5-18-26 - District 62 Board of Education

001Mic check. Mic check 1 2. Check 1 2. >> Mhm. >> Hello everyone. It is 7:00 and I would like to call this meeting to order and welcome so welcome to all of you for coming to our regularly scheduled board meeting on May 18th, 2026. Can I have a roll call, please? Burton? Here. Delgado? Present. Duckman? Here. Garrett? Here. Haring? Here. Massa? Here. Can I have Can you all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge 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. Can I have a motion to approve our agenda, please? I move that the board adopt the May 18th, 2026 meeting agenda as presented. Second. It's been moved

002and seconded. Can I roll call, please? Delgado? Aye. Dudman? Aye. Garrett? Aye. Hearing? Aye. Massa? Aye. Burton? Aye. Thank you. First up, we have presentation of middle school students you should know awards downstairs in our multi-purpose room. So, I invite you all to join me down there. Um, how long do we think this will be? Just so you know what time to be back. Where now? 25 to 30 minutes. Okay. Let's say it's Let's say it's Let's say it's 7:35, everybody. Let's see how we do. >> [laughter] >> So, see you back here in a little bit. Thank you, everyone. >> Mhm. >> 7:53 we're back. I'm so sorry we totally blew the 7:35-ish start up time. So, thank you all for hanging in there while we all celebrated those wonderful Minnesota students each of

003them. Um before we get moving again, I would like to invite Kathy Hogan to come on up and introduce us to a new team member. Good evening, Mrs. Manson members of the Board of Education. On the personnel report this evening, we are asking for the approval of Shannon Okonek as the very first assistant principal of Central Elementary School. Mrs. Okonek was encouraged by her older sister, who was a teacher, to follow her heart into education. And we are very glad that she took that advice. Shannon has been a school psychologist for 22 years with almost 15 years right here in District 62. Most recently at Terrace Elementary, but she'll be returning to her home at Central in the fall. She In the fall, she has led and supported initiatives focused on academic and behavioral supports,

004social-emotional learning, best practices in special education, instructional interventions, and data-based decision-making. Shannon is passionate about fostering inclusive learning environments, supporting staff development, and ensuring that all students have access to meaningful opportunities for success. She holds an undergraduate degree in psychology from Northern Illinois University, master's degrees, and an education specialist degree from Loyola University, and her leadership endorsement from the American College of Education. We had 50 applicants for this position, which is a lot. And Mrs. Okonek participated in a robust and expansive interview process, where she met with a number of district and Central staff, and where it was clear that she'd make an excellent EP at Central. She's joined here this evening by her husband, her children, and her nephew. And it is my pleasure to introduce to you Shannon O'Kelley. The first assistant principal

005at Central Elementary. >> [applause] >> Thank you so much. I'm honored to accept the position of the first assistant principal at Central School. I'm very excited for this new chapter and I really want to thank the board, Dr. Armitage and cabinet for this opportunity. The District 62 community has been my home and a special place in my heart for many years and I'm greatly looking forward to returning to Central. A place where I've spent many of those years and to be working with Dr. Cooper together continuing to support students, families, and staff in this new leadership role. I'm excited to see familiar faces and I'm really looking forward to building new relationships. I'm thankful to all my colleagues, my mentors, and principals here in District 62 who have encouraged me to follow my passions and

006also guided me into leadership. I also want to thank my family who's here with me tonight for their encouragement, their support, and understanding throughout my career and through this journey into leadership. I'm grateful to be part of the Central School community once again and I'm excited to begin. Thank you so much. >> [applause] >> Congratulations. We're just so thrilled for you. Thank you. We're super excited Congratulations uh Ms. O'Kelley. I would have to take credit for hiring you. I think in the school district, right? Oh, really? >> [laughter] >> But you know, I can do that now. And as much as I told that your children and your nephew and husband would like to stay for this school board meeting, We'll give you the one pass this time as an administrator. You can leave whenever

007you want. We're not going to judge, okay? Thank you. Congratulations and thank you for joining. >> [applause] >> Thank you. And oh, we're going to do um public comments. Is I don't have any blue cards, but I understand there is someone who'd like to speak in the audience. Come on. >> [laughter] >> If you could please just state your name and um your address to be put on the record. My name is Jana Haas. I'm at 1163 Dempster Avenue in Des Plaines. I am here to introduce myself. I am the coordinator of the community backpack project. If you're not familiar with this outreach of the Self-Help Closet, we provide six meals each weekend for students in District 62 as well as Maine West who are in need of extra food and support. We have averaged

008Well, let me start with by saying we this we just finished we're just finishing our 15th year of this outreach if you can believe it. >> [applause] >> And of course, we wouldn't be able to do any of it if it weren't for volunteers and the support from the community as a whole. But we average about 250 students each week who get a backpack or two bags full of groceries to take home. I've asked for the numbers that are totally supported with that, and we feel that we're over 1,000 family members per week by sending home just a bag or two of groceries every week. So, we know we're we're helping more than 250 students each week. We support most of them through what I call backpack central, which is over at the self-help closet

009in building on now on Holiday Lane. And we have five churches who are our other support folks and they have their home schools that they support Algonquin for instance in Central that kind of thing. So we have a lot of extra folks who are supplying food and supporting our students. We also supply hygiene products two or three times a year as budget permits. We supply school supplies as budget permits. We also supply socks and underwear and I know that our social workers in our school aids are thrilled when I bring those bags around at the beginning of the year and that makes me really happy. We also have great partnership with the library who sends home packets three times a year while the students are on vacation. They get nice dual language packets depending on

010their age range. So they get crayons and they get coloring books and they get things to read and things to do and we're really happy with that partnership as well as with the Optimist Club who send home books for each student three times a year. They want to make sure these students have a library of their own and so it's a wonderful partnership that we have with them. Quick quiz. How many cans of tuna fish do you think we sent out last year? >> [laughter] >> Is that measured in tons? Yeah, or cans? You you can >> You can extrapolate if you want. 7,800 cans of tuna fish. That's awesome. How many boxes of macaroni and cheese do you think we sent out? Oh, no. A lot. I don't Like 10,000, right? If it's 7,000.

011That's that's about the same. >> [laughter] >> How many boxes of cereal do you think we sent out last year? That's expensive. I would say like 8,500. 5K, yeah. 15,600. Wow. Because we have two breakfasts every weekend so we make sure that they get lots lots of nutrition, good breakfast and snack snacks to have on hand. So, I'm really I'm really proud of my volunteers. Dwayne here is my chief volunteer. >> [applause] >> I'll just take one one quick minute to say when when we really got hustling and bustling, my four first volunteers on the site were the retired UPS driver, a retired FedEx driver, a retired postal worker, and a retired long-distance semi-truck driver who worked with grocery stores. We have systems like you wouldn't believe. I don't have to worry about a thing.

012Great people. Just quickly, what's coming up and I'm I hope I know Jen will has some of this information already. I left you little presents there on your table, so you know who we are and what we do. What we have have two things coming up. Our annual Christmas in July food drive, which is our biggest food drive of the year to restock our shelves. When when we're done after next Wednesday, we have nothing left on the shelf. It's all out. So, we restock we we pull in these items in July with three drop-off dates at the beginning of August. We'll restock shelves and be ready to rock and roll right after Labor Day, when when our social workers get themselves together and tell us how many people they have and who will need help.

013Also, we will be doing a city-wide school supply drive and we will hope that it all comes into one central location, so all the schools can come and get what they need or the families can come and get what they need and we don't have to start shuffling from one school to the other with extra pencils or magic markers or whatever gets brought in in abundance, so Any questions? I don't want to take any more of your time, but again, I just want to thank you for the partnership. I hope we continue to continue for much longer and um questions? No questions, but like I've seen it grow and just seeing how much it's grown since when it started and it'd be like I would talk to the local church be "Oh, we're doing six

014backpack you know?" And just seeing how it's growing and it's kind of like it's going to live beyond the people that started it, and that's when you know you've built something great, right? So, I appreciate that a lot. I you know, I don't mean to be glib about this, but I said from the beginning it's kind of an easy sell. These are our neighbors' kids. These could be our neighbors' grandkids, and nobody in this town wants to see a child hungry. No. And so, that's And that's the beauty of that is how this how the whole city steps up and helps out. So, thank you for your time. You're welcome. Before you depart, I just say I'm appreciative too because we've spent some time planning and trying to grow the district's participation and making it

015easier for volunteers. And um and I'm just so thankful for what we've done up to this point. But, I mean I don't know if I can still peel beans yet, so I'll Are you comfortable with that? Yes, I'm ready. >> [laughter] >> So, okay. I do I get five minutes? Yeah. I just to answer for the the room that between uh Self Help Pantry and the backpack program, we've been meeting quite a bit and trying to work with our local uh providers and to to actually put the uh the ad center as a hub and to start working with their don- their volunteers and making it so that we can help distribute the food in the backpacks. And um it's a place that we think is a good place for volunteers to come that doesn't

016have children, and we can be a little bit more flexible with what we can get done. And meeting Dwayne the other day and and the team, we're excited to build something beyond and to make it easier for volunteers so they don't have folks going and picking up tons and tons of things. If we can put it in one place, that's been our goal. So, thank you for being a willing participant. I'm so excited. I'm ready. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you so much. >> [applause] >> Thank you. Um was there anyone else from the um audience who wanted to speak? Wonderful. Can I please have a motion to appoint our new board member? I move that board appoint Ervin Madden to fill the Board of Education vacancy. Second. It's been moved and

017seconded. Can I have a roll call, please? Duckman? Aye. Garrett? Aye. Hearing? Aye. Mesa? Aye. Burton? Aye. Delgado? Abstain. All right. Okay, but it's time for you to come up here now. >> [laughter] >> Don't go back. Yep. I'll give you a second. Come on up. >> have a second to go back. >> [laughter] >> Until we both get up there. And we're going to do the oath of office for the new board member. Um I don't know where to stand. By the by the flag. By the flag. All right. Over there where they Let's go to And um Is it going to be on camera? Is there room for you? Yeah, that's probably what I think. Um here's your oath. Yeah. Yep. Thank you. Appreciate it. You're welcome. All right, are you ready? Are

018you comfortable? >> [laughter] >> You're already bossing me around. Sorry. Okay, you're ready? Yep. Awesome. I I, Ervin Madden do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of member of the Board of Education that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of the member of the Board of Education of Community Consolidated School District 62 of Community Consolidated School District 62 in accordance with the Constitution of the United States in accordance with the Constitution of the United States Constitution of the State of Illinois and the laws of the State of Illinois to the best of my ability to the best of my ability I further swear that I will that I I further swear that I shall respect taxpayer interests by serving as a faithful protector

019of the school district assets that I shall respect taxpayer interests by serving as a faithful protector of the school district assets I shall encourage and the free expression of opinion by my fellow board members and others who seek a hearing before the board while respecting the privacy of students and employees. I shall respect and I shall encourage and respect the free expression of opinion by my fellow board members and others who seek a hearing before the board while respecting the privacy of students and employees. I shall recognize that a board member has no legal authority as an individual and that decisions can be made only by majority vote in a public board meeting. I shall recognize that the board member has no legal authority as an individual and that decisions can only be made by

020a majority vote at a public board meeting. I shall abide by majority decisions of the board while retaining the right to seek changes in such decisions through ethical [clears throat] and constructive channels. I shall abide by the majority decisions of the board while retaining the right to seek changes in such decisions through ethical and constructive channels. As part of the Board of Education, I shall accept the responsibility for my role in the equitable and quality education of every student in the school district. As part of the Board of Education, I shall accept the responsibility for my role in the equitable and quality education of every student in the school district. I shall foster with the board extensive participation of the community, formulate goals, define outcomes, and set the course for Community Consolidated School District 62.

