gotten to learn and engage with teachers in a totally different

085relationship and I'm sure Ming feels exactly the same way and it's it's a heck of a lot of fun and so um I'm very grateful and I think we have something very very special here and that's why we thought it would be important for us to share about this. So with that I'm going to shut up because I could talk on and off. >> [laughter] >> one other consideration. So you guys said that you get 30 students the first year realized that was too high and you settled on 20 to 23 as the sweet spot. >> Um I just find it a little ironical in a sense of uh these are adult students but we have some of our classrooms with middle school or high school kids with 27 or 30 students and yet they

086have to manage those. Well, there's one aspect I didn't really get into here, and Tonyy's probably thinking this right now, is that we have a fixed budget um in our contract, a pile, a po pool of money that goes towards uh compensation for professional learning. And uh in year one, we could get away with it with 30 students, but then when you have two cohorts going, that's 40 students. And so, there is a financial aspect to this as well that was a decision maker behind that. So, with that, Now he's really done. Unless there's >> really done. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you guys. Appreciate it. >> All right. >> Sorry. >> Tony, you going to stun us with a uh your stunning rendition of Caffer? >> Uh, actually, no, I'm not. [laughter]

087>> Oh, we're going to leave that to the professionals. >> Tony's taking a break. >> Yeah, >> he's he's got to talk about the future. >> Okay. >> I'm going to talk about closing the books on the past. >> Okay. Um, so the act for here is basically the financial audit and it is 147 pages. So I'm hoping you did your pre-ereading and and read through that. And um I'm not even going to give the uh rendition of it. We've got a special guest here tonight, Don Shaw. He's a principal auditor at uh Labbak and Amen. And he's going to talk about the audit. >> So take it away. >> Thank you. Uh, as a proud resident and taxpayer, it's exciting to see so many people passionate about the audit results. So, [laughter] had standing

088room only before. So, thank you. Uh, in all seriousness, I first want to thank Tony, Josh, and the entire team for all their help in making this a successful first audit year. Uh, without their help, this would not be possible. So, thank you. Next, I can go through the annual financial report with you, uh, which is the thicker the packets you received. If you're following along electronically, it's going to be the actual page number at the bottom of the page if I say a specific page numbers. >> He's going to go through all 147. >> Yes, buckle up. [laughter] >> One, >> uh, no, I'll try to keep it brief, don't worry. Um, so page eight is the is our larbaka name and letterhead. This is our independent audit report in which we provide a

089clean unmodified opinion. That's the highest opinion you can receive. Basically states that we found no issues with internal controls or the numbers as they are presented. If you scroll about three or four more pages, you'll run into the management discussion and analysis. This section really provides a summary of how the year performed in narrative form. So, if you have questions on fluctuations from year to year or what the numbers truly mean, this is where you want to go to to see those answers. I always say you don't have to read 147 pages, but this section will give you the the high level. The individual fund financial statements and income statement will begin on page 28. And about threequarters of the way down the page, you'll notice that the general fund, which is your main operating

090fund, it's made up of your education, operations, and maintenance, and working cash funds, had a operating increase of $9.1 million. This primarily due to your property taxes, collections being a little higher than anticipated while your expenditures were below budget in the current year. This was offset by a transfer out to your capital projects fund. So, your general fund was left with a $5.6 million net increase. The next section is the notes of the financial statement, and this really provides further detail into how we came up with the figures that we did with supporting schedules. Within there, you're going to find your long-term debt and your capital asset schedules. not going to go through all the notes with you tonight. So, I'll have you skip ahead all the way to page 85. Page 85 is the

091start of your budgetary information. So, if you want to see how a specific fund performed based on what was budgeted, this is where you want to see those comparisons. Does anyone have any questions on the financial statements before moving on? Okay. We also provided a second document called the managel letter. Uh we had it was a really good year. We only had two current year recommendations. The first of them is related to your capital projects fund being over budget. This is primarily due to timing of when construction payments happened. There were some uh payments that happened in July and August, but the work was performed in June, so we had to bring that back to fiscal year 25. So, it's that's really just more of a timing difference. The second comment is in regards to

092IT controls. We found no issues with Betavia School District specifically, but our industry, we're seeing more and more cyber attacks. So, we want to make sure that we're bringing that awareness to all of our clients. So, again, we don't have any concerns for here specifically, but we want to raise that that awareness. Anyone have any questions? Right. >> Printed copies, >> what's that? >> Printed copies. >> Yeah, we can we'll we'll mail those to you. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Thank you. All right. >> I I have I guess a comment. I pulled out two things from this report. Um some text one, I'll just read it perbatim. A summary was the district finished the year in a strong position. Operations were balanced. Reserves increased modestly and debt continued to decline. So I thought that was a

093good summation of the >> of the year. And then the other thing I noticed was our long-term debt down to 4.09 09 million down 68% from last year. So our long-term debt is decreasing dramatically. >> Yeah. To go along with that, the ISP AFR, that's another form that we have to submit. Uh it ranks it's a financial profile score. So it's out of four. So you guys got a 4.0. So A+ in in that aspect. So again, that's a another great year. >> Yeah. So, I just want to say this is I mean if this is open to the public, it's on our website now. There is a lot of information in here. It's very detailed and I know that's a lot of work to get us in the financial position we are and then

094to document it in this sort of fashion. So, I want to say thank you to Tony and your team for your stewardship and uh I appreciate you know the verification on the audit that we're doing the right things. >> Absolutely. Any other questions? All right. Thank you for your time. Enjoy the rest of your evening. >> Thank you. You too. >> Take care. All right. Item 6.5, committee updates. Tom. >> Yep. So, uh, board, you see the committee updates as posted. Um, this is typically where we have board members as representatives to the committees go ahead and share out. But as all you know what we've been doing is sharing the committee reports as well for the public and for so um I don't know if there's a particular order the board would like to

095go in for people if anybody like to start. Go ahead. >> Um CAC hasn't officially met but they just had a um a 15 minute like Google Meets or something. I couldn't attend to it. I think it was just to go over um the field test of the ELA like the elementary school. Um that's all that really was. Our official meeting isn't until this Thursday. >> Uh Beefy did meet and I want to um alert everyone that it's no longer rebranding from Beefy to the Betavia Foundation because we determined nobody knows what Beefy means. Um, so Betavia Foundation might have a little more understanding to what that is. The the foundation did make $4,400 worth of donations to ACC Storm and AGS uh the last month. And um we did have a meeting uh because

096there is an application process to receive these funds uh to how we can streamline it or make it more accessible for teachers because if we have money to donate to the district um they want to give every penny away. So, we're going to try to collaborate more with the teachers in the building so that it's an easier process, easier to understand, and we get some more engagement in that realm. And then also, Hall of Honor, um, when you walked in this evening, you might have seen the sign for that with a QR code, but we are accepting nominations for the Hall of Honor as well. And we'll be doing that through the end of January. >> Okay. >> Any others I'll I'll add about stipens first >> uh rack was an open meeting which most

097of you are at so I don't need to update you on that. Uh insurance went well. Uh 98% I believe of the they had open enrollment and 98% people took care of it during open enrollment. Uh and then I attended the BIC meeting which was the first BIC meeting I attended. Uh it was great meeting. Um, they were presented with the student handbook feedback survey to, you know, get that out to their schools to have parents look over the, uh, updated handbook and fill out that survey. And then uh the main thing that I wanted to discuss was that there was um someone there who said, "Hey, what happened to board reps at the schools?" They actually mentioned Aaron Kilberg. She's like, "We used to see Aaron Kilberg all the time." Um so I explained

098to them that we had kind of changed things so that we could all have an opportunity to go to different schools. Um, but I'm kind of wondering if that's not working because it seems like maybe the schools are feeling like we're not there um supporting. Uh, so I don't know. I think we have to have a conversation about if there's a different way we could do the invitations or um I went through the invite emails that we've gotten and I made note of some things that are coming up that no one's RSVPd to. Um like there's a JBN family reading night on November 20th. uh gin jimberet jimber gingerbread jamberee at the EC on December 18th. Um we got an email recently about Grace McQuain winter wonderland kids holiday shop gift wrapping which I signed

099up for if anyone would like to join me. I got a sign up link to do that. Um, so I don't know. Does anyone have ideas about how to better sign up for things? >> Since my name is brought up, I mean, um, I did like the old system better because I felt like there was a little bit more of a personal connection to that building. Uh, you got to know the PTO's better. And this is compared to this year like I felt like a connection to that and the principal as well and it felt a little more personal and they felt a little more comfortable like if you're there like oh this is Aaron because we already kind of met and so I felt more connected to that school where now I feel like

100I'm just kind of getting invitations and it's a lot of them and it kind of feels over a little overwhelming sometimes. So, I think uh I would be open to a process where it's a little more uh you I get why we changed it, but um I'm feeling a little more disconnected from the process than I did before. >> Yeah. to answer your immediate question about I think we probably need to do a little better job of uh some of the events that you highlighted and taking a look at that and trying to get to those uh for the remainder of this school year. But I agree with uh Erin's comments. I I I speak for myself. I was more engaged when I had a school specifically assigned. Um, I kind of went through a

101process where I would go and visit the school, meet with the principal uh before the school year started, attend a teacher staff meeting, attend a PTO uh meeting, and then from there that would snowball into a number of other activities at the at that particular school throughout the year. So, um, I guess I'm in favor when we re-evaluate this for the the next school year, um, looking U maybe potentially going back to our previous uh methods. >> So does it do we want to what I'm kind of hearing is okay we'll be more diligent about responding to whatever we can attend to now get through this school year and then investigate and discuss what we want to do next year for it. Is that what I'm hearing? I'm all for it. I mean, you pick

102up the BPSU, sometimes you learn by things not working quite way the way you expect them to. So, it's fine with me. >> Uh, so for the remainder of the school year, could we have somebody, you know, once a month review upcoming invites that we've gotten and just send out an email, hey, these are the things coming up in December. >> I can do that because I think that was supposed to be my job. I think I was supposed to be doing that. So, I should I need to do that. I'll own that. >> My part. >> Okay. Anything else? >> So, once a month, like at like December 1st, here you go. Here's everything that we've gotten an invite for. >> Yeah. Or even even the previous month, like you know, around midmon, November,

103mid November. Hey, these are the events coming up in December. >> Check. emails >> that we've gotten invites for. All right, I'll make that. >> Now, I also think that there's some schools that we haven't really received invites from, which and maybe that's just because it's a new process and they don't they don't know how to it was maybe easier for them when they could just reach out to one person instead of invite all of us. >> I think people sometimes get nervous using the board email. That might be true. They're like, "Am I supposed to use this email, which is a discussion point for individual people being assigned, so it's a little more personal. Okay, thank you. Bringing that up. >> Um, stipen committee met. It's the first time I've ever been on that

104group. Um, I was kind of covering the meeting. Um, but it was a good meeting. a lot of things I did not know. It's a very collaborative process if you guys haven't been a part of it or know about it, but it's effectively how we take this pot of money and be able to disperse it for all the extra work that a lot of our teachers do beyond their kind of day-to-days. So, um, and staff. So, um, it just continues to move forward. They don't meet fairly regularly, right? It's kind of quarterly of sorts. Kind of hits and then goes. We meet at the beginning to kind of wrap up the last year, look forward a little bit and then we'll meet more regularly come springtime because we have a timeline and when applications are

105submitted, >> very organized process there. So, >> we have a process. >> It was fun to witness. So, >> okay. Any other committees? >> Nope. Okay. Thank you. All right. Item 6.6, financial forecast. Tony. >> Yes. Thank you. So this year the financial for this what's unusual about this year is that we built three years of the financial forecast into our 2026 budget. So in many ways you you've seen a preview of the financial forecast that we do each year where we're looking forward five years. Uh it's an important um practice to to try to envision what the future looks like from a financial standpoint based on a whole host of assumptions >> so that we can adequately plan, see things coming and plan around them to the extent that we can. >> I'm not

106reading into you started this and Tom ran out of the room. >> That is a that is a little strange, [laughter] but no, I'm sure he's taking care of something else. Uh So, uh, the purpose of like one of the requirements for our, um, credit ratings is that we're looking we're showing evidence that we're looking forward and being able to plan and predict some of these things. While we don't we're paying off our bonds this year, and we'll talk more about that later. We don't necessarily not required to do this, it's it's good practice. And this is how uh we can especially when it comes to the capital projects that we have underway, figure out how they fit together and where money is available. Uh and keep a real close eye on our fund balance

107because I say every year, it wasn't that long ago when I first became the CSBO and the business manager, Battavia Schools, we had to borrow money every year to get through the school year because we ran out of cash to pay for our payrolls and our bills. And if we don't maintain that minimum fund balance policy, we're going to be back into that rut again. Um, and of course, these are assumptions about what the future is in terms of economic activity, developments in town, you know, what the CPI, the consumer price index is, all those sorts of things, what revenue the state's going to be able to provide to us. So, there's a whole host of assumptions in here. They may or may not come to pass, but the exercise itself is important so that

108we understand how the pieces fit together and we can manage them through time. And of course, we have a reasonable understanding of what might happen in a year from now, but as you get further out, once you get past three years and you get closer to four and five years, those that you know, the future becomes pretty murky. We don't have a crystal ball here, but we do make some assumptions. And one is that the consumer price index what determines a very large portion of our incoming revenues because we're so reliant on property taxes determines that revenue and that CPI is key statistic [clears throat] is relatively high compared to what we're used to in the last 15 20 years. We do see it stabilizing edging more toward two and a half% in these scenarios

109although the Fed's target the Federal Reserve's target is really closer to two. So, we're assuming that it's going to be a little higher than what the infid anticipates that our enrollment by and large stays level. We're going to talk more about enrollment capacity a little bit later tonight and actually in the next report, but we're assuming that that not much is going to change in terms of enrollment. You'll see the reasons why that we'll be moving to full day kindergarten. State mandate requires that we move to full day kindergarten in 2028. We're going to do that a year early. That's going to require some changes in staffing. We're going to have to have full-time kindergarten teachers for those sections. That our local revenue grows within what they call ptail limits. We'll talk about that in

110a moment, but that's essentially the tax cap. And that uh you know, we're not going to probably get a whole lot of help from the state or the federal government as they're facing their own issues. So, we're really on our own here in Betavia when it comes to funding. And that, you know, probably much of the same experience we've had in the last few years post pandemic is we'll be fighting with inflation, especially contracts because we're so heavily reliant upon uh purchase service contracts to do to provide a lot of services. We're atypical compared to most school districts in that we have contractors to take care of our food service, our transportation, and our custodial services. And usually school districts outsource one, maybe two of those, but not generally all three. So when you compare

111our finances to another school district down the street, for example, they're going to have even higher reliance on salaries and benefits because those individuals work for them directly, whereas we're outsourcing that. One of the things I always like to say is we have the smallest HR department in the world, and that's not really true, but Steve's team is really lean. And one of the reasons we can have a leaner team in human resources because those contracts are outsourced. So what does our revenue look like? By the way, all this is detailed in the report that's attached to the the uh the board packet. I'm just going to hit the upon the highlights. Here's our overall revenue outlook this current year 2026. That's the fiscal year we're operating in right now. And then out the next

