001I Cavayto I Dren absent with notice. Jimenez I Gonzalez I Butler absent with notice. Motion carried. Thank you. Can we please stand up for the pledge of allegiance? Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, and liberty and justice for all. Can we please have a roll call to establish quorum? Uh, please say here. Uh, Himenez here. Steinfeld here. Gonzalez here. Palace here. Gavayo here. Okay. Uh, good evening everyone. My name is Elizabeth um Jimenez. I am the school board president and to my left is Dr. Mary Havis. Uh, bear with us. We're going to have two open meetings and two closed meetings. Just so that you know, we're having the public hearing. Um, I don't
002think we need any interpretations on translations. Uh, so Buenas notes. Um, public hearing. Uh and notice is hereby given by the board of education of Burwin s school district 100 in the county of Cook, state of Illinois, that the tentative amended budget for state school district for the fiscal year 2025 is on file and conveniently available for public inspection at Leverne Education Center 3401 South Gonderson Bin, Illinois 60402 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. beginning on May 2nd, 2025. Notice is hereby further giving that a public hearing on said budget will be held or is being held today and this hearing is um here at Heritage Middle School 6850 West 35th Street Berwin Illinois the board of education Bwin Southeast School District 100 in the county of the C in the county of Cook State
003of Illinois. So, we're here um to approve, correct? Yeah. Yeah. To approve it because we had it in open, but we if anybody has any public comments, please go to the podium. Okay. Seeing none. Uh can we please have a motion to um Yeah, that's it, right? To adjourn public hearing and reconvene into open session. I'll motion second. I'll second. And 7:04 p.m. I J Himenez I. Palace I. Steinfeld I. Gabayo I. Gonzalez I. Motion carried. Okay. Thank you. Superintendent report. All right. Good evening. Um, we are going to kick off the superintendent's report with a science curriculum update. So, I would like to invite up Teresa Adelfia, Samantha Schuman, and Lindseay Cindy who are just going to give an overview of our science curriculum. Hi everyone. I'm Lindsay Cindy and I'm the director of
004learning management and assessment. So just as a reminder, right, the vision in our district is to provide our students with the that rigorous and personalized learning. Um and our science curriculum is a huge piece of that. And so today we're gonna kind of give you a few updates and some information regarding how science is going here in district 100. So every year our fifth and eighth grade students take the Illinois science assessment um right around the same time that they take I AR and this is the summit of assessment for just fifth and eighth grade. Those are the only grade levels that are tested in Illinois besides um I believe it's 11th grade but that's changing now with the all the new ACT things. Um and so we don't have data from every grade just
005fifth through eighth because or fifth and eighth because those are the two that are tested. Um this results of the science assessment here this is uh taken from the school report card and you can see that as a district um in 2024 we've grown almost every year we had a little bit of a down last year um but every year since 2021 we have grown. Um prior to 2021 the assessment was significantly different than it is now. And so that's why you don't necessarily see all that data. They've increased the number of tests from one to three. Um they've provided us some more information. They've changed the scale. There's been a lot of up and down. Um but you can see that we are making progress. Um we are not quite at the state level,
006but we are pretty close. Um and you can see that we're making more gains than the state is, which is great for us. And so uh that's pretty exciting. You can see here the difference between fifth and eighth grade. And this is one of the reasons and and the things that we'll talk about here. Um, in fifth grade, our our eighth grade is um above that state average. Our fifth grade is still a little bit below, but overall we're almost there on that state average. Again, this is where you can see the growth year by year by the grade levels. Um, and you can see fifth grade has been a little bit stagnant. Um, and then we we did see a bump up this year. Um, and um, sorry, last year. And ideally, we will
007um, be continuing to see that with our curriculum. Hello everyone. I'm Theresa Delfi, assistant director of curriculum and instruction. Um so this year along with the implementation of Amplify um we really wanted to streamline and organize our implementation of mystery science um in first through fifth grade. So we have had mystery science as a resource for many years. Um but it was never really you know paced out systematically uh knowing who's doing what units. And so as we uh organized our amplify units, we went ahead and organized our mystery science units as well and made sure that um there was time in everybody's blocks to um instruct uh this science program. And so uh mystery science is a hands-on program. Um it it really um encourages students to discuss what they what they're learning about.
