Batavia Public School District 101 Board of Education Meeting for December 20, 2022.

001I'd like to call to order a regular meeting of the board of education on December 20th 2022 at seven o'clock P.M Cindy could you please call the roll certainly Dremel here kilburg here lock here no present Mathis Meadows present meitzler all right and this lock could you please leave us in the pledge of course one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right Dr Hitchens are there any items removed from or added to the agenda or any changes um nothing added or subtracted but some shuffling around of the agenda so after BPS Partners we have a very important and exciting agenda item that we're going to move up which would be approval of the superintendent's contract and um we'll we'll Shuffle the board member committee updates to the closing when you give

002your statements at the end is perfect all right the first item on our agenda is public comments uh we ask that everyone who's going to make public comments tonight fill out a pink sheet uh when you come to speak to the board we don't engage at that time in a dialogue we want you to know that we value your comments and your opinions and if you would like a follow-up from anyone in the district There's an opportunity to request that on your pink sheet we ask that you fill out your full name and address because we do have to keep a complete set of Records I'll pass it over to Ali dietman who will explain our process thank you president Dremel speakers will be called up in order of form submission The Firm first form

003received was the first person invited to speak when your name is called please come to the podium so that you can be heard all individuals speaking will be limited to three minutes we'll have a timer up on the screen for you to see once you're settled at the podium is when the timer will start at any time during this meeting written comments may be submitted to our recording secretary City Rodriguez at my right speakers should conduct themselves with Civility and respect towards everyone in this room our first speaker is Stan Oak thank you thank you for making me feel welcome it's good to be here good to be among friends I don't come as somebody who knows something others don't I don't come era that others don't but I come as a person who has

004an opportunity to speak to a hundred batavians a day at my gas station so be that as it may um I promise to limit my speech to 30 minutes here because I violated that in the past um eight I encourage a referendum in April make it happen it'll not sell itself we're gonna have to sell it push it relative to mailers the opposition did a better job than the supporters Point black especially in the mailing you have a hard sell but it can be done with straight talk and one-on-one I've already converted 10 no votes two yes votes just by going over the details you know what are we trying to do what happens if we don't and I think Batavia will support you I think you should have signs at the two schools the

005problematic schools what are the deficiencies what happens if we don't pass a referendum and do it and certainly we need full support from those parents and citizens in that neighborhood and if we didn't get it the last time we got to figure out why and get it the next time I commit to bring 50 yes votes to The Ballot Box I can do that I ask every board member to do the same I think every District employee must be a salesperson hey this is our future this is our job we don't need people talking favorably about alternative school systems we love Public Schools let's let it be known in what we need to continue I think those signs must be very specific as to what the deficiencies are and there was a Feeling that we

006had to tear down and replace because we had not done good job of maintaining not true but the public needs to know that and they need to know the wise thing to do is to tear down and replace plus the other advantages to the other facilities in the district I think I rang the bell thank you thanks Dan [Applause] next we have Jerry Ruth okay good evening um I'm Jerry Ruth I have uh two young girls they're not in the school system yet but they will be very soon um I moved to Batavia five or six years ago with the anticipation of starting my family here and I have done so with the promise of the great education that my children will obtain by raising them here so I have a vested interest in this

007referendum I support this referendum I did in November I will do it again if and when it gets on the ballot in April I just wanted to go through a couple points uh some very good ones made by the previous speaker the previous campaign vote Yes for BPS was late to the game that will not happen again we know what is effective what is efficient what is felt by the community we know how to address the questions that came up and how to better approach responses to those questions and concerns when they do arise we're a much better feel for what's effective for marketing for our campaign we know how to get the word out and we will double our efforts and our impact will be exponentially better it's the best investment we can make

008in our community the investment I made in Batavia the investment that we all made as Citizens here is protected by our schools when people look to start families they do what I did you look at bedrooms kitchen floor plan if it suits your family's needs one of the most dire family needs is education we asked the board to return the referendum in April we feel strongly that it will succeed 24 votes out of over 14 000 is such a slim margin that we know we can overcome it that's all I have to say [Applause] next we have Stacy algazino I'm Stacy alcazino as she said I'm obviously Batavia Community member and I'm here to also speak in support of putting the referendum back on the ballot in April um so I moved to Batavia about

009four and a half years ago my husband and I were looking for a nice Community good schools um and we found it in Batavia I now have three kids under six so you know lots of free time um we love Batavia when we moved here I the community Vibe the support local I got my Batavia pillows Bulldog gear and like everybody else so when my daughter started at Louise White last year is when I first heard about building our future together I was kind of shocked about the state of the schools um three in poor condition five in Fair and uh so when the referendum came out I was like well great Batavia supports each other like this will go well obviously it lost um which was disappointing disappointing that our community didn't come out

010in support of our schools um giving our kids the safe secure schools they need um didn't come out to give our board the money that's needed for critical infrastructure updates but 24 out of 14 000 votes that's somebody who got stuck at work and couldn't make a devote that's there were votes left on the table people went there and didn't vote either way so there's education to be had and the vote Yes Community is ready to get out there we're ready to get aggressive get people to vote Yes we owe this to our kids to get it back on the referendum is that referendum back on the ballot and I think you guys owe it to the community to give the community one more chance to do it so let's do it in the spring

011thanks for your time peace [Applause] next we have Sylvia keppel what I would like to say is if you have another referendum be honest aim for an honest Victory telling people the real cost up front then let them make an informed decision there was a person on next door who thought it would only cost her 300 a year I looked up her house and found it would cost her three times that 900 a year she didn't know what she was voting for be honest no more of this it won't change the bond Levy because some people don't know what that means tell people what it will cost them also please tell all the businesses you have worked with to not fund for opponents of the referendum perhaps tell them that funding the yes effort would

012disqualify them from contracts on referendum generated projects it is a huge conflict of interest I will name them DLR group lamp Incorporated and Quest Food management all stood to gain from this referendum and funded the vote Yes Flyers and they do not represent the people of Batavia an April election doesn't give Fair assessment of the will of Voters Consolidated elections typically have a low turnout there was a 65 percent turnout in November that's really high for an election it gives you a better picture of the will of the people you are supposed to represent it was not 24 people who voted no but 7060 people who voted no even if the yes vote had won by a few votes the people are split pretty evenly on this it would not have been an overwhelming mandate

013I would think you would want the overwhelming mandate for projects like this if you're going to try again do it in the November 2024 presidential election where the turnout will be more representative of the will of the people listen to your constituents your focus groups are full of boosters you need a broader cross-section of the population when you do things like this you need to get out of the echo chamber you touted that you went to the community but I was there at those meetings and the numbers dwindled significantly by the end the vote was more representative the vote in November was more representative of the community a big problem are your taxes are too high and you never have pity on us taxpayers stop taxing to the max every year and maybe people will

014be more sympathetic you're increasing taxes five percent this coming year another five percent the following year and you have your referendum money use the massive amounts of tax dollars we give you wisely tear down a school and don't rebuild it and use the savings for your projects most of the cost of education is in is in salaries and benefits how much would tearing down a school save it wouldn't be popular with the parents and students of that school but hard decisions sometimes have to be made you might get people to support a much much smaller amount for specific unforeseen projects not planned for for example secure entrances for the schools and I saw two two other schools cost four million dollars between them this year for secure entrances and maybe better special ed facilities at

015RMS be specific millions of other dollars do not build confidence so to summarize smaller specific targeted amounts November 2024 and no special interests that work with the district and stand to profits should be involved thank you thank you next is Brendan Casey hello I'm Brendan Casey I've lived in Batavia since 2007. I have two kids who went through BPS from first grade to 12th grade and are now in college and I have two kids who are in RMS right now uh so first I'd like to thank the board and the administration for all the work you've done over the years for Batavia schools especially since my kids directly benefited from all your hard work so a year ago in December was when um superintendent Hitchens asked some of us to join the BPS 101 facilitating

016team so this team was charged with helping roll out the district's master plan to the community and helping collect feedback from the community when I first looked at the proposed master plan I was extremely skeptical I asked a lot of the same questions many people in our community have asked do we really need to tear down schools and rebuild from scratch does this mean that the school district somehow dropped the ball on maintenance is this really possible to do this without increasing taxes I started out as a pretty firm no but I spent a lot of time going through all the information online listening to the presentations to the community asking a lot of tough questions I definitely was people who confirm I was not a booster in any of those meetings um and I

017listened to the answers and I learned three main things uh First Independent audits have determined that these buildings are cheaper to rebuild than to maintain so it's actually fiscally prudent to rebuild and wasteful to maintain what is there and I support fiscal Prudence of my taxpayer dollars second we're in a position to do this now without raising taxes because the district has done an excellent job managing our available funds so it's the opposite of the district dropping the ball the district has done an outstanding job and that's why we're in the position to do this now third I learned to trust the administration and I saw how open they are to anyone who asked and takes the time to talk to them my experience took me from a hard no to an enthusiastic yes as