112five years. And those blue stacked bars, the blue portion of the stacked bars is our local revenue. You can see that's the vast majority of our revenue. The federal government very it's a sliver and that leaves the red parts of the stack the state. Now that's inflated because that number there includes what we call our on behalf payments. So about $30 million of those red bars are is money that we don't actually see. doesn't come into our coffers, but we have to report it on all of our reports because that's what the state of Illinois is contributing to our teachers pensions in the current fiscal year. So, it looks in this particular graph that the state is contributing more than it is. And that's real money to be clear, but it doesn't necessarily hit our

113coffers. When you take that money out, 90% of all of our money comes from people who live in the school district. That's how we fund our operations. And um I would say, you know, we're looking at relatively uh modest increases in that revenue, essentially inflationary increases for the foreseeable future, coming from 132 million in this fiscal year to almost 150 in 2031. And similarly our expenditures um I mentioned earlier the salaries and benefits those are blue and red at the bottom that's the vast majority of our expenditures followed by purchase services and you can see the purchase services increase as time goes on driven in large part by inflation. You also see some fluctuation in capital outlay. We'll talk more about that this evening, but essentially I would venture to say inflationary and modest inflationary

114increases in our expenditures over this forecast period. You'll notice though that the revenues being 143 million in 2031 are less than the 148 million in revenues. And you'll ask, well, why is that? You should have plenty of money. You got far more revenue than you have expenditures. except our capital transfers. This year, 2026, we're transferring $14 million out of fund balance or essentially our savings account into our capital projects fund to pay for what we call the warm, safe, dry capital projects plan. Now, that $14 million isn't sustainable. So, it's kind of like a onetime increase, but we've got some other incre uh some transfers that we need to make over [clears throat] this forecast period so that we can fully fund the over $50 million worth of those projects. When we first started talking

115about warm safe drive, we estimated it would cost something like $48 million and that was maybe two and a half, three years ago. Well, construction inflation is especially pernicious in school construction, those escalation factors that things are costing more very rapidly. And so, we've had to extend that period. what we initially thought it was going to take us five years to spend that $48 million. Now it's 40 $52 million over seven years. And while we'll have some latitude in terms of how much we contribute in a given year to this work, the longer we drag this out, the more expensive it's going to get. And the longer it's going to take us to keep our classrooms warm, safe, and dry for our students. So we have some flexibility, but there is a certain degree of

116urgency. This looks at the fund balance. It's going to net those revenues, those expenditures, and those transfers over time. And it looks at them in terms of realistic best case and worst case scenarios. They're not too dissimilar from each other. So the best case scenario being the green bars, the worst case scenarios being the red bars, and somewhere in the middle, what we think is real probable is blue. And that hangs over this dotted black line. It's essentially the minimum or that fund balance minimum that we need to have for cash on hand. And if we venture too far below that black dotted line, we're going to be in a position where we're going to have to borrow money again to make it through the school year. And that's not to say we're going to

117have deficits, but we're not going to have enough cash in the bank to pay all our bills until the next essentially paycheck comes in for the school school district. And it comes from our local property taxpayers. Again, they're funding 90% of our operations. And those payments only come in twice. Come [clears throat] in September and they come in uh June, July. >> Hey, pause you for a second here, Dr. Eng. I actually had a note here about this specific point. So, I'll share with the board policy 2.245 245 uh consistent with ISB financial profile criteria requires a minimum fund balance of 25% of annual revenues and going through this that was something I was concerned about with warm safe dry going on. Uh could you walk us through if I guess you did just now

118but some of the other cascading effects if we fall below the 25%. Yeah, it counts in multiple metrics. And so as you spend more of that money, we're spending more of our fund balance, our savings account on warm, safe, dry. And as you do that, the metrics that the state is monitoring for your finances go down a little bit. We've enjoyed 4.0 scores as Don mentioned just a few minutes ago for the last few years. That number isn't going to be a perfect 4.0 looking forward. It's still going to be within the gold board's range. the power metrics that we set the board set earlier this year. I expect them I expect those goals to be met. But as we get to 2029, once we get to that point where we're below that bar, we

119probably won't meet our fiscal goals if we continue on this path. It's that's more likely than not. So that's not to say that this is going to come to pass, but on the current path that we're on, >> things that we can predict reasonably at this particular moment, this is where we're headed. And they might, again, I just want to emphasize it might not come to pass if we intervene and manage things appropriately. We want to we have to be sure of all the variables at play so that we can manage it adequately. Does that make sense? When you say management, management, manage it adequately. Like what is that? Describe what that means to me exactly. >> Well, um it depends on what we spend money on fundamentally. We've got some levers that we can

120pull in terms of whether it's staffing or it's department budgets um or it's capital projects. There are all these competing needs and priorities for the things that we do to fulfill our mission. We're going to have to adjust some of those levers so that we can meet some of our financial obligations and our financial goals and we can maintain the sustaries and what we're spending on capital projects. Is that right? Those are the two largest >> they can make change the curve so to speak. >> Yes. Right now. >> Okay. And those are pretty tough decisions to have to make. Very tough. >> Yeah. >> Which is why we do this exercise so we know what all the variables are. Yes. >> Sorry to interrupt us. >> No, please. That's excellent questions. Thank you. So

121this is another look at what we call the projection zone of that best and worst case scenarios relative to our net surplus or deficit. And since we're making those transfers out to pay for warm, safe, dry, we're seeing significant deficits or until and 31. So this year we're transferring out that $14 million that I mentioned earlier and our net deficit is I think $11 million. That lessens as we're transferring out less in 27 28 and 29 but still deficits and gets closer to zero in the out years of the projection. But going back to this particular graph, we're getting close to that 25% minimum fund balance which will present challenges to us. of this is signaling that in 29 we're going to have to unless assumptions change we're going to have to be very careful.

122Now what's happened this year in 26 you recall is that we're expecting to lose $1.2 million in state funding and that's because of what we call the mandated categoricals. These are things that we have to spend money on that in theory the state of Illinois way that the bud education budget is set up that we get reimbursed for in the following year because the state has decided to prioritize the evidence-based funding formula. All their new money for education is going into that formula and unfortunately we don't receive any of it here in Battavia because we're considered what's called a tier 4 district and we have adequate funding here locally to address our needs. So the state of Illinois isn't giving us any new money through EBF, although a number of neighboring districts are getting, you

123know, millions of dollars in new funding. And meanwhile, everybody's getting less money in their mandated categoricals. So for most districts, the net difference is positive. Unfortunately for us, where we're positioned, the net difference is negative, and we expect that trend to continue for the foreseeable future because the state of Illinois's finances are not are not good. and the state of Illinois's economics are not that rosy either. So, it doesn't appear as though things are going to change for the state [cough and snorts] and the federal government is changing some of its approaches to funding education and that's going to affect us. Not as much. It's a very sliver of our budget, but that all comes to bear on the new revenue that we can expect to spend. So, more basically the the verdict is we're

124going to probably get less money from the state and the feds. We're going to certainly get more money from local taxpayers and costs, our expenditures are likely to outpace those increases in revenue. So we've got funding volatility from the state. We have what's likely to be more categorical reimbursement proration as we call it. So less money reimbursed for bringing kids to school with transportation or special education. It's really challenging is construction inflation. We'll talk more about that in the coming months about the work that we want to are about to undertake at Louise White School this summer and how that's going to cost more there than it did at HD Storm this summer last summer. We're also working very hard uh on in uh medical insurance that is driving costs for everybody nationwide and it

125certainly is driving costs for us and we're doing our very best to contain it. And then one thing that we've got that kind of helps us but also needs to happen urgently is the timing of warm safe dry. So we can make some modifications to that as I mentioned earlier is what our capital outlay is on warm safe dry. We can maybe slow it down a little bit, extend it another year, but that will come with increased cost because of inflation and it comes at a cost to our educational environment. So, um things that are variables here that we're making assumptions on again are that cap the consumer price index and how much our equalized assessed value or that taxable value of properties in Matavia grows. Now, there's been a lot of developments of late

126in town, which is not has not been the case for the last decade post great recession. So, that's good news. Could be things that we can anticipate that will help us. Um or or maybe not. Depends on how the market fares. Um but we do need to keep a very close eye on that fund balance because that's an important factor in maintaining fiscal stability moving forward. If there's a canary in the coal mine, is that it of like when things are going to start getting tight and tough? That's that's might not be the best analogy, but you know what I'm saying? Like >> Yeah. >> Uh there are many I Yes. I think um that would be a canary, but it things affect our budgets um that are far broader than that. I think one

127of the key things is you know the state of Illinois's um economic growth is going to be is the canary in the coal mine and what tells us you know how the state goes is how we'll go more or less and Bavia is not very much like the state of Illinois in terms of its averages you know it's a relatively um wealthy school district you know the EAV has grown significantly in the last 10 years despite the stagnation statewide but um it will be an indicator of how things move move going forward. Yeah. Any questions I can answer for you? All right. We can move on to the >> move on to uh enrollment and capacity study. So this is um a summary of the findings that came from the RSP consultant study that we

128embarked upon last spring and uh certainly um looking at how things have changed over especially the last 20 years in the school district. We haven't changed our school elementary boundaries in about 20 years. And that's a that's a that's a long time. And so one of the driving factors there is do our our boundaries in the right spot for our schools, especially as uh families age through different developments in town and generate students at different rates. Things are essentially more or less clumpy depending on the age of the housing stock. And so sometimes it takes some rebalancing or refinement from time to time. And one of the key drivers of this study was to take a look at that and understand how things have changed and how they might change for the foreseeable future. So

129we're going to run through a summary of those findings. So it includes a five-year projection about enrollment, which we do every year anyway, but this has got a little bit more data and expertise behind it than what than what I do when I do my five-year enrollment projections. And it also looks at the cap capacity implications for each of our schools and making sure that we have space in the right places to meet student needs. And then taking this information, we'll take a closer look at our our boundaries and our facilities and our programming to make sure that everything is aligned for evolving needs. So again, this summarizes this is all summaries and key highlights from the RSP and associate study. I think the other thing that's interesting here is that um there's some insights

130into why we're here now. Actually, when we get to the last slide, you'll see a summary that might give you some indications of why we are where we are with our finances and our debt and warm, safe, dry overall. Anyway, I'll let that hang there for a second. Um any this is a summary of I'll let this is a summary of our past enrollment and our projected enrollment from RSP and it's broken out by level. So the elementary schools are in red at the bottom, middle school in blue and the high school in green and the total sum at the top. Past enrollment is to the left, there's a black bar in the middle and that's projected enrollment in the future. So at present, we're in that last bar immediately to the left of the

131black bar. So 5,147 students at present are all housing report and projecting in five years 5,046 students. Now it's a difference of about 100 students, 101. I would consider that to be stable enrollment. It's actually about 2% less in five years that they're projecting. I would consider it to be stable, but um you know it's within the margin of error. I asked Chat GPT what it thought it was. Chat GPT said it was moderately declining. So anyway, just for a perspective and why is it going down? >> Well, as I like to say, >> we're not manufacturing as many as we used to. And I say that every year >> as the number goes down >> every year and I sometimes I think oh it's it's going to stabilize and and it doesn't and this

132frankly is a global phenomena >> and uh you know there's obviously inconsistencies around the country but especially in Kane County birth rates have been declining for more than a decade. So the black bar that you see here is the live births in Kane County. it was over 8,000 when you go a little bit further back in the charts. U now is at um 5,5004 and where the most recent data is available and keeps going down. And then the kind of lighter greenish or bluish bar that you see there is the population in King County that is under five years old. What's interesting though is that the proportion of kids in King County who are less than five years old and live in Betavia or Aurora or within our boundaries is actually increasing. The market share

133as they say is increasing which is interesting. So more people are coming to Betavia than are elsewhere in the county uh than they have historically and they're generating more kindergarteners than we're accustomed to according to the live births in King County. But overall, that doesn't mean that we're getting more students than we saw the year prior. We're still getting less, but we're getting more of the proportion of the market share, as they say, that are born in King County. >> You're saying like the pie is shrinking in King County. >> The pie is shrinking, but we're getting a bigger piece. That's an excellent way of putting it. And so what we're trying to do is forecast. It's very cha challenging to figure out like a child born in King County, is that child going to

134show up in one of our kindergarten classrooms in five years? It's a really challenging question. There's no crystal balls here, but we look at the past to attempt to predict the future. So, we're looking at those live births and we're looking at that market share to say, well, how many fifth grader or excuse me, how many kindergarters are we going to have five years from now? Well, all indications are that we'll have fewer because there's just that many fewer births. So on the low end or on the high end, you can see what we've the last few years that what's red is the historical what we're rejecting into the future low and high for the green and orange bars. It could be anywhere between there. Could be higher, could be could even be lower. We

135don't we don't know. Uh it's very challenging to predict, but we do know that um the births are what's driving the decline even though we have more of the a bigger piece of the pie. And we look at the cohorts themselves or the the year of manufacturer as we say you know uh so you know when they were kindergarteners they become first graders and they move through the system those cohorts are smaller than they were. We graduated the largest class a couple years ago was more than 500 from high school but coming behind them are cohorts of less than 350. And so that's a big difference. And they per they percolate through the system into various sizes. They're not always exactly sequentially smaller. There's clumps as in clusters, but they are much smaller than they

136used to be. But there uh people always say, well, there's, you know, people moving into town and they're building new homes. There surely there's going to be more students. And the reality is there are more students coming in than are going out. We'll talk about that. But there's not enough to offset those declining birth rates. And people come and they go for various reasons. You know, mom and dad might find a new job and move out of town. They might move down the road or they might move out of state. And there's people who move in too behind them. Maybe they choose private school, you know, that would be considered out migration. Maybe they go to a a private Catholic high school. they decide that that's better off for their students. Whatever the case may

137be, there are more students coming in than going out. That is definitely a clear trend that says signals to us that Betavia is a place that people want to be. There's just not enough coming in to offset those birth rates. And there is a lot of development that's happening and probably will happen in the relative near future. And here's a summary of that broken out by the affected elementary schools. You can see that there's a lot uh in the future for JB Nelson and Louise White in particular. But what's also interesting is that because of those declining birth rates, the number of students that are generated by those developments and those houses is lower than it used to be. And so we're looking at yield rate trends here. And so the different types of housing,

138there's single family units and multif family units, the basic um categories of of homes. And you can see that the numbers are going down for both over time. So the number of students they generate per 100 single family homes, for example, has gone down from 59 in 2015 16 to 50 this year. And what's also interesting is that multif family units are declining even faster than single family units. So when we're building multif family unit homes, what we're accustomed to seeing historically in terms of the number of students that it generates is going to be even smaller or on average likely to be smaller for multif family homes than they are for single family homes, which is an it's an interesting trend. >> Just do do you know if on the multif family units are

139they taking senior communities or condo communities with seniors. Are they excluding that because they're presuming they may not be? >> This is just it's my understanding uh that this is just looking at housing stock. >> Okay. >> Just looking at straight housing stock >> there. Those would be included into that number. >> Yes. >> And we have had a number of retirement [clears throat] communities, senior housing communities built in Betavia in the last few years. We'll take a closer look at the overall numbers here in a moment. But these are the yield these yield rates are what drive new student enrollments from these developments. That's the key takeaway. So what does that look like compared to our functional capacity? So if our enrollment has gone down our our peak about 10 years ago, we enrolled