008Um and as you can see the students are really like manipulating things and so um in order to get started we made sure that we provided professional development for teachers um even though we've have had the program just to make sure everybody's starting off um with the same information. Um and then we also made sure they had um the resources that they needed. So, we did print out the binder so that they had the paper lessons and then we ordered the material kits so they had everything they need to really um implement that Amplify Science not to be confused with Amplify ELA and CKLA which are ELA curriculum. It is the same company. We implemented Amplify Science um four years ago now. And so our middle school students um have had this curriculum which is
009a literacy based science curriculum. Um students are doing a lot of reading and a lot of writing and a lot of discussing like scientists. It is a phenomena based curriculum and um the next generation science standards um recommend students learning through the phenomena based model and that's also how mystery science is structured. the idea that we present students with a problem or something um that sparks curiosity and interest and then they discover a solution or an explanation to that through their science lessons rather than just definitions and terminology and facts. Um the students are discovering and doing science. And so here you can see some of the amplify 6 through8 science projects. Um uh students were required to create in that bottom picture um a baby incubator. Um and that was helping them understand the
010transfer transfer and preservation of thermal energy. And so they had to build it. They had to have there was cost analysis. Um they had to justify their thinking and they actually invited uh teachers and other students to come in and evaluate that um and see how they did. Um so a real world solution um something that they had to figure out how to do and physically build um in addition to the writing and the reading and all of those things. So um it has definitely helped um our students in the science achievement um implement implementing amplify as well as in their reading and their writing that we're seeing in their ELA progress. Um it does blend the hands-on activities with literacy rich activities as well as a lot of interactive digital tools. So, the students
011are doing um lots of hands-on science um but they're also using some simulations um and some things along those lines where they can interact and test out their hypothesis. Uh they part of amplify science is also um there are interactive engineering internships. So they're they're given a role um of a scientist or a um community member of some type that they have to solve a problem using their scientific knowledge uh and figure things out. And so it really gets the kids doing the science rather than just learning about it. We also have steam as an exploratory class for um students K through 8. Um and with um steam we have the program project lead the way and um so we have the launch program in K5 and then 68 uses gateway. So what the the
012steam teachers do is um those units really take what the students have been learning through the science courses and NGS with the NGSS and focus more on those engineering practices and do more hands-on activities and so that you're seeing a lot of students you know building models of things they do a lot with flights and you know really um looking at how they can manipulate the science and apply it. And so this year we're really really excited to announce that we were recognized as a PLTW district. Um and this is just for giving our community access and the opportunity for our students to um have these experiences. And so um we're really proud of that this year and really proud of all the work that our teachers have done. Um something that's coming up for
013next year that our steam teachers are really excited about is um SAM labs. And so our K5 steam teachers will have this additional resource on top of PLTW um where they will be able to focus on um coding. And so this program is aligned with NGSS um and they can actually connect they have so many lessons that can connect what they're learning in PLTW and work through more of that um the coding aspect of that. And so um it has different levels of that. It could be um very interactive um the that first image on the top where students really are seeing the different um tools that they can manipulate and then it can progress up to um you know the script and all those other programs. And so we're really excited to um see
014how this how this will be. I think the kids are really going to enjoy this process and just um having the opportunity for our kids to just be exposed to these um types of programs I think can, you know, really inspire them. Maybe this is a career that they want to go into or something they like to do for fun and so our kids are going to enjoy that. Thanks. Um so Samantha Schuin, director of instructional innovation, but this is another program that um so the girls Saturday science program has been in our district since about 2013. Um when I was at um Piper School, we um there's research out there that shows that in girls interest in science really drops off by the time they hit middle school. And so we wanted to provide
015our students with opportunities for additional science enrichment outside of the school day to ensure at that elementary level that their interest in science um continues to grow. And so we established this in 2013. It's a free program. Um they actually get a grant from Toronto Baking Company to that pays for it. So it's nothing out of our pockets. Um, and what now that I've been able to fortunate enough to move to the district level, we've decided to bring this districtwide. So, for the last year and a half, we've been working with all elementary schools and inviting fourth and fifth grade girls to participate in these sessions. So, this past year, we had two fiveweek sessions. They took place here at Heritage from 9 to 11:00. And very similar to what Lindsay and Teresa were talking
