001to order a regular meeting of the Board of Education September 20th 2022 at seven o'clock P.M uh Cindy could you please call the roll here president Mike Smith here and Mr Meadows could you please foreign are there any items to be added to or removed from the agenda tonight there are not all right I'm actually going to switch things up a little bit because we do have our new student ambassadors and our second one is on her way right Zara so we want a chance to greet both of you so I'm going to just push you after partnership comments so we'll start with public comments tonight I'd like to welcome everyone to the meeting of the Board of Education if anyone wishes to address the board tonight please see our recording secretary um to submit
002a form for addressing the board please put your full name and address on the on the form as we are required by state law to keep a detailed set of minutes of our meetings in general the board will not answer questions or engage during uh public comment it doesn't mean that we don't take your concerns or comments seriously the board values active Community participation in the district's Endeavors and encourages people to engage with the district using appropriate channels and the system designed with your input in mind board members are not involved in the day-to-day operations of the district and can't engage in District business individually if you have specific questions or you would like to further engage with the district you can submit your questions using the link on the website and we'll have the
003appropriate staff member communicate with you now our Communications manager Holly deachman will explain the procedures for public comment thank you welcome to the BPS one order of form submission they are numbered the first form received is the first person invited to speak when your name is called please come to the podium so that you can be heard your comments will be limited to three minutes the three minute timer is up on the screen and it will start once you are settled at the podium our first speaker is Peggy Scoopa hello my name is Peggy skupa and I'm a para in the district with 10 years of service I decided to come speak to you after watching the last board meeting and seeing articles in the newspaper and postings on Facebook did you know u46 held
004a job fair a couple weeks ago for paraprofessionals starting at 16 an hour and offering more pay for those who have experience in years of service as a paraprofessional a couple other districts have agreed to give their employees a one-time hourly wage adjustment based on years employed with the district the article says the district hopes by doing so it will help them stay competitive when hiring and retaining staff they have also approved pay increases and raising starting pay for new hires in all job categories I am making 16 an hour in my 10th year with the district and have talked to another para that is making 18 after 17 years of service many of the pairs in our district have years of service in the double digits the starting pay for a para is 14.60
00567 cents an hour in Batavia our Union board is compiling these articles should you be interested I am a Batavia resident and my kids went to Batavia schools as many of the pairs have Paras are loyal to the district and dedicated we are educated admin says they don't know why people are leaving we know why people are leaving the secretary Rotolo told her boss and other employees in the building why the athletic secretary left and her boss and others in her building know why she left when employees are moving around the community we talk and we all know come talk to any of the support staff and they will tell you why I sent an email to the parents letting them know the board is talking and asking questions about the shortage of our positions
006at the last board meeting I encourage them to send an email to our Union board with their concerns and complaints and I found out that evening that the union board members personal emails blew up with so many emails from the parapros their main concerns are lack of pay and having to pick up more responsibilities when people resign or when we are short staffed in order to work in my position I am being asked to pay union dues of thirty dollars a paycheck in order to be represented that 720 that I don't have to spend moms are not staying home with their kids these days they need to work to make decent wages they are not looking for jobs in the school district because the pay is so low the flexibility is not what is appealing
007to people anymore people need more money in their paychecks times are changing and it's time to look at constant compensation of your employees their receptionist position that was recently posted for the district office has an hourly wage of twenty dollars an hour who wouldn't want to make twenty dollars an hour we make nothing near that starting out after many years of service why is this position being held to a higher standard that the pay is way more our Union board has asked Administration to open our contract up which which is not due until 2025. their response is that we are in the red we can't wait till 2025 we need a fair wage now foreign [Applause] next is a group Amber drusa Scott Naylor Danielle sliger you'll be given five minutes okay thank you I'm
008Amber jersa I'm a high school teacher at Batavia High School and a mom of three I went back and forth about whether I would speak tonight for the past 16 months students staff and parents have been working to get our leadership to see the importance of short-term Equity goals part of me kept asking what's the point of sharing again they're just going to say we're working on it and then punt it over to our Equity Committee in fact five months ago I stood here and talked about the trauma we are causing our students because we are just checking boxes when it comes to equity five months later we have an equity consultant and an equity committee that meets for just two hours a month that's all that's changed for me personally it's gotten worse even
