001somebody I'd like to call to order a regular meeting of the Board of Education February 21st 2023 at seven o'clock P.M uh Cindy could you please call the roll here present meitzler here uh since our last meeting we lost a student at rotello Middle School silence so that we could um reflect on that loss before we said the pledge I'm Mrs meitzler would you lead us in the pledge now please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all uh Dr Hitchens are there any changes or items removed from or added to the agenda I would say we're going to start with some celebrations so let's add that to the agenda oh yes
002we are going to start um with celebrations because we've had a number of teachers that have been honored um for different things and so we have various board members who are going to do a shout out for those teachers um on behalf of the whole board so um I honestly don't know who all's got a shout out Aaron Aaron sure do um I would like to congratulate um Christy Geeson from RMS um who is nominated by her colleague Jeff Thomas who's in the audience today um she recently earned the isbe award of meritorious service so we are very very pleased to acknowledge that accomplishment well deserved [Applause] um I have the honor of speaking a little bit about Chad Clary who's a teacher over at Grace McWane they took he kind of led a group
003of first grade students over to Markland which is out by the grace McLean area Mill Creek area which is a center for um adults and children with kind of profound special needs and health special Healthcare needs so they went out there and heard about kind of goods and services but while they were there they were surprised a bit because Mr Clary was presented with a volunteer of the Year award from the marklin staff he often comes out there to volunteer we'll bring some of the older kids that he works with over at caneland so we congratulate him on that and our very thrilled with the good work that he and is doing out there and how he's breaking that awareness bringing that awareness and that effort to the kids at Grace McQueen foreign and we're
004super excited to announce that Lisa Hatfield is honored as one of the 2023 Yamaha 40 under 40 excellence in music music education winners she's our fifth grade band and Orchestra teacher for all of our elementary schools and I love it because her main goal is to have students really love playing their instruments um here I think was the most amazing thing I read her program has a retention rate that is well over 90 percent and she's an amazing educator she creates a collaborative and engaging program she involves other music teachers she brings older students back to support what the fifth graders are doing and I love this she's really creative enthusiastic I know her because my children have all been in the music program and she will do different things like she'll use a basketball
005to help kids understand beat she will let them build Legos so that students understand how rhythms build together um and I thought this was fun she um I had students learning to play an active from a tick tock song so she's incorporating all sorts of different um different and creative ideas she shares her knowledge by teaching courses on integrating Tech into school music courses so she's just an amazing educator and we are incredibly excited and proud to celebrate this honor with Mrs Hatfield [Applause] my turn Okay so uh I'll be reading a statement on behalf of Chris Lowe my colleague who is not here this evening so it starts fellow batavians let me Begin by apologizing for my absence as you may know our high school girls basketball team won regionals last week today is
006the first game of the sectional tournament versus Saint Charles North as much as I enjoy board meetings it is a priority for our family to support one another and I need to be there for my daughter and her team I hope you understand however even though I can't be here and want to take a moment to recognize some amazing teachers deserving of our appreciation over the past weeks we have seen some incredible accolades bestowed upon our staff as the board representative for the high school I want to highlight too who Define what it means to be a bulldog both teachers are members of batavia's high school's English Department and I have been fortunate enough to have my children taught by both the first I would like to highlight is Kim Pearlman she is currently my
007daughter's teacher for two blacks teaching her both public speaking and AP language my daughter says she really knows what she's talking about and that's High Praise from a child who doesn't talk about her classes or teachers very often my son also had her when I told him she had been nominated he said she deserves it as parents my wife and I see the time and care that goes into Kim's teaching and the consistent email update she sends to parents and the engagement of our children with her assignments it is evident she goes above and beyond what we typically expect that is why I wasn't surprised to hear that she has been nominated by her peers to be the Kane County educator of the year it is a well-deserved honor in fact our staff is putting
008together a scrapbook to support her if your family has been impacted by Kim and you'd like to write a letter of support you can send them to Marnie harm at marnie.heim bps101.net I apologize for the late notice but those letters of support need to be in need to be received by the end of February congratulations Kim and good luck we also have another teacher to celebrate Amber Jersey this one is a bit more personal I met her a few years ago when she was my son's teacher our nation was struggling with racial Justice and our district began to focus on Dei work I have watched this teacher work and grow tremendously over the past few years I have seen her struggle with the stress tears and self-doubt this work can bring with it she has
009grown from an amazing classroom teacher into an amazing advocate for all of our students and she has become a community leader from the beginning I saw her willingness to invest her own time and money to educate herself on diversity Equity inclusion and Justice taking any training she could so she can better serve our kids I've seen her efforts Inspire students staff and the community after all of her struggles it is amazing to see her recognized by a local state by local state and National organizations and rewarded for her leadership efforts I have no doubt she is the biggest Advocate and local expert when it comes to making everyone feel welcome in our schools and Community I cannot think of a better teacher deserving of the honor of North Suburban teacher of the year congratulations [Applause]
010so and congratulations on being one of the 12 finalists for Illinois teacher of the year thank you for inviting me Chris Lowe to represent our district and sharing your amazing moment at the Teacher of the Year banquet this weekend I was excited to be there and I'm hoping our town will be home to the Illinois teacher of the year no matter how things turn out please know our town is incredibly proud of you and everything you give to make Batavia a better place I am honored to serve as a board member in a district with such amazing teachers and staff I hope we as a community and a district recognize excellence in our staff when we find it and do everything we can to elevate these folks and learn from them when it comes to
011classroom success they are examples we should promote and encourage we are extremely fortunate to have such teachers who are willing to sacrifice so much of themselves for our children in today's environment teachers are in short supply and we should be thankful when such amazing teachers choose to stay here from the bottom of my heart thank you for all the hard work you do and the amazing positive influence you have on our children staff and Community thank you for personally teaching my children and making them better human beings these awards are well deserved thank you for sharing your skills with our community thank you I know we've got a number within the audience who were honored could you guys stand up just so everyone can see who you are [Applause] all right that was amazing we'd
012love to start with celebrations uh the next item on our agenda is public comment I do believe we have someone here who have a comment um all right so welcome to the meeting of the Board of Education if anyone wishes to address the board this evening please see our recording secretary Cindy to submit a form for addressing the board we need you to put your full name and address on the form as we're required by state law to keep a detailed set of minutes of our meetings and in general we don't answer questions or engage in dialogue during public comment it doesn't mean that we don't take your concerns or comments seriously we value active Community participation in our endeavors and we encourage people to engage with the district using our excuse me our appropriate
013channels and systems designed with your input in mind but we're not involved in the day-to-day operations of the district and can't engage in District business individually but if you have specific questions or concerns you'd like to further engage with the district you can submit your questions using the link on the website or let Cindy know tonight and we'll make sure to follow up with you I'm going to hand it over to our Communications manager Holly dietzman and she'll explain the public comment process thank you thank you all for joining us this evening speakers will be called up in order of forms commission we have two speakers this evening the first form received as the first person invited to speak when your name is called please come to the podium so that you can be heard
014and the cameras will Point towards you all individual speaking will be limited to three minutes I will project a three-minute timer up onto the screen and when you see that and we'll get it started once you're settled at the 41. during any time during this meeting written comments may be submitted to our reporting secretary Sidney Rodriguez um speakers should conduct themselves with Civility and respect towards everyone in this room our first speaker is Walter lubis all right uh hello my name is Walter lubis I'm a teacher and a coach in St Charles district 303 but more importantly I've been a citizen of Batavia for over six years I mentioned my work in St Charles because I'm here regarding an incident between Batavia and Saint Charles East High School Girls JV basketball teams that took place
015on February 4th of this year during this game a player from Batavia High School through an unprovoked loaded up forearm to the back of one of my players heads not once but twice and then after these two hits were not reacted to the the player came around the front and elbowed her directly in the nose knocking her back so hard that she hit her head on the floor she has had concussion symptoms for now three weeks that she's still feeling so immediately after this incident a parent of mine sent a clip of what happened to athletic director Dave Andrews in the principal of Batavia High School the response from Mr Andrews uh that is that they Pride themselves on hard-nosed Athletics and they'll make sure that the player would be held accountable and all players