018I mentioned it took a while to get to where I am now and there's no way I can convince people in three minutes that what I say is true but I invite any skeptic to go through the information provided by the district there is enough there for anyone to make an informed decision I asked the board tonight to put the construction ballot initiative on the April ballot I think it's the only fiscally prudent option for the district and I will continue to work to share with the community what I've learned and helped get this initiative passed [Applause] and last we have Melanie impostato good evening thank you for your opportunity to speak tonight I'd also like to thank Dr Hitchens for her years of service to the district and we're going to miss you um

019good luck in your retirement I'm here also to speak on behalf of the referendum and support and ask the board to again put the referendum in April I believe that um it sometimes takes more than once to pass a referendum to in a community such as the size of Batavia I believe that replacing the schools can't be cost effect they can't be cost effectively renovated it is financially prudent to replace them I believe that the information does show that I also think that new schools are good for the students education in the long run they are much more efficient to operate the new ones with today's technology we need the new schools because to upgrade the schools with what they need it's just not going to be cost effective and maintaining the high quality of

020Batavia schools is the best thing that we can do to protect our property values upgrading the facilities also ensures that we're providing the best stem education that our the students need I have seen all three of my kids go through kindergarten all the way through 12th grade and I have um one get all the way through college and I can tell you when she was in second grade I didn't think that was going to happen so um she now is off the payroll and on her own and I would have to say that Batavia prepared her for that so um we have to continue to we just all children deserve that so as a tax paying member of Batavia I want to provide that to all the students that are up and coming we can't

021we can't downgrade it we have to continue to prepare that and today's environment we have to do that with technology and the schools each see storm and Louise White don't have that so we have to the people who are at Grace McQueen people at HC Storm are not in the same building like so we need to put that referendum back on there and the yes for BPS committee we need to grow the committee but the ones that the core people that are there are going to bring this to the finish line and we need to do that in April thanks bye [Applause] next I'd like to invite Todd Swanson uh president of the Bea good evening everyone uh thank you again for the opportunity to speak to you but honestly tonight I'm going to direct

022more of my comments to Mr Kim um I mean I have a captive audience right now so I have to take advantage of that one Mr Kim so um so I'll go ahead and start uh tonight I have the distinct honor in representing 425 members of the Batavia Education Association and saying congratulations to you Mr Kim on your appointment to become batavia's new superintendent on July 1st we also want to extend our warmest welcome to your family as you also become an integral part of our BPS family I look forward to begin meeting with you as we start to build a relationship centered around trust communication and collaboration and please let's not wait till July 1st to do that so again on behalf of the Bea we are thrilled to have you here and begin

023our new partnership with you the showing of red that you see before you or behind you or beside you tonight paint's a symbolic picture we have a motto through iea that Rings truer and truer each year through every course of action in every story that our members share from the far reaches of our state to every building and classroom within our own District we are stronger when we are united this message certainly applies to our membership and that we accomplish so much more when we are a cohesive unified entity but that correlation doesn't need to stop there even though Mr Kim you are joining our district to fill the top administrative role we can be stronger when we are united both admin and Union working together working on our common end goal making sure we

024create an environment where all who enter the doors of any of our buildings in our district feel welcome and safe that feeling must begin with our District staff whether it be a classroom teacher a paraprofessional custodian lunch Supervisor office secretary all District employees must feel like that they belong here and that this is a safe and welcoming place for them when you're safe when your staff has that basic need met they will then be more able to make move on to accomplish the most important end goal that we must continually strive to achieve achieve in BPS that every student feels welcome and safe and that they are learning and growing in all of our training that we have had through Aces and being trauma-informed we've learned that if our needs are not being met if

025we as the adults in the classroom ourselves are dysregulated dysregulated overwhelmed and struggling it's so much harder to meet the needs of our students this is an extremely tall order for you to come into Batavia with but nothing could be more important to the well-being of our district organizational climate sets the stage for organizational culture we are hopeful that your educational experiences and background will help in reaffirming our district climate and ultimately the culture of our district we look forward to being equal partner with you as we embark on this journey together to conclude my message tonight I would like to quote a line from a very famous Christmas movie a movie that ranks as one of my family's top movies for the holiday season the character giving this line has been through a great

026deal as of late in this film she was being told that there was nothing that could be done to help the Dilemma that she was facing person after person she encountered said they could do nothing to change her situation she reached out to everyone and anyone that she knew still to no avail now at the point of exhaustively championing her cause and yet again being told that nothing was going to change our main character who by the way her name was Kate if that's going in your brain a little bit here and maybe uttered this famously profound statement this is Christmas the season of Perpetual hope now if you don't know what movie I'm referring to and you're asking why did I choose to share this particular line from home alone when Kevin's mother Kate

027has yet again been told that there was nothing that anyone could do to get her home to her son there's actually two reasons first I truly believe that Christmas is the season of Perpetual hope when we first heard the timeline of the board to have a new superintendent hired by the December board meeting we as a union had some reservations was the process being rushed would we find the absolutely best candidate in the search process and having gone through this process myself personally I can't help but think but the appointment of Mr Kim at the board meeting right before Christmas holds a little deeper message for all of us his appointment does give us hope hope for a new set of eyes to look and see the inner workings of our district hope for a

028diverse perspective to analyze where we are and where we are headed and hope that together we will collaborate and communicate to build a trusting relationship to guide our district into the future Christmas is truly the season for Perpetual hope now the second reason that I mentioned for this analogy relates right back into the movie when Kate is so desperate to get back to her son a completely unknown person approaches her to offer her to hear her story and ultimately a solution that had not even presented itself even after hours and hours of Kate struggling with the same situation over and over expecting to get a different outcome Mr Kim you are our John Candy now I don't know if if you're part of a widely known Polka Band that is big in Sheboygan Wisconsin or

029not but we are anxious and ready to see how you will transport us from where we are to where we want to go just like John Candy did for Kate McAllister and transporting her back home to her son Kevin so once again welcome Mr Kim to Batavia are we worried that something might happen to our district now that you are here allow me one last Home Alone reference please no for three reasons a change might be just what the doctor ordered two we know that we will be advocating for what is best for our staff and students and doing so in a collaborative Manner and D we work with the most incredible people in the whole United States of America where all things are possible period and with that I hope you all have a

030wonderful break and once again welcome to the BPS Community Kim family thank you [Applause] so the board wanted me to share with the community uh just a brief overview of what our process was uh for hiring Mr Kim and so our Consultants had brought us eight qualified and well-vetted candidates and uh in collaboration with the Bea who brought us this request we added a stakeholder interview group to our process and so we had those eight candidates in a Marathon interview day um amazing board members uh sitting in the room with us and another group uh sitting in a different room so each candidate came to speak to the board and spoke to a stakeholder group um after everyone did their interviews the board had a chance to talk about their impressions of the candidates and

031then we waited for information from the stakeholder group to find out who their top candidates were they shared feedback on strengths weaknesses and then vetted each person uh ranked their top three that information was conveyed to the board and the value of that was we had um narrowed it down somewhat but we were sort of vacillating on who exactly we wanted to bring back and based on that feedback we actually ended up bringing back a candidate for a second interview that was not initially going to be somebody that we talked to and so that was a very very important part of that process and uh we narrowed it down to three candidates that we brought back for a second interview so again we um instead of doing an all day we went late into the

032night I had a chance to talk to each candidate further in depth I will say all of the candidates that we talked to we had a great deal of respect for and really valued but when we finally narrowed it down to choosing Mr Kim it was for many of the reasons that Todd had just shared he has a history of fighting for educational Equity he is all about student learning he is a relationship Builder and he engages the community and those are all things that are values of this board values of this community and we had a lot of confidence that Mr Kim could be the person that could lead us to that next stage of like what Todd said where we've been strong and we want to be stronger and so we're very excited

033so I would entertain a motion to approve the terms of Mr Kim's new contract so moved second all right we'll go I'll move by kelleberg second by low all in favor any opposed congratulations Mr Kim I did want to give you a chance just to say a few words uh welcome we're really excited to have you guys thank you um you can go to the podium sure all right so uh first I'd like to start by saying thank you to the board um after as you all heard a rigorous process and one that happened in a window of time that definitely challenged anyone who was going through the process to be prepared and on their feet uh ready to go um I do want to say thank you to the board for selecting me in

034replacing Dr Hitchens uh who I wish you nothing but the best in your next steps and I want to thank you as well for being so kind and gracious and already extending your support to me so thank you so much for that um you know and to the board it is not lost on me just how much you are extending your faith in me and your support and I want to thank you for that as well already I feel it I felt it walking in and um it's definitely not lost on me on on this decision and the weight and moving us forward and continuing the great work that's happening here and Todd to you and all our colleagues in the room I I just want to say this this is exactly what I knew

