001or Sydney would you please call the roll here Mathis here Meadows present present next I would like to invite and I don't know Ally to Our Guest today to please lead us in the pledge don't worry your mom will help pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all nice job Ali thank you next is the consent oh no um items to be removed or added from the agenda are there any items the agenda is correct okay public comment welcome to to the meeting there isn't any is there no you're doing great why don't you read it for breakfast yeah I know we'll skip all right then BPS partners Drew I hear you're filling
002in today okay good evening everyone um for the school board junkies watching at home you're probably wondering who is this person what has he done with Todd Swanson if you don't know me my name is Drew Ray and I'm the vice president of the Batavia Education Association Todd is currently spending some well-deserved time on vacation with his family in Cleveland which I'm actually super jealous of I even offered to go to Cleveland and Todd's place so that he'd give his monthly comments to the board and so that I could go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but we both agree to be easier if I came tonight to speak on behalf of the Bea so tonight I'd like to briefly address the Board address my fellow union members and to say a few
003words to our incoming superintendent and to a few words to superintendent Lisa Hitchens at her last BPS board meeting um to the board you recently voted to approve our collective bargaining agreement uh with the Bea our Union is thankful to the board and their negotiating team for some truly good faith bargaining I think it is the hope of everyone involved in the negotiation process that this new contract will help us retain our already amazing staff and to recruit the best and brightest Educators in Illinois to become members of our BPS family I am particularly excited about the district coordinating Council the DCC is something that's been tossed around for almost a year now as a means of monitoring our district standing committees and the ba is very happy to see it make its way into
004our new contract for those who have not had the opportunity to look at some of the specifics of this Council I wanted to highlight some of its key purposes number one smooth collaboration number two consensus-based decision making number three alignment of committee recommendations with the bargaining agreement number four proper coordination and scope management of Duties across committees and number five incorporation of an equity lens in all decisions and actions and I'm going to say that last part one more time incorporation of an equity lens in all decisions and actions I think that everyone in this room would agree that the best way to support all of our students is to do it together while making sure that all voices are heard considered and acknowledged in the collaborative process and I'm hopeful that the DCC will
005be able to do just that uh to our membership your ba officers hope that you are enjoying your well-deserved summer break this last school year had its fair share of ups and downs for so many of us and we hope that you are taking this time to recharge spend time with your family and friends and to do the things that make you happy so you are ready to come back in the fall to do what you do best and that's teaching supporting and caring for the students of Batavia the Bea would also like to again welcome incoming superintendent Tom Kim to Batavia the Bea is excited to roll up our Collective sleeves with Senior Management and to do the good work together it may be summer but that doesn't mean that there isn't time to
006work towards addressing the needs of our students and staff and finally to Lisa this is uh the last board meeting which is capping off 19 years in the district correct whether it was in the classroom as a BHS administrator or as the superintendent you've had an impact on thousands of students and staff members and I know you're a math person and I'm sure that's gone through your brain that it's thousands and thousands I I I'm not a math person so it's up there all right on behalf of the Bea I would like to say thank you for your service to our district and we hope that you cherish every moment of your retirement and revel in this new stage of your life happy pride month happy belated Juneteenth uh thank you for listening I hope
007everyone is enjoying their summer thank you thank you drew all right next is committee updates anybody have any summer no committee updates right that's right now is the consent agenda so according to our board policy we designate a portion of the agenda as a consent agenda for the items that are usually do not require extensive discussion before board action these items are generally routine recurring and can be grouped together for efficiency Steve here we go 4.1 and 4.2 are the approval of the May 23rd 2023 regular meeting and closed session meeting minutes 4.3 is the approval of the May 31st 2023 special meeting minutes 4.4 is our monthly Personnel report 4.5 is our monthly payroll and bills 4.6 is the destruction of our closed session recordings from December 21st 2021 4.7 is our donations we'd
008like to thank Richard Carl and the Batavia mothers club for their donations 4.8 is our policy second reading 4.9 is the approval of our Cisco smartnet Flex renewal 4.10 is the approval of Microsoft volume license renewal 4.11 is the approval of our PowerSchool sis and enrollment Express renewal 4.12 is the approval of the school Erp Pro subscription 4.13 is the authorization of the intergovernmental agreement with HFS 4.14 is a certification of our hazardous bus routes 4.15 is the resolution solution authorizing intervention in a property tax appeal and 4.16 is the approval of the consent agenda anyone have any questions I'll jump in because couple questions about the policy report and then I know Raquel had a couple questions so if I don't capture them please thank you very much for reading it first of all