016will learn from this a three-game suspension was handed down and an apology was to be passed on from him in a phone call to my athletic director to anyone who would listen to an apology over the phone and to be perfectly honest the response from the Batavia school district has loved me feeling that there was a real lack of recognition of the severity of the incident and almost no ownership took place if you saw the video of the incident I think you would agree I could go on and on about my frustrations as a coach and how the situation was handled but I'm here tonight to speak as a citizen of Batavia not as a St Charles basketball coach as a citizen of Batavia who has two small children about to enter the school system
017I want to know that my children will be brought up in a district that prioritizes sportsmanship and teaches important life lessons um about how to be a respectful member of society if my sons choose to become athletes and participate in high school sports I will have some major major reservations about what they are going to be learning um as on and off the field under this Administration I want them to be part of programs where sportsmanship and learning and decency are more than or more important than winning the game in the wake of this incident I have major concerns about what the precedent will be for sportsmanship respectable behavior and accountability for your actions in 10 years time when my children are at the high school while I may not be aware of every single
018detail regarding this incident I feel that there was a real lack of accountability by the Batavia district for what took place and if this is how this one hard-nosed Athletics incident was handled it makes me wonder how many others have been handled similar I don't believe that a similar attack would have been handled the same if it was caught in video in the hallways of Batavia High School so what makes something like this different is it because athletes were involved on a court I asked what you guys would be feeling if it was your daughter being elbowed in the head three times in a row I urge you to consider the policies set forward by the metavius student code of conduct and include strict and specific disciplinary action for extreme aggression and physical attacks such
019as this because it's not there right now I've I've looked and unless I'm missing something I haven't seen it um and I hope you guys can reflect on the values of Batavia Sports isn't stealing in our youth sorry to be negative congratulations teachers hello everybody I'm Eli bordner I graduated Batavia High School in 2018. um so I come here today to talk about the referendum re-vote in history I've always learned that uh if you have a vote and something didn't there was wording or confusion uh it was my belief that it was the onus was on me as a person to make sure it was worded correctly and that any outcome was uh my responsibility I understand that as a school board's job to put forward legislation that they believed is important to the district
020and I respect that greatly I just believe personally that given the vote I understand there may have been some confusion but personally uh if I as a citizen myself I don't know if I would have been given a retry so that is all I'd like to say that was it thank you thanks uh next item our agenda is our BPS Partners I do not see our student ambassadors to invite Todd Swanson to the podium oh I'm yes thank you I'm very first I'm so sorry I'm sorry the writing's kind of small so there's an old saying that says great minds think alike um unbeknownst to me as I was working on my speech for tonight um which is going to focus on celebrations I didn't know the board was going to be celebrating some of
021our same people as well so um we may have some of the same messages that are shared but by gosh it's worth repeating for these people that are up here so good evening members of the Board of Education tonight my message will be one is celebration I've invited some of our amazing BPS Educators to join me at the podium so we all can recognize them for their accomplishments and recent accolades earned from outside of our BPS community first off I'd like to introduce Lisa Hatfield an amazing Elementary band and Orchestra teacher who this year is serving our fifth graders at every Elementary School in looking at our website the first news that I saw was that this year over 200 fifth graders from across the district signed up for their first year abandoned Orchestra in
022our elementary schools with teachers like Mrs Hatfield along with her music educator colleagues it's no wonder that our youngsters are so excited to join band and Orchestra and it's no wonder yet again that Batavia has earned many national recognitions such as the National Association of Music Merchants Foundation best communities for music education eight times running however tonight we are here to honor Mrs Hatfield for being the recipient of the 2023 Yamaha 40 under 40 excellence in music education award Lisa was chosen as an outstanding music educator who is making a difference by growing and strengthening the music program in Batavia these 40 Educators all under the age of 40 showcase the following characteristics action which is offering Innovation and imaginative Solutions in achieving plans and objectives courage proposing and implementing new or bold ideas creativity
023showing Innovation and Imagination and achieving plans and objectives and growth establishing growing or improving music education in their schools and communities we didn't need Yamaha to tell us how awesome Mrs Hatfield is all you have to do is ask any student who currently has her or has had her in the past and they will all say how much fun she makes music and how she inspires them to continue with the program all the way until they graduate and maybe even Beyond into college as well as many Batavia graduates have done so for being honored as one of 40 music educators from across the country for the Yamaha 40 under 40 music award congratulations to Lisa Hatfield foreign ersa both of these incredible Educators have been awarded major distinctions from the Illinois School Board Illinois State
024School Board of Education since 1970 the Illinois state board of education has sponsored the those who Excel and teacher of the year programs to honor Educators who have made significant contributions to our state's public and non-public Elementary and secondary schools awards are presented in seven categories classroom teachers early career Educators which are teachers who have taught from one to four years School administrators student support Personnel Educational Service Personnel community volunteers and teams application materials are evaluated by a selection committee composed of individuals who represent a variety of educational organizations and all awardees will be honored at an annual banquet in the spring leading off our isby award winners tonight is Christy Geeson Christy is a math teacher at Rotolo Middle School in the sixth grade sixth grade right okay I want to make sure I
025get there right and is in her 22nd year of teaching in Batavia she's taken on many roles in the Bea such as being a building rep for Rotolo and currently is the chair of our elections committee however the accomplishment that I want to highlight tonight is for Christy being named by the Illinois State Board of Education as a recipient of the meritorious service award for 2023. this year isbe has honored 490 of Illinois's most outstanding Educators for their extraordinary contributions to education across the state through its annual those who Excel campaign and this meritorious award that Christie has earned is given to those who have shown perseverance Ingenuity and above all dedication to their education by helping to build lifelong Learners who will go out and make a positive impact in the world congratulations Christy
026on this outstanding accomplishment and for your service to BPS [Applause] congratulate Amber jersa English teacher from Batavia High School in addition to her roles in Bea as a building rep for the high school and the chair of our newly formed Bea Equity committee Amber is one of only 13 finalists for the 2023 Illinois teacher of the year the state's top honor for classroom teachers the 13 finalists come from specific Geographic areas in our state and Amber is the finalist representing the North Suburban District interim State superintendent of Education Krish mohipp says our finalists for Teacher of the Year are amazing they are pushing the envelope in the classroom empowering their students and constantly striving to strengthen their craft we are so proud to have these excellent Educators we wish Amber all the best moving forward
027to hopefully become the Illinois teacher of the year for 2023. congratulations Amber I've also recently learned just today in fact that Chad Cleary a first grade teacher at Grace McWane Elementary was presented with the volunteer of the Year award from Markland staff during a recent field trip with his students and that our BHS English teacher Kim Perlman has been nominated for Kane County educator of the year as well I will be getting some more information about them and you guys already have some great information as well uh and be sharing some more about their accomplishments at Future meetings so again congratulations to Chad and to Kim as well foreign and finally in the better late than never category um I want to recognize all of our Educators and by educator I mean each and every
028person who has a hand in shaping the lives of our students certified staff support staff paraprofessionals custodians bus drivers Lunch Ladies nurses campus monitors administrators every person who makes a difference in the lives of a student Batavia this Accolade is for you each year the Illinois school report card is released by isby schools are looked at using multiple measures to assign a level of performance to them there are four levels given by the state board but I'm only going to focus on the top two distinctions given to our schools commendable and exemplary here at isbe's definitions of these top two distinctions exemplary schools are schools performing in the top 10 percent of schools Statewide with no underperforming student groups and commendable a school that has no underperforming student groups a graduation rate of 67 percent
029or greater and whose performance is in not in the top 10 percent of schools Statewide due to the commitment to Excellence that our staff exhibits on a daily basis I am happy to congratulate the staff members at Batavia High School Rotolo Middle School Grace McWane Elementary JB Nelson Elementary I had these numbers honestly JB Nelson Elementary for their commitment to Excellence of their staff that exhibit on a daily basis and achieving the commendable status for the 2021-2022 school report card then that leaves us with Alice Gustafson Elementary h.c storm Elementary and hooverwood Elementary all earning exemplary honors for the 2021-22 school year which I'll remind everyone who's listening means that these three schools were in the top 10 percent of all schools in the state in spite of every obstacle that is thrown their way
030there are no better examples of dedication perseverance Rising above and championing our students and batavia's Educators I'm proud of each and every one of you and honored to call you all my colleagues congratulations once again to Lisa Christy Amber Chad and Kim on your recognitions and to the BPS 101 staff who don't hear it at all or even if you do nowhere nearly enough thank you for your heart thank you for your sweat and some of you sweat a lot more than others thank you for the tears you shed for your students thank you for the smiles that you share and above all thank you for making a difference in the lives of the children of Batavia and now I'd like to allow our honorees just a quick chance to say a few words that
