001going [Applause] are e e e e no I understand I'm just having struggle finding are you [Music] whole yes please know this is [Applause] it graduation I would get out there early good everybody comes up at 88 traffic we told the kids to be the best we believe it's 27 years you know what I never we always took 38 restaurant do you have time afterwards I already told my wife I'm not I'm not coming home today come on take a lot to get that we last we're going to be definitely all 45 minutes 45 minutes and then the rest of the comments comment everyone's Tak we going to be close to the 45 minutes hi Danielle do you need the water came prepared you came prepared I seriously did I had a it's a water
002thank you for correcting that I didn't want to make him older than he is I'm like it's water [Applause] yeah is it 7 7:02 7:03 oh then we should do it ready you ready [Music] do the quiet it'll get there yeah [Music] yeah it is now 703 PM Tuesday May 21st 2024 and I call this meeting of the Board of Education to order Cindy would you please call the role Thomas present arando here hilber present Mattis here lock here Meadow present sler present thank you uh next is a pledge of allegiance to be led by Aaron what did the okay I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all so we are moving on to
003our celebrating successes but we were originally planning on having an RMS Ensemble performance today but unfortunately we'll not be able to have one uh so I hope they will be able to come back in the future uh today we are also recognizing uh shortterm pres or principle Kevin scer hello sir so the board of education is proud to recognize the retirement of Kevin Dr Kevin scer it is no secret that BPS 101 thrives because of the dedication of its staff Dr Kevin scer is a shining example of that commitment he was the principal of old of the old and new Grace mcque Elementary School before becoming principal of Louise White and in fact my kids were actually under his watchful eye and guided presence over at Grace mcne when he was there he loves the
004excitement of working with students and staff each day we thank you Kevin for your 26 years of service even though I've heard you get an extra one for covid and and and to our community so thank you very very much if you mind we have something for you what do just as a small token of our appreciation Hey Kevin turns Maybe [Applause] next is the incubator project lunch ahead Josh buac will you introduce the incubator project lunch ahead which I can't wait to hear about because I've heard certainly a lot about it all right we got a very excited group of young entrepreneurs here ready to tell you all about their incubator project so let me set the stage for you every year many students elect to take the incubator class it's a great way
005for them to learn about business and to actually create a product and a business model the students that we have here today took at a Next Level and found an issue in their own School long lunch lines and came up with a solution to get the food that they want quickly effectively and also start to build a business model around it so I've got the pleasure of introducing McKenna CC Katie and Ben and they're going to tell you all about their product launch [Applause] had good evening members of the board my name is CeCe day I'm aenna Bremner I'm Ben Costello and I'm Katie anglehart and we are bavia high school incubator group called lunch ahead so what is lunch ahead lunch ahead redefines school lunches with a hassle-free pre-ordering app say goodbye to trustful
006waiting times and hello to a more social lunch hour our platform boost School efficiency by saving the staff time enhancing the student experience and creating a tire nit community at lunad we believe a students only time to socialize outside of the classroom should be exactly that a break not wasting their precious time standing in the lineal period so join us at lunch head where we get your time back so as students at Pavia high school we feel the number one problem we face is our school cafeteria long lunch lines on average students are waiting between 10 to 15 minutes to receive their lunch which is well over half their lunch period And this is resulting in students missing out on the social aspect of their lunch another problem is the classroom location although some students
007classrooms are right next to the cafeteria others are across the building which is leading them to to get there a lot later than others and then finally the kitchen staff when all these students are coming in at once it is very overwhelming for the kitchen staff so our customers are mainly um students although teachers are a small priority so this is an example on the board of what a student who does not use um lunch ahead would look like so this is for a lunch so we have three lunches a lunch B lunch and C Lunch a lunch gets out um first right after second block so second block gets out at 10:44 and then they arrive to lunch around 10:50 and they would put down their stuff grab their table and then get in
008line then they would have to wait around 15 minutes to receive their food and then after they receive their food they'd have to wait in a second line in order to purchase their food and then finally sit down about 1012 to eat Which is less than than 10 minutes so our solution to this problem is our up and running website lunch ahead.com this takes away two of the longest steps that McKenna just explained to you guys which are those long lines with lunch ahead.com students are able to easily pre-order their lunches so on the next slide um it shows what happens when you scan one of the QR codes in the hallway or if you simply just look up lunch ahead.com it brings you to this simple page right here and to order you press
009order here which is circled in red after you press order here brings you to this page um this shows all of the uh menu items that range from like the paninis the wraps the salad bar our weekly special and then we just recently added cookies as well um which is a student favorite and then it reminds students to order before 10:00 a.m. because that is our deadline because the Lunch Ladies do need time to make all these orders and then it also reminds students that if their account balance is below -20 then they order will not be processed this is an example of The Panini it shows all of the customization op options um there are the same customization options where if you were to wait in line you'd have the same like availability to
010pick all these so after students select all these options they submit their orders I personally receive them and after I receive them I send them to Val which is our head lunch lady and Val will print out all these orders and all the other lunch ladies are going to make all of them and store them all in a heater where students will go up and state like their first name last name and they'll get their order hasslefree since we began in late February we've had over 950 orders with 90 constant users a day and we've generated over $5,000 for this school and we're projected to exceed a th000 orders by the end of the year we have two different types of Revenue plans one would be a a student pays a 75 cents convenience fee
011and the other would be a contract with the school district so the service remains free for the students and the school districts would give us the contract someone would come evaluate our business and then we would take that monthly amount and then apply it first semester our future plans is we plan to spread the word inside our district and hopefully to other districts using social media warning announcements and flyers around the school we believe that students should know what they're putting inside their body we want to do this putting by putting the nutrition information on our website so students with allergies can stay safe and students who want to be healthy can stay healthy over this summer in the course of the first semester of next school year we plan on developing an app to
012increase the users experience and the efficiency of our lunch line and right now through Quest we've reached out to St Charles East and St Charles North through the help of the district manager and they're both huge fans of what we're doing here and we're hoping by the start of next school year we can go to those schools too thank [Applause] you any questions from any of the board members or any others I I just want to say this is incredibly impressive and that presentation with this larger room Bravo to all of you that takes a lot of courage and a lot of skill so it's the closest I've ever come to feeling like I was on the other side of shart tank so nice job so I I I'm just wildly impressed I mean you
013find a Target you know what you do you got a business plan you Market did it I have heard nothing but fantastic Word of Mouth which as you know is the best way to spread this stuff so I mean more power to you I hope you figure out how to keep this thing growing and moving and and all the school districts that I work around and with I you know give me a card I'll send it around so thank you thank you thank you thank you so much thank you everyone thank you guys so I got so excited about giving all the Su getting all the good stuff that Raquel reminded me that I skipped items to be removed or addended from the agenda so Tom are there any items to remove or add to
014the agenda not at this time well that was unexciting so thank you all right so public comments and we do have people signed up today so uh welcome to the meeting of the Board of Education if anyone wishes to address the board this evening please see our recording secretary and to submit a form for addressing the board please put your full name and address on the form in general the board will not answer question questions or engage in dialogue during public comment this does not mean we do not take your concerns or comments seriously the board values active Community participation in District Endeavors and encourages people to engage with the district using the appropriate channels and systems designed with your input in mind board members are not involved in the day-to-day operations of district and
015cannot engage in District business individually if you have a specific question or would like to further engage with the district you may submit your questions using the link on the website and an appropriate staff member will communicate with you you our BPS 101 Communications manager Holly dman will now explain the procedures for public comment and call up the speeches Hol thank you president Meadows uh speakers will be called up in order of form submission the first form received is the first person invited to speak when your name is called please come to the podium so that you can be heard all individual speaking will be limited to three minutes I will be putting a timer up on the screen so you can see for yourself where you are at in your limit anytime during this
016meeting written comments may be submitted to our recording secretary Cindy Rodriguez at my right there is a large crowd this evening we have 18 forms that have been submitted if all three if everyone takes their three minutes plus time to transition between each person we will go over our 45 minute public comment Max so our suggestion speakers that concur with past speakers are encouraged to State this for the record without taking any additional time to ensure the maximum number of speakers in the 45 minutes if the period of public comment ends before your turn to speak you can submit your comments and writing and they will be included in the meeting minutes speakers should conduct themselves with Civility and respect towards others our first speaker is Sarah Barrett [Applause] good evening my name is Sarah
017Barrett I am a bavia Community member a bavia High School parent a bavia public school teacher and a proud member of the bavia Education Association today I here with my fellow Bea colleagues to show our appreciation to the administration and board's recent recommitment to Transforming Our educational environment by addressing immediate concerns and building a foundation for sustained Improvement and Trust the 2324 school year was all about the new new members to the school board a new superintendent and new contracts for us teachers much of this was and is welcome change in BPS 101 now I'm the first to admit that teachers can be difficult at times when it comes to change we love our seasonal bulletin boards and we have our favorite read alouds but occasionally we are able to see the important impact change
018can have and we not only welcome it we embrace it and then there are moments where we no not only want to change We crave it coming into this school year the desire for change was strong we as Educators recognize that staying stagnant is not in the best interest of our students we wanted to see shifts in many of the processes in our district to align more to the needs of our kids but I won't lie as the year progressed the feeling of same old Sam old crep back into perception and conversation in retrospect as we find ourselves at the close of the 2324 school year we see that this year was needed as time for our new leaders to learn and experience what it means to be part of BPS with that said the
019thirst for change has been and is very real we the teachers have faced mounting professional responsibilities unrealistic goals increased struggles with life worth balance and decreased morale we we have felt left out and left behind on decisions made in the name of student growth and achievement we have been disillusioned by unfulfilled promises and unclear communication we have not had our voices heard or our concerns recognized however with this Administration and board's renewed commitment to addressing these and other issues we feel that it is possible to leave these struggles in the past and set our sights on a positive future as we leave this school year behind and shift our Focus to the 24 25 year we look forward to working with the administration and the board in the name of change we look forward to
020working together to not only rebuild but improve the foundation of trust amongst District stakeholders we look forward to taking time for honest conversations true collaboration and creating the educational environment we all envision and want for the students of bavia we are here and we are here to work with you thank you our next our next speaker is Scott [Applause] bear like I walk slow hi my name is Scott beer for those of you guys that uh don't know me I'm a social studies teacher at the high school and I'm going into my 20th year atav Public Schools normally you see me up here talking about uh wrestling uh but today um just a little actually probably a little background on me I uh served on a negotiation team um I've been a building rep for
021the past several years and tomorrow I'll be uh reading names of our graduates on stage uh I've uh lived in bavia for the past 12 years my wife and I moved here because there's a palpable sense of community um uh I relish living in the community I teach in uh and I as a teacher and Coach I believe that teaching and coaching is something not only that I do but things I try to live out all the time uh this district is very important to me uh and that's why I'm here tonight and I think that we're at a very important Crossroads uh first it's my perspective and I uh believe that it's mutually held that we as a district have not always lived up uh to building and sustaining uh a culture of one
022mutual trust uh and two collab decision making it's also my perspective that we've arrived at this Crossroads uh and that is a serious recommitment to building trust and collaboration in large part because of the advocacy of our Bea leadership uh so to our outgoing uh ba president Todd you are an exemplary teacher your students tell me all the time um you're a great listener you're one of the most empathetic people that I've ever known uh and you are a Relentless Advocate uh for students and for teachers um I you push everyone around you to be better um uh to your successor my good friend and brother uh Drew Ray uh I think you'd acknowledge that you have big shoes to fill uh but I know that you'll fill them and to the room I want
023everyone to know that uh Drew uh is one of the most committed uh to students to his fellow colleagues uh to the district and to the communities I give him my greatest congratulations so uh I I see as that an opportunity here uh one uh I having renewed leadership on the baa side side uh I feel that we have a very engaged School Board uh and I've personally seen meaningful and good faith cooperation across the negotiation table when I served there and I know that uh you know the the good faith visit that Tom uh Kim made to our exec board in the fall uh where he listened to us for a long time and I I think um heard a lot of our concerns and so uh these are all great things but I
024think we know we have lots of work to do uh and it's imperative that we actually do it um this past week at exec board I listened to my sisters and brothers in our elementary schools talk about uh teachers in their buildings being apprehensive maybe fearful of speaking at uh in a venue like this or showing up to a venue like this and I think we all know that our students are best served in environment where teachers aren't fearful they know that on big decisions their voices will have been heard uh and they feel empowered and lifted up uh in their important work uh when they and when they know that they're on the same team uh as building and central office leadership so our kids are counting on this counting on us to get
025this right uh and I look forward to the work ahead thank you Scott our next speaker is Justin Allison [Applause] distinguished members of the board superintendent Kim our ba president ton Swanson I want to thank you for your leadership and for teach me way back in the fifth grade to our next president Drew Ray congratulations and your experience will help lead the Bea and our students and lastly to the bavia community my name is Justin Allison I'm a proud product of bavia public schools I'm an Alum of JB Nelson BHS class of 2003 I'm what you call a lifer or for lifer my wife and I reside in town um this is my finishing up my 16th year here and um I've had many uh influential Educators and supporters in this great town that have
026given to me and I knew way back in elementary school this is the path that I wanted to take to be an educator and give back to this great Community our great Community what makes it great is the Deep Roots within the fabric of American history one of intolerance to hate one of inclusivity and one of true collaboration throughout my career I've worn many hats I've been a building sub a certified history teacher a special education teacher and currently an ESL teacher and a uh Bea rep I'm also finished uh just this past weekend the 12th season as a head coach for girls track and field with that context and as a student of History I feel the moment to be an advocate for our members and our students is now fulfilling these duties requires
027a strong culture of togetherness and continuous commitment to work together and effectively benefit all of our students and our student athletes as a collective we're here tonight in good faith to support the recommitment and implementation of the identified actionable steps as a lifelong deep rooted Batavian the time for talk has long passed we stand here tonight in a display of solidarity to say and implement the words of Dr King put thin paper to thick action and together it can be achieved thank you all next speaker is eileene Sullivan good evening I'm Eileen I'm in my 38th year in education my second year here in the district and seventh as a pair of professional I have a bachelor's degree and two masters and some I began for doctorate I have been a teacher a coach an
028athletic director a director of academic studies assistant principal and a principal Care Professionals are not compensated for experience nor for any degrees pair of professionals are not paid when we do not work in accordance with the school calendar I got a 32 cent raise last year I got a $60 increase in my rent it takes me two and a half weeks at 32 cents an hour to pay that $60 increase I do not cost bavia School District $83,000 a year District pa pa of professionals earn roughly 20,000 per year that's barely above poverty it's baffling that district is willing to pay an outside agency $83,000 per pair professional yet refuses to remedy the PA of shortage through a more cost effective means through a pay increase for our district PA professionals 10 BPS Paras cost
029$200,000 versus 830,000 for 10 projected Agency paas for the next year meeting our students needs and ret retention of qualified committed Paras should be our priority not simply putting Warm Bodies into our classrooms who may or may not know what to do the consequences of our Outsourcing of Paris have been tried and failed this school year it increases the possibility of not meeting our students required accommodations District administrators and this school board I encourage you to be leaders in this area where par professionals are paid their worth and we attract we keep qualified Personnel not short change our students nor our faculty we've lost talented men and women because of the poverty level pay in closing I and some other Paras asked that if a proposal to spend this exorbitant amount of taxpayer money for
030outsourcing of PA professionals comes before you that you hold and make the decision after reviewing pros and cons and the full dollar impact of pay raises versus Outsourcing of par positions shown side by side openly transparently at a board meeting thank you in order to be informed and for us to be unified as one thank you Eileen thank you very much our next speaker is moli [Applause] jersa hi my name is Molly jersa and I will be a sophomore at bavia high school since seventh grade I have used my voice through emails and presentations to help our schools change I'm here to speak about the new strategic plan that maybe will be voted on tonight last Friday May 17th a student used eyeliner to write the n-word on a brick in our Auditorium this traumatic
031experience for students was swept under the rug no email was sent about the incident no support was offered to the students who witnessed it nothing was said many students including my seventh grade brother have experienced harmful actions in the halls and classrooms and on buses on a daily basis they hear slurs that affect their academic performance self-confidence and future their voices are not heard instead they are met with silence which adds trauma for them it makes me distraught to see my brother and other students daily come to a space where they have no sense of safety or belonging their traumatic experiences are being concealed as students we are asking for your help yet again we need your help with the bullying in our schools we need your help with the racism in our schools we
032need your help with the homophobia and transphobia in our schools we need your help to create a place where all students belong the current strategic plan is not specific enough to fulfill these goals and it does not contain prioritized measurement goals or the means of achieving them the Strategic plan does not hold any timelines which leads to no accountability it is crucial that metrics are clearly defined regarding timelines and goal expectations we need to hold those who are resistant to the necessary changes accountable why are we rushing something that determines the future of students there should be time for collaboration problem solving and criticism we should not have one person deciding the future of our students instead decision need to be made by a diverse committee according to our vision statement our graduate should be
033curious resilient empathetic and proactive but the Strategic plan proposed shows no support on how to achieve the this goal the plan is not specific enough for those students who need the most help we know AP students have enough academic help and we know they can Excel what about students who are over identified for special ed services what about the El students who don't Excel as fast as other students training should be given to student teachers so they can assist students in a timelier and more effective manner while also better understanding the perspective of their students my message is one coming from someone that has to deal with the trauma at school every single day we need actionable steps measurable outcomes and a timeline that holds everyone accountable for creating a district where every Bulldog feels
034valued and respected I resilient from the trauma the school district has allowed me to experience I'm empathetic to those students who are experiencing what I have I'm being proactive right now to speak up for those students who can't or won't you won't know what I have gone through until you walked in my shoes being told what I am told and being treated how I am treated you will never feel my pain when I am discriminated against but I want you to know who it has made me become it is the responsibility of the administration and board to make sure I feel welcomed at school it shouldn't be my role as a 15-year-old to carry this daily burden that is your responsibility to fix [Music] our next speaker is Chris [Applause] low good evening board I'm
035Chris low former School Board member tonight I'm here to address the proposed strategic plan for our district I changed my mind on what to say after reading in the paper about the Bea's discontent they are here to address the same issues we tried to address to years ago then we decided to recommit to a new era of collaboration after realizing we weren't being very collaborative there was little accountability in that agreement because here we are two years later talking about the same issues involving the same people in the same committees and I'm guessing we're attempting the same solution perhaps I'm the only one who notices this but there appears to be a pattern to the board's Behavior a problem arises we pretend we're shocked and saddened such a problem exists we say the right words
036and claim the right values we promise to collaborate with those who we acknowledge are being harmed and then Implement Solutions without accountability or deadlines with the same lack of results I hope the lack of progress is due to a fear of change and not intentional because our children are enduring the same pain at the end of the day it is the children on the fringes that suffer they've been coming to the board for years and have yet to see progress that positively impacts their lives I'm confident you'll hear some of those stories tonight I encourage you to track down the sto students who have spoken in the past and ask them if their lives have improved this plan is expected to last at least 5 years if if the current strategic plan is any indication
037it will last much longer in the proposed plan the mission state statement lacks purpose the vision is written as if it were already accomplished and we have a list of strategies and key metrics without Clarity of whether they are suggestions or requirements we don't know how these will be prioritized when compared to the old plan there is no more accountability than last time thus no reason to believe the outcomes will change I've been told the details will be worked on after the plan is passed and that calling it a plan is a misnomer because it's more of a vision what is different about this plan that will require the board Administration and staff to act differently what power will this plan give to the voices currently going unheard if 6 months a year two years
038from now the data hasn't moved how will this plan advocate for those being harmed words mean nothing if not backed up by actions if we're committed to making change we need to do so in writing so the community our staff and children can hold you accountable specific metrics for judging success might not be appropriate in a strategic plan but linking to current data for each reporting period is the board should create and identify metrics for the first reporting period and include them when passing the plan updating them by ually on set dates these metrics and reviews should be should be required and are critical for success and necessary for accountability this has been a collaborative process started almost a year ago many people have put their time and effort to make their concerns known we
