001You guys ready? >> All right. Welcome everybody. We move back into open session. Can everyone please stand for the pledge? 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. >> Does anybody have anything to add to the agenda? >> No. >> Can I please have a motion to approve the agenda? Motion. >> Second. >> Joe and Tiffany. Uh, all in favor? >> I. >> Any oppose? Eyes have it. >> Academic spotlight, Big How Elementary, third grade. >> All right, I'll have Dr. Bianca come on up and uh introduce our third grade team. Okay, good evening. Um, our third grade team has brought creativity and literacy to life through their Balloons Over Big Hollow
002project. Inspired by the beloved book, Balloons Over Broadway, uh, this engaging ELA writing experience allows for students to craft their own stories, design balloon characters, and it culminated in a joyful school parade that celebrates imagination, writing, and community pride. So, it's my pleasure to introduce our third grade team. Here she is. Good. Oh, hi. >> Hello. Just a few of us are here to represent all of every Broadway and it's a book written by Melissa and the students learn all about Tony of the original parade and he went through a whole stage of different experiments to try to find a balloon that would work for the parade. What we have the students do is they read about Tony. They learn some new vocabulary. They write a letter to make and say why should they go
003ahead and create everything around the elementary school. These are some of the activities we do. Hey. Hey. Hey. [music] >> [music] [music] >> Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >> Hey, heat. Hey. >> [music] [music] >> If you have any questions for them, >> how did you guys come up with your designs? >> Oh, very cool. Very nice. They were based on story characters. That's one of the parameters we gave them. Vivian >> Can you each tell us what book you did? Can you tell us what book you did? >> You can stand up. >> Okay, >> here. Oh yeah. >> Thank you. >> All right. Those are awesome, guys. Thank you for bringing them. [applause] >> [applause] >> Thank you. >> All right. Accomplishment recognition, Mr. Gold. >> Okay, we have
004our student of the month recognition. Um, is >> okay. >> Can you Okay, great. >> Disappointed it doesn't light up. >> All right, [laughter] so Thank you. Thank you. >> Okay, so our students of the month for primary the primary building is for pre kindergarten Rowan Friends. If Rowan can come on up to the front, she's here. Okay. [applause] Okay. And for kindergarten is Paisley Parrot. [applause] Okay. And then for first grade is Gage Gentiel. [applause] >> Okay. And for the elementary school for second grade is Payton Weezer. Payton, come on up. Okay. And for third grade is Lily Barker. So, Lily, come on up. T-shirt. Okay. And fourth grade is Anna Miller. So, Anna, come on up. [applause] All right. For fifth grade, we have Maisie Bowman. Sixth grade, we have Sam Barker. Not
005to be outdone by his sister. >> Seventh grade, we have Ella Sigler. [applause] In eighth grade, we have Aziz Ashaba. We'll let you get some pictures real quick. These students are selected by their grade level teachers and they're representing the best of Big Hollow in their grade level. So, you should be very proud of them. [applause] Awesome. Okay. Congrats. Thank you. All right, everyone. You're more than welcome to stay for the rest of the agenda, but feel free to leave if you choose to. Uh you will miss some exciting things. [laughter] >> How exciting. >> Uh board member code of conduct review. >> Vivian, >> I will avoid any conflict of interest or the appearance of impropriy which could result from my position and will not use my board membership for personal gain or publicity.