031they would like to turn it on I'll go first because I'm losing my voice I've just been yelling over too many trumpets or something but thank you so much I um have said it I have screamed it from the the mountaintops of how much Batavia loves and supports their music education and this is just another example on us coming to the Forefront and and showing how important music is for our students um all my students know now is that I'm 40. I've said under 40. under 40 children um but uh but this has been a great a great surprise and uh and like thank you everybody foreign [Applause] I wrote some notes because I get really nervous talking in front of crowds I can do it with kids but um this award really should be
032presented to my amazing colleagues like you were saying uh if it wasn't for their support guidance and continued professionalism I would not be recognized today I also want to thank all the wonderful students I've had over the past 20 years some of them are your kids for challenging me teaching me and always making me smile living and teaching in this incredible Community is a ward itself so thank you very much [Applause] mine's a little longer I'm practicing for my speech at the uh reception on Saturday so gotta get used to talking in front of the couch now um the first time I ever spoke in front of the board asking for more of a focus on short-term Equity efforts was April of 2022. if you would have told me I'd be standing here less than
033a year later being recognized for an award like this I would not have believed you um I am so thankful to make Batavia history as the 2023 North Suburban Regional teacher of the year I'm honored to be able to represent Batavia as one of the 13 finalists for Illinois teacher of the year uh what I learned from the Illinois superintendent that I won this award I was told that I was receiving it because of my Relentless pursuit of equity for our students all of our students deserve to feel like they belong and it is my goal to continue striving for this they deserve an environment a hundred percent committed to ensuring they feel like they belong and we owe it to them to provide this and do it sooner rather than later I'm so grateful
034for this recognition and I want to take some time to express my appreciation to those who have helped me get here I want to express my gratitude for the support and encouragement I have received from my fellow staff members students and parents and community members the fact that you all believe in me and trust my leadership means everything to me you've been there during the times I wanted to give up but you encouraged me to take the time I needed while you carried on in my place that's a true Ally you refuse to sit on the sidelines I could not have done this without your help recently I've had people ask how they can become more involved with our Grassroots campaign as we work to prioritize our work on ensuring all students belong to do
035this speak up when you see Injustice and inequities within our district and Community use the chain of command by reaching out to principals our Administration um in the board let them know how you feel about the district's current Equity efforts and any suggestions that you may have let fam let family and friends know that it is not okay when they are showing bigoted Behavior though these are difficult conversations this is how we change the system that has caused our students so much trauma it is okay if we mess up and say the wrong thing we need to own it learn from it and do better next time we owe this to our students we just do this with we need to do this with Fidelity so we can be active in helping us knock down
036these systemic barriers for our students doing the right thing is difficult but it's worth it in honor of Black History Month I want to close with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr that I just recently discovered um I felt a connection to it with us being the same age um and its quote is you may be 38 years old as I happen to be and one day some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle some great issue some great cause and you refuse to do it because you're afraid you refuse to do it because you want to live longer you're afraid to lose that job or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity so you refuse to take
037the stand well you may go on and live until you're 90 but you're just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. and the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit thank you again and I cannot wait to represent our amazing Community as a finalist for the Illinois teacher of the year [Applause] my goodness an impromptu for the speech teacher um I'm still getting kind of used to this because I was very floored when I was told about the nomination I really think that the four of us are representative of the Educators that we have in this District it's not just the four of us it's every teacher every custodian every paraprofessional every single person who's in that building every admin who
038are working to help our students and it's the kids who are in our classroom which I have had many many of your children in my classroom that I think bring us there every day just to I think help them find their voice and help them find what their purpose is and know that they will make a difference in this world and that's what we do every day so thank you foreign we have great reason to celebrate in our district so congratulations once again to all of our honorees and uh thank you all thanks Dad [Applause] I'd like to invite up a representative from the Batavia special education Partners Network bsp oh yeah I don't know it's best Partners yeah thank you well this isn't a tough act to follow oh my goodness oh wow yes
039we will do our best well good evening my name is Danielle Mahoney and I am the parent chair for the Batavia special education parent Network or bspn for short we work in collaboration with BPS namely with this amazing woman here Leanne Rodriguez speech therapist in early childhood at AGS as well as with Carrie Roo the director of special education um I am we're all here to help share who we are because a lot of people think we're just a newly formed group and we're not actually this organization started about 13 years ago and so we just want to share that we're here bspn includes parents Guardians special education teachers School therapists and administrators within the BPS 101. and our primary goal is to create a support network for parents a special education students as a
040parent myself to be a parent is hard but to be a parent of a child with special needs is really hard and to have a network any kind of network or support is is just all you need because not a lot of parents have that and so we're here whether your child has an individualized education plan a 504 plan just receives extra supports or therapies we're here for you we offer a number of events throughout the school year such as various presentations showcasing our amazing talented staff that we have here at BPS and their Specialists we offer coffee chats whether they're with in Rotolo High School any of the administration but we also just do parent chats so we can have a non-judgmental way of just sitting and whether it's to laugh cry celebrate looking
041for who do you use for a dentist we're here um and we also like to have some fun too we just were at the brewery at sturdy shelter the other day so it's just not all about you know coffee um but our largest event is our parent resource fair and this year is actually our 10th year it's this Thursday February 23rd it's at the Batavia High School in the cafeteria uh it is an opportunity to learn about Community Resources for students from early childhood all the way through age 22 plus it includes Recreation opportunities therapy providers transition planning advocacy and support you name it they're there we actually have almost 50 organizations and agencies attending this year last year I think we had 16. so um we have a broad audience that we're here to
042support so we have a lot of amazing folks including our fire department our Police Department our library just as an example that their our community itself is here admission is free it's not just for Batavia Community though we welcome any families within our neighboring communities and towns to please come out and you don't even need to have a child that's receiving any special education services you may even have someone who's just looking for some extra therapy supports um they'll be there we put some flyers out by the front desk here so if you don't remember our webpage if you want to know exactly who all is coming or to learn more about our group sign up for our email list to receive updates as to what all the happenings are and to see all the
043other upcoming events we have for the year you can visit bspn batavia.org do you have anything you want to add this lovely lady has been amazing and has taken the reins and has done a ton of work um to gather so many resources for our family so we are really looking forward to Thursday night's event and we just really would love a large crowd so if we can help spread the word and get as many families within our district outside of the district to come and and just visit with our vendors I know they we always get such positive feedback from families that do attend and we just really you know thankful for the administration's support and for all the families that come and help support us and we just want to be a network
044and work together for all of our families so yeah yeah thank you that's the time oh good question oh I'm sorry yes uh six to seven thirty six to seven thirty so you can pop in for however long you're able to and if you need to bring your children that's okay too I know a lot of the agencies and organizations will love to meet them I know they want to meet mine but yeah foreign [Applause] next item on our agenda is our committee updates from board members Erin we'll start with you Aaron kelberg all right I've got some notes um so I'm on the insurance committee they met on February 9th and we had a what I would call a robust discussion centered on the recent switch of the district's medical insurance to healthgram and
045as a reminder this change was recommended by the insurance committee to deliver with the goal of delivering better benefits to her to help our employees access higher health care and you know the discussion focused on like any significant change that's to be expected there'll be some challenges in the transition like that but uh you should know that there are steady progress being made and I do want to sing out one person its benefits coordinator Kathy Inger for her hard work and time on this I mean anytime you switch Insurance there are going to be some hiccups and she's been tireless in working with employees in the district to make sure that them and their families are receiving the health care they deserve so um we have our meeting next month I'll provide another update next
046month thank you um Grant I cannot announce anything right now because we will vote on it Thursday but I think some teachers and individuals will be very pleased um we had some very interesting grants this year was okay thanks um also um Fifi has what's called alumni Nations if you've not heard of it Google it sign up even if you are not a graduate you're a friend of Batavia High School you go to Batavia High School you live in Batavia you might want to be I'm a member of alumni Nations and it um kind of keeps up with what's going on in the schools you know and it's a way to keep track if you've graduated mostly but they have done something unique for February and it's called Bulldog sweethearts so if you met here