021I shall foster with the board extensive participation of the community, formulate goals, define outcomes, and set the course for Community Consolidated School District 62. I shall assist in establishing a structure and an environment designed to ensure all students have an opportunity to attain their maximum potential through a sound organizational framework. I shall assist in establishing a structure and an environment designed to ensure all students have an opportunity to attain their maximum potential through a sound organizational framework. I shall strive to ensure continuous assessment of student achievement and all conditions affecting the education of our children in compliance with state law. I shall strive to ensure continuous assessment of student achievement and all conditions of affecting the education of our children in compliance with state law. I shall serve as education's key advocate on behalf of

022students in our community schools to advance the vision for Community Consolidated School District 62 and I shall strive as education's key advocate on behalf of students in our community schools to advance the vision for Community Consolidated School District 62 and I shall strive to work together with the district superintendent to lead the school district toward fulfilling the vision the board has created, fostering excellence for every student in the areas of academic skills, knowledge, and citizenship, and personal development. I shall strive to work together with the district superintendent to lead the school district toward fulfilling the vision the board has created, fostering excellence for every student in the areas of academic skills, knowledge, citizenship, and personal development. Congratulations. >> [applause] >> Congratulations. Thank you. Oh. Thank you so much. All right. Where am I? And I

023just I just want to welcome you and um acknowledge that this is a one-year term that is um filling the spot of Beth Morley who resigned um recently and um so we welcome you and we'll bring you up to speed as fast as we can. Thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Okay. Now we have Okay. Next up, I'm looking for nominations for our president pro tem. So we do our We have Let me start over. She said I didn't say that anything either. We have to do a board reorganization every year to elect our president and vice president and secretary. We do this every year for to give people a chance to have these different offices and for us to reaffirm this is what we're looking to do moving forward. Um, can I go

024now? This is Stephanie. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Awesome. I need help sometimes. That's all right. So, now I would like some nominations for president pro tem. I move that Stephanie Duckman be appointed president pro tem. >> [snorts] >> Okay. There are no other nominations. Congratulations, Stephanie Duckman. All right. Um So, now we are going to I'm asking now for nominations for office of president. I nominate Elizabeth Massa for the president position of president to the Board of Education. Okay. Are there any other nominations [clears throat] for the office of president? All right. Um, since there are no other nominations, the president um If there are no further nominations, nominations for the office of president are closed. Elizabeth Massa being the only candidate nominated for the office of president, the chair hereby declares her elected by

025acclamation and directs the secretary to so record in the minutes. Okay. I turn the meeting back to you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks, Elizabeth. Um, now nominations are in order for the office of vice president. I nominate Stephanie Duckman for the position of vice president to the Board of Education. Stephanie Duckman is nominated. Are there any other nominations for the office of vice president? Thank you. The secretary of the board can please record a unanimous unanimous vote for that person and that person is hereby declared elected. Congratulations. Thank you, guys. >> Very good. Yeah. Thank you. I move that Mary Ellen Soyars be appointed to serve as the secretary to the Board of Education. Second. Thank you. Mary Ellen, I'm sorry. There's no move and second. I think we need a roll call,

026please. Garrett? I. Hearing? I. Massa? I. Maiman? I. Burton? I. Delgado? I. Duckman? I. We have a script, but we only do this once a year, which is why we're I am sorry. Okay, here we go. Um I move that the existing Board of Education policies be adopted. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Can I have a roll call, please? Hearing? I. Massa? I. Maiman? I. Burton? I. Delgado? I. Duckman? I. Garrett? I. I move that the meeting schedule of our regular Board of Education meetings be accepted as presented. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Can I have a roll call, please? Massa? I. Maiman? I. Burton? I. Delgado? I. Duckman? I. Garrett? I. Hearing? I. Okay, so next um we do the appointment of board liaisons. Um many boards of education do committees um

027meaning um two or more board members meet with different cabinet members throughout the month and then they report back to the board. Um however, our board has um functioned as uh with the liaison system instead. So, one of us is um works with each cabinet member director and then they report back to us. Um and so that's what we're going to do. So, uh I'm just going to go through the list [clears throat] of what they are and then we will talk about what we're doing up here. We have buildings, which is operations and management. We have community relations, education, finance, personnel, and policy. And I would like to start off by placing our fund with buildings. I think it'll be great for you to kind of get caught up a little bit. I want

028to let you know what we're doing in terms of construction and building kindergarten stuff and then get to go on a bunch of tours. So. >> [laughter] >> And then also know since you've been just seated, we will make sure that you meet with everybody. We will do these liaison meetings so that you're so to help you kind of get acclimated to things. Sounds good. Thank you. >> Awesome. Thank you, sir. For community relations, I would like Jean Herring to be our liaison. Your dedication to our message and our theme and how we present ourselves to the public is very important to you and I truly appreciate that and I think you'd be wonderful working with Jeff Ann. Thank you very much. Thank you. For education, I would like Catel Delgado to be in that

029space. I think it would be wonderful for you to work with Amy and Romy to kind of get a crash course in what we're doing >> [laughter] >> in education. We take advantage, those of us who are in education, that we throw a lot of acronyms around in terms of things that we forget when people are not, you know, the uninitiated that they they take some minute and so we're trying to spread the love. Fantastic. Thank you very much. Ron Burton for finance, Mr. Finance. Need I say more? Thank you very much. Personnel, Stephanie Duckman has been doing this in personnel for a while. You know all the ins and outs. Do you mind? I'd gladly do that. Perfect. Thank you so much. And that leads us Tina Garrett for policy, our policy queen. I

030love it. for the last year, so keep on keeping on. >> Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you very much, everybody. Um next we have the appointment of board representatives. Um again, I'm going to kind of do a quick rundown of what that is and then we'll um talk about what we want to do. Um I ASB North Cook, um that is the professional family group that we belong to. Um and we also have our IASB legislative delegate who votes for us when we have our conference um in the fall. We also have Ed Red, which is the lobbying arm that we work with. Um we have an Ed Red alternate cuz their meetings are sometimes during the day and they can be hard to get to. That's okay. Um and then we have

031the um D62 Foundation, the lovely organization that we work with to help raise money to fulfill wishes for teachers. So. Um does anyone have strong feelings about any of these um openings? So, I am an ambassador till the rest of the year, so um I would definitely maybe you can come into meetings with me, um but I'll take North Cook if that's okay with everybody still. And I would like to be the delegate again cuz I do have a lot of stuff we're working on for the next triple I conference. But we typically you typically don't get two. Oh, so should I just do the delegate as the ambassador cuz that's really why I'm doing the ambassador. Okay, perfect. Okay. Yeah. Thank you, Tina. Yeah. Um I've done Ed Red the last few years. Um

032I can continue with that or I can do the alternate if somebody else feels strongly about attending the Ed Red meetings. Um they can be attended virtually, which is how I think we'll go. Um it's up to you guys. I can I can do I can do Ed Red or alternate. Okay. So. I'll I'll with Ed Red. I was going to I was going to say Foundation. Yeah, no, that's right. I would do Ed Red Alternate. >> Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Kathy, would you do Foundation? Sure. Awesome. Thank you. Okay, and that leaves IASB Northbrook. Ron? Yeah, I'll do that. Thank you, Ron. Okay, so we have Ron for IASB Northbrook, we have Tina for IASB West Chicago, Eugene for Ed Red, we have Stephanie for Ed Red Alternate, and Cat for Foundation Club.

033And then we'll just invite them all to the Yes, like we've mentioned. Yes, yes, yes. Tina's saying that we will treat information always. Right. Well, I mean Of course. >> Yeah, for We'll invite you We'll call you on a Zoom call the day before, yeah. Okay. Okay. Now for our regularly scheduled meeting, everybody. All righty, we got this. Okay. So, first up we have new board member orientation with Dr. We need the cabinet. This is cabinet. Thank you. Okay. I got to pull up Mr. Burn Losey move here. Okay. I know that we've run through most of this, Mr. Memon, once already with uh your visits, but for the benefit of going through our process here and then to also meet each of our cabinet members and to give a brief update what their purposes

034and their departments and the work that they do. I'll start off with the um the things that you would learn from IASB, but all of this is taken straight from IASB's work and also with our work with Triple I. Uh the role of the Board of Education is in governing policy. As we've said, much of our work is the best work that the board can do is through policy, continuing to review new policy amongst a million other things, but uh policy is where the the backbone of school district work gets done. Um uh managing the superintendent is a lovely task that you have in evaluating. So, through a process that you'll probably get to enjoy tonight, uh going through a performance evaluation uh of your one employee, the superintendent. And also with code of conduct,

035which is also part of what you'll pick up through IASB, is much of what you just swore to already. So, I won't read through the bullets. And then the role of superintendent, obviously, is is really following through with what we're putting forward as our strategic plan, the vision, the mission [clears throat] of the school district. Uh it's it's a little bit of each of the departments, and you'll see when you hear from the rest of the cabinet members here uh what the work is in involved there. And then you'll have your opportunity to sit in where your schedule permits. I know that you're not getting a paycheck for this, uh but to sit in at meetings or opportunities with liaison meetings so that you can learn more about each cabinet member and their department. So,

