001We move back into open session. Can everyone 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. Does anybody have anything to add to the agenda? No. Can I please have a motion to approve the agenda? Motion. Second. Tiffany and Vivian. All in favor? I. Any oppose? Eyes have it. Academic spotlight. Elementary School Library Media Report. All right. Dr. Biana Clana, take it away. Okay. All right. Good evening. Um this year's addition of a library media program has been a transformative uh initiative uh that has been unfolding within our school over the course of this year. We've seen a revitalization of our library media program. Um as
002principal I've had the privilege of working closely with our dedicated library media teacher uh Mrs. Glover to bring this vision to life this year. Uh we began this journey by immersing ourselves in the latest standards. Uh collaborating with a seasoned consultant to ensure our approach is both innovative and effective. Uh together we've craft crafted a compelling vision and set ambitious goals accompanied by clear action steps and robust methods to assess our progress. Our library, hopefully you may have some time in the in the near future to come over and take a look, has been redesigned to foster easier access for our students, including purchasing and weeding titles to support the growth of our collection, creating an inviting and dynamic learning environment. Uh we've also made thoughtful recommendations for revisions to our collection policy to better
003serve our diverse student body. Uh the collaboration this year with our consultant has resulted in developing curriculum, lesson planning, and district alignment among the three buildings. Uh we've offered a number of incentives for our students also within the school library. Throughout this process, I've had the opportunity to be actively involved, meeting regularly with our library media teacher to support and nurture this engagement of our students. Um tonight, our library media teacher, Kristen Glover, will share the exciting progress we've made and the creative strategies that have been implemented. Um, thank you as our school board for your continued support and I'm confident you'll be as inspired as I am by the strides we're making in enriching our students educational experience. So, Mrs. Glover, I'm turn it over to you. Thank you. So, good evening. I don't
004know where to stand to see everybody. Um, so I'm just going to share with you a couple of the highlights from this year maybe. Um, so who am I? I'm Kristen Glover. Uh, huge Iowa State fan. Graduated from Iowa State, continue to be a Cyclone fan. Got my master's in curriculum and instruction from Greenville University and I'm currently working on my LIS endorsement. I should finish that uh roughly about a year from now. um joined the big hollow family in 2017 and just have a lot of experience with different grade levels, different subjects as well. In my free time, I spend a lot of time with my family um those sporting events, cyclone football games, and we always tend to find food. So, food is always involved as well. Um throughout my presentation, you'll see
005different books kind of scattered about. These books are things that we have read and I've shared with students throughout the year. they have ended up being some favorite books of the students and are just kind of guiding my presentation today. So, one of the first books we read was um the book of gold and essentially a student finds that every book has value. So, I wanted our students to find that every book has value as well and to do that we had to kind of re-imagine the library to make it accessible for our students. So, starting last summer, I think I touched every book in the library as I moved and shifted them around to create different genre areas. So, the students can clearly see the fiction compared to the non-fiction uh sections. There's a
006new graphic novel section, which is super popular. We have a biography section. Um, we have the Monarch and Blue STEM nominees pulled aside for the students as well. Every month I swap out some books to highlight different uh celebrations, different holidays, and then I think the favorite section is the new section where I have all the new books that I'm ordering and putting on display as well. Um in addition to those genre sections, we have designated areas for readalouds, whole class lessons, and group work. And then also just areas for them to read independently. Uh this data is showing um from last year May 7th, 2024 compared to just before spring break when I ran the data March 21st, 2025. So in red you can see that our average age of our collection jumped from
0072003 to 2007. Um, so the reason that happened is just a lot of time spent weeding out those old and damaged books and replacing them with more predominantly newer publications from the last five years. Um, another visual just to show you again from May of 2024, 70% of our collection was considered aged compared to um, March of this year, 59% is considered aged. So over the next couple years hopefully we'll continue to decrease that number so we'll have less aged titles and you can see the increase from 2019 or 2020 has increased from 6% to 11%. Down at the bottom again in summary um you can see that our number of texts published before 2009 has decreased and there's an increase in those texts published within the last five years. So this is again just
008another visual. That purple pin is where we currently are. Our average age is 2007. And to reach that emerging goal, that emerging goal would put our average collection at 2015. So I'm hoping in the next couple years I can continue to build that collection and make it newer. Once we hit that 2015 year, we can kind of re-evaluate and make new goals to keep increasing our collection and our our publication date. These are some skills that were taught in the library this year that have not been taught previously. Uh this book, Stacy's Extraordinary Words, she just learns to love words and shows um determination in a spelling bee, actually. So, we have some students learning ABC orders, specifically how to find those books on the shelves using author's last name. The middle picture is students
009going on a scavenger hunt using the Dewey Decimal System. you can see the new signage on the signs um so they can find books based on topic as well and then just using a dictionary and some of those word skills um that have not been previously taught. Um one of the activities we did more towards the beginning of the year was this global readaloud. Um fourth grade read a book named Too Small Ta and we focused on using some of those key words from the story to help with summarizing. In second and third grade, we read a collection of books by Min Lee. One of them was drawn together. And in that story, the grandson and the grandfather do not speak the same language, and they cannot communicate, but they build a relationship through art.