035this was I want to thank you all for being here you are filling my bucket right now knowing that this level of support is here I do agree with you standing United together together as an administrative team thanks to everybody who's gotten us through what is undoubtedly the most difficult period in our lifetimes and hopefully the only one um it is without a doubt that what I'm seeing here tonight is exactly why I knew and my family knew that this would be the right decision and the right position to pursue at this time in my career and hopefully the only decision I have to make at this point moving forward it's really humbling I have to tell you I have an unexpected guest A co-worker who I consider a very dear friend to me who

036showed up out of nowhere and uh you know and I think that sends uh that reinforces the message that you're saying about being united education and schools I believe are the pillar and the foundation to every Community it's a part of what makes the communities this District serves that we serve great and it is so clear from every speaker up here that BPS 101 is why people choose to live here in these communities choose to stand these communities stay choose to come back and raise their children have them go through these schools and why all of you do what you do and make that magic happen in the buildings every single day and and to the administrators as well all of the I I know what the hard lifting was like uh I was there

037just in a different place with you and so I want to thank everybody for giving me an opportunity to come on board with a wonderful district with amazing people some of you may not know this but I did spend some time kind of sleuthing through the community having a bite to eat here and there talking to some folks my daughter ran in a cross-country meet at the middle school it got a chance to talk to some just community members who had no idea who I was before I decided to apply and so that helped my decision and uh in the end I'm so excited um I agree there I'm sure we'll have time to get to know each other and as we do that I hope you'll see that whatever we do moving forward is

038going to be for students it's going to be for an environment that is here to meet everyone's needs to make sure that we have the best schools if not in the state of Illinois in the country and before this evening were to end I'd be remiss if I did not say this I want to thank my family my children are an absolute inspiration relation to Everything I Do having been raised by a single mother who was an immigrant and raising three boys on her own driving from Skokie Illinois to West Chicago every single day to make sure that we could stay in the schools that we were at I get it I absolutely get it and we're going to fight for that and and then to my wife who has been you've been behind me

039in front of me and to the side of me and every step of our our journey together in life thank you and so I want to thank all of you my family's here because this is me I wear my heart on my sleeve may not always be the most polished person in the room that's okay I also know I'm not going to be the smartest person in the room which I think puts me ahead in the game a little bit but I promise you this that this is a commitment that's not just me but it's our family we're going to see this through all the way and we're we're here so thank you everybody thank you all for coming out with the weather and and being on the eve of your break so thank you

040thank you everybody I'm looking forward to it very excited thank you thank you I [Applause] I wanted to call just a short five minute recess we will reconvene at 7 38. um give Mr Kim and his three children we did not want to make you feel like that you need to stay and now I'm going to call you out but I know you've got to drive and you've got school-age kids and we were super excited that you were here so thank you so much gotta pay the bills item on our agenda is the consent agenda which is an opportunity for us to approve a number of routine business items all in one vote all the items in the consent agenda are detailed in in the board book and if Mr Pierce could take us through

041the consent yes we have 4.1 and 4.2 is the approval of the November 15th minutes 4.3 and 4.4 the approval of the December 3rd 2022 special meeting in closed session minutes 4.5 and 4.6 is the approval of the December 13 2022 special meeting in closed session minutes 4.7 is our Personnel report 4.8 is the payroll and bills 4.9 is the accepting the kefir for the fiscal year 2022 4.10 is the board member expenses and 4.11 is the approval of the consent agenda thank you Mr Pierce are there any items on the agenda for removal or clarification I would like to point out something I read on 4.9 the annual comprehensive financial report I just want to point out two things of the community that There's a summary in the beginning of that report that talks

042about the finances of the district and the district should the people of the district should know that our finances have improved greatly over the last 10 12 years so the district should know our s p Global rating assigned our district a double a capital double A Plus rating in November 21 2021 which is a notch above where we were rated before so our financial standing has approved by that body and also the Illinois state board of education has risen the district's Financial profile from early warning status in 2015 we were coming out of uh the recession to a a recognition of recognition that's the actual rating so I want to applaud the people on the team that have worked to manage our finances because we're definitely in a much better position today than we were

043even five to seven years ago so I just wanted to note that thanks Aaron I actually appreciate that because I think sometimes we are aware of that and we forget to sort of tout that or remind people do you want to speak to why that is why that's happened or um the fact that we um are very grateful to Tony and glacy's Leadership I always joke that he is the person that comes regularly to the board and tells us what we don't want to hear um but has led us from a very precarious Financial circumstance even more like wire rating is increased oh did you want Tony I'm sorry Antonio how many could you talk about it I mean there's a reason why it's increased and primarily the reasons why the rating has increased is

044the one that we've paid down debt and is community is well aware now what the referendum will help nearly pay off all our debt in 2025 and 2026. uh we are not spending more money in a given year than we're taking in factor or even crew increased our fund balances where we're not borrowing money on an annual basis to make payroll we were before we were issuing what are called tax anticipation warrants or kind of like a a payday loan so to speak so that we can get through the fiscal year to the next tax payment and finally um the key reason why we're able to keep our balance budget is that we are able to rein in the cost of Health Care and uh we were seeing that increase uh 15 to 20 percent

045clip each year and quite frankly whether we go bankrupt or we have to lay off a significant portion of our staff so that alone is dramatically changed our trajectory no thank you I think it's important that people hear that and understand yeah no I think why the why behind that yeah I agree with you I think that's a good point thanks guys we didn't actually approve the agenda no questions no I meant thanks for bringing those okay you're right Chris good point and I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented move by lock second by kilburg all in favor hi hi any opposed all right next item on our agenda is our report it's a rather lengthy report night tonight I'm going to hand it over to doctor yeah the first

046two reports you see every month the foia request and the treasury's reports any questions on either of those there's no action those are just for information required all right the referendum next steps we heard some public comment tonight about that because last month we said that it looked like we were um that we had some tough decisions to make because our facility needs are real and we need to figure out as a board together what we're going to do next to support schools in the community and make sure that we're maintaining them and we said we would bring you back some data here's the data and then we're going to turn it over to you for a discussion um the things that we gathered first was I'll talk about the survey that we gave um

047just the um qualitative pieces of it the survey was given um we used some Consultants to send the survey and we have feedback about the survey itself which Tony will share in the qualitative part of this discussion but you can see it's posted for everyone I put the they close the survey and it ended with 1718 people taking the survey and um there was questions about why do you think others voted we wanted to hear what people were saying in the community and then if you look at page eight that nope sorry if you look at page seven of the yes of the survey feedback it does show the one question that says there is discussions about putting the proposal back on the April 2023 ballot back on a ballot in April 2023 what do

048you think and as close as the margins were in November it's it's still pretty close it is 56 of the people that took the survey and it is a statistically significant number of people and they are representative of different um voices in the community um that's part of what the the Consultants did they looked through that to make sure that they didn't need to wait any answers differently and they didn't they felt like they had a representative sample so it shows that 56 percent of the people think it would be a good idea to put something on the April ballot and then we also um in the board packet were a couple other pieces that you asked for but probably the most um impactful conversations that we've had have been either Tony's phone calls that

049he's made um he and I have done several focus groups he's done more of those one-on-one contacts I know someone in public comment mentioned like we'll talk to anyone and I feel like that's what we owe every single person in this community as a conversation we had many people fill out a form that Holly created to provide feedback but also we gave them the opportunity to be in a focus group I think about 45 people said they would be in a focus group we offered three different options and we did have six people take us up on it so we had um not as much participation as we would like but we felt glad we were glad that people felt comfortable giving us feedback and writing people asked for phone calls we did that and

050also on the survey that went out to the community that 1718 people took we had quite a few I think about 700 people or 700 comments that were left on that survey so Tony had a really exciting weekend he was here um trying to make some sense out of that because we what we don't want is to focus in on a couple comments or some that really catch the eye that and you also can have bias where I the comments that I want to see I'm reading and others I kind of gloss over but we read every single comment and he Quantified those comments for you so I'll turn it over to Tony to talk about what people were saying in the comments in the focus groups yeah thank you the we did our best

051to capture what the comments said and not what we wanted them to hear and I hope that this report does indeed do that report was just made available on board docs before the me maybe five o'clock this evening it was you know it took a while to process all these comments and so it's newly available if you check the board agenda on Friday while the Agenda Report wasn't so it was just brand spanking new uh there were over 800 comments that we analyzed in in total that came from all the various forms that Lisa mentioned earlier so the phone interviews the focus groups the survey comments and just written comments that people submitted to us in any way shape or form so we did our best to to categorize them and you'll see the prevalence