039hint at those concerns in this plan I encourage the board to reach out to stakeholders especially those by harmed by current systems and finish the work they have begun thank you for your time our next speaker is Kathleen [Applause] Meeks good evening superintendent Kim and BPS board members my name is Kathleen Meeks I've been a resident bavia for the past 13 years I'm a fellow public school teacher my husband teaches in the district and we have two children in the district um thank you again for your time and consideration um in addition to being here in solidarity with my fellow IA members and Par of professionals and brave students willing to speak tonight I wrote to you a few weeks ago about something specific in concern to consolidation of class sizes at some of our
040elementary schools that will be happening potentially next year um anecdotally we know the importance of small class sizes but again according to so much research especially recommendations to the Illinois State Board of Education um average class sizes in our state are well above the national means so this means we need to work together maintain smaller class sizes in our local districts in regards to standardized test score improvements evidence from research finds students from low soci and economic backgrounds and students of color benefit even more from being assigned to small class sizes and the overall population and these gains are not just confined to better test scores but small class sizes are also predictive of positive student outcomes for all students later in life related to graduation rates increased rat of college enrollment College quality College
041completion savings Behavior home ownership to name a few in summary small class sizes at the elementary level are the most predictive in the elementary years as a baseline standard of equity to best meet the needs of all students specifically in regards to HC Storm I'm learning which has some of the most diverse needs in the district and also some of the highest opportunity gaps I'm encouraged that Equity is being prioritized in this District as a way to best meet the varing needs of all students class size is something tangible that can be prioritized right now in that vein I want to reiterate that although I'm outlining specific reasons to First focus on small class siiz at HD storm I'm advocating for small class siiz at elementary schools in the entire District formulas used to make
042class sizes the same size at every elementary school should be a baseline to work from but it should not dictate policy and a response of complex influencing factors is not transparent or sufficient enough real systemic change means learning more about what leads to better outcomes for all student populations and prioritizing the areas of highest need first I encourage the board and other community members to scrutinize this data more specifically the Illinois school report card and push for small class sizes as our goal at all elementary schools and especially hope to see this maintained at HC Storm for the reasons I just stated thank you again for your time your consideration um thank you um to the board for your additional unpaid labor the service requires and thank you for your time our next speaker is
043Martin burn good evening and um let me first say that while I'm not wearing red tonight um I do want all of the Bea members to know that they have my full support and solidarity and great appreciation as well um I want to Echo everything thank you I want to Echo everything that's been said tonight I'm speaking to you tonight to ask that you do not approve the proposed strategic plan in its current format this is a big decision that should not be rushed one of the values listed in this draft plan is integrity the draft explains that this means that the district is quote committed to maintaining honesty and transparency in actions and decisions there is strong evidence that the use of AI was significant in drafting his proposed plan if this indeed is
044the case the district must be honest and transparent about it what prps were used and to generate what content the district did not need to rely on artificial intelligence to do this you had a detailed and lengthy feedback process from our stakeholders what message does it send to these stakeholders who share their important experiences perspectives and ideas as part of this process that AI appears to have played such a large role in crafting this plan AI can put something together that is lots of educational jargon and sounds good but it cannot provide a detailed and effective Strate strategic plan for bavia public schools GPT does not know our schools better than our own stakeholders please be honest transparent and specific about the role that AI played in creating this draft furthermore this proposal is simply
045not a sufficient plan to deal with the challenges we are facing students continue to endure hate motivated incidents at school slurs are common place in this District students of color remain overidentified for discipline and underperform academically according to our own data these problems are not getting any better our schools are not getting any safer it does dawn on me that the last time a board meeting was not held at the rjac was almost 2 years ago to this day when it was held at the Rolo cafeteria due to a larger than usual audience which assembled because of these same problems this time tomorrow I will be graduating from this District I will see most of you and and many others in this room there we will be celebrating the great things about this District we
046will be celebrating the good times but any celebration of these things we like tomorrow night is incomplete without a proper examination of the things we don't like tonight A Metric listed to Foster inclusion and belonging is safety and bullying incident rates I have a lot of questions about what this means but let me tell you that these rates will not begin to show you the problems when students experience safety and bullying incidents they don't report them why because when they do the trauma will continue I've expressed specific concerns about this to Administration I've been listened to I was told what I wanted to hear but I haven't seen or felt anything actually done to solve the problem to ensure that these bad things that keep happening stop happening we're not going to solve any problems
047by wishful thinking I ask board members to ask questions and do not accept vague answers this plan is nothing but a rubber St for more of the same I hardly believe this plan truly reflects the experiences and ideas that were shared in during the feedback process and if it does I know a much different District than you do thank you thank you Martin our next speaker is Frank [Applause] kmack hi good evening uh my name is Frank cosmac uh stole my opening line sorry for not wearing red uh for all the teachers of this great District um I am a one-year resident of bavia and could not be happier the school's been amazing the community's been amazing no complaints at all but I do have a growing concern over the potential class sizes and the
048increases throughout the district as a child of two retired Public School teachers with over 80 years of experience I can attest to the home strain that is put on to teachers families when class sizes are increased I can also attest as a student of a large class size of having that feeling of being left out as a parent I don't want that for my kids I don't want them to experience the need and the sorrow of feeling unincluded because the class size is too large what is the perfect class size there are so many great organizations that recommend the ideal class size for elementary schools I highly recommend we listen to them iea Nea recommend the ideal class size for our elementary schools sorry I'm not very good at public speaking um I failed that
049in high school and [Applause] college um I also implore you all to remember why you took these positions I'd like to remind you of your kids that went through these schools are at these schools now and what would you want for them I know what I want I know what my neighbors want and then I also need to implore how critical it is for small class sizes to help build a sturdy and strong foundation for our community I think bavia is great I regret not moving here sooner because of how great this community is we need you guys to please work with the community with the teachers to maintain small class sizes throughout the district and I also have one last question for you all if you truly believe that bavia is the Greatest Town
050shouldn't we step up to it shouldn't we prove it thank you very much for your time and have a great night our next speaker is Katie sueki hello my name is Katie siki I'm a parent to children at two bavia schools and I'm a co-leader of a weekly dropin for Fox Valley lgbtq middle and high schoolers including many batavians I'm curious how the Strategic plan is all you've come up with since I attended my first Pavia school board meeting in January 2022 at that meeting a bunch of children told horrifying stories of being harassed and bullied for having black or brown skin being gay or non-binary and for daring to be something besides a straight white athlete they said the adults they reported these incidents to took no action repeatedly until they just gave up
051reporting many of you were at that meeting and you committed to learning and doing all you could to examine and change the culture in bavia schools I want to believe that you spent this past 2 and a half years doing more than the Strategic plan suggests you did that you've attended conferences on youth mental health that you joined cohorts and collaborated with folks with diverse lived experiences and backgrounds who could teach you about being other in a town that is 85% white and upper class I want to believe you read books took classes got certifications and did whatever else you could to learn about the culture of bullying that's been fostered by the adults here and how to stop it I hope you went to St Charles in Geneva where the youth I work with
052report better school experiences and asked their boards what they're doing I hope you're about to share all the knowledge you've amassed with parents teachers admins custodians so we can build and support this bavia school system you're strategically planning for knowledgeably and together I want to believe this plan was written by you thoughtfully and that you understand the concepts you outlined on a personal level I want to believe this plan marks a beginning where don't listen to bavia kids each Tuesday Express hopelessness about being bullied while adults look the other way that the adults in this District let them down so often they sometimes have to leave school or Worse hurt themselves I want to believe this is the last time kids need to share and relive the abuse they endure desperate for you to understand
053and care we need to see Swift and clear action and results from this plan it will not be successful if you haven't spent this time learning outside of yourselves about bullying and white supremacy culture don't make this another example of adults in the bavia school system looking the other way when something felt uncomfortable or they didn't understand it thank you our next speaker is Jared sueki [Applause] hi my name is Jared siki I'm a resident of bavia I'm also a former vice president of a school board the Atwood Heights district 125 and I'm grateful to say that in my six years on that board I never once put a student in a position to have to come before my board and beg for help um because they were being unsupported in the six years I
054never once had to experience that and tonight we've experienced it twice and I don't think it's even been the first time that that's happened that wasn't in my notes it was just something that I was thinking about as I was sitting there um so the Strategic plan has specific outlines and goals regarding diversity and inclusion I wanted to just emphasize that your decisions have an impact on decisions made by other government entities some of which can be inconsistent with your own strategic plan halty is an organization proposing a development near HC Storm which will have costs above average home costs and in P P's own words will add diversity to bavia by drawing affluent individuals which I don't think is in line with the what we hope when we talk about diversity in bavia a
055letter from this board read as a glowing endorsement and used by py representatives to get that proposal approved the letter from Agents of this board helped get that approved which I'm told is inconsistent with what was asked of Agents of this board it was as I understand it only asked to agree that there would be an interest in taking cash for the development and not explicitly endorsing the development but PTY certainly used that letter and emphasize this board's love of the plan in order to get that passed please understand that you have an impact on other government agencies and use your influence to support all students and the points of the Strategic plan that requires support from entities outside these walls like developing an inclusive and diverse culture here at BHS as well as in
056bavia as a whole trust is earned where actions meet words and from what I've experienced over the last two year years we have words down pretty well and I think we need to work a little bit more on actions and those together will rebuild trust that seems like a lot of people are saying has been lacking um I also just happened to pick this shirt this morning but once I heard that it supported the teachers I just I just rolled with it and I actually changed my shorts too so our next speaker is Caleb [Applause] Anderson hello my name is KB Anderson I am the co-chairperson for belong Fox Valley we are a local nonprofit committed to creating safe and affirming spaces for lgbtq folks and allies to gather and create Community I host the
057weekly drop Center um that actually has several members of the um bavia several Pavia students which is why I'm here to advocate for them on their behalf please know that I'm not here to complain and point fingers directly because I don't know all the specifics these wonderful teachers back here can help you with that but I can say that accountability is important and we need to listen to our youth and I want to make sure that I can provide a vital role in helping this community create respect for the Youth all Youth and diverse communities but especially with lgbtq youth because that's directly what I what I work with so I'm here to offer some insight and suggestions on how the district can support the teachers and staff and the students that being said accountability
058like I said is extremely important and I do believe that adults should be held accountable for not supporting youth youth um when they are being bullied and need additional support some of the information that they have shared with me physical bullying being threatened by other students in public and private spaces like the bathroom verbally assaulted and misgendered stalked and Cyber Bullied by their fellow students they've been told by teachers that they're overreacting and everybody just needs to be able to get along they felt unsupported by adults and don't believe that telling an adult would make a difference some students have had folks throw food at them during the Lunch Period they say that they don't have a teacher they can trust and some have even changed schools for me personally the most disturbing thing that
059they have told me is how frequently other students tell them they should go kill themselves multiple times by multiple students so I'd like to share some information from the Trevor Project the Trevor Project is a leading Suicide Prevention nonprofit the lgbtq youth in the United States they conduct a survey every single year from the youth and I'd like to share a couple of those statistics in 2023 the youth shared 39% of the time youth considered attempting Su suicide lgbtq youth specifically 46% of those individuals were non-binary and trans more than one in 10 youth have attempted suicide in the lgbtq community 49% of Youth ages 13 to 17 experience bullying increasing higher rates of suicide some of the experiences that they have in have shared from their schools 32% have been verbally abused 21% have
060not been allowed to dress in affirming clothing 11% of disciplined students 11% of students were disciplined for taking action against their bullies our youth have access to more information communication and forms than they ever have thank you Caleb okay thank you our next speaker is Gabriel Caputo hi thank you my name is Gabrielle Caputo I am a parent and Community member for 10 years in the bavia community I came here tonight wanting hope but have found myself a little bit discouraged hearing some of the stories from these amazing kids and teachers and of issues going unaddressed I'm here tonight my primary focus was my concern around the poor academic performance especially in the elementary schools and wanting to know what was going to be different what was the school going to do to improve the
061performance I'm not so encouraged after hearing from people who have been in this community addressing the board without action here are a few numbers I'd like to share with you US News and World reports ranks I'm going to speak to my specific school hooverwood at 303 out of 600 schools 58% of the kids in that school are not at the state reading levels if you go to the report card it's a little bit better 50.9% of the kids aren't achieving State uh proficiency levels 103-4 Z2 Public Act aimed at literacy amends the Illinois skill code noting students who are not proficient readers in third grade are four times more likely not to finish high school if those students are from low-income families they are more than six times likely not to finish high school that's
062alarming I also in my preparation for this evening looked up the Illinois school code 105 section 34-1 a65 door security locking it is in this code I did not find any anywhere where it is acceptable to allow an elementary school to prop their front doors open with milk rates yet that behavior has been allowed for more than a year going unaddressed when I asked the leadership about the incident the response was my responsibility for the school ends at 3:30 I find that wildly unconscionable to have a leader of a school making that type of statement what does that say about the leadership how could I expect anything better from that school with that type of leader I've asked the teachers what will be different next year I've asked the principal I've asked the um the
063district's Chief academic officer I understand that you can't answer questions tonight but I'm hoping that somebody gets back to me to tell me what will be actionable the Strategic plan our objectives they are not it is not a plan and I do not see anything that will be actionable next year so I beg of you to share with us what are we going to do today to help the kids today improve that performance not years from now thank you our next speaker is Renee Craig [Applause] hi my name is Renee Craig I have two daughters attending storm one is finishing third grade first grade one is finishing third grade this was our first year in this District I would like to add our family's voice to those exper expressing concern regarding the proposed class size
064increase for second grade next year from what I understand class size will go up from around 17 students per teacher to about 23 students or more per teacher that's at least five more kids for one person to teach five more Minds five more sets of behaviors five more sets of diverse needs we moved here not even one year ago exactly because of Storm's ability to support a d diverse group of learning needs we did not accidentally land at storm either we toured schools before we looked at houses our children were underserved in our previous district and there is no doubt that that large class size was a contributing factor I volunteered in the classrooms weekly in that district and saw it happening HC Storm was a particularly desirable school because of its small class sizes
065this year both daughters have thrived at stor stor I have never been able to say that before moving was a big risk and we could not be more happy with the outcome storm has some very special things going on skillful caring teachers supportive parents a great PTO and small class sizes the community of teachers parents and administrators are all fully engaged everyone wants the same thing to educate the kids as someone who has seen both sides of a school system working and not working I cannot believe removal of support for something that's so clearly effective is even being considered especially after the transformation I have witnessed in my own kids in just 10 months you fail everyone when you increase classroom ratios and teachers especially they are your primary resource they need and deserve support
066even the best teachers have limits to how many students they can engage you can indeed stretch them too thin an overloaded classroom means that teachers cannot teach everyone it means not every student is learning up to their ability the situation starts to erode the valuable relationship built between teachers and their students and the erosion ripples out to parents and administrators regardless of the size of a student's needs my direct experience has unfortunately shined a bright light on what happens when there's too many students and not enough teacher energy you fail everyone let's not let this happen this community cares so much about education and so do I thank you our next speaker is Amy ER hi my name is Amy artt um I'm here to talk about the HC Storm second grade being condensed from
067three classes to two um I have two kids Logan who is currently a first grader and Madison who will be starting kindergarten in the fall having been around the current first grade group for two years seeing them in sports in the neighborhood at school events and on playdates I feel like I've come to know a lot of the kids really well this is a diverse group with a lot of different needs this is not a group to test class number limits with I've emailed Mr Mila and I'm aware that a lot of factors go into making these decisions knowing these factors I still deeply believe reducing to two classes would be a huge disservice to this specific group of kids I worry that the teachers will be in survival mode focusing on putting out the
068biggest fire while kids who are also quietly needing a little more fall through the cracks I know my own experience with my son Logan he came home every day from kindergarten with a behavior chart but now that he is in a smaller first grade class class Mrs Torgerson has been directly reaching out and creating Solutions and finding ways to empower Logan to make decisions that put him in a position to behave in an acceptable way he has grown Leaps and Bounds this year and these empowering learning moments have given him confidence and skills and have boosted his self-esteem I can't help but think his kindergarten Behavior plan may have been related to limited capacity to redirect in response to the teachers being stretched too thin the large class group left the teachers relying on this
069tool as a Band-Aid and I know a decent number of other kindergarteners who were given this same behavior plan it's a Band-Aid not a solution my husband and I supported the chart 100% And the teachers um we loved his second or his kindergarten teachers and we really um we spoke with them on a regular basis we're sad that our in incoming kindergartener won't have them we just have reservations about going back to these larger class sizes and feeling that the teachers are drowning and unsupported or at their wits end we have loved all the teachers we have come in contact with at HC Storm I know this is not an issue with the quality of the teachers one person can only do so much I don't even want to consider that this may really happen
070but if it inadvisably does I would love to hear a solid plan for additional support for the students and the teachers thank you our next speaker is our next speaker is Katie [Applause] Payne in the interest of time will Alexis Porter and Liz both stand closer to the podium so we can get through your comments please thank you thank you hi my name is Katie Payne I have four daughters in the district next year they'll be at the high school middle school and two at HC Storm I recognize some of you for my work on the core committee where we analyze the state of the school buildings I was happy to volunteer my time because it was on Zoom not so many people and because my daughter's handicapped and I wanted to ensure that the
071district is accessible for all students this is where I come to the number of students in these outdated classrooms the study found classrooms have high noise pollution harsh lighting and varying temperatures since the referendum didn't pass we can't change this environment um so let's think about what we can control the number of kids in this classroom my daughter Julia has a hard time getting around if she falls it usually leads to a concussion since she can't um she has no shoulder um motion um it becomes Danger for her not only my daughter but those with ADHD anxiety autism they're already kind of triggered by this environment that they are in um it will become harder as there is an increase in the number of fast moving obstacles I mean students in the class while we
072all agree it would be best to have the smallest amount of children in the class I would like to take it a step further and say having a large class would prohibit the accessibility of classrooms and make it so those with disabilities seen and unseen are not able to learn thank [Music] you our next speaker is Alexis [Applause] Porter hi I'm Alexis Porter uh I go to BHS um I'm also an older sister um my sister sister is 12 years old she's just started Middle School um and I would move the sun with my bare hands for this little girl um and watching her suffer on a daily basis because of not only being a bigger girl but um being black is I had to deal with it in middle school and watching her go
073through the same torture every day it just reminds me of the same torture that I went through um and she's told me that the bus driver knows this is going on and has done absolutely nothing about it not doing anything but also going for her so that's awesome but she's reported it a few times school's done nothing um we can't do anything me and my mother we just sit back and watch because of what can we do so just watching it's it's pure torture it's because as an older sister you want to do something so bad and you can't you what can I do somebody please tell me what can I do besides sit back and watch and lose my mind every day because I had to go through the same thing being bullied being
074called a every day every day not only that but we're dealing with it in this school too I mean a few days ago my friend was called a niggaer in the hallway what did they do nothing I'm amazed because what I've done this one time two years ago and the same thing is repeatedly happening over and over again so I'm begging y'all please do something because I can't keep sitting back and watching my sister go through the same thing that I went through there's no thank you our next speaker is Liz hi I'm uh I'm Liz Carlo um I'm a sixth grader at Rolo Middle School this is my first year um I want to talk about the bullying and racism that is going on at at the elementary schools specifically Target at fifth graders
075all throughout middle school and all throughout the high school um so being a young African-American female can be difficult especially when bul when bullying turns into racism on the bus being called names and targeted the bus the bus driver doesn't do anything about it he just tells the children to sit down he doesn't actually talk talk to them about it um the consequences for the action is not equal to the the trauma it causes a kid yelled at me calling me a really the really bad word for um multiple times and the consequence was one week suspension off the bus being called the N word may makes me feel like I'm worthless or not care about how I feel it has me it has mentally changed how I feel about about learning being at school
076and how I feel about myself I don't think I don't like writing the school bus and I don't feel comfortable these comments are these comments have not only changed me mentally but has made me feel less and less sorry less and less about myself causing me to have Suicidal Thoughts from time to time this has happened to my older sister before me and she has spoken multiple times and nobody has done anything about it except giving them a talking to or whatever have I've seen this multiple times happen to my friends too what they have to go through and just looking at that makes me feel like why can't we just why can't we just do anything about the bullying the racism the name calling so I'm asking you guys we need to do something