010So, they worked collaboratively with a partner and created a piece of artwork, not speaking at all, so they could put themselves in the shoes of the two characters. All the classes have done research this year using non-fiction texts from the library. The database provided by the state which allows access to ebooks, encyclopedias and online periodicals and then also our subscription to boundless which provides more books to um more titles to ebooks. Fourth grade started with an introduction using the book Cactus Queen which is um about Manurva Hoy and her role in establishing Joshua Tree as a national park. We then worked in groups to continue that research and learn what makes Joshua Tree National Park a special place. second grade, we started with a Monarch nominee book, Jackie and the Mona Lisa, which is um
011really just about Jackie bringing um art into the White House. So, we took that story and came up with the research question, what stories do the rooms of the White House tell? And we worked all together as a whole group to investigate more and research more related to the White House. third grade did their research just a little bit different. Um, working with the third grade team, they wanted me to model the research skills and how to use different sources. They research inventions for their showcase. So, we took their third grade organizer that they use in their classrooms, modified it for the library. We read A Splash of Red, which is an illustrated biography about an artist named Horus Pippen. And then students were able to independently um use those skills that were modeled to
012research their inventor and they had a similar organizer. Um so it didn't feel so new to them. Um but all grades like I said did that research in the library. Some fourth and fifth or sorry fourth and third grade then also continued it into the classroom as well. Um like Vinnie had mentioned our district collaboration. Um, I've been lucky to work with that consultant just for some personal guidance. I had ideas going left and right when I got the position last year. So, she really helped me create a priority list for this year and just to establish some future goals moving forward. Uh, working as a library team, we meet regularly just to um really work on that district alignment as well. and we have come up with some drafts for some different procedures including
013our collection development and our selection criteria and then also that weeding criteria and our weeding schedule. Um, another book by Stacy Abrams is Stacy's remarkable books which is all about her creating that reading community within her classroom. So, um I'm also continuing to build that reading community through monthly newsletters, uh providing lessons and activities to support classroom instruction, offering book recommendations, working with other staff members to create those reading activities and reading incentives, and then also collaborating with the public libraries and our PTO to ensure uh a success successful book fairs. I do have the Fox Lake Public Library coming in next month to kind of wrap up the school year as well. I did ask the students for some feedback recently. The first question are what things do you like best about the library?
