001District 128 logo. Jim Batson. [snorts] >> Good evening. We'll call the District 128 board of education meeting to order on November 17th, 2025. Um we will start with a pledge of allegiance. >> Everyone stands for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Everyone returns to their seats. Jim Batson. >> Can we have a roll call, please, Carol? [clears throat] >> Nina Austin here. >> Jim Batson here. >> Raul Deshmuk here. >> Doug Flegal here. Middleish Cotwell, >> Wes Poland here, >> Julie Simpson >> here. >> Okay, we'll note that Middle is um absent. He's uh out of town on a a business uh event. So
002um going to review the agenda under communications. We'll have invitation for public comment. We'll have uh our student uh schoolboard reps um will give their report. uh discuss some uh foyer requests, superintendent report. We'll follow that with a consent vote agenda and then we have a few action items. We have uh some additional employment of employees, uh memorandum of agreement for campus safety, uh proposal for a security and emergency planning assessment, uh course proposals and revisions, school maintenance project grant, and a tax levy. And then a fewformational items. We'll hear about the uh the new uh district 128 the new school report card. Uh we'll go around the table if the any board members have any uh events or comments that they wish to add and then uh an IASB report. I'll have a brief
003report. See all >> nothing this week. Okay. Or this month. Uh we'll take a look at future agenda items. we will have an executive session um but we will not um have any action item after that um close session. So circling back to the top uh under communications we have invitation for public comment we have Paxton Marques >> Paxton Maitas approaches the podium. >> This was the right time for civic engagement right? All right. Hello, my name is Paxton Makitus. I'd like to I'm a senior at Vernon Hills High School and I'd like to address the uh quality of engineering courses offered at VHS. In short, the current engineering um curriculum is insufficient and the project lead the way is a clear step down from our engineer from our engineering uh system in the past.
004Um before sorry before adopting project lead the way or PLTW our school offered an electronics course introduction to engineering design and advanced design drawing. Advanced design drawing being a full year and the other two being half um >> momentary pause. >> Uh that was allow people to spread out that education throughout their entire high school career. Um, now we offer a single one-year course that is um far less efficient at teaching people about engineering. For instance, I took the old intro to engineering design class in um my first semester freshman year. I then waited two years, took the project lead the way course and it was I had already learned everything that the project lead the way course taught in a year. In that one semester two years ago in spades I was walking around
005helping everybody else in class. Um, the school, I've been told, spent $30,000 on this program and got rid of three classes, including electronics, which is not taught in the new Project Lead the Way course. Um, [clears throat] >> momentary pause. Project Lead the Way failed fails to teach students engineering thinking or CAD or engineering drawing on par with the old engineering uh curriculum. It also offers no public it offers no uh upward mobility meaning if a freshman takes the project lead the way course and they absolutely love it there's nowhere for them to go after that. they will simply just have to deal with it and maybe try and work something out like I did where I I felt so strongly that the uh current engineering course was not sufficient to foster interest in engineering
006that I took time out of my senior year and now in 8th period every every day you can find me in the engineering classroom working as a TA with Mr. from Miller to try and get kids interested in engineering and help them learn and help them learn it in a way that they can actually take and use in a college setting. Um, >> momentary pause. I would like to ask this C council if possible to reinstate the old engineering uh like curriculum but seeing as that's most likely not possible um give the teachers more give the teachers more free reign to act as they would like as they see fit because our engineering teacher Mr. Miller has been working for 10 15 years to create a program that is very well that teaches students very
007well and is and he very much wants to teach students engineering and he feels he can't under this new system as well as he did. >> We have a threem minute time limit here. The three minutes is up. >> Thank you very much for your time. >> Thank you. >> Uh that's all on the signin sheet. Anyone else wish to uh address the board? >> Sure. >> John Hetszel approaches podium. >> And you'll note I'm going to delay it by about 10 15 seconds the timer because I in three minutes is irrelevant. Um my name is John Hzel. Um for the last 5 years I've been watching how this uh district has been managed from a leadership level on the school board. Um, last spring we saw three board members step down and there's one
008still remaining in Jim Batson who's been a vice president and a president of the school board now. He's been school board for 20 plus years. I think at this time we need better leadership at the school board level. I [clears throat] think Jim needs to resign. Uh, a lot of the reasons are there's a lot of facts to support it. Um, just I got a list that could go on for 10 minutes easily, but I'm going to just touch on a few things. For instance, uh looking at you often through the weekly meetings, I mean the monthly meetings now, you bumble through policies and procedures. You it's mistake written. You don't know what the policies are, what the procedure is. [clears throat] I look at your background on LinkedIn. I don't think you're competent or
009qualified to manage a hund00 million budget and 500 employees. And I think myself and several other parents in this uh community, leaders in this community as well feel very much the same about this circumstance because when you do look at the bottom line, black, brown, IEP, sped, and white students proficiency scores have gone backwards for five years here. Um we're going to see something tonight from Charlotte, but there's not going to be any comps to the previous four years. So I think it's really important to have the right data. Um, a couple things that you've been really wrong on. One, security protocols. Last spring, you had Larry Barn give a security presentation where he exposes our vulnerabilities. You were on the board at that time, Jim, and uh how you managed to allow that to