009though I do not think our administrators are bored we'll make any short-term changes after my speech I still feel the need to speak my truth for the second year in a row our motto has been you belong here but I don't I don't belong because the actions of our Administration and the board prove otherwise I want to discuss the ways our current system is unable to handle Dei issues from the perspective of someone who has used the system exactly like I have been told on August 8 2022 a special public board meeting took place I found out through social media that my name was mentioned multiple times and publicly defamed by one of our board members this person even used swear words while discussing me unfortunately I can't repeat what was said as I would
010be cut off from speaking but a board member was able to insult my character in a public forum I still have not been contacted by anyone in the district regarding this incident not one administrator has reached out to me regarding the fact that I was publicly slandered in a community where I work where I live and where my children go to school yet I am supposed to believe I belong here there's been no apology and at this point six weeks after the incident I would find it disingenuous I previously asked to meet with this board member but I was denied a meeting instead of taking the time to meet with me this board member took to public shaming me I find this Behavior offensive unprofessional and hurtful I'm also hurt by those that did nothing
011in response to this Behavior indifference equals acceptance yet another reason I feel like I don't belong is because I have rules as an employee that are separate and not equal to the other employees in this District in particular I was forced to attend a meeting I was told I couldn't have it via email where I was given specific directives including when and how I can email my Administration these rules even conflict with our expectations that Administration has giving us regarding email communication Administration is supposed to help me support students yet I am given different directives than every other employee in this District my last point is how we lack the proper protocol when dealing with Dei issues two weeks ago someone wrote the word on the bathroom walls the initial response by an administrator was
012the exact opposite of how to address a hate crime eventually I did have a chance to speak with an administrator and share this but how can the board would be confident in the staff making every student feel safe if they are unsure how to handle these situations with adults as a person trained in Dei I know I know that the first rule with this situation is to be prompt students and staff and parents were not notified until 30 hours after the incident though it may not be the intention this shows the message that addressing hate crimes is not a priority I was offered resources from our human resources department but my appointment isn't until tomorrow 13 days after the traumatic event again this may not be the intention but to meet but not to not
013meet until 13 days after a person has been exposed to trauma makes it seem like it isn't a priority last week we had an Institute an incident where there a student was a student in blackface there was no communication sent out to students staff or parents why wouldn't we tell them why do we alert about some hate crimes but not others I encourage those of you who are truly serious and committed about ensuring all students belong to email the principals of the schools than our administrators then are bored consider the following what's our protocol for hate speech ask them why don't we send out emails for all hate crimes what are we doing to educate all students about why these things are offensive so we can prepare them for the real world what training do
014our administrators have and keep asking keep asking and keep asking we need to be committed to these actions and committed to asking why it's time to hold those accountable that are choosing to allow our kids to be traumatized day after day after day it's time for accountability strong communication and protocols so that we can be a destination District that is actually committed to doing whatever we need to ensure every student is safe the lip service needs to end now [Applause] thank you our next speaker is Molly Jackson Schultz thank you next we have Kelly Blakely and Jerry Ruth good evening hi uh I'm I said I'm I'm Jerry this is Kelly uh we are the co-chairs of the campaign for uh well yes for BPS 101 uh the campaign to uh for the referendum coming
015up in November uh so we just want to introduce ourselves uh let you guys know that we are uh starting our work our subcommunities are starting to get involved with communicating with uh different organizations around the city and uh look for our uh our mailers and our posts online if you have any questions about the campaign feel free to talk with us after the meeting and just wanted to introduce ourselves so thank you that ends public company thank you I'm going to zip back up because our second Ambassador is here hi welcome Mrs meitzer is going to do your swearing-in tonight um do are you going up there okay okay Mr Coburg and I had the opportunity to to group this year and we did take an opportunity to um kind of reinvest in the
016process and look at how we wanted to go about our student ambassadors going forward so um we revamped the process and I'm really excited to introduce our two new student ambassadors this year usually we have one but we've really had to stand out candidates and so we went back to Kathy and Dr pigeon and said how can we make this work and so I just want to introduce our two ambassadors do correct and Zara yes you at least want to come up I will swear you went so I'm just going to read this off and I will pause periodically for you to read it back to me so each student ambassador before taking his or her seat on the board she'll take the following oath about this I treat hi Laura do solemnly swear or