014Um to summarize it was the books, the readaloud, checking out, reading with friends, um and the dictionary. What are some things that they would change about the library? A lot of them said more time or more books, and I had quite a few that said I wouldn't change anything. So, what did you learn in the library this year? They learned how to uh sort books in ABC order, find new books that they haven't read yet, and just how the library is organized overall. Lastly, I asked them what their favorite book was. Um, a lot of them had a hard time with this. They said they can't remember all those books, but I did highlight most of them in uh the presentation. I did highlight also the Everybody Needs a Rock. I read this one recently
015prior to AR and it turned out to be a favorite. It's a really old book. Um a book from my childhood, but a lot of them said that was ended up being their favorite. These are our student library helpers that won the PBIS raffle through March. I've had a few after this um that are not included, but they have helped with sorting books, reshelving books, dusting shelves, labeling books, stamping books. And then a huge shout out to my parent volunteers. Mrs. Cocho comes almost every day. If she's not there, I wonder if she's okay. Um Mrs. Ringamman joins her often as well, and then Mrs. Klein has popped in a few times as well to help out. So, if you are feeling inspired, I encourage you to come visit anytime to any of your district
016librarians um or district libraries. We will answer your questions, give you a tour, and we always welcome your support, and you are welcome to check out our Amazon wish lists as well. But overall, I just want to thank you for your time and thank you for this opportunity. Thank you. Thank you, Kristen. me to go ahead and get going on the accomplishments. Yeah. Okay. Um I'm gonna start with uh Mr. Cornwell can come on up. We're going to um the board, you know, that we started bowling this year, first time, and Mr. Cornwell is going to share some exciting news with our bowling team from 2025. Good evening board. Um, so in our first year of having a bowling team, I am happy to announce that we had four members uh make it down to
017state. So guys, when I call your name, come on up and receive your certificate. Evan Baker. And then you got to stay up here so we can take a picture. Giovani [Applause] Jimenez, Jasmine [Applause] Paddock, and Chloe Hardle. And then also a thanks to our head coach, Cliff Nims. You want to come up, sir, and take a picture with the kids? [Applause] Uh, Miss Larkin, you want to come up and introduce our primary student of the month? So, our primary student of the month is Gage Gentiel from Mrs. Polark's kindergarten classroom. So, we'll have Gage come up and Mrs. Polar. We'll let Mrs. Polar brag about him. Oh, actually, I did. Thank you, Melissa. All right. I am so proud of this guy. Um, I'm I nominated Gage for student of the month because he
018is a joy to have in our classroom. He consistently demonstrates love, kindness, and compassion. And our classroom is generally filled with love and kindness. And it's it's because of students like Gage that are a great role model for everybody else, and they just follow suit. He has kind words for others. He's always willing to offer support to another classmate, whether academic or emotional support. Gage is responsible. He puts his be best efforts into our classroom work. He's a role model. and not just his academic achievements, but also in his positive attitude. And he genuinely cares for others. He's also our football expert. So, whenever I have a question or someone else has a question about football, I just defer to Gage and and he's spot on every time. So, congratulations, Gage. I'm so proud of
019you. Yes. All [Applause] right. Dr. Bianca. Okay. So, I'm going to call Connor Julian up here. I promised him. I promised him he does not have to make any speeches. And um Connor is in third grade. He's in Mrs. Dello's class. Mrs. Dello could not be here. She had a prior commitment, but she asked that I would read her nomination for Connor. So, I'm going to go ahead and do that. Okay. So, she nominated Connor for his outstanding demonstration of kindness and compassion within our school community. Connor consistently exemplifies the star expectations, showing respect and responsibility in everything he does. Connor is a wonderful student who always treats others with kindness and consideration. He goes out of his way to help classmates and supports those in need, creating a positive environment for everyone around him.