052of those categories here on the screen that Holly is showing you the first of those cat themes I would call them is communication taxes followed by trust and then neglect and then the rest get much smaller after that in terms of communication the most prevalent theme it appears that a lot of people didn't fully understand the plan or didn't have access to information related to the plan one didn't know how to find it despite our best efforts to provide it to them and talking about this for a very long time um so that's something if the board does decide to to put the question about moving forward we'll have to work on of course and can I just jump in when we're talking about that thing team is that people talked about the yes group

053wasn't out there or the no group had a different message but I I like we take it personally like we are in charge of the information campaign not a yes campaign or a no campaign but the fact that this many people are saying that they didn't feel like they had their hands on the right information I think we need to do better and um Tony mentioned this I think at the last board meeting Holly and Tony spend a lot of time editing that web page and um I think 200 and something visits clicks that webpage got and they're responsible for 100 of those things yeah so people don't necessarily want to come to us for information or it might not be the way they like it so we need to figure out how to come

054to them with those messages everybody deserves a conversation with us so that was one of our big takeaways that we could do better yeah I think to piggyback on that um also indicative of the level of Engagement and awareness this survey as Lisa mentioned over 1700 responses the original survey that we sent out prior to the referendum collecting Community feedback as to whether or not we should put the original question on the ballot and what that plan looked like there was only 700 responses and so we really struggled to get people aware of the issues to dialogue the issues and as we heard in public comment earlier the people participating in those Community engagement sessions did dwindle off and we were kind of facing a certain inertia we're trying to get past and it does

055appear that the community is aware of this issue now and is talking about it so I believe that should we put this question on the ballot again it'll be a little easier because people know what we're talking about now we have their attention now we have their attention a lot of folks are concerned about taxes when it comes to negative aspects of taxes and certainly the tax burden but also as we heard earlier in public comment some people felt as though we weren't honest in terms of the impact of the taxes on taxpayers themselves and so I think we can certainly provide more information more context about what those taxes are because it's not simple you know the way property taxes work in Illinois it's not a simple conversation it's very complex and having everybody

056understand all the underlying mechanics involved takes time and often you're dealing with sound bites or a few seconds or a few minutes of interaction and it takes a deeper conversation to have everybody truly understand it but that's something that we can commit to as well and the final aspect that I'll touch on is trust and so you know a lot of times we hear about issues that happen in the past there's a lot of comments that revolve around previous referenda or other issues that are afoot in the community and people's perceived ability to trust leadership and I would tell you that it's an opportunity for us to have these conversations with the community because this is about what we as batavians want our schools to be for our students and what our schools can do

057and of course a lot of learning um ends and starts starts and ends with our teachers which are fantastic but we owe it to them our teachers and to our students that they work in facilities that are designed to to sustain and fulfill that purpose and so it's really a function of what this community wants to do to make that happen and we have an opportunity to keep talking to people even if they disagree with us we can provide them more information so that they're making an informed choice and one of the things I've enjoyed is as we heard earlier in public comment the more we talk to folks the more they understand the issues and they are complex they're not something nuanced that or they are something nuanced they're not something that you can

058just hear and make an emotional decision on or a snap decision on that requires a deep understanding of the underlying issues to make sure that we're the plan is is clear so I think in summary here I think I touched on all the instances of findings but lastly in terms of considerations it's important to note that the April election is the last opportunity for the board to ask this question before the bonded interest tax levy is paid off and goes away there isn't another the next election that would be in November of 24 will be too late for the board to issue Bonds in such a fashion where taxes wouldn't go up so and and then phrase this another way taxes will go down if the question isn't asked in April or is rejected in

059April before they would otherwise go up and it's really clear it is abundantly clear that our facilities have needs far beyond our capacity to address with the current budget that we have and at some point there will be there's some Reckoning to address those needs whether it's now in the future and it's really clear with what's happening in the economy today that waiting is going to cost more than acting so if we act sooner rather than later it'll actually be cheaper and of course IT addresses student need sooner and is better off generally speaking so um I don't want people to misunderstand if this question is asked again this is the last opportunity before there are tax implications and so people often ask that question on the conversations that we've had with them we can

060we don't have to necessarily move forward with the plan that we have been proposing we could modify the plan we could ask for we could ask for more we could ask for Less we could modify the planet in any way shape or form and those are complex conversations but there are conversations that ought to be had and they're prudent and we're and we're ready to have those before and we're willing to provide any information that you might need so that you can make an informed decision and then the last is that you know we certainly need to continue to work on ways to engage the community and communicate with them whether they are for their referendum or against it yeah I think the best thing that we can do is engage absolutely everybody that we

061can to have this conversation is what our students deserve that's kind of I have a comment um I just want to thank well I want to thank Tony to bring this together and it was a lot of work to put together in a relatively short period of time I know I spent my Sunday reading all 769 comments and I want to thank everybody who participated in the survey because this is very instructive to us the more engagement we get the more people that attend meetings the more people that email us the more it helps us understand the wants and needs of the community so that we can make the best decisions for you so I do agree it's complex and it's very important work though that we're discussing so um for a long time there

062it felt like we were talking talking talking and not making action now it's sort of timeline sped up so I just want to tell the community that we're all taking this very serious we are listening to you and we're spending a lot of time you know deciding on what we think best course of action is for now in the future thank you Tony for doing this um I you know I'm a data person so I look at these numbers and and I just kind of latched on the last two in this survey we're keeping school facilities in good condition is a Sound Community investment and like 40 percent of the respondents think it's a responsibility I I how does that work the so the survey if you can see in Tony's data there's like 27

063or no can you explain that to me because I want to make sure I'm understanding this right 31 people that said this survey was confusing in their comments okay so the what you're looking at this page right here we were asking that the consulting firm was asking people to say so which page are you on oh so it's so 40 think it so if we asked the people who took the survey almost 50 percent of the people said yes why do you think they said yes okay and so I'm guessing why my neighbor voted yes or I could just answer for myself so it was you've had a lot of conversations with people why do you think people who voted yes voted yes so 40 of the people said well like that was the message

064it's a good investment right it's a good investment that's why they voted yes okay so 14 trying to wrap my mind around the survey um yeah people gave us that feedback that they didn't understand okay there were all also people who indicated that they were having technical issues with the survey and they had to either reply to all the questions where they had to provide comments on all the questions which so in that retrospect 20 of the people think that this plan did not come from engaging the community it wasn't a reason why people voted yes so okay like so the question was from zero to ten that's not what like if Sue voted yes do you think the reason was because the plan came from engaging the community and people would say no okay

065people didn't really vote yes because of that voted yeah so you had a you did have to answer each of these and you had to rate it from zero to ten I took the survey but I don't remember yeah so I'm just trying to thank you I just want to know so what are your thoughts about next steps because I think people need to stay off social media okay we can't we can't enforce that did I say that so what other ideas do you have Sarah I think this is a really important decision that the community needs to make and if people were not informed at the last election this is a do-over and this is an opportunity to get informed and if the community decides to say no the second time we've had a

066second chance to tell you why the need is there and if that's the way that we want to go I'm comfortable with that but I think we need to have the discussion as a community as to whether or not that's the way we want to go and if you are for or against it come out and talk to us get your questions answered and then once you decide make sure you tell your friends because this is a decision that is going to impact the community for the next generation and so we really need to make sure whether or not we want to say yes or no and so I think that we should have that discussion as a community um and I think everybody in the everybody in the community needs to remember all of

067us are community members who pay those taxes so Chris are you saying you saying that we like I think we should we should go out and ask the question again okay um we're gonna need if you do put the question back on which it sounds like some of you that have spoken up are leaning that way um I try we need to have an information campaign I think last time we were nervous because we're not allowed to take a position but that doesn't mean we can't share information so we don't need to say everybody you know we don't need to knock on people's doors and go to tell your friends to vote Yes but you should be having conversations me too all of us should be having conversations and not worry about the question I

068want to make sure you have the right answers I want to make sure that you know that this is on the ballot so it's and then we send them to get gas in style yeah right and people did want to hear from the staff and we went around and talked to every staff and we're like this referendum is coming and um you know you can't be you can't do any campaigning during the school day um but we want to make sure you're informed and I think maybe we scared them into not talking because people said like I was waiting for my teacher to talk about it and they didn't because people love getting information it's not from information not necessarily from me or from Tony but they want to get information from someone they know

069and that's either their neighbor or their teacher and so that's where I think the most important conversations can happen moving forward and I've talked about this I still don't know the exact number but Todd you the percentage of teachers that live in our district that's huge it's huge forty percent yeah yeah and so they should be able to so here is my question to the board we're missing two of our members tonight um uh we got this data over the weekend we probably want to dig into it I don't think there is a leaning tour uh from what I'm hearing um let's ask the question again and make sure that everyone has the full information but um I'm going to recommend and request that maybe we have a special meeting that second week in January