077to change this for the elementary school children from kindergarten to fifth grade going up to middle school going up to high school before they have to experience this themselves being up here speaking right now we need to figure out a way to change to change this before they have to go through the things that we that I had to go through the Suicidal Thoughts all that is not okay and has mentally changed a lot so what I'm asking you guys is just to change this fast before we have to deal with bigger problems that result into horrible actions that you can't turn back on thank you for your time have a wonderful evening [Music] president meows that concludes our public comment thank you very much appreciate everybody taking the time to come up and speak
078I'm sure some more will be talking about that at the end our next item is the consent agenda according to board policy we designate a portion of our agenda as consent agenda for those items that usually do not require extensive discussion before the board did I oh I jumped ahead all my notes are written I apologize BPS Partners so I I'd like to invite Todd Swanson up if he's hiding back there somewhere got all my yeah first off I would like to thank the students and the parents and the community members and our staff members that were brave enough to come and talk for some of them to come and talk again I know it's not an easy thing to do and I almost wish that every one of our board meetings was held here
079at the high school because our Jack was too small so more and more people could hear the messages that were shared tonight so I really appreciate everyone that came out to speak tonight uh today was a day when I certainly lived up to our district motto of always learning always growing I learned today firsthand the influence of the media it has the ability to empower and to Enlighten while also having the potential to sensationalize and divide in my final moments of addressing you as Bea president let me assure you that each and every one of the Bea members here tonight is not here to dwell on allegations of En eroding trust or unresolved issues with Administration that is old news just to make sure that there is no doubt the Bea is here as a
080unified organization to State publicly that we are committed to working with Administration and the board to help our district move forward together not simply acknowledging the issues of the past but creating A New Path built on the foundations of equal voice shared responsibility and authentic collaboration we are also committed to having open honest conversations when there are speed bumps in the road along the way because there certainly will be that is one part of the real news of this evening that I wanted to share with you as a board and then when I was getting my thoughts together I had another thing that popped into my mind and it was actually something from superintendent Tom Kim and I've only known Tom for a little more than a year now but he has instilled a quote
081in me that I will take with me every day as a leader and it's this quote as a leader you need to constantly look behind you to make sure you have people following you well I'm looking behind me right now I've got people following me so it is very clear that the Bea is behind this very message and I want to thank my Bea brothers and sisters for their unwavering support and Trust the other news that I wanted to share with you which is far greater than anything that has transpired today is my chance to officially announce to you that the next Bea president that will be working with you for many years to come is my esteemed colleague and Union brother Drew Ray now don't let his Youth and lack of gray hair fool
082you drew carries with him the skills of being deeply thoughtful and reflective along with being a compassionate listener he has a streak of healthy skep iism that doesn't allow him to jump to any premature decisions or conclusions striving to always have all the facts that he needs he has immersed himself into the leadership of the Bea over the last few years most recently as vice president and building rep at the high school there is no one that I would trust more to carry on the work that began during my six years as president of the Bea he is legit and the real deal and I am proud to be able to pass the Baton over to him and let him have his first board partner address with you so without further uh hesitation I give
083you our new Bea president Drew [Applause] Ray um before I thank Todd can we please give a round of applause for all the people that came up here to speak their truth tonight a social studies teacher that makes my heart full and I love to see it um Todd thanks for the kind words if there were a Bea Mount Rushmore Todd would be Lincoln Jefferson Washington and Teddy Todd is the very definition of what it means to be Union commitment tireless advocacy empathy for days and a strong conviction that public education is the Bedrock of our Democratic Republic Todd I don't think that our members will ever be able to truly convey our appreciation for your dedication leadership but no matter what please know that our Union is strong because you are strong our Union
084perseveres because you persevered and our Union is more united than it's ever been in the past 11 years that I've worked in this District because you were there for every single one of us for some of the most tumultuous times in our careers and I know that you will continue to be there for all of us as your role in the union and District shifts and on a more personal note Todd you've been a mentor a role model and most importantly a friend thank you for everything you've done for me and for everything that you've done for the Pavia Education Association I don't where you went Todd where'd you go there today I stand up here for the first time as the incoming president of the bavia Education Association as I've grown into my role
085in our Union over the past decade I've realized that this work is not just about my students at bavia high school or even my own children Davis Ray who will start kindergarten at HC Storm this fall and his little sister Leona Ray who will join him the following year this work is about all of our kids for the Bea and every other stakeholder in this District every kid is our kid thinking about this work through the lens of our kidss truly encompasses my view of our Union what an Educators Union does is support its members that they can support all kids so to the board of education and our District administration if it hasn't been made clear to you already tonight the Bea is ready to continue to do right by our kids your recommitment
086to working with the Bea is welcomed and a necessary step needed to finally address the trust transparency and communication issues in this district and as you all know you can't put students first if you put Educators last when we demand a seat at the table we are advocating for our kids when we expect the collaborative structures of this District to truly function collaboratively we are advocating for our kids when we expect the communal knowledge of our Educators to be used as a valuable asset in the decision-making process we are advocating for our kids when we demand that every square inch of this District be utilized to embrace all marginalized students we are advocating for our kids and we simply ask that you think about how the decisions made in this District might impact our classrooms
087we are advocating for our kids it's time that all of us move from just talk in the talk and finally start walking the walk moving forward together onward and upward onward and upward to everyone in this District my doors forever and always open in the name of supporting our kids and finally to my Bea family you are the reason why I'm so passionate about our profession and the reason why I moved my family here from The Early Childhood Center to Elementary up to Rolo and the High School I hear you and I see you our officer team and executive board hears you and sees you the students of bavia we hear you and we see you Bea I'd like to share a quote from the 2024 IA representative assembly that was held this past spring
088we had so many great speakers at this event and if I'm being totally honest I don't remember exactly who said this but I wrote it down as soon as I heard it and the sentiment has stayed with me ever since you are not the thermometer you are not the barometer you are the thermos at you change the temperature Bea have we done a lot of great work together this year absolutely is there still a lot of work to get done absolutely but that's the thing about our job the work never ends when all 423 of us stand together shoulder-to-shoulder when our voices are Amplified we can and will continue to advocate for all of our kids thank you for giving me the time to speak I look forward to working with all of you so
089that we can do right by the students of bavia Public School District good night and good luck thank you thank you drew welcome to the podium and look forward to working with you uh next is Kevin bman vice president of [Applause] Besa thank you excuse me let me adjust this thank you uh you know in the old vvill term following a swans and Ray tag team is truly a tough act to follow and yes I am old enough to remember vaudville you young people here are not so if that went over your heads it's okay I'm here tonight just to update you on some of the activities that Besa and its many members have up to in these last few weeks uh as we wrap up the school year the Executive Board of bespa has
090worked closely with the top administrators and our Jack to work on some of the issues facing and of concern to the par Professionals in the Early Childhood Program and uh helping to work out some concerns uh Staffing par professional positions with the district uh we met this afternoon I think we made some uh good prog ress but we'll continue to work on those collaborative efforts over the summer and into the next school year best for workers joined our our uh education Prof our partners in Bea at the dayong uh strategic plan Workshop April 26 we also worked with our Bea uh brothers and sisters and served as a vital part in supporting the recent map testing at RMS but and the math and Ela plac testing days at RMS Bea members served on the district's
091planning many planning committees including Insurance rack and the Strategic plan Committee in addition to their regular daily duties besta members also assisted with three track and field meets at the Rota middle school and the middle school Conference Track and Field meet May 10th at Pavia High School several actually many be besta members will also assist with the eth eth grade annual dinner dance which takes place Thursday night many besta members concluded another year serving as athletic coaches and sponsors of extracurricular clubs at the high school and middle school besta Personnel played an important role in the successful operation of the after school activity bus program that operated throughout the school and concluded its service May 10th at RMS the program provided safe and reliable transportation home to hundreds of RMS students who participated in After
092School athletics and of a variety of clubs and educational programs the Besa board working in close cooperation with Susan Thorson our IA Regional representative recently completed four listening sessions with our members in the various work categories our building secretaries our par professionals our maintenance personnel and our campus monitors Hillary Kennedy campus monitor at RMS was a finalist for the title of employee of the month at the middle school for the month of April and finally I'm happy to share with you the good news that it was recently announced by the school district that Tory prior a longtime campus monitor coach and besta member at the high school will be inducted into the Pavia High School Hall of Fame with a 2024 class of as District staff in duct E I will have much more to
093say about Mr prior in September following the official induction ceremony but I wanted to take a minute tonight just to share his good news with you tonight so thank you and have a good evening all right next is board liaison committee reports student oh student just whatney here student ambassadors thank you very much are you guys back there somewhere okay hey guys I was trying to skip things sorry no she told me I WR it down I need to learn to take notes on something else lower this mic there you go that's better hello everyone my name is Dre and I'm Zara and we're the student ambassadors and um as the school year is coming to the end and we wanted to highlight some few things that were happening this month um one event that
094happened was the incubator pitch night and as someone who participated and also attended I can tell you this was incredible and exciting um the amount of effort and skills that student put into their pitches was truly impressive and so congratulations to the winning teams um last week he also had a choir performance um This was um they also had an uh the end of the night with like um uh the end of the night by honoring the seniors which is also really important and we also had the amasty Jazz performance which showed a lot of talent and also dedication to our students all right we also had mock trial recently they had gone to the Cane County Courthouse to compete against other school uh personally I was a part of this as well and it
095was an awesome time learning how to be an attorney fortunately we were able to win as prosecution bring home an award and we had an amazing experience with that um along with that there's been some other activities graduation is tomorrow so we want to honor the seniors um looking up in the hallway there's actually a board of all the different colleges they're going to more than like a hundred different colleges across the country and even some abroad so that's an really exciting thing to mention and another exciting event was the meeting and celebration of Spanish Learners at the high school with their Virtual Reading buddies that are eel students at H storm elementary school so they kind of celebrated by playing games and activities so it's cool how they got to meet um some lots
096of sports accomplishments as well girls track and field uh recently went to State they had seven different events qualify for State five of those events placing at State um lots of broken school records and tons of hard work so a huge congrats to them boys and track and field is this weekend so stay tuned everyone and along with that we also had a fifth grade track meet that happened so so that was it's always really exciting have an annual event it's fun to see personally I competed in this when I was in fifth grade truly brought my passion for track and field now so they I think Al gson took the win for that and ultimate fby also had their first Duane Conference tournament winning their Spirit award U and also our girl soccer team
097made it to um uh Regin oh I can't forget pingpong Club they had their end of the year tournament so that's always exciting um lastly as student ambassadors and members of the steering committee we would like to voice some of our own concerns firstly we recognize the efforts being put into the incoming plan however to ensure progress is being made we wish to highlight the need for accountability and proof of it the need for strong and specific action items within the next phases and proof of collaboration with all stakeholders to create these goals and finally the need for utmost transparency with the community to Foster trust and truly ensure an effective plan with that being said we also wanted to encourage a message of unity and collaboration these Implement implementation will take efforts and action
098from all perspective from the board members teachers staff and students to make a real Difference by working together we can achieve our goals and create a positive impact in our school community and education thank you thank you thank you guys nice job this year I wasn't able to turn around V but you described it very well with your words and I know there was some technical issues so I apologize for that but thank you for all your work this year you guys did a fantastic job and um really elevated the stage so thank you uh next I guess our board liaison committee reports Sue do you have anything down at your end of the table sure I can just report that last like a week ago tonight um we gave out the um beefy scholarships
099uh at senior Awards night and it was very nice and all these seniors were awarded so it was very nice that's it okay uh yeah Equity committee uh had their last meeting um during that we had discussions around they had discussions around um culturally responsive uh communication so kind of speaking to the way different cultures May hold conversations notes of aggressive versus assertiveness um you know people speaking with different volumes and different inflections and just kind of how to um think about that when it comes to students in our schools um there was also some feedback that we got from students from uh having different uh committees uh reach out and ask questions so we were able to go over some of the concerns come up with a few uh ways that we can try
100to have immediate action and we did that was shared back with the students um so there was progress on that um I believe we will try to meet later in the summer Tom yeah yeah so we'll be also working with the Union on some of the because it's a a committee that was created through anou um at the last collective bargaining session so we already have a meeting on the calendar to talk about some structures and and just what this looks like moving forward so so just one of those examples that we are trying to work together in making sure that uh we meet the needs of everybody students and staff uh the insurance committee did meet on May 9th uh during that meeting assured Partners presented the financial tracker Uh current projections show that
101we could be looking at a significant deficit which will significantly impact renewal rates which could be as high as 15 to 177% for next year without significant interventions the committee was presented with some options to help control costs that would go into effect to next year's plan some of these changes include capping physical therapy and changes to glp1 drug coverage to align with other public SE sector employers as well as dental vision and life insurance renewals were discussed as well and I just want to say I've served on this committee for two years and I uh I appreciate the hard work that the committee did these are some really challenging environments we're facing on health insurance and I just appreciate all hard work that they it took to to do what's right for the district
102you all right so Rec met on 516 uh we went over the new food service which Josh will be presenting later tonight um we also went over the transportation um that was already approved in our April meeting and then we also went over the I'm sorry that was a March meeting and then we went over the cleaning service that was awarded in April um we also just reflected on our uh 2024 year and is kind of regrouped and said what did we like what did we not like what should we focus on for the next year um and we did go over some of the insurance stuff too but other than that that was really it thanks for Rob yes um so the curriculum committee met on April 25th unfortunately I was uh sick that
103that particular day so I wasn't there but the team did send me a couple of the highlights um I think they worked on getting the the um schedule and agenda and um all the details set up for the curriculum week meeting I believe it's called June 3rd through the 5th so I think many of the teachers will be involved in that um and then probably the other highlight is just the uh they work through some of the process for adding supplemental material um how that process works um supplemental material into the into the curriculum so um I think that's still ongoing um Brad did I miss anything no we got it thank you we have some action items on the stiping committee so I'll just wait for that okay discussion all right no problem anything
104else thank you all right thank you very much well since I read half of the consent agenda headline I will just say these items are generally recurring in routine and can be grouped together for efficiency um as they do not require extensive board discussion Steve would you like to would you please share the information regarding the consent agenda absolutely five .1 and 5.2 is the approval of our April 23rd uh 2023 regular meeting and close session meeting minutes 5.3 uh is our Personnel report 5.4 is our monthly payroll and bills 5.5 is the uh authorization to destroy close session recordings from October 25th 2022 uh 5.6 is accepting some donations uh thank you to Studio Office Depot and Aurora University for your generosity for several of our programs uh 5.7 is the appointment of our
105Auditors 5.8 is the approval of the Frontline education software subscriptions 5.9 is the approval of the school her Pro subscription 5.10 is the renewal of our Cisco Flex support 5.11 renewal of our Microsoft volume license agreement 5.12 renewal renewal of our power school support 5.13 renewal of Chromebook service contract 5.14 is the approval of meal price increase 5.15 approval of our stoploss insurance contract 5.16 is the approval of our contract extension with the insurance provider 5.17 are curriculum contracts 5.18 is our textbook on display 5.19 is our textbook approval and finally 5.20 is the approval of the consent agenda thank you sir anybody have any questions for Steve or anyone on it oh I just have a question so I'm just curious with all of the um the tech stuff like the front line the
106Tyler Technologies The Cisco Microsoft power school enrollment messenger um is that always annually or like can we ever do a multi-year on that longer walk today sir most of our contracts are yearly just because of how the cards fall when you renew uh we basically have multi-year agreements for a lot of these that are paid out annually as well so like power school is a good example F lock in the rates and then we pay those annually a lot of these work like that um some of them we also keep short on purpose so we can change our minds later if it doesn't work out we've had that happen with a few products that we've used in the past but most of the time these large ones like this are always happening every year and
107I always shop around to try to get the best rates and try to lock them in like that and then I just apologize if I missed it but it's Savvy is that an annual or is that multi-year so it it Savvy is who we get our Chromebooks through uhuh and that number is still fluctuating due to us going to the fouryear Cycles on our Chromebooks so that's still kind of plateauing to some point um we're adjusting this year it actually went down quite a bit because we're on our Cycles we already have two years already started so that's actually lowering that cost right now it will go up a little bit once we get to the fourth year but then we'll be kind of a plateau at that point that's covering like your accidental damage
108things like that with these Chrome books but that's basically when you buy them you get one year up front and then we start renewing as they come through to that cycle does that make sense yep fully does thank you sure thank sir thank you any other questions I had a question I was wondering if Dr new newerk could take a few minutes and talk about 5.18 and 5.19 and just for the community walk through how the textbook approval process works sure so those are anchor materials so the board policy describes how anchor materials are adopted and that is the board of education's prerogative for anchor materials there's two other types of uh resources within our classroom supplemental materials which are used by some and then responsive materials which uh teachers use to teach about things
109that are happening in our community uh in our environment and those are the there's different levels of responsibility so the board's responsibility is for these anchor materials that will be exposed to all students in a particular program particular grade level so a textbook is the primary resource in this case we're talking about um a primary resource for um an ILP class so we're putting that on display for a period of one month to gather public feedback about that and those are kept at our central office and then we've had a AP psychology textbook that's been on display we've not received any comments on that from the public but we do that so that the board knows if there's any feedback from the community about an anchor text that's going to be adopted thank you any
110other questions uh yes I'm I'm assuming Tony would speak to 5.15 um if not whoever would be I'm I'm really curious about the decrease in price since that doesn't happen too often I'm wondering what occurred I'll let Josh Buck refer to that one sorry Josh add time okay so every year our insurance broker goes out to the market and does an RFP looking for the pricing they use our members like our data on our members so as our population changes as we have different fluxes in our who we ensure that's a component of that they also look at how much we utilize stop loss if we're utilizing it frequently the rates go higher if we're not using it they go lower so that was a good day when I saw that number so so there's
111no reduction in any services that are no no not at all thanks thanks Josh yep thanks SJ good question anyone else okay hearing none I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda for all items so so moved by Raquel second by oh Sue I think Cindy will you please lead us in a roll call Vote Yes yes thas yes yes yes thank you very much Tom is there anything to share this even under reports um the foyer reports are presented as noted in the board book and then as treasur report goes Tony anything unusual nothing unusual would not okay thank you all right we move on to action item 7.1 approval of recommendations from stien committee Steve I believe this is yours as well yes but I also have a special guest here
112tonight Shelby gages uh one of the co-chair along with myself of stiping committee we're going to step up to the podium here and get going all right hello Board of Education thank you for taking the time to listen to our update on stiping committee first we just kind of wanted to talk about our work this year because actually this is my first Year's co-chair um I should maybe start with my name Shel GES I'm from the high school um I teach PE I'm also the activity director here so I'm serving as co-chair on the stiping committee and this is my second year my first year as co-chair um our work this year has been really powerful because we looked at a timeline that gave us a really good scope of the year and it led
113our work so we decided okay this is what we're going to do in August September October November and then we communicated it to our um community and then we use that going forward and it sets our meeting agendas and really gives us a goal towards our work so it's been really awesome to actually put it in place from creating it last year and now to this year yeah um first of all I want to say Shelby's been fantastic and uh shout out to the Bea uh contract bargaining that we had with the Board of Ed uh last year where we added co-chairs because I think I saw Jake WTH who's also a co-chair with me on joint committee having a co-chair has been awesome and I'm very appreciative uh with that um you know we
114we uh we did a lot of our work and uh I think I shared last month when we did our update uh that we had uh like 29 requests costing about $110,000 and we had $10,000 to spend and we uh we did our best to uh honor as many requests as possible that made sense that kind of uh uh flowed through the uh some of our core values that we developed a few years back and we were able to uh uh support 13 requests and uh stay within budget um but then we uh kind of Came Upon three stiens that we really wanted to honor and that's why we're bringing those um to you tonight and we'll we'll uh speak a little bit about those um and then certainly if you have questions at the
115end uh Shelby and I would be more than happy to uh answer those uh I'm just going to speak to the first one um you can see what it is it's the Elementary uh mentoring stiens I saw uh Kleen putton over here I know she has been involved in that over the years and uh we both of you have okay thank you very much good thanks Megan um and and and how that works just to give you some background is we actually uh uh have high school students who uh come come out to all of our elementary schools and and mentor and support um our different elementary students uh in the past that budget has been picked up um I I don't know if it's been varied over the years but most recently uh we've
