001in session. Can everyone please stand for the pledge of allegiance? Flags behind us. Do it. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Anybody have anything to add to the agenda? Can I please have a motion to approve the agenda? Motion. Second. Go. Your own Vivian? All in favor? I. Any oppose? Eyes have academic spotlights. All right. We're going to welcome up our first grade team that's going to share a little spotlight regarding a big hollow math curriculum resource. Right, I'll let you guys take it away and thank you for giving us your time. Good evening. Um the first grade team is here tonight to give you an inside look at the new
002imagine I am math curriculum that we've been implementing this school year. Um we'd like you to see the problem solving approach in action. So we've included pictures and videos that highlight our latest unit on measurement and geometry. Um imagine IM uses a problem solving approach that fosters the development of a math community within our classrooms and helps make mathematic principles available to all levels of learners. It deepens the students understanding of math and how they think about math. Each lesson begins with a warm-up in which the students are asked to solve a series of problems and then explain their thinking to a partner and the class. These may be open-ended questions with more than one answer or more concrete questions that students are asked to solve mentally. This portion of the lesson helps students work
003on skills for mathematical discourse as well as critical thinking. The lesson then moves into a hands-on activity where students work with a partner or in teams to explore a mathematical topic such as properties of 2D and 3D shapes. The students are given directions but are then asked to solve and explore with their peers. They lead the discussions amongst themselves. They reason together and then share their discoveries with the class. The teacher is able to walk around to facilitate discussions and ask questions. We then come back together as a whole group to close out the lesson with a synthesis in which we confirm our findings or correct any misconceptions. The curriculum also includes many hands-on centers for students to choose from to give them additional practice with the skills we've been working on together. This slide
004just shows a few creative ways that the teachers are able to quickly pair up our group students for their collaborative work since it's something we do every day. Sometimes we pair up the students randomly. Um, we can use different, you know, bit various digital programs like you see there on the left. Some teachers use, um, physical cards that they pass out to pair up the kids. Um, sometimes we may want to be more intentional about the students we're pairing up um, or grouping for a specific lesson or unit. So, we assign these partners ahead of time. In this case, another strategy is to give the students maybe an assigned spot at the learning rug or using a chart where we can easily move the students names around so that we can regroup them easily. Okay.
005Um so we're going to be showcasing our two last math units um of our year. And our first one is measurement. Um so in first grade we really are building a foundation with measurement. So the students are not measuring with actual rulers. Um they're using a lot of non-standard measurement tools like string, paper clips, connecting cubes or small cubes. and then a lot of working collaboratively with peers. So here you have a couple examples of the kids um you know measuring different things using those different tools. So the connecting cubes um the paper clips and then the small centimeter cubes. Um, and this video is showing how this um connects to real world. Did I start that? Oh, okay. [Music] Girls, what animal are you measuring? [Music] Okay. So, obviously you can hear like a
006lot of engagement. They're they are really interested in what they're doing on that lesson in particular. They're measuring animal lengths. So, each of those pieces of tape are the length of a real animal like a giant ark bark or a raccoon or different things like that. So, they're just really interested and engaged at all of the things that they're doing. Okay. Um, yeah. So, these are just a couple more pictures showing them measuring. Um, and then as we progress through our measurement unit, they move towards um a more abstract thinking with measurement where they're using what they know and understand about measuring, where they're solving story problems. Hi, I'm Lisa Carol. Um, I am going to talk about geometry. Um, so our most recent unit that we did was our geometry unit where we work
007with 2D and 3D shapes. Um, the students are going to explore the attributes of the two-dimensional and threedimensional shapes. They can create composite shapes like shapes out of other shapes. They build and draw shapes. And then the whole time um They're working together. They're building vocabulary. Um, and they're talking to one another. Here's some pictures of some kids um, sorting different shapes. Um, a lot of that good discussion is happening as they're working together. And then, wait, hold on. Let me set it up first. This is Trevor, uh, one of my students. No. Oh, it's not. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Never mind. This is some kids um from Alexis's class um talking um about some sorting. So, go ahead. A diamond. I'm a diamond. What about a sphere? I'm a sphere. I mean a cylinder.
