001I'll motion. I'll second. Roll call. I or nay. Palace. Uh I uh Butler I Jay Gonzalez. Hi. W. Gonzalez. I Dread I Steinfeld I Jimenez I motion carried. Thank you. Can we please stand for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Roll call. uh here or present. Jimenez here. Steinfeld here. Jay Gonzalez here. W Gonzalez here. Butler here. John here. Palace here. Thank you. Uh good evening everyone. My name is Elizabeth Himenez. I'm the president of the board of education for district 100. Elizabeth. To my left is Dr. Mary Haves, our superintendent. Dr. Mary Davis. All right. Good evening everyone. Um we thank you for all all
002of you for being here tonight. We have a couple of presentations, but we are going to be kicking off um with learning a little bit about Kmenky Elementary School and all the work they're doing this year. And it looks like by the size of the crowd that we're also going to be meeting some Kmenky Lions tonight as well. So, we would like to invite up um principal Leticia Valades to kick us off. [Applause] Gracias. All right, good evening. Buenos noes. Uh, sorry I had to my uh get my glasses. Um, that's that's what happens as you get older. I didn't need them last year. Um, so, um, I'm Leticia Valades and I am the proud principal, um, at Kmenky. Our assistant principal, Sarah Gamrad, was not able to join us this evening because her daughter
003has, um, a volleyball game tonight, and it's their championship game, so that's really special for them. Um, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome our students and their families and our teacher leaders who have um, joined us tonight. We are overjoyed to rec recognize you this evening. Um here sorry got to multitask. So um it is it is our goal to have our vision reflected in the work that we do every day at Kmenky and I hope that you see it reflected in the school improvement work that we um will be presenting tonight. Our vision for learning fosters a safe community that pro that provides authentic learning that is inclusive for all students to empower their identities, cultivate curiosity, develop creative solutions, and promote a sense of global responsibility. We live by our
004motto, which is pride, curiosity, and global responsibility. Our teachers and staff strive to provide our students with opportunities to celebrate their cultural and linguistic identities and diverse abilities. And you'll see that tonight by our student recognitions. We tap into our students natural curiosity to create highly engaging learning experiences for them and promote student leadership throughout service and innovation. One example of that is our morning announcements um led by our student leaders and they broadcasted the roar live at Idea Con last month. So we're extremely proud of them and now we turn our attention to another aspect of our learning community which is our school improvement goals. So at Kmenky we are focused on supporting the whole child but results also drive us. These are two-year results um the ones that you see on the screen
005um and these are goals that um they reflect our IR achievement. Our overall goal is to increase the percentage of students who reach performance levels that meet or exceed standards on I areas. uh we also conduct are being asked to perform or demonstrate and the types of questions and how um rigorous the our assessment is. Our teachers uh used explicit teaching to improve clarity and help our students develop strong written constructive responses in reading and math. So this has been the heart of our school improvement this year. Um these are some of our AR reading trends. Um over the last five years, the percentage of students who who read who who reached performance levels of meeting or exceeding an IR standards um has steadily returned to prepandemic levels, allowing us to see uh some positive
006trends and encouraging everyone to aim for higher levels every year. Um in math we have observed positive trends but much slower growth compared to reading. Um and in a moment I will elaborate on how our actions um this year have helped us accelerate growth on IR. So at Kmenky we believe in setting a strong foundation in our primary grades to prepare our students for the rigor of the IR assessment. um when they get to the intermediate grades. Our kindergarten and first grade um early reading fastbridge data clearly illustrates an impressive growth um of students who are making um who are making in early literacy skills in English and Spanish with 67% of our students considered to be at low risk in Spanish reading. In comparison, there's 42% which is a positive indicator of how our
007students um now moving on to MAP data which is the assessment that our students in second through fifth grade uh take uh three times a year. So we monitor their academic achievement and growth uh through our school improvement plan. So it's both achievement and growth. Uh and this data is demonstrating their growth only. So our goal is to have a high percentage of our students performing at or above the 65th percentile since that's an indicator that they are growing faster than expected. Um and that also uh shows the potential for closing achievement gaps. So when we look at the comparison of fall to winter growth uh we notice that this year uh we are not growing as expected since we are not yet uh seeing the impact of our new amplify resource implementation. Uh we
008do support our students performance um the students performing at the 40th percentile or below through systematized MCSS interventions. Um so this is our math uh map growth. So in math we have seen um higher percentages of students performing at or above the 65th percentile um and above when we compare fall to winter this year. Uh in English math we observed a 10.79% growth from fall to winter and a 15.61% 61% growth from fall from fall to winter in math in Spanish. So, we're extremely proud of our gains in math and do look forward to continuing to see that increase uh in the spring. So in addition to um just reviewing fastbridge data, map data um I uh this year we were very fortunate to collaborate with West 40 in the re which is the regional
009office of education and Dr. Havis uh which helped us obtain a detailed analytical uh report of our most recent uh school report card. And um our school improvement team used this report to identify uh students who are underperforming or who have underperforming index scores. And as a result of that information, we created um a data warehouse containing several data points to help us triangulate the data and identify specific language learners who were needing the most attention. And so based on this report, we did notice that our EL students um as a as a group in our school uh needed the most support to be able to meet um or exceed standards on IR. So we developed uh very specific targeted plans uh using um map projections on IR and we also integrated uh high impact