020His ability to lead by example inspires his peers to follow suit. In addition to his compassionate nature, Connor is always respectful to teachers and staff, making him a true leader in our classroom. His positive attitude and willingness to collaborate with others makes him a joy to have in our school. For these reasons, Mrs. Dello believes Connor Julian truly deserves recognition for his exemplary behavior and contributions to our school community. So, congratulations, Connor. Congrats, Connor. Mr. Cornwell. All right, the middle school student of the month is Jace Glover. Jace, come on up, please. Uh, Mrs. Mcdana nominated Jayce since she was not able to be here this evening, but she asked me to read what she had to say about him. She is overjoyed to nominate Jace Glover for middle school student of the month. Jace
021has demonstrated remarkable growth and progress throughout the past few months, and I believe his improvement deserves recognition. He has improved his self-control, focus, work completion, and decision-making, consistently meeting the goals he sets for himself. Jace takes ownership of his learning and behavior and now applies the tools he's learned to the school setting. Teachers and other staff have noticed a drastic change in Jace and are so happy to celebrate his successes. Jayce's transformation is a testament to his hard work, willingness to improve, and the power of collaboration between home and school. I love seeing the smart, funny, and charismatic person Jace is every day. Even if he is roasting my basketball skills. That's he's roasting Mrs. Mcdana's basketball skills, not mine. Just to clarify, I am so proud of Jace and excited to see the great
022things he will do here in the middle school. [Applause] Okay, Dr. Bianc Colana, would you like to introduce our employee of the month? Okay, it is my pleasure to introduce Alicia Fiori. Come on up. So um our assistant principal Sarah Kmpala had nominated Alicia for uh this award and so I will read a very special thing. Um I will read what Mrs. Kmpa had to share. Uh she nominated Alicia Fiori for employee of the month due to her exceptional contributions and dedication to both students and staff in the elementary building. Alicia is a true problem solver who consistently goes above and beyond to address challenges and find solutions that work for everyone involved. She is a natural at building strong, positive relationships with both students and staff, making everyone feel valued and supported. Alicia has
023an incredible ability to see the good in every situation, always looking for opportunities to highlight strengths and celebrate progress. At the same time, she is quick to recognize areas that need attention and takes proactive steps to address them in a thoughtful and effective manner. Her positive attitude, commitment to teamwork, and tireless work ethic make her a standout member of our team, and she consistently demonstrates excellence in all that she does. She is a true asset to our school and deserves recognition for her hard work and positive impact on our community. Thank you all very much. [Applause] You guys are all welcome to uh uh stay and listen to the rest of the meeting if you want, but you feel feel free to leave. Uh we know tomorrow's a school day, but you won't miss the
024excitement. Uh, board member code of conduct review. I'll just read it. I will encourage and respect the free expression of opinion by my fellow board members and will participate in board discussions in an open, honest, and respectful manner, honoring differences of opinion or perspective. Does anybody have any questions on the consent agenda? Nope. Nope. Can I please have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Second. Doug and Tiffany. Yes. Yes. Yes. Superintendent report. Okay. I just have a short report tonight and it's uh regarding the there's a tiff district that exists in Fox Lake that is uh the near the old Dominics. The parking lot, the Old Dominics is and then the north north side of that parking lot's an empty lot. I've shared with you before that there's a uh they've now um changed
025it to residential tiff. There'll be uh apartment complexes within that tiff. So that that adds some complications for us uh in regards to having students uh coming to Big Hollow that are in that tiff district because we won't get the tax money from that tiff. Um what you have in exhibit nine is an intergovernmental agreement that was developed with uh uh Fox Lake the village Fox Lake uh Grant High School and Big Hollow. We've been working on this and I will tell you that um I'll give you the the basics of it and then um kind of share some input from our attorney as well. Um, we have a cost per student at Big Hollow. That that's through the audit. We're we we get we break out what our costs per student are. Um, we
026also have through the audit, we know how much revenue we're getting from the state per student. Uh, the difference in that we would hope would be made up by local taxes. Um what the tiff states is that however many students are inside that tiff uh in that who live in within that tiff district every year we'll send a report to the tiff district. If we have 10 students we'll send a report that says we have 10 students and then they will pay us our cost per pupil uh for for those students. Um, to be honest with you, this is the first time I've dealt with a tiff in this manner. And uh, so I I ran through our attorney. I talked to Grant High School. They felt good about it. I ran through our attorney