036with that, I will say that we have all of our sites listed here. And with 12 sites plus our maintenance building and the admin center, we've got plenty of property to manage. So, there's a lot to do at all times. And then finally with our strategic plan, we're excited you'll get an update on that tonight uh or we're going to tell you about the end of year. We do two reports a year, it's mid-year and end-of-year, and this is the end of the second year, which means next year's implementation year. And it's been >> [clears throat] >> quite a lot for our staff and our teams, but we are we are starting some new challenges next year, which is probably the biggest change we've seen in this district in some time, the full-day kindergarten across

037with new structured literacy. Just a lot of work, and it's thanks to the staff and uh the families supporting us to do this. So, with Mr. Berlozi in the wings over there, I'm going to turn this over to Mark, and come on over, sir. >> [laughter] >> Now it's official. Thank you, Dr. Ramani. You don't want to cramp your style, so thanks so much. Uh as Dr. Ramani mentioned, I'm I'm Mark Pertelosi, I'm your assistant superintendent of business services. I've been at the district since 2018, uh but I've had this very job, I'm putting my 18th year. So, I've done this very job uh for a very long time in a couple of different uh places. Uh in that time, uh I have uh served on the IASBO Illinois uh Association of School Business Officials

038state board uh for 3 years in 2017 to 2020. I'm also an active member in uh Ed Red, which is a group we were just discussing a few minutes ago. Uh very heavily involved in NIASBO itself. Also the delegate advisory assembly, uh which looks at the legislative issues that need to be uh brought up and trying to find sponsors for various things. Also involved with SELF, which is our workers' comp co-op. Um and also the public policy PDC or ad- really advocacy PDC within IASBO. Uh in addition to being a uh a graduate of Orchard Place and Iroquois, I'm also a graduate of Marquette University in New Lenox, Illinois, uh >> [laughter] >> Subtle. I like that. Um yeah, I'm not as great as you think I am. I have wonderful people helping helping me

039out. Uh I want to give credit to those people. Uh Mr. Flanders is our director of facilities. Uh and also out with him at the maintenance shop is Linda McKague, who does all of our transportation. Uh she's our transportation manager, and she makes all of our lives a whole lot easier. Uh with me in the business office, uh I'm still going to call my fab five, but uh I've got Cheryl McCarthy, our business office manager. Um she's dealing with your bands key who is the business office assistant to them make sure I don't miss deadlines and I am where I need to be. Uh Sue Wininger handles all of our accounts payable. Laura Morales handles our payroll. I'd like to tell her twice a month she's my favorite employee in the district. Uh Andoria Tabor

040is uh handles all of our accounts receivable. Okay, so I'm not going to read this slide. I know it's a really long night, so I'm going to summarize it if it's okay with you. I'll be happy to talk more about it if you so choose. Uh basically what this boils down to is what we do. We advocate for students, support learning environments, manage resources, and we act with timeliness, transparency, and responsibility. Here we go. Next slide. Why does it matter, huh? Yeah, I'm setting the bar high for you guys. [laughter] Um why does it matter? So, in the words of my colleague again, I'll summarize it. Uh Ed Bracey is a colleague of mine I've known for a long time. He said it best, if you don't manage the money, you won't have the money.

041If you don't take care of the money, you won't have the money to take care of the students. Let me make sure I get it right. Uh and also we want to give our students every opportunity to reach their fullest potential. Thank you. I'm coming. Thank you, Mr. Oh, no. >> [clears throat] >> Turned it off for you. Thank you, Mr. Bertolozzi. Um good evening, Board of Education. My name is Jennifer Bova and I have the pleasure of serving as the Director of Community Relations. I have been in this capacity uh for uh 10 years, July 1. So, here I am. I have uh been in the field of school communications for over two decades. We won't get specific there. I began as a reporter working with Sun Publications after graduating from the best university

042ever, UI, with a minor in Spanish. Uh I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge my team, Dan Chinelli. He uh takes beautiful photographs, helps tell our stories. Um helped with making uh tonight's strategic plan video come to life, which you will see in a few moments. Tracy Summerfelt is the reason why this evening, this presentation honoring our middle school student Tichenor, was so beautiful and flawless. On occasion, Pablo Sanz has helped with the best podcasts that have ever been created, these two. Dr. Ahmed Tichenor chance and rolling with it. So, I'm very fortunate to work with some very talented and gracious people. So, what do we do? Um at the core of what we do, we're very focused on keeping our community informed and engaged, uh connected, secure. We do that through uh

043internal and external communications. We always want to share our story with our staff first and foremost. We share our stories through our digital newsletters, handbooks, social media, the website, our videos. I also uh help oversee our uh parent notification system known as Finalsite, and uh managing crisis communications, media relations, and serving as the spokesperson when we need to go that route. Uh beyond sharing information, this uh role is also really about connecting with our community. So, I also have the privilege of serving as our community liaison through various uh facets, including uh our Des Plaines Chamber, our Rosemont Chamber. We uh support children in uh that community as well. And uh in order to really foster through trust and transparency, uh I also facilitate several groups such as our parent leaders, our community leaders. Hello

044Dwayne. Hello. Our superintendent council that is made up of staff in the district. And we also just work very hard to really highlight our district's excellence through various student and staff recognitions. And one of the other last components of what this department does is really support public engagement research. I think that the research is really such a foundation to our planning and our implementation, our evaluation process, and of course supporting the work of the five-year strategic plan. And why it matters is if we don't tell our story, someone else will. And we have such a wonderful opportunity with just the wonderful students and the staff that we work with to be able to do that. And I believe wholeheartedly in transparency and working with our local media. And that concludes your community relations presentation. I

045now turn it over to Ms. Kathleen Kelly Colgan. Thank you. Hi, you already know my name. She said that. I wrote notes about myself so I wouldn't forget who I am and what I'm here um it is my pleasure to serve as assistant superintendent for human resources. I'm just finishing my fourth year in District 62, but I just realized I'm well into my second decade in school personnel. So, I have been a teacher, assistant principal, principal, instructional coach, and in the HR game for a little bit longer than all those other roles there. Um I have um been very heavily involved like Mark is with his money guys. I hang out with my HR peeps a lot and have served on the board of the Illinois um Association for School Personnel Administrators for a number

046of years. Most recently um currently as past president, as president last year. I lead a team of four other people, Janitor Royal, who's our HR manager, oh, I should have amended that slide. Julie Simmons Hubbard, who makes sure we have insurance, Ariana Pineda, who's our administrative assistant, and Eric Abreu, who welcomes people to our district every day. In our department, um we do we take care of people. That is my job is to take care of the people of District 62 through excellent staffing, benefits administration, evaluation, licensure, hiring, and leaves. We help people at the highest and highest points of their career when they come to work for us and also at the lowest points when they are struggling with something or something is going wrong in their personal life and they need support. We

047work um a great deal with the recruitment and retention of high-quality staff. I take care of labor management relations. I am heavily involved in our school safety initiatives and I'm also the fun police because I'm in charge of legal compliance in our district. So, I get to say no a lot. So, sorry about that, everybody. Um about a third of our staff are residents of the city of Des Plaines, something that we are very, very proud of. All of the work that we do in the Human Resources Office is done with students in mind. Every decision we make is for students and that is why it matters what we do because we want to attract, retain, and um and protect hire, retain best educators and staff to give our students the best educational experience possible

048and to sustain a working environment that supports adults so that they can do great things for kids every day. Welcome to 62. Mrs. Sengel. Pass the time. All right, good evening, everyone. My name is Amy Sengel and I am the assistant superintendent for uh instructional services. Uh I have been a long-timer in District 62, started here in 2006, right after my daughter is was born, so that's always how long I remember. Um I've actually I did the math wrong um and I've been in education for about 22 years, serving in a lot of different roles. I was a teacher, middle school teacher, English as a second language teacher, instructional coach for several years, principal for 10, and serving in this particular role for 2 years. This is my second year. I am also a alumni

049of U of I I L L. >> [laughter] >> As as many of us are going to hear that from a few of us tonight. I am also a very proud parent of three District 62 graduates, which is exciting and I am a resident of Des Plaines. So, this is very personal for me as you know, I think it's so important to give back to my community as well. So, I have a fabulous team working that I'm so lucky to work with every single day. We have two directors in our department. We have Dr. Julie Fogarty, who is our director of curriculum. Ms. Libby Jeschke, who is our director of multilingual programs. Kristy Bowman, who is our curriculum coordinator and data specialist does all things data. We have a team of nine incredible instructional coaches

050as you can see there. And I would be remiss if I did not also mention our amazing administrative assistants that keep us in line, keep us organized, and keep us up and running. So, what we do. Uh, student learning, curriculum, instruction, and assessment all fall under instructional services. We are also responsible for all professional learning, professional development for our staff, and multilingual programming falls under instructional services as well. Why does it matter? It matters because we believe that every single child that comes through our doors is capable of achieving at high levels with the right amount of support and with high-quality instruction. We are fortunate because we have amazing teachers here in District 62. Many of them are here tonight. Um and we um we also have a responsibility to make sure they're supported as

051well. So, that is an important part of our job in our department to make sure that our teachers have the resources, the tools, the supports, and the professional knowledge they need to do their job and to be effective. Um and of course, we do need to be in compliance with federal and state laws, rules, and regulation, and all of that. So, that is instructional services in a nutshell. And with that, I want to turn it over to my colleague, Dr. De Cristofaro. Hi everyone. I'm Romy De Cristofaro, the assistant superintendent of student services here in District 62, [clears throat] and this is my second year in the district and I love being here. Um I hope to spend many more years here as well, but it is my 20 It says 22nd, but it's actually

052my 23rd year in the field of special education. I've been in a variety of roles, special education teacher, coordinator, um director, assistant director, and assistant superintendent the last eight years. I'm an NIU alumni and UIUC alumni. I also want to highlight my amazing team, Heidi Rudy, Colleen Bear in the back. Uh you're going to hear more from them tonight as well. Many of our coordinators are also in the audience. We have core special coordinators that support each of our sites. Some also play the dual role of assistant principal. We have behavior specialists and administrative assistants that really run the show. So, what do we do? I'm going to keep this very brief because you're about to hear a whole presentation from us in in just a moment about what we've been up to in our

053department, but um in a nutshell, we oversee special education services in the district, health services, social emotional services, and a variety of other supports that we provide students, and records and residency. Why does it matter? Um because when we are meeting the needs of our students who need the most, we know that everybody benefits, and that's what we work to do. So, thank you, and I will turn it over to Mr. Dennenberg. Thank you. I will keep mine short, too, because last month I was up here talking about what my team and I do, as well. So, my journey started at the University of Illinois, as well, where I was studying elementary education. I did not run into anyone there, but that's where I was. That landed me um some great opportunities, 4 years teaching