010happen in an open meetings act is beyond me because virtually by Monday, the next day uh or the next morning, Tuesday, um that presentation had been scrubbed from the actual deck that was available as well as the YouTube video online. And again, this is all under your domain as a vice president and president. So, you just exposed all the vulnerabilities to the school and that's one of the reasons why we're having a review of our security protocols. Um, you were wrong on COVID. All viruses attentuate for survivability. The spring of 2020, understand all of that, but thereafter a lot of the country was open, but we were not. Um, Ebola even attentuated for survivability. So, you kept uh following bad information, not following the science. uh you also masked our kids and forced them to
011be masked through the entire uh year and a half of school where most of the country was open without masking. Um the daring statement as example there's there's an A in it and there's nothing about academics in the daring statement. Um your policies and platforms have been based on partisan ideology over academics. You've been wrong on the consulting contracts that weren't academic focused. You have a bloated administrative staff that you allow to perpetuate. You didn't have MTSS in place. You allowed Herman to run rampant with things. She had uh EOC, EEOC, and discrimination claims against her. Uh Ellis Bowen and Sanchez cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars. And this is all under your leadership. We need better leadership than you, Jim. We need better leadership at the top for this school, for the students,
012so we can get us back on track to being a high performing school and not rely on one subgroup, the Asian group, to carry the day. Thank you, >> Jim Batson. >> Anybody else? >> Pause for the public. >> Thank you. We appreciate all public comments. Uh, moving on, student schoolboard reps reports. Thank you. >> Ashvar Ramesh. >> Hello, my name is Ash and today I'll be sharing updates on student life in our district focusing on school lunch access updates and academic support resources. The plan to open cafe 145 after school was actively under consideration. In my recent interviews with Burning Hills High School students across several lunch periods, many expressed genuine excitement about the possibility of Cafe 145 being open after school. Senior Kano, a student who directly heads to activities, athletics, clubs, and
013rehearsals after school, shared that having access to drinks, and grab-and-go items um beforehand would make their afternoon significantly easier and more efficient. Students are excited about the change while also continuing to push for more food options during the later sixth and seventh lunch periods. Ensuring fairness across all lunch periods remains one of the most important issues raised and something that our school lunch provider is working on improving. I also gathered updates on academic support specifically regarding the ark. I interviewed senior Christine Lee who is a frequent frequent user of the ARK's tutoring services. Christine noted that tutor availability particularly in high demand subjects like math is often limited during peak times. She also mentioned that although peer tutoring is a helpful resource, the quality and prepared preparedness of the student tutors can vary, highlighting the
014need for additional training or expanded tutoring support to ensure cons consistency. Senior Mohood Sanukumar also noted this. While they appreciated the access of peer tutors, he hopes that the training that they receive can be more comprehensive so that peer tutors can help their peers even more effectively. Overall, students appreciate the resources the district provides and they continue to advocate for more reliable access both to nutritious school lunches and to strong academic support systems. Thank you for your time. >> Anukica Talleti. >> Hello, my name is Anukica Tati and I look forward to sharing some of the recent ways VHS students have been taking steps to make their impact on the outside community. On November 21st, the VHS drum line is set to march Santa Claus into the Hawthorne Mall. Senior Nicholas Mashenko, a member of
015the drum line, shared, "I feel very excited and honored to be a part of this event, especially since this drum line has never done anything like this before. Normally, we only perform at football games or march in the school hallways. So, marching Santa into the mall is a really cool opportunity for us to represent the school out in the community. Another way students are using their platform to incite change is through the Kit Outreach, which is a nonprofit organization that is run and founded by VHS students and seeks to fight hygiene poverty. The Kit Outreach announced that it raised $20,000 this fiscal year alone for this very cause. On October 26th, 12 VHS students, including myself, received CPR certifications from the American Heart Association in an event organized by Meera Davaluri through the Future Medical
016Professionals of America Club. Senior Ken So shared how receiving CPR training and certification aided him in learning more about the healthc care field and what skills he will need in order to pursue a career in it. Dr. Young shared that building administration is actually considering the possibility of certifying all juniors next year during gym periods. So this class was a great step forward. Finally, seeing as students at VHS are highly motivated and service-minded, it would be beneficial to provide underclassmen with resources like a workshop um such as speakup training or many other like the right assembly through which they can learn how to create their own passion projects and channel their interests into action. Thank you so much, >> Olivia Bush. >> Hello, my name is Olivia Bush and today my report's going to be
017focusing on some resources for students at Vernon Hills High School. So tonight, I would like to share an update on an important initiative at Vernon Hills High School. Our SpeakUp training has officially begun. It has already become a strong success within our school community. We created this program after learning that many students had witnessed discrimination but did not always feel confident to stepping in. Speak up training helps students learn simple and realistic ways to respond when they see bias or hurtful behavior. The early sessions have been filled and students are giving very positive feedback. One student shared, "I never knew what to say before. Now I feel like I have a plan and I am not just watching things happen." Another student told me that the examples were helpful and made me feel like I