027and he read it and honestly he said he deals with this a lot. And he goes, "This is a very generous uh, very generous uh, tiff for us." So he doesn't usually see we get the the the full recap of the costs. So we didn't have to do a lot of negotiating. They village of Fox Lake, I have to give a lot of credit. They uh they set it up really well for us and uh we made a couple minor changes to the tiff agreement. But um after talking to our attorney, I feel really good about this uh that we are going to get recouped for any costs that we have for kids in that tiff district. So every year we will give them a u a report on how many students attended Big Hollow
028and they'll give us a kick back on uh the cost per pupil reimbursement for each of those kids. And they do that for us and for Grant High School. Um, you'll see that in section five, school district payments. That's where it's outlined. What I just shared is all in section five, page three of seven. But, um, that's what I shared with you is the is the basics of it. Basically, our costs will be recovered. The plans right now for that are a uh from the last I heard, it's a smaller development of uh um apartments that are one and two bedroom. uh considered uh they've used the word luxury, so considered a little more high-end apartments. I think they're gearing towards young professionals or retirees looking to scale back, but they're not anticipating a lot
029of students, but we'll see. Any questions? I thought we'd be a little more involved in this, but they they really uh I thought we'd have to negotiate, but they they set it up right away where even our attorney looked at it and he goes, "This is better than most agreements I see." So, I thought I felt pretty good about it. I I guess I I was confused when I was reading the district payments is um so if the if our amount of pupil expenditure goes up every year, they will continue to pay that for forever. Yep. based on our audit. So every year we get audited and we get a cost per pupil for that year. Okay. And that's the number. Yeah. And what's the 5% I was talking about based off CPI? Which section
030was that in? I'm trying to find it. Because if it's not in section five, then it doesn't. It may not apply. Yeah. may have been in another section because usually our attorney said usually there's a cap on the amount and there's no cap in here. So, uh if our cost per pupil is 15,000 and we we get 5,000 from the state, then they're going to pay us 10,000 for every student that's in there. So, there's no cap uh based on this agreement. And that's where the our attorney said in the in most agreements there's a cap that protects the tiff. Then are we getting um funds for students that are on uh government assistance? Yeah. And the one change we made was uh students that are in the district like maybe half the year. So
031we're going to bill them for prrated prrated. So if they're here for 100 days out of 180, we're going to bill them for 100 days out of 180. So So there's no questions there. So we did add that language. That was really about the only thing that we uh changed just to make sure it was clear. What about section C where it says they don't have to pay us if they don't have the money. So they don't they would have to pay us the following year. They have to catch it up. uh his way payment is no interest. Can they keep rolling it over? It says payments to the district will not occur until there are sufficient funds. There are sufficient funds in the tiff. Yeah. So what if there's never sufficient funds to make
032the payments? I mean then that would be a problem. Our attorney felt like that would be that in this situation that u there's a year if there's no money in the tiff and the next year they catch it up. I I guess that would be a problem if there was never any money in the tiff. But um because it says like if there are insufficient funds in the tiff district to make full payments to the districts and any particular partial payment shall be made to the extent possible and the unpaid balances owed to the school district will be carried over for one or more years for payment as additional. Yeah, there's no way to get interest on that. I mean it seems like it should be pretty standard if they're not paying us to Uh,
033I can check on that for sure. Do they have any other tiff districts currently? Not that I'm aware of. Uh, not with us. They don't. Uh, I don't know if Fox Lake's got the same agreement with another uh, school district. Um, because you depend on how they manage the TIFF funds. if they decide they don't want to put the funds into the balance who who manages the tip district the village okay and I go to a meeting every year the meeting lasts five minutes right now it's a tiff district tiff meeting because it's I go to it just to make sure that I'm not missing anything and since there's been no action in this area it's just a really quick meeting now the meetings will be a little longer they'll kind of go through how
034much coming in the tiff once this development starts. Who who funds that? Uh do you know who funds the tiff? The that I don't I think it's part village. It's like tax increment financing. So that they take out loans based on expected taxes. Usually it's for infrastructure instead of Yeah. Instead of them paying the taxes to the village, it goes into the tiff and they redistribute the money. And it's looks like it's a 23 year term, not forever, right? Yeah. I can uh I can take it back to them um for changes. I can ask about interest on payments that are uh not made. Is there any other questions you want me to ask? Is the the tiff is dissolved after 23 years or just this agreement? This agreement would last as long as the