016about in terms of hands-on learning. That's really what this program um is all about too. It's about teaching them about the scientific method, the process, going more in depth regarding what is a hypothesis, how do we ask questions as a researcher? Um we talk about the difference between constants and variables. So, we know that our students thrive on getting more opportunities to access their background knowledge as well as expand their vocabulary. And so, this is designed to do that. So, the students spend two hours working through an experiment where the um there's two students that come from North Central. One is typically a science major and one is an elementary ed major. And so they give it the students a demonstration on a particular science topic. They don't tell them what the variables and the
017constants are, but then the students kind of go through and set up three separate tests or lab scenarios to figure out which is the important variable. And so they test different science concepts throughout. Um and that's typically the first hour. And then the second hour or 45 minutes is all about um just different STEM experience um experiences that they can have where they're they're cutting, they're building, doing all kinds of fun stuff. In between there, they bring a snack. The girls get to have a snack from the students from North Central and they get to talk about what college life is like or science careers. So, um it's not only providing enrichment opportunities in science, but they're also getting to ask questions about what it's like um when they get older and are starting to
018make some of those life decisions. So, we're um fortunate enough to have a teacher liaison here in our district that has supported over the last few years, Miss Livero. Um and so, I wanted to share this data because I know at Piper, I was always impressed how our scores continued to grow in science. And so, we knew that this program could help enhance as well. And so if you look at our 2024 data, so these are any students, so the fourth and fourth graders, right, don't take the assessment. So all of the fifth graders that participated that year, 75% of them met or exceeded. And then the following year, we opened up to more students. So this year 87 student 87% of the girls that participated um met or exceeded. So there was really only
019four students that were still in that approaching area of the 36 that have participated in the last two years. So, we're looking forward to continuing to expand this program. Um, we look at students who are interested, but also expanding it to to just more girls to provide additional access. So, looking forward to seeing these numbers continue to grow. Um, all right. And I'll Okay, so moving ahead, um, and thinking about our future, as uh, Lindsay mentioned, we want to really focus on supporting our fifth graders. And so one way to do that is we started to implement mis mystery science earlier on. Um and so we just want to strengthen that implementation. And so um we were we made a few tweaks that the teachers recommended um in the scope and sequence so that it
020is aligned with the units that they're working on amplify as they taught this first year. They saw some connections that could be made um where the students can um you know talk about it in literacy and also talk about it in science. Um, our kindergarten students will also be getting um exposure to those mystery science lessons through their steam class along with the um project lead the way units. Um this um past spring we worked with our middle school to just look at our scope and sequence again with the change in the schedule. We wanted to make sure that, you know, the the units that they're teaching, we can still teach that within the the time that they have um for next year and just had the time to look at the standards again and
021look at the assignments that they have and just come back together and regroup. Um as we continue to get our ISA data, we're going to um just dive in. um they are going to be giving us more reports than they have and so we're excited to dig in and look for more trends and then we can use those trends to make more decisions about what instruction looks like, any other changes that may be needed. Um and then of course continue to provide our teachers with any professional development that they may need um so that they can continue to support our students. And that's it. Any questions? Wasn't sure if you needed to recognize me or do I just ask? Okay. Um, uh, Cababayo, thank you so much for that presentation. This is great. I was
022able to look at it ahead of time and the kids look so engaged. I just had a couple questions. Um, how many minutes is one science class? And then how many classes per week in the middle school? Um it currently was one um every other day for 88 minutes. With the new schedule that we're implementing, it'll be 42 minutes every single day. So it'll be more consistent for them. Um for elementary, it's it's different based on, you know, the teacher schedule, but it's at least three times a week for 20 30 minutes depending on on their schedule. So it is more consistent. Very nice. Thank you. And then I just had one more question. Um, the girls Saturday science looks very cool. Um, and I love that it's on a Saturday and the girls are
023choosing to be there, right? So, how do you invite the girls and then how do you choose the girls? Is there an application process? Great question. So, um, we reach out to the principles who then talk with the fourth and fifth grade teachers. Um, we start off with we we wanted to try to keep it to about 20 students just because it's a manageable number, but I could foresee this growing as we go from there. So, um, we start with we students that we know are interested, but at this point it's really about enrichment and giving access to all students. So, we're hoping to expand the program now that we kind of have a process in place, but there isn't any like we don't collect any data or any information ahead of time on students.