010instructional strategies to strengthen our students English language development which we know is um it's really essential for our students to be able to per perform at high levels on the IR assessment. Uh so every teacher at our school developed um specific action plans to support our student groups. Um and so you know at Kaminsky we do take ownership a collective responsibility for our student success. So another way that um we have worked together to help our students grow is through our intentional focus on written expression. So written expression requires um the ability to apply foundational skills simultaneously with comp composition. So these are two areas that are necessary for our students to become skilled writers. Um and this this focus allowed us to develop a schoolwide definition of written expression uh which has led to
011exponential growth in writing at all levels. So we applied our knowledge of written expression according to the simple view of writing um and we helped our students develop constructed responses. So these are written responses based on um write uh writing or written um prompts or in math. So both in both content areas. So our teachers explicitly taught our students the skills necessary to respond effectively to questions citing evidence um using text to support their answers and explaining their thinking. Uh so we use the strategy ACE uh which may you may have seen in our students homework uh throughout this year. Um we take a lot of pride in developing a culture of learning at Kmenski. Um and we look at constantly we look at our students writing samples and we analyze their work to to
012be able to respond um and adjust our instructions our instruction. So this happens during our PLC's or professional learning communities. Um and with support from our instructional coaches, uh we develop rubrics to be able to evaluate our students writing samples against a specific standard um that allowed us to see how our students were uh growing and how they would perform on the IR assessment. So we set the bar high for our teachers and students and I am extremely proud to say that they have exceeded our expectations this year. So again, we have a shared responsibility for our student success. These are examples of the scoring guides and the rubrics that we developed. So every classroom teacher had two sets of guides, one for uh reading and one for math. And we also have um a
013specific rubric for math and reading. And these rubrics align to IR expectations. Uh so we track our students progress continually through this scoring guide. Um and if we look at that example is one it's an actual example of one of our fourth grade classrooms. If you look at the first sample, uh the red indicates that our students were receiving a and I can tell you that our teachers and students did a remarkable job during testing. Volume of writing that our students were were doing during testing. Um and some of them needed either extra paper or extra time because they just couldn't stop expressing their ideas. So, we're very excited to see the the the scores in the spring. So our culture of learning is strong at Kaminsky because of our dedicated teacher leaders. Uh they
014have taken full ownership of our students growth and achievement and their dedication to the success of every student is simply impressive. Tonight I want to recognize our teacher leaders um along with our students um and many of our teachers of course are here tonight. So thank you. Gracias. [Applause] Um so another another way that we try to promote this culture of learning and writing. Uh we invited families uh to an informational session on IR. Um and many of our parents that are sitting here this evening attended and um I was just delighted to be able to share uh you know some more details about the assessment. I think that sometimes we don't share enough so that they can also help at home or they can you know um participate in their child's education. And so
015I'm very proud of that partnership that we developed uh to raise awareness of the importance of the assessment and what it means for their children's future. Uh we also um collaborated to make you know writing permeate into every aspect of our school. Um our our younger students, our primary students um help empower our our testing students um our students in third through fifth grade. So they have classroom bodies. So, those are some of examples of how every single day they would visit their classrooms before testing started and they would write notes um or just give them words of encouragement. So, um we're just really excited to see this community come together uh for one purpose. Um so, our theme is of course growing as writers this year. Um and so now I would like to
016give you a brief sampling of our students work uh this year and in kindergarten um with the the new adoption of Amplify Phonics. Uh this resource is helping our students become stronger writers and we can see that evidence right there. Um through skills our students receive explicit s systematic instruction focused on uh the sound first technique and uh students link those sounds to spelling and then into writing letters. Uh so we can clear I can clearly read what they're writing in their um whiteboards there. In first grade, um, our students receive explicit phonics instruction which builds on the approach to have students master blending, decoding, and automatizing their reading and writing skills. In second, our students do more writing reading within skills. Uh, they look at parts of words such as vowel teams, consonant blends,
017uh, and they transfer those skills into their writing. They read um by blending and decoding words. Uh in first and second grade they go through the four steps of the writing process which includes planning, drafting, editing and publishing. Um so our second graders who are preparing for third grade next year were already writing constructed responses using the a structure that we implemented as a school this year. And that to me is very impressive work at this time. Uh for second grade, so they're well on their way to exceed expectations in the future. Um in third through fifth grade, our students are asked to write in various styles throughout their units. They're introduced to narrative, opinion, persuasive, informational uh writing, and poetry. uh the writing process involves pulling evidence from the text and annotating it within
018the writing. So the complexity of the skills uh continues to grow and develop and I hope that you have seen that um through these examples of student work. And the last portion before our students are recognized is um a new structure that we implemented this year. It's called the Lion's Den. Our students participated already once this year. Um and we created this space uh to celebrate our students growth as writers and as learners. Um it happens once a month and we we gather in uh grade level clusters. Um and uh we do celebrate their learning, their growth and character. Um, and our our vision is to continue to strengthen this culture around learning by giving our students voice and leadership um and opportunities to share what they're learning with one another um because that's how
019they build connections. Um, so these are some examples of our student leaders sharing uh their current learning with one another, helping making those connections and creating a sense of unity. Uh for us it's vital that our students see their learning in context. Um and we are working towards that and that we are working towards the same goals. Um our kindergarten leader pictured on the left share about the city she and her classmates built during their architecture unit. Um and our second grader uh shared a four square assignment she completed during during the Civil War unit. So, they get to hear all about what their friends are learning and and it's something to look forward to um when they get to those grades. Um our second and fourth grade leaders in these photos share the writing