054in the classroom, fifth grade and third grade. And while I was doing that, I started working on my master's in technology in education. That landed me in some other great opportunities, uh 7 years in technology teaching. First 3 or 4 years was in a computer lab where I had kindergarten through fourth grade students coming to the lab. And then I helped the another district with the technology integration uh teacher role. And while I was doing that, I worked on my educational uh master's in educational leadership degree, and I am now on my 20th year um as a chief technology officer or a similar role. Um I was doing the math, as well, and I believe this is year 30 in uh education working in schools. And I joined this wonderful team here in District 62

055um in July of 2017, and I always remember that cuz it's right after the Cubs won the World Series. Uh my technology team, um with me included, we make a baker's dozen. Um among many of the things we do is help answer all of the tickets that come in on a daily basis um in our help desk uh ticketing system. Um other things we do, we help purchase and support all technology equipment in the district. We assure all district software is compliant with the Student Online Personal Protection Act. Um we support families with student registration and enrollment. We provide district safety and security solutions, and we support digital literacy and AI usage. And why technology matters, um devices, applications, and online tools are required for students learning and district operations. You can't be a student

056in this district or an employee in this district without using technology to some capacity. We continue to provide safety and security measures for protecting all of our students and our staff. We protect student staff data and privacy, and we assure families have access to the internet and receive technical support at home. And that concludes our update. Any questions for anyone? >> [laughter] >> Thank you, Mr. Dennenberg. We had a welcome house crash course, so everybody in here learned a little bit too much maybe about us as a group, but thank you, everybody. Thank you very much. Um next we have a presentation on special education, social emotional learning, and health updates. Mr. Henry. And I would like to bring up Dr. DeChristofaro, our assistant superintendent of student services, Heidi Gruen, our director of student services,

057and Colleen Bear, director of social emotional learning. All right. Good evening, board of Is this working? Good evening, Board of Education, Dr. Amade, and members of our community. I want to thank you for this opportunity to share what we've been doing in student services. And before we begin our presentation, I want to take a moment to recognize and thank our incredible student services team. Our staff, our teachers, our related service providers, our paraprofessionals, nurses, health clerks, behavior specialists, and administrators, and some of whom are here today in this audience. Just want to recognize all of your hard work. Um the work that our staff do each day is complex, it's demanding, and it's deeply meaningful. They support students academically, socially, emotionally, behaviorally, and physically. Their dedication, flexibility, compassion, and belief in our students make a

058difference. So, tonight's presentation is really a reflection of their work and their commitment, and the progress we continue to make together as a district. So, with that, I'm excited to share updates from student services, and tonight we'll focus on special education, health services, and our continued efforts to strengthen social emotional learning here in District 62. At the center of our work is a commitment to belonging and inclusion. In District 62, we believe that every student has unique strengths, abilities, and potential. And our responsibility is to create an environment where students feel valued, respected, supported, and empowered to thrive. Our work goes far beyond compliance. It's about building systems and and learning environments that provide equitable opportunities and meaningful access for all learners. Through collaborative partnerships between our school teams and our families, we continue to

059work to ensure that supports are individualized and responsive to student needs. So now I'd like to highlight some background data for context. Students with IEPs make up approximately 16.6% of District 62 student population, which is slightly above the state average of 16.3%. Our students represent a wide range of strengths and needs across academic, communication, developmental, behavioral, emotional, and health-related areas. The most common disability category in District 62 includes developmental delay, which is a disability category for students ages 10 and under, specific learning disability, speech language impairment, and autism. And some disability categories occur much less frequently, which you can see reflected in the slide. Together, this data highlights the importance of maintaining a continuum of services that is supportive and can be responsive to a diverse student body. Students eligible for special education services are

060entitled to a free and appropriate public education. You might hear us sometimes say FAPE. Um it's designed to meet their individual needs. As a district, we continue to strategically utilize both grant funding and local resources. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or IDEA grant funds um accounts for approximately 36% of our student services budget, which we use to support professional learning, curriculum and materials, uh supplies, other program needs, Special Olympic Special Olympics and parent events this year. Um we also utilize local funds uh for operational expenses, including staffing, and we offset some of these costs with Medicaid reimbursements and special transportation claims. Okay. So, this slide compares district data and the amount of time District 62 students are spending in the general education environment settings compared to state and national averages. The blue bar represents

061District 62, the green is the state, and the red is the nation. So, this data highlights that District 62 students currently spend more time in special education settings as compared to both the state and national averages, and at the same time, it's important to note, and you can see the bars all the way over on the right, um representing the percentage of students who are receiving services in a separate therapeutic day school, that we are below the state average here, which I believe is reflective of the um wonderful in-service district supports we're able to provide our students. All right. So, last year was very much focused on evaluation. This year has been focused on planning and preparation, and next year, as Dr. Homay mentioned, we're moving into implementation. So, our journey began with a comprehensive

062program review in partnership with Empowered. Um and this review included extensive um data analysis, classroom observations, focus groups, and stakeholder surveys with parents and staff, and um a review of a variety of district documents. At the conclusion of the review, Empowered offered the following findings and recommendations. Number one, increase inclusive opportunities for students. Two, strengthening professional learning. Three, improving placement decision-making processes. Four, enhancing intervention and literacy supports. And five, improving staffing and scheduling systems to support collaboration and service delivery. Since receiving these recommendations, we have focused heavily on planning for implementation. Staff voice has been central to this work. We established a guiding coalition of teachers, related service providers, and administrators who helped shape action steps and timelines, professional learning priorities, and recommendations for our continuum of services. We also held listening sessions across all

063schools to better understand building specific needs. This led to our program expansion recommendations. So, beginning next school year, instructional level supports will be available across all elementary buildings and continue at both middle schools. Um and our previ- our specialized services, previously which were limited to a fewer sites, will expand to four of our elementary schools, continue at Chippewa, and eventually expand to Algonquin. So, these changes are designed to reduce unnecessary transitions and increase access to supports and services closer to home. In addition, all schools participated in a student-centered scheduling process this winter um to prioritize uh student needs and staff collaboration time, and we also continued our partnership with Educating Outside the Lines um to design disability awareness activities for our schools. Family engagement also continues to be critical throughout our process. Once programming decisions

064were finalized for next year and shared in December, our teams personally contacted every family who may have had the option to have their child return to their home school or closer to a closer school within their feeder pattern. Approximately half of those families chose to do so. We also hosted two virtual hot town halls and multiple focus groups where we could share updates and receive feedback from families. In partnership with our special education parent advisory council or CPAC, we continue providing parent education opportunities. This year included sessions on digital use, strengthening IEP partnerships, augmentative and alternative communication or AAC, and assisted listening devices. These ongoing conversations are critical to strengthening our partnership with families and schools. So, at this time, I will turn it over to Ms. Heidi Rudy to share more about our continuing

065services and help. Thank you, Romy. As Dr. De Cristofaro just shared, our special education review led us to take a closer look at our continuum of services for special education. This continuum reflects our commitment to meet the unique needs of all of our students. Student services are individualized through their IEP, which is based on their strengths, and needs, and goals. Our service model is guided by a few core principles. Individualized support, a flexible continuum, and evidence-based instructional strategies. We work to educate students alongside their peers to the greatest extent appropriate, while also supporting independence and progress towards academic and functional goals. Ultimately, it is up to the student's IEP team who determines the combination of services that best supports the student's needs. In District 62, we offer services that are delivered across a variety of

066learning environments. We prioritize inclusion through push-in and co-taught services, that is support in the general education environment. And when additional support is needed, students may receive resource or for pull-out services in a special education setting. Moving into next year, we will offer two specialized programs that are designed to support uh provide intensive, highly structured support for students whose needs cannot be fully met in the general education, resource, or instructional settings. One specialized program is called BEST, and that stands for behavioral and emotional supported teaching. The BEST program provides therapeutic and educational support in special education settings for students whose social, emotional, or behavioral needs significantly impact their school functioning. As for our other specialized program, we have a very important update on the next slide. Drum roll, please. Thank you for that. We're very excited

067to share the rebranding of one of our specialized programs. Uh staff and parents participated in focus groups to help guide this process, including selecting the new name and ensuring it reflects both the purpose of the program and the voices of those closest to it. The program formerly called ELS, also standing for educational life skills, will now be called STRIVE. STRIVE stands for structured teaching for readiness, independence, voice, and engagement. This new name reflects our commitment to preparing students with essential life skills through a structured approach that supports readiness for future success, builds independence, and strengthens self-advocacy through voice and engagement. Our goal is to empower every student to grow, communicate, and engage with purpose. Here is a visual that better explains the full range of services in our district. It starts with general education in

068the least restrictive environment and then extends more to intensive supports, including home bound and hospital services. The key takeaway is that this system of services is designed to be flexible and responsive to individual student needs. Students are not limited to one type of service or program. Instead, they may receive supports across the continuum as their needs change and evolve over time. And finally, we know that strong programming depends on strong professional learning. From January through May, we focused on a wide range of staff development. This includes training in differentiation strategies, creating meaningful access for all students, AAC and structured teaching strategies across a variety of roles and settings. Six of our schools also partnered with Educating Outside the Lines for a week-long disability awareness initiative that provided an interactive and in-person experience focused on disability

069inclusion for the entire school community. We've strengthened instructional strategies in both math and literacy while providing while prioritizing student-centered scheduling. And now moving on to health services, I want to highlight a few key updates that took place this year. So, the district is required to have at least one automated external defibrillator AED in every school building. Of the district's 18 AEDs, all but one were between the years 13 and 19 year years old. They typically last about 10 years. Uh so, this year we began a phase replacement plan and successfully installed eight new AEDs. Next year, we will continue replacing the remaining older units. We are also prioritizing additional CPR training. Currently, all school nurses, health clerks, physical education teachers, and interscholastic coaches are certified every 2 years in CPR and AED use. To strengthen

070our emergency response teams, all building administrators will now participate and be certified in CPR and AED beginning this June. Next, we purchased and began using the Spot Vision Screener. This tool is essential in helping us accurately identify vision concerns in children as young as 6 months old. It has been especially beneficial for screening our preschool students, as well as students with more complex needs who may have difficulty participating in traditional vision screenings. And finally, we completed a review and update of our concussion protocol. We reviewed and updated procedures to ensure alignment with the Heads Up Concussion Program, supporting safe and effective return-to-learn and return-to-play practices for students. And now, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, Colin Bear, for social emotional learning update. Thanks. So, in the world of social emotional learning, we've