018could actually do something. A third student said, "I like that the training was honest and real. It made the idea of of speaking up feel possible. Lunch is provided during each session and students are excited to participate and learn. Many have said that they wish that these strategies had happened earlier in high school and the overall feeling has been that the training is both empowering and encouraging. I also wanted to briefly mention a highlight from two weeks ago. We had the opportunity to shadow the Libertyville High School board representatives throughout their school day. I enjoyed experiencing the welcoming environment at LHS and I especially loved joining the outdoor adventure class where I helped build a fort outside, something that our class does not have at Burton Hills High School. It was a fun reminder of
019the unique programs across our district and how each contributes to a strong sense of community. Thank you for your continued support as we work to strengthen our school community both academically and personally. >> Ruhi Patil. Hello. As I'm sure all of you are aware, Libertyville's cafeteria has been under construction for a while, and I'm excited to share that the serving area recently opened up on November 5th. Walking in and seeing the huge tiled floor, clearer layout, and new food options was so surprising. Most students didn't know what to expect, so this reveal was genuinely mind-blowing. There are more extensive food and drink choices, and the new tables and chairs are sleek and comfortable. Even though I'll only get to experience this new space for a year, I feel truly grateful for this incredible amenity. Based
020on the excitement and conversations around school, it's clear that many students students share my excitement and appreciation. Another thing I wanted to share was my recent involvement in a student panel at the future AI leadership forum where Anukica and I spoke about AI usage in schools. We sat at the front of a packed room speaking directly to superintendent and IT leaders. We spoke about topics like how we used AI and if we preferred it over other educational tools. And although our answers were completely different, those differences made our contributions stronger and strengthened the whole experience. Opportunities like these remind me of how important boosting student perspectives are to creating inclusive and meaningful spaces within our schools. >> Ava Gratiator. Good evening everyone. Today I'd like to talk about an amazing event that happened at LHS
021a little while ago. LHS holded a hosted a linker conference for our surrounding schools. Linker is a program that helps ease the transition between middle school and high school for freshmen and it is led by students. This conference was a way to help train leaders and their confidence and give them more strategies when helping freshmen transition into a new challenging life that is high school. At this conference, schools from all over Illinois and a few from Wisconsin took link crew leaders and brought them to LHS to spend the day participating in various activities and games. We learned ways to connect with our freshmen in the hallways and ways to get to know them better in regular settings outside of Link Crew. At this event, I met many new students from other schools who are amazing,
022and we bonded over shared experiences with our freshmen, and we gave plenty of advice from one Link Crew leader to another. I felt understood talking about challenges that I've had in the past with keeping attention and being a strong leader. And it was so amazing to hear that I wasn't alone in my struggles. My new friends from other schools and I brainstormed ideas that had worked in the past to help create solutions to these problems and we also thought of strategies that we could use in the future. It was so amazing being able to go to this conference and grow all of my leadership skills through shared experiences. Thank you, >> Andy Trobe. Hi everyone. Um, so as Olivia mentioned, the three Libertville representatives spent a day at Vernon Hills and vice versa. So I'd
023like to start with a few reflections from the swap days. Um, the first is that one thing that really stood out to me at Vernon Hills High School was the UC, an upperassman flex space that does not exist at LHS. Um, I appreciated the calmer atmosphere, likely because it's limited to juniors and seniors, and the benefit of having a dedicated area for older students to work and collaborate. More broadly, Ruhi Aan and I noticed that VHS makes strong use of its larger physical footprint. Their cafeteria, hallways, and front vestibial all felt much more open than Libertyville's. While expansions to LHS aren't feasible, the contrast between the two schools was noticeable. Moving away from the swap days, I'd also like to discuss another notable highlight for my ongoing senior experience. Um, at this point in the
024year, most seniors have submitted most of their applications and are now awaiting decisions, which has created a shared sense of anticipation across a senior class as we all compare deadlines, celebrate small milestones, and support each other through the weight. In this period of stress and uncertainty, Libertville's college/career resource center hosted a senior party. Seniors attended during their lunch periods to celebrate the progress they've made so far. We wrote thank you notes, took pictures with friends, and enjoyed treats provided by parent cats. I know I speak for the entire senior class when I extend sincere gratitude to Miss Murphy, Miss Higginson, and the parent cats for making this happen. Thank you, >> Jim Badson. >> Thank you. Excellent reports as always. Um, moving on, we have um foyer requests as listed in the uh agenda and
025then I'll turn it over for the superintendent report. Dr. Shaver. >> Good evening, Board of Education. Yeah. Several weeks ago, I was joined by the district 128 feeder superintendents and one to two members from each of their uh boards of education for a meeting of the district 128 collaborative. Uh collaborative was created to strengthen connections across our educational communities. This initiative reflects our shared commitment to student success, smooth transitions between grade levels and consistent aligned practices from elementary through high school. group will serve um as a structured forum again to strengthen relationships, share timely updates and work towards shared goals. U at the first meeting I was joined by uh board member Nina Austin and Jim Batson and in future meetings we'll have quarterly meetings. Um other board members will have an opportunity to join