017affirm solemnly swear or a farm that will Faithfully discharge the duties of the student ambassador of the Board of Education that I will Faithfully discharge the duties of student ambassador of the Florida education of Batavia Community Unit School District 101 of the Batavia Community Unit School District 101 in accordance with the policies of the Board of Education in accordance to the policy of the Board of Education I further swear or affirm that I further swear or burn that I shall encourage and respect the free expression I shall encourage and respect to free expression of opinion by myself I'll have opinion by myself and the board members and the board members and others who seek a hearing and others who seek a hearing before the board before the board great welcome we're glad to have you
018and we're really excited to hear everything you have to say about what's going on not only in the high school but we hope to hear about your experiences within the district as a whole and so I welcome you to your first Board of Education meeting thank you welcome [Music] do you have a report tonight if you go to the podium then you'll be on the camera for it right over there hello my name is Dary iangaro but you can call me Dio um I am 15 years old and I'm a sophomore uh for fun I like to just do I like to write poems I like to read I like to go out with friends and I like to go out to fit with picnics do picnics with friends and um I'm really looking forward
019to attending these meetings I think it's really interesting thanks to you welcome [Applause] hello everyone my name is Zara mod I'm also a sophomore at VHS I'm actually part of the track team I'm part of amnesty which is human rights I'm also part of equity and Justice committee as well and um I love volunteering too so I'm part of Key Club so a lot of interesting clubs and I'm so excited to be student ambassador a new exciting year so I can't wait welcome back all right back to our comment section of the agenda welcome ladies we're super excited to have you um I'd like to invite Todd Swanson president of the Bea podium good evening everyone um tonight I would first like to begin with the moment of silence to remember our friend and fellow
020staff member Mike Park so if we can have that moment of silence please all right thank you there was never a doubt that Mike did what he did as a PE teacher at AGS out of his love for kids and the kids loved him right back his passing has left a hole in the staff at AGS a hole in the AGS community and a hole in many hearts at new Mike for his caring and the sports Driven Man that he was I would also like to commend the district for its Swift call to action to provide support for the children and staff of AGS in their time of sadness and grief to say Mike will be missed as an understatement but the amazing staff at AGS and those from around the district that have lent
021their support as well are learning how to heal together and to move forward just as Mike would all wanted us all to do my message tonight to the board is one that is quite simple when we met during the summer as the board and Senior Management and Bea leadership it was made quite clear that communication collaboration and morale were major areas that not only needed to be looked at but ones that needed to be addressed together in the hopes of riding the ship as it was put during our meeting we have heard through District messaging that this has been a great start to the school year I think that that message needs some further clarification it has been a great start to the school year in the sense that kids are back to school in
022person masking and other code protocols seem to be behind us and in fact we're looking at covid in the rear view mirror as we move forward out of the coveted years we're doing things like we did before covid there is an air of normalcy to the start of our school year this year and in that aspect I would not disagree that this truly has been a great start to the school year but with that being said I don't want that messaging to cover up the fact that our big takeaways from the summer communication collaboration and morale are still unfixed and in some instances moving in the opposite direction of where we need them to go instead of taking time during tonight's meeting to take a deeper dive into exactly what that means I stand before
023you tonight as our school board pleading for us once again to come together as a full board Senior Management and Bea to continue our conversations from the summer and begin to do something about them this is my start of my 30th year in this district and I can honestly stand here and tell you I have never experienced the feeling that I feel in our district today we are just a few weeks into the school year when climate and morale should be at its highest and for many I know they are feeling drained and depleted the great news is that our staff will never let that show in our classrooms we still will every day come in and be everything for every one of our kids and on the outside things may be unappearing okay what
024I'm afraid of is the toll that this will take on our Educators in the long run we need your help we need your support and we need to create a plan together with you that includes immediate and actionable steps that show a combined commitment to improving communication and collaboration which in turn will begin to have a positive impact on District climate and morale we cannot meet with the entire board in one spot and have an open dialogue unless it is during an open board meeting according to board policy the board president or any three board members can call a special meeting by giving notice in writing stating the time place and purpose of that meeting to the remaining board members and giving public notice at least 48 hours in advance of such meeting I know