008You can do square. Okay. Thank you. Wait, no square. That's a square shape. And these are the what makes them. So you can hear even um some of the things they're learning is just how to correct each other politely, talk to each other nicely, and uh work together as a team. Um, there we go. Okay, this is my Trevor. Um, he is, uh, he has a shape, a threedimensional shape in a bag, and he's gonna, uh, describe it for us. Um, the one on the left. Thank you. [Music] A few tooth. What do you feel? I said, "I feel two flat faces and no points and no sides." Okay. What shape are the faces? Circles. Cylinder. She's so cute. Um, and then the next one um is Haley's students doing the same activity um working
009in in partners. Your job. So that's why the shape shape inside this and I have to guess and you have to close your eyes and guess. Close my eyes. Okay. So you've got to guess which shape is in the bag. All right. So Relle's going to close his eyes and David's going to hide a shape. Just one shape in the bag. Right. [Music] Come on back. Okay, now [Music] let's just dip. Okay, that's obviously the green triangle. What do you feel? How do you know it's the triangle? Well, it feels like a 2D shape. And it feels like a green and a toy. You're right. Now, see, he could even feel that it was green. There we go. Thank you. Um, so here we have some students using um some shapes to create other shapes.
010Um, and then the one on the right, we've got Trevor again, um, and Reagan, and they are trying to build the same thing, um, by giving each other directions such as like put the cylinder on top of the cube, um, without seeing what the other person is doing and then lifting up their thing to see if they were able to uh, describe the shapes properly so that they could create the same structure. There we go. We've got some more creative learning there. Um, since so many of the these activities are like gamelike, the kids are really um having a lot of fun with it and taking ownership over their learning. Um, and since we know the board loves data, uh, the last few slides just show some comparisons of the winter, um, map scores with
011the spring. So, this is Mrs. This is Wheaten's class. You'll see the top um score in the blue there um greatly increased in the spring from winter. Um and then same with uh the scores in the red. So the students that scored pretty below level um that number is shrinking. And then Mrs. Carol's class, nice job. Mrs. Carol, same thing. Like look at that growth there in geometry. So basically before we taught the unit and then after we taught the unit and then you have my class and um you know and I think like you know do these scores attribute the to the new curriculum? Sure. But I think it's also these fabulous teachers that you hired. So we just kind of wanted to end uh the year you know celebrating some of these positive
012student growth numbers. [Applause] those green numbers that say 77th percentile 69th percentile that mean that there's kids are testing their growth is in that percentile compared to all kids taking the map in first grade country. So, and that we have seen uh K4 this year. We just got our MAP results in and K4 we're seeing those numbers in MAP right now. So, which is really strong for math with the new math. Yes. I was actually anticipating a dip this year because it's a new curriculum. But, uh we saw complete opposite in K4 for sure. What was the old one? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Anybody have any questions? Thank you. Thank you. First grade team accomplishment recognition. All right. I'm going to call up primary start. Miss Mullen. I would like to welcome and introduce our
013primary student of the month, Gianna. Miss Durban's class, can you come on up? And Miss Sturbins, can you accompany her? [Applause] All right. So, Gianna, I love speaking at the board meetings, by the way. It's my favorite. So, wanted to couldn't get to me. Um, all right. So, Gianna is a model student. Um, her enthusiasm for learning is super contagious. She's got this like calm, happy energy about her. So, um, it kind of rubs off on all of us. Um, she's such a kind soul. She'll help anybody in need, no matter how big, how small. Um, she loves participating and learning new things. Um, her mom and I laugh because she's she's always asking questions, so she always wants to know why or how or who, you know. Um, but we love you, Gigi, and