026as well. Momentary pause. >> As uh Ruthie uh had mentioned, on October 29th, I I attended the future ready AI leadership forum, driving innovation in an AI world held at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. Forum participants explored how innovation, artificial intelligence, and career connected pathways are reshaping teaching and learning. uh representing uh our district were board of education president Jim Batson, IT director Temple Murphy and two of our board reps um Anakah and Ruthie who did an extraordinary job uh illuminating and elevating student voice and and really providing uh inspiring conversations about um how um AI impacts uh their world. >> Momentary pause. >> 30 athletes have participated in the District 128 Special Olympics team this fall. They have had a great competitive season and highlights include flag football finished in third place
027in its division. Uh bowling we had one athlete Addison Potter and Addison will compete at the state tournament on December 6th in Decar. Uh floor hockey finished third in its division in the state tournament in November 15th at Winrust Sports Complex in Bedford Park. Next up for the Storm athletes, uh basketball and snowshoeing. The Storm athletes were coached this fall by Andy Compton, Sean Kelly, Vince Duca, and Jeff Mel. We look forward to sharing the results of their winter sports competitions. Thank you to everyone who supported our foundation uh for Learning's big event on November 8th. The evening was a huge success raising over $40,000 that will enable the foundation to continue its mission of supporting our students and staff through its students in need fund student scholarships and staff daring innovation grants. Uh board
028members uh Wes Polland and Jim Batson uh joined me and uh there was a good turnout and again it was a it was a fun evening. Finally, I would like to uh turn the spotlight on our entire board of education members as Saturday, November 15th was school board members day here in Illinois. So, we want to thank um all of our board members. Our board members spend multiple hours each month on district work, attending meetings, responding to concerns, and taking on other responsibilities. We thank all seven members of the District 128 board for your service to the district, our students, and the District 128 community. You truly are the heart of local education. We are happy to share a small token of our appre appreciation for all that you do. And I'd like you to
029join me now for a group photo. [laughter] >> Board members, take photos for the next 45 seconds. some extraordinary work. All right, >> board members, take photos for the next 45 seconds. [clears throat] Everyone returns to their seats. [applause] >> Momentary pause. [laughter] >> Jim [clears throat] Batson. >> Thank you, Dr. Schaefer. And uh speaking of board appreciation, I want to officially welcome for the first regular board meeting, Julie Simpson, who um was sworn in uh just a a week uh ago. Yeah, just last week. Um um and joins us uh on the board. So, welcome. >> Thank you. >> Um moving on, we have a consent vote agenda. Um >> momentary pause. Anyone wishing to pull any items off the list or separate? Okay, we'll move on then. Uh, can we have a motion
030in a second? >> Poland so moved. >> Second. >> Okay, any comments, questions? Okay, roll call, please. Carol >> Austin, >> I. >> Batson. >> Hi. >> Deshm. >> Hi. >> Flegal. >> I. >> Poland. I >> Simpson. >> I. >> Okay, motion passes. Uh uh moving on for the action items, we start with employment of employees. Um few um that came in after the uh uh committee meeting earlier in the month. >> Momentary pause. >> Uh [clears throat] can we have a motion please? >> Poland. So moved. >> Deshmuk second. >> Anyone have any questions or comments on this? >> Okay. Roll call, please. >> Batson. >> Hi. >> Deshmuk >> I. >> Flegal >> I. >> Cotton. Sorry, Poland. >> I Simpson >> I >> Austin >> I >> Okay, motion passes. Uh,
031next on the agenda is a memorandum of agreement uh with a campus safety individuals. This was discussed earlier in the month at the program of personnel. Can we have a um motion please? >> Poland so moved. Austin second. >> Okay. Any comments or questions? Okay. Uh roll call please. Carol >> Dashmuk >> I. Flegal >> I >> Poland >> I >> Simpson >> I >> Austin >> I >> Batson >> I Okay, motion passes. Um another item that was discussed earlier in the month um u bringing in a group the uh bringing in um security and emergency planning assessment from Alleion in the total amount of $11,000. Can we have a motion please? >> Poland so moved. >> Legal second. >> Okay. Uh, any questions or comments? >> Uh, this is a great firm and
032I know we're going to get a a really great report out of this. Can we have a roll call, please? >> Hi, >> Poland. >> I Simpson. >> I >> Austin, >> I >> Batson. Hi, >> Dashmuk. >> Hi. >> Okay, moving on. Uh, course proposals and revisions. just a list of u updates and u proposals for the 2627 school year as discussed earlier in the month uh during the program personnel. Uh can we have a motion please? >> Democ. >> Okay, any questions or comments? Okay. Uh can we have a roll call, please? >> Poland I. >> Simpson >> I. >> Austin >> I. Batson >> I >> Dashmuk >> I >> Flegal >> I >> Okay, motion passes. Next on the agenda is the U FY 26 school maintenance project grant. This is
033a uh $50,000 grant that uh is a matching grant. So uh I trust we'll find a $100,000 project to uh uh take advantage of this grant. Um uh just looking here. Um so we need a motion to approve the FY26 school maintenance project grant application. >> Rollins so moved. >> Austin second. >> Any questions or comments? >> Doug Flegel. I >> I have one question. >> Um in the proposal it lists the Vernon Hills High School pool air handler Dan. Is that what is designated in the application itself or are we submitting the application and making formal consideration later? >> Uh that that project is part of this application. >> Okay. And one additional question and and we touched on this at a committee meeting before about um formalizing our capital purchases going forward and
034so forth. Is this in the capital budget for um 2026 or um where does it land? >> Yeah, this is in in the list for summer which would be fiscal year 27. So for next summer um and so this is in the list for that. Uh the approving this grant doesn't obligate you to do that project, but there's a deadline for this to apply for this grant before we would actually probably accept bids on this project and you actually have to approve it. It has to be a project you haven't started yet. So you couldn't, let's say, for example, you couldn't do this towards the LHS cafeteria project because that's already happening. The intention behind this grant is to spur on new capital development and so this has to be used for a future project.