025that your service on the board is unpaid and that many of you have other jobs during the day but we have reached a critical point where these conversations must continue the Bea will work around your availability but you must call for that special meeting to take place we look forward to hearing for you when this can happen as always I thank you for your service on the board and your partnership with the Bea to help right this ship and before I walk away too um this is kind of it's not even what I put in here um every day I find new ways of how bravery is defined and how bravery is acted out and to be brave you have to say something and that's uncomfortable and it puts you into a spot you may
026not want to be in but I know as I truly truly try to live this every day in my life saying nothing is acceptance and Amber I just want to say thank you for being brave for all that you're doing and we are behind you right Committee Member reports I'll start down with Aaron sure here so I have uh quite a bit um the Big Mac and for those of you who don't know what um is it is the meeting of the minds of different pto's in town um to just idea share talk about different things going on at the different schools and we typically meet on Saturday mornings four times a year and we had our second meeting I believe and it was wonderful a what first oh first we had a little open
027house before that yeah yeah okay so um the superintendent search um is underway and we are having some forums with different Teachers Community um groups to gain feedback from the staff and Community regarding what a successful what traits a successful candidate would have um we are in the very beginning stages of this I'm sure that you will hear much more from me about this as we go through the process but I did want to let you know that we had started that um uh board member hillberg and I have been busy working on the student ambassadors um again welcome we're happy that you're here and so excited and once again every single student that interviewed for that position hid it out of the park I am always amazed by our students and this year was
028no exception so congratulations but to everyone who applied wow that's all I can say is amazing amazing students [Music] um let's see here oh um and last but certainly not least we had a Dei committee meeting just to kind of go down top level we discussed our committee norms and our purpose our Equity needs within the district some of the things that came up were staff after school activity accessibility course offerings resources AP diversity and training for staff um we discuss our charges to develop the district's plan to action um the community the committee Grew From one day workshop to a working committee and we're looking to grow our committee um due to some changes in the participants we talked about barriers to excess commitment to the work and how we need a group of
029passionate individuals for the committee and we are going to work to identify team gaps and fill those gaps which will take time we also had a great partner in that meeting Dr leeks who kind of steered the ship throughout the meeting it was very productive and we brainstormed with her different perspectives and unmet needs and overall I thought it was a great meeting and I look forward to participating on that committee further so sorry for my long-winded update this month but I had a lot to say and I hope I have a lot more to say on that topic so that's all from me okay none of my committees have not yet Capital project committee unfortunately had to be postponed for until next month I can say is the lights work fantastically at the football
030field so good job to all the effort of people that took to get that so that we could have it for a football game and for the marching band and for every other team and Sport and group that's out there able to utilize that so thank you thanks thanks Jack has not met yet so um yeah plaque is not met and beefy met last month and we'll meet again Thursday so it's always kind of like kind but we do have um a fundraiser coming up Tuesday the 27th at bar Revolution from six to eight Bingo night that money goes right to the teachers with grants so if you'd like to come out play Bingo have some fun that'll be Tuesday uh six to eight and also we had our my next other committee is Hall
031of Honor so we had our event last Thursday well we had the homecoming parade where the honorees got to ride on the trolley most of them actually walked because there's this little technical thing you can't throw candy from the trolley so they got to walk and hand out candy to all the kids and stuff that was a wonderful event you couldn't have asked for a nicer weekend and then our event on Thursday at bfac was just wonderful beautiful I think all the honorees had a great time it's a really great event if you get the chance to come next year um nominations are open if you'd like to nominate somebody we're obviously nominees um and then they were at the football game on Friday night which back to Craig's comment phenomenal um like I said
032I I was teasing Rudy I got to go visit his house the um you know Booth up there if you get a chance come out take a look at the stadium really nice job but the lighting and the new stands um if you ever went and sat in the old stadium there it wasn't didn't seem very safe and it's really nice now so but anyways that's Hall of honor and beefy um so that's it so far thanks Chris I had my first resource responsibility advisory council meeting or rack meeting um for which we discussed uh we updated the committee on the referendum uh we discussed the completion of the stadium project and the upcoming projects at AGS and jbn for next summer we discussed the great news about our insurance which should be coming up