009that is it is you know 300 pages that comes at us every few months and one of our goals as a view board meeting junkies know that our goal is to try to align our policies with the Illinois Association of school board version of it because there are so many things that change and so this one um so there's nothing substantive other than some of the things we pointed out with face law changing but some of the curriculum pieces what happened was we tried to Homegrown grow our own policies over the years and so what you see is policy 6040 curriculum development you see 6 220 instructional materials and adoption you saw 6 to 10 and 2 220. all four of those policies talked about curriculum and instructional materials in some way and in some
010cases they didn't say the same thing and they were stepping on each other's toes and so which policy do we follow when there's three different places where we're talking about instructional materials so this is um us trying to say curriculum development belongs here our committees which CAC was in two different places in the contract and Raquel noticed that it was being crossed off of the one policy but it's still in policy in a different place and it's also in the teachers contract um and then that was the purpose of some of those things so they're trying we're trying to match press I think another question was about you know sometimes it says superintendent and sometimes it says superintendent or designee and I would say whenever possible we'd like to have designee I'm not sure why
011press crossed it off there but we can certainly um you know swap it back because there isn't I don't think um the new guy is interested in having that much detail about everything in policy a lot of it is or designee and then um there's also the part about goals and philosophy and that one is that's the board's work and so that is you know some of that strategic work you guys are going to do coming up here in your strategic plan is actually LinkedIn policy so policy is your law and so whatever you decide is our new strategic plan actually gets linked into the policy there's a section for it so that is upcoming work and if you want to know what our educational philosophy is now that's kind of where you go to
012find that like the Strategic plan is what we believe in and where we think we're headed um what other questions did we have about the policy there's one but um and it just said about the list of textbooks which I know that they're doing the curriculum work right now so then hopefully by August 1st we'll have a list of what each grade levels like textbooks um instructional materials are used in the district exactly that was a great point because like back in the old days it was when we were just very textbook based there was a list of textbooks but now it's curricular materials that are embedded within there's um Drew thinks I'm good at math but I couldn't even tell you how many Google docs there are right now with our curriculum and here's
013links to the different um learning letters and all of the curricular units and they all have the curriculum resources linked whether it's a textbook or some other resource and so they're working on so we just had our curriculum week which was very collaborative I can't remember how many people were there like 101 people 101 people worked on our curriculum for a week this summer and then Brad and his team will spend the rest of the summer trying to organize it and communicate it out including to the board about they're trying to curate all the resources in one place for One-Stop shopping 101 is that for all grade levels or only all grade levels all grade levels remember another quick question about that is um if there are textbooks or workbooks or actual like physical instructional
014materials will they have the publisher or the copyright date and any like the additions out of how many editions will that have that on there typically it does there's a list of items that we provide to the board um I think last month we approved the AP one the AP textbook and that's kind of the stock list of stuff that we have and the only other question I had is um will any of these changes be able to up have allowed this actual schools to update their own instructional material but I understand if he still has to go through CAC forth and then so so if there are like supplemental resources like a team or a PLC is working on they can bring those materials in in the philosophy behind that is like teams know
015what the kids need and it's constantly changing so they would take it as a supplemental material and then that would become over time hopefully an anchor material that all kids would get exposed to the harm in having it not go through some kind of process is that if there's a great material then all kids should get exposure to that that's Equity so we want to make sure that it's always working its way up towards an anchor material that all kids will be exposed to so there's responsive material so if something happens in the world or the community teachers can bring in materials to address that in a responsive manner but those things are like very time-bound right something happens we talk about it we process with our kids and then that material isn't brought back
016every single year the things that are going to happen on a more regular basis or that are augmenting our curriculum become supplemental materials and then hopefully they work their way up if they're successful with kids to Anchor materials where every kid gets them and I think that was in also one of the policies where it's like it's brought to the superintendent and presented to the board like we would like to try this out and so forth okay um uh no I think that's it good ones thanks for bringing them up anything else from anyone else that came out okay all right um hearing no further questions I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented I moved second moved by RJ seconded by gilberg all in favor aye thank you motion passes