1406,300 students in Bavia. Now we're about 52, you know, 5147. It was the number that we just showed. So it's about a little bit more than a thousand students fewer. So we should have more space and and we do have more space relative to what we are accustomed to 10 years ago. RSP did a what's called a functional capacity analysis and that isn't how many people that you can cram into a classroom per se, but how you use that space, how big it is, and what kind of programs you operate in those spaces. And what they found is that our functional capacity of all of our schools combined is 5970. So at 6,300 we were well over that functional capacity. And now we have a little bit of room. This room for example. So the

141maximum number of occupants in this area is 59. So we're not looking at fire code occupancy. We're looking at programmatic functional capacity that we can put in a space where we can maintain a uh cohesive and productive learning environment. And so this is art and a science of course and uh but what we're showing here is that we've got some room. Ideally according to RSP you're between 85 and 90% capacity overall so that you've got a little bit of space to work with. And the good news here is that at present um we only have one school that's over 90% capacity. That happens to be JB Nelson School. all of our other schools are within range and that um in foreseeably if the enrollment trends continue as we expect them to, we'll be at 85%

142capacity in 5 years. So we have space districtwide to meet student needs. There'll be some clumps and clusters as there always is. Nothing is ever fully perfectly balanced. That's not how families move into town. That's not how kids come to us. Um but we'll have space to handle what we need to do. might need to make some adjustments to our school boundaries, especially in that JB Nelson area. But according to RSP and their projections, even though JB Nelson is exceeding that 90% capacity right now, in a couple years, they'll be within that ideal 85 to 90% range. Even still >> Tony if I could just one thing that um we should make clear because of this result this particular aspect should squaltch any kind of uh discussions that might be happening in the community if

143people are saying well there are some options the district hasn't explored yet to help um mitigate the coming you know financial concerns about especially when it comes to our facilities and in that uh when I first started here actually prior to my beginning here I attended some of the referendum forums and some of the discussion points that were being levied against the district were you guys could close a building. Now, if you look at this capacity study here from a neutral third party that we hired as a district is very clear at those levels of capacity for programming and and instruction. The answer is no, we can't. If a building was below 50% capacity, maybe we're talking about something like that as a as a strategy or a tactic to approach. But with the numbers

144Tony just shared and from the study, we can't close one of our buildings. >> Actually, and we're right where we should be in terms of functional capacity. We're in we're in the sweet spot, which is great. We're not too small and we're not too big. >> And we did share this with Bick as well. >> So, this is the the slide that I mentioned earlier that I said would let hang. I think this is a really interesting slide and it's development activity over time. So it looks at our housing stock in the year that it was built and um this is a looks at total housing stock in Bavia for that particular decade. Black is existing and red is new. What was added in that time frame and if you look back into the 60s

145the housing stock doubled in Bavia then that was a period of very rapid growth. Then you look at the 80s and especially the 90s and a little bit of the ops. There was some pretty massive developments in town and that too really drove a change in the number of people who lived in Betavia and also came to Betavia schools. That was a profound period of growth and then the great recession happened and new developments effectively stopped. There's very little housing stock added in that decade, but it's starting again. And you can see in the last five years, you still see you see significant sliver on top. And then there's potential for more in the future that we saw on those other slides. And the mayor talks about the number of homes that are likely to

146be added to Betavia in the next five or so years. [cough] [clears throat] If you think about all the work that the school district did, all the the buildings that they added, the new schools that they constructed, the additions, the debt that we're about to pay off is from all that work in the '9s and the odds. >> [clears throat] [snorts] >> Everything that we did back then when it came to capital investment was to address capacity issues, especially functional capacity issues that our schools had to meet the number of students who were here. And now 20 and in some cases 30 in some cases 40 years have passed since that work was done. And very little has been done to upgrade those spaces since. And that's why we've embarked upon warm, safe, dry because

147there's some essential minimal things that absolutely must be done so that we can keep our schools exactly that warm, safe, and dry. We're extending ourselves, our spending, our fund balances to make that happen. But this in some ways is a little summary of what our that spending and that growth and that dynamic over time and why we're faced with some of the financial challenges that we're faced today and what we're going to be facing for the next 5 to 10 years. So I think this is a real interesting slide. Any questions? All right, >> thank you for that. All right, next is the Illinois school report card. Brad. >> All right, H, can we start on the I'm going to encourage you to uh get on the internet, so we'll just a little bit more

148interactive. We're in the 9:00 hour here. [laughter] >> If you have a phone, you can do this in the audience. We have a laptop in front of you. If we go to the the board report, Holly will start there and I'll give them just like a quick summary of this. You scroll down. There's a little chart here. So, we go through a process of looking at the Illinois school report card um just to glean whatever data we can get for continuous improvement. It's really important data for our students and our community and we want to make sure that we're really mining it for what we can do to make our our students lives better. So we go through a process within the CNI division of taking a look at this and analyzing it. We ask

149our colleagues around the county like what what are they seeing in terms of their trends. We we reach out to resources. We have a great contact at ISP who does data for a living. We ask them what they see in our data. These are really important steps. We take this to our administrative team and then we encourage schools to do this with their school leadership teams as well, right? We should have many eyes looking at this data and people in our community, our school board, you can do this too to help us learn from this data. This is just what we've come up with in terms of celebrations and concentrations in some of the Illinois school report card data which is released every year at the end of October. The school report card itself is

150one of probably the better things that the the state of Illinois does in terms of reporting back the massive amounts of data that we send them. [clears throat] A highlight is we have really proficient students, which is great. Our kids come with a lot of assets, whether it's knowing multiple languages, they feel safe in their community. These are really important assets our kids bring to school. They're able to be successful and proficient at their grade level. This year our ELA growth was really strong um which is something to celebrate. We have tons of opportunities. Boards, this board and past boards have made sure that we have opportunities for post-secary readiness. So whether that's advanced placement classes, dual credit, taking courses um out at the Fox Valley Career Center, partnerships with Wubansi, our students have great

151access to those pieces. uh we have seen some especially in the last two years some closing the gap which is always very difficult especially with our special education population. We're seeing a closing of the gap between the growth of uh some of our subopuls and then we have um our students taking dual credit and advanced courses that is continues to be a strength for us on the concentration side. Right? Not everything's rosy and sometimes within some of this data we can see things that we're not happy with and I'll show you one of those today. Our math growth was not something that we saw as stellar performance on on this year's uh report card. And the funny thing is within our own internal data with MAP testing, NWA MAP testing, it's actually the reverse. We

152see higher math growth on MAP and less growth on ELA. But on I which is a more complicated testing mechanism like math problems more complicated there's more language within them there's multiple questions on each passage are we have a swap of data so that led us to have conversations right how can we give kids more depth because they're very used to taking our MAP test three times a year they get very good at calculation and moving through that test what if what challenges can we give them that would get them ready for I type questions. We actually had a session today on what can we do in reading to do that as well. EL students are English learner students, their progress to proficiency is not where we want it. I'll show you an example of

153that, but when a student is identified as EL, we want to very rapidly get their English to proficiency so they're able to access their education. Um, we want to really close that timeline. We don't want students to languish within, you know, uh, our EL system. We want them growing towards that proficiency in language. Um, one of the things that we're starting to see is that we're starting to see gaps. Um, and these can be um, multiaceted of lowincome students, right? So, students whose background is from low income. um we want to make sure that we're paying a special attention to them because we're seeing some troubling numbers in the data related to their growth and the growing gap between um those students and our overall student population. And then finally, chronic absenteeism is something that

154we want to make sure we saw a little chunk out of it this year. We're getting kids back to school, but we can't teach them if we don't see them. So, we want to get them back in school so we can do our job of educating them. So, those were our celebrations and concentrations. Um, but I think it's better if we just get into the report card. So, if you have a phone or anything, we'll go into the report card. We'll do a little clicking around. And I encourage every member of the board, the community to to take a look at the school report card. There you go. And you when you get there, if you Google it, type in Betavia, you're going to look at the district report card. That's what we'll look at

155today. So, D101. And you can see on this splash screen some very general information about our district to give this nice district snapshot. We have eight schools. We have a high graduation rate. We have very low student mobility. Some districts are dealing with 10, 11, 12% student mobility. And student mobility is when kids come here, they stay here. So that's a great thing because we get the opportunity as Ally talked about from three and four years old through through their graduation to work with those students. That's a great opportunity for Betavia. Um that's showing up a little weird, but our schools, we have one exemplary school that is Grace McWain this year and seven of our the rest of our schools are commendable. The state is actually going through a process of updating this process.

156Right now, only the top 10% of scoring schools, and I'll show you how they do those scores, can fall into the exemplary category. That's very regressive assessments where you're basically competing with one another to push people down so that you get that exemplary status instead of having a bar where if you get over that, that's a a much better system. They're moving towards a system like that, which I think is much healthier for our our state. question. [clears throat] Is that exemplary? You said 10%. That's not 10% of our district. That's 10% everywhere. >> The state, the whole state. >> Okay. >> So, yeah, here's our e our cohort growth. Growth is a big factor within the scores that our schools get. They give you some basic information on school finances. Tony was just talking

157about our we're not getting any state money because of adequacy. So, we're at 106% of adequacy. I don't know if that's still current, but we have a a chronic absenteeism. So that's 10% or more of school days missed of about 14% of our students. So that's something that we're working on. And staff retention, most of our staff who come, they stay here. So 90%. So it gives you some basic information. You can uh look at any school in the state of Illinois, any public school in the state of Illinois. You can look at the report card. So if you're like, I know Erin asked me a lot of questions like how do we compare to St. Charles or Weaten District 200? It's an easy click and you can see that. We're going to go to

158academic progress. Click on that and we'll go to we'll start with ELA growth. This is Holly's nightmare having to drive [laughter] all of the stuff. So you can see that that [clears throat] it gives you a little district summary. So 50 anything over 50 is really good in the state of Illinois. So 50.2% 2% of our students had that ELA growth, but it's really good to drill down on some of this data. So, if you click on demographics, and if you're doing this on your phone, I don't know how this exactly works, but let's click black. We're going to click um students with IEPs and low income. And then you can say add demographics. You could look at anything. If you want to look at Middle East and North African, you can look at that.

159So now it will give us this comparison data which drills a little bit deeper which again highlights things that are both celebrations and concentrations. So overall we saw that before that 50.2 our black students their ELA growth is 54.7. So they are outpacing the overall student demographic in terms of their growth in English language arts. Students with IEPs 49.1 And that's very very close to our overall student population. So that's one of those celebration points is like our students with IEPs, they may have a reading disability, are growing at the same rate as our overall student population. Low-income students, again, very close to that. That's a um [clears throat] pretty rare celebration for low-inccome students. When you click into some of the other data, there's some more concerning data points. I'm going to click into

160postsecary remediation on the the bottom of this tab. We'll just do a couple more of these just so the community and the board can play around with this um and ask any questions that they have. So, this data, it's old because it's 2023. They get this in our rears, but this looks at um both the state and our district students who uh are enrolling in community college. Typically for us it's Wanty because we're in their district, but students can go to Cood or Elgen. Um you can see overall a third almost a third of students are having to take remedial coursework at the community college level. That's a big problem for a couple of reasons. One is they are nonredit bearing. So, a student who's going to a community college, if they have to take

161a a remedial class, like a below 100 level class, they're not making progress towards their associates degree. And two, if they're relying on loans to do that, loans do not cover remedial coursework. So, we want our kids starting at 100 level classes. So, almost a third of students in the state overall have to take remedial coursework. We're much lower than that at 14.6. very minuscule in reading again lower in math and then [clears throat] communications is your entry level speech course for your associates. So this is something that we're really proud of is that when our kids leave here by and large most of them are prepared for 100level college classes which can earn credits. They can be a part of their student loans and to me that is long-term success for these kids. Um,

162let's look at ninth grade on track. We'll just do one more. So, again, this one breaks down. Um, ninth grade on track. There's a a very large data pool that suggests that if a kid starts to fall behind in ninth grade, their um expected graduation rate goes way down. So, we want to keep kids on track while in ninth grade. It's a really important metric. So, you can see both the district and the state. If it says no data, it's because there's too few kids and they will redact that. So, we're not getting into any privacy um areas as well. So, this is our uh ninth grade on track data. This is something that we actually dig pretty deep into along with our graduation rates to see if we're setting up systems that can help

163students remediate quicker and faster so that we can stop that at ninth grade them falling behind so that they have a greater chance of graduating high school within the four years. There's different tabs, so I won't go through them today, but the journey the equity journey continuum is something that we look at. We get a little bit more data. It's pretty sparse from the public view. Our district environment, who our students are, and accountability. This will be the last one I go to. Actually, Holly, will you go to schools and district? This one looks And we'll go to Bavia High School. [snorts] We'll go to accountability for that. I think there's summit of designation. All right. It sets up this little schoolhouse thing here. So, this is how all the schools in the state of

164Illinois are are ranked and looked at. Um, you know, I have relatives in the state of Florida. They get like an ABCD F grade. Ours comes in this way with our different designations of exemplary and commendable. So, Betavia High School was like a fra last year it was exemplary. This year it was like a fraction of a point away from exemplary. They set a benchmark for this every year based on that top 10%. We just fell right below that. Um which is unfortunate. But these are the component parts that go into that weight. [clears throat] ELA proficiency. You can see we get full marks on that. Graduation rate. We lost a few points on ninth grade on track. Science proficiency. All the points. math proficiency. Here's what I was talking about the EL progress to

165proficiency. That long acronym there, that's something that we want to improve and shore up along with chronic absenteeism. And then we're required to give a climate survey as well, which we get full marks because our kids survey for us. So this is how a school's accountability is measured. So each of our schools looks at this. they decide like, "All right, where should we put our efforts? Do we need to tweak our school improvement plan in order to better some of these metrics?" The problem with this data is this is all last year's data. So, there's a lag there, but it can still teach us something about where [snorts] we can put our efforts. The one thing that remains true in my career is that what we focus on gets better. So we have a lot

166of power to make a a big difference in kids' life by choosing what we focus on on. So if we decide to focus as an organization on EL progress to proficiency, I know in my heart and 100% and the data will bear that out over time that we will get better at that. Uh because what we put our efforts to we have great staff and great people here, great leaders, we can make a difference uh for kids. So, this is data that teaches us something and helps direct where we put our efforts. Any questions from the board? >> Do we have a game plan for the EL students? >> That's something we're in the middle of. We're going to do some conversations with our EL staff uh this winter to see where they're at. Uh

167we need to have some conversations with them first. Um we have experienced like some es and flows of our English learner population. Um we are seeing um kind of different students show up in Betavia. We were seeing a lot of newcomers come to the area for the past few years and because of various reasons which you'll talk about in a little bit. We're not seeing a lot of newcomers come to the area. So, we were seeing refugees from Ukraine, um, Venezuela, Colombia. Those were our main population of new English learners. We're not seeing that and it's a little bit different now in terms of who [clears throat] we're seeing come to our doors. So, we got to assess where we're at and plan for the future. >> So, for the English learners in here, and