116been using some uh cni money uh I don't know was it Sr funds I'm not exact SRA funds which is now dried up and uh we believe in this program and the impact it has uh at our elementary schools along with bringing back our high school students um to the elementary schools and and we felt like it needed to be support obviously the total cost of it is about what our cap is on an annual basis so uh that was very difficult for us to fund but that's one the first one that we believed was uh worth bringing to you for approval all right the second one is for Esports and I've actually personally been working on Esports for many years um it's been an emerging sport within the ihsa and that falls under the
117branch of activities and in the conference we've been talking about as a duaine conference for many years like we have to bring on Esports so we would have been well this year we actually were the only school that did not have an Esports team so I worked to get two sponsors and I actually found two gentlemen awesome sponsors that have already hit the ground running this year and are doing the work to get our club and team started in Esports the kids are excited these are students that are not in other activities that can go to Esports and again choose a club or a team and so we're asking you to fund the cost total of 5130 um our third stip in that we're asking for today is fine arts director this would be one
118stien and this individual has been currently doing the job for many many years they oversee all Fine Arts sponsors and teachers and This falls in the careers of art media Graphics design music I mean it's endless and so the work that he does is with accounts budgeting calendars fundraising and again just helping support those teachers and sponsors in these roles it is a Non-Stop job that happens all the time and both of these um again would go over our budget for that total of $10,000 so we thought it was important that we come to you today to ask for these three stiping requests and we have all the totals up there for you to see and um we went to cabinet with us first and then that's how we got here today so thank you
119for considering these requests any question questions thank you I just have a question I'm just curious the Esports is there a set game that they always play or does it change like with per tournament or yeah so it kind of is what your school does but then Esports has many different games that they can do um many of the video games if you're just not very aware of the um Esports world have a mature rating we are staying away from those at this time and so we are figuring out Seasons with within Esports and certain games that like fall in that season then it could be like a 5we season six week season 8we season and that's a game that you play For That season um I recently learned we've traveled to weaton North to
120see their facility and learn about how to get this started because their program there is a two-year thing and it's phenomenal um they told us that the different games are akin to different sports so where like soccer may not speak to you and basketball does Super mar Mario might speak to you or Donkey Kong might speak to you so that helped me kind of vision that but it kind of goes in different seasons based on the IHS EA Esports timeline and then how many students are interested in this right now oh gosh so far this year we've had 40 I mean you walk in this room and it's packed full of students and it's really exciting so across all four grade levels or yes across all four grade grade levels um when you actually compete
121then it just depends on what the game is and if you compete in teams of five or multiple teams of five thank you just want to say one more thing about Esports shout out to Dave for helping support some of that work I know behind the scenes he's been looking into that and supporting and the other reality with this is this is as Shelby shared this is an emerging Sport and as you increase uh there's other costs that come along with it I know that these guys have been researching so there may be a day in the future if this this continues to grow that we may be coming back to you with more requests so just a fair warning I have a comment on the uh Elementary mentoring program my daughter lilan who's a
122fifth grader has been uh benefited from that program and I also have a dear friend whose daughter participated he's actually my daughter's named lilan his daughter's named lean and she was the mentor for my daughter and so I've seen it on both ends the impact it's had on both girls um has really been magnificent and to have the older kids come back to a grade school and provide that mentoring has it's been a reciprocating benefit so I think it's a fantastic program and I think it's money that would be well spent any other questions uh yeah I I guess mine is more of a maybe for Tony for something like this when we do have an overage is that something that is already part of our budget and allocated how does this affect I guess
123our budget it will have effects on the budget of course um we're in the process of building our fiscal 25 budget right now so our next fiscal year starts on July 1 and it's a little early yet to know where we're going to land but we hope to have that for you a tentative version of that budget for you at the next month's meeting okay I spoke to Steve and I just said I will be voting no on this simply because they were given a budget told to stick to the budget I think these programs sound great and if you can find a way to work it into the budget that's fine but um I think um Shelby if you want to talk to me later I'm on beefy and we do beefy grants there
124might be some way that we can work this in I know we can't pay stiens or or like for people but equipment maybe we can work something out that way so but that's just so when I vote no it's not that I don't like these programs just I'll speak to that as well um I think that the annual budget is is uh in need of review I'll just say it that way to be kind when we have groups of children children kids students that want to be actively participating in things that they find interesting and and we say we're not in our budget it's really hard for me to accept that as an answer I have been part of this committee for this year um I probably attended half of the meetings at that and
125I love seeing the updates I know how hard and thoughtful you went you all thought through this um there's representatives from every grade level there there's a lot of thought that was put into this and in my mind having just approved $330,000 to upgrade our phones or software improvements I'm fine with this expense and I might be talking to Tony about finding ways to improve and increase it because keep in mind there was nine groups approved so there's a lot of rejections that were sent out and I've heard from Plenty of parents how how upsetting it is for their student to not be able to be part of a group that they want to be so that's just my thoughts thanks RJ good points thank you can can I ask a question how long has
126the budget been $10,000 is that is there any historical off the top of my head I can't recall but that was a subject of the Bea contract that's couple years isn't it um I don't recall the top of my hand there were there were years uh I think I've been here for three or four Bea contracts and there's been years where it was probably 10 or $15,000 maybe when I first started here and then there were some years where there was no budget and we kind of had to uh do our best to make things work and then in our most recent bargain we added the $10,000 back into this new contract thank you I guess I maybe you can Dum this down for me honestly like in in different terms can we talk about
127the next budget and then include like possibly this conversation of an overage for this in the next budget or is this coming out of this current budget I'm confused about that you know because I mean I do see the value in this but I am worried that we voted for so many new positions and various things there are so many needs that we do have um but are we able to hold off on this and until we are talking about the next year's budget or is this a little confused on the part is why are we doing this now yeah can we I can we wait and and I don't know this timeline for this particular ular decision but I would imagine we could probably wait yes and that would be a question for next
128school year this would be for next school year yes so so we would need this uh approved if the board so chose to um in advance of the school year starting yeah so in essence we're voting for an increase of $3,197 no 23, 23 but we had 10,000 that's already been accounted for it's so another 23 okay it's about the 10 to be clear to the board 2 $3,000 and the grand scheme of things is not going to I mean it is break the bank right um although as you remark Danielle like there have been a lot of things added and I do have concerns about that in the long term I do expect that our budget will be balanced and healthily balanced for fiscal 25 however in fiscal 26 and 27 that's where I
129start to get my my Palms start to sweat a little bit is there are other expenses that we know are coming due and money will be tight and there's a lot of things that could happen um monetarily to us from economic conditions those sorts of things that we can't anticipate but um we do know that there are some lean times ahead and we just have to be certain when we're making these decisions that one we're serving the needs of students and two that we do so in a sustainable fashion but I think you're going to be safe if you approve this tonight from a budgetary standpoint but the on in the totality of all the expenses that we Face we have to be careful about what we make decisions upon and we have a lot
130of competing priorities as what as any school district does thank you I'm just curious really quick so the the orts coaching I mean so technically is that considered a sport so then if my child signs up for it then I'm going to pay the sport fee correct so Esports falls under activities because it's an ihsa activity so as the activity director I would oversee it so it's different than paying like a fall or winter or spring Sports fee you would still pay a fee if you were on the Esports team but it would be significantly less it would be a jersey so that we could compete against the Duane Conference teams and it would be like right now they've already engaged in a fundraiser to raise funds for next year so that they can keep
131those cost down because they want like very little cost to happen out of the pockets of the students okay okay any other questions okay I will ENT entertain a motion to approve the recommendation from the stipend Committee in the amount of 23,123 thank you very much motion passes for items 7.2 through 7.4 Josh is making his way up to the podium to be presenting to the board Josh all right well we're in a cafeteria so we should talk about food with no food with no food we're going to talk about food yeah but no food but no food for eating um so what we're going to talk about today are two separate action items but they're so similar I'm going to talk about them together okay so we are going to look at our K8
132lunch and breakfast program and our um High School lunch and breakfast program so here are just some facts about the program um again it's just to get context about what's going on in our breakfast program lunch program at the K8 building um got meal prices up here we've got annual or average daily consumption um some key things that I'm concerned concerned about or want to investigate more are breakfast in particular that number is low um 1.77% of the RMS population participates in breakfast every day um I feel like that's lower than it should be and we need to look at that in a more systematic way so I'm just putting that up there for you guys to look at and me to learn more about if we go to the next Slide the high school
133is not on the national school on program so it focuses specifically on Revenue so every item that's sold offsets and and we try to balance it out we don't get National reimbursement for free and reduced lunch so we are up 4.9 4.29% from last year on our Revenue which was good um but it's food and I think the most important part about food is it has to be wanted and appreciated by the people that eat it so we had this great opportunity this year if you go to the next slide to go through a process of change so every five years we have to go out for bid for a new food service provider but the state of Illinois changed that process to allow us to do what's called an RFP or request for proposal
134what's so great about this is it's not just about the lowest cost it's a we can put other fact factors in um number one thing is taste right we want to taste what we want to eat and we want to like it so um in a little bit you're going to hear from some students who got to participate in some tastings so let me just run you through the process really quick because I know it's been a long night um this started back in last year did some surveys with um rack and some brainstorming reached out to parents did focus groups at two elementary schools middle school and the high school to formulate the process and the evaluation for the RFP put the RFP out at the end of this 2023 year go ahead thank
135you um and then the process started and it was a long process but it was a good process uh we had eight Food Service um companies come on site to see our facilities they were All Amazed by this sign that's in the cafeteria area that you can't see that says lunch ahead and they all wanted to know more about it so that was very exciting um and of those 85 put in a proposal um to win our business so if you go to the next one and this is where it gets fun so we've got Rees here Rees you are a trooper you stayed all night thank you come on up re was one of our are um five elementary students we also had five middle school students who participated in a ultimate tasting day
136at RMS so the floor is yours hi my name is Reese and I go to Grace MCU school and I'm here to tell you about my food tasting experience I'm thankful for this opportunity because I don't order school lunches at and I think the food could be way better for example my friend went to school for chicken nuggets and got the tater tot got tater tots and beans not a complete meal another example my friend rid grilled cheese on the menu and got a hamburger bun with cheese on it with apples sauce on the side the best foods we got to try were the orange chicken smoothies Grant sandwich and mac and cheese because they were fresh healthy and filling I would definitely eat these things for lunch some of the meals that I did
137not like were dumplings sandwiches parfait smoothie bowl and fried apple we are kids we don't we don't want anything too fancy we just want consistency tasty and filling food thank you nice job and thank you to rees's Mom for allowing her to stay up past her bedtime and join us with this uh long night it was a fun night at RMS we sampled a lot of food um middle school kids were running up and down the hallway trying to make room for the last tasting uh it was a lot of fun we did a different approach with the high school we went on a road show and I've got three of our lunch ahead ladies here come on up and uh you guys can tell us about what the Road show was like well reys
138came a lot more prepared than any of us but um so we went to on a Monday we went to where was that uh we went to Rochelle High School and that's where we tried Arbor um their food system it was really fun um that's going to be like the bottom picture on the left there we they had so many samples for us to try and we really enjoyed just about all of them and then on the Wednesday we went to asigo and Matia and then we also had oh that was Friday you can talk about Friday but we went to asigo and Matia on the Wednesday and those were both really good we what I liked about that was that we got to go to their cafeteria and pick out what we wanted so
139like we could know what they were actually serving and what like it actually tasted like what their lunch was actually like not getting food brought to us like that they may not have like out for students and both of those were really good um I really liked Matias I like their um program it's how much is that for a meal like it was like $3 and something for a whole meal and it had like all the nutritious um Foods you and drinks you needed so I really liked that and I thought that was a great for students who might not be able to afford such expensive meals and it was really healthy for all the students so I really liked Matias and then on Friday um we did quest which is the program that we
140had and they came to us so we were in like the back room um it was very good food there was like Caesar salad there was uh I don't know steak tacos steak tacos Pizza acos all these things um so it was like a full course meal which is really good um and that was Quest so what we were using before thank you we SP lot of time together drove on a bus ate a bunch of food I did make them fill out rubrics so it was a little like school um and at the end of the day we took the kid feedback we took the financial feedback and what was really cool is they all diverge to one company um so what we're recommending to the board is that we go with Organic life
141for both our K8 and BHS programs for food service this would be a one-year contract um how contracts work in food service is it's kind of like baseball you sign a one-year op one-ear contract and then there's four like Mutual options so we review each year and we can just renegotiate the price and we don't have to go through the whole process but at every year there's always that ability to move on just so you guys have context questions so I just make sure um organic life they will offer different foods for people with dietary Su as far as like like kosher gluten-free yes that's a really good question so um they will not offer like a gluten-free option tons of it every day if you need glutenfree they have a process so that they
142know that they're making the food that you need um it doesn't help their business model to have all those different options available all all the time but if a student or students need that that's something that they can provide what's really nice about their system is their menu has an option where you can click on and see like what is offered daily that is gluten-free or dairy free and all the different options so at least that gives a baseline for what is available each day and then they will work with students on their needs will it work with the lunch ahead app well that's going to be the best part about this is we're going to figure it out um every single company was ecstatic to work with our students um and actually the companies
143you guys were being so kind when you were up here uh they were grilling them they were asking them tons of questions about how their business works and how they could integrate their lunch ahead into that process so it was a lot of fun other questions no the only thing I was going to say is we reviewed this as a part of rack um with Raquel and I and I the process was very diligent I really loved the fact that you guys were able to kind of involve the students in that and then some of them being as Discerning as you were that recognized like going to the place instead of having them bring you food gives you a little better idea of what they're like um I also think you know as as a
144person who's got family members that have allergies is one of the things that I've been kind of keyed into and and I appreciate the cognizance of it because like you know when you have like a gluten allergy you don't always want to be like highlighted that you got to go get something special but it also takes different care to prepare those meals because of those sensitivities and those needs so um I'm hoping like this one of the things I thought about the lunch ahead element was your ability to kind of get a lunch that doesn't highlight that you have a special need of something some sort and you can be kind of a part of the group and inclusive in that so I appreciate the process thank you sure thing so real quick did we
145go up in cost on this yeah so actually it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be because as you guys know inflation is just everywhere so I've got last year's contract um so a lunch like reimbursement rate was $3.25 so that's what we pay Quest this year if we go with Organic life it's $3 30 a lunch so there's an increase uh the breakfast did go up a little bit more than that um it was 175 their proposal was 195 a lot of that has to do with as you saw we don't have a lot of participation and you do have to have someone on site to provide breakfast so if you're not turning out the volume gotta charge more so and this was the lowest priced proposal as well as
146the best tasting proposal which I was not expecting I was expecting to come up here and say well we're going with company that the kids wanted but it costs a little bit more but we're going to do what the kids wanted I got the privilege of saying we're doing what the kids wanted and we're getting the lowest cost which I was not anticipating so you said you're looking into the elementary the the breakfast on the elementary school side because yeah I want to learn more about that um I have hypothesis but nothing that's like a concrete answer so well maybe since the food tastes so much better hopefully they'll maybe make it and they will come kind of thing right y not not so much on the selection here but uh just curious on uh
147subsidized meals how do we do that are we is there so there's two different ways CU there's two different programs so at the elementary and middle school level we're on the national school lunch program so the federal government reimburses us subsidizes those meals for us at the high school we are not on that program so it's total revenue so if a student has the need for a free meal we give them a free meal but we have to cover that cost through the program at the high school so that comes out of our budget then that comes out of like the food service Revenue so that's why it's important to generate as much revenue at the high school so differen is here than the middle school we have a coffee bar right so that's another
148way to generate Revenue to offset other needs yes that's correct you have rough percentages on subsidized lunch how much we do well 18% of our population is free and reduced lunch so 18% of our population has the opportunity to get launched for free every day any other questions from the board okay hearing none I will entertain a motion to approve a one-year renewable Food Service management contract with Organic life with an estimated annual cost of $76,900 cents for the K8 national school lunch program so moved so moved by aens seconded by RJ Cindy please lead us in a roll call Vote Yes yes yes yes yes yes thank you very much item 7.3 anything else to add no that's the high school one yes okay thank you any questions from the board on that one
149okay I will entertain a motion to authorize a one-year renewable Food Service management contract with Organic life with an estimated annual cost of $767,500 yes sler yes gilber yes yes motion passes thank you Josh on to the approval of a postage machine lease yes well no uh slideshow on this one um this one is because of the United Postal Service they're changing their standard um but really using this as an opportunity to evaluate how we do postage uh we have currently three postage machines in the district RMS BHS and rjac we looked at the metrics we met with the administrative assistants at each building and we came to the conclusion both anecdotally and with the metrics that RMS did not need a machine they used to have it because of sending home map tests and
150report cards and they don't do that anymore um they actually only did 404 mailers in the entire 12mth span that we looked at so it's not worth having a machine there so we are reducing um one machine in the district we're renewing this for 60 months it is an increase substantial increase but it locks in the rate for 60 months so it's one of those things where it's nice to lock it in and keep the service going sorry it's not as exciting as food service any questions did you visit any post offices no and I'm trying to make sure that our staff doesn't have to the kids visit post off all right thank you all right I will entertain a motion to approve two 60-month leases through Pitney Bose for posters machines at BHS and
151RJ so moved by Raquel second by RJ second sure RJ all right Cindy please lead us in a roll call vote yes yes thank you sir Dave you're up approval of Chromebook web filter contract got to follow leases what's that you got to follow postage leases I don't have slideshows I don't have kids looking at sorry all right so I'm here for our Chromebook web filtering um previously uh we had a filtering product we used in our classrooms on a four-year cycle um that of course came up due this year again inflation went up almost 40% um so I had to start shopping around um so we went through a process we evaluated almost five of them uh two of them were out right away just due to sheer cost so we were down to
152like three um due to feature sets things that they offer and whatnot we pick light speed systems as the best option um it's basically what we had but better uh we've had a lot of nice features that have come that are actually included in this where the previous one securely was charging I'll call it allart per per license basically so it was more of like a modular based system um light speed actually made a bundle for us um so this worked out very well um so the total amount this is for one year I wanted to go one year just in case it's a bad experience we can jump if we want to next year will look at a multi-year if we like it still and I'll probably lock that in at five and try
153to get a good rate on that when we do that any questions has this been um tested in the classrooms yet yeah we tested uh sixth seventh and eighth grade um they've had probably the most issues across the district with a lot of the filtering issues in that building um it's been well improved with the teaching staff they like it what are some of the features that you appreciate about this one not to get in the tech nitty-gritties but there are certain categories uh that securely failed to catch alcohol it light speed catches a lot more um we could be specific I sent you that one message about that's what it's going to help you with yep okay exactly um there's there's an easy way to get around the filter and I was made aware
154of I let him know and he took care of it so yep that's what just like we we got a lot of calls like that and this this product it's not 100% they never are but this is a lot better approach and I think moving forward this route will help a lot more on our end and staff so um you did six seventh and eth so let's say student is playing games the teacher will see that yes that's an option as well we're not rolling that out completely we demoed it but we're not ready to roll that just yet so if the te if the student does get ACC whatever they're playing a game and we haven't roll it out but it do to say they we did and the teacher like go in and
155say nope yes and take it off yep most modern filters do that securely wanted a lot of money to do that so that's one of the first things we were looking for of many that was one of the features these guys do offer and I'm sure they meet all the standards for student information security yeah yep the biggest thing is the categorizing stuff that it's so much better than what we've had securely we had them almost 11 years so that's you know they haven't changed that much in 11 years unfortunately but the price is the main driver of this any other questions so you said it was a 40% increase what is it is it 40% with this one or 40% is why you started looking and therefore where did you end up approx this
156is probably I would guess I don't have it off math probably 20% more than what we were paying okay the biggest thing is we had a Consortium price with a bunch of other school districts in the state right that pricing of course was really good it was almost three bucks a kid well now it actually went up to almost eight bucks for the same feature without the other stuff we already had right so it was pushing 14 bucks a kid okay I had to look appreciate it yeah I'm sure doing like multi-year versus this one year that's going to help it it will so like next year my hope is that number goes down a little bit and then we can lock in a rate but I it's hard to tell cuz I'm any everything