033later in our meeting we also previewed the final budget which I believe is getting presented later in the meeting and we began discussion on budget assumptions that we will make for next year and the big highlight of that was apparently home prices are doing really well and selling like 17 over asking was what I haven't think revealed which is really surprising it might be more than that yeah that is our synopsis stress based on current or like that is what current over the last I think like 90 days or something spiced it around next time on the agenda is our consent agenda which is an opportunity for us to approve a number of atoms all of which are detailed in the board book so Mr Pierce will take us through the consent agenda for sure
034uh 5.1 and 5.2 is the approval of the August 23rd 2022 5.3 is the Personnel report 5.4 is our payrolls and bills 5.5 our donations we're thankful to uh George ajazi and the HC Storm PTO for their donations 5.6 is the overnight trip from the BHS music department approval the 5.7 is the approval of our VMware contract renewal 5.8 approval of our FY 22 administrator and teacher salary and benefits report 5.9 is the adoption of our teach TRS of Illinois supplement savings plan 5.10 is the approval of our insurance benefit plans 5.11 is the curriculum contracts and 5.12 is the approval of our consent agenda are there any items on the agenda tonight to be removed or for further clarification if I may further clarify 510 the insurance benefit plan as Chris mentioned earlier this
035is really a big deal we'll be making some adjustments to our insurance carrier or moving from Blue Cross Blue Shield to healthgram and the Cigna Network what that affords us to do is it offers better service it's more of a healthcare concierge rather than kind of leaving each member of the plan to their own devices when it comes to consuming care but which really important to notice or note is that we're not increasing the plan premiums this year for both the employees and the board which to my knowledge has never happened and in light of what's happening right now in the insurance Market I do know that fully insured plans right now with Blue Cross Blue Shield are looking at 20 increases for the upcoming year so our plan is doing really well in the
036work that we have been doing over these last five or so maybe three to four years uh is really paying off and kudos to the insurance committee for making that happen because it wouldn't work without them and frankly we're going to talk more here in a moment about our budget there's no way our budget would be balanced if it wasn't for right sizing our plans I mean literally that's not an exaggeration in any way shape or form and so um we're really excited about it and in addition to not increasing the cost premiums of the plan we're able to actually in add more to HSA contributions from the board too so that's really exciting as well so there's a lot to celebrate there in insurance plans Chris is there anything that you would like to
037add from a rack perspective maybe Kathy from a former member of the insurance committee as your perspective no but I know all of these changes were things that before I went off the committee at the end of the last year you were talking about and um and the work this committee has done has been amazing because they've really done a great job of balancing the very best Healthcare benefits for our employees with um trying to make it as cost effective as possible and Tony's not kidding soon I probably were the only ones on the board how many years ago Chris probably when you first came on that we were on a path to literally bankruptcy with our health care costs so Tony coming telling us bad news at every meeting yeah right at that shift
038too I just want to point out the timeline it takes a long time for us to set something up before we actually cease a benefit and you know it's great that we're finally seeing this but it took about years for us to get here so I'm glad that we got here but the things that we were deciding today we might not actually see for months or years so it's a slow process that's a slow process we've got to take time right so any other clarification then I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented second move by lock second by Meadows all in favor aye any opposed all right next item on our agenda are our reports I'm going to hand those over to Dr Hitchens because those are both our standard
039reports right if you guys have any questions or comments about either of those they appear on your agenda every month no questions all right standard uh we do have two items on our agenda tonight for Action the first one is the adoption of the fiscal year 2023 budget I'm going to hand it over to Tony I'm assuming he's going to highlight any changes from last month yeah and rather briefly uh since the last time you saw the budget in August when we held our public here our overall Surplus has moved from uh just over one million dollars to 1.5 I would note that that 1.5 million dollar Surplus is a little deceiving is the vast majority of those that Surplus one million dollars is in non-operating funds is really from funding capital projects and not
040spending all that money in the current fiscal year uh and the reason being is because we're never quite sure when the bills for capital projects will hit because oftentimes we're doing these capital projects in the summertime we don't know when sometimes when the bill is going to show up in June or if it shows up in July that changes where we'll end up the fiscal year so that means that we have a 500 000 Surplus in operating funds and that is a few hundred thousand dollars more than when we saw it in August um and so that gives us a little bit more comfort and frankly that comes from primarily salaries and benefits in terms of sharpening our pencil on those costs overall our revenue is going up 8.2 percent this year to 1. 133