024Um, so yeah, hoping to expand it. Thank you. Any other questions? One other Whoa. Wait a little. One other item to highlight too is uh some of the schools I know have uh science fairs and uh those are usually a lot of fun and pretty well attended. So yeah, I think our middle school this year had a combined science fair. I think the first annual. Um so yeah, we'll keep you posted on when that is u next year. Okay. Thank you. I do have a couple questions and I I appreciate the presentation as well. I'm also happy that it's also based literacy based curriculum. Um I have one question that I do not maybe I'm the only one who do not know. What is PLTW mean? It's an organization project lead the way. It's the
025name of the program. Project lead the way. Thank you. Um so I was going to also ask a question about how students are invited. Uh so my next question would be um know knowing that statistically and I think it is a magn magnificent program for all of our girls. Um but I know that statistically uh girls of color are usually do not go into those areas. So how are we targeting to include our girls of color in this program? Great question. And like I said, we kind of open it up to all. So that's definitely something we can look deeper at, but we don't we're just inviting everyone to be part of the program. And and I love that that we're inviting everyone, but I think sometimes we have to be a little bit more
026strategically be um in regards to inviting them maybe or informing them more about what is how is there going to help them. Um, the reason I know this is like both my daughters went into the science and tech and most of the time they are the only Latinas, the only females in those uh jobs. Like I know both of them have been in the field for a while. My especially my oldest one, she's the only one of color and a female. So I know that we need to be increasing that and be uh strategically thinking about how to include them. Um my other and I do love the mystery labs my last question and it's based on the assessment. So I'm I'm happy that you're exploring uh the Illinois science assessment report to identify the
027areas of need and areas of that we grow. um having had touched fifth grade this year. And when the kids finished the assessment, they were very concerned that the questions were mostly about math and then science, which I believe that they were there is a combination, right? They are probably interconnected. So, how are we co um connecting the math and the science to help our students improve on this assessment? Because I do believe it's a hard assessment and we it may not put as much emphasis as we should have. Yes. So, uh one of the things about the um the assessment is it it doesn't directly test your content knowledge. And so if you haven't necessarily learned about ecosystems, you can still answer the questions about ecosystems because it's asking the questions um where you're
028reading data tables, you're looking at graphs, you're interpreting conclusions. And so those are the pieces that are part of both mystery science as well as amplify science. Um that are are where we are seeing our students grow in that ability to interact with that data. um doing the labs, collecting the data, recording the charts, talking about that. That's where they are um taking advantage of that. In regards to the connection with directly with math um especially at the elementary school because they're teaching math and teaching science um now that we're in our we're going to be starting our second year of full implementation of mystery science. um that's an area where in our math um PLC's we can have those discussions about the connections um because those teachers are teaching both. Middle school is a
029bit more challenging and that's an area that we're going to continue to explore in regards to um especially because they're only tested in eighth grade and there are things in sixth and seventh grade that they don't cover again until 8th grade. And so, how can we use the information, the specific information from the assessment to inform what our teachers are doing and how to continue to reiterate those uh skills across the board? Thank you. And I did say that it was the last one, but I don't just remember one. Do we have this curriculum in um both English and Spanish for our dual language students or only Spanish speakers? Yes, both mystery science and amplified science are available in English and Spanish. Our dual language program um doesn't teach it in in in Spanish, but
030it's available for students who may need that um Spanish support. And the program that is on Saturdays, is it um also being provided in Spanish for Spanish speakers or only in English? Not at this time. It's just English at this time. Thank you. That's all. If I can just add to the previous question that you asked about um increasing girls into science. Uh, one of the things that I personally value about district 100 is that we have been very strategic and have received a lot of support from all of you to integrate more curricular resources specifically for our district. 83% Latino, 75% low-income. Uh, as you've known, we brought you a science curriculum four years ago. uh we made sure that our mystery science we were investing in not only pacing it out but also