157goes up they call it uplift so like every year there's a percentage regardless but I'm hopeful that it isn't drastic next year and then we can lock her in for however long the term makes sense and we go from there okay any other questions all right I will entertain a motion to authorize the purchase of light speed safety security and impact bundle at a total cost of $2,433 18 so so moved by Raquel second by second was that down there Aaron okay thank you Aaron thanks guys all right Cindy please lead us in a roll call Vote Yes yes yes yes yes thank you software purchase that's me so we're seeking the board's approval to purchase two pieces of software from Panorama education the first piece of software is their Student Success platform this would
158be a new piece of software for us that really assists our building level intervention teams so we have teams that meet on a regular basis to review student data student progress in their interventions they're oftentimes looking at five different sites to get data in their team meetings it's very ineffective process for them so this is a a piece of software that would link up with those pieces of software that we use for different interventions and be able to see it in One dashboard so this will help us to see the effectiveness of these interventions who needs interventions who can transition out of those interventions so that's the first piece Panorama also does student surveys uh we currently use a product called Desa which looks at the seal skills and assets of our students uh we're
159seeking the board's approval to transition to Panorama the reason for that is a couple of pieces one is we believe that the the Panorama student surveys more closely align with the district's vision of Social and emotional learning and the castle competencies that underg our system the other piece is that this is student reported data and you'll see when Tom goes into the Strategic plan is that student voice is a huge part of the Strategic plan currently right now teachers do reporting on Desa in the elementary through middle school and then they we see students start to answer the Desa survey in high school uh this would be all student voice really increasing student voice of students to tell us what's going on with them both socially and emotionally so we um have informed CAC of
160some of this work we have taken this to different teams including our counselors social workers School psycholog ologist and those members of blit teams so the people most affected by these software have been consulted on this um in the notes I put we did some surveys of them most staff were in support of making this change any questions I have a question um which you answered quite a bit of them but um so the student successes it says um data sources track evalua intervention effectiveness of the student building District manage academic social emotional Behavior data in a singular platform I I understand how we measure academic but how do we measure the social emotional behavior of data that would be through this survey that we're surveying the students with I'm trying to think of the
161right way to say like I understand what that but like so if I get an A like I I understand that right like my grades but is there I guess the curriculum is academic correct like and you can manage that but the social emotional how do we is there like a curriculum for that that they put the data in is what I'm trying do you understand what I'm saying like yeah our levels each have a Social and emotional curriculum a tier one curriculum that they go through uh we're constantly working on that to make it better but they have a Core curriculum for social and emotional learning yes so is that where that will pull that from for this the data you the data would help to see if that is working if that Core
162Curriculum is working but it's not directly tied to it it's not the curriculum itself okay if you don't mind you you submit your questions via email and he'll jump to you and get a response thank you all right any other questions okay thank you I will entertain a motion to approve the purchase of Student Success Plus student surveys from Panorama in the amount of $62,400 so moved so moved by Sue second by second second by Rob Cindy please lead us in a roll call Vote Yes yes yes yes yes thank you very much uh item 7.7 approval of high school sidewalk Rehabilitation project hello Mark yeah I'm talking about concrete so not nearly as exciting as um Josh is um so this one was on my radar but because of this winter had to be
163bumped up quite a bit um people think the winter was very mild it was but in the World of Concrete that's not good a lot of freeze and thaw um so I had Sil Engineers come out and do a survey of the entire High School um all the grounds and this particular area that we're looking at is what I call phase one and it focuses basically from the Fine Arts entrance all the way to the Wilson Street side entrance um and how they did this is they surveyed the entire site and then you get basically three readings you get a red worst yellow and in the middle and then a green um and this area was I would say probably 70% in the red um it wasn't like that a few years ago um so
164it drastically got worse um and there's some timing that we have to get in with this one because the fine artart schedule doesn't completely you know go with the school schedule um they're very busy in June so we had to fit this in in really like the first two weeks of July there's another big event that happens here and it's the 4th of July so we have to worry about that one so literally there's a very specific window that this had to be done in and really to get six bids how late we went out from concrete is very good um so I was happy with that and they came in much less than what our construction manager had um projected Ed for Budget wise um this being phase one obviously there's other phases so
165um phase two and phase three will be coming at a later date um there also is a phase four since they were out looking at this um looking at improving some walkability around the high school um we did add some seating outside for lunches looking to kind of add to that as well and some other you know opportunities for students to sit and you know as they wait for rides more seating areas as well thank you questions no photos huh yeah no photos have we used the company that they're recommending before the district has not but um lamp who's our construction manager has if we delayed on this what would the impact be well if we delayed on this the impact would be you have trip and Falls so yeah if you know somebody trips
166on there gets gets hurt it's on our grounds um so so that would more than likely depending on the injury would be much more than the actual cost of the work and there's a rating that they do as far as you know curb height is there certain you know concrete Has Lifted so much um so that's what the red was so we're at a point of um needing to have this done so Mark are we talking just if I'm thinking the Fine Arts entrance correct yeah so actually around to here not no not how do that no so so where the garage door is by the find Art Center That Sidewalk piece follow that towards the bus lane on the Wilson Street side to the main entrance of on that side on that side sorry
167I should go that way categorize that as the student entrance okay so because I think of that as the main I but we're on that Wilson side okay that would have been a really good bit well that's why I'm just trying to get wrap my mind around it okay so we're just kind of doing that side right okay are there no other areas any schools that are in the red um those are but much smaller and so we'll kind of handle that not to this volume so we'll handle that you know as they come up part of our regular main yep part of the regular maintenance obviously the scope of the high school is much larger than the other schools I wish I had I wish there was pictures um maybe this is an odd
168question but this is bavia fine art center but it doesn't matter that it's poav fine art center just matters that it's our property mhm there's no shared responsibility from anyone else that utilizes we own the center just completely that shared why did I think that there was I thought there was Financial I guess I'll have to talk about this other I thought that there was a financial um partnership oh Dominic's gonna do it there isn't a financial partnership okay there's a cost to utilize the facility for some reason I thought there was something with the with the city no okay there is not it's our Auditorium and um it was added on to the high school in 200 I don't know what the year was when it was finished maybe 11 um or 10 or
16911 um but it started with the additions in 2009 and uh it's operated is a High School auditorium but it also operates as a true and genuine Fine Arts Center that uh one we have a um a uh program where the community is invited to see all sorts of Great Performances in the finance Center and that does generate revenue for us it helps us maintain the facility and pay for the staff um and um we also operate it as a an auditorium to support our elementary and middle schools their music programs and their performances uh and it's also expanding into um uh digital media and all sorts of opportunities for students to participate in those program offerings and so it's really a u a quite a facility no other high school I believe in the
170area certainly that I'm aware of operates a facility quite like this one but it is not a partnership is operated entirely by the school district I think the scope of it is what led me to think that maybe then so okay and I'm sorry Dominic that I did not give a very good description of all the things that you and your team do so my apologies but it is truly if you have an opportunity to visit the center or any of the performance es it is truly extraordinary and our students get to participate in producing those experiences for folks and it it's amazing and a lot of times when big actors and performers come to town they spend time with our students and um it's it's pretty awesome opportunity and with that glowing review from
171Tony any another question I hear or no Noe okay we're good all right um side I will entertain a motion to award bavia High School sidewalk Rehabilitation to tro mcneel Paving in the amount of $71,000 so moved so moved by Aon second by Sue Cindy please lead us in a roll call vote yes no yes yes yes thank you motion passes amendment to resolution authorizing the intervention in property tax appeals Tony yeah uh this is amending a current and standing resolution that I think dates from 2020 we often intervene in property tax appeals uh because it's in the interests of the district and our taxpayers uh and these are not for Residential Properties per se these are for large commercial industrial properties U where the district and the other taxing bodies would be at risk
172of issuing refunds to those property taxpayers and in some cases um that is a fair thing to do and other cases it might not be uh and so these are cases that are presented to the K County board of review or they're also presented to the property tax appeal board which is in Springfield or in some very rare cases they are tax appeal that are filed in circuit court and um what ends up happening for school districts in particular as I always say we're we're the Big Pig at the trough when it comes to property taxes that's a phenomenon that is very common throughout the the CER counties of Chicago um especially here in bavia uh but so school districts have very much of vested financial interest in these in the amounts um compared to
173other uh in terms of the property taxes that are at stake compared to other taxing bodies and what's up happening if if school districts don't necessarily intervene is that the property tax burden shifts from Residential Properties or excuse me from commercial and Industrial properties to Residential Properties and the reason for that is because of the tax cap so in K County we're tax capped all of the public bodies are capped uh and so that means that there's a finite amount of money that can come in terms of new Revenue to those taxing bodies in a given tax year and if commercial and industrial property have they hire lawyers that do this work on a full-time basis to file these appeals and they generally file evidence that's favorable to them and their the case that they're
174making but what oftentimes happens is that evidence to the contrary isn't filed and so the boards of review or PAB aren't always aware of the counterargument and so there can be a tendency can be a tendency for them to favor those particular property taxpayers and like I said the result is isn't that the school district isn't is going to lose money it's not generally the case although they could be on the the hook for refunds um but Residential Properties are going to pay more in the long term so that's the basis for this resolution it we get tax peels in our office on a fairly regular basis and when it makes sense to intervene we do and those are generally large dollar amounts dollar amounts that start in um six fig numbers and can be
175higher um so we're judicious as to when we intervene sometimes we have to hire up uh folks to do appraisals of those properties and there are costs associated with it and we certainly work with attorneys to to do this work because it in and of itself would be a full-time job otherwise um but um so this resolution would update the resolution that we have on file one because um we have we're working with a new law firm we want to make sure that the board authorizes that but also to make clear what the process is and that we keep the board apprised of these appraisals when they when they uh or excuse me these interventions when they come du so we're basically giving you the authority to do it yeah but you will still let
176us know what you're doing exactly kind of like what's happening what always happens yeah just to confirm because it's kind of hard to hear down here sue you were basically stating that he would be keeping the board informed as to decision- making processes and caps or limitations on what we might allow or something on that sort yes okay so maintaining the same effective practice pretty much status qu yeah okay any other questions okay I will entertain a motion to adopt the attached resolution authorizing CH the Chief Financial Officer to decide on manage and report on property tax appeal interventions to Pro to protect the financial interests of the district so moved so motion by Sue second by RJ Cindy please lead us in a roll call Vote Yes yes yes yes Thomas yes yes yes
177thank you motion passes before I move on to 7.9 Tom has graciously gotten a number of sodas for us down here so if anybody wants one come grab it um but other than that uh Tom are you going to lead us on the discussion regarding the Strategic plan I will thank you um first I want to just um bring attention again to gratitude and thanks to folks that spoke tonight um to the Strategic plan um also sharing concerns and highlighting things that they wanted to make sure that the administration and the Board of Education uh continue to be aware of and are reminded of um what I'd like to do is start by using a presentation that was uh created to help walk through the process of the Strategic plan tonight and it's up on
178the screen now all right so the Strategic plan um we the district currently maintains a strategic plan on our website um as it exists now there is a strategic plan tab along side it an equity Tab and alongside that a portrait of a graduate um the the work has been done in in a variety of series of times where the district has engaged in that process um from my understanding it's been about 10 to 11 years since we've done a comprehensive overview and review of this work so what I plan to do on the next slide table kind here is walk you through the why for a strategic plan process and the Strategic plan itself then talk to talk to you uh share what the process was walk through S the critical components of the
179mission the vision the values and then the commitments within the plan talk about our priorities that were gathered through the uh strategic plan process um what that integration will look like and how the portrait of a graduate fits in based on the feedback we received and then what those next steps in implementation will look like um hoping to bring some clarity about the um points raised this evening about collaboration and I think this is one of those critical uh aspects that will support uh what is being asked for and what is needed in this District to make sure that we can execute a strong and viable plan for our students all right so why do we have a strategic plan um a strategic plan for a school district is essentially the guide that's uh used
180by the school board to uh help govern the district and provide us with accountability the board of education's framework uh to oversee all of our work and how you evaluate me as the superintendent is a part of that work through the Strategic plan process this is probably one of one of three key pillar responsibilities that a board of education typically will have you know setting essentially the goal posts of what our District's work is secondly maintaining the Board of Education policies in our board handbook and then third hiring of your employee as the superintendent right so those are three of those big duties in this particular aspect when I transitioned in with the with the board sorry let me screwed up my feeling um we had talked about my evaluation and what those goals might
181look like and as a part of that outcome the board agreed that uh you would like me to undertake a strategic plan process this year rather than waiting to year two so in September of of this year um I presented what a plan might look like um and the board approved that and that's what we moved forward with so why have a strategic plan in essence if we were to boil it down um this is our framework this is the board's framework that guides the district's vision and actionable goals and all the work that we'll be doing carrying it forward all right to speak to the process uh one of the things we started with when we looked at the model I had shared with the board that collaboration and voice was a a large
182part of informal feedback I'd been receiving as I was uh meeting with various leaders inside our district meeting with folks outside of our district within the communities and our strategic partnership groups such as Bey the Chamber of Commerce Etc um one of the constant highlights was the strength of our students uh the belief in our students and their ability to to uh do great things because voice and collaboration was also a critical factor in the feedback I'd been receiving sometime a lot of times models that districts embark on when they create a strategic plan for uh as a board and as a district is that they'll gather representatives from various stakeholders to represent certain themes or areas of interest and have them represent the voice of the rest of the people um as I presented
183last fall we agreed let's use our students to lead us through this work and let's make sure we capture all voices so employees in fulltime all full-time employees were invited um and and uh certain groups that were employees that typically did not have to work on the Institute days where we gathered the feedback um they were compensated if they were willing to come in and participate in our vision sessions uh the vision sessions being the in-person feedback sessions uh for anyone who participated in our process so our Bulldog ambassadors were selected uh building leaders assisted me and identifying students that um would be able to help us lead the rooms where the adults were were providing that feedback um as as you noticed tonight we had several student speakers some of those very speakers were
184our Bulldog ambassadors in this process um and in total we had approximately 66 68 students participate in leading these Vision sessions so I I want to commend and thank all of our Bulldog ambassadors and the parents who supported them uh in this process we were able to engage using students from fourth grade to senior year and so that was a pretty uh wide range of age group of students but it was an amazing job that they did and I think they're really to be commended for their leadership opportunity that they took advantage of uh Consultants were hired as the board might remember I was authorized to uh uh have an expenditure of up to $20,000 with our two Consultants that was approved by the Board of Education um I want to thank them as well
185for their work uh just to report for transparency we came in at approximately $16,300 on this project uh keeping in mind sometimes this Consulting work can range up to even 120,000 so I just want to say thank you to those two for helping us through this work and um a lot of the creation that they were able to work with me on and then finally I want to thank our steering committee so as a part of the accountability process and transparency uh we had representatives from Bea Besa uh students uh the Board of Education and parents all mixed in on a steering committee uh at at each checkpoint during the process the steering committee was given access to seeing the work in its raw form and what was being drafted and synthesized into a product
186to can keep us moving forward we met last Wednesday evening as a steering committee to review the final draft that's being presented this evening um this was a completely voluntary effort and I do want to thank everybody who served on that committee uh on the following document that is in the board book and publicly viewable uh I did list the names of the folks that were uh like that were served on the steering committee and we'll get to that at the end of this slide deck all right so the phases uh through this process as I had mentioned earlier in-person meetings were called Vision sessions uh surveys were used throughout our process as well and as we gathered all that feedback we built out themes so phase one started with the board approving the process
187and then uh we spent the next couple of months preparing for this uh work then in December we began with our very first survey that went out and also began training our Bulldog ambassadors the students so we conducted a training with all Bulldog ambassadors at rtoa Middle School in December to prepare them for the work they would be doing on January 8th then in phase two we began our vision sessions um that took place between the months of January to April and that's where we engaged with our stakeholders um both inside and outside the district this did include more survey work uh as part of that process process in phase three uh which I referenced just a moment ago this is where we came to our final Vision session work and then uh created the
188final draft which was again approved or reviewed by the steering committee last Wednesday and um given approval to bring to the board this evening there were some minor adjustments that were requested by the committee which I made and that's um what is presented to you this evening phase four um at whatever point the board decides to approve this this um document this plan implementation and collaboration begins so I think the board has heard um a good amount of feedback about where where do we get specific where do we start to select specifically what those Target data metrics will be in terms of growth and gains and attainment that is a part of how we will collaborate together as a district and again this is coming from the feedback that's been collected over the last uh
189you know six months since December and I'll walk you through what that process may look like and show you the structures of our strategic plan now I know there's also been some questions about what does what does the Strategic plan purpose serve for a district and why is the board may be involved in this so if you can see this infographic um this kind of highlights what the structure of the Strategic plan's purpose is we gathered all the feedback uh through surveys and vision sessions so we collected that data and feedback synthesized what that Mission Vision and and commitments would look like then brought it down to what our organizational strategies and organizational metrics would be based on that feedback so um making sure that the data that we would Target aligns to the three
190key priority areas that were identified through the surveys and the vision sessions now you see there where it says up to that point that's been the governance and board area of your work once this plan gets approved So eventually whatever point the board decides once this work has been approved that's that's the board's directive and and Direction and vision setting for BPS 101 after the approval process that's when we will then talk about specifically under those key metric areas what those goals should look like and again for full transparency that'll most likely be my evaluation so I will make sure that as the superintendent of the school district I'm owning and being held accountable to the data that the district's uh Board of Education wants to ensure is being um how I'm leading the district
191and what we're doing together across the board and from there then we talk we this is where the collaboration piece this is the execution where when we get to implementation and how we carry this work forward this is where we need our Bea our Besa and our Administration collaborating coming together sharing our expertise thoughts and understandings about the work and resources that have to be um you know developed or or moved forward in terms of uh meeting our plan that the board has set forward for us um in this next slide this will also be highlighted in the Strategic plan draft if you take a look here uh these are these are literally drawn out of the plan and these are some of the items that you'll be reviewing And discussing tonight um okay and
192again this is a gathering of a wise swap of feedback and input that was given um Mr kilberg and Mr arandu both board members sat on our uh steering committee the raw data was presented and then shown how we synthesized it and asked the steering committee to make sure that this met what was being submitted To Us by all the stakeholders at each checkpoint of the process all right we wanted to ensure that um there's a lot of different language and a lot of different input that was given not all of it matched depending on who submitted information or who participated and shared that so there were ranges and edges of where some of the outliers were and then we could see where the concentration of agreement and consensus were uh in terms of the
193work that this District should focus on that was how we we synthesized that feedback so what's in front of you is representative of what the majority cons feedback and input was I say I feel like I'm saying feedback a lot I apologize we've also heard about commitments um that was a part of some of our public comment tonight and it is without any doubt that commitments were also U being asked for through the feedback that we received primarily largely in our internal Vision sessions and internal Sur survey that was launched in BPS 101 so if you take a look here as noted and you heard earlier this evening there is a strong strong commitment and desire to do what's right for students and their learning um there's a strong desire to make sure that our
194district is inclusive and finds ways with a sense of urgency to create a sense of belonging and inclusion at at BPS 101 the the commitment to collaboration which I wholeheartedly support and again I would encourage that that's that's an Avenue of how we will tackle this together and then finally the idea that we are going to commit to continually improving and growing as an organization um and again I use the word organization because as a board of education that's what you that not trying to tell you you know things but you are my bosses but as a board of education your focus is the organizational well-being right at a at a very large scale of the district these commitments are really strong indicators and characteristics of an organization's growth mindset and and I and I
