001>>Welcome, and call the November 3rd Special Board Meeting to order at about 5:26, and a half, 27, something like that. We're gonna start with a Pledge of Allegiance over here. >>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. >>Thank you. Carol, can we have a roll call, please? >>Nina Austin. >>Here. >>Jim Batson. >>Here. >>Rahul Deshmukh. Doug Fleegle. Mithilesh Kotwal. >>Here. >>Wes Polen. >>Here. >>Okay, we have a quorum. I'm gonna open it up to invitation for public comment. Anyone wishing to speak to the Board? I don't see anyone or hear from anyone. So, the purpose for this Special Board Meeting is to seat and have the oath of office for our newest Board member
002Julie Simpson. We interviewed some folk, a lot of folks. We went through an entire process, and last week appointed at a Special Board Meeting Julie to fill the vacancy on our Board. So, without further ado, we're going to do the oath of office so that Julie can start working. I think you have it, you can just read it. >>Okay. >>Just five minutes. >>You should come in front. >>I Julie Simpson do solemnly swear- >>Hold there. We're asking you to come to come to- >>Yeah. >>You just need a microphone. >>Oh, that's true. >>We're gonna have Julie move over to one of these microphones. >>Stand still. >>Or the one, maybe one that doesn't, the next one over. So, 'cause Jessica's name is there. >>Okay, (inaudible) stand. >>Doesn't matter, just pick one. (Jim laughing) >>I Julie Simpson do solemnly
003swear that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the Office of the Board of Education of Community High School District 128 in a accordance with the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Illinois and the laws of the State of Illinois to the best of my ability. I further swear that I shall respect taxpayer interest by serving as a faithful protector of the school district's assets. 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 a majority vote at a public Board meeting. I shall abide by majority
004decisions of the Board, while retaining the right to seek changes in such decisions that ethical and constructive channels. As a 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 High School District 128. I shall assist in establishing a structure and an environment designed to ensure all students have the opportunity to attain their maximum potential through a sound organizational framework. I shall strive to ensure a continuous assessment of student achievement in all conditions affecting the education of our children in compliance with state law. I shall serve as education's key advocate on behalf of students and our community
005school and advance the vision for Community High School District 128, and I shall strive to work 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. >>Thank you, and welcome. >>Thank you. (Board Members applauding) >>Okay. We now have seven Board members. We are going to adjourn this meeting and then follow along with our two committee meetings for the evening. So, can I have a motion to adjourn the Special Board Meeting. >>Polen so moved. >>Kotwal second. >>Okay, do we need roll call? I don't think so. All in favor? >>Aye. Any opposed? Okay, meeting adjourned. >>Should I be abstaining since I walked in late? No, should I be abstaining since I walked in late?
006>>No, right, its fine. >>It's fine? >>If you're here, you can vote. (inaudible) >>Okay, move on with the Program and Personnel Committee Meeting for November 3rd, 2025. We're starting about 5:34. We're going to, first of all, Doug Fleegle has a family commitment, so he won't be with us tonight, so we will move through this agenda on his behalf. Reviewing the agenda, we have some discussion items. Annual Review of the Student Handbook, Memorandum of Agreement for Campus Safety, Employment of Employees Tour Requests, the Calendar Review, the School Year 26-27 Calendar Review, Course Proposals and Revisions, and IASB Resolutions, followed by reviewing some Future Agenda Items. So, without further ado, anyone wishing to speak to the Program and Personnel Committee step right forward. >>Good evening. I'm Marni Navarro, District 128 taxpayer, lawyer and incoming parent, I speak for
007myself. District 128 allowed two biological men, including an 18-year-old man to enter the Libertyville High School girls locker room with no advanced warning and observe minor girls indisposed and changing and to displace a dozen minor girls for a semester. There are no objective criteria for when and how males may access our girls' private spaces. No requirement of a medical or psychological diagnosis of gender dysphoria, no requirement of legal name change, advanced parental knowledge or consent, or that they consistently identify as female. District 128's policy is completely arbitrary and depends solely on an individual's self-identification, which can change by the day and hour. This Board and District administration seemingly fail to appreciate the inherent danger in such a policy. By this rationale, there is nothing prohibiting an adult male staff member, community visitors, visiting sports teams
008or coaches from accessing our girls' private spaces at their whim. In addition to the rape in Virginia and a recent sexual assault in Kenosha, three weeks ago a sex offender who was previously arrested for masturbating on school grounds entered the girls' locker room just over the border at a Racine United Campus claiming to identify as female. This is what your policy permits. Numerous speakers have attacked me personally, but not one addressed the actual issue, which is policy and safety. Ms. Austin, would help if you looked at me, thank you. Some deny happened, so much for the party of we believe women, they just don't believe a room full of minor girls and their parents. District 128 does not even deny that it happened. Next, an individual from LGBTQ+ Center Lake County who said that Trans