168if it's fine if you can't answer this now, just whatever. So I see it says entering, beginning, developing, expanding, bridging, and then reaching. So what's the difference between like what's what's bridging B? I don't know what that means. >> They're bridging to that academic language. Those are based on WEDA is like the the governing organization of English learners and they have developed a system of assessment that we use and it also is targeted skills. So, if a student is in that bridging area, it will tell us here's where they need to go next in terms of their skill level. Um, in order to exit EL services, a student on the WEDA test needs to score a composite 4.8. So, that includes speaking, writing, listening, [snorts] reading. Excuse me, I have a cold that's coming down

169here. Those pieces I'm spraying all over Tom. [laughter] uh so they have to score a composite 4.8 out of that five point scale in order to do uh to exit EL services where their academic language is proficient for their own learning. So uh our goal is to get kids from wherever they're at, they can come know and know English to get to that 4.8 as quickly as possible because that gives them the best access to the rest of their education here in the table. One of the big pieces about this is if we are able to have the students prior to fifth grade, that's a huge advantage for a unit district because um programmatically we really want to target exiting uh students by fifth grade. Data and research shows that within the WEDA exam that

170we're required to administer every uh second semester, um if we can get kids exited by fifth grade, trajectory moves much quicker for their growth and their academic progress and success. Um once you pass fifth grade, it is extremely difficult for a student to exit based on the way the testing system is designed. And so that's why you do see we're not at the only district. You see a lot of districts put concerted effort really trying to support kids to get by then when you can get them while they're still in elementary school. Obviously it's a little bit different if they transfer in at age. Yeah, academic language takes a little bit longer to develop. You can be very conversational. Conversational language happens pretty quickly, but academic language knowing like the vocabulary and terminology of science

171and mathematics and social studies, all those things take quite a long time. So, if we can get kids early, we can get them exited. But if you have a newcomer who's coming um their freshman year from Colombia where they've missed a year of education due to being relocated, they have more significant challenges. one, getting back into school. Two, um the language skills that they need at high school are just so high in order to do that. So, it's much better if we can get them young and then make sure that they reach that proficiency. Brad on so kind of picking up on a plan. Um who has accountability for delivering what that plan is to address these issues and do you guys have when would you expect like that plan to be communicated and in

172place? >> By the spring we should have a plan for next school year in terms of what our goals and objectives will be. Um, so I would be the person that would be accountable for that and I would work with the teams, especially the school teams, um, to to develop that plan and see what that looks like for next year. >> Would it, you know, I I would guess it would be sometimes school specific. Um, so >> it's typically elementary have more common issues and then secondary, so 6 through 12. It's really generally two plans because the students look so different at those. Okay. >> On the equity journey continuum, um it looks like there was maybe some pro progress with student learning, but we're still like we barely moved from large gaps to moderate

173gaps. Um you mentioned that the at the administrative level you can actually see more details about that. So are you able to see data that maybe gives you an idea of where those gaps need to be worked on? >> Yeah. So it's giving our kids access to high academic courses. So like it's part of counseling advising, setting up our system, some of the things that the board has authorized us to do at the middle school with a 78 math class. Those are key steps that we're taking along the way to give kids access to high rigor classes. That's a key component that we're working on. The one component I I it's frustrating to me is we are required by the state to give a kindergarten screening assessment within the first 45 days that we have

174a kid. We actually that's a huge component of that. So if our kids are coming into kindergarten not prepared that drags that score down in that uh metric quite a lot. But I don't control those pieces. I don't control who we get. I just want to make sure we're doing the best job we make it here. [snorts] >> Um, [clears throat] under the school model, one of the things that ISBY is doing a listening tour on and at the joint annual conference, I believe there's some sessions board members can attend if they want to learn a little bit more about what the state's looking to do for their approval in January. Um, they're going to be part of that redesign Brad's alluding to is going to be to focus on building the school's uh, scoring

175accountability uh, formula on some core principles of growth. And then what they're going to do to change is not usually uh, not use other factors. There's a lot of factors that go into that score. What they're going to do is make it a model where it's an add on to versus a add or detract, [snorts] which is what they currently do now. So um it kind of focuses on like a strengths and assets uh model for all schools then in terms of trying to achieve the exemplary status which I think is a really I think healthy change to the way the reporting system will work in the future. >> Could I uh ask a question about the chronic absenteeism >> and what strategies we're currently implementing? I mean, I heard our student ambassadors talk about

176a challenge at the high school. So, that's obviously being discussed at that level, but uh because I'm just a big proponent of like a huge percentage of successes is showing up every day, right? So, um I've just be interested what our strategies are to promote attendance. We started with like awareness, right? So, awareness is a huge piece. I I remember when my kids were in school and my daughter would be like, "Ah, I have a headache today." And I'd be like, "All right, you can stay home." Well, I didn't realize that I said that four other times and that that was her fifth absence for a headache. Um, so awareness is a big piece. So, we have a a system of letters that we send home to make uh parents aware of how many days

177their student is missed. And this is missing for a variety of reasons, right? It can be they're sick, on vacation, funeral, whatever it is, but it's the total number of days that we get concerned about. There's another number of chronic truency which is unexcused absences. We don't have very many students that fall into chronic truency but we have a lot of students who will miss a lot of days. So over that 10% threshold. So it starts with awareness. Holly and her team oh that's just Holly. Holly and her team have done a huge amount of district communication which is then repeated in building communication around the importance of attendance. So, if we don't give people a reason to do that, um, we need to, right? We need kids in school. People need to know that.

178The other part ties into all of the work that our buildings are doing around belongingness, right? You don't want to come to school if you don't feel like [clears throat] you belong there. So, all of that work feeds into that system of getting kids there. The high school talked about last year with you with their data, giving kids another reason, extracurriculars to come to school. That is also a part of this. So like each school is doing something to to work on belongingness. We're working on communication around the importance of attendance and really looking at what interventions we can have. So we have teams this year going to a three-part series at the regional office of education with like an attendance national guru about digging deeper into some of the strategies that they can use

179uh to get kids to school. Do you know how we're doing so far this year as far as the chronic absency? I mean, I know [clears throat] we're only what, four months in. >> Yeah, I monitor I monitor attendance pretty regularly. Um, we've seen some bouts of like sickness and stuff like that. Um, hopefully I'm not spreading that around, but the >> you are the uh I want kids to come to school. So, um, we've seen some bouts where you could see like attendance dip a little bit. Um, half days are really bad for attendance. So, we we only have one of those in our calendar, but it's for parent teacher conferences. Um, half days. Um, a high school that was a kind of a problem area. So, I'm glad they're doing these attendance incentives

180in order to kind of get kids to rally around one another and have that. We still want kids to stay home if they're sick or they're ill. Our nurses do a good job of communicating under what conditions should they stay home. Um I can't remember the acronym that they use. It's like got a lot of B's in it. Arfing. So those types of things. So, I I think it's kind of a whole school from the nurses to Holly's department to the the buildings all doing stuff to get our kids here and we're doing pretty good this year. Do >> you have a system in place where you check in with the students that are having issues and their families and what do you do with that information? >> Yeah, our counseling and advising team does

181a really good job of that. Um, at both the middle school and high school. So, at the high school we have houses. So like the freshman house, they as a house, which involves their social worker, the school counselor, the administrator that oversees that, um they will go over attendance data and look for what are the trends and patterns that we're seeing and if we need to check in with kids, that's where they would make those decisions about which kids and who needs to check in on them. One of the best things that we can do as an organization, and sometimes we're reticent to do [clears throat] this, is to just let kids know when they come back from an absence that we missed them and that we want them there and we're encouraging them there

182to be there. Right? When you have little ones in elementary school, it's not really their choice. Um, but we want to encourage them and say that we miss them because that brings that sense of belonging and then kids will want to come to school more often. All right, that's it. Thank you very much. Any other questions? Okay, item on to action items. Item 7.1, update board protocol. >> Yes. So, um there was uh discussions about if you take a look at the draft of the board member update, the board had talked about this um in terms of discussion items and um Laura Martinez, sorry, I think I am getting sick right now. Um I'm not kidding. Uh but Laura Martinez had documented some of the changes that were discussed by the board and Katie I

183think you had raised you know you know do we have that document anywhere so um provided this updated document wanted it's a it's the board's own document right so it's up to you if this is something you still feel is consistent with what everyone had agreed to um you know if you want to make changes we're here to help you with that and we'll make note of it and and bring whatever it is you all want to talk about adding or editing, but [clears throat] here it is. Any comments or questions? Any revisions? Everybody feels comfortable with it. [cough and snorts] [clears throat] >> All right. Hearing no questions, I will entertain a motion to approve the updated board protocols as presented. >> So moved by Rob, >> second by Raquel. Cindy, please lead us

184in a roll call vote. Yes. >> Sliger. >> Yes. >> Kilberg. >> Yes. >> Arandu. [clears throat] >> Yes. >> Gonzalez Thomas. >> Yes. >> Meadows. >> Yes. >> Thank you. Motion passes. Item 7.2. Determine estimate of 2025 tax levy. Tony. >> Thank you. This evening we are presenting an estimate of the 2025 tax levy so that we can adopt formally that levy at the next meeting in December. And uh because of how things shake out this year, we have some additional requirements that we're not accustomed to. In particular, we have to comply with the truth and taxation law because we are requesting more money, more than 5% 105% more than was extended last year and yet at the same time we're going to collect even less than last year. So how does that work?

185And it's an interesting conundrum. We have to follow the truth truth and taxation law because we're requesting 105% more than last year. But as a matter of fact, we're going to receive less than what we got last year. So, it's an interesting question and I hope by the time I get to this presentation, you'll actually understand what's going on. And if you I and if you don't, I'll have failed failed miserably and we can we can keep talking about it until we figure it out. So, all right, here we go. Each year uh one of the key duties of the board of education is to adopt the annual property tax levby and that is extremely important here in Betavia for all the reasons that we discussed a little earlier that we're so heavily reliant upon

186tax uh revenues and if we didn't do that 90% of our revenue would disappear like that. We would not have the legal authority to extend those taxes. So this is really important. Uh and we have to [snorts] share this estimate. We get the post notice in the paper and it has to be uh what how does it work Josh? I don't remember >> between like seven and 14 days. >> Seven and 14 days. It's very particular. It has to be in a certain format and worded in a certain way and it has to have a quarter inch black bar around the it's very very specific requirements that we have to follow. So this is this is one of them tonight. The tax cap determines how much we can collect over the prior year. It's called

187the property tax extension limitation law or ptail. We all we just call it the tax cap. And that limits the operating tax increase to CPI or 5% whichever is less plus new construction. So whatever the CPI is generally unless the CPI is more than 5%. We had one year where the CPI was more than 5% a few years ago. So we were capped at five plus new construction. Now, new construction is a interesting thing because of what's happening here in Bavia with the expiration of tip one. We'll talk about it in a minute. So, this year is very atypical for us that we're going to see new construction of 27 million. For the last 10 years, as I've served as uh the chief school business official, usually that number is around five. So, $27 million

188increase is a lot more than we're accustomed to. And the whole premise behind tax cap law is because these passed in the ear in the early 90s. Tax rates increased very rapidly in the 80s and 90s because of all the things that we saw on those prior graphs and taxes were going up so fast that they were trying to curb some of those increases. And so that's what PTEL does. It's driven off of our equalized assess value. And we're est the the assessors all the various assessors in town have shared their estimates with the clerk and they're compiled. So for Bavia Oak schools are equalized assessed value which is onethird of the market value is 1.9 [clears throat] billion dollar with a B. That's a heck of a lot of of value and it's getting

189close to doubling in 10 years. Maybe it's something around 80% I would say. I haven't done the math on it but that's a lot bigger than it used to be 10 years ago. So it's growing rather quickly and this year alone it's 11% increase. [laughter] So property values in Bavia of existing construction increased by 11% from the prior year. So Tavia is the place to be. It's market appreciation. It's $12.2 million in new construction. So those are new homes and businesses, commercial facilities, industrial facilities, anything with taxable value that's added to the tax roles in the last calendar year. Plus $14.8 $8 million of taxable value from the expiration of Betavia Tiff 1. TIFF one is essentially downtown Bavia. There's it's a pretty wonky kind of irregular shape, but consider it more or less downtown

190Bavia. Why is that expiring? Well, that particular area went on became a tax increment finance district, which meant that from I think the year was 1989 forward, any new value, taxable value for those particular properties in that zone went to uh the control of the city of Bavia and they used the increase in those in that increment to improve blighted areas in downtown [clears throat] Bavia. They can only do that for 23 years or up to 30 years if they receive an extension and they did receive an extension and that TIFF has expired now and it has to come back onto the tax rules. So the difference in those properties in terms of their taxable value from 1989 to now is estimated to be $14.8 million. That comes back to our tax base and it's

191considered new construction for this particular tax year. And that's what's driving this increase that more than 105% So it doesn't affect our taxing um it affects our taxing capacity but not the tax rate itself to be clear. So our estimated levy this year we're uh I'm recommending to you to levy for $92 million. That will protect us in the sense that it [clears throat] maximizes the full extent that you're legally entitled to to levy. And that represents a 7.4% 4% increase over the prior year's extension. So essentially the board of education collected um $89 million last year. We're inc asking for a 7.4% increase and that's why we're triggering the truth and taxation law requirements. That's why we have to go through we have to go there's certain things that we have to do every

192year. We have to do a public hearing this year and uh make sure that we comply with all those requirements and that increase is primarily due to uh the new construction and the tiff one expiration so that we can capture that and not necessarily the cap funds. But we expect that we're going to collect $89.8 million after it's all said and done based off of the current estimates. So, like I said earlier, whenever the levy request itself exceeds more than 105% of the prior year's extension or what you collected, we have to hold a hearing. Since it's 7.4% that exceeds 5% and we're going to go through those procedures and we also have a required with some newer laws that we provide some disclosures about how much where our fund balances is are and our

1932026 budget. We'll do that next month. What's interesting and what's driving that collection lower is because we collected last year $4.1 million to pay off our final debt payment. And so since in actually uh like December 31st, we're going to make the final interest payment and principal payment. All of our debt will be paid off. We're going to collect $4.1 million less in property taxes than we did last year at 4.2. So the overall tax rate decreases. And here's a picture of that tax rate. So you can see for the last five years it's been right at about uh six cents. Um it's going to decrease to about 4 and6 cents and um that is due to the ptail constraints that tax cap the the CPI requirements. It's paying off our debt and it's driven

194by strong EAB growth. But essentially the tax rate itself is going to go down from 5.2 to 4.6 and that's almost 10%. So what does that do for homeowners? Well, as I mentioned earlier that EAV growth is increasing pretty substantially this year, that 11%. That means that the market value, the median value home at Bavia is $441,000 this year. It's an 11% increase over the prior year. And uh the taxes for that particular home is estimated to be $6,617, which is actually $32 less than it was the prior year because that tax rate is going down. So what's really driving the lower tax rates is that we're paying off our debt. We'll be completely debtree, which is not very common. Most school districts are not debtree. Uh but we'll enjoy that. Uh next year taxes