071been really focused on developing layers and levels of supports at each of our sites to meet the needs of students. At tier one, our work at the district level has looked like differentiated PD, coaching training to help sites create, implement, develop systems of support for every student at their site. So, that might look like consistent language, common expectations, uh consistent systems for responding to behavior, or developing positive relationships. And tier two this year across the district, we've rolled out an intervention for the first time which is called check and check out. Check and check out does two things for children. It increases the number of opportunities for feedback throughout the day on how you're doing and it also pairs you with another trusted adult to form a relationship with. We've seen sites really explore explode

072in growth and how they're serving students with check and check out. It's been wonderful to see and recently at a parent teacher advisory committee when we were reviewing just our discipline practices and behavior in general, several parents there were like, "Oh, my student has had that and that really worked well for them." So, it's nice to see that work growing in our district and we'll continue to develop that as the years go on. Now, at the same time as we're developing our systems, another area in social emotional learning specific to our district that we focused on is the data that teams have at their disposal at their disposal to make decisions on. Um there's a lot of data in education. It's hard to make it information out of times. And so, a lot of our

073work at the district office has been working with our teams to say, "What data do you need to make good decisions?" and then bringing it from multiple sources together. So, on the left-hand side you can see at tier one, that's an overview of referrals and I think most recently Mr. Infante Cumberland shared an example of that as an update to you all. Uh but a way to look at a variety of indicators and like, "Hey, how how is that going?" A lot of our sites are starting to bring students into that conversation too which I think is cool and saying, "Hey, it looked like I know it's hard to see, February was quite a tough month and February in the cafeteria was a very tough month." Uh and bringing students into that discussion. I really

074like the the trajectory that it's going. And then an example of tier two when um to not be overly technical, that's that's an example of maybe that might live normally in three different spreadsheets. You know, your check-in checkout points average, your referrals, and your attendance. And for a staff member, you need three tabs open, three places to put in data, that becomes inefficient and challenging. And so, we've been working on bringing that all into one spot to make uh better and easier decisions on behalf of students. And then finally, a few other updates that we wanted to share. We are finishing up our first year with an updated threat and risk assessment process. We partner with North Cook to redevelop our model, and we've gotten a lot of good feedback. It's a process that we

075use to ensure that students are safe. And that operates as part of our larger district safety committee, and it's a place that we're always looking to get better at. But this has been year one in that updated process, and we're pleased with the with the results so far. We also have some really interesting work going on in community partnerships, and we had one of our uh key partners here today share at public comment. But we have a group of folks from across departments that's looking to revamp how we connect families with supports they need in the community. Right now, we're working on identifying major areas of need, which is represented in this graphic, and then key partners that exist or areas that we need to establish key partners to have more effective, more efficient systems.

076One for families in getting what they need, also for our staff members that are working with those families. And then finally, we wanted to highlight the Stronger Connections grant and just our appreciation for the Illinois State Board of Education. Two years ago, we applied for and received a grant for about $220,000 to help support a lot of our work in social emotional learning, and we've been able to put that to good use of as we began to develop the models that we've talked about today. But we've also tried to use the funding so that they can continue after the grant expires. And so, one of the examples we wanted to highlight was our partnership with North Cook. So, North Cook has a program that's called the ALOP program, the Learning Opportunities Program, and it's a

077program that exists to serve students with a variety of needs. Uh attendance, behavior, at-risk markers of that sort. Uh we've partnered with North Cook to have three ALOP advocates, so North Cook employees working full-time in our schools right now. We have them at Algonquin, at Chippewa, and North. Year one of that is a cost-sharing model between the district and North Cook, but years two and beyond are at no cost to the district. And so we were able to use Stronger Connections money to fund those initial year one cost-sharing, but that support will continue then long after the grant uh expires. And so those are just some of the updates in the world of social-emotional learning that we're working on. All right. So as we move into next year, as as I mentioned, it's been a

078lot of planning and preparation, and we're moving into implementation. We want to support our schools who are receiving new programming to be consistent across the district. And then we want to also continue to support our positive behavior intervention and support system Mr. Bear was discussing. Also, uh we have a new literacy resource that we talked about at last month's board meeting, and that will be rolling out. Already started the training, um and it's going to be really important that we partner with our educational services team to make sure that our all of our teachers, our general teachers, and our specialist teachers know how to support our students um who have various needs across the district. So that's going to be a major priority as we move into next year. And then the professional learning [clears

079throat] focus additional professional learning focus that came up through our guiding coalition, and then also teacher feedback is an increased need to um have more training around co-planning and co-teaching, and then differentiation strategies for um students with diverse needs. And thankfully, our multilingual department has already done a lot of work around co-teaching and co-planning, so our department will be uh collaborating with them and building off of their work so that we can have a a consistent approach across the district in terms of how we approach co-teaching and co-planning. So with that, I want to thank you again for this opportunity and we are happy to answer any questions that you may have. I'd like to start just by saying I really appreciate the the renaming to to strive. I think that's just such a wonderful

080more specific name, and I really like the focus on readiness for success and independence moving forward. I think it's really important for students to feel like yes, they can, and I think this new name really kind of drives that home. So I I really really appreciate that. Thank you for the work you did with getting the community involved and parents. That's wonderful. And I think that comment goes throughout your presentation. I think it really shows how much how important it is to you as a department to make sure that families are involved in all these decisions moving forward and things like that. So I really appreciate that work and how it's it's a lot. So corral us parents sometimes, so I I appreciate it. I would just add though that that outcome is better because

081we had their input. I think we ended with a better result than we initially started with for sure. Awesome. >> [laughter] >> I also wanted to comment on I appreciate your focus on professional learning moving forward because there are as you know as educators in this room know, there are many ways to co-teach and to co-plan and I think that's important for um everyone to kind of realize that there are different ways about this and there are some ways that could be work out better than others depending on what's going on in your classroom and who you're co-teaching with. So I I appreciate that as well. I had one more thing and then I'll stop. Could you uh oh, yes. the guided the guided coalition guiding coalition also two thumbs up, no notes. Um and

082the last thing I'll say is can you explain um to the room, I guess, um what student-centered service delivery means? A student-centered scheduling. >> Yes. So, it's a it's a process and a lot of times districts will um and this is just true, it's a beast addressing a master schedule in a building. Um and a lot of times and I think historically you might start with what the special schedule is and then build in a schedule around it and you end up with inefficient scheduling process, particularly for special educators. Um so, this is a process that we went through, not perfect, um but a process I think that gets us closer to where we want to be where first uh team members talk in general about the students and their needs and think about like,

083you know, you know, how much time do they really need to be pulled out of the gen ed environment? So, they start with those conversations, not making IEP team decisions at all, but starting to have those conversations. Then, um looking at that, they group all of the students that have needs in various subject areas and basically build a schedule around that. And then thinking about the staff, too, we emphasize like the priorities that we have for this is one that we're building an efficient schedule where students are prioritized, so their schedule isn't completely disjointed, um but how can you make sure that we have common planning time um between special ed teachers and gen ed teachers as they're working. So, that's what we're striving to do. Still a work in progress, for sure. I think

084everyone in the room that is participating will understand that I think we're a lot closer and um than where we were and we'll continue to build off of that. Thank you very much. I think your memo was fantastic for us on the board, so thank you very much, everyone. All right, um thank you. I do have a question just because you got me thinking. Do we do any any hearing tests for students? Is that done ever? Well, it's part of every student every student I don't remember what grades they get tested, but it's part of the process and then if they're up for evaluation too and it or if they don't pass or we do more extensive hearing testing. For like all students? Or just when they're identified? What grades do they get tested in?

085>> We do hearing screenings on kindergarten kindergarten I believe first, second. Just a screening and so if then students are flagged then we refer them, we let their parents know that they need to go for a further more in-depth evaluation for their hearing. >> [cough] [clears throat] >> I want to tell you how important it's been to me to be the education extraordinary meetings with you and the head of and the amount that I've learned. Most of the people in this room know the depth of what you do. People who are listening to this live stream or watching it later probably do not know the depth and I hope from this presentation the community will understand better the extraordinary work that you do every single day for our students, for our teachers, our administrators, families

086and for the entire community. So, thank you for that. And I particularly love that we were able to do with Special Olympics and within this school year. Those were very emotional, meaningful days to be out there watching these kids. So, thank you for that, too. Thank you. I want to thank everybody who participated and I want to give a shout out to all of our coaches and our families and Diana Green and Kim O'Keefe who really spearheaded it and brought it to the district and we just really supported it along the way and this is an opportunity to also thank Rivers Casino for their generous donation and our District 62 Foundation. And Mr. Herring, we're going to miss meeting with you and we're looking forward to meeting with you. >> [laughter] >> Um, as a

087parent, I just want to say thank you for the work that you do. My children, obviously, they're in District 62. I have a kindergartner and a third grader, um, who have received varying levels of support based on the system and I appreciate um, how it's individualized for students and focusing, hopefully, on a growth mindset in addition to um, helping them through young and confusing years. So, thank you. Um, Go ahead. We've been, well, first of all, I just want Uh, I just want to thank, um, I would also like to say thank you to the team, but I would also say that, you know, change is hard and I understand that this is, you know, you've been growing, you know, for quite, um, since you joined us here and your team has been just working,

088times a hundred. But, so, you know, the importance of this for staff, I know the job is hard, but we also have our neediest children. Um, thankful for everybody that we have, our educators to our teachers to our health clerks or home school specialists and you have Elaine Wall. Um, so, just because in administration, we have great ideas and we try to, you know, foster this, we know that it's the people that that carry the weight, and thank for that. Um, change is difficult, but I'm also, there's things that I think I would like to say to the board, and yeah, for everybody here is that we didn't have to choose to do this report that you just did now, but it's an annual report now that we decided was important and to bring new

089information to the board, but also to dispel like rumors or you know, emotion because it is emotional. The job's important and and it's emotional. Parents is emotional. Students is emotional. Staff. Um and it's a heart thing that you guys navigate. You know, you know, thankful for everyone working together and as we move into next year, we can see some improvements where our family doesn't have to be divided amongst different, you know, different buildings. That's like at the heart of the goal change and let's support that change. So, this being a report that you didn't have to do. We didn't even have to ask. It's something that this team said maybe it would help if we gave a comprehensive report. I know it's late night, but I wanted to make sure you knew that. And then

090also like the development of CPAC, which is something we've always talked about BEPAC, which is very important to us, Mr. Justquith and your team, but BE- the CPAC group has not had voice, you know? So, I think that um I always make that comment about paying the taxes of the past and other people's decisions, but hearing from our families and all of our families has been um positive. It's changed a lot. You know, I'm looking at these elementary schools with these inclusive and accessible play spaces right now. And I'm just proud of that. Like that makes me proud and it makes me see that any child, no matter what their abilities, you know, they can access and have that. So, thank you to the team and to everyone that, you know, there's challenge ahead and