035And so the future project that we feel very strongly and confident that it would move forward would be the the HVAC replacement in the Hills pool. >> Thank you. And one one final question simply because capital purchases are um so significant in in dollars um has this pool air handler actually been listed as a proposed project for consideration or is that something that is supplementary to the operating budget? It it it is listed it was listed on the the summer capital list that we reviewed >> I think October. >> Okay. >> Um perhaps at a committee meeting. >> Thank you. >> But had had not been planned at that point in time. Had not been scheduled or >> No. No. We >> Nothing was Yeah. >> Just on the list. Yeah. >> Thank you. >>
036Those are great questions. Thank you. >> I have one. >> Yeah. >> Question. >> Julie Simpson. >> Um so after approval, the district has two years to expend the funds. Um, if this project doesn't go forward, is it specifically earmarked for this or can it be transitioned to into a different project? >> Um, if [clears throat] you want to change to do it to a different project, we can change that with the grant. Um, we have yet to encounter that situation though. We've had it's been this has been a consistent grant for the last several years and so far every project that we've done, we try to pick one that we we believe for sure we're going to be moving forward with. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, you're welcome. Any other questions, comments? >> Pause
037for questions. >> Okay. Um, we have a roll call, please. >> Simpson. >> I. >> Austin. >> I. >> Batson. >> I. >> Deshmuk. >> I. >> Flegal. >> I. >> Poland. >> I. >> Motion passes. And now the big one, the tax levy. And I'm going to turn this over to Dan Stanley for some background here. >> Yeah, we have um uh the slides there for you to see. Uh, so this is our final tax levy that we have for adoption tonight. Just going to review a a few high points. Um, >> pause for slide. Dan Stanley Summer. There we go. Um, so when we've done the calculation, we're estimating based on uh the state law and calculations that we're going to be just under 103 million for what the levy will be uh
038the extension, which translates to an average increase uh for existing homeowners at a 2.9% which is the CPI that was set back in January. Um, and the overall the total increase we're anticipating is 3.7% which includes increase from new properties. We have several new properties in the district, a lot of residential development, some commercial development as well that will have an overall increase, but for existing homeowners on average a 2.9 increase. Um that said, our levy is going to be is set at 103,157298. Uh that allows us for a $300,000 cushion because we're estimating what we anticipate, but that's an algebraic formula and two of those variables. We won't know for sure until the spring, but this is the time now that we have to do the levy. And so we're doing our best educated
039guess, but we leave a little bit of cushion in case uh some of the estimates are a little bit off. And so the overall increase is 3.92 in the levy, but we anticipate the actual what we will actually get extended will be 3.7, which is based on 2.9 for existing properties and then the additional uh new properties that are coming on the tax rules. And so, uh, just a brief timeline check. So, we reviewed this first at the October FNF committee meeting. Uh, we've reviewed this at the October board meeting. We reviewed this two weeks ago at the the FNF committee meeting. And now we're at final adoption, which is tonight. Uh, and then, uh, assuming it gets adopted, we'll file this tomorrow with the county. It's due by the last Tuesday in December, if
040we remember that. Uh, so we'll have plenty of time between now and the last Tuesday in December. And then oh yeah and then one final thing is there's a public DAC that says we have to disclose cash balances. So this report is also included um to show our cash balances report but that's the end of it. >> Okay. And just to be clear we can ask we can levy for whatever we want. The tax cap law is still going to kick in and and limit us to whatever the the CPI >> that is correct. the law will limit the increase you're allowed to get. Uh you can ask for as much as you want, but the law will limit it. Um but they won't extend you more than what you ask for. So okay. Um
041let's start by uh can we get a motion in a second to adopt the tax levy for um 2025 as presented? >> Poland so moved. >> Second. >> Okay. Any questions, comments? >> Comments. >> Sure. >> So again, uh Dan, we have mentioned that we will have a $300,000 cushion and hopefully the whole amount will be allocated and we'll have that cushion. But I think going forward given the fact that there is going to be a limit to how much increases can happen with time. uh managing our resources more efficiently, finding synergies, especially since we have two campuses. It's very critical that we can identify those synergies early on so that if we require some kind of a consolidation to happen, whether it's with courses, whether it's with staff and stuff, we can make it
042work more efficiently as a part. So thinking about that along with what dollars come in uh would be really a good thing to consider. Thank you. Anyone else? >> Doug Flegal. Yeah, I would um [clears throat] like to echo a role had shared and Dan and Mark I've shared this with you before and if memory serves me correctly. 90% of our revenues come from homeowners uh residential taxation and I think we as a board have a very serious obligation to to ratchet our fiduciary responsibility and bring operational efficiencies as as much as possible and as quickly as possible because we've come out of two different segments um COVID and interim leadership and I think now is the time uh that I challenge us to roll up our sleeves and and become prudent in our handling
043of the finances. >> Pause for discussion. >> Thank you. Anyone else? And we'll have u lots of opportunity. We have budget planning coming up before we know it. So, uh okay, see hearing no other comments or questions. Can we have a roll call, please, to adopt the levy for 2025? >> Austin, >> I. >> Batson. I >> Deshmuk >> I >> Flegal >> I >> Poland >> I >> Simpson >> I >> Okay, motion passes. Uh let's move on to uhformational items. We have a report on the report card. >> Tom Centez. >> Yes. Good evening. [cough] Tonight [clears throat] um we will speak on the uh Illinois school report card for district 128. Um each year all public schools in Illinois as you know are measured by a variety of factors. Um the Illinois
044school board combines many of these into our school report card which is our state's communication um to our public about the performance and the progress of our schools compared to others in the state. So here to talk to us about that is Miss Charlotte Emmes, our district 128 director of data and assessment. >> Charlotte, >> thank you and good evening. Um the there is a just a massive amount of information on our state report cards and so tonight we are focusing pretty much only on the summitive designation data. Uh there's a few little extras in there but mostly it is that um I encourage you this is all public and uh there the website will be at the end of the presentation. I encourage you to dig into it on your own. There's there's a