195will go down. Uh so to summarize, EV is going up 11% to 1.9 billion probably somewhere thereabouts. We're going to ask for 92 million which is an increase of 7.4%. But the tax rate is going down by 10%. Primarily because we're paying off that debt. The median home tax bill is going down $32. We're paying off all of our debt and we're going to do a truth and taxation hearing next month and we'll adopt the levy so that we can file it with the clerk by the last Tuesday in December and make sure that we do all the things that we need to do to levy our taxes. Questions that I can answer for you >> questions? I mean, I always ask this every time we go through this stuff, but like, are you saying,

196Tony, that >> if your home went up 11% in value that your tax bill from our portion of it would still go down? >> To be clear, and I'm just talking about our portion of taxes. I have there's always Yeah, that's a really good question. And sometimes I forget that I'm only focused on school district taxes. Surely other taxing bodies have their own things going on, and more than likely they're going up. um but to be clear, yes, the the values of their home is going up in terms of what they're being taxed on, but the our portion of the tax bill is going down because our rate is going down and primarily because of our we're paying off that debt and because of the how the the effects the algebra essentially of that tax

197cap. It is rather confusing because it's like this is up, this is down. It's like not uh [clears throat] intuitive how this math works. It is not intuitive indeed. And if you're still confused, please don't be shy. Be happy to walk you through it. >> Any questions? My only one that I have is all your fun charts you were showing before with the lines going all the wrong way. >> Lines going the wrong way. >> Is is this assuming this is your first next year's? Is this that this is included in your next year's budget? >> That's an excellent question and I forgot to mention this and I meant to uh thanks for asking. Yes. When we built the 2026 budget and the board adopted it in August, all these assumptions were built into it

198because the levy year, [clears throat] it straddles two fiscal years. It'll straddle 2026 and 2027. So, if for example, you chose to do something different with this levy other than what I'm presenting to you, we would have to go back and redo our 2026 budget and it would affect the 2027 budget. But we knew of course that Betavia TIFF one was expiring. It's >> we've known that for a long time. All those assumptions about what it generates in revenue which is close to $600,000 has already been baked in to the financial forecast that we talked about earlier. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. I will entertain a motion that the board estimate estimate the 2025 tax levy as presented totaling 92 million which represents a 7.4% 4% increase over the previous year's extension. The

199final 2025 tax levy will be presented for adoption on December 16th, 2025 following a and taxation hearing. Motion by >> by Raquel, second by >> second by Rob Cindy, please lead us in a roll call vote. >> Yes. >> Slagger. >> Yes. >> Meadows. >> Yes. >> Gar. Yes. >> Aru. >> Yes. >> Gonzalez Thomas. >> Yes. >> Gilbert. >> Yes. >> Thank you. Motion passes. Item 7.3. Amplify CKLA on display. Brad. >> Yeah. We're going to have my two friends who have been hanging out here for a couple hours. >> Thanks guys for sticking around. [laughter] >> Who won? Who won? >> This is uh Colleen Gunderson. She is our She's a third grade teacher at Louise White, but she's also our curriculum and assessment advisory co-chair. She's fantastic. She helps us with everything.

200Um, we are so appreciative of her and her work on that committee because that committee takes on a lot of work. And then Jake Wyth, uh, he's a fourth grade teacher at AGS. And both of these people are have given up their time and energy, blood, sweat, and tears because they're part of our ELA salt team, which has been going through, as you know, the pilot of our CKLA materials. And the salt team has made some decisions. Um, they presented you a rationale for why we should place these materials on display for public display between now and the next board meeting. And we just wanted Colleen and Jake to share a little bit of the process that the group used to go through this to select these materials and then a little bit about their

201experiences in the classroom actually using these materials with our students. >> Thank you. Uh so we wanted to give you a little glimpse at how we got to this point. Um last fall we were able to put together an elementary team that represented five of our six elementary schools. Every grade level was represented. We have two reading specialists who were able to join us as well as some administrators from the elementary level and the central office level. Um we spent a lot of time last fall going in uh doing some in-depth learning around the Illinois comprehensive literacy plan with the guidance of our ELA consultant. Um during that time we were able to complete a gap analysis to determine whether our current resource met those requirements um to the point where we felt comfortable continuing

202on or adjusting it. Our team did determine that we needed to pivot and find a different resource that would better fit those seven components. Um, so that led us into um vetting about a dozen or so resources and then determining which uh one we wanted to field test, which is the one we're bringing to you this evening, CKLA. Um, it is currently being field tested in 22 classrooms. And so we also wanted to share a little bit of the story of how that field test has looked so far this year. And I want to say I I'm going to be talking about the experience of using the materials, but I want to thank Colleen and and Jen Hicks in particular. I felt like the process we use has been very thorough. I felt very um

203I feel very very um supported by the team of teachers who are leading this initiative. I feel like we came to a an agreement in a way that was um in the best interest of the kids. So I feel like this is one of the better processes I've seen for um solving a problem that we had in the district. So if you would go to the next slide. There are some pictures here. here. I know they're kind of small. Um, a couple things I'm just going to speak to as far as the, um, experience of using these materials. One of the instructional shifts that Colleen and I spoke about yesterday, um, is that in the past when we did, uh, small groupoup reading, a lot of times we changed the, um, difficulty of the text

204for students. And this is really looking at we are now giving students strategies to access grade level text. So all students are experiencing the same uh complex grade level texts and given strategies to help them achieve um with that rigor in the in the material. So um I know I've been doing some poetry recently and some of the poems uh today we read a poem uh by Walt Whitman that was it was challenging. It there was a lot of um figurative language, a lot of uh hidden meaning in the in the poem and th this program and their materials are giving the kids strategies to access that uh thinking. So I think that's um really positive. One of the things we've identified as a strength uh in the ICLP there's um a section uh discussing

205ory which is uh spoken spoken communication. There's a lot of emphasis on students talking with partners talk talking in groups uh and then teaching students explicitly how do you add on to your ideas? How do you use the vocabulary from the lessons within your within your uh spoken communication? And then going along with that there's a lot of writing. Um, and one of the things I know we had spoken about um was a need was more rigorous writing instruction and uh students are writing every day. One of the things I've enjoyed so far about these materials is that because it's thematically organized um the CK and CKLA stands for common knowledge. >> So core knowledge sorry um and the um like we just did a unit on medieval times. So the reading, the writing, the

206speaking was anchored in common understanding, core understanding, sorry, uh uh core knowledge from the unit. So you're giving students the background knowledge to be able to communicate effectively, read effectively, write effectively within that um framework. So uh those are the things for me that have been uh huge highlights. Um and then these are some of the pictures captured by the reps um from their field visits. Um, I took a couple from a student uh workbook and some uh writing pieces. >> So, uh, hopefully you were able to hear just a little bit of how CLA is helping create curious, empowered readers and writers who ask questions of their teachers, of their parents, of their community, um, and are excited then to share what they discover. And we really feel this resource will effectively support strategic

207plan priority one. We're really proud to bring it to you to recommend that we put it on display and hopefully you'll consider approving it. >> Jen, I'm going to put you on the spot. Do you want to say anything? Do you want to add anything? Well, um it has been an honor to work with the ELA salt team because it really represents four years worth of work. When we did a program evaluation, we had a writing salt team and then the work really analyzing the Illinois comprehensive literacy [clears throat] plan really is requiring us to make shifts in our literacy instruction and it came at a great time for Betavia. And I was thinking back to what um Colleen and Jake were talking about and that core knowledge is a way to support students who

208are coming to us from a w v variety of experiences and backgrounds. As you were looking at the Illinois school report card, some of the observations that Brad pointed out will provide, you know, this resource will provide the opportunity for us to support students in their reading, in their knowledge. And as Jake said, it's exciting to see kids um pumped up about the Middle Ages and being able to share. We had a teacher share at parent teacher conferences. The parents were in the hallway talking about Greek mythology and Greek gods and goddesses and that was in a second grade classroom. So it is permeating all of Battavia. The kids are excited. They can't wait to share with you their skills and so the team is really honored as they have said their work to find

209a resource that they really are seeing the impact already. and they're only 12 weeks in and the amount of shifts in 22 classrooms and the honesty and just growth mindset has been huge. There's no perfect resource out there. There are things that we're working through, but the team has really moved forward with kind of a solution focused approach and said we're going to solve anything. There isn't anything that we can't figure out. So, I appreciate Colleen and Jake being here tonight and being able to share their work and the work of their team and um we can answer, you know, any more questions that you have, but thank you. >> I just have one and I want to say thank you for the presentation. I love having the teachers here to talk about their experience.

210Um Jake, you talked about how this was a very supportive process. Could you just elaborate a little bit about on that a little more compared to maybe previous experiences you've had or >> No, I don't know exactly what to attribute that to, but I feel like everybody on the I was telling Colleen this at our last meeting. I feel like everybody on the team consistently comes prepared to solve problems, think through and I think you guys had a really clear process for we look it's been a long process and we've really been looking at a lot of different things. We we looked at how many resour Yeah. So we looked at a lot. We had a we looked through I questions. We looked at standards. We we mapped out a lot of different things. So

211it's a real um clearly laid out process. And then the second part to that I would just say is that I in my school my team is the only team field testing. So, um I've consistently been emailing the other uh field test members and the salt members um to get support and I'm getting very clear um information from other people. There's been a couple times we've experienced struggles and other people said, "Yeah, I'm feeling kind the same struggle. Here's how we've approached that." Um and then also we've had a lot of access to the the company reps. Well, I just love that because this is the second time we've heard tonight where teachers in different buildings are collaborating and using uh resources or sharing, you know, successes and failures to sort of um I'm not

212sure what the right term is, but like we're leveraging our own strengths internally to help advance uh what we're doing. So, I'm I'm always like, well, you know, maybe this is a magic in a bottle, but if we can try to keep replicating these kind of things, uh, you know, just make our processes a lot better and our people will be more engaged and enthusiastic when we're doing something like this because I know it's got to be quite challenging when you're doing something new. >> Yeah. And they're they're doing a good job representing all their elementary colleagues through this process. They have done they've brought back a lot of feedback to the team. So, we've really Jen has made it a priority to let this team, this salt team, subject area leadership team really drive

213the train and drive the change. Um, so that team recommended that we move forward with this. And then Jen brought that to our Monday morning CAC meeting just um to make sure that they were all on board. So, CAC has agreed that this should move forward to Tom and Tom was on the call as well. So we got it in the board book and available for the board to vote on. It would be on display for materials are sitting in the back there. They would be on display between this meeting and your December meeting. And at your December meeting, uh we can ask you to approve uh those. We'll give you a little bit more cost estimates. It's a big price tag. Um but there's a lot of really good quality materials within this. So

214we will that will be the process moving forward if you approve that tonight. >> I just have a quick question. So this resource material is hard [clears throat] copy as well as digital or just >> Yeah. Jen, you want to talk about or >> they because they have in their room? >> Uh both both components are present. Um the students have hard copies of both readers and the like instructional work pages. Um teachers have card copies of the manuals, but then we also have um complete online access to everything as well. And the students have an online platform that they utilize for some of their skill practice and for some assessment. >> Yeah, I I would just add to that some of it's interesting some of the units have different components like we're my current

215reader is also the workbook because it's a little journal so the kids are able to highlight. It's really nice for the kids to be able to access, go back in the text, find things. That's been a really positive um positive piece of these materials. >> So then um if next in December we approve this, so then the following year, we just need to buy like the hard copies. We don't need to do the digital or like how >> No, there's there's ongoing cost. J, you want to talk a little bit about that? >> There would be ongoing cost to access to the platform and then the cons the student consumable workbook. So there are some of the readers that we would use yearly but then there would be the um reoccurring costs for the student

216consumables. So the platform is required for the assessment pieces and to be able to have the teachers um display there's a presentations are made for the teachers. So we really need both platforms as well as the print materials to be able to make this program and use this resource to the utmost ability for our students to be able to learn. We need both. >> There'll be upfront cost and then um ongoing cost, >> but that's not unusual these days. >> We will get both of those in December, >> both the ongoing and >> yeah, you'll see it broken down [clears throat] by both the consumable pieces and the online pieces. the um this will be probably a good opportunity come December for the board to um start exercising in reality how we're going to have

217to prioritize resources in our district. This is not going to come at a low price tag. And when we start committing to these things, we have to understand on the back end with the projections you saw this evening, how we have to figure out what we're going to do then to sustain the fiscal responsibility of this district while we do what is absolutely necessary to provide the best educational experience for our kids. Right? There's going to be a a good tension point here of what we can afford to do with everything that's in front of us. So, just giving you a heads up. That's all. I'm just giving you a heads up. But I love the fact that there's a very viable option here that our teachers are supportive of that we're seeing already immediate

218gains and results with our students. >> That's super positive and it's all framed around our Illinois learning comprehensive the Illinois ICLP. >> Thank you guys. Sorry, Brand. I think this to me is like a really visible um example of how the board strategic plan should work. So, we had teachers were not happy with um our previous reading curriculum. They brought that information into the strategic plan process. It became one of our goals. We focused on it together. We've made collaborative decisions about that and we're moving forward with it. That to me is the power of our strategic plan because again what we focus on gets better and this is still in progress but we're seeing great momentum here um of where we can make a true difference because that priority number one the number one

219strategy is improve literacy instruction. So it's a good example of that. >> Any any more questions? >> Okay hearing none. I will entertain a motion that the board of education place on display amplify CKLA third edition for a period of one month in accordance to POE policy 6 to10 instructional [clears throat] materials. >> Motion by Danielle. >> Second by Katie. Sydney, please lead us in a roll call vote. >> Arandu, >> yes. >> Carol, >> yes. >> Gonzalez Thomas, >> yes. >> Kilbert, >> yes. >> Meadows, >> yes. >> Sliger, >> yes. Yes. >> Thank you. Motion passes. Item number 7.4 adopt or amend board policy. Second reading. >> Okay. I hope this is a little bit of a faster item for everyone. Um this is the second read. We went over it last board

220meeting. I don't think there were any questions between last meeting to this meeting. So I kind of turn it over to you for discussion or a vote. >> Any discussion items or questions? [clears throat] Okay. I will entertain a motion to adopt or amend the updated policies as presented. >> So moved by Katie. >> Second by Raquel. >> Cindy, please lead us in a roll call vote. >> Sliger. >> Yes. >> Meadows? >> Yes. >> Kilberg? >> Yes. >> Susiki? >> Yes. >> Gonzalez Thomas? >> Yes. >> Geral. >> Yes. >> Arlandu. >> Yes. >> Right. Motion passes. Thank you. Item 7.5, new course proposals. >> [clears throat] >> We talked about this again last month. Um, there are three new course proposals that we would like the board to approve to put in our

221course materials that are already in there, but we can't run them officially without your approval. Uh, the field experience, which is a revamp of our current link program to make it compliant with the state of Illinois's um, uh, career pathways process where we have to have 60 hours and we have to teach kids employability skills. So that's a revamp of a current existing course. The other course is a revamp of an existing graphics art course to be a little bit more in tune with uh where graphics art is headed. And then the last course is a middle school course which gives sixth grade students an option if they're um looking at exploring what other exploratories would happen in the middle school. All of these would function with existing staff. It's a repurposing of staff. Um