047in Batavia at the schools they've asked you to submit your stories and they have some very interesting stories and I know Lisa's pulled up a couple and do you have like a name like can we throw out a name of a couple um obviously it's okay to say their name they're on the website there right well Matt and Laurie home of course our mayor and his wife yeah so I don't know if they would I don't know if they wrote up a story so but interesting stories of people that have met like junior high high school and have gone on to become married and still live in Batavia or you know gone off but still are you know associated with them so get a chance to look that up and scholarships if you are a
048graduating senior graduates can apply for scholarships through beefy talk to your counselors they have all the information and also I'm sad to say the music teachers left but there is a scholarship out there it's the second year it's available if you are in fifth grade through about say sophomore year there is a scholarship out there for a guitar and guitar lessons if you have any interest in that go to bataviafoundation.org look under scholarships and you could get the free guitar lessons interesting um I will not do an update on CAC because they are part of one of our reports later and we'll get an in-depth update of what they're doing Craig I'm gonna have some exciting stuff to talk about next month we have a meeting tomorrow okay uh sure the stipend committee met and
049um nothing really to announce there's a lot of things that might be happening there's a lot of activity requests we just passed the deadline uh for the high school at least for for new activities um and uh groups but we did discuss that there's been a lot a lot of requests for for groups and clubs over the past year and we're looking to kind of reorganize a little bit get a little bit more structured towards those requests so that ones that may have been denied in the past could resurface if you know if they come back up because if if we have funding available we don't want to just go with whoever is like right who just requested the club last week if someone had requested something a year ago and it might be a
050student who is still in school that wants to do it so we're trying to get on top of that a little bit more to make it a little bit more I don't know if there's the right way to say it but you know first and first also to speak so that the clubs are getting recognized in the order of which they're requested uh so we're gonna I don't know was it a four hour meeting we said we might have for that two hours well we have a board meeting that night oh good I'm happy that maybe we'll have two two-hour meetings inside um but yeah there's so I'm I'm happy that the stipend committee is looking good they're they're definitely really really being thoughtful and considerate about where the funds are going to go so
051okay thanks RJ Aaron Equity team met this month and the team members shared their professional learning over the prior month related to standards of students pertaining to equity staff instruction and parents and community and the team broke into small groups to begin their planning around staff students and the families and community that they serve and they began to set goals and indicators that they'll be watching out for that's all for me so they'd be providing an update to us next month I they did their update in this December they might um I thought I saw something yeah yeah they if they have their plan ready they're going to present it in March if not that was like a a stretch goal for them okay if they're ready to present sorry okay yeah they did it
052was in there that's their spectacle awesome all right that's it for committee updates the next item on our agenda is our consent agenda which allows us to approve a number of routine business items all of which are uh detailed in the board book and we're going to ask Mr Pierce to take us through that consent agenda that's right here we go uh 4.1 and 4.2 are the approval of the January 24th 2023 meeting and closed session minutes 4.3 is our monthly Personnel report 4.4 is our monthly payroll bills uh 4.5 is the destruction of our closed session recordings from August 24th 2021 4.6 is the review of our closed session minutes 4.7 is the approval to renew student photography contract 4.8 is the disposal of some Surplus property and finally 4.9 is the approval of
053the consent agenda all right are there any items to be removed or for clarification tonight all right then I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented second uh move by mightsler second by Meadows all in favor aye any opposed all right consent agenda is passed is approved as presented next item on our agenda is reports I'll hand that over to Dr Hitchens great we have five reports tonight none of them require action the first two are for information they're there every month do you have any questions about those two reports that you see every month no and then the next one is collaborative groups um I'm probably just going to turn over to Brad if that's okay with you Kathy yes this is a part of an ongoing effort to make
054sure that the community is aware of our collaborative groups that function behind the scenes to really support almost every aspect of the district in this month we're highlighting two of our groups one is our curriculum and assessment advisory Council and they really oversee a lot of the work around curriculum in the update their focus for this year is around Salt teams which are subject area leadership teams and specifically we have teams working in English math and social studies and those teams are going through a process of really doing a program review so that when we do have both of our curriculum work in the summer in June 5th 6th and 7th we do both of our curriculum work so that we have time to process that over the summer and then have it ready for
055teachers they will know exactly like what work needs to be done to support our teachers and our staff to get the best outcomes for our students so that is really the bulk of the work for cat this year is to make sure that those teams are functional and that they are working towards really directing the work of those three subject areas during the pandemic a lot of our collaborative groups were not working and I can say that this one really hurt us to not have this ongoing during that time there was probably no way to do that but really the The Break um hurt us with the act so Jen Hicks leads that team and she's really tried to to work with that team to be collaborative to model collaboration but also to get more
056people involved in that process so they revamped our our subject area leadership team kind of structure brought in more people and they've had several meetings they've presented to CAC and then they'll have a couple more meetings to finish up their program reviews and direct some of the work for the summer and the next one is rack and I won't speak to that because the guy who runs the team is right next to me so Tony what do you want to say about rack oh geez well um rack stands for the resource responsibility advisory Council and uh it looks at resources how we use them and keeps an eye on our budget and how things fit together to so that we can do our very best to support our students and staff uh every year the
057board sees work for that comes from Iraq in the form of the enrollment report in the form of the five-year Financial forecast and then some behind the scenes aspects itself and that has been the case for probably maybe six years or so but when the council was actually formed uh part of it was to look at the purpose was to look at how we can get better at the things that we do and one of the it's called academic return on investment and so that is a a new goal that we have as a group that we're going to look at these academic Returns on investment and try to figure out what works well particularly if it works well for a certain subset of students and then make sure that we can expand that and
058have the resources to do that actually would you if you wouldn't mind Holly would you click on the rack plan there it does a much better job of explaining it than I just did be great I was following along I'm pretty was you I'm well thanks I appreciate the encouragement RJ um if you scroll down a little bit Holly there's a graph that kind of illustrates what we're talking about keep going all the way almost to the bottom of the page maybe it's the second page there it is that's what I'm thinking we have a lot of things that go on in the district and one of the things that we'd like to do to undertake this initiative is actually an inventory of initiatives to figure out how all the pieces fit together in our
059programs just to have a high level understanding and of course the purpose isn't to go and audit all these because that would be well you would need to have an army of people to do that it would be a massive undertaking what we'd like to do is pick one pick one single initiative and do a deep dive on it and see one how much it costs both its direct and indirect costs and see how it affects students and whether or not it's doing what that the purpose of what that initiative or program purports it attempts to do and when we learn about that if you scroll down a little bit more Holly you know in the old days we would just cut a program that we thought didn't work but that's not what we want
060to do is generally cutting programs doesn't work very well so it's either the keep or eliminate mindset and using strategies from the district Management Group there's a whole list of things that we could consider we could expand the program we could keep it we could segment it fix it replace it or eliminate it odds are we're probably not going to do much of eliminating programs because there's a reason why these programs are here but if you do a deep dive and you really think about what this these initiatives and programs attempt to undertake oftentimes you know one size does not fit all as we know very well and yet we have a lot of programs that try to do that and so we're trying to look at in particular at how these segments might fix
061fit together and make sure that we're meeting needs of all students as best we can with the resources that we have and so it's a new look it's quite an undertaking it's something that we're really excited about we think it will be very valuable for the organization and will hopefully build better capacity for us to make decisions about how we allocate resource and what works and what works for this particular group of kids and what works better for this one and those kind of lines of thinking and we think it'll be helpful so that's what we're working on next and an interior how will you decide which initiative to do the Deep dive on that part we're not really quite sure we're going to do this inventory of initiatives and we're hoping that um based
062on the number of students that it serves and the amount of money that something will percolate up to the top we don't want something that's so difficult to tackle that it will be impossible to analyze but we also don't want to make it too trivial so that does is not meaningful and so we're trying to strike that balance and so once we have that inventory and we have the kind of the parameters with which it touches the organization we'll make that decision but we're just going to pick one and what time frame are you thinking so we're going to pick one ideally Josh geez that's a good question I don't remember the answer to it offer in the whole organization and pick one so like not only look at but also build that process and