195believe that if this plan and the feedback we received would support that all right so then here are the three priorities I'll let you take a second here just to review I know you may have it in front of you but please take a moment all right these three overarching priorities were established after the December surveys and then that was verified and then continued as the as the focus point of the work when we went into our vision sessions so number one being under enhancing our teaching and learning practices one of the things you'll see in the second document is there's a pretty wide spread of how we may want to approach that strategically as an organization and there are some metrics key metric areas that have been identified that the board um if approving
196will set goals to specific goals uh fostering inclusion and belonging under priority two again same thing here um this was identified as a very large common theme there are specific key metrics that are being recommended based on the feedback that was provided through this process and then lastly the operational excellence and resource uh resource stewardship of our district um again it's in this similar vein this was a very overarching theme we heard loud and clear there are buildings in need of either repair or Replacements there were desires also shared about how how do we create learning spaces that that match the the strength of what our district is and so I do think all three of these areas the key metrics are going to match how we need to approach it based on the organizational
197mindset uh with whatever the board approves so th this slide here talks about our strategy integration how everything is very interconnected and you will notice and the draft that's before you inclusion belonging and equity in our work and in our district is embedded in all three of the key priority areas it's not separated it's embedded in what we should be doing from every facet of this district and when we work whether we're in operations teaching and learning um in any role embedding this language into the into the district's strategic plan should as an organization move us in a direction where we're thinking about these things from every role and every position we all have including me as a superintendent and again those key metrics will help guide and hold me accountable to helping you hold
198the organization accountable to this the portrait of a graduate was also an area that we we surveyed and made a Target area for feedback overwhelmingly um I think and the steering committee supported that the portrait of a graduate was very well either supported or uh desired to see as work for our students um where we need where the feedback came in was this particular portion of our District's website felt siloed or maybe even a little disconnected from what our District's overall strategic plan has been and again I think part and this is a a a guess based on the feedback I read through all the work um this was developed in 2021 by a committee uh that included Bea and administration members however I think at the time it got created it was again something
199that was done in isolation of the rest of the Strategic plan and for whatever reason it never clicked into the organization's fiber and the fabric of what we do and how we want to support what our students look like when they graduate so having seen all that feedback you'll see in the final draft that's in front of you board we incorporated and melded that into the language of our strategic plan to bring these things together so the idea would be eventually when the board approves whatever our organizational strategic plan is that we will be reorganizing what our District's website looks like to incorporate and reflect that that's more of a how we do things rather than a standalone item as we do the work so when we get to next steps in implementation um again
200one of the Hallmarks of how we're going to get this work done is by collaborating together um making sure we've established clear targets under our growth and of key metrics and again that'll be one of the charges that the board will be issuing to me um develop specific strategies to achieve those goals that is where the collaboration and work will happen through our collaborative structures that exist through our our district whether they be through the collective bargaining agreement or other ad hoc committees that need to be created to get this work done and then um de establishing a new data data dashboard um if you take a look now it's it's been a little since we've updated the data dashboard but our plan is once approved and once metrics are set the data dashboard will
201be updated live so so any stakeholder and Community member can come to our data dashboard and see where our progress is and you know if we're heading in the right direction right so before I move over to the next document I just want to say one more time thank you to everyone who par participated in this process um we had I believe over 2,200 points of data and feedback through this entire process and some of our surveys and vision sessions included even more than that because there's numerous topics being covered um I want to thank folks for being flexible I know there was um we we took some of the time during our professional development days Institute days and I want to thank people for allowing uh this process to take some of that time
202and and work on our strategic plan together I also want to thank everyone who had their hand involved in volunteering to do this work or lead the work all right okay before we move over to the document is there any questions board or are there any questions yeah um the 2200 respondents can you give us a breakdown of who they were like uh did we have that information I'm trying to recall so we we had approximately uh on the 1366 I don't you know what I can I can provide that as a followup to you yeah and I'm I'm just I don't want to guess I don't want to go off the top of my head okay rough numbers and my point here is this I want to make sure that if I remember correctly
203it it reflects a good all our constituents all our stakeholders you know parents community members teachers staff um um you know whatever else there may be but uh those are those are the ones and I just want to make that point to make sure that you know that input those survey responses what's going into this is reflective of our of our uh Community cor right and I'll add a point that they were it's not just surveys we had these Vision sessions I can uh I'll speak to one particular one I attended at Rolo Middle School that was uh led by our students and one of my leaders sitting in the front row right here she did amazing job but there were very robust conversations from in my group we had someone who had just moved
204into the district we had somebody whose kids had graduated and was providing input and um it's one of the better things I've ever attended as far as attendance we had I think over 90 people on a Saturday and um the discussions were wide ranging and they were respectful but they were also challenging and so uh some of the data was compiled during those types of sessions so how did those you said they had 90 people at those how did those 90 people get selected do you know how they there was an invitation people chose to come and attend so it wasn't a select thing it was you want to attend went out wide anybody could have attended we sent it out through me we we sent it out through Messenger um social media and asked
205for uh folks to sign up so we we chose the space after we close the survey because we want determining on how many people we would get that would determine where we should hold our mission session okay all right so one of the key things you kind of said earlier was other strategic plans will sometimes invite specific kind of thought leaders or stakeholders to come in to kind of represent their Concepts or interests or ideas and that sometimes gives you a a could potentially give you a skewed perspective as to what the community might want and the teachers and the students because there was a lot of student involvement in this yeah um speaking from previous experience at a former District that I worked at and um assisted with a strategic plan um in fact
206each theme group you know was given a limit of of four to six members from various you know Union leadership and administration so and parents it was kind of limited in that sense uh not limited that's probably not the right word but to your point like you had Representatives who wanted to speak to that area but they were representing the mass behind them here we invited everybody to be able to participate and have an opportunity to talk okay and then we also kind of backed that up knowing not everybody is always going to be comfortable in some of those spaces that the the the individual survey was able to be given and those surveys were Anonymous so the one drawback is is you know if there was some interesting feedback that I had read through
207the survey I would not be able to actually say like hey Craig can I reach out to you I'd like to learn more so all right so right now you're looking for questions about the process not the actual plan uh yeah or just any general questions because eventually here tonight there's a couple more things I wanted to walk through but then the discussion I'm going to turn over is is to the Board of Education this is your opportunity to talk about it it will at some point be your plan that you're owning and voting on um because once you do that those are those are my orders on how to move forward all right I I apologize I didn't I should have just stopped you in the middle of the presentation the portion for establishing
208clear goals data targets you had that nice graph up there where it was showing that it's part of phase four and I believe it's a District staff is responsible for that do you want to go back to the slide says collaborate stakeholders yes uh Bea besta Administration on implementation planning okay I wanted that's what I appreciate I wanted to clarify who the who is District staff because that could be that's kind of a yeah it's seemingly a cross-sectional group of Bea admin and best okay I don't know the history of it so if I'm completely off on that's fine it's unusual to me to have let's just say staff members create metrics or goals for targets that I want achieved I'm not not sure if I'm coming across accurately here but I'm just working out
209my own history if I have objectives that I want met I usually give the metric I'll I'll say this is what the Benchmark was and this is what I need achieved perhaps it's just different in in this world well part of our process for evaluations is our student learning objectives which is the data that's worked um is established with with teacher input on what those metrics will be for their evaluations is one of the reasons and it's weird to say this that we have so many Fantastic faculty here happy to support this because they will be part of the goal creation process what will be part of the goal creation that they will be part of creating goals and Target I think they're going to be part of the work having not I think my
210apologies let me back that up they will be part of the work in developing specific strategies to carry this out so that we can achieve what our goals and Mission are here and the timeline for phase four says say summer of 2024 that means that our goals are me to be created before classes start mid August well that's when we're going to begin you know I'm eager to get moving because um you know we've talked to for example uh some of our baa leaders and officers that I'd like to kind of hold like a a summit this summer to be to start planning out together what the structures and work should look like with the administration so we can start uh taking a look at the work that's currently ongoing and how do we how
211do we continue you know is it going to be meeting what the board's looking for through this new plan and if it is let's make sure we have the right voices at the table so so for example some of the work we may have we may be in agreement about some of the aspects of our curriculum standards that we are moving towards but maybe there's a disagreement and and just differing opinions about the resources we need to procure so that we can be successful in in supporting our students learning that would be maybe an area that we have to work on right and again I'm just trying to draw an example um to help put some thought into an example here all right thank you so the steering committee met last Wednesday yes steing committee
212and so everyone on I don't know if everyone from that committee was in attendance but whoever was there they said yeah we think we're good and we want to present it to the board yeah they provided a couple of mod ification requests which I did and that's the draft that you have now in front of you so I can speak to that rockel yes um I think we might have had one person missing but I mean we did have I think a very good cross-section I mean a lot of the partners are in that committee spoke tonight from Bea Besa and students as well as the board and we did have robust conversations that did modify this document um know it was great because people wereing bringing different perspectives the education perspective private sector to
213try to create a more comprehensive document that has a little teeth to it so I would say at every meeting we would get in uh Tom would present the data we would go through we would have about a week to review it Rob correct me if from I'm wrong there'd be a lot of comments uh hundreds of them sometimes and we would go through them and basically we would review that data pretty methodically and then Tom would uh synthesize uh hypothesis of what the data was saying to us and then we would have a discussion if what he was presenting was an accurate representation of the feedback we were getting and I uh again Rob jump in here anytime you want but uh we would have discussion and then we would settle on a spot
214where yeah we were in agreement and I liked about it was we did have all these different partners so everybody had a voice I agree oh that your spot on here that's exactly how it went recel and uh um I did we have maybe four or five steering committee meetings that those various milestones and um it was very methodical I mean it was really data driven Tom if you want the numbers of the survey responses I think somebody asked that there was the first survey from December through January we received 1,357 responses um 149 of those were for community members not at all related to The District 212 were students 323 were BPS 101 staff members and 673 were parents and guardians of current students thank you thanks Hol so if this goes go through
215tonight the phase four implementation and collaboration you know you guys get together you set your goals your data your action steps are we going to vote on those to make sure that we're in line with those and like we're like yeah we're good with these we can hold people you know these these are our goals that we want to achieve yeah I think when when you start taking a look at some specific metrics that again may end up being being a part of our conversation with me about my evaluation but when you when at whatever Point whatever version the board feels comfortable approving those key metric themes those are the areas so like you know if we're taking a look at course enrollment numbers and the representation behind our course enrollment that would be the
216theme and then you as a board and I will talk about what is it specifically in there that you would like us to take a look at and trying to grow and push our district with you know is it um and and doesn't necessar have to be one area right but um again it's a pretty aggressive in my opinion just my opinion this is going to be a really good and meaningful aggressive way of trying to approach um the work so you know the other area I look at is um the U employee representation retention and recruiting right so again another area that already is reported on our school and district report cards but what is the what is the gain metric that the board wants to look at and talk to me about right
217but then that's the work that we will do in terms of what our strategies will be to achieve that and one thing roel add is that at the last meting one thing the steering committee U wanted to implement that Tom agreed to was that um whether we vote up or down on this if we do vote up on it that the steering committee will have continual updates I think quarterly as this progresses and again that would have voices from the Bea besta student voice parent voice and the board so as Tom's putting this work together the steering committee will U be checking in to make sure that his work is aligned with the work that's already been done so a theme tonight was collaboration I think that's a good way to help ensure that we
218are getting collaboration through the implement process if we move forward with this so one of the things I will say is you know nearly as one of the longest serving board members on this board which scares me to no end um but is that um you know the old strategic plan was done 10 plus years ago and then would just be kind of met on an annual basis to see if there was the board felt there were any adjustments or anything else that needed to be done to it and not having the history or the knowledge at the time that I was going in it was I was kind of afraid that I wasn't aware of what we were missing and what we weren't hearing and so one of the missions when you came on
219Tom that a lot of board discussion was was kind of go out and find and help us understand what's needed in the direction that the community wants more than just the seven of us here per se so that we can understand that our own kind of perspective won't buy us our out approach our outcomes on this as much as an opportunity to really understand what people need and want and talking about a strategic plan that was 10 years old needed really needed a new shakeup and I think this begins to show that because of kind of the language and how things are infused instead of on silos I think there's a number of good things that are starting to come out of it okay um if you don't mind then uh we'll go through the
220actual document and then I'll continue this conversation so essentially I already covered this with you in the slides but just a reminder um that the Strategic plan that a board approves is our organizational framework this is this is exactly what articulates the vision of the district and what the expectations are from the Board of Education all right um if you look at our process I just covered that but here on the next page you'll see more detail um that I explain to you we've been referencing this as our North Star this one once again whatever version the board decides to approve approves it we as an organization will use that then as our Guiding Light how to do the work and which direction we're heading together as an organization um okay I'm sorry to interrupt
221yeah don't no no go ahead um year after year year we work on goals so I just want to clarify yeah this will be our North Star like you said but that doesn't mean that every year we won't review what we want goals to be I just want to make that clear because it's not as if you're going to say well this is what you told me to do and it's two years later and you're still this is what you told me to do as as much as it is that we're voting on this to be the North Star this is not set in stone um on what your yearly goals will look like continuing moving forward am I accurate with that that's I think you're accurate but I also want to make sure I'm
222clear on something so what's recommended is The Five-Year Plan because if we're all to work towards progress and improving whatever area that we're we're going to tackle if we change what the metrics and goal focus is from year to year I think it's going to be hard at some point to determine have we actually made success towards that right like you want to is that is that what it makes sense but my my it's not set in stone if if something happens that's needed and would create value for the change we would change it I can give an example it's the pandemic okay oh you know you know if we sat to the seven or 10 year plan that was approved for Lisa Hitchens there would have been a lot of different Focus than what
223had come out of the pandemic and the different styles of teaching and learning environment um I don't remember going over the Strategic plan when she was our superintendent when we look when every summer when we met to discuss goals for the year we didn't go back to what our Northstar was for the Strategic plan right we every single year talked about what the objectives were okay so yeah I'm trying to get the right mindset here on there's no way in heck I'm voting yes for something if this is going to be set in stone and there's no way we could adjust things as we move along mhm or is this going to be something that we are all understanding that could be fluid and needs to be opened up and talked about it's not like
224a contract set in stone I wouldn't imagine it's a contract set in stone I mean I would think that if the will of the board was saying something wasn't working and something really needed to be re-evaluated then then we would work with it but frankly kind of at that point you know it's kind of what Tom has been talking about kind of on the accountability side if there's something on this that is kind of skewed about it we need to get to the bottom of it and figure out what it is is I would make it I would pause it an argument that for some of the reason that people are feeling as if that things were kind of aimless is because we really didn't have this right so we were we were kind of
225being brought to us some goals as a board and then we were discussing those under the generalist opes of some sort of you know Target we were trying to hit but we didn't really know where that was or what we were trying to achieve and then because things were so separated it's almost like okay let's work on this let's work on this let's work on this let's work on this so I think the framework that's here which is a better way of my head of kind of looking at it allows us to organize those goals in a way that if an outlier comes in then we can at least understand that's an outlier and then how do we adjust to it or do we delay reviewing it you know and make a conscious effort about
226that as opposed to kind of sitting there on a Saturday morning going well what do you guys want us to do next year okay yeah it's not it's not a contract but it was diligently done so need to give it time to develop yeah and I if I can make one comment here on this too um which is you know I think it we got to be flexible I I totally agree with that if we need to make some changes but let's not just you know be Hasty in making changes to the goals let's kind of see how they play out because what to me is more important is you set a very um set a goal that is challenging that has an end end result of helping our students that's that's the bottom line
227okay now we're going to measure Tom on a yearly basis on how he's doing in achieving that goal now if we find that the trend isn't going in the right direction actions that we're taking in support of that goal need to be re-evaluated so instead of just changing the goal let's look at what actions we're doing to try and get to achieve that and change those but with that being said if really you know it comes to a decision where we need to change something we we should be flexible in that yeah my thought process is just more on when when yeah when it's need when would we reevaluate yeah I mean it's a fiveyear plan right so at a maximum really it would be at five years that we would say okay let's re-evaluate
228and readjust this you know but maybe there's some trigger said as a maximum as a maximum five years we at that point we could those on the board now or then could commit to saying hey let's re-evaluate this and go through the process particularly in the process that uh Tom kind of went through I mean I've seen plenty of strategic plans that Brad in Consultants that just seem to rehash the same six points over and over and over again you know so I think that this process allows people to kind of get to it and get to the meat of the matter faster all right I'll let you get get to it okay I I appreciate the conversation this is what's needed um all right so then moving to the uh grid with our phases
229uh I already explained this in the slide deck so I won't uh belabor this but this is this is the process we we embarked on and in in a little more detail and explanation going to page four um this is where we move into where our mission vision and values and commitments um will rest on this page uh page four of this document and again if you sense that there's language embedded for example in the vision statement that's being drawn from our portrait of a graduate you would be correct um Again part of the feedback came back was it feels siloed it feels separate but it's worth having this is a really worthy thing Endeavor to see our students become that so as a vision statement if all things are working and working well then
230that's what our students should look like as they graduate BPS so and the values on this page are elements or concepts that get applied to each priority in some capacity yeah I think this is a collection of what people said is really valuable and important in this District um or what they believe is important to the experience at BPS 101 and what or what should be something we strive for as our values so that's that's why that that those seven points are there everyone must be much quicker at soaking this up than me I've read this so many times and I still have questions so I'm sorry who is we when it says we is we the district the board at all times throughout this entire thing when this gets approved we will represent the
231organization so how are we expected to be recognized for our Excellence which one was that one Vision St vision statement statement you're back up top sorry okay sounds like we want to be rewarded for improvements do you feel that that St I mean this is RJ this can be a conversation for you and the board do you feel that being recognized for our organizational Excellence should be recognized for our students Excellence is that what you would prefer I don't want to change the vision statement I just want to understand it better I don't I don't understand who wrote it where it came from did it come from did all the different Vision groups all the students and the faculty and the the members of society this was trying to pull everything together to create a
232succinct vision statement yes since no one else has questions on it I'll just let it sit there no I I going no keep going it's fine it's a good discussion point I mean I think I can see your perspective right we and then are excellent right the way I look at it and this is just my perspective we is a universal term across all contributors and all people involved in the district in total right so I'm asking who we yeah right no it's a good question fair so like it's not just the it's not the board is we it's every teacher every student every you know perah every custodian everyone that's involved in the district business and in educating our K children on all capacities you know and then when there is Success that is
233measured by some Metric we have that one would celebrate that success also across the entire District can I ask this RJ so I mean if you're having this question other people would yeah I mean one thing I struggle with in Academia is like all the acronyms and you know like do you think having like definitions for some of this stuff in the document would be helpful sure unless it's established somewhere because we as an entire Community BPS 101 all stakeholders reading this and what I've read makes sense if we are doing all this because we want you could put in there we the BPS 101 Community if if that's what if that's what's the intention of it mm I don't want to change the intention I just want to understand it make it clearer so
234that it's understood I think that's a good comment yeah I think it's a very good comment I might have been so close to this for so long sometimes as you can't see the forest for the trees so I'm glad you're bringing this perspec okay and I noticed a comma where they sh been a semicolon dead crickets I'm laugh it's 10:26 so I'm making note of this s we should just continue another day yeah got it all right um moving on to the next page then on page five this is where we begin discussing the priority items and those are the three priority areas that I showed you on the slide deck presentation um so when we talk about organizational strategies these were again drawn from the feedback that was submitted through survey work and from