020pieces they created during uh their astronomy and geology geology units. And finally, our fifth grade students shared a narrative piece of the Renaissance. and our DLP student shared a poem she wrote after uh the Teachtown money unit. Uh so we're we're beyond proud of the work our students and teachers have done to grow as writers and celebrate learning this year. So now um I would love to recognize some of our students who have um exhibited attributes of the portrait of a graduate this year. Um we have a a quick video um to celebrate our students. Next [Music] I care about people's because that if if I don't care about people that will make them sad and I want to make them happier so I can care about them so they can be happy about it
021cuz they made me happy and I made them happy too. But I don't want to be mean to them. So I be nice to them and if they be mean to me then I have to be nice to them because they are my friends and I have to be nice because everyone is gentle to everybody and just not everybody else. I want I work hard because because um my teacher helped me write my sentence and I I read my books and I learn about new words and they help me learn about what they are what they doing in the book and they are then I will learn new words and I will show my teachers and then they will be proud of me. I was also collaborate when I had to do this project for
022my habitat. I worked with two of my friends. So we got we got a bit mad cuz we all wanted to do different ideas. So I said, "What if we all do the same idea?" I said, "You put one your idea in one sentence, then your idea in the other sentence, and then my idea will go in the middle." So after that, we combined them all together to make one little sentence as the conclusion sentence, and then we summarized it together and did a good grade. [Music] mathematia need empathy and if they have sorrow sorrow they need some cheering up and they Teamwork 4P is a great example. Everyone does their best by working together, fixing mistakes and following the expect the expectations. Because of this, we always do a great job in music and
023reach our goals. I have been collaborative in science working with my teammates about a life cycle. I am also an OAV and I work with my teammates by educating the community about littering and we are building a food pantry and now I'm in fifth grade. I I ask for help and stuff and the homework is kind of easy when I do it and I and I accomplish my Lexi oh not Lexia Dreambox and I now I accomplish my math goals. How do you feel about getting your empathy award? What does empathy mean to you? Me is happy and it's her go and I'm happy here today to you know it's okay it's okay that day and good for you. This award is important for me and my family because I was recognized for being a
024hard worker and not giving up on myself. I showed that I am determined to do whatever it takes in class to be famous someday as a soccer player or a basketball player or a senior. Now my classmates can see that I am determined to be great. Bravo. Bravo. Bravo. We are so proud of our Kmenky Lions. Um, so I'm going to call you right now so you can come up and receive your certificates. Um, is Seline here tonight? Seline Manos, is Seline here? Seline, come on, [Applause] friend. Congratulations. Seline, stay over here, friend. Um, Ariana, is Ariana here tonight? No. Uh, Gabriel Mroy, come on [Music] up. Congratulations. Congrats, Ariana Flores. Is Ariana here tonight? Yes, she is. So proud of you, Cisco. Dario Morales, come on [Applause] up. So come on up, friend. If
025you want to learn how to create music, Alonso can teach you all about the iPad. Come on, Alonso. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Can we give them a round of applause? Amazing work for Ensky Lions. Thank you families for commenting this evening. I really appreciate your support. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Parents, if you want to come up and take a picture, you can come up so you can get a nice picture. [Laughter] [Music] I think I got everybody else. [Music] Stay right there. Congratulations to all of our Lions and thank you to the staff who are in attendance tonight. We so appreciate all of you and thank you Miss Valadez for a wonderful presentation. [Music] Hello to the teachers for all you do for the Kaminsky students to invite up um
026Beatatrice Maldonado and Teresa Adelfia to give us a math curriculum update to be strong mathematicians. In our district, we continue our implementation of the Bridges math curriculum and Desmos math resources. Both of these math resources are innovative programs designed to enhance math uh understanding and interactive and engaging approaches. In a few minutes, you're going to take a look at the experience of our students in their math classrooms. First, in Bridges that's taught in elementary, you'll see a focus on building strong foundational skills through problem solving, hands-on activities, and visual models. Teachers integrate structured lessons with manipulatives to develop number sense, fluency, and critical thinking. In Desmos math for example leverages uh this leverages technology to create dynamic visualizations, interactive graphing tools and digital activities that promote inquirybased learning and conceptual understanding. It supports students in
027exploring mathematical relationships through real time feedback and experimentation. Both programs emphasize deep comprehension, student engagement, and alignment with state and national standards, preparing our learners with problem solving skills necessary for real world application. The data that you see here and that you'll see in the next few slides uh is from our presentation that you saw in January. The this is our current reality. This is where we are and we see some areas of strength and we also see some areas for growth. Our kindergarteners and first graders are uh consistent learners whom we work with on foundational math skills. The benchmark results of our monolingual and dual language students um are fairly aligned to each other and as they progress through the years even into middle school. An area that we continue to explore is uh
028how students learn. So this is something that we are focusing on and specifically how students learn math. We are in the early stages of looking at the science of math research and brain research to guide our practice and we will continue looking at this as the year goes on and on to next year. And so Teresa, thank you and good evening everybody. So we are going to just highlight some of the work that our students and our teachers have um just done this year um in math. So we'll start with bridges. So um this year started with a session during our institute day on giving students feedback. So we want teachers to really take a look and be responsive uh with their student work. And they also got the opportunity to speak to other teachers