035tiff's in place. Uh I think the village has uh there's somewhere in here the language in section three the village agrees that it will consider the early termination of the route 12 prior to the 23. Okay. So after 23 years it is terminated. So then do we start collecting tax on properties? Yes. After where is it rated? Is it rated at is it going to be off of what they're building it at now or is it in the 23 years? I don't know that answer. I don't know that answer. Once the properties are up, will we collect our tax on those properties? We should once they uh once they do building permits, we'll start getting our uh we will get a um we'll get our big hollow portion. It's that uh impact fees right off
036the bat and then uh this was my guess is that this was in place of impact fees. No, we will get impact fees. We get impact fees. We get impact fees. Yes. And that's a separate thing. Oh, I do know. I don't have that in front of me, but I do know how much that is, too. It's uh there's a formula for that depending on what they end up. I haven't seen the building permit yet. So, depending on how many units, how big the units that is separate. And then after uh those buildings are up, then we will and kids when we people start moving in, that's when we start billing at the end of the school year. We'll build for the kids that lived in that district. So once the building so while the
037buildings are being built we'll get impact fees and then after kids people have moved in and kids are coming here then we'll start at the end of each year we send them a bill you had 10 kids here they were here this many days this is what it is this is what our cost per pupil is but we don't get a part which you were asking we don't get a part of the property tax no right this is in replace of that yeah this is to make sure I guess So the village's concern was making sure that we're made whole for the kids that are going to school here. That's what they're trying to do here because that's what we had told them when they we heard about it. We just want to be made
038whole and this is their way of making us whole is if we have kids going here, they're giving us our cost per pupil for those kids in the tiff. If you are going to take it back to them, can you ask them how after the terms of the agreement how those property values are going to be assessed if it's at the current I can't remember what that's called. Yeah, I got you. Like new builds today is they're locked in. Did you just get this? Has Grant reviewed this yet or is this are we the first? We're the first. Yeah. And we I literally got it uh last week and they asked to have it approved by the end of the month and I said I can sneak it into this board agenda. Um and then
039Grant's got a board meeting late in two weeks. Every two weeks. So, uh they got one at the end of April, but I'll just tell them that we, you know, we're gonna have to prove it in May. we need to get some answers because they it was it was pretty rushed. So, I had to get a rush meeting with our attorney, have them review it because I just needed to review this uh need their legal standpoint on it. And uh so I don't feel bad about pushing it to May. Uh I think I would feel more comfortable with that. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I don't feel bad about that because So, if any questions come up to you between now and tomorrow, let me know too because I'm going to send them some questions to
040answer. the section about us having to champion this thing or wasn't there like a public or something to say something publicly yes support it publicly support of the route 12 south tiff district oh I don't think I think our approval of this would be supporting it that that that's it that's all they're that's all there they've not mentioned anything other that to me. So, I don't think we need to go out and uh we approve. I just don't want to put anything on social media saying they call I don't think um you know, nobody likes a residential tiff usually, but uh if there if we're going to have one, this is this one. I think the agreement overall has been a is a good one, but I don't think we need to be out. Where's
041that Ash? It's section six. Six. I mean, honestly, if they at some point don't fund it, how are we going to still say we want Okay, I support I'm going to ask that question. I understand we're not allowed to go and sue them afterward or something like that if that's what all that's talking about, but Okay. No, that's a good question. All right. So, can I have a motion to table item 10? Motion. Second. All in favor? Any oppose? I have it motion table till next month. Perfect. Thanks. Other items. Uh does anybody have any questions on the IGA with Gavin and Fox Lake? These are just repeated. We been reading them every year at this time. Okay. Please have a motion to approve the intergovernmental agreements with Gavin School District 37 Fox Lake School