041million and expenses going up 11.8 percent to 132 million so while the ballot budget is balanced our revenues are not quite keeping Pace with our expenditures and that gives us cause for concern so things look good this year but we have to be concerned on the out years uh one other thing two other things I would add the numbers have increased in terms of the percentages from the last time you saw this primarily because we've increased the state's on behalf payments and so on behalf payments are basically what the state of Illinois pays for employees and the teachers retirement system and so this is their portion of the pension bill and we never really quite know what that number is going to be although we base it on the prior Year's audit and so we
042have those numbers some of those numbers and we've we've obviously included that increase relative so it's money in Money out but it's increased the percentages quite dramatically since the last time you saw this and the last thing that I would add here is that we have about a million dollars in what are called cbprt funds our corporate property personal property replacement tax year received a million dollars more than we otherwise anticipated and that is because the Illinois State economy is performing better than what anybody would have otherwise expected the Illinois Department of Revenue is telling us we can anticipate that continuing forward in the current fiscal year so we have another million dollars of Revenue there that we wouldn't have otherwise expected but if the state of Illinois economy takes a turn that money will
043take a turn too and will quickly likely be in the red if it is less than what we otherwise expected so I just wanted to point that out that that money is probably not here to stay one and apart from that I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have about the budget Nathan I would entertain a motion to for the board to adopt the fiscal year 2023 budget as presented so moved by move by lock second by might sir we were very quiet there all in favor aye any opposed all right next item on our agenda is our Posse I'll hand that over to Dr Hitchens to make a a slight change to our high school Ambassador policy because the policy specifically stated two ambassadors and as you can see for a
044variety of reasons we would like to increase that number not only did they have candidates that they couldn't say no to but they also are we've also changed your job description and so in Prior years you would come to the board and present what's happening mostly at the high school but we've kind of changed your job description to say we need voice of the students which could include things like focus groups and surveys of your students we could also engage you in there's advisory groups at all the different levels in the district elementary middle school and you can collect their feedback and report it to the board it doesn't just have to be the high school feedback and so you're also on the principles advisory committee so because of some of those changes it is
045we thought a team of three would be better to tackle those new changes and see how it goes and so for those reasons we are recommending those changes to the policy which would allow us to have more than two ambassadors and can I just add something to of course um and another piece of that too is being a part of this process for three years now and um the students that are gen generally interested in this position are usually very very busy and so we started to notice that due to busy schedules maybe one or both could not attend and so that was additionally I just wanted to add part of our thought process this is a really important position to the board and we wanted to make sure that the position got the attention
046that it deserved in we thought that by having three members it would be better suited for all of the reasons that Dr Hitchens said but in addition to the fact that we we really want you you guys here for the meeting so hopefully we can have better representation that way any other questions about the policy right then I would entertain a motion that we adopted the changes to policy 2 180 as presented all in favor any opposed wasn't a 2-190 just just uh it says 2 180. I would just do 190. two there's two of them but the um the procedure is 2180 the policies to 190 um right are you looking yeah thank you awesome thanks Chris no problem all right that is all the action on our agenda tonight uh I'm gonna hand
047it over to Lisa I have several tonight first I'll start by saying um we want to keep the discussion going about building our future together and as of um you guys putting this question on the ballot the district's role is informational and so um we've been really trying to get out there as much information as possible Holly has a very um specific communication plan but we do know a lot of the ways that people learn and make their decisions is by talking to each other and so we've been trying to get into as many groups as possible just to provide information we're not allowed to tell you our opinion which way to vote we're just here to give you information and to ask you to go and vote on November 8th on this referendum question
048and the question itself looks pretty complicated so we have to take some time explaining what that looks like so if you have a community group that you would like to invite us to for informational purposes we're happy to do that as we heard there is is a group that is taking on the convincing you which way they believe that they would like you to vote but we are here to provide information so please take advantage of that um it took a long time for the board to make this decision three plus years and at the very end we had quite a bit of community engagement and through that survey and the other engagement they helped us to determine the path forward and what we heard from the community is that they do believe that schools