029across the district and talk about the routines and the structures that they have put in place um with mathematics. Um our second and our fourth grade cl most of our fourth grade classrooms got physical student books this year within their SIP plans and um supporting that uh PLC as you heard that student work and and coach teams through this process. We've also started to think about um thinking deeply about the IR the types of questions that um appear there and kind of comparing and seeing where we see those types of questions within bridges. And so our teachers are learning more about how to prepare our students with those types of questions. And then we continued um supporting all of our students through the implementation of concept quests and our bridges intervention for uh students who
030received tier 2 support. And here you'll see some images of students in action. So the first two on the left are pictures of our structured classroom at Irving working on bridges in third grade. Um and then we see a lot of our students leading number corner. So we want the students to take that ownership. um and they lead this 20-minut session. It's sort of like their calendar time, but it includes a lot more of the mathematical thinking and discussion and our students are taking that and and leading that. And then you'll see our students working with those physical manipulatives and then also we have a lot of um innovation and collaboration through the digital programs. So looking ahead, our uh we have a small committee looking into the third edition of bridges that came out
031um just to see if there that's something we would want to update um for the fall. So they will be um making their final decisions soon um to see what we're going to do. We're going to like be said keep learning about the science of learning and how the brain learns math specifically and what we can do in the district to support that and align that with our practices. We're going to continue looking at that student work and analyzing and focusing on writing. Like Laticia mentioned, a lot of our schools um are taking that route as well and really thinking about how can we strengthen writing within math. And then as a district and our schools, our classroom teachers, we're all get digging in, analyzing that data every time we have that um our implementations
032of the benchmark assessments to see what's going really well and what do we need to do um to keep growing. Excuse me. I think just All right, we'll go into middle school. Um, so middle school uses Desmos math. Um, and this year for Desmos math and last year they began with the focus of language routines. So language routines are um conversation discussion um routines and structures that students use um and teachers facilitate to speak about math, use the vocabulary and they've also been using this to structure some of their writing. Um so this year we focused on decide and defend. Um last year they focused on stronger and clearer. Um both of our sixth grade teams at both of our schools um also participated in our innovation days led by our director Sam Schuman and
033our coaches. We had a really great opportunity to invite our coach from Desmos to come and visit classrooms to see decide and defend in action. So we had the chance to go and see the students really work through the problems, discuss um make their decisions and really support their answers or sometimes you know learn from others and change their answers because um they're making really good arguments. So that was a really great experience just to see our students doing that. Here we have more images of that site visit. Students are really happy. they were really into the um thinking about which which answer they wanted to pick. So, looking ahead um again, we're continuing to align the um our practices with the science of learning. Um we're going to continue to review our assessments and
034pacing using our data um to decide on the scope and sequence because we are having an update next year. So, Desmos Math is is getting an update. So with that comes a few changes within their scope and se sequence, a few changes in some of their lessons and routines. So we are going to go back to the basics and really go back to that unit unpacking and lesson internalization and just make sure that you know we're doing that um with fidelity and doing what's best for our kids. And that's it. All right, any questions? All right. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you so much for sharing the math update. I believe one more month of uh curriculum updates will be science next month. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. So,
035we'll be talking about science next month. Thank you. Yes. Samantha Schuman is she's going to come up and introduce her. Hi. Good evening everyone. Um, I have a team behind me, some that are next to us as well and also watching from afar. So, um, Samantha Schuman, director of instructional innovation, and then I'll let my team introduce themselves. Good evening. Crystal McDall, instructional coach, Chennai McCoy, instructional coach. Chrissy Lucasawitz, instructional coach. And then, um, our other half of our team is our tech department. So Ernesto, Vanessa are here tonight. Um and then Jack and Jay also work behind the scenes to ensure our technology works in our classrooms every day. So um technology works in our classrooms every day. So um very excited to talk about the this initial conversation that we've been starting in
036the district. It's really been a collaborative process between our tech department and then our innovation side. Um, like with anything we do in our district, we have conversations about, you know, what is the theory, what is kind of emerging, and what does that look like for our teachers, and then what does that look like for our students? Um and so we've had the pleasure of presenting um at one of our last institute days to our teachers about AI and ease some of those concerns and also talk about what does this mean for us as educators and you know here are some next steps that we want to take as a district with you together as we as we unpack AI. So AI has been a buzzword in the past couple years, but AI has actually
037been around or the term artificial intelligence since 1956. It started with John McCarthy at Dartmouth College. He introduced it into a workshop. The term artificial intelligence at that point was just basically used for language and simple structures and problem solving. Then it turned into about the '9s. They they called it the white winter where AI kind of went dormant for a little while and then it was machine learning. The government was funding different ways for AI the way that we know it. Um in terms of reactive learning, the tools were responding to specific inputs. So chess on computers was like the easiest way for people to get AI in the early 80s and 90s. Nowadays, you might be familiar with using Alexa or Siri in terms of that reactive AI. Predictive AI came around a
038little bit later in uh the early 2000s, which was still over 20 years ago. And with predictive AI, um they were analyzing historical data and experiencing um to predict future events. Nowadays, kids may use this in terms of Netflix. they're get recommendations of what they're going to watch or they might see ads or algorithms that would be terms of the predictive AI and then the generative AI is basically 2010 on so the past 15 about 15 years this is where you were giving information for inputs and outputs I always share examples with even the teachers and the students of how I get in my car my phone tells me Hey, it takes this long to get to work. So, it's predicting my routine for my day-to-day and giving me recommendations on how to get there