006>> All right. Thank you. Anybody have any questions on the consent agenda? >> Okay. Please have a motion to approve the consent agenda. Motion >> second. >> Joe and Vivian. >> Yes. >> Superintendent report. Mr. Gold. >> All right. I just have two items that I want to talk about. Uh the first one is student data from uh for Big Hollow students who attend Grant High School. Now, the the exhibit that's in the packet is not good. Just letting you know. So sorry. >> That's fine. >> I didn't realize it till today. And uh I emailed you all. I shared a document that has the full spreadsheet. I just didn't realize it until I when I saved the spreadsheet as a PDF. It messed it all up. So you have in your email the ex
007same exhibit, but it's easier to follow. But what I'll share with you is that this data just tells how the it takes all the students at Grant High School right now and um pulls out the big hollow students. So you can come see how they're doing. Um what you'll see is uh if I if I uh so absence um the uh absentee data actually this is one area where the big hall students are um below the average of the high school. high school has 21% uh chronic absentee rate. The big hollow students it looks like are at 22.7. So it's a little higher. Uh GPA for Grant High School average GPA is 2.8 for Big Hollow students is 2.97. Um you'll see that across the board um uh the students are performing the big hollow
008like for MAP the uh over the NWA scores. I'm just pulling this randomly. NWBA scores uh the uh the RIT scores for Big Hollow students are consistently above the uh average for the school in both English and math. Um and then the activity participation um what you should look at that's at the bottom of the exhibit, but 37.7% of the students a grant came from Big Hollow right now. So any when you look at the participation on the sports anything above 37.7 means we are over represented based on right. So you'll see that uh the academic team at 78% Big Hollow. You know, you go all the way down the line. Uh there's very few that are where we're where we're kind of under represented. I guess one would be boys lacrosse. Um another would
009be environmental club. I think those are the only two where I would say we are under reppresented. Um the uh but you know and then looks like winter flags as well is lower. So, uh, but overall, our kids are doing really well at grants academically and in the, uh, performance area. So, uh, the extracurriculars. So, when you when you get check your email, you'll see the full spreadsheet. You'll be able to look at it a little better than what the one I gave you there. It's a little harder to read. So, does anybody have any questions on that? I just kind of threw that data at you, but >> we asked that from Grant and they're able to give that to us each year. So, the next one I'm going to talk to you about
010is it's called the county school facilities tax, CF, CSFT. And I'm just putting this on your radar. Um, I have something here. I was going to go through it. The uh this is something that is across the state of Illinois. Over 50% of the counties in Illinois currently have this tax. It's a tax that uh the reason I'm bringing it to your attention because it starts here at the board level in every school district as a discussion item. There'll be a time and it could be January, it might be February, but I may bring this to you for an official vote to say that you would support putting it on the ballot and and it would be but it won't go on the ballot unless more than 50% of the students represented by boards have
011approved it to go on the ballot. So for instance, um the biggest districts in Lake County, Walkegan, Round Lake, Lake Zurich, Bington, if if those four districts, I haven't put the numbers together, but if those four districts all said, "We want this on the ballot," it wouldn't take many other districts to agree, and it would get on the ballot because it goes by total students represented, not 50% of the boards. It's 50% of students represented. So, um, they have to agree to get on the ballot. Once it gets on the ballot, then it's to up to the voters. And it's it's a 1% sales tax. And I'm just going to u it can actually it can be 0.25% up to 1% based on when it goes on the ballot. The regional office of education, I
012think, is going to take the lead in and possibly uh getting this out there. And if it very well could go on the ballot without our support, just so you know that. But um what it is, it's a it's a it's a tax. I'll I'll try to summarize it and I if if we do end up asking for official vote, you'll have a much better presentation on this, but I'm just putting in your head. Um it's a retail tax um that goes on on goods, not services in the county. Uh it's implemented on a county basis. Right now over 50% of the counties in Illinois have already put this in. I have a little bit of experience this. My last district, we tried to get it passed. it did not go through and then after
013I left it did go through. So, um but it the first time it was it's just a hard thing to educate people on because it's a tax. I don't like taxes. It's a hard thing and this is one tax though that I I felt like I mean I supported it. Um it's a like I said it's a and I'll explain why here in a minute. But um so right now over half the counties have approved it. The proceeds are distributed to each school by student. So there's uh proceeds they get from the tax across the county. And so it's not by school district, it's across the county. So any any uh service or any tax money that would come in from the uh uh east side of the county still goes to Big Hollow students.