070so that we can all be here um to vote on whether or not we put it back on the agenda it's not an action item tonight any way we can't but rather than saying tonight absolutely we're going to we want to make sure those other two members voices get heard that we have one more chance to talk about it and maybe that that um at that meeting that would be the only action item on the agenda and we can dig into that a little bit to clarify um we couldn't wait until the next Board of Education right right I'm sorry yeah thank you Tony that's a good yes that's for the date uh we need to have it on by the hour Friday the 13th the clerk the the resolution from the board must be

071filed with the clerk by the 17th of January okay we were looking at having a meeting on uh Thursday the 12th so if you guys can check your calendars uh you don't have to commit to it tonight but we want to get in that week right because you would need to vote on the actual question you still need to tell us whether or not that's still the question I think it deserves its own meeting so we can talk about it dig into everybody gives their opinion topic are you that was what I was gonna say is I mean there's a lot of information to be presented a lot of people came to speak today and there are others that probably have their opinions that want to be felt as well and I think I I

072don't want to be kind of at least from an appearance perspective because we've not been capricious about making the decision so I wholeheartedly say that the only other thing I was going to add is I just want to like let the appreciation know for those people that did try to go out and share information positive and or negative whatever that is and that the effort that they did is not um unseen but I appreciate the fact that people came out and said hey we can do better this time to make sure people are informed and I appreciate that personally very very much and I think we also as a group and I myself as an individual kind of commit to helping inform people of that process within the boundaries because I was having some discussions

073where I was sitting here thinking you know what I can't go out and tell people to vote Yes but we can't tell them why you know and that's a that's a loss that you kind of that's a gray line that you feel like you're nudging up against but I think we need to do a better job of understanding I agree um all right so we will uh I'll have Lisa pull the board as to whether or not that date of the 12th works for everyone he said to people who aren't here um so public know that we are going to meet again on this this uh early in January to decide officially whether or not we'll put it back on the ballot okay sounds good uh question for you yes would you consider or would

074you like to consider changing the plan at all I feel like that's something that you know you gave us a lot of information over the weekend I don't I think it's a discussion point I think that one of the things that that also allows us to do is if we're toying with that in our own heads we can sit down and talk to you and or Lisa in the meantime approach in the interim I don't like the idea yeah it seems yeah pinky I don't know well change it yeah yeah right but again that's where I feel I see there's Chanel for it yeah and I feel like that's why we need an opportunity we tried to choose the best plans right and so um so then the question is what would be what what

075and why would we be changing it and that's something if if you're leaning toward that that you'd want to dig into and then come prepared to that meeting for us to really talk about it as a team what we you read the comments if if you read them and you see that some people are saying like don't put the same question back on because that's just saying you didn't listen to us the first time I think that knowing the communication challenges that we had the first time it's pretty unanimous not unanimous but that was a the major theme that came out that people weren't aware and you hear those stories over and over again and so that would be the reason to try it again with the same question but know that if you put

076the same question on there people are not going to like that the 50.09 of the people people aren't going to be happy anyway because they feel like I voted no so why are we talking about it still but I think I just wanted to prepare you yes yeah that's a good point I think that some of those no votes are are going to be willing to at least hear that 10 right there all right so we will set that meeting date look for it so more information right check your calendars for like Thursday [Music] and like I said uh Lisa will organize that it's not going to work Thursday the 12th is not going to work we'll talk about it okay we'll we'll give you a several dates on that week of the ninth because

077yeah yeah you would have to have the vote by Friday the 13th yep it's not like there's a rule that we can only meet during the week so for some reason we can work we do have the weekend Saturday the 14th better so just uh it does sound better than Friday the 13th I don't know all right so uh so we'll come back to that uh most of you can be at it sounds like we might not be we may not get everybody there or a full team all right next item on our agenda is policy I'm going to hand that over to Lisa for this very long policy policy the policy reference um education subscription service otherwise known as press um gives us updates to our policy four times a year based on changing

078legislation usually and some of the some of the procedures and policies are being changed for continuous Improvement like they like we're changing um from calling teachers certified to licensed and so over time they're making all these adjustments most of the ones here are um a little more substantial these changes but for the most part um it it we like to go with their recommendations because of the sheer volume of changes so quarterly this one was eight 485 Pages worth of changes and so we try to align ourselves with press because we are not attorneys and there is a team of attorneys that most districts in Illinois do follow press because when something changes in the law like it goes it takes effect January 1st and now we have to approve some policy changes based on

079the law and it's really just hard to keep up with 485 Pages worth of changes so um we take we don't take every recommendation that they give us but what you see in front of you tonight is for first reading um give you the opportunity to ask questions and then we would bring it back for an adoption in January the procedures are different we don't you don't vote on procedures because they're administrative that's the way that we Implement your policy and we bring those to you for your consideration and if we don't hear from you or if you don't have any suggestions we will take these documents and put them Cindy we'll be busy updating them on the website once you give her the thumbs up and then we still have more procedures we weren't

080able to bring you all the procedures in this one chunk so we have about 15 more procedures to bring to you in January along with all the policies for a second reading questions or changes or concerns or I've got a couple comments but nothing too major I will say that I did look through all 200 yes you did 20 some odd Pages um and the second file that we received looked like it was scanned so there were links on there that we were not able to follow correct and so if we can see that before the second one just I mean so the procedures um they do give them so the policies they give all in one PDF and Cindy is able to go and delete the pages we don't want but the procedures they

081give us in two different PDFs and then we have to integrate them because there will be procedure 200 here and then procedure 200 over here and we have to figure out it's a little more complicated so there is a reason why we scan them so the links um what we could do is when you update them any of them that have a link maybe we'll put them in the board docs for next month and then you can see I'm actually posted with the link on them and we could always change them because they don't require a vote and I think there's only a handful that I'm interested in it's just most of what I just want to make sure they work so that we're not actually directing someplace so what we'll do is we'll go

082ahead and make the updates to the procedures for next month and then the ones that have links in that and we'll just point out these changes were made it's probably good practice anyway so we can go in and use that table again and she could maybe we can link the updates if you're able to get to them all by the January meeting and then most of my questions were procedure questions which I forwarded to you so you can kind of answer those and how we are going to implement some of these procedures but one that stood out to me that was at the beginning is boards have the opportunity to wait 40 days after the other election to organize and I would just say that if we have the opportunity I would suggest before we

083actually vote for officers for the new board that we meet each other that the board actually sits down to meet each other for the first meeting and then vote in the second meeting so the way that the policy is written now this board here in March will pick the date where the new board is seated but the way the policy is written is they're seated and they um elect their officers at that same meeting so we'd have to figure out a different way for the board to connect before that vote if that's what if we didn't elect the president would if and we didn't elect officers at the first time how do we conduct a meeting right it's the the policy itself says when you see the new people you elect them for that reason

084somebody has to preside over them so maybe there has to be something we have a temporary one I I'm the temporary the superintendent is the temporary one just to lead the elections and then gives it back to the president yeah so anyways just something to think about it's not something we have to decide right here it's just something that is out there and we have another opportunity because before I think we had like 14 days or something like that 28 or 20 okay yeah 28 it was shorter um and then another one um just on weekend have fines for people who damage books and whatnot and I just thought it might be beneficial to Define what that means because the way it's said that we could actually charge somebody to find that was more than

085the book um the way that it's written um so and then also they have removed that um before students were Exempted if they were part of the fee waiver program that they would still have to pay it if they damaged the book and now that's no longer the case and so the question is is you know are there any consequences for damaging property that's a great question and you know I don't know what that is but we don't either it's a brand new so yeah I'm just asking the question as to whether or not we need to be concerned about that and I think that is most of my questions that I had but the rest of them were just kind of how are we going to implement this and how does this impact us

086but always fun to read through those procedures all right so we will we hold us back next month for a vote if you have any questions or thoughts on that in the meantime um we have an opportunity to check in with Dr Hitchens and we can discuss them further at our next meeting next item on our agenda is our collaborative groups update I'm sorry doctors is that you that is Dr Newkirk oh I didn't know that Sorry Brad yep our district is uh one of our foundational tenants is collaboration and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't but we're always trying to get better at collaboration and this report you'll see another one next month with some other collaborative groups but this is just an attempt to give both the Board of Education and our

087community a little bit of insight into many of the collaborative groups that are working within our district so this month you will see a little updates from our Equity team on their work from our professional learning advisory Council and then from our student services committee so our Equity team is relatively new it's not contractual but they're doing some work around really that group's learning is one of their main objectives our professional learning advisory council is looking at systems for professional learning I think one of the things that we've really seen coming out of the pandemic is the real need and desire for professional learning to make sure that we know how to meet the needs of our students which are and it's an ever-changing thing so they're looking at systems for making sure that we're