039with traffic and different information. Um, students and staff are using in different ways. We are looking into those ways now in the generative form of AI. just helping staff understand the complexities um around AI, have opportunities for collaboration, have opportunities for collaboration to unpack some of these topics as well as talk about the benefits and the risks that are associated with AI. Um it's really important for us to while we're really excited about this emerging technology, we also want to make sure that we are taking the proper safeguards um around student data and and parts um around student data and and privacy and all of those pieces, privacy and all of those pieces. technology educational associated technology educational association trying to really dive into AI and look at all the different parts of AI and
040really understand it the best that we could as a team because we're always constantly learning about AI and trying it in different ways and then we share this with the staff and when I shared this visual with the staff in our presentation day I told them that I took this specific visual and put it into Google Gemini and I asked the Google Gemini to summarize that visual for me and I showed them the AI response and I read them parts of the AI response so they can understand the different parts of AI and how it can benefit the teachers in different ways to help them lessen their load all of that the use of AI is prohibited load and talking about efficiency um and you know part of that also so this is another framework
041that we shared with the staff is that there are all these benefits that you can talk to chat GPT and talk about different ways and get different ideas on how to differentiate for students help you come up. It's almost like your personal assistant or having a coach by your side to help you think through maybe some lesson planning that you need to do. But we also need to be made aware that there are potential risks in education. And so we we don't want to encourage students to engage in AI in a way that shows um academic dishonesty or plagiarism um or recreating something that is completely inappropriate. And so those are some things that we know that if we can predict it, we can prevent it. That's also been a motto here in our district.
042And so our our goal is to really educate ourselves and and be really thoughtful on how we want to engage our teachers and staff um with that. Um our tech department talks about the SOAPA monster all the time. Um and so this was you know something that we shared with the staff and really bringing about this transparency. SOAPA really came to it. It's been around for a while, but really we started talking with staff about it around COVID and there was still a lot of confusion about well when we got these iPads I used to be able to put whatever app kind of I wanted on there. There was more academic freedom and now that we're just learning more about um student data privacy and things like that. We wanted to make sure that they
043were aware why we have certain safeguards in place. We have always had an app request form, but there is another layer to that now with the Illinois Protection Act of, you know, student online personal protection act is what SOAPA stands for. And so it's really important that when teachers are looking to be innovative or try a new app in their classroom that they go through a process where they have to submit um their request to our team and the tech department so that we can make sure that we have a SOAPA agreement on file and do our due diligence to make sure that whatever app that we decide, you know, that we believe will enhance the learning that's taking place in the classroom, the third party is not selling our student data. that is a
044number one priority for us. And so we needed to make that really clear to staff that we're not our our tech department is not mean. They're not trying to take away from your um your academic freedom. We really um need to make sure that we're um abiding by these laws. So in the framework before um Sam spoke about the different pieces that are going into thinking about AI and one of those big pieces is the societal bias that shows up. Um something that we have to remember is that less than 2% of the people that are developing AI um for applications and things are women. Less than 2% are also people pretty deep when you're asking the questions and and getting certain responses back. Um it can it can exclude people but the biggest part
045is the negative effects can exist in uh the the basically what do you put in? So let's say one of the things I did was up there. I put in a girl on a horse. Then I put in a girl on a unicorn that looks nothing like me. So I'm looking for a model of myself. I had to go through quite a few before I even got close, but never actually got to me. So, if we're thinking about the projects that students may do in classrooms when they're typing in these things to get models that would help represent what they are talking about, they may not always get what they're looking for. Um, the biases that showed up included being very specific to placing women in roles like secretaries or flight attendants. There was never
046a male. If you type in sciences, you don't really get a male back there. you have to really deep dive in order to get that um it was very not it it didn't include English language learners. So if the language was not right then it did not did was was not politically correct then it did not bring back the answers that were expected. And then you also have to include that when you look at um different people of color they're not really represented in those answers that are coming back. So it can be a big risk when we're talking about that which is why we don't want to introduce it to students yet and we're trying to find how much that could impact students before we do so. So when we started recommending some of
047the stuff to the teachers, we wanted to make sure we're using the the proper language. We wanted to bring it back to how we plan and how we deliver our lessons and how teachers are the center that really bring it down into the students. So we wanted to make sure that we were talking about easing the burden of the teacher but making sure that we were meeting the needs of the students. And so you can a lot of like buzz out there is like there's the 6040 model or the 8020 model or whatever model you want to use. Whenever you're using AI, you always want to make sure that you are getting to the heart of what your lesson is delivered and intended to be. So we didn't want them to just go and plug