222so they are looking for your approval to offer these courses to our students for next year. >> Questions? >> All right. Hearing none, I will entertain a motion to approve the new courses to be included in the course registration process for the 2026 2027 school year. Motion by >> So moved by Aaron. Second. Second by Rob. [snorts] Cindy, please lead us in roll call vote. >> Meadows, >> yes. >> Thomas, >> yes. >> Gerals, >> yes. >> Arlandu, >> yes. >> Siki, >> yes. >> Sliger, >> yes. >> I was waiting for it. Gilbert. [laughter] >> I was like, did I miss that? >> Cindy tricked us. >> Yeah. >> All right, that concludes our motions. Thank you everybody for the in-depth information and presentations. Appreciate it. All right. Well, technically we moved item 8.3

223around uh 8.1 to after 8.3. So, we have to hold to that, right, Tom? >> Yeah. Okay. So, item 8.2 is uh building board tours. So, if I recall correctly, this was us trying to determine an ability for board to get out to go see buildings as we have done in the past. So, we want to kind of verify if that's the case of what the board would like to do and if there's any comments or thoughts about that. >> And then the only note from the administration is um we're kind of asking if the board is going to consider dates that we look at um late January or past that and then maybe prior to spring break, right? So maybe that window. >> Okay. And in the past we did these as a special

224meeting and I think last time we did for what we did for the construction stuff kind of like two dates or options if [clears throat] be so any comments or thoughts is that manageable >> yeah does the does the board have the appetite still I suppose is one thing I want to ask >> yes I've seen all >> uh so I have a question if it's a special meeting does that mean the public can attend to >> yes >> okay that's something >> there's not much we can do about it that Well, I think that's a good thing actually because if we go to certain buildings where there's been renovation, >> that would be an opportunity for the public to see what the work's been done. >> I think it would be good too for

225to invite [clears throat] um Vic. I don't know if those parents that run the PTO's if they ever have the opportunity to go to different. >> No, I was a good idea. Probably some of them would jump on that. Right. Okay. Uh then I suppose so the magic question here is the dates. Um does the board prefer we work on like two options and say here are your two options. Can you please decide which one you want to commit to? Um that might seem to be the easest. >> Yeah. >> Approach. Does that sound good? One or two dates? >> Two dates. And then we just go with the majority >> of whatever people say is the best date for them. >> Is that is that okay? >> Yeah. >> For me >> for you

226it is everybody's okay with that? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> So the majority for the Monday >> and that's >> you guys got that. Okay. >> And that's to go to all the schools. >> We're what it would be is an all school uh visit. Um part of the reason why we need a little bit of time to to uh prepare for that is because we'll arrange for transportation. Uh we also want to make sure that uh since it is a special board meeting Erin as you pointed out and since there's some idea to invite people we have to carefully plan this um if we have the public in the buildings while students are in session um you know we want to be sensitive to particular programs or classroom instruction activities that are occurring um

227I am anticipating principles will also like want to like hey who in the building on this day is going to be doing something that the board should see right and so Um, you know, that just takes a little bit of coordination because we're going to be on a timeline and we also have to publish that timeline so the general public can anticipate where to meet you if they are unable to like start off. Let's just say we started at BHS, but they can only come to Rotolo two hours later. You know, we have to kind of coordinate that so that the public can anticipate where the board meeting is occurring. >> So, we're doing this during the day. Uh the original discussion was the board members wanted to see students and programming the building alive

228kind of thing. Is this not something the board wants to do? >> I won't be able to attend but I'm just one person can't take vacation time to schools. >> You guys want to do it in the evening with the buildings? >> I mean the point was to see students in action or did you want to see the schools and hear about them? Uh, for me, I wanted to kind of see the new spaces in function. >> I haven't seen that. Yeah, >> but I've been in all the buildings already, so I'm not sure if this is necessarily for me, per se. >> I mean, I'm just saying that that'd be my interest, but other people want to do it that evening. Maybe we get better turnout from the public. >> I mean, I'm open

229to that, too. Yeah, I'm good with whatever the majority, but I know like Aaron said how they are using the new spaces. Then also for me, I'd like to see the before right of Louise White and like whatever else is going to take place just for me, I have a better picture. >> So I'm different. >> Does the board feel like that we need to go to every building? >> I mean for me personally to go to the new spaces that's Well, that's what I'm I'm putting it out there because it's a lot of buildings to get through and a lot of building like the high school is a long building to tour in and of itself. >> I mean, I would be fine with just seeing one or like >> for because it was

230the high school and then RTO had the the same library. So, we do one or like just one of them. I'm okay with that. >> Okay. >> Just whatever be >> to whoever thinks would be the best to go to like high school. So, it's almost like kind of let the administration from your perspective kind of pick the guided tour for >> a three-hour event of sorts and then work our way through that. Does that make sense to most people >> based on whatever's going on that day? Whatever they might feel is important for us to see >> is that it that sounds a little more manageable, frankly. [snorts] >> Okay. >> And this is during building operational time >> like with students in session. >> If people want to do it in the evening,

231I'm fine of that, too. we would get a chance to have Danielle join us. So, >> we can't remember what was the genesis of this talking point. Actually, >> how many have a kind of an opinion on wanting to see it during class time and kids are in >> it would be nice, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary. I think the original thought was like seeing the buildings, >> just seeing the spaces, >> right? because I haven't been in most of the elementary schools in particular >> and we're making decisions about [cough] >> warm safe dry and >> right I'm okay with that then if we want to do it after hours >> the only one I've been to is Louise white which is like the sister >> like it's the same [laughter] >>

232well that's the thing is that's part of the consideration right there's a Grace McQueen and a Grace McQueen >> right >> of sorts prototype you know so >> probably predict what's going to happen now >> I can >> okay so what I'm hearing at least with head nods is let the dis let the administration kind of determine the tour and the events on the tour and the spaces on the tour and then it does not have to be during the day but that's a part of the organizational process right that whatever might make sense for the time frame to show and if that is a you know whatever works best time so if that's half half because also you're right there are afternoon there are evening functions there are things like that are that might

233be difficult to work around. >> Okay. >> All right. Item 8.3, board approval templates. So, this is I think we almost felt like we got a preview of that today. Um that was a basically a template because in the past we talked about some kind of consistency between how information is presented to us so that we can kind of feel like we're understanding all the parts and pieces that we need to understand as it relates to making a good decision for an approval or not in that event. So Tom created a template that everybody's going to effectively follow to allow for us to do that. Does anybody have any it. Of course, depending on what they're presenting, it's going to get tweaked, some may not be applicable, whatever else, but it's a good place to

234start. >> I did ask Tom um [clears throat] about services um like you know, if it involves like curriculum or interventions or anything like that. Well, what's the going to be the face toace time like you know they're going to have you know is the consultant you know inhouse in district >> or >> local >> so like from a consultant perspective >> what's or >> like I know we have one consultant that does is they hearing I don't remember but they do some type of I remember's She's she's not local but it's something to do with students and I don't remember what it is but just you know something like that >> just to help for awareness. >> Yeah. >> Right. And understand being able to make a judgment about that. >> Yeah. >> Okay.

235>> That's one thing I asked is if something like if you know obviously if it's a construction company they're going to be on site. >> [snorts] >> Does everybody feel that's an important criteria to include? >> My only comment on it is if it's a valuation, if it's a you're making a decision based on that or if it's just a critical is it just a piece of information to know, right? And then you can make your own decision based on I don't want it to be implied in my head. me only of like, oh, that's bad if they're not here because maybe that's just how that type of service is run, you know, or that they're the best person for the job even though they're not here. So, but I don't disagree with being able

236to know that for certain professional developments, they might have someone come in, a speaker come in >> and then that's the FaceTime, >> right? >> Yeah. >> So, I guess they're he or she lives in New Jersey. However, they're coming in for a PD. >> So, will they have facetime with >> Yeah. >> You know, in on on premises time, >> right? >> I think I had mentioned um knowing whether this is a one-time consultant who's training staff to take something over or if it's going to be a recurring. >> And that's probably true with anything, right? Is it a onetime expense or is a recurring expense whether it's training or software or whatever. Right. >> Right. Because those things it can accumulate quickly as Tony I'm sure is aware. Okay. Tom, you hear anything

237you're overly concerned about on those two items? At least having them as a >> may not >> something to the effect of what is the face toface time with consultant adding any data or a section that would discuss that or share that kind of information. Raquel, is that did I capture that correctly? Then the second one uh Kristen kind of outlining somewhere within that report a uh whether the expenditure for that use of that group is a one-time expenditure training or is this going to be a repeat repeating kind of annual item etc. Right. Okay. >> Well I was going to say it's not [snorts] just like consultant or there's could be plenty of services that we are going out for that. No, absolutely. I mean the like they were mentioned before when they were

238studying the um the talking about the the putting the why not the amplified thing on that they had face to face time and resources they were able to do online live talking to people or whatever that's [clears throat] so whatever it might be Dave Thurby might be having some people that interface with him and come in and check things out you know whatever it might be. >> Yeah. >> So okay. >> All right. I'll make adjustments to that and share that with the board. >> Okay. Adjusted location for item 8.1 is board followup on discussions as it specifically relates to ICE. So there are a couple things on that. Uh one I just want to say I appreciate everybody coming today and sending emails and everything else like that. Um this is our opportunity to

239kind of talk through our thoughts um as it relates to that item. Uh we've talked at the last meeting about that and are continuing the discussion today. The goal today in the end is to determine if we're going to move on to some next step of that or not about whether or not that is following as an option um press policies that have come out very recently that I think provides some real good guidance. But that's me offering an opinion that I'm trying hard not to do right now. Um and or if this is something else like a resolution or whatever else we feel is important. Um, I'd like if we could frame this around kind of like the kind of issue and then we can talk about the the adoption process of whatever that

240is as a separate thing once we kind of know about what we're feeling we would want to do. So, I'm going to turn it over to you guys to kind of start the conversation. >> I'd like Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Uh I'm in favor of moving forward on drafting, reading, and approving policy uh that would indicate that all district buildings are not uh places where ICE can stage or conduct operations. >> I don't think it's a surprise. I am also in favor based on the last couple months of conversation. I think it's an absolute necessity. >> I agree. Um, I spoke to Representative Hershower, too. If anyone is interested in learning more about the scope or intent behind the recent legislation that passed. Um, she said she interest she could come and talk to

241us if we're interested in that. I'll throw that out there. Um, and as a side note, she said, and it I know this is a board decision, but she said she would be willing to periodically come and give us updates on state legislation that affects schools if we're interested in that. Um, and I know we don't we don't we're not getting into [clears throat] the specifics yet, but there is like uh Craig mentioned press that's come out recently um with both both a policy in regards to that new legislation and then um some procedures as well that could be adopted. >> You can get into those specifics. My specific I was talking about was just about adopting whatever we're going to adopt. So [laughter] feel free to bring that up if you like. Uh yeah

242so there's there's a specific policy and then there's administrative procedures which are quite lengthy um that talks about you know specific um non-judicial warrant and specifies different actors like superintendent and what the action is that they would take and um a principal what action they would take if law enforcement or ICE showed up. Um, so it's quite extensive. Uh, and I guess I would propose that we in the very least adopt those. I mean, we that's part of the process that we do anyway. Um, and I would be willing to look at additions to that as well. Uh, I think I would be interested in moving it forward specifically in making sure that we're in alignment with HB 3247. And now that we have a press update, uh, even fasttracking that process. I haven't talked

243to Raquel about it, but like um, normally have a process where we get the update, we set a meeting, and then we do it, and then we have a first reading. And uh I know we have some meetings coming up. So it's I mean it's I'm not sure what Raquel's schedule is with the holiday coming up, but uh I'd be open to uh having a meeting set relatively quickly so that we could move at maybe a faster pace than normally we do on other updates. >> Can you please explain what what is that what what does the fast track look like? >> So normally how it works is like we have pre press updates. We set a meeting. It's a public meeting. We go through them all. We have a lot of questions. We have

244like this is what it currently says. This is the recommended changes and we go through it pretty methodically. Ask a lot of questions. A lot of the executive team is there. >> Uh I mean some are just a few changes of words are not that detailed. >> Footnotes, right? A lot of times you see a just a footnote change. We're removing this word which affects all of these other policies. >> This would be a fairly hefty overhaul I think of is it 7150? >> Yeah. Yes, >> I think it's just a paragraph actually. >> Is it? I thought I when I read it, it was a paragraph, right? There's an amendment >> 7150 AP. >> That's the procedure. >> Yeah. >> So, the procedure is lengthy. The >> policy is >> the policy is not.

245>> Got it. >> Uh so then we do that and then we prepare the documents. Then we come to the next board meeting. We have a first reading to ask questions. Then we you know based off that comment if we have to meet again we'll meet again. And then we have a second meeting approve uh second reading and we approve like we did tonight. >> Yeah. >> And so what I'm proposing with fasttracking would be and that usually takes like >> Three months. Right. And what I'm saying is because we have sort of an unusual circumstance where we have some board meetings coming up that are not our regular third Tuesday of every month. We could possibly get together, go through it. on the policy side, we have one of these upcoming meetings with the

246principles or one of those type of things where we could I'm not sure if we could do that in that meeting, but we could. >> Well, no. I mean, we the agenda hasn't been posted yet. >> So, then we could do a first reading and then >> the second reading could be like I mean I don't have the calendar memorized, but like I know we have our regular scheduled meeting on I think the 16th or something. >> Yeah, this would be second. >> So then that could be the second reading. So that would actually be like a very expedited compared to our normal process. >> And then >> um did you mention in the replies that it's actually possible to do >> we could effectively skip the first reading effectively because >> this is this

247is effectively coming in alignment with an incoming >> state law. So in theory, we could >> skip that and effectively go to our next meeting on the 9th or 6th. >> Fourth, we have meetings on the fourth, 9th, and the 16th. >> Nth and 16th. So we could do one in any of those three >> to you wanted to [clears throat] skip it. >> There's two questions I have for you guys. One, I'm all for making decisions about what we should fast track and what we not. I just want that to be our decision about what we're fasttracking. He that's not his decision in teams, right? So, so if that's the case, then I'm certainly all for it. And particularly, I mean, if we're effectively right now discussing adopting press's process, it makes their process

248a lot simpler and then continue evaluation if we choose to of how to tweak and modify and amend policed if we find it is lacking or in any way, shape or form for So I I mean my personal but I mean fasttracking 100%. I would feel more comfortable if we met and we had a first reading just in case there's something that you guys want to add >> or change. >> Um that that's just because you know we got to look >> that's true gives everybody here an opportunity to say this to read it and say can we do this? Yeah. >> And that's is my personal opinion, but you know have a first reading. Unfortunately, I will not be able to >> uh can I offer a suggestion then maybe to help the board

249with a stream uh to streamline that if we held the policy committee meeting um and I can solicit feedback for any board member who could not attend the policy committee meeting because that's an also an opportunity for discussion and dialogue about the policies uh review. Um if people could be there we can we can hash it out. If you're unable to attend, you could always email me and I'll make sure that our co-chairs have that information as part of the feedback process when we meet for the committee. Um, we could do that. And then what we could do then, uh, because it it's your protocol. So, we could bring it then to one of those board meetings and and have it already deliberated. And then um you know if the board wanted to explain uh