014Uh so they figure they get a total number, they divide it out by student in the county, and they distribute it to each school district based on number of students. It's how they do it. So, it's a tax on uh restaurants, on gas, on department store purchases like clothing, home furnishings, sporting goods, convenience stores, uh purchases, online purchases. Uh it's not a tax on services or cars, trucks, boats, RVs, mobile homes. It's not it's not a tax on groceries or medicine. um who who pays the tax is it's anybody who uses services or but does these things in Lake County. So if you're driving through Lake County and you stop and get gas along the interstate that goes to uh this tax. So you've seen downstate schools that especially have benefited in like I would
015say just from my familiarity around uh like Mlan County um where ISU is they get a lot of traffic through there. Everybody who stops and gets gas, everybody who stops and or I guess restaurants don't count, but anybody who does those those uh services there that goes to the facilities tax and gets split amongst all the schools. So when you see schools uh down there um doing construction projects, it's usually because they've got uh this this money coming in. Um it can so I told you the revenue gets divided out by students. So, it can only be used for school facility purposes and uh to pay off debt uh that that was put on for facility purposes. So, it could you could be used to pay off the debt that we just took for uh
016the projects we did. It can be used to pay for school resource officers because it is safety has now been included. Uh then also for mental health professionals. So, it can be used for those things. Um facility purposes, there's a whole definition of what all those are, but uh there's uh uh >> is there an estimated amount for big >> that we don't have yet and I hate to put a number out there, but I will tell you that um the one estimate and it's a very rough estimate would be I between six and 800,000 a year would be is what I've it's a really rough estimate because we're we're having trouble getting this number. But I know that districts our size downstate, that's the number they're getting. And uh I think there's a lot
017more industry happening in this county than most counties. So I would it wouldn't surprise me if we would get more than that. But >> yeah. Yeah. So um >> is that percentage regulated statewide or per county? >> Per county. >> The county when they decide to put in the ballot, they can put it on the ballot in quarter percent in increments up to a percent. So, they can do a half percent, [snorts] they can do a 1%. Um, so here's here's the when I tried to get this passed in another county, um, our selling point was we would, uh, offset we we made a commitment, I don't I don't think all the Lake County districts will do this, but I'm not saying that we should make this decision, but um, our we were committed to
018offset the tax levy with a portion of so instead of levying a million dollars in O andM, if we're getting 800 $100,000 in facility sales tax. Maybe we could offset that levy a little bit is what some districts decided to do to try to give a give a commitment to taxpayers that they would try to lower their levy on their but I I don't like I said I'm not sure if we'll be in the position to do that. But uh that's what some people do. They can do that with that. So it's just a different tax and uh but I do see it getting some legs in Lake County right now. So, I brought it up the last couple years, but usually don't got kind of deaf ears, but uh just a few people and
019I just didn't think it would go in Lake County, but now it's actually coming from other places. So, I jumped in and and uh had, you know, shared some of my experience with it and at our last meeting and I think we have a meeting Friday and I think that uh we have a presentation coming from our regional superintendent. I think somebody has to just take the lead on it and I think he's going to do that. So, I'm hoping so. Just giving you a heads up. there's no action to be taking taken, but just know that like if you're really opposed to it, talk to me because I I wouldn't want to bring it to the board as a note. If I don't feel like the board's supporting it if we just just getting
020it on the ballot. That's all we would ever do. We're not ever that's all we would do, but I wouldn't want to bring it if the board doesn't feel strongly for it. So, just giving you a heads up on it. And that's all I got. Kevin, >> it doesn't sound like our impact vote matters much to begin with. >> Correct. >> Yeah. Yeah, we're going to be >> districts that vote for it and it's on the ballot, >> right? >> We're going to be a small fish in this pond. >> Um, anybody question on the tax levy? >> Please have a motion to approve the tax levy. >> Motion. >> Second. >> Joe [snorts] and Vivian. >> Yes. >> Peter, >> Yes. Anybody have any questions on the employment recommendations? Can I please have a
021motion to approve the employment recommendations? >> Motion. >> Second. >> Tiffany. >> Yes. >> Do we have any public comments? Anybody have any questions on the foyer requests? Nope. >> Monthly reports for the board. >> Uh the next regularly scheduled board meeting will take place on Monday, January 12th, 2026 with close session beginning at 6 pm. Um on behalf of board, I'd like to wish everybody here a happy and safe holiday season. Can I please have a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion. Second. >> Joe and Tiffany. All in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Eyes have it. >> Thank you. Thank you.