014we're so proud of you, and I know you're going to do great things here at Big Hollow and [Applause] beyond. Congratulations. [Applause] All right. Good evening. Very excited to introduce SA Vargis, our uh student of the month at elementary uh from fourth grade. So SA, come on up. And then I'd also like to invite Mrs. Lancaster, her [Applause] teacher. Um let's see. SA is an amazing student. She is kind. Um, if someone's struggling with something, she's the first one to ask, "How can I help you?" Um, she's eager to learn. She's very curious. She does her best work no matter what it is that she's asked to do. Um, she has some great questions, too. Some of them feedback is so weird. Um, some of them result in some pretty great class conversations because other
015people are thinking it, but Sale is the one brave enough to ask it. So, she does a fantastic job and I am very honored that she won this [Applause] month. All right, Mr. Core. All right, our student of the month is Rebecca Frenendall. And I would also like to ask uh Corey Dickin, her teacher that nominated her to come up as well. [Applause] Uh so Becca has been an absolutely phenomenal student all year long. Uh her persistence and dedication to furthering her education shines through in all aspects of her school day. Uh she has an enthusiasm for learning that's evident in every class. She approaches each lesson with curiosity, diligence, and a positive attitude. Um whether she's engaging in classroom discussions, collaborating with peers, or tackling challenging assignments, she always shows a level of commitment
016that sets a strong example for others. Um she often takes on leadership roles within the class. Um she does have an uncanny ability to kind of keep others on track with their work when necessary. Um, she's also great at advocating for herself. Um, she's always been very respectful and she is a role model both in and outside the [Applause] classroom. All [Applause] right. Now, I'm going to call Derek Swederski up here for our employee of the month. Come on up, Derek. I get the privilege of uh working pretty closely with Derek and uh I don't think people realize the amount of time he puts in outside of the normal school day. There are weekends uh there are nights um we get calls for alarms we get uh and Derrick's the first one up here so
017we really appreciate that. I'm going to read I think uh Renee Holm. Are you are you here? Is Renee Rene can you come on up? So Renee nominated Derek. Um, do you mind saying a couple of things? Okay, I'll let you do that. Okay. What I wrote or what Seth wrote. Okay. You can read what Steph. Okay. Thanks, Bob. Um, sorry. Um, Steph is not here tonight. Um, she's not feeling too good. Um, but I'll read what she wrote. Um, she said that I'm nom nominating Derek because he is one of the hardest working staff members in our district. I concur. He always puts in extra time and effort when called upon. He goes above and beyond and does so without hesitation. He's not only a boss, he's a working boss, not afraid to get
018his hands dirty and jumps right alongside his crew and staff members. I have heard him say, "That's not Wait. Oh, I have never I have never heard him say that is not in my job description. Nor does he feel his position is above any type of work or job that he would expect a member of his crew to complete. Agree. Um despite all of this, despite all that is put on his shoulders, he still manage manages to keep a positive demeanor and a high level of patience. I have seen him demonstrate sympathy, empathy, and still be a rockolid man, boss, and friend. I feel that he is always has he always has been an asset to our district no matter the role or hat he is wearing. He used to be transportation and facilities. That's
019right. So, um that's what Steph had to say. Um what I had to say was that Derek is essential to the district. He's always ready to assist anytime I call on the radio. He's been down two full-timers this year, which is like at the same time, correct? Which is like half of your workforce, half of his workforce. And um he still keeps the boat um floating calmly. Not to mention he's he'll jump on a bus at any flash doses transportation. Um I I would like to share a story. One time, one time, um, I used to take care of the garden over there. And, uh, we have a garden, believe it or not. And I think that Derek and I are probably the only people here at 6:30 in the morning in the summer. And
020um, I'd be watering my garden every single day. I'd come and water my garden, water my garden, then run off to get my son from cross country. And Dererick came by one day and he's like, "Would you like a timer for that sprinkler so you don't have to be here at 6:30 every day?" And I'm like, "That would be wonderful. Thank you so much." But um he's like he's rock solid just like Steph said. Like he is a complete asset to this district. He goes above and beyond all the time. Thank you so much for all you do. [Applause] Okay, we have three very special retirees to finish up with our recognitions tonight. So, I get the ears right, I want to make sure here. First, I want to call up Heather Wick. Heather has