031in providing all of the resources that teachers would need to give our students access. We want to make sure that they have that project lead the way we're investing in that and you know as needed purchasing more units. So we can't do that without your support and so we really appreciate that piece because all of our students should have access especially in a district such as district 100. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um also you'll remember um just a few months ago the board adopted the vision 2030 resolution. Um and a lot of what was just discussed here is really talking about the goals of vision 2030 as well as exposure to um career exploration. Um and so as we continue to expand in science, it's very exciting. Just a few years
032ago, our kids were not getting as many opportunities in science and it has grown significantly and we're seeing the results of that. Um, and we so appreciate the investment of our staff. Um, we appreciate the investment as Bee said of of putting funding into that curriculum to support uh, science across our district. So, thank you again for your presentation. All right. um are just a facilities projects. Obviously, you can see just by walking through we have a lot going on in our facilities uh this summer. Um so we are working here with our um construction manager FH Passion and Archon. Uh we meet with them weekly to get updates on everything that's happening across the district which has been really valuable. We've been so pleased with their partnerships and the communication. Um so Emerson is
033obviously getting their um univvents put in. All the units have arrived or shipped and so we have a few that we were we're waiting on. Um but so far we're on track. Um and as you probably noted as well, the roofing project is in progress here at Emerson as well. Um Heritage gym floor is looking fantastic. Um so that has been redone this summer. Um it's almost there, right? We still have another coat or two, but it's it's so we'll be able to take a look at that. And uh Heritage is also getting a lot of um carpeting redone as we've mentioned before. Heritage and Emerson are normally used for summer school, so they have not had the opportunity for a lot of projects and updates and deep cleaning. Um and so that is what
034is happening here this summer. Um we also have if you remember um that we received funding from the maintenance grant from the state and so we are doing the exterior door projects at three schools. So Persing is almost complete. Um the doors are in there's some mechanical things that need to be added and then Kmenky and Heritage doors are also scheduled to be done in the next week or two. Um so those projects are all progressing and um we are on schedule and going smoothly so far. Uh 3000 Rigid um the footings of the building are complete in most areas. We are waiting for a um a plumbing hookup, a water line hookup that needs to be completed before we can start the footings on the second side of the building. Um but the foundation
035for the west and uh portion of the building has already been put in as well as partial on the south. Um so again lots of communication and collaboration between um multiple people to get to be working on these projects but we've had really effective communication and things are going smoothly. Um so we will continue to keep you updated on summer projects. Um any questions on that? Okay. Um, we did have five FOYAS this month that we have, um, shared and submitted. Um, our dashboard, we are really, all of our attendance is in there from the last month of school, but also we are making some nice progress on registration for next school year. Our goal is to get everyone registered by May 30th. That is a tough goal to meet, but it's still always our
036goal. Um but we are still um you know working to get some more students who part who started registration but haven't quite finished it um to to get registered and then we'll have to get everybody else in August. But we our numbers are looking pretty good which is helpful for us in planning for next school year when we can get as many students registered prior to summer as possible. And I will turn it over to Jenny for the financial report. Thanks Mary. Our bank balance as of today is 71.1 million. Our revenue for the month of June to date is 3.7 million. On the screen and in and in board book you'll see the cash flow short report. Revenue for the month of May was 3.4 million for year-to- date of 62.6 million. Expenses for
037the month of May were 5.9 million. um that includes our uh bond interest payment and our year-to-ate expenses are 58.2 million for a fund balance of 67.9 million. On the next slide, um you'll see our grant snapshot as we're winding down the year. Grants are um coming in and we're finishing off some of the grants. Uh the and you'll notice when we started doing the budget for next year, the CARES grants at the bottom are all going to start falling off. A lot of them already have. Um the next thing that I have on the budget is the uh amended budget for FY25. Um there were just slight changes from last time. If you want to go all the way down to the bottom of the second page, this is also in board book is
038the very very large um 32 or something page Excel. This is the easy simple version of the Excel portion of that. Within the Excel portion, we kind of talked about it during finance committee today. It goes into very detail of your fund, your function, your object of all the different account codes. This kind of is your snapshot and this is what's also in board book in the long form. Um, also on board book um you'll see the resolution. Um, and I will let I won't steal your thunder, Wendy. I'll let you talk about that when you get to it. Um, right now we are we are right on target uh budget-wise for the FY25 budget. The hard part about doing it in June is you're working off of the May financials and you still have