009girls, which means biological males, deserve to feel safe next to who they're changing to. Precisely, we agree, our girls do too. There's no evidence that the males who use the boys' facilities since Junior High felt unsafe in the boys' locker room, nor why they declined to use available gender neutral facilities like our immediately adjacent to this library. Then we had the speaker who suggested that anyone who voiced concern for our girls' safety uproot their families, quit their jobs and move to Tennessee. So, much for the party of tolerance and inclusion. What arrogance to ignore that many of us are trapped here by divorce orders, jobs, and family obligations and don't have the option to relocate. Others said their children graduated decades ago. Such hypocrisy for their daughters to have enjoyed safety at Libertyville High School,
010but to advocate for it to be denied to the current and future girls of 128. And the hate has no home here, crew. No one is preaching hate, the issue is policy and safety to which all students are entitled. No one's rights are greater than another, is much less greater than our 50% female students. Some were more offended by my comment going a few seconds over three minutes than they were that criminal indecent exposure occurred repeatedly at Libertyville High School. Enough said. And finally, the woman who admitted that her daughter was not in the locker room, but purported to speak for all current and future girls of 128 and their parents and state that because her daughter and her friends didn't talk about it, it was no big deal. >>Your three minutes is up. >>Last
011sentence, thanks, Jim. When someone cannot engage on the substantive merits, it's because their position is indefensible. You're legally required to protect all students. Your policy is illegal and unsafe. Please follow common sense and federal law, including Title IX. This is not hard, you've just made it so. Thank you very much. >>Thank you, anyone else wish to address the Committee? Okay, hearing none, we're gonna move on. Annual Review of the Student Handbook. >>Hi. Thank you. >>Hi. >>So, in the spring of 2025 when we were beginning to transition to our new district website, we also began a comprehensive review of the "District 128 Student Handbook." So staff and administrators from both VHHS and Libertyville High School convene to review the handbook and make updates to ensure that aligned with our current practice, Board policy and updates to
012school code. We published the updated handbook earlier this fall and families were encouraged to view it through our website. As you can see in the report, the handbook addresses a wide range of topics that are relevant to a student's experience in our high schools. The purpose is to inform students and families about our procedures, expectations and supports in order to encourage a safe and inclusive learning environment for all students. As procedures, policies and laws evolve, we will continue to update the handbook with input from staff and administrators. Are there any questions at this time? >>Any questions? No, no? >>Well, thank you. >>Thank you. Actually, I do have one quick question. So, we typically review, do a cursory review every year. It says, you know, it can be reviewed and adjusted during the year, but we
013typically do this every year, but this was a more comprehensive? >>Yes, yes, we looked at like every section this year. So, in the future we'll share updates on just like what we've updated in the past year. >>That's what I figured. Okay, thank you. >>Sure. >>Appreciate you being here. We have a Memorandum of Agreement on Campus Safety, Briant? >>Yeah, so we, again, we're in year two of our collective bargaining agreement with our educational support professionals, and as we work through our contract, there's some things that come up that we, you know, typically administration talks with our ESP Union about. One of them is that on our short weeks during the school year, that we also have Friday night events, which according to the contract really aren't weekends. So, we have some campus safety weekend events and
014we have special rates set forth. But on those Friday nights when you have a Monday holiday, typically campus safety, we need extra people for some of our football games, basketball games. If they work according to the Fair Labor Standards Act, they would not be getting paid overtime because they haven't worked 40 hours because they didn't work Monday if it was Labor Day or you know, President's Day, Martin Luther King Day. So, we wanted to expand to pay them the overtime or the $30 an hour, which is set forth in our contract and just kind of expand that weekend to those Friday nights. So, this is something that we're making a recommendation, and then we would bring that recommendation again to the Board meeting for approval from the Board for this MOA. >>Okay, thank you. Any