091I know it's hard, but to everyone in the room and and our our staff that are going to continue to work with the students in the ASD program. So, just want to make sure I mention that. Thank you so much for that information. Um next we have review of District 62 Student Handbook common pages, Mr. White. I will ask Dr. Cristofaro to come back and and bring us >> [laughter] >> give us some of Yeah. All right. Hopefully you all were able to review the proposed changes. Our annual process really involves a couple things. We review the handbook as a cabinet and team and then we also work with council for any legislation updates and feedback on our current handbook. So these recommendations are a result of that review by our cabinet and also from

092feedback our attorneys. I would say there's not as many changes as there were last year. Last year I remember there were quite a few. Probably the biggest things to note is that we won't because we're moving to full day kindergarten, we won't have a separate kindergarten handbook but we will be inviting like a section of purposeful play into the handbook this year and I attached that. The other probably biggest change was the section on behavior and safety and that was really a result of the feedback that Mr. and we got at the parent advisory committee meeting, the parent teacher advisory committee meeting and so even though the content didn't necessarily change, we reworked it to make it more like user friendly based off of that feedback so parents can understand it a little bit easier

093and makes sense. So those are probably the biggest changes. Are there any questions? No questions. I just like the mindfulness that you had about to the policy because we've been trying to get everything to come together so when I saw that I thought that was great. Thank you. I also appreciate I appreciate that and I also appreciated what you were replacing it with so it was easier for for me to see anyway like what did you just say before? Yeah, this itself is a great document. Thank you. Okay. Next up we have strategic plan end of year report with me and Dr. Hardy. Thank you and and respective time. We we do like to produce a video around here but especially for our mid-year and end of year reports strategic plan. It is a five-year

094plan. The first two years have been quite a bit of work and and research and you know looking inward at what we've been doing. Next year we we begin the doing more so than ever. So with that I'm going to go ahead and have Mr. Denenberg roll the the video for each of the goal areas and we'll take questions at the end if you have any. We are proud of the progress we have made toward goal area one. These efforts reflect [music] our commitment to providing high-quality instruction, engaging learning experiences, [music] and strong foundations for all students. For one, we [music] continue to make steady progress in preparing for the transition to full-day kindergarten. Our team has been meeting regularly with kindergarten [music] teachers to thoughtfully plan for this important shift in programming. Our focus

095has [music] been on instructional practices, aligning schedules, and classroom structures to meet the developmental needs of our youngest learners. >> [music] >> In addition, we have selected and ordered developmentally appropriate materials designed to support structured [music] play, which is a critical component of early childhood education. This ensures our classrooms [music] will be well-equipped to foster both academic growth and social-emotional development. Another major focus >> [music] >> in goal area one has been building teachers' knowledge and understanding of research-based [music] literacy instruction to improve reading outcomes for all learners. >> [music] >> We've centered this work on providing professional learning around key instructional shifts, ensuring [music] that our approaches are both evidence-based and student-centered. At the same time, we've engaged [music] in an extensive process to research and to pilot high-quality instructional resources for both elementary

096and middle school English language arts. As a result of this work, we are excited [music] to share that we have selected two new research-based resources that will be implemented next year. We are truly [music] excited about the impact these materials will have on teaching and learning across District 62. [music] This year, District 62 made meaningful progress toward goal two, cultivating a learning environment where every [music] student feels safe, supported, and positioned to thrive. Through the collaborative efforts of our schools and the educational services team, we strengthened systems to be more responsive, inclusive, and aligned [music] to the diverse needs of all learners. Our multilingual action team refined bilingual evaluation practices so we can better distinguish between language acquisition [music] and learning needs, ensuring students receive the right support from the start. We also launched a

097multi-year professional learning plan and refined our multilingual continuum of services [music] so supports can grow and evolve alongside our students. In student services, we are continuing to [music] strengthen service delivery across the district by focusing on expanding access to specialized services and increasing inclusive opportunities. This winter, schools engaged in a student-centered [music] scheduling process where teams developed plans for next school year that prioritize student needs while also creating more time for teacher collaboration. We also deepened our focus on inclusive and supportive learning environments. Throughout the year, staff engaged [music] in professional learning around structured teaching, inclusive lesson design, and augmentative and alternative communication, [music] or AAC. We partnered closely with staff and families to refine how we describe our continuum of services [music] so it better reflects a flexible, student-centered, and family-friendly approach. Additionally, our

098partnership with Educating [music] Outside the Lines helped build disability awareness and a stronger sense of belonging across our schools. We also continued to strengthen our multi-tiered system of supports for social-emotional learning. At tier one, schools reinforced consistent expectations [music] and positive behavior systems. At tier two, each site established a team to support the rollout of check-in, check-out, helping ensure students receive consistent connection and support from a trusted adult. [music] Finally, we focused on increasing student voice and choice. At the middle school level, we expanded encore offerings, >> [music] >> adding courses like broadcasting, digital media, and guitar, so students have more opportunities to explore their interests and engage more deeply in their learning. This year, we were excited to expand Special Olympics to include both track and field and basketball events, creating more opportunities for

099students to participate, connect, and shine while proudly representing District 62. As we look ahead, our focus will be on continuing to refine these systems by strengthening [music] implementation, deepening support for inclusive practices, and expanding opportunities for student voice so that every [music] student experiences a responsive, engaging, and supportive learning environment. >> In goal three, we are working to foster an engaged and productive workforce by prioritizing staff satisfaction [music] and cultivating a strong positive culture that provides equitable opportunities for engagement and [music] growth for all employees. This year, we have focused on asking for and acting on staff feedback, [music] ensuring regular input opportunities at both the school level. Collaboration is standard with structured team meetings and professional learning community Mondays. We [music] are excited to launch a district-wide feedback opportunity in May. We've invested in

100significant professional development covering full-day kindergarten, inclusive practices, student-centered scheduling, [music] literacy pilots, and safety trainings like Ukeru and standard reunification. In recruitment, we are engaging in strategic workforce planning to address staffing challenges and ensure a team reflective of our community. We are proud that about 1/3 of our staff hail from Des Plaines, and we continue to partner with Maine West to encourage future educators. Finally, we successfully executed a robust interview process to hire new assistant principals at Algonquin North and Central, involving critical input from a wide array of staff. We are committed to supporting our new leaders with mentoring and job-specific support. Over the last several months, we have focused on accessibility, [music] community engagement, and strategic communications. As we kicked off 2026, [music] we began refining our website for ADA compliance in order to

101ensure ongoing support for all users. Community partnerships were a major focus, highlighted by art shows hosted [music] at the Des Plaines Public Library and Jean Center in January, February, and May. We also welcomed our local businesses and agencies into our schools this year as a way of connecting our community with our students. And of course, full-day kindergarten is on all our minds as we prepare to welcome our youngest [music] learners this summer. In anticipation, we spent time earlier this year gathering staff feedback [music] and developed a dedicated webpage and video showcasing our construction and implementation progress to date. >> [music] >> Finally, as we look ahead to this August, we are preparing for another National Night Out event on August 4th that will have some new features [music] in place. We hope to see you

102there. Fiscal year 2026 has been significant to Goal 5, which strives to improve the district's use of resources. Progress continues on the implementation of full-day kindergarten. Presently, work is completing at Carol Stream and construction is ongoing at Central and North with updates at the other schools starting at the completion of the school year. District 62 is continuing to work with an outside firm on boundary recommendations to help address class size inequities. [music] The district also moved to a health insurance cooperative to better control future health insurance costs. [music] This year, in collaboration with the district safety committee, several key security systems were updated to improve communications for first responders and staff >> [music] >> during emergencies. Our early artificial intelligence rollout shows increased staff use for creating instructional materials and supporting daily tasks. The AI

103task force will reconvene this summer to update our student AI literacy lessons, the district AI guidelines, the parent FAQ, and our AI student expectations. [music] >> Thank you. All right. Was there any questions from the board about any of the goal areas or the memo which is 10 times longer than the video? I had one. I forgot it though. It was great. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have the 2026-2027 developmental budget. Mr. Burton. I'm just going to pass this over to Mr. Burton over there. Purchase order. We got to get you a closer phone. Well, thank you, Mr. Burton. I love it when it gets late at night. I take my time and talk about financing numbers. She's really into it. [laughter] Uh really quickly, um uh this is the the month

104we go over our developmental budgets. So, the board gave me authority to go ahead and start working out the budget at the January board meeting. Uh so, in the packet there's a memo kind of going over here some basic budget assumptions we're using to build the budget. Uh and as a reminder, in August we'll present the tentative budget um for next school year and then and adopt the final budget uh in the September board meeting. Uh just a few highlights, uh revenues um CPI, we're going to use 2.8% on the budget, which is a little over our 2 and 1/2% long-term average, which I think is a is a good thing. Uh student fees, uh we're not recommending any changes at this time. >> [clears throat] >> Uh state funding, uh while I'd like to

105say it's the same, uh in a lot of ways it is. Uh there's a lot of prorationing of prorationing of many categoricals. Um you know, as I talked to Christopher, I talked about the $1.5 million special ed money that we get, Uh but they always back that down and 71% is the percentage that we're using for both regular and special ed transportation. That's going to probably go down a little bit more and we're probably going to lose more funding which is unfortunate. Um the federal funding uh we're going to say that's constant at this point which is kind of an assumption, but when we say it's constant, we also have to remember that we lost money this year from last year. Um so that's a loss that we're going to endure. Um the other thing

106that we're going to uh No, actually I think we're good there. Um Okay. Um and expenses we'll move on there. Salaries will be most of our employees are members of the collective or subject to collective bargaining agreement. Um and that's what really dictates the the uh percentage increases. Um health insurance uh we're going to be watching to see what happens with that. Um there was a renewal, but we are now on the same cycle as the co-op the Ys which is joined them. Um so I know what the the the renewal is for the co-op. Hopefully maybe we can be a little bit better than that. Uh transportation's going to be up 5% um and obviously the capital projects will be going to be included in the completion of full day kindergarten. Uh at this

107time enrollment is projected to be steady and we aren't anticipating any new staff um in being added. Uh and as always there's legislation which always comes our way and we're going to continue to monitor that and defend our interests. So I have any questions? Thank you. You're welcome. With gas with with gas prices, is that transportation number realistic? Well, we have a contract. Okay. So uh But But the the question But it's not the contract doesn't Well, well it it does. So there there could The bigger issue we're going to have, that's a great question, but the the one thing that I'm more concerned about is we're going to bid next year. Um and our price costs have gone up dramatically in the last number of years. So, kind of hoping when we rebid out,