063then Theory once we've completed that process we would have insights for the following budget year so fiscal 25 is what getting interesting absolutely so it's definitely a longer Arc than what we're used to two can you give me an example of a program that you're talking about and I know this are we talking about a particular curriculum are we talking about how we buy our paper I mean I don't know I just need something to wrap my head around like what are we looking at we're looking at things that would have an academic impact not necessarily how things operate because it could be a lot of things it could be so that's what I'm just trying to think yep and so um let's see I know you're reluctant to say something because I think that
064let's put it out there but I I just so we were looking for things that are on the academic side and so this is about the ACT you know if we can tie what investments and programs um I can tell just about anything to that it's not just anything so we want to be specific about the academic return on investment so to get an academic return on investment we have to be able to see how kids are learning better as a result of this initiative and what we're investing in it and so it could be things like our intervention programs that's actually what I was just especially that's where you know I mean but those are also very tricky to measure too and to see you know was this implemented with Fidelity and so we
065can it's the easy task is coming up with a list of all the interventions that we undertake the hard part is how how it fits in with a broader organization and how you would actually measure it that's this part that gets really tricky and it can get really subjective we want to keep this as so I don't have a good answer for you but that's an example of the hierarchy I can start thinking I have some interesting ideas I like that idea though because I mean just the interaction interventions because we were talking about over identifying and I mean it fits in already to goals that we have to use that one but it's there's a lot and there's a lot to choose from yeah other questions or comments other than Craig's comment that you
066finally made rack interesting after I shook me to somewhere else hey that was yeah I thought it was always interesting because I'm just kidding uh next item on our agenda is a referendum update if you just keep this in in part of the public conversation and Beach parent and be good communicators with the public so uh we have the the challenges we have so much information that people we're saying we couldn't find it on your website so we're always looking at a way that makes it manageable for the user and we do know as you as we reported in the past very few people actually visit our website but we want to make sure when we they do visit it it is easy for them to find the information that they need and so um
067it's we always are updating our website and our referendum materials based on what people are requesting so um the every school has an information group that they're trying to make sure their own staff members within their own School understand the referendum and so they'll ask us for specific things can you give us can you help us explain people are still talking about Turf can you help us explain how turf was paid for because there is some information out there that may or may not be correct so we are creating um information sheets or I don't want to call them FAQs because they're more than that they go a little bit deeper they're topics that we do deep Dives on so there is on this newly updated website at the very top you would see um
068why it matters and that is the tagline on many of the posters that you're going to see as we set up our we try to inform the public and we set up information booths anywhere and you'll see under why it matters we're not just here to say vote yes we're here to say here's reasons that you might want to vote Yes but here's also reasons legitimate reasons to vote no and so um we want to be transparent about those types of things so what happens if it doesn't pass but no you'll see that we're going to that impacts if it's unsuccessful is right on that page because I know some of you have said people have asked you that question what happens if it doesn't pass so it should be easy to find it's in
069the why it matters section and then every school has what it means for them so you could just click on your school to figure out what your school's condition is when it was built all that fun information concerns with the current facilities and then anticipated projects depending on we've talked about before the different constraints that we have with the um the interest rates and the construction costs so we can't promise exactly all of those needs would be met but we that's our starting point anyway and as a reminder the referendum we have about we've identified at one point we identified over 300 million dollars worth of projects and this referendum cannot address every need that we have but it would clear the deck of a hundred and about 150 million dollars worth of those projects
070and then we do have a very highly functional capital projects group that reviews our needs annually and they have a budget so we can just keep tackling those routine maintenance and other improvements as they come along because this isn't one and done we'll continue every year to improve our facilities and then at the bottom are those different topics that people have been asking about so if you have somebody who said we already voted no to the turf but you built it anyway there's our historical information about how the high school Turf came to be and how we um split the funding with our boosters and ironically I've been reading a lot of board books since like the 50s trying to put together some information about for example the historical referendum that's like bottom left there
071and we just have a history of boosters donating and other groups donating like the lights and the stadium that just got replaced were used and donated back in the day and so you can find that by looking at the old minutes but this is um somebody had asked us to talk about all the different referenda throughout the years um specifically this doesn't include operating rate referendum um questions because that is that we're not asking for the at this referendum for a change to our operating rate where if to pay our bills but we are asking these are all referenda specifically to improve or build new and so you can see all the history of the voters um in 1975 there was a referendum that failed and back in 1975 you were able to put it
072back on um they put it right back on the ballot again in 1975 they added 1.1 million dollars to it because they decided to build the new Louise White um and then it passed um and you can see all the different editions and new schools and the history of voting in Batavia um are there Tony you uh came across some FAQs I don't know um there was a list so for example people are asking there seems to be some misinformation about if this fails then we're going to decommission two of our schools is that true or false Tony it's false okay we will if the referendum passes we would actually decommission two schools but we would rebuild them first before we decommissioned them and that is a question we get a lot is well you're
073going to tear down these schools and then rebuild them what are you going to do with the students well that's part of the plan is that we would build the new schools first and then move them over to the new schooling decommission the old we also have questions about what happens if it doesn't pass and that is actually answered in on this website so if you go up to the top Holly and you click on why it matters it talks about reasons to vote for reasons to vote against and what happens if it's unsuccessful we have a a lot of things that we need to do to properly take care of our schools and our Master facilities plan this referendum would fund a significant portion of that um and um and if and if it
074doesn't pass then we're going to have to completely rethink what we want to do with our schools we'll have to go back to kind of the drawing board when it comes to our Master facilities plan because the money just won't be there to do hardly any of what what we've identified as being needing to need what needs to be done we also had some questions about how we can trust whether or not you know we're going to stay up with the maintenance of the schools that's a concern we hear a lot well and it's kind of along the lines that you know um why did you let it get this bad uh and as you see in that referenda sheet that Holly was displaying earlier and that Lisa was talking about this is the longest
075period since 1954 that Batavia Community has gone without passing a referendum that's how we take care of our schools and the bigger projects our our school budget is not built or equipped to deal with the vat the magnitude regular basis that's the purpose of the referendum we have to ask the community whether or not they want to pay for it basically what they expect and what they're willing to pay for so this is the process it isn't that we didn't properly maintain our schools we've had some challenges in maintaining our schools certainly because of the Great Recession primarily and some of the other fiscal challenges that we've faced in the intervening years but like I said investing heavily into our schools and the longest period we've gone without asking since 1954. we also have questions
076about um more details in terms of photos and you know they want to know what the conditions are in the school and so we are working with our individual committees in the schools to give access we're also I know Holly and Brad have been working on producing videos and pictures and whatnot of what the conditions are and you'll see those soon on this website that we've just unveiled and we've also had some other random questions that I won't go into but you know what we do want to make sure of is that anybody who has a question has an opportunity to ask it and get the answer not some mythical answer that might be circulating in the community uh that you know people speculate upon but we want to have them make an informed decision
077and I and that I believe I won't speak for the board but I believe that's why the board placed this question back on the ballot because there was considerable evidence to demonstrate that there was fundamental misunderstanding and misconceptions about what we were asking for what we're going to do in the reason form decision based on facts and not on facts anything else questions thoughts I'll uh just thank you for that website looks amazing I um there's been quite a few things that I there are times that I've been able to point people to the website for information already since you just put up the impact by school so um it seems pretty it seems to definitely be addressing the most common questions that I've heard so thank you very much for doing this that's right
078yeah I'm gonna back that up the the old way it was kind of organized you would quickly fall into a rabbit hole of more information than you need yeah and you wouldn't be able to find what you wanted this is a pretty good just high level get an understanding of what's going on get an understanding of the intents at every school without getting every report that had ever been written on the process so and reading everyone before you got your answer again right right so I think this is a good kind of balance between the two right now and I appreciate hearing that there's more to come on it and I appreciate the efforts to be able to continually kind of improve the level of Performing that's going on okay thanks Tony um I'm gonna