048something in and be like, "Okay, I'm teaching it." because you in order to teach have to have the intent behind what you're teaching, following the curriculum, making sure that we're getting to the students. Go to the next one. So, we um kind of talked about AI being your personal assistant, right? It can help you, but it cannot do it for you. And when you look into the tools, we wanted them to have a purpose behind what they were looking for. There are so many different tools out there and we really wanted to drive home that when you're looking look with intent, right? So, if you want to look for lesson designs, there's you could just type it into the buckets of AI that'll give you that response that you want. Um, if you want to
049differentiate, here's a a handful of different tools that you could look into. creation. Um, and the buckets can go on and on and on, but we wanted to show them that there are so many and they needed to be confident in the one they were they were choosing. Um, and they wanted we wanted to make sure that they um knew their limits. So, some of the generative AI does not um have proper information on the current information on the current studies. So like anything from 2021 on um you want to make sure you are checking the validity of everything that is out there. Um and then we just kind of gave them a little bit of sandbox time. So the the five we kind of gave them links to included one from all of those
050different um areas. So chat GBT was very much the one that um is one of the big bucket and it's like conversational. You type something in, it delivers it back to you. you can have a conversation with that type of AI. Um, magic school AI was more of a cate I don't know how to I said it was more like categorical. It gives you if you want a behavior intervention suggestion, if you want um a choice board, so you can choose your category and then type your prompts in. Um, diffit was more for differentiation. you put in um your article or your lesson and your objectives and it'll give you suggestions for things that you might want to do, allowing you to um differentiate within that app. Um the next one was Question Well, and
051Question Well would give you um you could put a YouTube video that you were using in your curriculum in there and then it would give you questions or multiple choice tests or assessments. But in doing that, it would if a student didn't understand, it would um give you the exact moment in the video that that question came from. So you can go back, revisit it, reshow it. So it saved it made it efficient. It took away that little bit of time that you'd have to go search for it with giving it. So we wanted to work on efficiency and that personal assistant in your back pocket. And then Canva, a lot of our teachers are familiar with Canva. Canva takes a lot of those tools that were mentioned in the previous slides and kind of
052works them into their system. So, we wanted to give them something they were really comfortable with and we allowed them to kind of open up Canva and just kind of dive around in there. So, um they appreciated the time to dive into it and they had questions and they were very happy with the time that we gave them to Sandbox because with just talking about it, they don't really get to experience it. So, and then we were there to support them whenever they had questions. So, we're really at the beginning of our journey with this. We're really excited to partner with our director of technology and our technology department and getting teachers on board to start just diving into this journey a little bit more. We do know that there are features that are, you
053know, released in some of our new updates on the iPad. it's not turned on for for students. Um Google Gemini is available for staff, but it's not turned on fully. Um so there's a lot of things that we want to dive in with a particular um AI task force um and to look at specific resources for for teachers and then what does this mean for students and how can we slowly um think outside the box but also do it in a safe and supportive way. Any questions? I I I have questions. Okay. Of course. No, I really appreciate like the thoroughess of this presentation and it, you know, checked all many of the boxes for me and I think that like when I think about AI in our district and beyond our district, um like
054for me it's like what is what will students need to know and be able to do by the time they graduate high school, let's say, right? Um, and this is like rolling down the hill, right, pretty fast. And so I I see like the farthest away pin, right, is the the student component, right? And so we think about that. Um, and I I just I guess I'm wondering a little bit about like what offerings might look like. Obviously, we don't have that answer yet. I love that there's a task force. Um, and we've done so much work in D100 around like digital citizenship and everything. This sort of falls right into that, right? So they know what they're getting into. The teachers already kind of know what they're getting into. Um and I just I
055don't know. I it's like a it's just like kind of a um the crystal ball. It's you know kind of foggy on this like where will we start to introduce students to things like prompt engineering and what AI at its core really is and does so they can be prepared to leverage it going forward. Right. So, I know you don't have all those answers, but I really appreciate the thoroughess of what you're doing. Um, and I just wanted to kind of, you know, see if you were thinking about any of that, right? We have, I think, I think we're all asking similar questions. Um, you know, I think our biggest thing is we're always trying to prepare our students for the future when we're thinking about, you know, we don't even know what careers are
056going to be like in the next, like we're preparing them for careers that aren't even developed yet. So what are the skills when we think about the portrait of a graduate and our vision for the district like when we stay true to those statements that helps really guide the work that we do. We want our students to be innovative. We want them to be collaborative, empathetic. We don't want to lose any of those pieces. So whenever we start developing that plan, that's going to be the foundation for how we're going to move them forward and make sure that they're being responsible with with the tools at hand. I look forward to hearing more. Thank you. Um, I I'm guess I'm I'm talking to the thing here. I guess I'm kind of wondering about um sort
057of what rails you're putting on it for staff to also then help put rails for the students. We know that the kids are going to embrace this technology far faster than the teachers and they're going to they're right if they if they're not already outpacing them, I'm sure. Um, so I guess forward to our partnership with our our new techctor and what forward to our partnership with our our new tector and what does that say and how do we make sure that when teachers are engaging in AI with the students um how do we make sure that we're um sticking true to our values and and everything in the district. So it's it's not really a clear answer for you yet. I think the task force and getting teachers in the room to talk about