045huge amount of data there, much more than we can do in just one presentation. >> Pause for slide change. >> Oops. Um, one thing I do want to note very quickly for those who are familiar with the report card, there are some new data visualizations this year specifically in the assessment category and this is due to a number of reasons. Uh, first of all, the assessment changed. So the assessment is now the ACT, not the SAT. Um in addition, growth reporting has been added to high school report cards. In the past, that was um only on lower grade levels. So that is something new this year that we see. And we have new benchmarks. Uh so last year, ISBY created uh new benchmarks for all state assessments at every level. So it looks a little
046bit different than what we have seen in the past due to these changes. So for anybody who's been familiar with it uh in the past you will see some different things um but the report card remains interactive um and there are lots of of features to play with. So again I encourage you to uh dig into it and take a look. >> Pause for slide change. As Tom mentioned, every school in the state of Illinois receives a summitative designation. And what you're seeing on the screen is the high school uh indicators and a pie chart representing how much weight each indicator has toward our score. Uh so this is how the state measures um us uh and um and then gives us a designation based on a score. So the sumitative designations um you can
047see on the screen the top designation is exemplary. I do want to note that the state is currently undergoing a a review and a revamp of how we are given summitive designation scores. So that will look different uh most likely next year. They are currently um doing a listening tour and taking feedback. So, um, that's in the works this year for a roll out for next year. So, the report card will look different, uh, in the future, but for now, this is the same thing we've seen for the past several years. The blue pieces of the pie, those represent the academic indicators, and then the yellow pieces of the pie are what they call school quality and student success indicators. So, we will be going through each one of those pie pieces to talk about
048what those mean and how we did pause for slide change. >> So, we're very excited and proud to uh to report that both Libertyville High School and Vernon Hills High School achieved exemplary status again this year. Exemplary high schools are in the top 10% of all schools in the state. They have a graduation rate higher than 67% and they have no student groups performing below the all students group of the lowest performing 5% of schools. There are 71 exemplary high schools in Illinois this year and we are two of them. So this is something for us to be very very proud of. So these images are taken directly from the report card and they just give a quick snapshot of how many points were scored in each category. So again, we'll be going through each
049of those categories as we go through the presentation. >> Pause for slide change. >> It is extremely hard to achieve exemplary status. Um once again, it's only the top 10% of schools who achieve that. We wanted to just give you an idea of of where that that puts us, where our summitive scores put us um in relation to our area schools. So, we looked at all of our surrounding area schools and ranked the top 25 scorers and this is what we have. So, as you can see, Libertyville and Vernon Hills are pretty high up on the list and once again, we're very proud of where we stand. >> Pause for slide change. Okay, so let's dig into the pieces of that uh pie chart. So graduation rate is the largest factor that uh in determining
050the summitive designation uh for high schools. This is worth 50% of our score. This combines a school's four, five, and sixyear graduation rates. Both LHS and VHS earned the maximum number of points toward their summitive designation score in this indicator. Something that is important to understand is that our schools will typically never see 100% four-year graduation rates. And this is because under the IDEIDA law, our district provides extended transition services for students who are eligible for them based on an IEP. Uh so some D128 students may receive services until um age 22 and that means they graduate after 7 8 maybe 9 years. So we share this uh because we when you don't see a 100% on a graduation rate we don't want you to think that that is due to dropouts. Uh at D128
051it is much more an indication of students who are receiving extended services. >> Pause for slide change. So the proficiency rates um I will talk about al together um together they make up 20% of our summitive designation score. These proficiency rates are based on the ACT uh that 11th graders took in April and as noted previously benchmarks and the test itself have changed. So we are in a year of really creating a new baseline in terms of our proficiency scores. Uh so you can see each of the uh subject proficiencies there on the screen and based on those proficiency rates both schools did earn the full 20 points uh in all of those categories. >> Pause for slide change. This next slide is on student growth percentiles and this is not actually part of our
052summitive designation but I wanted to uh put it into the presentation tonight for a couple of reasons. Uh first of all as I mentioned earlier this is a new a a new metric on our report card that at at the high school level we haven't seen before. Uh so it's it's um something that uh for the first time uh we are seeing and something we will be able to start gauging um and and looking at trends over the coming years. But secondly in terms of of proficiency um because the test changed and because the benchmarks changed it is impossible to make a comparison to what our proficiency was in the past and what it is now. we just simply wouldn't be comparing the same thing. So the student growth percentile is a test agnostic metric,
053meaning that students can have a growth percentile calculated regardless of having a test change. Uh and so the state of Illinois can calculate this and they do for students at an individual level and then average them for the school's rates. So this is uh not a percent uh really important to understand not a percent but a percentile. Um so what that means is when we're looking at growth we're not looking at how much uh students grew but we're looking at a comparison to how quickly are our students growing relative to their peers throughout the state of Illinois. So you can see on the screen I've given you an example for how we would read the numbers. Um so if we were talking about the LHS line, we would say um LHS students grew faster than