039some of the June expenses. So, you do your best estimate of where you think you're going to be when you do your budget amendment. And it kind of trs up what your original budget was in September. And it also allows for the update in grants, the extra grant money. um in this budget we also had a significant um increase in interest from our investments. So that accounts for those pieces and that's the end of my report. All right. Thank you. And that concludes the superintendent's report. Thank you, Mary. Um president's report. Finance. Uh the finance committee met today. Um we reviewed the amended budget for fiscal year 25. Um we also discussed a resolution um that is on the consent agenda today. Um and this resolution is to transfer money from the operations and maintenance
040fund to the capital projects fund for $6 million. And um the reason that we need this resolution is because there is no direct revenue stream to the capital projects fund. And so we have to move it from one to the other. And that was all. Can I ask a question? Um, in reference to the capital's projects fund, is that like the 3000 Richland? Uh, yes. It's everything that we So, back when Esser money started coming in back in 2020, um, we started using fund 60 more because you could track where your capital projects were. So, as we were doing the different projects for um it it also has your univvent projects in there. It has your um if we do a playground, if we do a fencing project, um we're doing I think we put
041the heritage if you're doing big projects um that goes into fund 60. And so there was a revenue source when you had er money coming in, but there's no esser money coming in anymore. So we have to transfer it over from one to the other. Some districts have fund 60 as a line item on their budget levy on their levy. Um we do not. We have fund 10 20 30 40 but we don't have fund 60. So that's that we have to do the transfer then. Thank you. Sure. Okay. Any questions on policy non- finance? I mean uh I had a question also about that. I'm just wondering why is it a resolution to move money. That was the attorney's recommendation. I don't have an answer. Followup if I may. Sure. You don't have to
042be acknowledged. Yes or you're not. It's just very random like cuz you're the accountant, right? And you should be able to move from one column to another. It's a resolution that that directs me to move that dollar amount because it's a substantial dollar amount from one fund to the other so that you're not in a negative in the fund at the end of the year. It I know it seems logical. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Uh policy. Oh, can I add one more thing? Oh, sure. I'm sorry. Just to piggyback on top of that. the the fund transfer is in the budget also. It's in that 32-page document. The resolution is also a formality on top of that acknowledging and giving me direct direction. So, it's kind of a double a double do.
043I guess it's just safety. It's safety, right? Transparency. Transparency. Thank you. Okay. Now, policy. Yes, that's me. Okay. So today we met and we looked at policy 810 which is connection with the community. That was our first read. So we looked at it, we talked about it. It'll come back next month for a second read. Then we looked at some brand new policies um that are coming down uh from our service that we use which is called press and it's like a publication of the Illinois Association of School Boards. Um and so they kind of draft the new language for us and then we talk about it as a committee, right? And then we decide if we're going to adopt it into the district policy. So there was uh some brand new policies there that
044we looked at for the first read. So it'll come back for a second read. We discussed policy 530 which is the uh uh looking at the current nepotism policy which has been on the books since like 1997 I think. Um and so we're looking to update that. So we're talking about that. Um so that'll come back next month as well. And then there's some policies that we're looking to approve tonight. Thank you. Anyone has any questions on policy? No. Okay. Um so yeah, we had a very good discussion on that. Uh legislative report. Uh that's Mrs. Butler. She's not here. So correspondence. Um we had one email and one physical correspondence. Thank you. Okay. Uh public comments. Individuals appearing before the board are expected to follow the guidelines outlining board policy 2 to30. Seeing none,
045uh action items consent in the consent agenda. Items may be removed from the consent agenda and the request of any one member. Items not removed may be adopted by general consent without a debate. Removed items may be taken up either immediately after the consent agenda or placed later on the agenda at the discretion of the board. Anyone? Uh yes, Cavayto. I would like to remove item 15D, the fisc year 25 amended budget. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Uh, can we please have a motion to approve items A through H or through G, including A through H under G, except D, which is the approved FY25 amended budget. Can we have a motion? I'll move I'll second. Okay. Roll call. I J H Jimenez I. Steinfeld I. Gonzalez. I Palace I. Cavayto I. Motion carried. Thank you.