088assessing that professional learning and doing it with our staff in mind and our students in mind and student outcomes in mind and then our student services committee really looks at issues around special education over identification of students for special education SEL issues and they've done some good work in the past and they are really focusing their efforts on SEL if the community and the board recalls we were cited for a significant disproportionalities around students black students for emotional disorders and part of that work is really looking at our whole system to see SEL wise what systems are in place both Tier 1 tier two and tier three to support students their behaviors and their social emotional learning so that committee is in the past couple of weeks gone out and done walkthroughs to look at

089how those tiers are functioning in real life so that the committee members can take a look at them and really look at them they're using a castle framework in order to really kind of dive deep into that work and they'll be continuing throughout this year I'll take any questions that you might have about those groups I just want to say I appreciate this being a part of the board packet the board presentation and I look forward to the next batch but even seeing kind of like a bit of like the celebrations and the challenges and understanding what Roblox they may have it's very helpful so thank you yeah it became clear in our work that we weren't good at like talking about our work yeah to the community like we do the work people are

090engaged we have lots of great people working in these areas but we're not good about talking about the work so this is an attempt and we'll probably try and do this on a more regular basis so really highlighting some of the work so that the both the community and board can see that work and be more transparent with it um one of the things Brad that I I feel unclear on and something we've talked about that we need to do better as a district is how are we going to measure these things like um like like if we just start with the equity team because they're on the top um they're going to take they're going to enhance the knowledge of the team how are we going to measure that that did improve and then

091when can we from this team expect goals that are focused on student outcomes because all of their data is based on student concerns and then right now they're focused on is on learning but then when can we expect that their focus will be on student outcomes and I think that's a systematic maybe flaw is that we're not good at linking what we're doing as adults to the learning that we want students to do and obviously there's a link right we know that when we have the best teachers in front of our kids they're going to get the most learning out of them so there's benefits to that learning but being really specific about those student outcomes is something that we can definitely get much better at in terms of the the equity committee to be

092specific about your question their work is focused from what I'm reading and understanding about the committee's work on staff knowledge they felt that was a prerequisite before they moved into more student outcomes and that makes sense but then how will we measure whether or not that we that our staff is at a point where they're ready to then move forward I think that's a great question to to bring back to that team okay Lisa do you want to talk a little bit about that yeah I will definitely bring that back I think that some of these survey data points are annual so um they do have the two different buckets they have a bucket which is immediate action steps which are that focused on the adults and then their long-term action things that they're going

093to research and get back to us they will be making recommendations in May and so those might include a little bit more of what you're looking for as far as tying their work back to the students and I would ask the same sort of question uh From Plaque and the student services theirs are a little bit more that the actions are more measurable but like again how will we measure that we're Meeting those goals like I feel like that is something that we need to start baking into our are work more I agree and I think like that's a because that when you are looking at those metrics you're keeping focused on students and that really drives that work I think we oftentimes get stuck in process goals like this is the process we're going

094to undertake and that's great as a checklist but it doesn't translate directly to students so that is definitely feedback that we can provide the groups and work in which we can get better and and I'm not I mean like I don't know if the board is that's something that we're interested in is board because I don't want to just take back oh get the Dremel side but um I feel like we've talked about that we'd like more measurable so that we can actually see the work that's being done in the successes or non-successes and back to the drawing board I agree it's hard to understand how we're doing if we don't have a yardstick to measure it but I think so demonstrate progress forward motion yeah I think the only thing is like we're not

095I don't think anybody's can correct me if I'm wrong is talking about like scores or this or that it's more qualitative and quantitative kind of data we're looking for so is it a survey of the teachers is it right you know the actions to students for what they're seeing you know that sort of stuff to help provide that info and Chris you've talked about Europe well I actually think I think we need to do a little bit of both like we know we are over identifying students for special services I think those numbers should be included in this type of thing so that we can look year over year and go hey this is where we were this is where we're at our product our progress is working or it's not working based on the

096target numbers that we're trying to hit um so I I 100 agree that we should put more of the data in there and we should be able to tie that data so that we know whether or not we're being successful that's what we'd be looking for when you bring you know I know we're going to be hearing from all of these collaborative teams and we're excited about that but like that is something and we want the teams to be integral in deciding how we're going to measure that and what's meaningful because um because you guys are the ones on the ground doing the work yeah it makes sense that's what we're here for for kids and making sure that we improve their experience and their learning so that makes sense I would like to make

097another observation um regarding the equity team specifically and I totally understand how we ended up here but from reading the report there is nothing that indicates that it's going to directly impact students and while I realize that we need to get staff members there we also need to realize that if you're a student that's going through a difficult time and you read this and them you may not think that you're the focus and so I think we need to look for opportunities to let them know that we see them we hear them and we're trying to make life better now while we are also in the process of giving our staff up to speed I'd agree with that that's a really good point Chris so if you would take all of that feedback back to

098the various teams that would be great thank you it's appreciate it all right anything else on that okay next item is our enrollment projection I'm assuming yep that's Tony enrollment projection is one of the cornerstones of our five-year Financial forecast which we conduct each each year the enrollment projection report looks at um student enrollment as of October 1st which is what we consider our fall housing report and Compares that enrollment year over year as I know the board is well aware enrollment has been declining for since 2009. and we project that it will continue to decline at the same rate as it has been in Prior years which is roughly two percent give or take slightly a year last year in 2022 we graduated the senior class which included something like 580 students biggest class

099best I can tell in history of Batavia High School this year the incoming kindergartners um numbered about 350. yep wow did you say 350 350. I don't I'm speaking off of the top of my head here um it's you know um but yeah it's roughly 350. so that's a difference of over 200 students between those two classes that's a big difference uh We've as I mentioned this enrollment has been declining for some time it has gone through effectively our elementary schools and has gone through effectively our middle school and is now pretty much just starting to hit the high school so overall enrollment at the high school will come down from roughly 2000 to um you know something in the Norway neighborhood of 1400 to 1500 students in the next basically three or four years

100so that's a big change for enrollment at the high school but we've already seen big change enrollment at the middle school and at the elementary schools in fact it's a relief at the middle school because we had far too many students for what that school could school could reasonably handle did we make it work certainly but too many I think a lot of people when they have these conversations about declining enrollment they assume that because we had the space before that it was adequate space and that isn't necessarily the case one thing that in light of the conversation that we just had relative to the referendum that I would like to make board is aware is that the enrollment at the elementary level will decline slightly over the next five years but not by much

101and we're at a comfortable level in terms of enrollment in our schools and things fluctuate kids come into homes especially you know neighbors have a tendency to turn them over and within a period of time based on when those houses were originally built and those Cycles you know are like on the order of something like 20 to 30 years or a generation and then new developments come into town too which create other demands and so we have some flexibility in terms of our elementary enrollment right now but and so we can afford to handle some new students depending on where they they show up but it never they never show up in exactly the right spot you can never really anticipate and everybody always says well you should be able to predict that I was

102like ah our predictions don't work that well they work pretty well yeah at a macro level in terms of overall enrollment but once you're getting into neighborhoods it's pretty hard to to anticipate I think the key takeaway here is that we can expect to see enrollments at our elementary schools that range between roughly speaking and round numbers 350 to 400 students and that's right in terms of the functional and programmatic capacity of each of our elementary schools long story short six elementary schools is right about the right number that we should be operating for the foreseeable future in Batavia and this point drives that home now average class sizes are also in here by the way with our declining enrollments much to my chagrin in terms of my conversations I have with my colleagues we

103should be using what I like to call Natural attrition with staff so that it's proportional to our enrollments and that hasn't necessarily been happening and for good reason I mean there's better support the needs of students we absolutely need more people uh but the the massive benefit here for us is the upside is is that average class sizes have been declining in recent years now next year they're going to go up slightly in all likelihood on average if you look at all class sizes K8 they'll tick upward but not by much um and again these are average that's not to say there aren't class size issues there's class size issues abound depending on how old students are and what neighborhood they live in we're going to continue to have class size issues and that will

104not go away but in recent years our our student to staff ratio has has never been better than it ever has it's the historical um accomplishment in terms of that ratio so it's not likely that we'll continue to have perfect average class sizes it will fluctuate from your year depending on how kids move through the system but it's we can expect next year that'll be very similar to what we've been accustomed to in the last five years I think that's something that's important to highlight I know when I was review reviewing the survey data that we got back some of the survey data was saying that we have too big of class sizes and I think we should point out the fact that they've been steadily declining they're below our targets and you know there

105are anomalies that occur in the district occasionally but overall we are well below what our targets are the key word is average class sizes right yeah I mean and so there are anomalies and that happens and that's part of it's not all business but yes it's not a universal problem that we have and it is a problem that in other districts so I think it's important to point that out that's a good point Chris other questions or comments on the enrollment report so is your kind of statement from before if you can go to the one that shows the green um the bar chart it's a bar chart that's it yeah thank you math so um you know it it kind of keeps going down on this projected average but I guess what I'm kind