021served Big Hollow for 30 years. 30 years at Big Hollow. And we won't give you this, but uh we have a little tradition we've been doing the last several years that you're uh there'll be a tree on campus in the back with your name on it as a retiree from Big Hollow. So that steak will be next to a tree. All right. Should we get a picture here? Okay, next we have Jackie Kohler for 20 years at Big Hollow. [Applause] And last but not least, we have Don Smith, also with 20 years at Big College. [Applause] And that would it for our recognitions. All right, that's it for our recognition portion and the fun part of the board meeting. If you'd like to stay for the business part, you're more than welcome to, but feel
022free to leave anytime you wish. A board member code of conduct review. Brian. All right. Thank you. Anybody any questions on the consent agenda? No. Can I please have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Motion. Second. Joe and Doug. Yes. Yes. Superintendent report. Mr. Gold. Okay. Just have a few things I want to talk about real quick. Uh the first one says, "Is the Illinois assessment of readiness update?" So, our students just took the IR test uh this last couple months, and I wanted to give you a little heads up on some changes that are coming our way with the I um in this document on exhibit 9, I I there's an interview with the state superintendent. I've been in some meetings where he's talked about some of this, and I thought this interview
023did a good job of capturing it. I'm just gonna you don't need to follow along in it. I'm just going to highlight a few things that he said that I want to point out. Um uh so here was a question. Is it frustrating when when headlines suggest only a small percentage of Illinois students can read? He says very frustrating. Every state develops its own test according to methods under ESSA. With Illinois having the highest Illinois having the highest cut scores nationally, we naturally show lower proficiency rates comparing us to Florida or Connecticut makes it look like our students aren't performing well. So we I've talked to you about this before, how the cut scores are different in every state. Um the next question was people also seem to think if students aren't proficient they can't
024read at all and he said absolutely. The idea that non-proficient students can't read at grade level is another fallacy. Again, this comes down to the cut scores that Illinois has set. Um, I'm going to skip over uh they are committing to give us we should have test score results here in the next couple weeks. Said miday, so it should be any time. The reason I'm bringing this up to you is that they are changing the cut scores this year. So, it's really going to be hard for us to compare our scores from last year to this year because it's gonna it's going going to appear that our kids did a lot better. Um, but I want you to be uh aware that it's really just a change in cut scores. Doesn't mean our kids didn't
025do a lot better. Just it's a change of cut scores. So, um we are we are going to look harder at the map, I guess, to see how our kids, you know, how they how they grow and progress. But, um I just want you to know that that information is out there. On the second page of the exhibit, you see and it you see a graphical example in reading and the NAPE is a national assessment that they on our IR test. There are NAPE questions that are given all across the country. And on the NAPE test, Illinois expects a 236 score for proficiency. Connecticut is 224, Florida is 220. So student who scores 220 in Florida is Florida is meeting expectations in Illinois they're not. Um so when you see like right below that you
026see three bar graphs or line graphs in Illinois we're showing 39% of students being proficient. Um in Connecticut they're showing 63.9 with a lower cut score. And then in Florida which I found is interesting they count the top three categories as proficients. In Illinois, the top category is exceeds. The next one is profic meets and the next one is approaching. Florida counts all three of those as proficient. So that's why you'll see Florida would say 56% of their kids are achieving standards. If we counted all three, we'd be way higher than that. So it's just it's different when you compare states. And you guys know that I've we've had that conversation before, but I just want you to be aware there are changes coming in this fall when we get the test scores reported. So,