05452.2% of comparable students in the state and uh in ELA and faster than 60.4% of comparable students in the state in math. Um, so 50% being the average and anything above being faster growth and anything below being slower growth. So again, first year we're seeing that. So we don't have um comparables year-to-year, but we did put some of our neighboring schools up just to give uh an idea a context of of where our numbers fall. >> Pause for slide change. The ELPTP or English learner progress to proficiency um is a complex calculation. You'll see there's not a rate shown on the screen. It doesn't work quite the same way. Um but what this does is it measures the extent to which a multilingual student is on track to reach proficiency within 5 years. Every multilingual
055student in the state of Illinois is tracked in this measure individually and it's very individualized based on their starting point and based on um a set target that is created when they begin as an English learner uh in the state but that also changes as they make progress over the years. So this is a very complex and if you want to know more about it there is a link in the attached report that uh goes into the full calculation. Um but this is based on our English learners access scores which they take each year in January or February. It is calculated at the student level and then averaged for schools. Um, in this category, LHS earned 3.3 points and VHS earned 3.18 out of a total of five possible. These are both increases uh from
056last year as well. So, making some progress there. >> Pause for slide change. >> Chronic absenteeism is worth 10% of each school's summitive designation score. And chronic absenteeism refers to students who miss more than 10% of the school year, whether that is excused or unexcused. So any absence um counts toward this. And uh high chronic absenteeism is is an ongoing challenge throughout the state, really throughout the nation. It has not returned to its precoid level. So it is something we continue to be very uh aware of and um working on solutions for. Um you can see here our chronic absenteeism rates 18.4% at LHS 20.1% at VHS. I have also put the states rate there just to give you an idea. Um as I said this is a a statewide uh challenge that um that
057is that that is being addressed. Uh so with those uh rates we uh LHS earns 6.35 points and VHS earns 6.18 out of 10. Pause for slide change. >> The 9th graders on track uh is worth 8.33% of the summitive designation score. And this uh is the percentage of 9th grade students who um are on track to graduate. meaning they've earned at least five fullear course credits and no more than one semester F in a core course. This is uh an important metric because 9th grade on track is a key predictor of high school success. Um LHS had a nth grade on track rate of 99.3% and earned 8.15 points and VHS had a nth grade on track rate of 98.1% and earned 7.86 points. >> Pause for slide change. And we're on the last
058indicator, the climate survey. The climate survey portion of the summitive designation is worth 6.67 points. And this is based solely on the student participation in the five essentials survey which is administered each spring. All of our students uh throughout the district were invited uh to and provided time uh to complete the survey last spring in March. Uh in order to earn full points in this category, we have to have a 95% student participation rate. As you can see, we uh we we met that and we earned all of the points in this category for both schools. >> Pause for slide change. >> So that is uh the summitative designation and how we got uh our points in each category um to lead us to exemplary status at both schools. Um, as I said uh at
059the beginning, there is so so much more information on the report card. Uh, we would be here all night and into tomorrow if we covered it all. Uh, so I urge you to go to illinoisportcard.com to dig in deeper. There is so much more there that doesn't go into our summitive designation. Um, also want to note that we are always striving to improve. So even though uh our summitive designation is is positive and and it shows high achievement, we are consistently working on making sure that we are constantly improving. Um so some of the efforts that we've put into our uh academic interventions which Dr. Kentis has presented on in the past, we are working right now on developing some ACT preparation resources and supports for our students. Um and in general much of the
060data shown here and other data um from the report card uh is shared with department chairs and teachers who are able to make curriculum adjustments and um as needed based on the information that we are seeing. So those are just a few ways we continue uh to work toward improvement. Um so that is all uh unless there are any questions and once again I do urge you to uh hop on to that site and find the report cards and and dig into them. >> Jim Badson Rahul Deshmug. >> Thank you so much. Uh questions comment please. >> Comment first and then a question. The comment being uh I really appreciate you presenting that math and ELA uh growth growth percentile uh profile that you showed and I think it's really important for all of us
061to understand and appreciate that because of the changes in how Illinois is doing or looking at these numbers the growth which is a rate uh of change is I think more reflective that we are still doing the right things going in the right direction and the fact that we are doing better. Obviously there is scope for improvement. So 50 can become 80. Absolutely. But the fact that we are growing is is a very positive. So thank you for clarifying that 50 percentile does not mean we are better than the bottom 50. We are growing at a rate that is better than the other 50. So appreciate. Uh my second question actually was more on the absenteeism that obviously 10% still uh it's our students. We want everyone to be in school to have a good
062experience. And uh have we identified any factors that are predictive of this? And more importantly, if we have, if not, what can we do to identify? And if we have, what steps can we take to help overcome those barriers? >> Charlades. >> Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you. Our MTSS teams are working on the chronic absenteeism issue. um currently and um it is something we've been been looking at and focused on for the past several years. Uh but our MTSS teams right now are really digging deeply into the data uh deep more more deeply than um I believe has been done in the past to try to figure out why and what is causing it and and what can we do. Uh so that is happening. Nina Austin. >> What's the difference between excused
063and unexcused? >> Andrew Young, >> do you got that to you? >> Essentially, excused would be your parent calls you into school. Uh the state gives you five mental health days, college visits. So, it's sort of communication. However, once for our school, once you've hit 10, any absence over 10 is considered unexcused for any reason. Uh so the first 10 are essentially um we know what's going on and why why that's happening. Just to give that was a good question just to give you a little context. There are currently at Vernon Hills already 25 students who are on track to meet chronic absenteeism for next school or for our data this year. And there's students are in a variety of buckets and reasons. For example, only about 15% of those students are actually school refusal.