108maybe we might be able to beat it a little bit. Uh but with the prices being the way they are and buses costing more than they used to, having my doubts about that. So, it's going to be interesting to see where we end up with that. Okay. Thank you. Sorry, I had a quick question. I'm very new, so might not be a good question. I'll push you to make a good question. Under capital outlay expenditures required to complete the kindergarten movie factored in to budgetary calculations, that just seems very broad. Could you speak to any sort of numbers or any sort of >> Well, the the overall project we were looking at 40, you know, 40 million dollars. So, we budgeted most of that in this fiscal year because as we build out, fiscal year

109starts July 1. So, we're paying construction bills now, so we want to make sure we have that in this fiscal year. Uh but as we're going to be doing construction throughout the summer, um we're going to be paying for this in in in the next fiscal year. So, uh when we do the budget, basically what we're going to do is take what the cost of the project is and subtract what we paid to date on it to give us our number for the next fiscal year. Okay. Thank you. Good question. Excellent question. Uh I always appreciate our local, state, federal legislators. I know we have good relationships. Um our state perhaps a particular in this area, terrific. Plus, we are going to have a couple of new fed people. And I'd like to make sure

110that we are in touch with them as soon as possible so that they know who we are, where we stand, and what we need. But like you're saying it like the congressmen the ones coming the election Yeah, after the Okay. It's good point. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is second reading of revisions to board policy. This is scary. Um thank um sorry. Thank you guys. Um so, what we're going to do is we are going to pull out um 2.125 practice and then uh talk about that next month. So, then we're going to look at 6.170 Title 1 programs. Uh does anybody have any questions on that? Can I add? Uh the reason for tabling that for a third reading is that we just want to pull the dollar amount out of the policy

111cuz that we can change We don't want to change policy every time that we might need to raise or lower them. So, or [clears throat] violate policy. So, it's going to be in our procedures. That is not policy, it's procedures. Yeah. But, the other uh four um Title programs is unless there's a question from the board, we feel like that's good to go. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. I move that the board approve the revisions to board policy as presented in the second reading removing 2.125 and voting on 6.170. Second. It's been moved and seconded. May I get a roll call, please? Mayman? Same. Burton? Aye. Delgado? Aye. Dothan? Aye. Garrick? Aye. Hearing? Aye. Mesa? Aye. Thank you. Next, I need a motion to approve the closed session minutes for April 20th, 2026 and there are

112two. I move that the board approve the closed session minutes of April 20th, 2026 Uh the two of them as presented. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Can you roll call, please? Burton? Aye. Delgado? Aye. Duckmann? Aye. Garrett? Aye. Herring? Aye. Mazza? Aye. Maiman? Abstein. >> [snorts] >> Thank you. Um next, I need a motion to approve the consent agenda items. I move that the board approve the consent agenda items which include approval of the revised personnel report, approval of consolidated district plan, approval of Title 1 schoolwide waivers, authorization to release the supply and material purchase orders, authorization of contract approvals, approval of minutes business meeting of April 20th, 2026, District 62 net payroll for April 2026, District 62 warrant register and reportable bills for April 15th, 21st, 28th, 30th, May 5th, and 12th, 2026,

113[snorts] monthly financial summary for April 2026, voided check register for April 2026, North Cook net payroll for April 2026, North Cook warrant register for April 2026. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Can you roll call, please? Delgado? Aye. Duckmann? Aye. Garrett? Aye. Herring? Aye. Mazza? Aye. Maiman? Abstein. Burton? Aye. Wonderful. Next up, we have communications from the board. Do you want to start, or else I have a whole list of things. >> [laughter] >> I Right. I can start. >> Go ahead. Okay. So, um this one's just a side note. I loved the podcast um this last podcast with Bola. It was so good, and to hear two people that I know have put so much into our community Dr. Amaday and Steve Samuelson at the Gen Center. Just to hear your guys' vision of

114what the future looks like. I actually got a slightly emotional. So I just thought that was great because I do like the idea of coming together and I know my children benefited from having um different generational people coming into the building, reading to them, being a part of it and I know my children are well-rounded with that involved. And then for legislation, there's only two bills um that really really are active. One is the um you know, Senate bill number 2914. It's remediation. So people think that it needs to happen. They're just asking for more communication. So I did reach out to our legislators last week. We got very quick responses on it. They they know what we feel like. We're not saying we're against this. We're just saying everybody needs to come to the

115table. These bills need to be better communicated, better thought out before you put bills in place cuz that doesn't help any of us to clean up stuff, you know, like tier two 15 years later, right? So So we want better bills being brought forward and we want more communication on that. And then um the unemployment bill has just kind of seemed to stall at this point and it was pretty much talked that it's not it can't really be funded by school districts at this point. It's making it very difficult for us. So people need to come together. We need to figure out how to make these things work. And then the last thing is um data center event tomorrow May 20th at 6:30 p.m. at the library. There's a lot of questions about a data

116center being next to Air Force. Um we should be very appreciative of the alderman out there. I forgot his last name his last name Wilson. Walstead? Walsted? Walsted. Thank you. Walsted, great. He's been very asking a lot of questions of Iron Mountain, getting some information. So if anybody has questions, we are working at getting that recorded so you don't have to attend and then you can watch it. And this looks like it might be a series. This might be the first one, and then I think people do want an actual one on Iron Mountain, and what that means for our community being there. So, um and then just another plug for another event I'm working on. June 25th, um uh uh there's a woman in our community. Um there's a book written about her, Unsinkable

117Princess, and it talks about domestic violence, and we know that that is obviously an issue in society. So, June 25th, she will be a guest speaker. If anybody has any questions, and then we're also starting a series on domestic violence in the community, so we can better educate our community, have a safer community altogether, so. Where are you doing this? That is going to be at the library as well, June 25th. The data center meeting is Wednesday? To Yeah, yeah, Wednesday, thank you. Wednesday, the 20th. That's why I wrote down the date. I don't know what day it is anymore. And that is at 6:30. That will be recorded, so everybody can watch it. We want to have a very well-informed community and educate our entire community, so. Perfect. Thank you. Thanks, Tina. Um I

118um Jean and I were were lucky enough to go to the drone soccer expedition at AMS, and it was so so fun to see all of our drone soccer athletes um working under drones, trying to fly their drones, and then fixing their drones. They were so patient and so wonderful to watch, and it was just so great to walk into a Backwoods gym and see these three huge inflatable I don't know. They're not huge. Cages. They're cages. They're not cages. I don't know, but yeah, they're like these huge inflatable whatever whatever cages, I guess. Um and they had different um things the drones had to do. They had two They had two teams kind of playing drone soccer, and one was doing more like aerial tricks, and one was doing um like follow like follow

119hoops on the floor. And so, thank you so so much to the um teachers who are coaches for jump start. It was just so fun and thank you so much for keeping that going. And thank you to the Rivers for being there. Um, that was wonderful. Um, most of us were able to get to the retirement dinner for our wonderful retirees in the 62. Um, I had the pleasure of great greeting the group and just saying how proud we are of the true excellence that we have in our staff in 62. And so that was just another wonderful event, and one of my favorites for the year. Um, what else have I been to? Oh my gosh, so many things. Um, yes, Junior NHS for Algonquin and Iroquois. I was lucky enough to be able

120to go to both of those and celebrate those kiddos who just been working so so hard um, over the years um, and just being um, leaders in their schools. And that was just wonderful to see. So I appreciate that program very very much. Um, band concerts galore um, for um, Algonquin and for the schools that feed into Algonquin. It's so fun to watch the sixth graders and then a week later or the I'm sorry, the fifth graders and then a week later see the seventh and eighth graders play. And just see their growth is just so wonderful. So um, parents fifth graders to just get there. Um, so it is it is wonderful. It's wonderful to watch their growth and see them have such a great time. Um, so that's also fantastic. Um, the last

121thing I'll talk about is the Algonquin incoming sixth graders nights. Um, it was so fun. I know Iroquois does something I'm sorry, Iroquois and Timberwilde do something similar where the kids get to come in and kind of be in the building. Just them and kind of maybe for the very first time so that they're not walking in brand new um, on the first day of school wondering where they are. So that's just a wonderful program. I really really appreciate it and um, thank you thank you to our staff and administrators to what I like to call and everybody else does May summer because this is just the most insane month ever. Um, Um and so thank you everybody for hanging in there. I really appreciate it. And that's all I have. Anybody else? Okay. All

122right, fabulous. Thank you everybody. Um next up I have superintendent's report. Thank you. We've been renaming May a few times. I think it's May May so you know, staff will we had unfortunately six suspensions in May. Hopefully that'll be the end of it but until the next board report. Um an update and apologies are our staff at North with the Rand Road I project which has had no you know, we've had no input on that now. I think the state really listens to us but we had support from Chief Anderson [clears throat] to try to put a staff over there to help direct traffic at dismissal cuz it's really difficult and dangerous. To Dorothy Wozniak who was city manager reaching out to IDOT as well as Senator Laura Murphy trying to reach out and trying

123to get some common sense about Ballard Road. And we're we're going to continue to go for that. Special Olympics update 207 62 athletes competed on the 25th of April. We had let me go from bronze up nine bronze medals, 13 silver and 14 gold. So we did leave a little for others to win but we're happy our athletes and 11 athletes of that group were invited to compete in state events at ISU on the 13th of June which I I like to go to that last year it was a little hot. It was a little hot for everybody involved but they did it. We do have bubble of sixth graders over at Chippewa for next year and it's it's a pretty big deal so we're trying to work on you know, offerings to AMS to

124help balance out those class sizes and so we're in the throws of that as a team and we're going to keep hammering away at that see if we can balance that out with the community. And full day kindergarten accessible and closed play spaces. Uh currently ICS is done, Opie is done, Cumberland is still installing in Terrace. Uh Plain Field is installed and South is installed, but they need their surfacing to be done. Uh the road right surfacing has to have the exact right temperatures to be properly installed. And last to install will be Central, North, and Forest. It's just it with the girth of work that's happening plus the citywide project with street over here, we're trying to really coordinate uh Forest is they'll be the last two, but they will get done. Um I'm

125just quietly stating this, but it looks like we might have middle school soccer for the first time next year, and that's a big deal in our community. I'm really proud of the team effort to get us there. And to do it in a fiscally, you know, responsible way, uh we're still building that with our conference, so I don't want to spill the beans too loud on that, but I'm excited. Hopefully we can get some coaches to step up. I know there's some staff that you know, might be interested. So, we'll see how that goes. First, I think it's seventh and eighth grade. It's a seven-game schedule. Uh we're going to try to battle that out. So, a special thank you to Mark Molitor for keeping his thumb on administration and to get it pushed through.