042District 114 for shared servicing and food and transportation. Motion second. Tiffany and Vivian, yes. Peter, yes. Bennett, yes. Johnson, yes. Lions, yes. Patterson, yes. On item B, could I have uh uh Nicole Stra come up for just a minute to talk through our process for this if that's okay. Uh you have in the exhibit uh the board memo uh for our HMH into reading ELA curriculum resource. And I Nicole is just going to share quickly how she went through the process this year. It's been quite an exhaustive process. We started last spring with our coaches and interventionists reviewing six different products for a K8 adoption. As you know, there's a K5 publishers kind of do a K5 group and then a 68. So, we're bringing to you the K5 decision that our teams have gone
043through. We started with our coaches and interventionists reviewing those products. In the fall, we brought four products to our teacher teams that included sped, e, and classroom teachers as well. And then um interventionists have played a a role in that. We did a review of the products. We scored them. I brought in three vendors to come in and do presentations. We scored those. And then we also came up with our top two products and piloted those from December through the end of March. And through that process, I worked with neighboring districts to do some Q&As's for our teachers. We brought in our vendors to do some Q&As's throughout January through March. And I also worked with our teachers multiple days after school to um give me feedback in relation to each of those products. Those
044product feedbacks were related to our literacy beliefs that our team last year during our reading review and research kind of came up with. And we also have aligned that to the Illinois literacy comprehension plan as well, comprehensive plan. Um, we also are bringing the decision for SLA. So it includes our dual language teams. So it's a K3 for this year's ne or next year's adoption and then we would do the additional fourth grade in the following year. The product is very similar to HMH's into reading. It's the Breila La Lectura product and so it really complements the SLA and ELA which are dual language teachers were asking for something similar to help participate in their PLC's with their teams as well as just having a similar scope and sequence that ski students are working on
045skill-wise. So awesome. She's done a really good job organizing the whole process and I think our teachers were happy with the change. They're very excited about the adoption. Are are we getting all the teachers and students all of the resources they need to implement this? Yeah, like books for a year. Yeah. Like that was one big ask of this process was that we had a comprehensive ELA program for our teachers. So this product will include foundational skills. It'll include decodable readers for our K2 students. It'll include um a literacy library for leveled readers for our K5 students. Um it has multiple workbooks where the students have the actual text in the book. They can annotate along with the text. So it's not just a read aloud and then they're going off and reading something different.
046So the students have really shared that a lot of positive feedbacks. They like just having that text in their hands. um they've been pretty excited and we've seen a lot of a lot of great initial changes with instruction as well. So, it's really been a positive experience and both products were very strong products. So, they were happy to bring this one. Um at the end of it, the teachers kind of voted and this was their favorite product between the two. Okay, that's what I was going to ask the teacher feedback and their personal preference and yeah, when I met with our content leads who did the pilots, they really said that they would be happy with either one and they knew it was going to be a difficult decision. Um, I would say that HMH
047had a little bit stronger of a phonics program and kind of the systematic approach to that a little bit stronger than Wonders and Wonders had some three four really like the writing components. They were just a little bit more miniedbased I guess. Um, however, both products really had strong responding to reading through writing in embedded in that. Along with that, we've been working with our third through eighth grade teachers on a new kind of structure, MELCON, and they've been able to easily adapt that into the product. So, I think that we'll really see some really great things from our students and our teachers. Another thing HMH kind of headed out with was um vocabulary. The teachers thought that the vocabulary is really intentional, helped build a lot of background. It gives the students a lot
048of content knowledge as well and helps support social studies and science. So, Any other questions? Great job. Thank you. Can I please have a motion to approve the adoption of HMH into reading as an ELA curriculum resource for students in grades K through five on first reading? Motion. Second. Ash and Doug. Bennett. Yes. Patterson. Yes. Johnson. Yes. Keer. Yes. Lions. Yes. Ventures. Yes. You have any questions on uh education support staff handbook? It's very minor changes. So, can I please have a motion to approve the education support staff handbook for 25.6? Motion. Second. Tiffany and Vivian. Yes. Peter, yes. Lions, yes. Yes. Bennett, yes. Johnson, yes. uh pursue a contract with Aana thou technology for the completion of the door access control project. Y I just need to say one thing on this one. Uh
049this is the project we had approved. We had to take it off because we didn't the vendor didn't have an Illinois license. Uh we had it rebid this past week. Uh the this is actually the same company, different name. This is the comp they're bidding it through a vendor that does have a license. So this it's uh and their bid went up $3,000. Um and then the other there was another company that bid it as well. Um same company that lost the last bid also bid as well and they were quite higher. They had asked if they could put an alternate bid in and we've told them they could. It's with a different product. We've been for a long time and Mr. McCauley's back there. He can explain more if we need to, but we've