027we'll do our best to show you the results with with with our partnership with ECRA. We're able to do a little bit deeper dive in our comparisons with how the kids are actually doing. So, um I just don't want us to get caught up on the on the percentile scores. So, um my next one is an update on this is kind of a strange update, but update on bike path construction. We have two situations going on right now. One is not not really an impact to us. Vololo is going to start this bike path down uh Fish Lake Road uh connecting our parking lot on Fish Lake to the parking lot on on Nippers on Wils Nippersink. So that and it's going to be in the ement you guys passed the easement uh last month
028I think that one's not going to impact anything. What is gonna what uh is an interesting conversation is that Round Lake is going to finish off the uh bike paths on uh Nippersync and Wilson connecting to Valley Lakes. So, it's an interesting discussion. I I talked to to our trans our operations committee about this last month and we actually had Route Lake Village officials in on the meeting. Um there the state does have a formula that I can run through the data for like what's the speed limits, how close is the path to the road, is there a curb, all these things. It's a KA district. There's a formula and when you put the numbers in the formula, we get to 11 and a half points, but the board can add a point or two
029based on extenduating circumstances. 12 points. If you get to 12, it makes it a safety hazard, which means we can still provide busing to that community. Um, and uh we think that as a board when when it does get constructed supposedly this summer, uh we do think we can continue that it can continue to be a safety hazard because it it is going to be closer than four feet to the road. Um there's some points there. K8 districts because of kindergarteners walking from the back end of Valley Lakes would probably not be a thing. So uh because it's K8, they add points. So we get 11 and a half points. The board can add one or two and we think maybe we might recommend doing that based on them having to cross two very busy
030roads. Um we'd have to have crossing guards. Obviously, one of my bigger concerns if it was not considered a safety hazard is that we already have traffic concerns here with kids with at drop off and pickup and it would just increase our traffic flow because we would not have everybody walking from Valley Lakes, I don't think. And so, I think it would increase our traffic flow significantly. It would be a problem. But, uh, we don't it's nothing we have to deal with right now. They're supposedly going to do this project this summer, but um later on in this meeting, you have a vote to approve our current safety hazards. We'll get those approved. Those will be approved for next year. If and when these this this bike path is uh installed, I'll have to go
031to the state and kind of give them our formula and have them look at it and have them approve another safety hazard with the bike path. So, we kind of had a similar situation with the bike path down Malador, but there's no curb there on that bike path, and the bike path actually went butts up with the road for a portion of the time. So, we definitely considered that a safety hazard. That won't happen here. There will be a curb, but it is pretty close to the road, and it's 45 miles an hour. There are some other things there that cause it to be a safety hazard. So, anybody have any questions? It's kind of a It's in the works for the summer, though. The new operations committee is going to have to continue our
032journey to Yeah. keep that a hazard. Yeah. Yeah. I think it would be it'd be detrimental if it if we had to make everybody walk from Valley Lakes. I think it could be tough. It's 500 kids. Oh, beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh the last two things are just summer office hours are posted there and then eighth grade graduation. If you cannot make it, let us know. May 28th, Wednesday, May 28th at the middle school 7 o'clock. That's it for my report, Kevin. All right. Thank you. Uh, anybody questions on the HMH intro to reading as an ELA curriculum resources? This is second reading. Yeah. Second. N please have a motion to approve the adoption of HMH into reading as ELA curriculum resource for students in grades K through five. Motion second. Tiffany, yes. Yes. Johnson.