017all right time for reports all right so annual or monthly foia requests are up there we're required to show you who asked for whose foia's we answered during the prior month and treasurer's report same thing every month we bring those to you any questions on either of those before I turn it over to Tony for the preliminary budget the first of four times in a row that you will be talking about the budget but the first of last times the final time for me the first of four for this particular budget for you so every month you'll go back and revisit it yeah so this is the preliminary budget for fiscal year 2024 which starts on July 1st in terms of the timeline this is our first look at it it's still under development and
018will continue to go undergo revision for the next few months until we adopt it next month in July you'll see a tentative budget which we will put on public display in more of an official form we'll use the state's official budget form that we have to submit to the Kane County Regional Office of Education and to the Illinois State Board of Education we also use this summary document to accompany it so it's a little easier for the public to interpret and understand what's going on then in August we'll hold a public hearing which we're required to do so members of the public will have an opportunity and specifically have an opportunity to address the budget itself and then the board will adopt the budget in September and of course then in October there will be
019one more action that the board takes and that would authorize the administration to begin but at September we're going to be a full quarter into our fiscal year at that time so it makes it a little easier in terms of planning but the challenge with that is you think we would know more about our revenues and our expenditures and the reality is we don't until we're well into the fiscal year so we use this preliminary and tentative budget as kind of a blueprint for the blueprint as we start the fiscal year this uh attached to this item agenda is the summary there is an estimated 130 million dollars in revenues and 127 million dollars in expenditures in fiscal year 24. that is obscured slightly by what are called on behalf payments for TRS and so
020actually when you're looking at um we scroll up just a tad Holly at State sources you'll see that the state of Illinois is going to contribute something on the order of 30.7 maybe 31 million dollars to this to our finances this year and that's a little bit of a misnomer because the on behalf payments that the board that the state of Illinois contributes for our teachers salaries for their pensions is estimated to be 22 million dollars so there's really only about nine million dollars of actual contributions of cash that's actually coming into the district's coffers and then being used to spend directly on programs there's also when you look at support services that are excuse me payments to other governmental units you'll see 23.8 million that's the the 22 million the other half of that
02122 million is in that number so there's only about um 1.8 million dollars in payments to other governments so some of this stuff we try to represent what the bottom line number is but sometimes we have to uh make some adjustments so that all the numbers foot between all the reports that we submit and it can be confusing for folks what we want you to take away from that document is is the vast majority of our expenses comes and are paid for with local property taxes local property taxes are very expensive and they fund the vast majority of what we do in our schools and it isn't the case elsewhere but it is certainly the case here and the the and the citizens of Batavia do make a real and genuine sacrifice when they when
022they send in their property tax bills for the students of Batavia let me say it's not that way everywhere do you mean the state of Illinois is different than other states or well certainly the state of Illinois is different than other states because as a matter of fact Illinois at toward the bottom of what it contributes as a state toward education although we spend more than the vast majority of other states what comes from the state coffers is a relatively little and across the state how um education is funded varies by the local school district and primarily by the ZIP code those that can afford to pay for it do and those that can't have to rely almost entirely on the state's revenues which is limited so um we're very fortunate to have what we
023do have but it makes it is very much a challenge to make all the ends meet at the end of the day and meet all students so if you go to the next page Holly you give a summary of the the funds you know these are six funds here are what we call the operating funds and these the funds that we or transactions out of day to day and month to month the other funds which are capital projects and our debt service funds those are funds that don't see transactions generally in a given month they're you know a couple times a year to pay for either big projects or long-term debt um but the good news here is that we expect the totality of all these funds together to have a surplus that Surplus is
024uh 2.9 Million and we're going to spend a little bit more in those not non-operating funds and that brings our overall Surplus between all funds together at 2.7 million dollars give a little bit of a breakdown on the subsequent pages of where that money is coming from will keep going until we get to the pie chart and this gives you a breakdown of where money comes from so that giant blue wedge that's 68 percent is local property taxes and then those State on behalf payments are are almost 17 percent but if you excluded that 17 obviously it changes these proportions dramatically and so 80 plus percent of all of our revenues if you exclude those on behalf payments come from local taxpayers a very little amount of money from the feds now money from the