049are important investment not only investment of our future as far as our students and our products but also people's investment in their homes as we heard from you talking about the um people's home values they do see as that connection to the schools and so trying to protect those Investments and the community also has made it very clear they want you they want you to they want us to live within our means and there is a short window here where we since we are paying off some debt we can issue debt without increasing the bond in interest tax levy and um so that is the information we've been talking to every faculty we've done seven of the eights we've done thick music Buffs and we're scheduled to go talk to at the city council because
050we're just trying to get our information out there so people aren't surprised when they see a question on the ballot and they hopefully know what it means and conform their opinion based on whatever facts are available to them and we're happy to provide any facts um last month we during our comments we kind of talked about it's a team effort so I'm going to try to Center some of my comments about you guys are on this team where you're sending kids to the Moon you have your your pins there and um it it's a team effort this this uh year so far we've had so many opportunities for students we're engaging them during the school day we're doing a lot of our Baseline testing right now screening so that we can track their progress but
051I don't know sometimes they're more interested in the co-curriculars and there have been so many opportunities and it's the number of team members it takes to put those events together is enormous I know you could all speak to it from your volunteering because you're all very active volunteers or you you were when your kids went here or you're still active volunteers but um thank you to all the admin coaches and parent volunteers and the sponsors and directors and everybody who's putting all these opportunities together for together for kids opportunities for the community like the Hall of Honor um when it's just a very exciting time um upcoming board events we do have the Harvest celebration tonight and speaking of great volunteers for our district and throughout the community Marianne Callahan is being honored tomorrow night
052due to her volunteering throughout the community and actually within the district she sits on beefy um upcoming board events we do have an October 4th and 25th board meeting so up October 4th is a special meeting we're having the Illinois Association of school boards attend so you can do yourself evaluation that is a closed session but the every meeting that we have starts an open session we'll also put the superintendent evaluation on that agenda if we have time to talk about that during closed session as well so that is October 4th special meeting October 25th is our oh and for that meeting by the way you will be getting some homework from the iasb um person who'll be providing the workshop you'll look at she wants you to look at your board agreements again she
053has other iasb protocols that she wants you to look over to see if there's something new that you want to add to your agreements um and then there's an article in this month's journal from the Illinois School Board called civil discourse so we'll review those and so you'll have homework but I've given you two weeks notice at least so I'll make sure I get that out to you very soon October 25th I know you just passed the budget but in October you're required to authorize us through a formal vote to start work on next year so um it's it'll be 12 months of talking about next year's budget then and um we'll also talk about school report cards you need to put those up on display you'll have the rest of the overnight field trips
054and we will be talking about the district response to racial incidents in the district um then I'm not sure if the um Aaron is working with your search firm I'm not sure if the superintendent profile report will be ready but if it is that will be presented next month maybe that would be the following month though then December 3rd you have a special meeting to look at some candidates for the next superintendent and I did survey you guys about a different date in December and it didn't work we couldn't find one that worked so it's going to be December 20th the night of a board meeting but we're going to try to keep the agenda light just the consent agenda we're going to try to keep things light on that night so that you can
055because you'll have to do finalist interviews and make a decision on the night of a board meeting so that'll be December 20 or 20th if the timeline works out before the meeting we can order if you would we'll have to do the regular meetings all start at seven so you could if you guys were all available we can do one or two interviews before the meeting and you can discuss after or you can do one before one after so you're not here or maybe you should just need to be here something like that night my note was no meeting and interview on saying what I know but we couldn't find a date yourself eventually so we have some time too so we can we'll talk about that there's a desire RJ to do that and
056as long as everyone can be accommodated yeah it is important that you're all at that you get to hire one person so earlier that's our one you have one job one job so um yep that was everything for me thank you all right Chris um I do not have anything prepared to this evening um I wanted to keep it mostly positive I am very excited about this time of year and watching all the sports and all the activities and being the first time parent of a senior viewing everything through those eyes is so different in the district and it's great seeing all of the kids who have grown up and I've watched grow up and you know they're now in Varsity and doing amazing things and going up you know it's just overwhelming um so