079pass it over to Steve for a licensed staff recruiting update yeah uh let me start with um we have had the opportunity uh to meet with our high school administration our Middle School administration and we met with our first Elementary principal this morning we'll be meeting with the rest of them this week to talk about a staffing plan thoughts and considerations and numbers for next school so it's kind of it's that time of the year the reality is um is that we're not going to have it's highly likely at this point we're not going to have a ton of openings probably the most openings we'll have will be at our high school level and then spread across our district special ed teachers student service teachers and probably El supports so those and that's probably what
080most high school or excuse me what most school districts in the state of Illinois would say um the reality also is is that in the last um three or four months we've had uh three we've had to make three mid-year hires for our licensed staff and I'm really pleased to announce that we had a decent candidate pool and I believe we found three fantastic people um one or two of them were right before winter break and one was right after one fantastic people that will serve our our schools well for this year and and hopefully Beyond and in doing so um we actually uh with two of the three staff members we found great candidates but we also Diversified our Workforce which I know is a priority um so you can read on this report
081it's a very brief report I'll fill in some of the blanks but the goal I just want to note that that goal was written without the assistance of chat GPT um I'm not sure it's the greatest sentence I've ever seen in my life but it did not get any artificial intelligence so you can read the five strategy points that I wrote down I kind of want to fill in the blanks um a little bit um you know first of all in the past we've generally posted I I would still contend we would we posted our positions about as early as anybody and we're all we've always tried to be ahead um of uh surrounding districts in terms of our posting um but we've typically waited except for maybe a few known um difficult positions to
082hire we've pretty much waited until after our March board meeting to post most of our positions we're not going to do that this year we're going to post anticipated positions as you can see by this Friday at some point because on Monday a couple of us will be heading out to Northern Illinois for our first job fair um you'll note the second point in the strategy is that we're bringing a team to the job fairs I will be attending which typically when I've done job fairs It's Been Me by myself um I'm bringing uh Ming Shelby with me and then Brad vertine will be supporting us in a few of those because he is Works in our special ed department and you know I can talk General about special ed where he can talk a
083lot deeper about that um in the past you go to a job fair you I enjoy them because uh I'm a people person and you connect with people and it's exciting and fun and you kind of get to hear their hopes and dreams but then really what happens is it really becomes up to the candidate to go and apply and so we're kind of flipping that with the help of Holly and my awesome HR team Michelle Fraga and Becca Horan they've kind of devised a little a little marketing boards that have QR codes on them and so um when I when we finish conversations with people we're going to direct them right to a QR code that they can pop on their phone and a very very simple data collection of your name your email
084your phone number and what positions you're interested in that will get shot to a spreadsheet Michelle and Becca will be ready to go and literally within an hour or two of them getting that information they will send an email out to any potential candidates telling them about our school district and giving them links and information about how to apply for the positions that are posted again typically it wouldn't work that way I would meet them I might jot a few notes down um informally and then you kind of cross your fingers and hope that they end up applying and when you're you know dependent on some of these job fairs the I asked a virtual job fair for instance I'm literally I literally last year and probably about two or three hours time I probably
085interacted with 90 people um because I was literally going back and forth on chat screens I'm just chatting chatting chatting and um so overall we're excited because uh it's going to be a lot more purposeful we will have their information and we will have positions posted and we will have our our principals ready to hire as soon as we are able so we're excited about this approach you can see what we have coming up uh Northern Illinois State I asked by North Central um I've spoken to my colleagues in King County um who have had to go out and recruit a lot more than we've had to in Batavia just because of um I think our tradition and the view of our school systems and these were some of the top ones that they all
086recommended I attend I've been to a few of those in the past um so we're excited and to see how this will play out um a couple of things I want to finish up with is that you know Finding support staff is still probably our number one challenge this is really about licensed staff members um that will remain a challenge it's a challenge not only Statewide but Nationwide we've had probably between 15 to maybe 17 pair of Pros that have not been filled this entire school year which is absolutely unheard of for our school system when you do comparative data with our surrounding colleagues they're usually at the same level of missing pairs as we are or even worse um so we're gonna we have some ideas and some approaches we're going to try and
087be trying um over the course of the next few months that will really set us up hopefully for next year and so it'll intensify later in the summer as people get a little bit more serious about those positions I'm very appreciative to uh like I said earlier Becca Moran Michelle Fraga and Kathy anger because they're putting together some things that will be on our website that will be very very detailed information about our benefits um because that does matter to people um one small anecdote I had the opportunity to speak with a candidate a potential candidate for a support staff position as well as that potential candidate's spouse for an extended period of time this all happened literally in the last few days this person was offered a position in a surrounding District that paid
088them 11 dollars per hour more and they accepted the position in our school system because of the community because of the school they're going to because of the hours and because of our benefits and so our insurance committee um I I know that they've made some adjustments that have not been easy trust me my wife has had some challenges with some of the things I mean Kathy has handled that very very well along with Luke moo but the benefits in the HSA and some of those things that we have for people for some people that's a huge driver uh sometimes even more important than the all my Almighty dollar for them so um that's one anecdote I know for other people um the dollars maybe more and I understand that but um so we're going
089to continue to try to um with our uh support staff to try to really um capitalize on some of the great things that we offer to hopefully attract more of them so that's my report um I like the fact Steve that used that hair last year and said these are the proactive things we're going to do and um that's all in your plan so that's awesome thank you yeah I'd like to say that was a big plan discussion for one meeting we had and I like that now our sounds like we're being much more aggressive like you see someone that looks like a promising candidate we're not just reacting like let's go out there and let them know that Batavia is a good place to be so we want them to apply and learn more
090all right next um section of our agenda is our action items the first one is our firewall refresh so we're going to invite Dave Thirlby to talk to us about that good evening I'm trying to get all my notes ready here sorry guys all right so I am on a five-year plan with this current firewall system we use uh so I am due to replace it this year um due to all our lovely supplies shortages and whatnot I'm kind of coming a little early for this it's actually up in May but we need to get it started now to actually receive in end of May to take care of things it is a pretty large number this is actually broken out over five years so on ballpark we're like 85 86k a year on this
091project as a firewall this is the top device on any network so this is the brain that protects everyone behind it meaning your laptops Chromebooks phones everything like that that's what we're using to protect you guys um it's a not a small number due to the dynamic updates and trying to keep up with AI we're mentioning some stuff earlier other things that are attacking on a minute by minute basis that system handles all those types of attacks again it's a five-year process here so this is covering for the next five years at the next end of life so it's kind of a cycle at that point so you guys have any questions or I guess I have a question Dave so I appreciate you I know I always ask you a lot of questions because
092I'm not very tech savvy sure but I mean could you just kind of explain what a firewall is and how it protects the district's information but also for our children is protecting them from things parents don't want them okay I'm going to be try to be very broad here I've ran one for close to 20 years myself at the technical level so if I get crazy tell me um I I just made some quick notes so a firewall as a general consensus here it's a tool that my team uses it's a device it's a piece of gear that we run similar to what you guys have at home like a home router it's what transitions us from our internal stuff to the Internet it's kind of a gatekeeper for the entire District letting good things
093in or out and blocking the bad completely out it's essentially what protects everyone it also is based on base like kind of a set of rules that we configure on our end that is helping adjust things like when we get a request to unblock a website or hey I want to use this thing can I use it type of thing we go through a vetting process as well with a committee here that we vet something and if we can allow it we do and then we plug it into that and it can get in I take privacy very seriously so we're trying to make sure nothing gets out as well so Social Security numbers things like that it's also protecting for things like that um you see a lot of stuff from the news for
094data leaks and things like that those are the devices that help prevent it's never 100 but we do our best in this case The Five-Year purchase of that it's also dynamically updating things for that so when you find a random file that's out there and it's got a certain name it will know that name and say hey that's bad in 30 other companies block it so it's a very Dynamic approach compared to you know a guy in a chair or sitting there coding stuff all day blocking so as far as the students we have a lot of features I guess you could call it on this device one of them I'll mention is content filtering blocking inappropriate websites bad things that kids could get to we also can tie that into an application layer which