235Vision sessions um and hopefully a lot of the participants who may have submitted or participated will recognize these themes if they were one of the folks that submitted this uh so if you take a look at those organizational strategies they're followed up by key metrics under each priority item and again based on feedback that was collected through this process that's how we arrived at these key metrics being the ones that should be identified as what we may what that would be recommended to the board of education so each bullet point like the first bullet point represents the metric for strategy one no okay overall overall overall correct thank you that's a good question it's not necessarily aligning to which priority it's or strategy so strategies informs strategies of developing and moving progress on Priority One
236and the metrics of how Priority One might be measured yes okay I would presume that the metrics would be a part of this phase four discussion process as well right to make sure are there other ones that are missing are there other ones that need to be fill or developed so that they align to the values maybe a little better or otherwise reinforce that priority okay so priority two and priority three are structured the same way way organizational strategies which are followed by key metrics to be um again as a part of this overall District's vision and and work could you talk a little bit about and that's to anybody on the steering committee that's up here the family and Community Partnerships because that's one of the first ones I've seen that kind of look
237out side of the district a bit Rob Aon do you mind if you want me to speak to the feedback on that one okay um so in that particular area a lot of the feedback spoke to the fact that we have uh areas of our communities that we serve as a school district um where we could do better in engaging and reaching those those um families and students one might be for example specific example I was given is was uh the district doing uh finding ways to engage with home languages in a stronger manner that was one very uh resounding theme that we received um another one would be trying to find ways to do some Bridge programming to reach out to the families you know and and engage them and bring them into our
238school environment or bring the school environment to them okay you will notice some of these organizational strategies board it is going to require your participation too um one of the things I want to bring your attention to is when we talk under cre prior key priority two uh under number two Equity Audits and action plans so a part of the work here as a board will be we'll probably need to take a look at our board policies that governs this district and ensure that from a governance standpoint as an organization are our policies updated and meeting what the needs are for our Learners and to support our staff Brad also mentioned earlier uh when talking about the Panorama uh survey approval so under item number three of key priority to there's social emotional learning and
239programs and again there we're going to be highlighting the opportunity for students to share where they're at um especially in the uh non- High School grade ages because that is currently being done by adults for the key metrics that are listed here do you know if we have benchmarks or a way to have a benchmark before the next school year starts can you say that again do we for the the key metrics that are suggested mhm some of some of them just off the top of my head I can't think of where we are with it currently what I'm wondering is do we have a current status on a benchmark so that we could have a goal to show that we actually improved or would we I guess I should just speak in general I
240that's my suggestion that we should have it okay um even if it's something is a survey or an engagement result you can always start off the school year with that survey to create the Benchmark and say thinking of your previous year how did this how was it so that we could set the Benchmark for moving forward I don't want one of the metrics that might be a really solid measuring stick to not be used in the first year because oh we didn't have anything to base it off ofh but at the same point I don't want it gone because of that if we have to we have to start somewhere right but we've already started from zero on a lot of things uh on the equity audit and action plans I'm aware that there are
241third party Equity Auditors and reviewers is that one of the things you guys are considering I think that's a part of our work where we collaborate uh with stakeholders to determine and then even who that might be you know um making sure everybody feels comfortable with who might do that if the board's going to leave that in the plan plan my recommendation would be we look at a um maybe a third party you know outside eyes coming in taking a look at our organizational practices okay and policies right and policies too okay yeah was there any discussion about um collaborating with other other districts as far as how any way measurable anything I will tell you that other uh correct me if I'm wrong time but other other strategic plans were definitely looked at how
242they were created and what their mission statements were and that type of thing okay not on like a forward basis I'm just throwing it out there wondering if that was what you say I didn't hear on a long-standing basis I think the tricky part of this is every board in every school district approves a strategic plan that looks different from each other because you're focusing in on what the needs of your organization are and they're not the same from one District to another or to the communities you serve in one to another which by the way you looked at what three or four other districts throughout the country at their strategic plan uh it was it was more than that okay we looked yeah so you know I just and again part of this work
243was understanding other District uh strategic plans both in Illinois and outside of Illinois yeah but let's just say there's another school district that is excelling at one of these things right like I don't know like the family and Community Partnerships I we'll say West like they have a really good program in place so we can we can reach out to them and say hey how did you guys do this what did you do how did you get this involvement I mean something I mean you know something like that I mean we could I think we've I mean you even heard through the bidding process you know we we've done site visits right and I think if I understand Brad help me with this there have been times where we do collaborate with other districts who
244might be using certain resources or programs and take a look at it and we send uh kind of like an exploration team is that right yeah Danielle's approving that I asked something else thank you Danielle no no I'm I'm holding my questions until the end oh oh we're not at the end we're not no I I know oh God go ahead I thought you summarized priorities one two and three yeah I did you know I I've gone over so I don't want to you know be too redundant here yeah I know for the sake of time so all right and then the portrait of a graduate uh follows the three key priorities again some those that language there especially the highlighted bullet point should look familiar because that's what's embedded in the previous page as
245well then moving to the next steps and implementation which seems to have uh been some of the questions here tonight uh for the board you'll see here as we look towards the next steps and we do look towards the collaborative aspects of getting this work done um we also will be building in a biannual report to the Board of Education uh along with that data dashboard we will bring that report to you um including one of those reports being an end ofe summmer AR on how how the year went and I think doing it in the form of a board meeting so that you as a board can also have a discussion about this and review the progress on an annual basis is important and that's that's one of the factors RJ I think you
246were asking earlier that's a part of the accountability piece all right so that does bring us to the end of the document um I kind of want to be able to just take notes and listen to the board deliberate okay can I start I've sat I've sat quietly RJ just hold on um I think um well thank you for you guys for putting everything together Aon and Rob I know that um you've spent a lot of time on this I I just kind of from my perspective this is the first time that I'm hearing this put together we got the board packet it's a lot of information it's a lot of um just kind of trying [Music] to my words are broken because it's so late so bear with me but just really trying to
247kind of reflect on different things that as a community member as a board member that you know I we're brought to the table I know some of the feedback and so I think one of the things I keep coming back to is I understand that we want to approve improve this and then goals will be made but I almost feel like it's a backwards way to do things I'm really not comfortable I don't I guess I'm going to say I don't understand how some of the real key issues that we have um fall into some of these sections and I think that if I understood some of the goals or even some of the I think where you have different um strategies in place you might have a better understanding of what is within those
248strategies from your discussions in your in your steering committee meetings maybe from your questions that we don't all have so I want just to kind of put that out there is we're coming here to the table with a lot less information I am not in a position to vote on this tonight because I have questions and I don't understand as a board member how like I said whether it was the community whether it's baa what's going on there's issues that I don't understand how they're tied into these strategies and with the metrics um I'm just not quite comfortable um looking at where they're at I'm going to use one part is safety and Bully incident rates I'm not comfortable using that as a key metric until we address that as a board because we just
249listen to students and listen to representatives from different groups talk about how our students don't feel comfortable reporting bullying incidents we have school I know for for from experience and I know Lizzy who came up and spoke um every day she is bullied on the bus every day and she did not report or any of the incidents because she and her sister her family have gone through such a system of getting nowhere so I'm not comfortable with some of these metrics until we're really addressing them so maybe we can have discussions of how that can be applied so we're not stopping things I'm just not comfortable until we I I feel like there's just some information missing and I'm not understanding how we can kind of put this stuff together I guess that's my broad
250feeling about it can I can I just throw one uh clarifier out there so the public is also very aware of this um I know there was concern about um this being a discussion and action item tonight I just want to remind everybody when this was approved in in September I was really clear that the goal was to try and approve by June but I made a promise to you as my seven bosses I know you hate it when I call you my bosses but that would try to bring a draft to you by May so totally within the scope of if we're not voting on it tonight that's okay nobody has to make a motion so sorry so I I'll throw this out there now I think to address what you're talking about but
251so one of the challenges as a board is if you listen to all the comments is there's a call to action and then there's a call to proceed with caution and slowly so it's sort of like take more time get more more info no we need to act now there's a problem and it's challenging and I do agree this is a you know to to Define our Northstar as a really big it's one of our key jobs as a board member as a board and um I do think our process was a good one but at the same time something Rob and I have talked about is you know there's always those people that were just not reaching we're not hearing their voices some of them were probably heard tonight and so one thing I
252would like to throw out there is um I think we should wait till next month to vote on this and I think we should also uh I don't want to say that's a call to action but if someone didn't feel like their voice was heard in the creation of this document you know there's a board email that's open to anyone and they can they uh can express fully what their thoughts are and I would feel I would like to give people it'd be have to be a limited window because we'd have to gather that data have time to process it and then have the steering committee have a chance to review it again to make any recommendations before Tom would present it again next month but I think it would give everyone on the board
253more time to digest this document to have more conversations with Tom and it would give the community sort of another chance to provide feedback um and then next month you know we could vote on it and we could vote up or down but I think it would give everyone just more time give them more members in our community would be another opportunity for them to to provide that feedback yeah are we able to discuss a way to make sure that the board can I mean I can have a conversation with Tom but I would like to make sure that you guys are all aware of that conversation so that it can help you when you are looking at the Strategic plan and same thing if roel sit down with Tom and asked some really good
254questions that might help feed into this I'd love us to be able to discuss how to do that since we cannot have back and forth obviously outside of this the boardroom um because of again we're all coming from different perspectives different places different knowledge um and I think that would be extremely helpful um so like I said I I look at this and I there's just pieces that are missing as far as you know is I'm having a hard time understanding how we're going to make goals and have measurements and deadlines but we're going to vote that before we understand what those things are so I don't I don't I'm I'm a little lost on that part like I said I feel like this is a little backwards cor so I don't know if yeah
255goad totally understand what you're saying okay um would like it be appropriate maybe at the board retreat potentially yeah so I mean I think a couple of things one Danielle I think you ra some very good points um I think some clarity about like almost really ex like exactly what we're voting to approve or amend really is like and it's kind of related to I question before is the way I see it as like the priorities when you see a lot of these strategic plans they're just priority priority priority priority it doesn't give any background to it and so I think these strategies which are fairly well kind of understood and the key metrics are are ways of giving us a hint as to how things might be um applied to it but I'm not
256sure the key metrics are locked in yet as to what those are so the opportunity and correct me if I'm wrong like the ability to kind of for in that phase four to say hey we're going to look at this metric for bullying and are there holes in it is it not giving us the things we need and that's kind of like a comment you could give to say hey I think the priority is good but the key metric is wrong or needs to be evaluated I I don't know if I have enough understanding of any of the metrics to be able to say it's wrong or right but I you can certainly question it so I think maybe some time to figure that out and I was going to kind of point out as
257Tom said that you know it is an action item to give us the ab ability to if we determine that we wanted to or needed to approve it or not approve it tonight but kind of procedurally we would just not make a motion to it so we would just let the motion effectively the action item die tonight and then it would be put on at the next board meeting so we wouldn't be voting against it per se so yeah I'm good with that um just for clarification on the metrics so you've listed those in this document but the next step and correct me if I'm wrong down okay you're going to collaborate here with all our stakeholder our partners and establish the goals agreement we may not need that particular metric to measure the success
258of that goal so it by the fact that it's listed in that document doesn't necessarily mean that we'll use it for the goal if that makes sense so they're going to establish the goals and then they'll see what metrics they're going to use am I um yeah the only caveat I would say is that the the key metrics that were identified I I just want to remind the board again is being compiled from the feedback that was received so I would you know if you're asking me Rob for my opinion I wouldn't say that you don't have to use them because I think In fairness to everyone who participated in the process I think we need to be transparent that that data is being um displayed on our data dashboard um if that makes sense
259I if if so for example um let's use one of the areas that was brought up again let's just use achievement test proficiency and growth right um that was brought up quite a bit in the in the work we did but if you were to say well we're not we're not going to necessarily establish a goal under that area I would argue we should be still be displaying that data because that was what the feedback from this process solicited does that make sense it makes sense but then I think Danielle's concern about well is the data any good for that metric if we're not collecting all the information that's it may not represent what actually is happening I think that was your point with the bullying metric yeah is is there a reason we can't
260vote on it after we've established the goals I I think that's what I'm where my brain goes that's where I'm is there a reason that like who decided this order so this is the order that I've seen at other areas and that's why like the ones that I've seen are just you're voting on The priorities and are those the priorities that are going to be focused on the goals get enacted by Direction later so that you're establishing a this is the direction we want to go so that the time and effort involved in developing the goals and the metrics and and the understanding of that are being supported by a priority level that we've heard through the process yeah but then we've essentially voted on goals that we never saw right well I guess we're
261saying we're going to vote on the the like what needs to be done but not how right like the what but not how right because that's the how will be done with every right stakeholder so I think part of our job then in EV valuing the superintendent we should is what he's implementing yeah getting us to those goals and if we're not and frankly I'm going to be just to clarify these priorities let's just call it that for that's what's listed here so these are our priorities and then that we'll collaborate to set goals and metrics and then when we're evaluating the superintendent are we getting there or we not are the systems you put in place helping us achieve those goals am I accurate Mr Kim yeah and we wanted to use the to
262prove that and what I will say about the thing that um I think is different RJ than previous and I don't want to smear anyone that came before us but uh like something we talked about in the steering committee is that we need to have you know like in the private sector it was brought up like there smart goals like you set a goal with a specific number and we're trying to achieve like I'm in sales so we're going to grow 10% and sometimes I feel like in the past we haven't really had like a like we're trying to hit a number so we don't know how to evaluate right like well we got the goal but what are we getting there I don't know are we forward backwards and so one of the things
263that was discussed I think that's in here but maybe not is that our dashboard now will be much more uh visible live we're going to own it everybody's going to own it and so it's something that anyone in the community could access at any time and we would have our goal and where we're at where we're going to it so then when it comes to evaluating now we can have a lot of discussions on if what we're measuring is actually helping us achieve a goal at least we have something a data point to to start with and now that might be adjusted over time so I'm going to use your example to way how I see this the Strategic plan of the goal you just talked about was to increase sales your your goal was
264to increase it 10% the overaging idea was we're making a group decision effectively to increase sales there's other things that determine whether can you support the sales that you do right so you need to measure all of those together to determine can do you have the staff load do you have the people do you have the quality assurance needs to be able to meet those so that if you sell those you can succeed right so then when you say okay how much are we going to that's what implementation phase is is to say okay we're going to say an achievable metric or goal is 10% because you guys have heard me say a million times my wife is a speech pathologist she establishes goals and all that other stuff and you need to make your
265goals so that they're achievable because they're smart goals right so you don't set them too lofty but they're still looking at a Target way down the road of what you want to do that's my perspective on this so just I thought your example was a good one to kind of in my head how I see the two differences in there and one thing I want to say is um people might notice I take notes when all the speakers up there one of the speakers really even quoted Martin Luther King and said uh thin paper to thick action and so I don't want to diminish the work that's been done in creating this document I don't want to say it's thin paper but honestly any document create is only going to have enough value if we're
266going to be as a collective Community bps101 our partners to then hold ourselves accountable to the light of day so then a year from now if we put something and we set a goal Tom could do a presentation where he's going through those metrics and the entire Community is going to own that and some will be successes and some will need a lot of work and some might be failures but that's the key part I think is that we're not going to hide for run for it we're going to have the fortitude to say yeah this is a goal we decide to measure Mark we're not doing that we got to come up with something different we have to take action and I think the metrics in in this type of thing is then will
267give us a c action say yeah it's not good here you go a b and c now we need to act but then I think the key is that we all own it as a community it's not the board it's not the teachers it's not it's we're all in this together because I one thing I will say is the one thing if I had to point to one thing about the process that was really sort of inspiring for me is was always about how does this help students how does this help students that was you know students were leading it anytime we had any discussion it would always come back was this going to how is is this going to impact students in a positive way so I think no matter what the board approves
268that for me is the key component that we have the the guts to then say okay yeah Tom we're going to hold you accountable you got to get it done and then the whole organization the whole Community Falls in line to make sure that we get there because again our kids that's if there's anything that we can all agree on so we want to give them the the opportunity to reach their true potential what I mean based on again feedback I I think you're hitting on something is that there's there was so much feedback in making sure we also acknowledge that uh you know we are in in the in a people business we're we're in the business of helping students grow right and I think when we talk about whether or not they've hit
269benchmarks as to what the nation or the state standards May dictate which by the way is not aligned state to state the nation is not aligned on what those Benchmark data should be just and by the way we're also switching from the SAT to the ACT next year that was just announced recently so we have to keep in mind that a lot of the feedback came in play was talking about how do we provide learning experiences and growth experiences for students that have IEPs students that are are English Learners students that come from a variety of backgrounds of Learners in our district and that's part of the reason why the idea of growth and always learning and always growing is such a strong reminder of what our Mantra might need to be so that we
270are working on if students did not hit that Benchmark of what the state average might indicate but did did some of these student groups grow and can we celebrate the growth I think that's really important empowering kids to feel good about the fact that they made gains that maybe started the year not thinking they would do and and and through the support and the work of the district they they hit it or they've grown you know more than what was um statistically predicted if you want to say it that way are there any other questions is there a general consensus to not make a motion on this tonight I'm generally seeing heads what not yes yes okay I was framing it in the positive T yeah so okay so um with any other questions but
271I would you know encourage the board members I I think you know Danielle would we'd have to put some thought together on how to make see if there's a way to share information or it goes to Tom and Tom says here are the things I've kind of heard thus far as a summary because we don't we need to be cognizant also is we want to be diligent we want to make good decisions but got to start implementing at some point in time and the summer is always shorter as every teacher who remains here today will tell me it's shorter and short feels shorter and shorter every year you know so we don't have a lot of time and frankly we've got basically two and a half meetings you know to hear any development in that
272before he gets a chance to get enacted and that takes some time so I do agree that from my opinion and this is kind of the last moment if if you guys all agree if you have comments and time to try to spend your next week or two digging into that to get to Tom so that I do like what Aaron brought up is get a chance for him to get back in front of some if not this the steering committee at least key members of the steering committee to be able to kind of synthesize that into the document so it gets a chance to get out with us for a chance for us to really review it and see what the adjustments are um can I just get a little more so help me
273understand exactly what my next steps are please that was clear enough no I well I when you say syn syze more synthesize what if you get comments or questions from other board members who may or may or the community or the community Through the board members or through whatever the document we should set a deadline for when we're okay um so if I have questions I'll reach out to you Thursday and say hey can we meet and go over my questions and concerns and then if anyone of the other board members wants to do that and then yeah then like on your summaries say hey these were the issues brought to me okay and this is my answers or this what I'll be working on maybe for time saving if there's multiple of us like
274we did uh for some of the questions we have before on besta we could perhaps have two of us yeah since that doesn't reach open meetings act save on time your your time and he could he could collect all the questions too yeah we can oh yeah we just put on a do if you want to do that but I I mean I'm going to be respectful of time but I want to make sure we get the right decisions right so if you want to get me questions and I can help put them together and um if we kind of establish it by Thursday of you know Tuesday Wednesday of next week give some time then that way he can look at it and understand what kind of comes from that and then it's the
275community emails the you know 101 link on contacting the board that's a good way because all of us get that email um so that we can see it and decide if that um is a reinforces any of our thought processes or opens new avenues of discussion is there a timeline Tom that you would kind of want to close that window so you have time to well January 23rd is our next Cindy when's our June board meeting 25th of June 25th you said January I oh so I like boy that's a long time out my apologies everybody getting punched let's pull up the calendar hang on oh you want a lot of time okay no I don't want that all right uh so if okay so June 25th board book is Du by the 21st I