106of hearing you saying is you know at some point it's going to kind of start to level out and what you're seeing is from an elementary school level that that's kind of starting to bottom out a bit as of now because obviously it's birth rates right and as I say every year when I give this report we're just not manufacturing as many as we used to and I just had to throw that out there thank you because it was funny the first time it was funny every time uh but yes the enrollment will stabilize it roughly speaking at the elementary and middle school levels but will continue to decline at the high school level in particular because those classes are that much smaller and they're matriculating through now I will also add to that that

107it appears that birth rates in Kane County which is what I use in terms of anticipating the number of kindergartners that are going to show up five years from now they've gone up slightly so far this year and so we may have seen the bottom of birth rates well for sure and things fluctuate of course but that is a Bellwether for the number of students that will show up in five years from now um the next item on our agenda is the newly named annual comprehensive oh no I'm sorry the five-year Financial forecast we already talked about this but I was so excited by the name change that I wanted to talk about it again sorry five-year Financial forecasts so each year we do a five-year Financial forecast that looks at the previous five years

108and the future five years of the school's finances as predicated as I mentioned earlier on that student enrollment report and tries to anticipate what's happening based off of the past and so as Yogi Bear would say you know that only works until it doesn't and uh so but overall our financial projections certainly do help us manage things and of course as you get further out those projections become weaker and weaker because it's tough to tell what's going to happen five years from now especially from an economics this uh this forecast is built with the um on the recommendation of our resource responsibility advisory Council and so we we talk with our stakeholders to help us build some of these forecasts and it happens to include a realtor so here's some ideas as to what's happening

109with the housing market in town those sorts of things medical insurance we're assuming that we continue the trend that's the big if here is that assumption if we can continue this trend at a three percent annual average and that we essentially max out uh costs for our staff for the next couple of years relative to CPI and then um also trying to control our costs and purchase services you'd scroll down a little bit Holly to the graph right here this is moving forward so the current fiscal year that we're in or we are in as of now is on the left the blue bar represents our Revenue the green bar represents our expenditures and the yellow line represents fund balance um luckily in this fiscal year the revenue bar stands just slightly proud over the

110greens that means we have a balanced budget although it's closed uh it was likely to be a slightly better next year and in the coming years but you can see that yellow line starts to taper downward and it doesn't taper downward all that much it almost looks level but in that last year 2028 the green bar stands above the blue and that represents a one million dollar deficit I don't anticipate that will happen but it requires us prudently managing our finances in particular natural attrition because of compounding interest so that we can stick keep the numbers where they are so that we aren't taking more um we're taking you know a relative to our Revenue we're not spending more than we take in this also assumes that we are increasing our capital projects allocation annually

111by 15 percent that was something that was important to the rack committee knowing what the state of our facilities and what needs to be done even with the referendum we still need to do more in terms of maintaining our schools and the costs associated with that and even this year we did increase those allocations by 15 percent but School construction inflation is 30 so we're not even keeping up with inflation unfortunately right now and so that is going to be a continual challenge for us this does include 15 in 2028 but you can see that it switches in the other direction hopefully if we keep a close eye on things we'll be able to manage things in the right direction but it's going to take active management and it can't be complacent we're going to

112have to be very careful about who we hire how much we pay them and make sure we're getting a good bang for the buck when it comes to delivering outcomes for students so that we can keep a balanced budget the moment that we aren't able to keep a balanced budget that Moody's or s p rating will change and when we borrow money as you would if you were a homeowner with a mortgage or a car payment those sorts of things you know it's like a credit rating and those costs increase so if if we don't keep the the rating that we have we can expect to pay more interest in the principle that we borrow over time which gets very expensive when you're borrowing money for 20 years so um I think overall the financial

113outlook for the school district is stable despite what's happening in the economy right now is quite challenging through costs in fact looking at inflation and supply chain issues there's a strong likelihood we're going to be talking with you next month about increasing lunch prices for our for meals for students unfortunately um and we're looking at Transportation costs increase and and everything and everything anything and everything that you can think of and so um I believe that we can continue to manage that if we're careful and we're prudent but we're going to have to be uh keeping an eye on everything is there an has a projection been run on like referendum or no referendum and how that may impact this we only look at the operating funds here okay so that happens outside the scope

114of this except for what it may do to the maintenance since we're still committing that it put money in from a that 15 maintenance to support the kind of unreferendum stuff that's why this stays relatively stable okay yeah whether or not the referendum passes or fails the capital projects money is allocated it's allocated in here yeah I would like to point out that probably even going to be more difficult to increase it more than 15 so if it fails we're probably going to be even in a more dire situation because we're pretty much maxing the amount that we can put into that we are fun what we can get done in the effects of the long-term and ability to kind of defray some of those costs with some significant improvements in the children's in the

115in the schools with Gathering larger projects together to to to effectively stall some of the work we have to do because we can take care of it with referendum money which allows us to be more kind of judicious and and but but exactly with what we spend the capital projects money on when we were not triaging all the time and if we have to triage and we take on a big project that means no other maintenance is getting done because we're potentially yeah it's been all of our money on those as has been discussed there are and is in the documentation there are things that are expensive between 2023 and 2028 that can just obliterate that Capital Improvement budget for that year which like a roof project right you could have to do could mean

116you don't do the doors and the security stuff you need to do in another building especially if it involves trailers and moving students yeah yes other questions on that all right we'll move on to the action items tonight we have two items left under our action uh the first one is the award of the 2023 summer project bids I'd like to invite Mark Anderson to speak on those uh thank you board um you have seen this report already if you remember last month um we talked about this but last month was for the letter of intents if you remember the bids came in about uh five hours before the board meeting that night so because of Supply um change we needed to kind of get the ball rolling a little bit tonight's meeting is about

117actually approving the bids um so lamp who's our construction manager went through with all the different contractors there's 12 trade packages um so that's why it's an attachment not just one lump sum money so if you look at the attachment um the other question was is how did this come in budget um with those all together it came within budget but specifically in trades some are higher some were lower so kind of all equaled out and the one feedback I did get from talking to lamp is we went out at the right time if we would have waited another month we would not have been in budget just I mean they're doing this a lot um so the timing was good um it always can be earlier we're trying to push sooner and sooner but

118there's a lot of factors that go into that um so another reminder for once I don't know this is about the summer of 23 project and it's JB Nelson Alice Gustafson new um entrances main office nurse's office things like that and then also Rotolo serving line so all of those packages were bid together and that's what you're we'll be voting on tonight of approval of the bids and there's two things attached to that there is a recommendation from lamp and also the bid tab questions no okay and I would entertain a motion that we award the 2023 summer project vids as listed in appendix a so moved second moved by Meadows second by Locke all in favor aye any opposed all right that takes care of that thank you Mark uh next item on our

119agenda is the adoption of the 2022 attacks Levy I'm going to hand that over to Tony thank you last month we held a what's called a truth in taxation hearing which is a public hearing which is not something we're accustomed to here in Batavia and the reason why we did that is because what we have before you here this evening is a proposal to increase the tax levy by more than five percent and the reason why that is the case is because of inflation and new construction as you board well as the board well knows we are subject to the tax cap the p-tel law the property tax extension limit limitation so I can't remember the exact acronym but something along those lines the county is tax capped and that means that taxing bodies can

120extend more than five percent or CPI in the prior year in terms of taxes whichever is less since inflation last year for CPI is seven percent or maxed out at five but given the likelihood for new construction and capturing that in the levy we're asking for 5.9 percent which in all likelihood will only collect 5.6 um however uh the average the the median value home which we estimate to be yeah we'll likely see a 4.6 increase in their tax bills um which is about 308 dollars next year so that if everything averages out that's what the average taxpayer would see so to recap we held the truth and Taxation public hearing last month uh and we would adopt this Levy here tonight of at 5.9 percent more than last year we don't expect to receive

1215.9 percent we expect to receive 5.6 which translates to 4.6 for the million value home or if your property tax assessment increased by the same rate as eav did in in town in the in the school district been talking about the levy for um a few months now does anybody have any questions before we vote all right then I would entertain a motion that the board adopt the 2022 tax levy as presented second moved by kellberg second by Meadows all in favor any opposed all right that was our last action item because we have already approved our new superintendent contract so I'm going to go next to Administration I have the pleasure of going first because I think I have the message that every one of you is going to say so I get to

122say it first and that would be we're super excited to have all met Tom tonight I guess he seems okay and um we're we can't wait to welcome him officially I he really doesn't start until July I'm not going anywhere here for six more months and I have a lot to do so um and the second thing would be hope everybody has a safe and stays healthy over our um winter break I hope you have some fun too she really did steal all of her Thunder didn't she just covered it all Chris you want to start tonight are we going to do also get me the updates too okay have any two for can we do can we do committee updates first just so that we don't I mean I don't mind if you do