025feds if you scroll down just a tad there please Holly you'll see that Federal money is declining over the prior year and that's because we're spending the Esser funds or the pandemic emerging emergency relief funds and those those revenue streams are are dwindling and going away and all that money will be spent in totality in fiscal 24 and it will be gone by the week by the time we get to fiscal 25. and then in terms of expenses we break things down in terms of functions and objects as we call them and the functions are kind of instruction Support Services those sorts of things instruction is things that go directly into the classroom support services are things that support instruction in the classroom and then payments to other governmental units primarily for tuition especially with
026with students that have special needs or maybe in vocational programs we have a little sliver in there for contingency and then the other major item is debt services and one more page Holly will break it down by object and objects are what we actually spend it on whereas functions are what it's for what we're receiving in return is what the object is and so salaries and benefits obviously drive a major component of our budget for staff but we also do a lot of purchase Services Batavia is in terms of school districts I don't know of any other school district that outsources as much as Batavia does meaning that our food service our transportation and our custodial services are all outsourced and so we rely on these contractors to provide services for us that help us
027provide education for our students whereas most school districts they have their own buses and they have their own bus drivers that work for them directly they have their own food service program that have employees that work in the cafeteria we Outsource these things so we have fewer employees per student than most school districts but on the flip side and so accordingly we have less salary and benefits but accordingly we have more in terms of purchase services capital outlay is a pretty large item these days although it hasn't always been the case but in the last budget fiscal 23 and moving forward into fiscal 24 it is a substantial number several million dollars almost six and we'll talk about the status of some of those projects right now and the need of course with the failure
028of the recent referenda of what we'll need to do to make things work for our students in terms of facilities in the in the coming years that will be a I'm a sure will be a challenge and a priority for the Board of Education a non-capitalized equipment is often something that people wonder about we use what's called a capitalization threshold so a capital item is something that costs more than five thousand dollars it could be a piece of equipment or other asset maybe it's something that's affixed to the building um that we would track it in our um our inventory our asset inventory we have to program and depreciate that item over time and keep it in our finances a non-capitalized equipment is an item of equipment that is more than a supply but less
029than an asset it's kind of that in between region and so in particular Chromebooks is or computers are items that are non-capitalized equipment there you know there's not quite as much like a like a pickup truck is definitely an asset that we would track on our inventory but something that was in between a supply is something that we'd use and once its uses fulfill itself it would go away non-capitalize it's you know a computer's still good after a year or two or three but it's not quite something that we track on a financial basis they're a dollar threshold for that criteria five thousand dollars so if it's more than five thousand it would become an asset generally and if it's more than if it's less than 250 dollars it's a supply and I'd be those
030are wonderful questions to ask Rob thank you and now that we have three new board members like these are the kinds of things that are helpful to know and so sometimes you know I'm trying to make sure that we get kind of the basics done but I'm sure you have questions and I can answer those questions now or if you come across something in the future please don't be shy it's important that you you know can see how all the pieces fit together and so happy to answer any questions that you have the one the Debt Service was Zero for 2024. would that have had a line item if the referendum had passed The Debt Service um depending on maybe where you were looking for 2024 is not zero The Debt Service in totality is
031right around 9.2 million dollars of my recollection is correct on 9.3 and so what that includes is our bonds plus any Capital leases that we have that would be something that would exceed um two years okay sorry but the bonds are from the previous referendum that are phasing themselves out over a couple of years as it were right yeah and we'll have paid off all of our bond debt in 2025. so we've got two more fiscal years of paying off Bond debt and that that those those amounts will go away that doesn't mean that the board is going to have 9.1 million dollars or more to spend uh upon once those bonds are paid off the taxing Authority for that raising that money goes away and it's it's just paying off a bill it's like
032paying off your mortgage but you can't bill the taxpayers to pay that bill anymore other questions underneath the debt service contingency is is uh contingency is for unforeseen expenditures um and so by the way the 2.7 million dollars that Surplus I fully expect that number to dwindle as we sharpen our pencils and get more accurate on salaries and benefits and so if if that number gets too small the very first place that we would turn to is is that contingency but we need to have some money available for unforeseen expenses and they happen absolutely every year something always comes up that we have to spend money on that we wouldn't have otherwise expected and so that's what contingency is for uh just as an aside my uh calculations indicate that we expect to hire an