095means like chat game Facebook Messenger other inappropriate things this device handles all of that so it can allow or deny based on certain grade levels if we wanted to or whatever else time of day things so if you need to allow something for like a guest that comes in like we have the robot crew over at the middle school here week or two ago we had to allow some stuff for them to get to their robots so we did that on a time-based schedule so I can allow something for a specific couple hours things like that and then all of this comes down to monitoring and Reporting so we can help these kids if they get caught into something or if there's some other issues there that we need to kind of steer them away
096from we use a lot of different systems to do this the firewall is one piece of the full Suite that we use there's a lot of different tools we use to help the kids this is just kind of a small piece of it so is that a good enough that is yeah you couldn't explain it to me you can't explain to anybody probably so that's good so and then my only other question I was seeing any kind of expense especially this large is this was anticipated and this is a thin budget yep we try to do everything I've been trying to move everything to a cycle and honestly with this project it was insane with the market right now we went from right now I was saying like 85 86k a year with a five
097year if I went one year it was 145 000 so that's why we're doing a five year that's Tech that's the world right now I'm trying to do as best I can with it but that was the only way we could save and get everything we need thank you very much sure again sorry if this is a little behind the times but with The Five-Year Plan and understanding what an important piece of equipment this is and how quickly our world is changing do we think that this piece of equipment is going to last five years is going to be good enough during that period of time for to meet our needs yep the way this system works uh they over build it on purpose because it's dynamically changing every day practically every 30 seconds roughly
098it's built and another thing I forgot to mention too is there are actually two of these for the district so as important as the internet is if one of these breaks we flip it to the other one so part of this is handling the demand of all of our devices we have you know five thousand plus kids all the staff all the guests that come in parents you name it on an average we probably see close to 12 to 15 000 people on our Network every day and this this handles all that and then some on purpose so but the biggest thing is the dynamic updating that's the way you stay ahead a lot of this stuff the world's definitely different than it was five years ago too any other questions no right then I
099would entertain a motion to approve the purchase of two firewalls from Continental resources in the total amount of 429 111 dollars moved by Meadows second by lock all in favor aye aye any opposed all right thanks guys thanks Dave thank you dude uh next item on our agenda is uh the approval of the contract Amendment with Quest and I'm going to hand that over to Josh bulac all right so what we have here is a request from Quest Food Service um to increase our meal rates on lunch and also breakfast on all our schools in the National lunch program so that's our elementary schools and our middle school so we'd be looking at a 12.8 percent increase there on lunch and an 8.5 I think that says five six the eyes ain't so good um
100on breakfast this doesn't impact students at all I want to make that very clear so what this is dealing with is our reimbursement rate so basically what we pay the company to provide the food and then we get a reimbursement from the state on that and you can see here um you know CPI on all things is different but on school lunch programs in particular there's been a 301 percent increase year to year January in January just like we experienced with eggs at the grocery store so our partner is asking for this increase to ensure that they can continue to provide the high quality food for our students just as a matter of perspective I think in the Wall Street Journal analysis the cost of elementary school lunches is the leading increase in terms of
101inflation out of every other thing that they measure so that is what increased the most over the last year if if my recollection serves other questions I might need this be simplified for me I'm not following we need to we need to raise our return rate it's a application with the what's the stage so the state gives us a meal immersement rate okay and then we contracted with Quest a different rate so the state gives us this much uh we pay Quest this much so they're looking for us to do this so apologize if this is redundant no it's okay how how what happens next year and the year after yeah so this year we're done with our contract with Quest okay um Rack in November authorized us to go to a non-competitive one-year agreement
102with Quest so we would renegotiate rates with them for one more year at that point we'd have to either go to a bid process or a request for a proposal where we would reach out to other providers so but for the the fall our rates would be the same we have to renegotiate okay so this is just an emergency from now until the end of the year so it's probably safe to say that what's the estimated cost for next year no no just for the rest of this year yeah I'm just wondering like does this mean it's gonna um give me one second oh like total impact right because if we're going to be yeah it's not going to affect students I know that right what do we out of pocket nothing our budget that's
103actually where I would like to get i'll let Josh answer his question then I'll ask sure questions essentially we're getting the discounted price from Quest but the discount that Quest is giving us is going to lower yeah so if we extrapolate this over the rest of the year it's a sixteen thousand dollar shift but so to your question uh rjs it is a budgetary item but we're getting reimbursement so it's not really like from the state correct on this program stayed in the feds yeah correct so it's not is kind of complicated so we budgeted based on this amount that we're getting paid we're paying them this much let me get reimbursed this so actually my understandings before we had a little bit of a surplus as we do and the Surplus is designed to
104um administrative coverage administrative costs and taking care of the cafeteria and the equipment that's in it and so we'll have less to take care of the other aspects of operating Food Service you know what we pay Quest is simply for actually providing the food but we have to provide the kitchens and the tables and the trays and you know all those sort of dishwashers everything so that's where it impacts our budget yeah mm-hmm right but if we don't do this would we be at Jeopardy of them saying we can't do business with Batavia anymore um right now we're in a they would have to they're obligated by to us under contract through the end of this year but next year they could say no thank you because that we're doing in one year extension because
105this in the state is allowing that right now because of the impacts of the pandemic and I'm sorry that I'm doing it no that's okay I talked through in your report you can talk during mine that's fine and just some historical perspective this is the second time of this ask in in four years right at the beginning of the pandemic the same thing happened them coming to us asking for an increase so the children need to have lunch children learn best when they're fed and not hungry this is not a nice to have this is a need to have but I also want to articulate that this is the second thing that we've been asked although this is unprecedented times in both cases sure I think it's also important to look at like districts in
106the surrounding area so Tony and I went and asked 10 different school districts the local area what's your meal reimbursement rate and even with this increase we are still the lowest in the area so you know a lot of time was put into making sure that one more being good partners but also that we're being responsible for our students and how long have we been um I'm gonna have to defer to Tony on now so this is we're finishing our second five-year con it's got to be and they've been a very good to us excellent to work with they're one of my favorite companies to work with this is not an issue that's limited just to this I mean right I think the the statistic I think that you see here the 301 percent that
107being I am seeing things where we've got things that are under contract specific costs that are set in a in contractors or others are going I'm walking if you don't pay me yeah we just can't afford you can rebid it but you're gonna pay it anyway okay so you might as well stay with a partner you have it's it's a terrible position to be in but I appreciate the fact that through foresight or happenstance buffer is kind of there but I do appreciate understanding that it does eat away at saved money to do the bigger costs later like fantastic a new kitchen or new equipment or whatever else any other questions right then I would entertain a motion that we approve an emergency contract Amendment for the remainder of the 2022-23 school year in regard
108to the meal reimbursement rates delineated below so I moved moved my mitesler second by kilburg all in favor any opposed all right next item is a um a dual Josh and David uh topic so I'm going to throw it to whoever's going to talk I'm up here so I'll just I'll just keep the mic if you don't mind all right so um that's like Dave was talking about with the firewall there's certain expenses that occur on a recurring basis so this is one of those so our copy printers um usually are replaced every five years we got six years out of the ones that we currently have but it is time to get new models um so the ask is that the board authorized the approval to purchase these new copy scanners um and again
109the goal is to keep them for five years but we'll own them so then we can make that decision based on usage if we can make them last longer we monitor them through a service called Papercut so we can see how they're being used and then make that determination in the future and since I'm already talking to your board reports yeah just just go first let's throw one more thing in there the tricky thing about of copy machines is that when they break down they can be very problematic in a school and as they age these are mechanical devices that push paper through them very fast and as they age they kind of wear out and they start to break down more and two things happen one the maintenance contract that we pay on those
110machines gets much more expensive and so because the maintenance guy is coming out more often and two The copier is down more often and teachers started pulling their hair out so it's not a good idea to make copiers last longer than they ought to when it comes to these sorts doesn't lead to good things we may have tried that and it does that yeah you know sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn't that's right so how many printers do we currently have so we're just replacing every single printer well we actually have 48. um we're keeping two the one at the maintenance shop is not used at all it's made approximately 11 000 copies in six years that's nothing so we own it so we have the opportunity to keep it and we're keeping