250that you're going immediately to a second reading and for action we can do that with this one in particular. That way, Raquel, to your point, you'd be still able to be part of the process through committee >> if you can't be at the fourth if if we're able to meet before the fourth. >> What that would require is knowing when your date is and then knowing a date. We need >> we have to post it for 48 hours before I mean >> but also people need to kind of read in and digest and figure things out and ask questions and whatever. So, >> I'm more concerned with how >> everybody >> Yeah. for you guys getting us what we needed. like I don't know how quickly you can turn that around. >> So by using

251the press policy structure, I feel more confident that you could move quicker because it's already been legally reviewed by an advising body that serves us right. Um one of the things the administration is doing right now, we've actually been working on getting a few date of options to you both to see when we can convene a policy committee meeting because of the October updates. But obviously what we could do is make this the priority item. Um I don't want to speak out of turn for my team. >> Yeah, >> I heard back from everybody. >> Okay. >> Um the second is probably the best. >> Okay. December 2nd. It just something to take a look at and you can get back to me. >> That's when we'd all be available and be able to be

252part of the policy committee. However, >> um >> that's a Tuesday. We were looking at we were looking at one the first I say one two. We were looking at the first and second and then I believe the 10th but if we go the 10th >> I can probably do the first or the second. >> Okay. So the second sounds good so far. Second's good for you. You think? Okay. >> Can I just get um >> I don't know if it'll be four, but I can get back >> I can send an email like I'm good at four o'clock or whatever. >> Okay, awesome. Um, and then so I who who asked who asked me the question? Sorry, Kristen, were you the one that asked the question? >> I think so. About what was the

253question? [clears throat] >> Oh, yeah. >> Well, it was about the second reading, but if we have kind of a meeting, >> right? So, like for example, you know, if if we're coming to you and saying we need this poor board policy and it goes through first and second reading, that's we're following your protocol as a board. You know, there's a uh Craig already stated it. we have a legislative change on the horizon. Uh you as a board are making a collective and consensus based decision on how you want to handle this. So I think it sounds like based on this discussion all are in agreement. That's super. It gives us clear direction. We can prepare some things here. Um the other thing too then with the procedures um the statute will require school districts

254to have the procedures ready to be implemented and executed at the beginning on July 1, 2026. Now, just so you're aware, after doing a crosswalk between what our current practices and what I saw in the city's ordinance, I feel and what's and what's uh required in HB 3247. I do think we'll be able to present some administrative the the administrative procedures between what press has and then what we're doing probably before the summer so that there's time for you to digest and make sure that you're comfortable with it because a lot of our protocols and practice right now are very similar in language to the practice. Um so I feel really confident about that. >> I'm confused on the sorry on the policy part and then the procedure part. So we don't discuss the procedure

255part. We just discuss the so like the what was that? >> So we vote on policies. We don't vote on procedures, >> right? But the amendment part >> but press but press put out this >> procedures. So how does that we don't vote on procedures, >> right? >> We just have to make sure that they're implemented. How then does our pol the so what they have put out on press that policy the recommending would effectively what is the recommendation [clears throat] would then make that procedure effective that we're not we're not writing but like our policy then I guess like we want to make sure that our policy will go ahead >> affect that procedure >> well the what we vote on policy and then the administration has to make sure we have procedures that

256>> correct >> support those policies I'm saying the press has procedures outlined. So how do we >> if we adopt process policy does that ensure that you all can meet those procedures and that it's covering those procedures I guess is what I'm asking. >> Yeah. So their body of of attorneys when they draft what they feel is a strong and modeled policy and that's why they put in the press update behind that they'll develop a template of what they recommend as the procedures that supports the new policy that >> and that is what you will follow >> and that's what that's what we would follow then >> and our policy if we were to if we were to effectively just take process policy I just want to confirm that I'm understand >> based on what

257the update is then you would most likely take the procedure that press is recommending based on that policy. We we accept we went ahead with >> right we it would yes for sure or what would >> well we could come to the policy committee and say like hey you know this is not something we have as a resource in our district. So, do we have something that would meet that? You know, I mean, there there might have to be some nuances, you know, that we have to dive into in it, but um the procedures that they'll be recommending are definitely going to um align with the policy itself. >> Okay. So, I just there's some parts of the procedure that I think are excellent, right? As far as like you need to have something displayed

258in the office, you need to have um education all the way down. There were some really amazing parts to it and I just want to ensure that for our policy writing purposes that we don't need to state something more specific and that is something that will be done. I know we can't tell you how to do it right but that it will be met >> I think is where my concern is and just to ensure that I just want to make sure that we can ensure some of those things or when we decide on it. So normally when we have a policy there's a procedure with it like [cough] we'll include [clears throat] that in the first reading like I may not go over it but it's attached to the package so you can read

259it. >> Yeah. So it's like hey you know we updated this policy and then these procedures as well but that again is just for the board's awareness. So you can when we do it when we have our first policy or our policy meeting and they give us the agenda the procedure will be in there of how we're going to adopt it I guess or how they'll use it. So you can look to make sure that it has what wording you want in like the [clears throat] training. Not that they're going to get rid of the training, but let's just say it says yes, I want to make sure like can we make sure that that training is >> and that would be in the policy language or the procedure >> procedure language. >> That's procedure.

260>> Then how are we not controlling procedure? I'm so confused by this. I think it just so we are still controlling procedure in that effect. If we're attaching a procedure to a policy, >> it's not but we don't it's not something that we vote on >> but >> okay. So >> it's like our recommendation. Is that what you're saying? >> This is what they have to follow. This is the procedure to follow this policy. >> I mean, so we are making the procedure. >> It's not we don't make it, but we It's like this like >> I just want to make sure that we're like we're making sure our wording is strong on the policy so that if we are not having anything to do with procedure, this policy has what it needs to have

261in it. And that's my main concern. So, however that needs to happen, >> it is the jurisdiction and the purview of the board to effectively say, "We did this policy and we don't think you're enforcing or enacting this policy in a way that's meaningful and lives up to the policy." >> Right. As a board, >> right? >> So, I think the way that the our only jurisdiction is we govern policy. Right. >> Right. press does everybody a favor by giving them a template because that was a good way to put it that would support that policy. >> Tom's team would develop a response to that I would imagine for us to say these are the ways we can support it. These are the ways we can't support that procedure and here's our solutions to try

262to come into alignment with that if we can't currently do that. It would be really atypical that I've ever heard or even experienced here that when there's a specific procedure that kind of comes from press that's already been validated by their attorneys, it's because the big challenge on some of this that I've been hearing is how legally defensible is this stuff, right? That they've kind of figured out this is if you follow these steps, your attorney can protect you or they can help enforce this, right, later on. So, this is pretty loaded as a, you know, while we're not improving the procedure, we get to state that if that procedure isn't supporting the policy that they need to adjust to do so, right? >> Because if you start loading things from procedure into policy, you

263start baking it in and that's where things get convoluted because you need to amend procedure sometimes based on what the field situation is at that time. >> Yeah. I guess from for just personal things and we can get more into that is like I want to make sure there's some sort of educational piece to me that should be in policy. I'm not telling you what the procedure is, but so but it may not need I'm hearing that it may not need to be specific. >> No, but we could all say, >> "Yeah, >> I think this [snorts] needs to be We could all discuss it and say, >> Tom and team, I think you need to come up with a training procedure because we think that's an important facet of it and you need to

264provide to us. If you're not going to do that because it's their perview to enact things, you kind of got to make us happy about understanding why that's not critical. You know, >> I would like to mention the like the timeline. While I know that it we have until July, um, from things that I've heard, we're probably going to see some of this action moving away from us as the as the winter comes, but it's going to be back in the spring. So, I guess I'm concerned about not having something in place. I think we can do the policy But I'm I'm hoping that there's some sort of procedure in place or education that can happen over the winter so that >> we're prepared. >> So yeah. >> So I I just want to maybe

265this will help the conversation with like a tangible. Right. So in the administrative procedure, one of the draft components right now that uh press has um shared would be uh here's an example calls the bar the superintendent, building principal or designate will call the board's attorney for guidance throughout the process. That's an administrative procedure that press has suggested. That's also an active protocol in what we do since January 27th and we've shared that out with families, staff, our principles. We've talked about this multiple times. In fact, as recently as Tuesday of this week to reinsure everyone is fresh on our protocols and what we would do if this were to be the case in one of our buildings. So that's actually in the procedure. So I'm hoping this will get so let's shape that conversation.

266That's not going to be specifically in policy, but this is a procedural thing that press is recommending to support the board's policy. >> I make a maybe a suggestion. But for staff, like do they all have these pouches >> like building staff? >> I think so. >> Yeah. >> Is there any way that like >> they the pouches themselves, we generally issue pouches to everybody, but they're not required to use the pouch. I, for example, just have mine attached to my lanyard. I'm just wondering if there's a way that we could um get like Sorry, Tony. I want to print something. Um but just for all the everyone that's employed at BPS, if they can like just attach it to their card on if we see an immigration agency on our school property, first thing

267you do. Second thing, you know, like I'm gonna be honest. I don't know if I if a parah will know what to do if they're coming from the parking lot and they see trucks rolling up. I really don't know if they know what to do. And I, you know, or or anybody like that or I mean even like the building substitutes like I don't know if they really know what to do and I I'm just trying to get something so they can they they have a reference like hey and again maybe they don't use the pouches. >> I think that's a good suggestion. >> That's about all it can be right now. Right. That's all I'm saying. So, so it's a good suggestion and I think it's a way to say, "Hey, this might be

268one of the ways that we increase awareness." [clears throat] So, that's fair. Um, I'm often curious about this. As a person who was working with a park district and not realizing I was on school property and I was surveying a park that was adjacent to a school and I had the police called on me to join and I was politely escorted off the property. No, I was not arrested, so don't start whispering back there. Um but um you know that it the general way and I don't know if it's here like the process for anybody that's unknown on school property is a pretty quick notification toward principal or whatever that process is. So I'd be curious to see what the difference is. I'm not minimizing your training your your request on being able to make

269sure everybody's aware of the pol the the process and the procedure. I'm just trying to figure out what's how different it really is. I mean, so I know that this is sometimes I know when it's nice and warm out and there's a pretty good track behind Rotolo that will have people come on to the property and walk. >> Okay. >> And sometimes there's gym classes that happen to use the outside warm up. >> So again, it's like >> if you see someone walking, are you really going to call the cops? I mean, maybe you should, but I'm just saying like but they just they can and sometimes they bring even more. >> So that's that's a good item as they're as they are evaluating the policed to be able to figure out how they might

270fit a methodology of of education in there. >> So I think the primary concern then right now is let's go ahead and address the policy first because that's what always guides everything else anyway. Let's get that in place. Um sounds like December 2nd will be the targeted date for a policy committee meeting. Um and then as I one will be encouraged to attend. Correct. >> So, right. So, as I mentioned earlier, if you can attend, great. And then let's all work together on that. Um, if you're unable to attend, please feel free to send me um thoughts and notes so that I can make sure it gets shared with our co-chairs. Then we can bring that into the discussion for >> Do we have a date for the feedback like a email? Do you have

271a do we have a date, a deadline? Is it like the second? >> Well, we're going to talk about on the 4th. It'd be pretty quick. >> Well, no. The policy meeting is for the second. I know, but then if we're going to vote on it, >> I'm not We got to be careful because if I'm not sure there's enough time to get things amended agenda. >> Well, just remember we're only doing policy. >> We're going to address just the policy. >> Um >> we can have the agendas prepared, okay? Even for the December 4th meeting, just because it's on the agenda, if it's not ready, you know, Raquel and and Aaron, you can share with the board, hey, we made a lot of progress. Not quite there yet. >> Okay. >> We can't make

272the motion to make the recommendation for the tonight on the 4th, but say but we're pretty close. So the 9th December 9th meeting, we may have that on the agenda then. >> So I think we want two feedbacks then like one you're going to send out [cough and clears throat] would send out the agenda and the policy prior. She'll send it out with >> the Friday before. >> Yeah, the Friday before. So then I need we would need feedback on that one by the first. Preferably the first if you get it the second I whatever >> if we can't come. >> Yeah. If you can't come >> Friday the day after Thanksgiving. >> Um >> yeah it is. >> I think it is >> that Friday. >> That's the Friday after Thanksgiving, right? >> That's

273the day after Thanksgiving which someone around you send it. >> Well I but no no but here's what I heard. Kristen just clarified. That's send it if you can't make the policy committee. If you're going to attend, you're going to be part of the conversation. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Well, >> and we'll do it together. >> Okay. They're at the committee meeting. >> Yeah. >> Or get your comments as early as possible if you're not going to make it. So, if there's clarity needed, Tom can reach back out. >> Okay. >> Tom, do you want me to send them to you and copy me or just send them to you? What do you think is best? >> Well, you should always be copied. >> That's what I thought you were going to say.

274So, copy me on anything that goes to >> But send it to me and we'll we'll we'll take care of it. Make sure we collect it. If you're going to be there in person, as Kristen pointed out, no need to email, just show up ready to talk and we'll go through the committee process. >> And so what we'll do is they'll go ahead and prep the meeting with on the 4th >> for doing this. And if it turns out we need to strike it for the agenda because it's not quite there yet. You can give an update and choose not to take action that night and then it will get moved right to the meeting on the because there's plenty of time to do proper notifications for that. >> Yes. take advantage of the needs

275we have already. >> Okay. >> Mr. President, can I make a comment? Yes. I I'll be working on the um I'll be working on the um red line version as soon as you know I'm able to get that into it'll be under the proposed Yes. >> on the website. It'll be so it'll be available before the meetings. >> Perfect. So >> before the agendas are closed that will be in the proposed >> section for the policies. So >> So it gives us all a Thank you. >> Cindy, would you mind if >> So, I'll send an email if you'd like once I finish it. >> Yes, please. >> That'd be fantastic. >> She knows you guys. She knows all. >> She's got you. [laughter] >> Awesome. >> Okay. Anything else that anybody wants to discuss

276on that? I would just like I mean I would some like some time to review this resolution to see if >> there's anything else we might be interested in doing in that area >> in addition to like policy and Yeah. >> So would you like us to put at least on the 9th or whatever we're meeting we're approving this on? Keep in mind we're doing a lot of other things on the board. >> I was just gonna say >> do we want to see like you guys feed back information to me and let me know whether you want to have that as a discussion point. Well, >> you can disagree with >> No, no, no. I I'm just going to say the the nights are going to run long. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> We separated

277all these meetings with the knowing because we've experienced what happened in May, right? So, um the other thing I would say is this. Your board policy is what's actually going to have sticking power in action. A resolution or a proclamation does not. Now, we can issue a statement. The board can issue a statement if the board policy gets adopted. But I think drawing attention to the policy is actually where the action takes place and the enforcement of what our behavior is as an organization if that makes sense. Right? Because like a proclamation is a statement. There's actually no there's no organizational shift or change in terms of how we're governed by you. A resolution has some scope, but it's typically more limited. It wouldn't be impacting the board's policy book. >> Change your policy. I

278agree. I also think that the general public and parents and families that are directly affected >> are probably not going to read the policy and feel reassured by that necessarily. >> If we issue communication, if we do adopt a policy to let people know communication >> and say, "Hey, blah blah blah blah blah, whatever it might be, and put something behind it so that it functions almost like a resolution type of thing, but it's explain that we have policy I mean, I don't know. I You're right. There part of this [clears throat] is we can't stop what's happening, but we can make it really clear by doing this that we are not going to stand for certain actions that we are vocally against it. We're putting things in place and I there is like we've

279heard speaking, there is comfort for the community to hear that something is being done. So it's it's not just um what is the word like a oh my god what do they it's not just like this is you know just booster >> yeah no it it there's a difference there so yeah like I think the pol maybe communicating that and we can talk about that I think that would be important >> we could maybe roll some of the language from a resolution standpoint too and I I think we all could look this over and come with notes about what we want to do. >> So, I'm just curious >> when are we supposed to provide our notes for that? [laughter] >> For which one? >> December 4th. The if you guys are going to look

280over the hand to us by Drew. >> Yeah. Are we aren't we combining that into our policy? >> Well, that hasn't been decided. So I guess what I heard by one person I thought was hey are we are we going to evaluate like look at that a couple people would say hey I might look at that and bring that to my conversation at the policy meeting right >> that's what I heard one group say >> yeah that's how >> others said hey do we want to do this or not and >> if we whatever formula or whatever the policy ends up being regardless of what we change or not to Kristen's point people aren't always as aware of what we're doing for that can we make some sort of declarative statement or press, you know.