0338.2 FTE more than we currently have in fiscal 23 for the next school year and we're in the process of ascertaining what the full extent of those costs are and baking them into the budget so whether it's the salaries or benefits 8.2 8.2 8.2 and that number could increase depending on what uh you know sections may look like in the future um but we I have to say the HR department and the business office has been working very diligently and very hard because we're you know we've just adopted this new contract with the Bea and how we pay teachers has changed and getting all those numbers into our systems and estimating those sorts of things has been an enormous amount of work that we've undertaken in the last month and so I have to thank
034all those folks for their efforts because this level of information there's many hundreds and hundreds of hours of work that go into producing these documents and it wouldn't happen without their help and efforts and attention to detail so I thank them for that but as I said we still have some more work to do and some finer points to to think through and I expect that number to be smaller probably closer to about a little less than two million dollars when I bring it to you next I hope I'm wrong but I think we'll see is there any chance you could remember what the normal percent increase would be for salaries of benefits 4.2 percent and the budget now increase that's a healthy I mean we knew it when we're working on the contract I'm
035just curious so you're looking for the trend I'm just wondering what the trend was yeah previous years it's probably a little it's probably somewhere around um three percent or three to probably 3.5 off the top of my head but you know I'll look and I'll show you I will tell you though the next time you see this document there'll be more many many more pages behind it we're just not ready to show that yet and when you see that one of the pages in there is a trend for um for all objects and salaries and you would be able to see that for the prior five years yeah okay there's no need to pull it out for me any other questions Tony thank you as usual nicely done I remember when I first took a
036class when I was first on the board for at ISB for the big conference they do and you do a better job of simplifying it than they do this is you you remember this is Joel Leaps and Bounds yeah so keep up the good work thank you I appreciate that but I have to say it goes the reason why we're able to do this is all the work I'm I'm aware yeah and thank you for recognizing you remember those columns yeah the coding and yeah all right next time yeah since Tony's doing such a fine job under Administration comments we wanted to update you on some facilities projects that you see happening this summer yes we happy to and so let's start with Alice Gustafson where my children happen to go to school yeah and
037there's so if you drove by Alice Gustafson in the last maybe two and a half three weeks you'd be like holy cow what is going on over there there has been some major work especially out front and the Expeditions are complete uh that will service the new main office in that building and what's interesting about the work at Alice Gustafson and JB Nelson is those are sister schools they were built in 1955 and 1957. and they're very similar in terms of design there's Nuance to them of course but they're fundamentally the same design they did not have secure vesicle entrances and so um it's not a trivial task just adding a vestibule entrance to a school it's very important these days for members of the office staff to have situational awareness to see what's going
038on outside the school but you also can't have the school nurse somewhere buried in the bowels of the building the office and the nurse's office and the principal's office that's that's a team that cannot be separated by um by physical space and so we're making some Renovations both in terms of how students are dropped off at Alice Gustafson and then how the the offices are considered figured in both schools ironically or moving the offices back to where they were when the school was built so they're going to be on the South Side they're going to be at Gustafson will be on the south west corner and at JB Nelson it will be in the northwest corner what's exactly where the offices were when the schools were built School offices back then were not very big
039at all not anywhere near what they need to be now and so we're making things work but it involves removing walls and Electrical Plumbing at different HVAC you know conference rooms and all the like and including a respite room for staff so that they can take a moment for themselves or whether it's a nursing mother or somebody just needs a couple minute break there's a respite room in each of these offices for their for their use so there's some pictures there and let's look at JB Nelson as well so they're mostly who's proceeding along as you can tell they look very similar in appearance but hvac's done they're in the process of you know roughing in electrical roughing and Plumbing footings and Foundations outside the school because there's going to be an awning that welcomes
040folks there'll be a new sign out front and then at JB Nelson there was a kindergarten classroom that had a bathroom in it that looked like you walked into a Time Warp a replete with asbestos and so we baited the Asbestos and are renovating that bathroom so it is uh Mark into modern sensibilities it was I mean truly a Time Warp and so we had an opportunity to add that particular project into the mix and are doing so and then lastly at Rotolo Middle School um the cafeteria there especially the servery as we call it where students get their meals where they served their meals was original to the building and has not been updated since it was built in 1992 and so we are renovating that as well the actual all the equipment in