057that has me looking forward to fall and I'm very excited about all the activities and all everything that's going on and all the new faces um you know but I'm also concerned and you know I hear about what's going on in the community and I do not like seeing people in our community in pain and I think we can do better so hopefully we will keep the conversation going and do better thanks Chris see you welcome to our new student ambassadors I look forward to hearing your viewpoints and what's going on in the district and I really hope to hear some not just things from the high school but things from the middle school and the elementary school too and so welcome and thank you for everyone who spoke tonight and that's about it thanks
058Craig um to Echo Chris's comments as a person whose last kid is a currently a senior that is a really different set of perspectives take a look at things um it's exciting to watch him kind of Blossom and do what he does which is what you're probably seeing with your son as well and others um a couple of notes marching band had their first competition a couple of weeks ago they placed third in their group I think fourth or fifth overall but they scored the highest they'd ever scored at that competition and that's really unique to note because the band is significant numbers of first kit first time participants in the band this year right so that's very impressive for them and I appreciate all the hard work all the directors and as as equally
059as important I all the parents that we have 20 volunteers just to move props and get them moving around at every competition this year it's the most we've ever had and everybody comes with a smile on their face and does the best that they can and that's all anybody can ask and other than that I just appreciate everybody coming with their comments tonight um and we will do our best to listen and make some changes RJ I apologize if I ramble I didn't write anything down for tonight um I also appreciate everyone's comments and I've I've always been someone who thinks that transparency is really important and we've talked about it before the different styles of the communication from the board and I'll continue to push towards us being as transparent as we can be
060and utilizing multiple Avenues because everyone hears things different ways and everyone sees things in different places so that's definitely something that's on my mind and I know it's on most of our minds as well that being said I don't know if there's a systematic a systemic is that the right way systemic issue with with uh the morality of teachers at this point in the state or what but something definitely needs to be worked on so we'll definitely continue to work on it um I work at a technology company that is kind of tech ed it's kind of education involved and I have a position that has been posted for about three weeks and out of 90 applicants 40 of them are teachers from the state of Illinois and I'm just I don't understand why I
061you know and it's it's almost like they're just seeing that the ones I don't think well I can transfer over here and it's discouraging to me because this is like always on my mind every time I see another another teacher applied you know like they're just not happy um at least those folks aren't so um it's something I'm very aware of and constantly thinking of and we'll keep working towards it trying to improve it that's all thanks RJ Aaron uh to be a broken record thanks to everyone who came and spoke I really appreciate the the candor it's tough to hear but we need to we need to know and I appreciate the time because I know it is difficult to break away at night to come talk to us so I appreciate that I
062also want to thank everyone who is involved in homecoming I know it is a lot of work but the kids love it and we appreciate all of the hours and the I'm sure their ears were ringing for days after that because I know my house was kind of shaking a little bit but the kids loved it and I appreciate it very very much and all of the week it's not just that night it's the whole week um and I also want to say thank you to my fellow board members because um it was really a delight to come and say I think we need to adjust our sales on the student ambassador thing and it it was so easy and I just really appreciate the support because that's not always the case and this might
063seem like such a small thing but it's just an example it's just an example of how we saw something that needed to change and the the why behind the change and what we hope the change would bring and thank you for supporting that I really appreciate it and I appreciate you two ladies so um that's all I have for tonight thanks Erin I can never top what you guys say but I would like to take a moment to um to piggyback on what Todd said earlier about Mike Park Mike Park started in the district the year before my family moved here and as an AGS family all of my children had him and when I was at his wake with my youngest daughter who actually was here from out of from out of state college
064we were talking to a number of students there and one of the most um impactful things that I heard that night or that afternoon was the number of students that the group of kids that we knew there who who were studying a field thanks to Mike Park so we had occupational therapy we had a girl there who's studying to be a PE teacher they were talking about their friends who were active did Sports were um he made it a place that it was okay to didn't have to be an athlete you just had to try you just had to get up and move and so it was really really a meaningful moment and I just wanted to share that that that someone had such an impact on so many of our students it was also
065heartbreaking to see our the young ones that were that had had him as a teacher there crying but just he created such a great impact so I wanted to close by remembering that and and remembering the impact that our teachers have on our students um that is all of the items on our agenda tonight so I would entertain a motion to adjourn so moved moved by myself second by Meadows on favor aye all right all right we are adjourned thank you for saying that Kathy that's