064Some of them are overseas for 20 days updating their visa and the state protects them when they travel for those reasons. We have students who are doing figure skating overseas and trying to qualify for the Olympics and miss 15 days. uh with your five mental health days, you're you're sick a couple days, you go on three college visits, you're chronically truent for the semester in the state of Illinois, which is why you see a lot of schools who really hit that 10 to 20% threshold each semester. So, uh the we are really partnering with with parents and trying to tighten our protocols about the importance of being here even for travel, even for college visits. Uh but really our students are in a variety of buckets for why they're hitting those thresholds. >> Thank you,
065>> Jim Badson. >> Yeah, that that's always been a a concern of mine and I know there's some people that are concerned that a very valid excused absence would be counted against the student and potentially put them into this chronically truent uh bucket. even though they might be excellent students and they're showing up every day, they they can show up. And it's just uh to me that that's always been a little a little odd that it was they would include excused absences. You have an extended illness, you could you could very easily uh fall into that category. So that's that's a that's a good question. >> West Poland, >> other questions, comments? >> Um I have a few. Um you mentioned that ISBY is redesigning the summit of designation system. What changes are anticipated and
066could these changes affect whether our schools remain exemplary? >> Charladines. >> So they are this is currently um in process and nothing nothing has been decided. They are um actually doing listening tours uh currently this month um and into I believe into December. They're doing listening tours. I have not had the opportunity to attend one yet, but I I plan to on Wednesday. So we'll learn a little bit more at that time. One of the big things is um as I mentioned when talking about the the various designations to be exemplary you have to be in the top 10%. And so that is a moving target. Uh so one of the things that I know the state has been looking at is that rather than um the top 10% which really makes it a norm
067referenced standard looking at how can we make this criterion referenced only. Um so I believe that that idea of these 10% go here and the next however many go here I believe that that will be going away. Um there are other things that they've uh started to put out some some communication about and again these are still being workshopped. Um so nothing set in stone. Um but they are looking at um adding growth to um the designation. So it won't be solely based on proficiency rates but also growth. They are possibly redesigning how we track attendance. Um that is another thing that's that's been on the table um to because of many of the things we've talked about um um here tonight. Um so exactly what that will look like I don't know but those
068are some of the the things on the table. I also believe they'll be releabeling the the designation names uh which kind of goes handinhand with having renamed the benchmarks and trying to make things more consistent throughout all of that. Um so I will be attending the listening tour on Wednesday uh and and certainly if I learn more beyond that um I can share afterwards. And one thing that we don't know how it will impact us until we know the exact formula. They are going to take proficiency, at least what they're saying right now is they're planning to take proficiency and instead of breaking it down by math, science, and English to combine it all into one proficiency score. So that will also be something that we'll have to figure out what that means in terms
069of how that affects our overall rating. Um, you know, for us, I think our goal is regardless of what the state determines as a way to rank schools, we want to still be high in all of our performance. Um, and be confident that whatever formulas the state comes up with, we're going to we're going to be, you know, having strong results for our school. So, we'll continue to dig in to our work, as Charlotte mentioned, of bolstering our curriculum and trying to strengthen the ability of our students to be successful on those measures. But then, as soon as we know the exact criterion and how those are being kind of weighted, that'll help us adjust any kind of smaller strategic efforts that we need to make. >> West Poland. >> Okay. Um, and then do
070you have a breakdown of how many non-graduates are due to extended services versus like true dropouts? >> I don't I don't have that in front of me now, but that is something we could certainly get. >> I'm just curious what our actual dropout rate is. Um and then my last one are um in regards to um our chronically absent students um [clears throat] are those mostly concentrated in the upper grades? Because if you look at the um the ninth graders on track to graduate, that's a really high number. But then if you look at our chronic absenteeism numbers, you know, they're not great. So um you know, is there a trend there? Like how is because it I mean the math's not working out. >> Ray all bin. >> Yeah. Go ahead. >> No, I
071mean it it actually under chronic abism on the report card it shows yeah that grade nine is at I think it's an 8.7% grade 12 31.7. So yeah it's a steady rise as they as they go through. >> All right that's it. Thank you >> Jim Batson. as it relates to the just a follow-up question, the summit of design designations. Do you have a a sense that there's I always had the sense that the commendable bucket was very large compared to the others? It just seems like there there was a lot of districts that sort of fell into that and then the smaller percent exemplary and a a small percent that that hit the the bottom three targets. Is that a good assumption or is >> Yes, that's very true. Um and that's one of
072the things they're looking at. Um so currently if you meet all of the criteria to be exemplary, so that 67% graduation rate, no student groups um below the bottom 5%. Um if you meet that but aren't in the top 10%, you're automatically commendable. And so that covers a huge portion of schools. Um [clears throat] I'm just looking at a resource that that Isby um has put out with some of the the things they're looking at for the redesign and they're showing that to be um maybe 80% of of schools, 80 to 85% of schools. Um so that also doesn't make a lot of sense um in in regard to the designation. So they are looking at redesigning that. >> Yeah. Thank you. Anyone else have questions, comments? >> Okay. Thank you for the uh for
073the information. I do encourage people like you say to dig into the report card. There's so much information there and you can slice and dice and compare to other districts, other high schools. It's it's really you can spend a lot of time um going down that rabbit hole so to speak. Um okay, moving on. Uh board comments and events. Anyone have something you want to share? I will uh add on to um what Dr. Schaefer mentioned earlier. I was at the uh the event where our two board reps um spoke on the u uh on that panel for uh discussing AI. I was actually at a Midwest uh tech um and ed education tech uh group uh the following week about a week later uh and one of the presenters at this uh event uh
074was in attendance at that and I I mentioned this to them uh the other day but that presenter actually quoted uh the the comments that these students made in their presentation a week later to a group of a large group of districts from around the Midwest uh that they found it so powerful and and to hear the student voice and and talking about um you use of technology especially AI in the classroom. So I want to commend our our students for such um important feedback for the you know u for the community and community at large. Uh, okay. Um, ISB report. We have our um what's affectionately known as the triple I. We have the the uh Illinois Joint Conference, which is a a conference of educators from across the state, both board members and
075business officials, administrators, um, that meet in Chicago. It's a very valuable, um, learning experience, and I know a number of us are are going to be in attendance there. So I wish you luck with the um whatever learning opportunities you take advantage of. Um we had >> momentary pause >> and that's that's about it. Anyone else have uh that that was uh ISB so nobody had comments or uh events? No seat all future agenda items are listed um uh just a few here uh coming up in December. Uh so we are going to uh move into uh executive session. Uh we'll convene in close session to discuss placement of individual students and special education programs and other matters relating to individual students. 5 ILCS 120C 10 and collective uh negotiating matters 5CS120C2. Uh can we
076have a motion to convene in close session? >> Poland. So moved. Austin second. >> Okay. Roll call, please. >> Fatson, >> I. >> Desmuk, >> I. >> Legal. >> I. >> Poland. >> I. >> Simpson. >> I. >> Austin. [snorts] >> I. >> Motion passes. We will go into close session. And as mentioned before, there will be no actions items afterwards. So, have a good evening. >> Text on the screen says the board is in closed session. Fade to District 128 logo. Fade to black.