041the servery and in the kitchen is original to the building and so after 30 years it was quite tired and needed some attention and so we're taking care of that as well and so although those are the major construction con projects Capital Improvement projects that we have underway in the district and be happy to answer any more questions we have about them can you go a little over the funding of these and how you know there's a certain amount we have and then other abilities you had because it's a significant amount of dollars and more than what your typical Capital annual budget would be so our typical annual capital budget we're increasing by 15 each year in recent years 10 prior is 15 years this year and future years and that is off the top
042of my head about um 3.2 million dollars right now these projects however are far more costly than that Alice Gustafson and JB Nelson I heard something like 4.7 million dollars in total so that exceeds the amount of money that we would have available and again so that's why we move money you'll see the transfers from our o m fund to the capital projects fund is we're moving money kind of into our into a piggy bank and we might it might take a couple of years for us to save up enough money to take on some of these projects um but this pales in comparison of the real work that has to be done I mean we you know there's hundreds of millions of dollars of work but there's at least I would say 50 million
043dollars of work that needs to be done urgently district-wide and we have to figure out a way that we can we can make that happen but these are the priorities and so with the failure of the recent referendum while this is underway we still have to put secure vestibules on both h.c storm school and Louise White school and that's going to be far far more costly than the work that we're talking about here for two reasons one there's no way that we can do what we're doing in those buildings as we are here because there just isn't the space to make it happen within the confines of the current walls we'll have to put an addition on which is inherently far more expensive and in those two cases we'll have to deal with parking lots
044and moving them and also we'll have to deal with full day kindergarten and all that will fit together in those two buildings as well and as you might know the state of Illinois just did pass a law that mandates full day kindergarten by 2027. and so we have some now some pretty urgent fiscal needs in terms of making sure our facilities meet all of those requirements as well too so there's a lot to figure out thank you Tim thank you can we get an update next month as well in the progress sure the only thing that I want to this is from my own personal life is construction projects are fluid and the one challenge everybody's having in the construction industry right now is annoyingly enough lead times so there are components and issues that
045may rise up like doors you can't get certain wood doors they may be putting on temporary ones or other elements like that as an attempt to make sure that because as we say in the business school starts whether you're ready or not you know so just so that everybody's aware there may be challenges that we've been hearing about from other people whatever so you just need to be kind of prepared and telling you'll do it everything you can to keep us informed I'm sure and we're happy to answer any questions or concerns yeah anyone have any questions on it thanks Tony my pleasure all right last is board comments whatever all right I'll go first and then I can be done if we are though because in my 10 years as superintendent I don't think
046you've ever seen me get emotional so we have to have like some ground rules if that's going to happen because like I don't know if any of us will know how to handle it like if I just if I just like thanks that means I can't go on so like I do not carry tissues with me I had some but I got nervous and I crumpled them up so that's our game plan if things get emotional we'll just we'll just call it um so just Tony you mentioned you were talking about the puzzle pieces and we all know I think everybody here knows how much I love puzzles and and the reason I think I love them so much is because they're easy there's a picture you know that you're gonna eventually if you work
047hard enough you're gonna you're gonna put this puzzle together and it's going to do what you want it to do and puzzles are easy this job is not like a puzzle at all but um I love it just as much and I think that this job is probably most people with gas is a pretty hard job all of us in this room have a hard job board member everybody here students so glad that there's one here tonight um we just we all nobody works harder than anybody else we all have our own challenges and so I think the um the puzzle analogy kind of breaks apart no pun intended actually but um really the reason that it's so hard to work in this industry is because with a puzzle there's a picture that we all
048agree on we know when it's done this is what we want it to look like but in education I think some of the outcomes aren't always we don't always have the same picture in mind people have different ideas of what they want us and you to be focused on and so that's the hard part about what we all do in this room right here is trying to everybody's showing up with their pieces they might be pieces to a puzzle that they found on the ground or they went and rummaged and brought a different puzzle piece and we're trying to do our best and make something of everybody's wishes and everybody has their own shape and size of a puzzle piece that they want us to try to fit in and we have to sometimes make
049hard decisions and say we can't do that yet um you know people trying to draw our attention but I'm not saying that to say how hard our job is it's literally the best thing industry that we could be in is there's no finer um Place job that there has ever existed then to be in education whatever your role your volunteers those of you at the stable um and those of us that chose to do this for our profession it's nothing more rewarding and I think that if you ever turn on the news or you feel despondent about anything just think about what we do here and it just brings me hope for the future and that's oh deep breath okay I've got it I got it I got it and that's why like it's so