126So, I'm excited to see that grow. Is will that be um two teams or is it a coed team? Uh both boys and girls uh soccer. Yeah. And it's seventh and eighth. And so, it's a good start and the other two districts, which I won't go into that part right now, but they're still working out some logistics there, but I think we're just super pumped for our first What what season would the season be? Uh it's different. It's split apart in the spring. Isn't it spring boys, fall? Um it's Fall boys, fall? Fall boys and spring girls. >> Okay. I think. I mean, I'll get all that up. >> [laughter] >> We'll give you more details, but there's Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we can hear you. Okay, so the during girls basketball, boys soccer will

127be running in the fall. And then during boys volleyball in the spring, girls soccer will be running. So, thank you. We try not to conflict with any of our local partners, but also with other sports. So. Awesome. Exciting. Uh eighth grade promotion coming right up. AMS, we've got uh President Maness speaking at theirs. Uh Mr. Herring, me, Mr. Bertozzi, and Kathleen are all going to AMS. CMS just I'm just saying this for the benefit of those who crap. CMS Delgado speaking. Congratulations. Um Ms. Carey, Ms. Bova, Dr. Christopher will be at CMS. And then for ICS, Mr. Burton speaking. Uh Ms. Maness will attend. I'll be at that. And um Ms. Singal and Mr. Dennenberg will be attending as well. So, we're looking forward to seeing our eighth graders off. Is that at the main

128what? Is it at main what? So, the AMS and CMS are at Main South, and ICS is always home. Triple I conference is coming right up. And so, for that, uh we will work with board members, but if you know you cannot go, please let me and Ms. Porter know so that we don't register you. We can talk more about it, but opening is on June 1st, and we like to be right out of the gate. So, we can get uh accommodations met for your one professional development event. Um I'm going to throw this to Mr. Bertozzi. But before I go, I want to thank you, Mark, for your presentation you put together for the meeting leadership on district finances. I uh encouraged that that's tomorrow Wednesday night, right? Thank you for doing that. And

129Mark's got some updates for the board. This one. You want to mention that? He's got Yeah. Yeah. No comment. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Robert, I appreciate that. So. Uh so, uh a bit of sort of good news is uh the county looks like they've given us just about what they owe us for the spring. We've got a lot of money coming in, which is good. The bad news is it's probably not complete, and I can't tell you by how how it's short because the computer still isn't fixed. So, yeah, their computer, not ours. Their computer. >> [laughter] >> So, uh good news is we can keep rolling along and keep operating. I I hope this gets fixed over the summer. I I don't know what our accounts are going to do, but at this

130point it's we're going to leave it up to our accounts to determine what's owed and when. Um so, uh that is a bit of [clears throat] an update on that. The other thing is I wanted to mention I almost kind of blurted it out when I did the developmental budget. Uh one of the things that we're watching, you know, as a cabinet team is our free reduced uh lunch numbers are are lower. Um there've been a lot of changes for direct certification through Medicaid. Um which is something that's happening not just in our school district, it's happening district-wide, probably statewide, probably nationally. So, uh in theory that would mean we'd probably have less title funding next year. If your numbers go down, you always lose funding, uh but if everyone's numbers are going down and

131if the money's held constant, in theory you'd get about the same amount of money. Uh but we don't really know how that's going to play out. So, that is something that we are we are watching and we will continue to provide updates and as we know more, we will we will um share that. Um the other thing related to that is we have three CEP schools, um community eligibility program, uh North, uh Orchard Place, and Plainfield. Uh those numbers are declining as well. Um so, we aren't really going to make it where they are now. Um probably going to make threshold. Uh when you apply, you apply for several years at a time. So, we are covered this school year and next school year. But we will probably come to the board unless things were

132to change maybe about 9 months from now and probably have a decision to make. Either we stay with the CEP program, which we'd like to do, um but we'd lose money on it, um or we could revert back to the National School Lunch Program as we do with the other schools. Can I ask Dr. Lupacchino something very quickly what that means? Yeah. The program. I'm sorry. Can you just explain what the program means? You explained it to us in board prep, but the rest of the board may not be familiar with what that program is. Okay, fair enough. Thank you. So, at North Central and Orchard Place, it's the community eligibility, meaning if you're above a certain level, your your your students are all free. Uh you don't need to worry about collecting free reduced

133lunch applications. Uh it's a way to really expedite the program. It's a way to make sure everybody gets the meals they should get, uh and it makes life a whole lot easier, but there are certain thresholds. Um and if we don't make those thresholds, we could in fact lose the eligibility. Um and if we want to be on the program and not making those thresholds, you will lose out money as opposed to being on the traditional national school lunch program, which we're on at the other schools. So, uh again, I it's just kind of preliminary. Maybe things sort of change in the next couple months. My sense is they probably won't, uh but that's something that we'll probably have to address, and of course, I'll come up with better numbers instead of just estimates from

134where we are this far out, uh but we'll see where we are next year. Um and then go forward, but I wanted to give the board an update. Okay. Can I Can I bother you for some time, not next week, maybe the week after, and just to I'm curious how that works, like how the reporting works, and how up-to-date it is, because if the economy keeps going the way it's going, I feel like we're going to start seeing a lot more families in our community struggle. I I think it's not so much a function of the economy, I think it's the fact that they changed the rules for for Medicaid eligibility. Okay. I I think that's the big driver of it. Yeah, if you'll shoot me any numbers that you see, cuz I want to

135learn more about >> Sure, absolutely. Thank you. Absolutely. Okay, any questions at all? Okay, so um finally, um some sad news. I know the the board is aware, um but uh Alan Aronovitz of SCR Architects was really our He was our lead architect. I know he sat at many school board meetings and uh we found out Friday before last on on May 8th that uh that he'd passed away. Um, and uh it's a big loss for us. And uh you know, the funny thing about uh Alan is I was sharing with Mr. Herring at the wake yesterday. Uh you know, when I first met Alan was when we had our RFP with all the architects in town. So, we had 15 different architecture firms. And Alan asked more questions than all the other architects combined.

136Uh but every question he asked was a very good one and invited a lot of uh thought. Um, and I think it provided for a lot of information. So, I think he's good at his job as well and then I think explaining everything. I think he made us a little bit better. Um, and even before we were his client, he came to every board meeting he sat right up there and he had his yellow legal pad and his blue felt and and he and he was here before the meeting started. And when we're leaving to go to closed session, he was still here and he had pages of notes from every school board meeting. So, I know someone posted on LinkedIn that he probably went to more school board meetings than anybody else who ever

137lived. And I I I'd say that's that's probably true. So, um Alan was also really uh very instrumental in getting the water reclamation um process approved at North School. That is a real bugaboo um and it's made a whole lot worse when you have as much land as we do and when you have most of your all of your land being a flood plain and part of it being a floodway. Uh there were a lot of hoops to jump through and uh his [snorts] expertise really helped us out immensely. So, um we're going to really miss him and uh we're going to miss his kindness um and his uh humor, his uh his thoughtfulness um and his experience. And uh all I would ask as we kind of going to with fully kindergarten is think

138about um you know what you meant to us. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mark. Just one last thing on a on a lighter note, I would like to congratulate board member Duckman who has modeled for us to be a continuous learner. She just got her Master's of Arts in Film Graphic Film Graphic Studies, correct? Congratulations. >> That's awesome. >> [applause] >> Hello. It's your grades. Thank you for uh for modeling that and continuing to push uh and you could just walk off into retirement any minute. You're getting more knowledge instead. [laughter] She's material. Curiosity. That may be why she learns. Yeah, it was a I a long process. I worked full-time. I took classes. It was all an online program. Um but you know, I just love learning. I love um the

139continuing education aspect and it's done, so I don't know what's next. >> [laughter] >> We shall see. Congratulations. Yeah, thank you. Hooray. All right, next we have dashboard for wellness screening 2025-2026. Um I just briefly wanted to highlight our dashboard report. Annually, we share the results of our required screenings that we that we do. Um all staff members who are currently on our medical insurance and in the bargaining unit participate in wellness screenings. They've done so since 2008. It's a very well-attended program um cuz it's mandatory and >> [laughter] >> um but it does provide us with some good information. I'm sorry, it's really late. >> [laughter] >> It does provide us with some good information as we look towards employee wellness, which is a very important topic. 754 participants participated either through the Empower

140opportunities that we provide or through their own health care provider. This year, we have very similar results to last year and areas for the one thing that changed a different this year under areas for improvement, it remained at active lifestyle. Um, but last year there was an area for improvement on heart health and this year that was switched out with nutrition. The other number that we're always really interested in is stress. And seeing how stressed we all are. Um, 89.33% of respondents reported little to no stress little moderate or no stress. Um, these screenings were all done completed before the winter break. So, that may be >> [laughter] >> accounting for some of that. And about 11% of respondents reported a lot of stress. So, we do want to although I joke a little bit

141here, we do take that very seriously and endeavor to find ways to alleviate stress amongst our staff and to support their wellness. And there's a little bit more information in the report there. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have May Township Treasurer's summary report of April 2026. I know, Mr. Willow is just so important. >> [laughter] >> Thank you, sir. All right. So, we had in the month of April, we had 12 new investments for 20.6 million dollars. So, all that money that came in. We did have a return rate of 3.84%. Thank you. Um, fire reports are happening. Yes, uh we had a total of six FOIA requests. Five were fulfilled, one's still pending. Three were commercial uh from the data branch. Different people asking but same company. And two from park district asking

142for permission about district. Wonderful. Can I have a motion to go to close session? I move that the board go to close session to consider the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific specific employees of the district, specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in an educational setting, litigation when an action against, affecting, or on behalf of the public body has been filed and is pending before a court, in which case the basis for the finding shall be recorded and entered into the minutes of the closed meeting, meetings between internal and external auditors, finance committees and their equivalents when the discussion involves internal control weaknesses, identification of potential fraud risk areas, known or suspected frauds and fraud interviews, annual superintendent evaluation based on progress towards performance goals, and school building safety and security.

143Second. Submitted and seconded. Terry, can I roll call, please? Here. Garrett? I. Perry? I. Matthis? I. Maiman? I. Burton? I. Gondola? I. Stecklein? I. Thank you, everybody. We have no um action after close session, so we'll go to the hand clappers if there's nothing else to see. Thank you so much for hanging in there with us. Appreciate it. Have a wonderful evening. Thanks, everybody. >> Mhm.