033Yes. Yes. Yes. Can I bring Nicole up for a minute to share with you a little about the middle school process? Sure. Nicole Stra, uh, our curriculum teaching learning coordinator. Um, she's taken our middle school through the same process. We're one month behind. Um, and I was going to let her share a little bit how we landed, where we did. Hi everyone. Um, so similar process as the HMH adoption. We had a committee made up of EL sped and then grade level teachers. We looked at a variety of different resources, did a rubric with that, scored it, brought in the vendors to come and present to us. At that time, we were hoping to pair down to two resources, but the team really liked all three. So, we went through um reviewing three different products
034and piloting three, which is why we're bringing the decision a month later because we needed that extra time to look at all three resources. So, we looked at amplify uh HMH and into literature is uh 68 and then Savis my perspectives. And so again, after each of those sessions, I would meet with the teachers, collect their feedback about the strengths and areas that they felt needed some support, gathered all of that, and at the very end of the pilot process, we did another uh feedback that was anonymous and asked them their strengths aligned to the Illinois literacy plan and our literacy beliefs here at Big Hollow and then what their overall recommendation was. So it was a six to three uh for Savis for gen ed and so that's where we went. I think it'll
035be a really strong product for us. It's pretty all-encompassing. It really offers a lot of opportunities for whole group, small groupoup instruction and just differentiation. Along with this process, I reached out to all the middle schoolers and they took a quick survey as well to share with us their feedback about the products. And the students reported that they felt that their vocabulary instruction was enhanced and that they felt like they could access vocabulary knowledge a little bit more deeply. They really enjoyed um the consum the consumables that Savis brings where they have the text right there in front of them and they can annotate whatever the mini lesson might be and really dive into the text a little deeper than what they had in the past and they found that the texts were pretty engaging
036as well. So those were some of the highlights that our students shared with us. How much of a challenge is it for kids going from fifth to six to different curriculum? I think both curriculums are very comparable. Um, HMH and SAVIS are very, very similar. They both have a digital platform and they both have consumable texts, K8. So, I don't think it'll be a challenge for them really. Okay. Yeah. And then the next exhibit is a cost uh for three years. We do have Nicole did some good negotiating and we do have another uh quote that's at 43,000 for three-year plan. So the one in your packets a little higher, but we got a different quote for that. Any other questions? The consumables, do those are those being replaced every year? They will be. Thank
037you. Thank you. Anybody else have questions? Savis EA curriculum. Can I please have a motion to approve the adoption of SAVIS as an ELA curriculum resource for students in grade 6? Ash and Doug. Yes. Yes. Raise sub rates by three and a half%. Anybody have any questions? Can I please have a motion to approve the proposed increase to substitute teacher rate by 3.5%. Motion. Second. Tiffany and Vivian. Yes. Yes. Extracurricular assignments. Anybody have any questions? Can I please have a motion to approve the extra curricular assignments for 256? Yes. Anybody have any questions on the school treasur? Please have a motion to approve the school treasures bond. Motion. Second. Vivian. Yes. Anybody have any questions on the twous between Big Hollow and Big Hollow Federation of Teachers? All right. Can I please have a motion
038to approve the twous between Big Hollow School District 38 Board of Education and the Big Health Federation of Teachers? Motion. Tiffany and Doug. Yes. Yes. Anybody any questions on the recent board policy update? And if I could just on this, I did not have a policy committee meeting because I just got this last week. I went through it. There's ar there are not any significant changes and uh specifically title N. They went back to the old title N that we never did approve the new ones. So not a lot of changes for us. So I thought if the policy committee still wants to meet, we can meet before the next meeting, second reading if they want to. So new policy meeting. Are you guys good? We're good. All right. Anybody have any questions on the
039recent board policy update? Can I please have a motion to approve the recent board policy update on first reading? Motion. Second. Joe and Vivian. All in favor? Any oppose? I have it. And we have any question on the hazardous bus conditions? Can I please have a motion to approve the certification of hazardous bus conditions? Motion. Joe and Ash. All in favor? I. oppos. Uh, anybody any questions on the April employment report with the additions? Okay, please have a motion to approve the April employment recommendation report with additions. Motion second. Ash and Joe, yes. Yes. Yes. We accepted a retirement from Miriam Wallace Elementary Perah effective May 30th. Uh we accepted a resignation from Kristen Wilhelm, fourth grade teacher, effective at the end of the school year. We accept a resignation from Vanessa Gutierrez Parah effective
040May 30th. Uh we accept a resignation from Robin Celah effective at the end of the school year. Anybody have any questions on the foyer request? Want to report to the board. All right. The next regularly scheduled board meeting will take place on Monday, June 9th with close session beginning at 6 p.m. and open session beginning immediately after close session ends. Board will enter back into close session to review the consolidated superintendent evaluation data after the regularly scheduled port. Can I please we have any public comments? Can I please have a motion to journ motion? Second. Joe. All in favor? Any oppose? Thank you.