046Okay. So we move uh now to either um have a discussion or decide to vote on item D. So, I just had some questions before we um you know move to approve. It's an amended budget, so it's the budget that we've been working with the whole school year. Um but looking at the document um the big Excel document, uh specifically pages 30 through 34, um that's where it lays out the EBF evidence-based funding spending plan for this year. Um and looking you know uh at the document there are three strategies identified for using those funds and then three um priority investments as well. And so I just had a couple of questions about some of those. So uh one of the strategies uh that were identified for using those EBF funds was to maintain or
047decrease the average class size. And so my question was, have we decreased the average class size from the previous year? Yes. So I'm not sure if you if you saw my responses to your questions initially, but I will I have them in front of me. Um, so yes, we are our our class sizes have naturally decreased over the years due to our declining enrollment. Um, and our goal in that plan is to maintain or decrease the class sizes. Um, and that has been accomplished on average across the district. There could be some classrooms that are bigger year-toear just based on enrollment, but on average our class sizes um have been maintained or decreased slightly since last school year. And so, uh, it's decreased slight slightly naturally based on decreased enrollment. Have we as a district
048done anything to intentionally decrease those class sizes by meaning adding FTEES or adding classrooms? Sure. Yeah. So, we have not we have not had a need based on our enrollment to add uh classrooms to our current um we if we add a class for example last year we had to add a couple of special education classrooms due to student need. But as far as enrollment numbers across the district, we have not needed to add additional um teachers based on our class sizes. So what number would trigger that need? Like is there a threshold? There is we you know in our contract the teachers contract it's 28. Um we try to we generally maintain much less than that. Um our goals are between 22 and 24. Um, but we do have some classes that go above
049that. We do have some classes that are below that. Okay. Thank you. Um, and then another strategy was to increase time and attention on specific student groups. Um, and I did get your response via email. And so now I'm reading it into the um into the meeting, right, for so that the people at home can know cuz we're not going to post this email, right? So that's why I'm asking the same questions. Um so did we increase time and attention on specific student groups and if so which groups? Yes. So, so essentially when you look at the EBF plan that um it sp our focuses are on low-income students, EL students and special education students. Those have been the primary allocations for our EBF plan. Um we know that students may be in multiple subgroups.
050Um and we also utilize that tier one. So for example, adopting a literacy curriculum and all of the curriculums that we've discussed um over the years um since EBF passed. So EBF funds went to those and all of that supports all students including the subgroups that are we consider to be priorities with our EBF spending. Yes, thank you. Um, what you said makes sense that a new curriculum would support all students, but these funds are specifically for these specific groups, right? So, it's not it it seems to me that it's not increasing time or attention to those groups by adopting a new curriculum for everybody, right? Does that make sense? Yes. But we we addressed through tier one. Obviously, we also as I I I included in my communication was all of the EB this
051is f focused on this year's EBF, but you can go back and look at all of the positions and all of the resources that have been added since EBF started and those have been prioritized around EL around um our special education students and around meeting all of the EBF elements. Thank you. Um, last one I think. Yes. Um, so the three prior one of the No, the three priority investments, excuse me, was to increase uh or to hire additional it says EL core teachers, special education core teachers, and intervention core teachers or or backwards core intervention teachers. Um so my question is did we hire additional from what we had the previous school year? Yes. So, we did not add additional e positions, although one was unfilled. That was filled. Um, and we added two
052positions for special education, as I mentioned, um, due to the needs of students. And then one social work and one dual language position were added last year. Thank you. I move that we adopt D. Any second? I'll second. Okay. I uh I Your name uh Gimenez I Gonzalez I Cavo I Palace I Steinfeld I motion carried. Thank you. Okay. Any public comments? Individuals appearing before the board are expected to follow the guidelines outlining the board policy to 230. Seeing none, uh board member comments. Uh I guess I just want to congratulate uh the staff that was involved in the play. I it was phenomenal. It was a really good experience. So thank you to the parents and uh volunteers and especially the staff and of course the students they did an amazing job. So please
053congratulated uh congratulate them on our behalf or on my behalf. Uh it was a really good experience. So thank you for all the work that you are doing. Uh yeah sorry I had a comment. Cababayto um I want to say thank you to the board and thank you to the superintendent um and staff. This was a great meeting. Um, I will continue to ask questions for transparency. So, please bear with me if you are getting frustrated or tired of hearing my voice. You know, I certainly hope my fellow board members will also ask more questions. And I invite community members or whoever fellow board members to email me. My name is Adriana Cabaytobsd.org. We can have a conversation. Um, I love talking about this stuff. I'm a policy wonk. So, thank you. Thank you. Anyone
054else? No. Okay. Um, let's see. Where am I? Okay. Uh, so I guess can we have a motion to adjourn? Motion. Second. Who second? Me. At 8. No, 7:50. Is that 7:50? Yeah. Oh, 7:50. I said that wrong time earlier. It's only 7:50. Uh roll call your name. Jimenez I. Steinfeld I. Gonzalez. I gave I. Palace I. Motion carried. Thank you. Thank you everyone for being here on a summer evening. I I appreciate it. I know it's a lot especially if you live far. So thank you. We appreciate it. Have a good rest of your summer.