050been working with a a company called Proxis. We feel very good about their product. They've actually modified the product to fit some of our needs here, and that's the product we we put out to bid. Uh was people install that product. This company asked if we would install an alternate product that they felt was could give us the same benefits, same uh uh specs. We told them they could do the alternate bid, but we they would the board would have the right to re to uh reject the alternate bid if if necessary. Their bid uh we did meet with their company. They they they I think they have a decent product. I I it's nothing against the product. We just don't know the product as well as we know Proxus and we don't know it
051enough to be able to make a great decision on it in a week's time. Um they uh their bid did come in at 30,000 less. Matt, am I right on that number? 30 35 in that range. it was less. Uh I'm recommending that we go with the Proxis because we know what we're getting there and uh that's why we're recommending that. If you would rather us uh back off and allow for alternative bids, I think what I would do is back the project off a we'd have to probably back it off uh for the year because by the we keep pushing this back, we're not going to be able to get it done this summer. But then I'd probably open it up to other vendors for all other products because um uh right now we
052let one vendor give us an alternate bid. I think if we were going to do that to be fair, we'd have to open up to all vendors and say we're no longer tied to just Proxus. Um so we we put this out as a bid for a specific product. Yeah. Yes. We didn't put it out as a proposal as this is our problem and we want your recommendations on how to fix it. Yeah. So, we put it out asking for specific product and this is the lowest bid for that specific product. And you have every right to we can reject that other bid. Yes. So, and that's why I'm recommending we stick with the Proxis. Matt feels really good about it as far as his research he's done with that company. And so, do we
053know what the like warranty, service fees, all of that is going to be? I mean, is there long is there a service fee with this that we're an annual fee? Um, Matt, do you know I don't think there's any annual just hardware? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Could I please have a motion to approve uh the contract with a Canthal Technology LLC for the completion of the door access control project? Motion. Second. Tiffany and Doug. Hunters. Yes. Patterson. Yes. Lions. Yes. Bennett, yes. Johnson, Keer, yes. Anybody have any questions on the March employment recommendations? Can I please have a motion to approve the March employment recommendations? Motion. Second. Ash and Vivian. Bennett. Yes. Keer, yes. Person, yes. Enters, yes. Johnson, yes. Lions, yes. Uh, we accepted a resignation from Josh Kula, middle school band teacher, effective
054the end of the year. Accepted a resignation from Colleen Sparrow, transportation driver and lunch recess monitor, effective March 28th. We accepted resignation from Andre Casteron, second grade dual language teacher, effective at the end of the school year. We accepted resignation from Brooke Benson, third grade teacher, effective at the end of the school year. We accept a resignation from Dana Ore, second grade teacher, effective the end of the school year. We accepted resignation from Megan Macar MacArthur, transportation driver, effective April 17th. We accepted a resignation from Lee Diaz Moya, middle school ELLL teacher, effective at the end of the school year. We accepted a resignation from Marliss Dero, elementary school social worker, effective at the end of the school year. Uh we accepted a resignation from Lisa Swederski, sixth grade math teacher, effective at the end
055of the school year. We accepted a resignation from Susan Sek, sixth grade science teacher, effective at the end of the school year. Uh, do we have any public comments? Anybody have any questions on the foyer requests? No. Anybody have any questions on the monthly reports for the board? Uh, the board needs to discuss the schedule for the superintendent evaluation for Mr. Gold. the following timeline to be used for completion of the evaluation process. May 1st, May 31st, June 9th. And I'll I'll send you all information on that as we get July 15th. Does anybody have any questions on that? Just take a look at it. Um we have a month to go through it. So, did it work well last time? Is that June 9th is when we have a board meeting in June 9th
056and afterwards you guys got together and Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think we keep the same format. That worked well. Okay. It works much easier with the new evaluation format. Um, the next regularly scheduled board meeting will take place on Monday, May 12th, 2025 with close session beginning at 6:00 p.m. Uh, can I please have a motion to move to close session for purpose of uh appointment compensation to support performance dismissal litigation negotiations and property motion? Second, Ash and Vivian. All in favor? I any opposed? Eyes have it. We're going to meet in close session in