111the same company so they're keeping the same and then there is one other one at Rotolo which is for the Project Lead the Way classroom I don't remember the exact number on that one because I was giving Mark a hard time about the 11 000 copies but that one also is so lightly used that we're keeping that one you all considered a rotation program or keeping the ones that we have or do we get money back for turning in these 46. we do yeah we just approved yeah Me on he used to have like a rotator thing like we used to do just a lease and the company yeah yeah maybe I'm dreaming I thought it was like we've tried different models over there in the tooth if they're fine like these ones that only
112have so many numbers on them that we could keep using you couldn't do that you'd be buying another 5 000 copier at that point but we do rotate them when they make sense I know we do you know some machines that are not being used as often will put into a place that is in yeah so that we can get more life out of that yeah any other questions I I have my question they always ask so this was an anticipated expense and this is within budget yes that is correct the broken record down here is this the same company that you've used this is the same company so you that's a mate so after six different proposals still this one was the best significantly yeah okay that's rare in this market right now thank
113you anything else all right then I'm going to entertain a motion to approve the purchase of 46 not 48.46 Kanika Minolta multi-function print devices for the total amount of 527 from Konica Minolta move by Meister second by lock Alan baber any opposed right now I'm assuming the service agreement that you're asking us about is connected to this question yes yes it's unfortunately like when you buy a big purchase like a car you buy the car and then you go into the room and you discuss the the warranty that's what we have here so this is the service agreement uh it's a five-year service agreement and what's great about this is it locks in the service rate for those five years there's no planned escalation in that service agreement it just is sat and they actually
114match the service agreement that they gave us in the last time frame the reason why there's not a dollar amount on here yeah because it's by uh page per like the copy per page okay so it varies depending on usage so if we use it a lot we pay more for the service that you don't use it we don't pay for the service this covers those two extra ones you were yeah they go to yes because they're pretty oh 48 all five pages all five pages they match their prices okay yeah okay yes all right then I'm gonna entertain a motion to approve a five-year service agreement with Konica Minolta to support our multi-function print devices move by might start a second by Meadows all in favor any opposed all right last item on the
115agenda is not a Josh and Dave hahaha this is a Rob purchase of office furniture my Topic's a little more fun than copiers I'm here to ask you uh to approve the purchase of office furniture for the new main offices at JB Nelson and Alice Gustafson Elementary School and the reorganization of the ECC office as we split those two apart the total is 69 thousand dollars that basically 14 spaces in the two buildings including the new respite room which we do not have in the existing buildings right now those will be an ad I know I've been asked about reusing and refurbishing existing furniture that we already have that furniture will already be accounted for in especially Alice Gustafson all the main office furniture is staying in the ECC office so everything will need to
116be new in the new main office and as far as JB Nelson goes we will be repurposing all the furniture there except for the reception desk which will be demolished to make room for the new use of that open Office Space can you explain a little bit about Source well and Cooperative purchasing Source wall is it's already it's a state-run pre-bid service we use this typically with mechanical equipment as well so when we're going and getting prices those have already been bit out and approved through the state so we don't have to worry about individually going out to bid um with different companies we can go through one company who we work with who provides who will provide the furniture and who will install it and that's hard the prices have already been vetted out
117right and I would entertain a motion to award Lowry McDonald company a contract to provide office furniture at JB Nelson Elementary School and School in the sum of sixty nine thousand dollars okay move by math day second by might slur all in favor any opposed all right thank you those were all of our um action items tonight we do have a closed session on the agenda but there will be no action afterwards so I'm going to turn it over to Administration comments before we move too close to section um 99 of my comments have already been covered through our discussions and our celebrations today but I would like to add one more celebration Cindy and Holly and the rest of the people who helped put together kindergarten meet and greet it was last Thursday night
118here and 213 families showed up there were 251 that signed up but the weather took a turn last Thursday so I think it kept a couple people out so that's a really large number it's not our entire Kindergarten class it's just those that got our messages and signed up to come and meet their principals and turn in all their registration documents so they registered uh collected Cindy and her team collected 230 13 registration packets from families so amazing they process processed it all that night nice job and Holly did all the communicating and collecting of the names so lots of assistance from others in the district as well so that's it for me all right thanks Erin we'll start with you Aaron meitzer um everyone just stay safe with the upcoming weather come in and
119um make it to school on time and safe tomorrow I know uh we had some twisting of the arm but it looks like we'll be there so [Laughter] RJ um I'm really proud and excited about all the different awards for the teachers and faculty that was really exciting Lisa is the first person that I've been able to or that I've had my children work with so my oldest daughter is doing violin and she signed up for violin for uh sixth grade so she's loving it so congrats again to all the teachers and then Lisa I'm looking forward to my children uh you know working with all the other instructors or other other faculty so that'll be exciting I didn't throw this out there during the cycling committee but I why the comment that I was
120shocked I got the number here there's 130 kids that are on the cross country team for sixth grade which is just amazing to me I guess it's like 12 it's 12 percent of the school I know I brought before at the end of the meeting Steve I was like why do kids love to run so much but apparently the the the coaches and all the yeah the assistants just do a great job with it and I know every time I drive around here you see somebody running so yeah well we'll see if my kids get involved in it but it's nice I you know it's a new little thing to be a little bit proud of here so um that was an interesting tidbit a nugget of knowledge for you um but besides that I've
121got nothing else to say thank you I'm just gonna say again congratulations relations to all the teachers I'm gonna extend them she's not here maybe she'll hear about it but personal appreciation for Lisa Hatfield again because I I see with both my kids and every other kid that I'm involved with the music they've all just basically started there kind of Grew From that and so it really goes to show what like kind of good foundation does to help build confidence and kind of that reinforcement structures they move along to kind of cap that off um Holly and others put out a kind of note about the Batavia wind Symphony uh performing at what's called iMac which is Illinois music educators Council or something along that lines it's basically an audition thing and we got an
122opportunity to hear a preview with the five schools three of the five schools that get invited every year to go perform there and Batavia has done it a couple times but it's it's kind of like the Super Bowl for like the win Symphony level that you have to be kind of I would stop laughing at me yeah laughing but um no I mean I just wanted to press put that out there because all the years I know all the years I've seen it and I've heard my oldest one I have no idea that it was such a kind of an honor for them to be able to get selected to go perform solely for a bunch of music educators you know and and be kind of um take advantage of that so I'm going to
123end with that one but thank you and be safe tomorrow apparently apparently yes um interesting comment for RJ because all three of my children ran cross country and at least one had all four of the Educators that were here tonight probably I think multiple of them so um yeah we offer amazing opportunities in this District that's why I've always loved it I have no other comments usually I wait till last but I wanted to throw my two cents in um I agree that what everybody else has said um although my kids had Miss offelman I believe before she got married so that's how long my kids said music teacher I think um and please take advantage of the updated website and educate yourself on the referendum can I add something to that sure sure real
124quick I'm sorry I just remembered that we're going to have four members representing it two different functions last night last night tomorrow night um BS or Thursday night I know I'll be at ESPN with me with you surprising me now thanks so uh and then I think we'll also be at Thursdays and boosters as well so if anyone come up and ask us questions come up and talk what I want about it feel free please be there good reminder thanks RJ uh my turn I'll finish it off so yes I want to congratulate all the teachers if we get started every board meeting with a celebration like that it would be great um I also want to say thank you to everybody in the community that emails us it reaches out thank you for everybody
125who stayed for the bulk of the meeting or to the end I appreciate that so thank you for that um I do want to thank Cindy and Holly and uh Amy Nelson for the kindergarten on the 213 for the meet and greet I was happy to I used to take a lot of home videos I was watching my daughter who's a junior now her first day of kindergarten and you know lots of anxiety lots of tears and that's how we see the parents and so that's really crucial I think that first interaction so thank you for that and then I'll end with something I I just want to thank all of our business partners that support uh BPS 101 I attended a fundraiser from my youngest as a grade school at Pal Joey's and John
126Hamill's about his big up partner as you could have for BPS 101 um she was here earlier with Karen Cheeseman but she put it together it was a first time event and the response was crazy and basically within like two days they had it over I think 100 or 200 responses John was going to reserve a room and he just said I'll just close the whole restaurant for three hours so you guys can have your event I don't know how many Proprietors would do something like that so um I don't mean to give a plug just for Pal Joey's but all of our partners but those are the types of Partnerships that build community and make Batavia the place it is so I just want to say thank you to those people for that reminder
127Aaron as I said we do have closed session but no action after so I would entertain a motion to adjourn to closed session for the reason of collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees still moved second moved my mind for a second by lock all in favor bye all right during Too Close session can you unplug me okay please please