281>> Yeah, I'd be more inclined personally to like get the policy where it needs to be and then if you want to discuss how we're communicating that outward, that's like a follow-up discussion to that, [snorts] >> which could happen in that meeting. >> Yeah. >> Depending on where we land. >> Okay. Okay. December 2nd. All right. >> Just so board members know, we usually have these meetings around four o'clock. >> Right here. >> Typically, it's been four. Yeah. Begins at 4:00 in the year. >> But if it gets adjusted, you guys will post, >> of course. Yep. >> Okay. >> Thank you everybody. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate the input. >> All right. Item 9, 9.1, administration comments. [clears throat] >> Okay. Uh, I'll keep this brief. Um, all right.

282Um, so everybody, November is often a month of reflection and gratitude for me. Um, whether it's gratitude for our veterans, raising [clears throat] awareness for those batten month for some forms, um, to celebrating uh, Native Americans and their rich history in our country. and of course board member appreciation uh which took board member appreciation day was on November 15th this past Saturday. Um so I want to thank everyone on the board for your service to our students, our employees, our families and to making BPS 101 a phenomenal school district. You have a very in incredibly difficult role that you do for absolutely free but at a cost of your time. Uh and so I just appreciate uh you your work and continuing to push the organization to always try to be better. Um now on

283that note to close there are some examples of where from within the Betavia and BPS community we have had some great highlights recently. Just wanted to share some positive [clears throat] uh vibes as I close out. Um, Holly was kind enough to share with me some amazing record number uh record-breaking numbers of how we are helping DPS families right now in our community, especially as we come around like the winter season. Right. Our weekend backpack numbers uh who we do partner with Chapel Street Church have currently 35 students and 165 people receiving bags and backpacks of food to help them during this time of need. Um, this is the highest number we've ever recorded. Um, so super proud of all the efforts that are going on and thank you. Uh, the program has received $4,000

284in donation along with actual food items that still continue to come in. So, if you can spread the word, [clears throat] please do tell them we're everyone's still taking donations. Also, the Hosal Homes and Chip and Betavia have created blessing baskets and that program currently has 103 families signed up to receive a basket next Tuesday. around 100 baskets have been sponsored and 12 of these baskets are being donated by Betavia's own BPS staff. Um 10 of them are from our our colleagues in the BPA our BEA and two of them are from within our own ARJC curriculum and instruction department here at the district office. And then we also um have information about shop with a cop program. Um that program is working with getting kids signed up for the program anticipating anywhere from 25

285to 30 uh students kids uh in that program this year. And lastly, adopt a family program. Um this year we'll have record numbers [clears throat] with this program as well. Uh we are going to be hitting capacity and we'll have children all the children will be covered even though we're hitting our new number. Um and they're going to be hovering right around 370 children which is uh huge. And so, uh, and then our business and finance department at district office putting together stockings, uh, to give to every family for the program this year. So, on that note, um, appreciate all the conversation tonight. Um, looking forward to us continuing to do our work together here. That's all I got. >> I just have one question. So, uh, Drew mentioned earlier that there is a process

286for getting feedback from the BEA and I don't know if I'm new and I don't know how long I can use that excuse that I'm new, but I just I am unaware of what that process is. >> There's not a specific process, but there was a history of collaboration between the administration, you know, and and that. So I think depending on what the issue is, it gets addressed in a different way different ways. So um I think that part of that is like the the presentations that are coming that were mentioned they're doing the principles and some staff and then we can collaborate with Tom on trying to determine what additional information we want to get seek information from for them to provide backups from the staff. >> We did ask them for the December

2874th meeting. I do recall, and I don't know if we're talking about the same thing, but that when they come and do their building presentations, that part of that was going to be the cell phone policy and that we were looking for staff feedback. I don't know if that's what you're referring to, but like where we're getting staff voices to say like do does a there was like three or four questions specifically that we wanted to hear from staff >> and then for admin of those different buildings to bring back to us because that way in our >> December regular meeting we could effectively decide do we need to have a discussion policy update policy discussion on cell phones. So yeah. [clears throat] Yeah. Because I I remember May I >> this must be the

288process. >> Um [clears throat] >> so uh in particular what I was talking about um specific to the cell phone thing uh any potential changes to policy have an impact on our working conditions. And so what I was trying to convey to the board was uh to to your point staff feedback would be like of paramount importance to anything related to anything let alone a policy like that. Um, so when I say that the BEA is able to like provide that kind of more formal feedback, we have mechanisms within our organization that we can do that. But I think to Craig your point, there's also plenty of mechanisms within the district itself where we can do that, too. It's just really a matter of what's going to be most conducive to data that you need

289to make informed decisions. I guess >> we're looking for your guys's feedback to we can't decide. I think we were our discussion was we don't know if the policy is working without hearing from staff. >> Correct. >> Our hope was that admin was going to be able to speak to you all and get that feedback so that they could present it at the December 4th meeting whenever the building presentations are. And that way we had those couple weeks to like digest it and arrive at [clears throat] a regular December meeting to have a really like in-depth discussion like do we need policy? But it would be with your all's voices, staff voices. >> So I don't do I don't think we gave Tom instruction on how to do that though. I think that's up to

290Tom to do or admin to do. >> And that wasn't necessarily my takeaway from the last meeting. Hence the the you know ask that these types of decisions are made with with that in mind. So um again we we have ways that we can do that within the association. We have mechanisms in the district. We can address that too. But um as I said, not just cell phone policy. any decisions made by the board of education that impact our working conditions, how we're able to support our kids, support our staff. I would hope that's a shared interest that that feedback comes from the association as well. >> Thank you. >> And I appreciate this [cough and clears throat] too that you know that they came with some information for us to digest. So that's all.

291>> Okay. Um, just a few comments here. Uh, first of all, uh, a big appreciation to Finn and Max, uh, for the How's Heroes. Uh, continue to champion the, uh, celebrations and hearing from our students, um, all the good things that they are doing. So, appreciate that. Um, I want to thank Mr. Kim and any others that are here in attendance. If you're a veteran, thank you for your service and appreciate uh, everything that you have done for us. Um, and um, I want to mention I I did go to The Little Mermaid, I think it was mentioned earlier, and um, just a very spectacular show. I thought I was like in Chicago watching a >> Yes. >> a play because of the the staging really was quite u quite impressive, right? uh with some

292of the wiring works uh with >> 30 feet in the air flying flying around. So um kudos to um the musicians, this the stage crew and the actors for for that effort. Um the Little Mermaid. So great job by everyone involved. And I think that oh um thank you to those that came and spoke today. Um really do appreciate you taking the time to express your views. Um it is very helpful and I'll speak just for myself. It is very helpful to hear uh the community feedback on um uh the various issues that we're facing. So uh thank you for those that that came out and spoke. >> Um so yeah, so thank you to Mr. Buckley for inviting. I'm sure you all got the invites for the veteran assembly for the eighth grade at

293RMS. So I did attend. It was nice. So thank you the veterans that uh served. appreciate it. Um, also I saw that RMS has a food bank like in their school. I think that's kind of cool. So, I appreciate that. Um, happy Native American Heritage Month. And then I hope everyone has a healthy and safe Thanksgiving. >> Um, yeah. So, I kind of echo what my colleagues are saying here, but um, I was also went to Lil Murvy and I had the exact same reaction you did. And my understanding is there's only two adults involved in that entire production. So, uh, just incredible work. Um, and I want to do thank everybody who's here tonight who stuck through to the end. Uh, every we had a lot of teacher presentations tonight. Uh, we just well,

294we just had a lot of presentations and, uh, I appreciate how much work everybody puts into providing detail, but making it understandable so that we can understand where we're headed and what the challenges are. And uh then the last thing I'll say is I know with Thanksgiving it is a time of celebration but it also is um can be a very hard time for a lot of people. I know a lot of people are suffering and I feel like uh people in the district are working along with other partners to do what they can to uplift the community and provide be a source of strength. For example, uh I think someone mentioned maybe Tom just did about chip in and hosel uh with the food baskets. will be out there Tuesday night handing out uh

295Thanksgiving dinners to people. Um and that's just one of many many things that are going on that uh you know a lot of people are doing a good work or doing the best they can. So I just want to say thank you to everybody putting in all that hard work and also that uh we finish out into the break strong and everyone has a safe Thanksgiving. Uh thank you to all of you that have stuck through since a very late night. Um I appreciate everyone who wrote in um who showed up um who's held discussions. I mean we've had I would put it as like 350 voices that have directly wrote to us, spoken to us. That's really powerful. And I just that's really important that we advocate for our children because they can't do

296it themselves. Um, and with this in mind, you know, with this specific topic, I had actually wrote a note because I didn't know how today was going to go and I've been really open about my feelings, but as someone who is Latina from I come from an immigrant family, an adult, just observing what happens and all that, holding the space for it is hard enough. And I would do anything to make sure that our children are as protected as possible. And so that's where my strong feelings come from and and whatnot. So having all of you show up for every one of these kids is just absolutely amazing. I want to also just on the side note thank our rapid response team members. I'm also on there but I don't get to go out on

297foot and that is where we see a lot of movement and I mean it's it's heavy. It's heavy. So our community has shown up for our kids in so many ways whether it be speaking here or doing that. I just want to really express my gratitude. Um, you've been heard and seen. Um, I think that also I wanted to touch on the staff coming up for the committee updates and like all of all of the involvement on that to Drew's point. So like I think what we've been asking for is like the voices at the table hearing the staff. I mean, they're working with admin and you guys are always here giving the voice, but it's an extra help to hear from the people who are in the classrooms, too, in addition to what you

298guys do with them. And so, that is really helpful for me personally. I really enjoyed that. And to latch on to that, um, there is something I'm going to throw out there in our already busy season. Student voice. We cannot I'm going to hold firm on this. We cannot do our work without student voice at this table. We are missing it. We are missing it. We try to bring it. We try to say, "Hey, I talked to the community just as much as we need staff voices at the table." So, I want to propose a discussion. It can wait until after the new year to um talk about student board members. I have seen some amazing districts do it. Spencer, I hope that if we ever do it, you are someone who will maybe join

299on. I mean, we have a youth that is so caring and involved, so well spoken, so just like ready to join in, and I just would like to have that discussion at some point to see if there's interest in that topic. And again, I'm not trying to load us up right this moment, but if there is anything that I would want to leave this board at any time with and and know that I feel good about is student voices at this table because we are adults through our perspective, every single one of us here, I don't care what story you're telling, without them being at this table, we're ruining their perspective. We're ruining their voice and we're taking that over. I have seen the progress that starts to go towards that. We talk about absenteeism.

300We talk about belonging. We don't get that unless we have those voices that can connect. Peers will talk to peers and they'll be able to understand certain things that we will never get. So, I just want to put that on. I don't know if we could like throw it on an agenda for discussion after the new year, but wherever you guys think it might fit. I'm not asking for like I think we need to do do we need consensus to put it on agenda? >> I I I mean I'm just curious if other people I want to make sure people want to talk about it. So if anybody has any objection to it, you know, then let's talk about it. But if everybody's like, "Sure, let's put it on for discussion, let's do it." >>

301And I just want to really quick, we have ambassadors and they are phenomenal people and they did bring up an issue. I just feel like we task our ambassadors with more celebratory, which I love having, but they're not at the table. And just to be clear, student board members do not vote. Okay? They are just part of discussions. They are at the table for these discussions, for their feedback. They're able to collect from their peers, but they don't vote. and we can have a broader discussion but that is the reason why I don't feel like our ambassadors necessarily take a place of um student board members. >> The only reason I was asking is I want to make sure that we're all yes we all like >> that we're going to have a good conversation

302about that and it can be a dialogue. That's all I'm asking is I'm not necessarily saying hey [clears throat] are we passing this or not right now. So >> yeah, >> I mean I does anybody have any opinions or would support that? >> I have brought it up I think in the p maybe not um at the board table but I think I sent Tom an article one time. Um I think was it W Met that did it recently >> somewhere around within the last six months did it and it was really interesting. I read an article >> at triple eye they have them often as sessions and I remember I the one time I was able to go and it was amazing. It was amazing. I'm definitely interested. >> All right. Yeah, I'd be

303open to discussing after we get through all this. So, >> yes. Holiday. >> So, after the new year, let's >> Yes, I got it in mind. >> January, Februaryish. >> That's fine. Okay. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. >> If it when it gets closer, if you don't mind kind of just either put it on our list and then one of somebody helps remind me that yes, it needs to be on there. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So, Okay. >> All I have. Okay. >> Uh, I will just say that I'm feeling very grateful today for all of the community support uh for everybody that contacted us um regarding the ICE the ICE policy crafting. I I'm really grateful to live in a town um that is crafting policies to let our Latin community know that we

304acknowledge you and we will do all we can to protect you from violence in our city and on our property. So, I'm very grateful to that we're taking that action and to be part of that. Thank you. >> I appreciate everybody coming as well. Well, I won't um I'll keep it short because we also have a close session to go to. Um, thank you to veterans. It comes from a place in my heart. I'm a I'm an Air Force brat, so I also appreciate the entire families that grew up and moved and went overseas and to various parts of the country um and and lived with their family members that were gone for long periods of time. So, I think about that often and then appreciate um all the kind of really in-depth information that

305was provided today. Maybe I'll try to work on spreading that out a little bit if we can just to keep the a little more of a tempo, but I it was well appreciated. So, thank you very much. Um uh we are going to close session today. Um so, I am going to we're going to be adjourning. We have no action after the meeting today. So you guys certainly can make your decisions about whether you say or not, but we're probably going to be another 30 45 minutes to an hour. So um thank you to everybody that attended. Um and we are going to move. Let me get my So yep. Again, if you say go. So if there are anything else, we will get adjourned. So the time is 11:04 and I will entertain a

306motion to move to close session. >> I didn't finish the sentence, but I appreciate the intensity of it. As allowed under open meetings act for the purpose of exception 5CS120C1. So moved by Katie. >> Katie. Second. >> Second by Kristen. >> All right. City, please lead us in a roll call vote. I didn't hear any. Are we >> Yes. >> All right. Bathroom break and see you guys. I'm about to burst.