123both unless somebody wants to I I have I have longer comments so why do all that many updates I would prefer to do my comments at the end that way okay um but I can do my committee update now sure okay so rack um three things that came out of that meeting is we are working on our goal and transparency so if you have any ideas on how we could be more transparent please let us know um also we are committed to creating a systemic and periodic way to review our programs and to figure out how we're spending our money and we want to focus on the return on our investment and how they are align with District goals and make sure that we're doing that on a periodic basis and making sure we're always

124reviewing our programs so that programs aren't just lingering um and ineffective and then lastly and this was a reminder I got reminded during the meeting is that we do have an intranet and if you are an employee you can look up all of the agendas and meeting minutes to find out what happened on the various meetings so um I found that informative and a shot that I would share that with you so if you don't remember that and you're an employee check it out thanks Chris okay the insurance committee did meet I attended many meetings over the last month but I did was not able to make that one Tony debriefed me but rather than me have summarized what he said Tony will provide an update to the board certainly um we are we heard

125an update on open enrollment and where we are with our plan we're about to start a new plan here in January 1st uh we are talking about other mental health support offerings that we might be able to offer in the future and um initially we're talking about them in the long term and we've decided that we're going to prioritize them as best we can for the short and so I'm hoping that we have some other opportunities to consider maybe next month or the month following to the board in terms of offering better mental health support to our employees and lastly we're working on like rack we're working on our goals and objectives for the upcoming year to two years Sony just make the announcement for anyone with a senior graduating senior this year that scholarships

126will open on January 9th the first day Baptist after winter break so you can go to bataviafoundation.org and get information on scholarships there you go all right uh cacted me unfortunately I was not there but the focus was our subject area um and then in December there's not going to be a CAC meeting because uh cact members will be meeting with those subject area leadership teams so I I know we've got some members joining and lots of activity there and I'll be excited in January to find out um the progress that we okay not meet it's a the group does not meet every month so next one but congratulations to the group on the kind of bids today and moving forward on that that's a very exciting persons thanks Craig uh Kristen do you have

127like the um comments I'll let you go first okay um here we go it is amazing how quickly time goes by I recently realized I've been volunteering in Batavia schools for 13 academic years time is precious and I will try not to take up too much too much of yours for three main reasons I have decided not to run run for a third term it was a difficult decision but one I believe is best for my family the school district and the community my first and primary reason is my family I have a junior and a senior who are athletes and will soon be off to college I want to make sure I have the time to help them transition to the next phase of their lives additionally my wife and I will soon be

128empty nesters and we need to decide what that means to us I don't want to commit to serve the community for four more years if I don't know what the needs of my family will be during the this time of transition my second reason is for the district I am at the end of my second term while I don't necessarily believe in codified term limits I do believe in self-imposed ones I believe my seat would be better served with fresh eyes and our community will be better served when more folks have this experience my hope is my seat will be filled with somebody who is just as passionate and not nearly as exhausted as I am whoever you are please know I will be happy to provide any assistance I can with your new role

129finally my third reason is I believe this is what is in the best interest of the community as some of you may know I helped start a charity called the Batavia Community diversity initiative the summer following George Floyd's murder during that time we have during that time we have built a small but strong organization committed to creating a sense of belonging for all members of our community Through Justice Equity diversity and inclusion we recently were selected by the Chicago metropolitan Agency for planning to join their first cohort for their Community Alliance for regional equity we are one of 12 organizations selected in the 12 County Chicago metropolitan area area to help create more Equitable and inclusive communities this opportunity includes a ten thousand dollar honorarium for bcdi to continue the great work we have already

130started we believe this opportunity will directly benefit Batavia while also amplifying our voices and concern to Regional leaders my goal is to continue the work we started and to use what I've learned as a school board member to increase equity and opportunity in all corners of our community hopefully many of you will join me in this journey if you are interested in what we do please check us out at Batavia cdi.org have a great holiday season and I can't wait to get back to work in January go Bulldogs thanks Chris it's amazing congratulations and getting that Grant so that's thanks you said that you were under consideration I didn't know there was money involved that's amazing do good stuff with it congratulations that's great thanks very proud yeah yeah uh so I want to begin

131how I usually begin my comments by thanking everybody who's in attendance this evening everybody who spoke uh you all had a chance to leave and you're still here so that's very impressive um you actually if you stayed got to see what the majority of the work you do going through student enrollment projections and the finances and that's the day-to-day work we do so I am appreciative that you're here to be a part of that process and I just want to say to the Greater Community everybody who responded to the survey who sends us emails that stops us at the coffee shop and shares their opinion and engage Community incentives to read is vital to a functioning democracy so I appreciate everybody who's engaging out there and paying attention thank you and um I just want

132to say thank you to all my colleagues you know it's that time of year it's the end of 2022 we're going to be doing our New Year's Reflections and so I want to say thank everybody on the on the board everybody on the staff everybody has Senior Management I appreciate all of you the hard work you do um and of course I want to welcome Mr Kim his family it was a pleasure to meet his wife Megan and see his young children here today I'm very proud of our process that we engaged in I will say that you know a lot of good people want to be part of this District it was very exciting to be part of that process and I'm very excited to work with Mr Kim to move us forward but

133I'd also want to say that there will be time for this later on but I do want to recognize Dr Hitchens I believe you began your career in Batavia in 1994 as a math teacher you're a Dean you were a princess no let's say it right now so I just want to let the queen know that even though she's not retired yet until June she's energized and engaged and she has work to do so I know Lisa loves it when we talk about her so well I hired her and then I'll point out one last thing I don't pull my phone out during uh the sessions but I was going through our website which we have a lot of information on there and I saw a program that I was not aware of I just

134want to bring to light if you go to our website there's so much information there but we have a program called certificates of excellent program at Batavia High School and um it was started by Paige Buttle who was our college and career counselor and basically the way I understand it is members of our community can nominate staff members teachers counselors campus members basically anybody that works in the high school for a recommendation of accommodation and uh on our Twitter website I looked I saw Mr Beckman Mr rollerson if I mispronounce your names I apologize Miss marks mayella Hernandez were all recognized and I just find like this is really great you know our teachers are working hard but it's what I love it when the community recognizes that and I know it's a certificate but

135you know people need to hear that when they're doing a good job we need to recognize those people so I bring this up for two reasons there if you go to the website you can have a link to nominate someone if you're interested but also to drive you to that website because you know part of our survey was people didn't know where to get information and there's a lot of great detail on our website basically almost any question that you would want to ask you could find on that website and if you have a hard time finding it that's when you can reach out to us and we'll help direct you in that direction and to close I'd just like this wish everybody a happy holidays there's a lot of bugs going out there I'm

136still fighting a bug so everyone be safe be healthy and again I look forward to the work ahead in 2023 thank you thank you oh now you got me here um the link for the uh certificates of Excellence no just go to the website.net apparently it was not a trick question you go I should have it like this we should be transparent that's the web there you go so anyways I wasn't trying to I just want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas happy holidays whatever just enjoy being with your family take some time to relax enjoy hopefully a healthy happy holiday season um thank you to everybody who filled out the survey very interesting reading so some things to think about so and I'm going to read my financial report of over the holidays thank

137you that's it thank you Greg uh just gonna say that I um I hope everybody who has a little bit of time to get a break kind of uses it as a moment to kind of rest and recharge and visit spend time with friends and family um that's what my family will be doing and and it's um it's something I know that's kind of everybody uses at a moment to kind of get re-energized for the your own work everybody has to do at 2023 which I feel very confident it's going to be a very exciting and interesting year and so the only other thing I was going to add is a while I have a kid that is in the senior in the throes of trying to figure out where he might go to school

138and how we're all going to pay for it and all that other stuff um that it was kind of refreshing particularly as my son is a senior to kind of see the Kaleidoscope concerts and all the stuff that occurred over the past number of weeks if you had not had chance to see those please go see I think one of The Shining examples of kind of how the district can be good stewards with the money frankly is befact in my personal opinion I mean it is a preeminent location it's well managed and there's actual student impact about what happens there and you should really see what it does and how those kids kind of transcend themselves when they all work together toward kind of a common element and with that everybody enjoy the holiday thank

139you thanks Craig I just want to take a moment after having this um the most important work that that board does is to hire the superintendent and I just wanted to take a moment to thank the two of whom are not here but the other six people that do this job with me um there is not a group of more thoughtful and careful and caring and passionate people that I could be on this journey with and I just wanted to say um thank you guys you um you make me really proud to serve this community and the community should be very proud of all of you for doing the work that you're doing and with the integrity and energy that you bring to it so I just want to say thank you to that we

140have no other items on our agenda tonight so I would entertain a motion to adjour [Music] thank you all so much for coming tonight and being here to welcome