050easy I could I could actually do another 10 years and it's because I just show up in a classroom and I have hope for the future and it's so fun and so rewarding and so if you're not feeling like I know I'm feeling different because this is my last board meeting and I only have a couple days left but if you're not feeling that like that if you're ever thinking like this is so hard I don't like my job I don't know why I'm volunteering and giving all my time just please go to a concert go to a play even if it's not your own kids play go to the Flag Day raising you get out of it what you put into it so if you need to fill your bucket just go and look
051at the good stuff and and know that the difficult decisions we'll be waiting for you but we all need to take the time and um this school district is the perfect size because on opening day every year for 10 years even on um covid that year I was able to go to every single school on their first day of school even though the cold year I had to do it twice at the Elementary's because they had the ab um and I was able to fit it in in one day and I just get to what a gift that is to be able to be there on the most exciting day when you bring your kid in and then the next most exciting day which is the last day of school I do the same thing
052I go in um a day or two and visit every school on the last day and it's been such a gift to just be able to do something that I didn't actually do the work I didn't do the teaching I didn't you know paint the walls I didn't construct these buildings but I just feel a little bit responsible because I'm in the seat and so are all of us here so um it's been oh I think I might just ask anything on the report I think that's it I think that's it yeah I just it because I'll try to say it but it's it's about the no no okay okay I'll try Okay one more time okay all right right well as I'm walking around the school it's just it's a it's a whole journey
053I feel like this whole thing has been a journey and it's so fun to meet people along the way and all of the characters that I meet I just feel like everybody I'll take you all with me in it you're the best now that for sure now I gotta call it yeah you're done and then to my family thank you and Matt if you're watching why [Laughter] um so thank you I will remember you all finally and nope you're not oh that's for you I'm like I don't need a tissue I'm done I got through it so um I I just want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for everything that you do and for making this the best job that anybody could ever have all right so now for board
054comments if anybody feels like they could follow that up no need no need so um uh we'll start with board comments um going to start with you Raquel if that's okay oh yeah yeah sure why not and then we're gonna hop to Rob and work our way around uh I just want to say happy new teens for those that celebrated yesterday I'm happy Pride I was fortunate enough to participate in the Aurora Pride Parade last week weekends ago weather wasn't the greatest but you know it was a really good turnout and I enjoyed it um and then congratulations to Lisa being your retirement and best of all your future endeavors thank you rep first of all uh congratulations to Lisa and Matt good luck in your retirement and future plans you guys the best um
055and then I only want to make one quick comment about the importance of facilities and as we started a lot of the camps and stuff for the summer here in the community it's just so nice to see you got all levels of students the older students helping the younger students in various activities various camps throughout throughout the district here so it just reminds me that you got to have good facilities to do that and what is that brings the community together and um you know we have to have it so I hope we can come to uh an agreement here in the near future but that's it yeah I agree my my daughter's doing a camp and it's she just loves the high school kids that are helping her out and uh the the music
056program continues to impress me I was looking for someone to help uh just keep her a little fresh with violin and two kids right in my neighborhood were like yeah I'll do it I'll do it so I was just I didn't even have to go far to find someone to volunteer to sit with her for a half hour and um so yeah Summer's been good to help all the hope everyone's enjoying it help all the faculty are enjoying their break I know they don't want to it's not like you're not doing anything you're not busy so we appreciate all your time and then Lisa congratulations to you um I think you're a really big piece of the puzzle um you're like a corner you know those are my favorite yeah nice tie-in Jay [Laughter] you
057know that corner just holds in so much right so you've impacted thousands of Lies positively so congratulations on that me personally you helped me with deciding on my my journey here to to uh first be on the the team that was reviewing the the schools for the referendum and then to to ultimately come here which has been very fulfilling so thank you very much for everything for the update on the repairs to the schools and for anyone out there that wonders why we have to do this in little piecemeal sections it's because the referendum like Tony said did not pass and now we are going to have to do little pieces over a long extended period of time and this is the Safety and Security of our children in this District that we're worrying about
058because simply because we did not pass this referendum and I think it's disgraceful shame on those that voted no thank you and Solis I'm just going to say thank you for all you've done for the district and I wish you the very best thank you that and sitting here with my daughter Allie here you know speaking about the children in the district their safety is key and it baffles me on how that was not a priority to everyone but um hopefully we can do what we can with what we have and look forward to learning more hard decisions but keep them safe and keep things going um so I agree it's hard it's hard um and to you Lisa we haven't worked together very long but in the the time that we have you really