058these pieces um are going to be a huge part of our work together. I have one more thing. I feel like it's an opportunity to maybe collaborate with Morton 2011 and see like where they're headed with it so that we can help funnel some of that upwards towards them. Right. I'm sure it'll be much more heavier than older students, right? like you're not going to have kids in kindergarten doing prompt engineering, but like it's it's an opportunity I think that we could collaborate with them and see where they're headed. Yeah, we you know, we've been to Idea Con in the last few years. That's really been a topic of all of the tech conferences is AI and a lot of the schools that are presenting are high schools and they're talking about giving students opportunities
059to help them refine some of their writing and their ideas, using it as a brainstorming tool. Um, and and I think sometimes we need that, but that's where that the graphic that Crystal shared in terms of that human interaction piece, we still want our students to be critical thinkers. So, we're going to really need to work with them on what are the types of questions that we're asking, how do we refine that search? How do we narrow that down to really get at what we're hoping for? So, that's and your independent thoughts. And your independent thoughts. Exactly. So, that's going to be key, right? And it seems very far away, but that's next school year. So, we're hoping in August, like we made that, you know, like we're hoping in August we have at least
060a better idea or even just the simple things like Siri on the iPad and teaching the kids how to interact that way and possibly Google Gemini, different things like that. Um, there will be some access and the reality is um like we're saying, teaching them how to interact. They already know they're there. We know that they're there, but now how do they do that safely? and in the realms of a classroom setting and you know what applies and what doesn't. That's that digital citizenship piece. Great. I just want to add to I just want to add to the conversation and just say thank you. Um thank you for spearheading this. Um, I know just I've been trying to find like some guidance from state and federal and I can see you guys did the same
061and that's pretty much the infographic that you know is is what's available. So um I know it takes a lot of work and a lot of uh you know thought and collaboration um and interaction like you said to go ahead and get this moving and have the teachers be comfortable in order to be able to use it with the sta uh with with the student population as well. So thank you Thank you. All right, everyone. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you so much for your presentation. We're really proud of our team and the work that they're doing. Um, you know, I I think we'll start to hear even more at the state level. I do believe there's a bill out there right now being proposed about a statewide task force. So, the fact that we're already
062thinking about a task force right here, um, is is a great start. So, um, congratulations and thanks for your presentation tonight. All right, moving along. We did have one FOYA this month, um, focused on the Illinois Ret from the Illinois Retired Teachers Association. That's an annual FOYA where they're trying to get information on um, teachers who will be retiring. The dashboard is available for you. As you know, registration has started. Um, it's a slow start, but we're we're getting lots of information out there and trying to um encourage families to register by the end of May so that we can start making really informed decisions for next school year. And last on my report is the financial report, which I will turn over to Jenny. Thanks, Mary. Our bank balance to date is 40.8 8
063million with investments of 31 million for a total of 71.8 million. Our revenue for the month of March to date is 12.9 million. That includes 9 million in taxes and 3 million in state aid. Um we'll go to our cash flow report which for the revenue for the month of February was 5.9 million. Total year to date is 41 million for a total percent of 62.6. You can see down at the bottom we should be around the 67% mark. However, March is when we receive the next installment. February and March are when we receive the the next installment of taxes. So, we got part of it in in um February, but we'll really receive the March, which is the numbers I just read off. The expenses for February for the month to date is 5.2
064million. Year-to- date is 43.3 million. And you can see we are spot on with expenditures to uh the 67%. I want to call your attention before we move off this. Okay, this is the time of year where we start talking about the budget process. We start softly forming together the amended budget. In April, you'll approve the tenative amended budget. Then it goes on display for over 30 days. Then in June, we have the um final uh amended FY25 budget. These numbers are in board book but not in this format. So this is what you have. So there's now if you look at that center column, it looks like we're under budget or we're under we're at a deficit, but remember we that doesn't reflect the March taxes coming in yet. Um I'm not going to
065go back to the grant snapshot, but the next one is our um we talked about our budget timeline. So in April, you'll have the tenative budget. In June, it will be approved and then submitted to the state. I want to call your attention to two things on the board agenda. on the back side on the consent agenda. Items D and items E are approved the gross maximum price bid release for number two that's at 23.8 million. I just want to call to your attention and I know you probably talk about it in buildings and grounds too but the 23.8 million includes the 4.7 million that was already approved last month. Um, and then item E is to approve the gross maximum price bid for the Emerson UNI events of 1.8 million. And that's the end
066of my report. Thank you. Um while we're drawing attention to um approval items, there is also an approval for e-ate um which is an annual um budget or item that we bring to the board for approval. It does need to be approved prior to the the - rating -ate funding commitment. Um and this would be for next year's budget. We just need approval at this time. And that concludes the superintendent's report. Thank you. Thank you, Jenny. Thank you, Mary. Uh president's report finance. Uh we talked about uh the amended budget and we talked about uh some of our bond structures. Thank you. Uh buildings and grounds. Uh in buildings and grounds, we had a lot we had a lot um lots of projects happening in summer 2025. Emerson is getting a new roof and univvent
067system. Uh door replacement is happening at a one like three different schools. Uh they are going to leverage the fact that Heritage is not being used for summer school this summer to um replace uh a lot of the carpets and put in carpet squares. Um just I guess Heritage is in the need of a little bit of uh buffing, straightening. Yeah. Um the outdoor classroom at Freedom Middle School, there are three different proposals for styles that include foliage and seating and shade and things like this. Um and so they have reached out to students to indicate their preference on those items. And so there are three different kind of um you know mixtures of what could possibly go there. And I think that's that's ongoing until, you know, they've decided and then whatever is available