276mean if you want to work round numbers in my head can we go with the 11th do you think by the 11th do you think you could get stuff back by the 11th meet with people and my almost initial request would be to get I mean in theory this is tweaks and adjustments based on commentation not holistic changes so everybody would wor and so I guess that date about the board book or the day before would be reasonable to give time to respond okay from our perspective would be prepared for the meeting I say by the 20th so that's when the board that's when your final would come out by June 20th and then what you're saying is about a week in a couple of days is when we' want to make sure you want
277to be able to get it to the steering committee and talk with them about it um I will certainly uh reach out and see if the group would be interested in meeting one more time um but if we do that if we do that um I'm just looking at the calendar I'm just kind of wondering if we get comments to you by the 6th that gives you about two weeks almost to get synthesized I just don't know whe what the committee will be able to meet okay um you know as of last Wednesday we ended with them understanding their commitment was completed okay so I don't know I can't speak for that okay it's fair I mean I know Aaron and Rob I'm going to make you be be there that's for sure we'll be
278there um but I can reach out and then maybe give those that feel that they're interested and maybe it cares it depends on the extent and extent of the comments you received as well so if if I have Clarity here just for clarity sake uh by June 20th the board excuse me by June 21st once the board book is published you will have your revised with any last tweaks and feedback that has come through either board member questions or contact the board process between now and we're calling it probably what juli June 12th that's okay for you June 12th whatever works for you to I don't know I know got to pick a date all right June 12th all right so that provides almost a three three and a half week window for folks okay
279okay so June 12th we'll close June 12th all right all right thank you so uh we are not at this point in time entertaining a motion for the Strategic plan thank you for bearing with us for that discussion everyone um board matters item 8.1 I don't have any particular board matters and there might be a mutiny if I come up with one so we will not be discussing that anybody else has something that they want to bring up so then we will jump into administrative comments Tom is there anything you want to bring up yes okay thank you um just wanted to share that BPS 101 has been hosting exchange students since 1959 I don't know if you're aware of that but we go through an organization called AFI and I had a chance to
280meet with this year one of our one of our current exchange students here at BHS her name is Josephine and she's an exchange student from Kenya um in talking with her I asked her you know know how's your school experience been cuz she's going to return home on June 4th and she shared that she really enjoyed her experience at BHS loved her classes uh not necessarily because of all the subjects but she said I loved my teachers so I I thought that was great she we laughed because she named some subjects that she didn't enjoy but she definitely loved going because of the teachers there so um I want to thank AFI for making that happen for Pavia because the coordinator volunteers her time to make that happen um last week we hosted the second
281annual thank you brunch uh which is led by Amy Nelson and this is a a small token of gratitude towards all of our Community Partnership groups that support things such as the toy drive that we do during the holiday season um um chip in is represented there to be thanked uh for the work that they do supporting students and families so I think you get a feel we beefy is also a part of this uh morning brunch so we have a lot of great partners ships that exist for BPS 101 and you know when we take a look at what's coming up next and all the support we talk about graduation um one of the graduation ceremonies I was able to attend was last Friday for our sale program at the Mid Valley cooperative and
282it was just amazing to see all the member districts gathering together to celebrate all of our successes of all the students that are part of the sale program and it that it was truly awesome um and continuing to speak of esses just a reminder that we'll be having uh our opportunity to see the class of 2024 take the spotlight tomorrow um as they graduate and I'm pretty sure that it's going to be not only just a great night but also a pretty emotional night for our students parents and staff um what I love about graduation is that it's a great reminder of our why uh why we're in education why everybody who works in the school district uh does what we do um and then on a final note I just hope that people have
283been able to learn a little bit more about asian-americans in our country through the Asian-American native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander month of May um as a son of immigrants uh who immigrated from South Korea it's uh for me I always enjoy these celebrations of all of our heritages in this country I think it's a wonderful opportunity to learn about each other learn about our backgrounds and cultures that have made this uh our nation um you know and I think about the conversations we we had tonight I think about the work that's been done for the Strategic plan I think of my mom and I'll tell you why my mom worked really hard uh to make sure me and my two younger brothers had a quality education uh we moved around a lot had a lot
284of different things growing up that kind of impacted the way our family structures looked but in the end she worked really hard to make sure that we were receiving a quality education um one of the things about my mom is she never pushed me or my brothers to go into a certain pathway she never said be this be that or be that she always just said you know work hard take School seriously try your best and I apologize AMA because I did not do school all the time so and I was probably a big stressor for her but she always just said pursue what you think you should pursue that's all she ever said and I think about what we're trying to talk through tonight and I appreciate the discussion and the conversation that the
285board had here um and I look forward to supporting the work I also want to say there's been a lot of celebrations lately the last few weeks and I want to say I appreciate all of the educators all of our support staff all the leaders in this district for everything you've done I know from the bottom of my heart I believe this and I know this whenever we get to that point that it's time to move forward we're going to do it and we're going to do it together and we are going to be supporting our students I know that and I believe it I believe that this District um is ready for it we've heard people make comment about that tonight and so um one of the other reasons why is boor I just
286want to thank you as I'm wrapping up my first year thank you for being uh really supportive bosses I think we've had some great conversations and an opportunity to get to know each other and it helps me understand your lens as to why you serve on the board um I look forward to continuing this work and I as I warned you you are going to have to do some work yourself when we move forward with the Strategic plan all right so uh don't say I didn't warn you and uh so I look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow night and uh that's it and thanks to everybody for sticking around all right thanks Tom board comments any volunteers to kick it off can I start sure absolutely sir I haven't had enough time to talk yet
287yeah believe it or not I actually have some more things to say so I just want to get it going um definitely thank you to everyone who's here tonight um I love seeing this many people at our meetings and it would actually be wonderful if we had to do this every single month I mean that with sincerity um it's late in the evening obviously and the energy and the focus that I have is because I'm drawing it from everyone that's still here it reminds me how important this is um sometimes we have meetings with 10 or 15 people at it and maybe a hundred views on YouTube and you know question like who's paying attention to this and who's who's involved in this so I appreciate the lovely reminder you're all sacrificing your time stuck
288listening to me think out loud so I really appreciate it um and I think one definite truth of all this is that we're all here for students we're all concerned about the students we might have different ways or thoughts of how we could help them but we all want to do it so uh you're still here thank you for your service I really appreciate it you've always been thoughtful and insightful thank you so much it's been a pleasure and Drew is Drew still here all right starting on the gray hair then um Drew I look forward to working with you um Todd I definitely appreciate you addressing the news article that came out today it did catch me a little bit off guard so I appreciate it it's a great reminder to go go to
289the source if you're not sure about something if there's a rumor out there we know that that happens plenty um Aaron and Rob and Tom thank you all for your effort that you put into the this uh strategic plan I really appreciate it um it's not lost on me that out in the atmosphere people are thinking that this is really fast and we're moving really fast but as someone who spent four years on the building our future together plan to then put the referendum out and be told this is too fast I understand you guys did a lot of work and so that so that all the the people that were involved in it um I kind of wish I understood this perspective back when we put the referendum out to to try to address
290a little bit better so um I appreciate all the work you did um give me a second here let's see Tom again thank you I've had a lot of rough bosses but I've never had seven that are questioning my work in front of the community so I appreciate everything you're doing I think you are doing a great job and I'm very happy that you're here I I continue to be happy with everything you've been doing you you've been giving me nothing but answers to all my questions and believe it or not I actually met met Tom earlier this week and I still have questions so thank you for it I appreciate it um sorry said I didn't know that yeah it's embarrassing to say um some other thoughts for the past two years we've been
291asked to address Dei as quickly as possible and now we're being asked to kind of slow down and really think through it I don't know but I I hope that means that we've actually made some progress so I hope at least to have that perspective that nothing's been done nothing's been done that we are finally showing that we're listening and we hear you and we do want to make sure that it's right um lost my spot I definitely think we've got a lot of opportunities still and a lot of things to consider if you all remember during the referendum years a few years ago we actually had people that were talking about closing schools down like why why rebuild schools just close the school down and now we have people here concerned about the classroom
292sizes so things change that was part of my point of wondering about like we can't just have a set goal in mind we can't just set to one thing imagine if we said yeah we're going to build that we're going to get rid of that school and all of a sudden um so just bringing that for perspective as well um to the students who spoke Molly Martin Alexis and Liz um I really appreciate your willingness to speak up I hate that you had to do so um I'm going to remain hopeful that soon that these incidents will be reduced and followed up by them by not happening at all um however I will never think that just because the student doesn't speak up that that means everything's fine I just want you to know that's
293a commitment for me um and I know that uh we say the right words I heard that before so I won't say anything else to the matter hopefully the action will speak for it finally graduation tomorrow congratulations to all the students finishing up their year not just the graduates everyone else I know it's a long year um it was fun seeing the HD storm faculty here my daughter was crying last night about leaving uh Mr stansik is he still here he was here but she was crying last night because she's going to miss him so she's going to join K kids next year just so she can see him more often so um I know there's a lot of great teachers that have that so I appreciate all the teachers wrapping up the year as
294well so thank you everyone that's it Rob I'm up I'll be quick here so uh I'll lead off with congratulations to the class of 2024 look forward to celebrating with you tomorrow night um congratulations to Mr scr on his retirement good luck to him and his family in their next phase uh Todd thank you very much enjoyed working with you in our short time here Drew look forward congratulations and look forward to working with you in the future here um lunch ahead I think are gone here too but uh great idea I've been hearing about it uh for several months now um and very impressed with the the way those students uh presented they were uh very professional so uh really enjoyed that um and I think oh yeah final thing is uh thank you
295to all the speakers and um you know it takes a lot of courage to come up and speak in front of a group and uh um I do appreciate it and um you know we we heard we heard uh what you had to say so thank you okay so happy Asian uh Pacific Islander Heritage Month happy Jewish American heritage month and I mean was had a lot of people speak about um bullying and um what they have to go through so it's also mental health awareness month so let's just be mindful of mental health and we have summer coming up so we all just need to decompress um get some vitamin D and just be you know take care of yourself uh thanks to Andrea Woods for inviting me to the Hoover Woods living wax
296museum it was a really great experience um I think the students did a really good job and it was It was kind of cool what they did um for the teachers uh apologies for the tardiness in not saying my appreciation last week but uh thanks for all that you do um I know it's a tough job and it's not always the 9 to or 8 to 830 83 whatever it is the 8 8 to three I'm so sorry um anyway it's a lot it's more than just a day's work so I appreciate that uh congratulations to the class of 2024 um to all the speakers tonight I appreciate you taking the time to come out and talk to us um I think a lot of us have had you know heard all your voices and
297we have um as kind of R.J said we have some thinking to do and some actions to do um and then congratulations to all the spring sports like the girls track I know boys track is coming up this week um I don't remember whatever I'm so sorry can't think uh and then uh with Summer coming up I just hope everyone has a happy healthy and safe summer so again I also want to thank uh everybody who attended tonight or who reaches out to the board via email or comes up to me on the street when I'm at Limestone or at a ball game um I hope you can tell from the discussion we had on the Strategic of planet does inform our work it's absolutely essential to for the functioning board to get feedback from
298the community and I agree that it's great to see this many people it's amazing that you this many people are still here uh so I Sal I salute you for that but um yes if we had a 100 people at every meeting that would be fantastic so I I appreciate and again as some of my colleagues says it takes a lot of Courage we had people speak on a variety of topics I'm sure some of them were not aware that there' be a packed house um and so I commend anyone has the the courage and the conviction to come and speak to us and I would encourage people to continue to do that uh it does lead to change I want to thank our BPS Partners Todd I think I think you at the last
299meeting but we'll give you another shout out and Mr Ray we're happy to have you on board and look forward to collaborating with you I also want to congratulate principal scr I think if there was somebody in the BPS community that was more beloved than him you'd be hard to find him so I'm really happy for him that he's going to get a chance to enjoy his retirement um again I want to thank all of our student speakers the entrepreneurs that came up here and speak I mean I I'd probably hire him a heartbeat to join my sales team based off that presentation so very exciting what they're doing and then I just want to thank everybody that helps this machine operate the teachers the Paras the AIDS the principes the secretaries administrator nurses Food
300Service workers bus drivers Mr Anderson and his team that keeps us warm safe and dry uh David back there that keeps our technology operating it's part of our crucial infrastructure and then really also the army of parent volunteers that help this thing work that support our children I I sometimes joke that I think this current generation loves their children more than my parents generation did because they're so involved providing so many resources and and um you know I think we're just blessed in this community to have a community of people that want to support our children um and then I like to usually keep this BR but I do want to be a little selfish because this is the last meeting of the school year and thank some people that impact me and my family
301and and my work so uh I first want to thank the community for electing me to serve I take it very seriously it's very important work uh I don't think any of us up here take it for granted uh we all do it because we want what's best for our kids I want to thank my wife Kathleen and my children um it's 11:15 my daughter's graduating tomorrow I'm sure my wife wasn't thrilled that I'm going to I spent uh four hours here away from my daughter but they understand uh the value of what we're doing up here if it wasn't for their support I wouldn't be able to do this so I want to thank them for that I do want to thank everyone on the board um everybody here is doing this for the
302right reasons we all are different phases of Our Lives we all have different perspectives I think that is a key component to an effective board and so I want to thank them for their service and their families that are supporting them in in their mission and then I want to thank um our board secretary Cindy Rodriguez she supports us she keeps us organized she provides us documentation when we need it I am always asking her to print paper it's much to her annoyance probably but she does it without complaint and I also think when you walk in rosley Jones she's often the first person you see and I can't think of a better representative for our district because she really cares about kids and family so I want to thank you Cindy for your work
303um to our superintendent Tom Kim you survived your first Academic Year I don't see one gray hair in your head somehow uh that's admirable for someone that's all white but um I agree with some of the comments uh your passion is undeniable everything's about kids your energy I sometimes think you have a Doppel ganger because if you follow Tom on social media he's at everything and uh I know that takes you away from your young family and your wife but uh I appreciate your work and I know that you know there's a lot of work ahead that you're excited to do and and then I do want to thank um or recognize the class of 2024 my how many to get emotional here I'm tired and emotional but my daughter Emma Rose will be uh
304on stage tomorrow so today to BPS has a tradition where uh after rehearsal for graduation students are allowed to go back to their grade school if they attended a bavia grade school and our school is JB Nelson which our family's been a part of for 13 years and uh you know you stay in contact with some kids some kids go off and they do different things you lose track of them a little bit but you see them all together and it's almost like a class reunion everything sort of comes back they're taller their voices are deeper they're adults but um it was really pretty special and then one of the things that was special about is we were leaving the kindergarteners came out and so it was sort of this full circle moment and it's
305like boy I just remember when they were that and I what I think about with at least I'll speak to my experience with my daughter is um how much of a community it takes to get to commencement um I mean I remember a year ago today on commencement my daughter was in a very severe accident car accident toled the car I got a I got a call from a stranger you don't know why I could hear Emma crying in the background you don't know who I am I'm with your daughter Emma she is okay she filled in the details and she stayed with her uh until I could get there to comfort her and this was a total stranger who was actually heading to commencement and stopped what she was doing to care for my
306daughter and as a parent I mean it's nice to know that we live in a world where people are going to look out for each other and so that's part of what I think makes us special so I'm going to leave us with one quote I'm going to butcher this but it's something that I heard recently that stuck with me and it's verit vuler verus and it translates to Vigor grows through the wound Vigor with the V and basically what means is turmoil and tribulations is what helps us grow and become strong and so you know tonight was painful a lot of it but I believe it's going to make us stronger and when I see the families tomorrow granted we're in a we're privileged in here in a lot of ways and we have
307a lot of support but your kid doesn't get to commencement without some tears and some struggle and some pain and some self-doubt and so when I see that celebration and I finally realize now that part of it's cuz we survived it and we're flourishing now and we came through the other side and so I just want to just really thank everybody that supported my daughter and our family and um when it comes to the board I just want people to know that we're listening and we're working and we're going to do our absolutely best to get this right and move forward so thank you good luck Daniel okay uh yeah I definitely Echo the Gratitude here um I did prepare something beforehand and I'm really glad I did because it's so late I don't think
308I could say everything I want to say without it um so um I'd like to acknowledge everyone who came here to speak and those who came in support I realize it's not easy to speak at these meetings and it's increasingly difficult when you're speaking about issues that affect you your children and the community while I appreciate your willingness to speak to us and share your perspectives I do see and understand understand that for some of you whether you be a student parent or staff it is because you feel like you've had no other option but to stand up here and be vulnerable and for some relive personal traumas um and I know some of you have been here before some two years ago some even longer um so it's it's really hard to just kind
309of think about that and put that in perspective you know um it takes a lot to stand up here and it's not just talking in front of a group of people people but it's reliving things and it's again because you feel like you have nowhere else to go and you've kind of this is where you end up at so um for those of you that that just speak to I just hope you have the support to lean into know that you've been heard you were cared about and you matter tremendously to this community I think about how many of the discussions that I've had with the community and those who have come to speak to the board and I see the way that our society often approaches communication and I think it's a bit out
310of date it seems to make things harder on us because it doesn't always support the sharing of perspectives or effective documentation so I want to share this we often fear and resist sharing our perspectives because of what others will think or we worry about Making Waves your perspective is just that it is yours and it's valid if anyone is upset with with that with you speaking and sharing it perhaps they need to sit with their own discomfort or responding a productive communication method ensures documentation to provide transparency and Trust whether it's a strategic plan or discussing issues we need to realize documentation is a way that we ensure we're all on the same page while it provides guidance and action and accountability so I'd like to wrap up by saying to all the seniors out
311there whether you're taking a gap year you're deciding to go into the trades staying home uh to help support your family or going off to college be very proud of this moment graduation is is not a given and I can tell you that from experience I come up here and it's hard to get to this point but I I had to get my G for personal reasons and so I do understand that it's not always something that kids just I I I just heard so many comments you know it's what's the big deal everyone graduates but it's not um so there are many obstacles that students face during their academic careers recognize and take pride in the fact that you have done years of work fought against adversity and have remained resilient and determined don't
312ever doubt your ability to accomplish something because you have shown by getting to this point if you put an effort and continue to push you absolutely can be successful stay driven even when the path changes find strength in those uncomfortable and hard moments and continue to be the amazing people you have shown us you've already become I'm so proud of you and I cannot wait to see what the future holds for you um and for everyone else I hope all of our students families and staffs have a great summer and we will see you in the fall thank you for sticking with us you guys that's it Su sure I have a two and a half page speech prepared no you don't I'm just kidding since it's 11:26 I'm just going to say thank you
313to all of you who stayed through the whole thing and congratulations to all the graduating seniors who I'm sure are not watching so thank you and good night that's it uh I will keep it equally as brief just wanted to say thank you and it was right along what Aaron said about like thank you to all the kind of teachers uh graduates volunteers admin superintendent Tom Kim for your amazing first year um we kind of charged you with a lot of um kind of lofty goals and aspirations that we had at the beginning and you came in and said hey I'd like to do the Strategic plan and I think one of my questions for you was do you have time because you also have a district to run while you were doing all this
314stuff so um I think for the timeline that you were able to produce and what you were able to produce I think it's given us a good um document to review and to discuss and to hopefully act upon uh one thing I do want to say and I don't normally do this but I wanted to spe specifically do it today um I appreciate everybody that came and talked today not just because of their message but because you know it was really in my opinion kind of like the true kind of moment of really like civil discourse everybody's clearly had a lot of passion about what they were talking about but they were able to kind of articulate in a way that was um put in a a form and a possibility of being able to
315be received than it was so I'm going to run down this real quick because the other thing was I believe everybody got an opportunity to speak because everybody took their time to be succinct and get their point across and effectively seated some of their time to later so I just want to appreciate and say thank you to Sarah Scott Justin eileene Molly Chris Kathleen Frank Jared Caleb Gabriel Renee Amy Katie Alexis Liz Todd Drew Kevin and our student ambassadors darit and Zara so thank you very much for everybody uh go class of 2024 looking forward to seeing everybody tomorrow enjoy the day be safe and thank you for a great year so I will if I get my agenda right because if I can remember it right now um I will um entertain a motion
316to adjourn Some Mo some move second all right so by move by who me all right Andel and second by su let's say um all in favor I oppose it is now 11:29 still today folks meeting is a for