059have shown just your passion and your willingness just to jump in and help whenever I mean anytime I talk to you your guests I have time let me help answer any questions um I wish you the best and I you are the corner piece like RJ said I mean it's the puzzle will keep going but yes it will yeah yeah um and just a couple other acknowledgments um for pride month I've really enjoyed I don't know if I have the committee right but it's the BHS Pride Alliance maybe love their social media and everything all the information and all the things out there they do such a great job um same thing with Juneteenth yesterday I think it's the is it the um black student union yeah their videos were so impressive so informative um
060and I'm just I'm so proud of these students for really using their voices it's not easy to always put yourself on the center and just speak up especially with such complex times that we're in and everything so I just want to say to them and just acknowledge the the great work that they've done educating our community as our students so yeah but again good luck and happy retirement team thank you uh you see the most long-winded for last I guess you said 45 seconds that's probably for your portion here so I just want to start by saying thank you to everyone's here Ally yes tonight who are at the meeting and everybody who reaches out to the board via email or mail or even just on the street stopping us we always appreciate the feedback
061and it is essential for the work that we do so thank you for everyone who's participating I also would like to acknowledge the BPS families and everyone in our community who has recently been tragically impacted by some of the recent car accidents involving pedestrians and bicyclists especially along Route 31 right behind us here I know everyone in the community is doing what they can to make our community a safer place but I would just say that we acknowledge the painter that was impacted and I would just ask everyone to slow down be mindful be safe and just look out for one another especially in the summer with kids crossing it's it's pretty dangerous right now so and then I would like to thank the team for putting the report together and Tony all the work
062you do putting the budget together everybody who puts these weekly monthly updates together it is a lot of work and we appreciate that um and then finally for Lisa I would like to just address you as a citizen as a parent of three BPS students and as a school board member member I am honored to express my gratitude and thanks uh to you you're an extraordinary individual you've served our community for 22 years three as a math teacher at the high school and 19 years as an administrator including time as dean of students assistable assistant principal of learning and principal at the high school and you've served as superintendent since 2013 and 14 that school year and your accomplishments as a teacher and administrator are many and you've been impacted many you know I look
063at Tony I think as somebody who's been impacted you as not only a student but now as a parent and I guess I both aged you a little bit there but that has to be rewarding to see that transition um you know and this is the part where you might not like this Lisa but you really do exemplify the true essence of servant leadership you are intelligent you are strategic you are courageous you're collaborative and you are strong and you're also compassionate kind curious and tireless and without a doubt you're the most humble person I've ever worked with so I can say without reservation to the community that Lisa has given her absolute best every day in service to the students and people of this District and so I also would like to recognize in
064that regard her husband Matt for his unwavering supportive Lisa and her work and their children Owen and Emma who are examples of their parents commitment to making a difference in the lives of other and I would like to wrap up here by quoting passport president Kathy Dremel who basically worked with Lisa for her entire career as a superintendent and I quote Dr Hitchens has a genuine passion for Student Success and has been a tireless advocate for the teachers and staff of Batavia Public Schools Lisa has been results driven and her dedication to providing outstanding education to the children within BPS 101 and preparing them for college and careers beyond our walls is unparalleled her positive impact will be felt for generations and so I would just like to bid you farewell on it it's sad
065to see you leave um and I just want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to you for your selfless service I hope the next chapter of your life is filled with health and success and joy so thank you and with that we would like to make a presentation on behalf of the board too Lisa you didn't zip up all the boxes yet they're not completely packed oh my gosh oh gosh look at how gorgeous that is oh that is so nice I and it's funny because people keep asking me like literally every hour or every minute what are you feeling what emotion are you feeling you're sappy or sad whatever my emotion is just gratitude and and that's all I feel is gratitude for all of you and everything so I appreciate one more thing to
066be grateful for this is beautiful thank you and I will wrap up by learning from my predecessor to say I can't say anything better than anyone else other than thank you I'll take a page out of Sue's book there's too much to say right and then I could say in a few minutes so thank you very much you will be missed but we are excited for your future so thank you all right and if there's any unless there's anything else I would entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second kilburg okay locking kilburg all in favor say aye aye thank you and congratulations thank you