068or whatever we can make work, we'll make work. Um, we will be talking about breaking ground for the education center. Um, and the bids we had came in lower than we had anticipated, which is good. So, we'll be saving some money on the construction of the education center. Um, yeah, and actually that groundbreaking will be happening very soon after spring break this year. So that was it. Anything else? No. Yeah. Thank you. Legislative report. Yeah. The Illinois Legislative Assembly met earlier this month. I'd like to highlight three bills passed out of either the Senate or the House Committee. Uh we have Senate Bill 2057 um that requires ISBY or the Illinois State Board of Education to guide schools on threat assessments. We have SJR2 which calls for the analysis and financial modeling of recommended maximum
069case loads for special ed resource teachers. And lastly, House uh bill 1368 aligns professional development with the state's evidence-based literacy strategies. Thank you. Correspondents, I do not know if we have any. No, none. Thank you. Okay, so we are done with the president's report. Um, we have public comments. Individuals appearing before the board are expected to follow the guidance outlined in board policy 2230. Okay. No one coming to the mic. Um, 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 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. No. Okay. So, can we have a motion
070to approve the consent agenda? I'll motion. Second. I'll second. Who Who was second? Okay. Thank you. And uh roll call. Roll call. Iron A. Himenez. Uh yay. Uh Jay Gonzalez. Yay. Drenth. Hi. Butler. Hi. Pales. Hi. W. Gonzalez. I. Steinfeld. Absent with notice. Not absent. Uh she had to leave earlier. Yes. So everybody know she has to leave. Thank you. Okay. Uh public comments. Individuals appearing before the board are expected to follow the guidance outlined in board policy to to 30. Oh, okay. Please state your name. Thank you. Hello. Uh, hi Adriana Cavayto. Um, I am a member of the community. I wanted to just say a couple of things. I saw some really great things tonight during the presentations. I have many thoughts. Um, but I think the the one that jumped out at
071me the most was on AI. And I think you had a great question about like what are the guard rails or the guidelines for the teachers and staff? And I'm not an expert. I think Mrs. Schuman and her team have done a great job of doing that preliminary that pre-work. Um, but for example, right now the state of Illinois does not have any kind of guidance on um, use of AI in schools. And so that's really going to come down to the board, I think. Um, so I have many great ideas. I'm looking forward to sharing those ideas um, for a board policy about AI. Um, currently when you search AI in the um, board policy book, the only thing that comes up is that student behavior piece, which is that students are not allowed
072to use it without authorization or that it's prohibited. Um, so I think it's going to be very important for the board to kind of um start thinking about a policy that will help our teachers teach and will help keep our students safe and will help make sure that we um guard all that private data and private information. So, I wanted to say that um I'm very excited about what's going to happen next year as well with the new um math curriculum. I think the writing curriculum looks great. So overall, thank you. Good job. Thank you. Hi, good evening. My name is Josh Curran. I'm with FH Passion, the uh construction management uh firm for the projects for Emerson and the education center. So, I just wanted to come here tonight and briefly just thank the
073board and thank the administration um for for getting these projects going. I think this is a big big milestone. Everyone should be proud of of where we're at and it's very exciting um to get these get these projects started. Um it's been great working with the team with Mary and Jenny and George and Pino and you have a great architecture firm on board. So, um we're we're we're very excited to get started. I think you've seen already that video was was fitting. I think we've used a lot of the same uh the skills in our team as far as determination, collaboration, empathy. I think it's taken a lot to uh to get us here. So, so we're really excited to to break ground next month and and get started. So, thank you. Thank you so
074much. Okay, board comments. Um I would like to thank Kaminsky for their wonderful presentation. Um, as an educator, I understand the work that goes on behind the scenes um to show that data and to come up with those great outcomes and work on those uh school improvement plans. Um, the work that you're doing is very intentional and I appreciate that. I would agree with that and thank you for the presentation and bringing the students. It's always uh a good place when we see students. Thank you. I would echo that as well. I think uh I like seeing the components around parent and community outreach and the what did I write down? Um just like the passion that we have for doing this work behind the scenes. Um supporting those students in that way and the
075uh yeah the the PLC structure that you have in place as well. I think teachers work best when they can collaborate with each other and support each other. And so I I appreciated seeing that part. I um echo my colleagues sentiments. Um I also want to um acknowledge and thank um Kmenky for acknowledging the effort of all of its students and not just our typically developing students. Um it was really great to see all the adaptations that uh you implemented in the video to help all students have a voice. So thank you for that. Yes. Yeah, I miss the DLP classroom. That was always my moment of zen on my breaks. I would go down there and just hang out with the with the class. Um, I love that class. Um, I also wanted to
076thank Sam and the team for really driving this AI initiative. This, you know, to your you you kind of pointed out that this is old technology. It's been around for a long time, but it's really really new in the public space. And um I being a person who works in technology, we know this is the new this is this is going to make the internet look like a blip. Um this is a huge huge huge paradigm shift that's going to impact our entire world. Uh and uh the fact that you're already doing the work, you know, I think Berwin has always been way ahead of the curve in implementing and utilizing technology. um and uh the fact that you're already looking at this and and thinking about the implications and uh I I I would
077not expect you to have all the answers cuz again I work in a company that that's that's this is what we do and we're looking at it going what do we do? So uh thank you for that work. I would just like to I know that um R.J. had to had to leave um but R.J. JBL was approved on that personnel report as our new director of technology beginning July 1st, 2025. So, we are excited to welcome him and I think he's he's going to have to dive in right away because he was mentioned a few times tonight as how he's going to be involved in our district. So, um we'll get a a chance to formally welcome him, but I just wanted to announce that as well. Thank you and thank you everyone for
078all the work that you do in the buildings Kaminsky and all the other schools. I appreciate it and always being here as well. Um adjournment. Any motions to adjourn? I'll motion. I'll second 7:26. Roll call. I Jimenez. Yay. Idren, Steinfeld.