015questions? So, we will see this later in the month. >>Correct. >>Employment of employees, we have personnel report here, couple folks. Any questions on that? Okay, we're moving right along. Educational Tour Requests? >>Yes, good evening. We have two educational tour requests. The first one is the Libertyville High School Girls Gymnastics team. They do a beginning of the season Team Builder, They go to Camp Duncan. This is a nice event that the team does at the start of their season. They've done this the last several years, and they spend some time kind of determining the goals for the season, kind of getting to know one another, and just building some camaraderie prior to the start of the season. The second one is new this year, it is an ED tour that will be offered in the summer
016of 2026. So, it is a drama and literature trip to Broadway and New York. It is scheduled to take place in the fourth week of summer. So, it would be open to students from Libertyville and Vernon Hills High School. Students would travel to New York, they would participate in three master classes around theater performance and writing and acting and directing. And then they would also see some Broadway shows and experienced some of the sites in Manhattan and Times Square. This trip is being put together by Christopher Thomas and he's our LHS English and Theater teacher. And it is not directly connected, but related to a summer school course that Christopher is proposing. So, there is a summer school course in your packet that we'll discuss called Dramatic Literature. This trip would be offered after that
017course ends, and students who participate in that course will have first opportunity to sign up for this course. It's meant to compliment that course. So, a student could enroll in the summer school course, have a summer school experience, learning about dramatic literature and theater, and then if they wanted, they would be able to participate in the ED tour that would take place immediately at the conclusion of the course. Students don't have to go on the ED tour, but it would be something that Christopher is pairing together to provide a really comprehensive and robust immersive learning experience for students this summer. >>So, they don't have to do the tour, but is the course a prerequisite for going on the tour? >>It is not a prerequisite, but kids who participate in the course will have- >>First of
018all- >>Because, yes, space on the tour will be limited, and so kids who participate in the course will have the option to sign up first and then any available spots after that would be open to any student from Libertyville or Vernon Hills. >>It sounds like such a cool opportunity, you know, both of course and the tour. If you need a chaperone, let me know. Yeah, go ahead. >>Yeah, I was just curious, how long is the stay in New York supposed to be? >>Yeah, five days. >>Five days? >>Yeah. >>And I mean, is that like a hotel accommodations or? >>Yes, students will stay in hotels, they'll fly there and then it's approximately, the estimated cost of the trip is between 22 and $2,400, but that will be dependent on the airfare being finalized and the total number
019of kids going on the trip. >>Okay. >>So, what toward being anyways tied to the course objectives? And the reason I'm asking is since we are offering this option to students who may not have taken this course, will their experience be diminished? >>Yeah, I don't think it'll be diminished because they'll certainly be part of the master classes in the workshops and they'll see the shows. I think they won't maybe have as significant of a foundation as the kids who participated in the summer school course, but they would still be fully able to immerse themselves in all of the learning that happens over the course of the week, yep. >>Other questions? >>Christopher anticipates just in our discussions, we don't know for sure, he anticipates that the vast majority of students who sign up for the class will
020also sign up for the trip. So, I think the, I can't give you the exact percentage, but I do think the majority of the kids will do, will seek to do both. >>Yeah, anyone interested in the trip will be in, you know, obviously incented to go to take the class and learn a little more. I think it gives the context for the trip, and I think that's a great idea. >>And during the- >>Office a good incentive as well. >>Yes, and what's great is if you can't do the trip for whatever reason, the summer school course is gonna bring kids Downtown Chicago to do some theater experiences there as well. So, everybody will get, even though the Downtown Chicago is not Broadway, it's off Broadway and very quality theater and experience for kids in the summer.
021>>Yeah, very cool. Okay, moving on, Calendar Review. >>All right, so this is, because I know there's many new Board members, I just want to explain. This calendar that you're looking at tonight was approved last year. So, the way that it works in District 128 is that we build the calendar two years in advance through our Calendar Committee. So, right now we have a Calendar Committee working on the 27-28 calendar. That calendar will be brought to you this fall. You'll have a chance to review that, discuss that, and vote to approve that. Then what we do is the following fall, we bring that calendar back to you, the Calendar Committee reviews it and just says, did any big things happen between the time you approved the calendar and where we are now because you're approving it
022two years out? So, this is a chance for us to recommend any changes to the calendar prior to making it go forward for next year. This year the Committee is only highlighting the one, there are no changes that we are recommending you need to vote on. However, what we do wanna highlight is that since this calendar was approved last November, we had collective bargaining agreement that created a late start on the last Wednesday of the month for professional learning. So, when you look at the 26-27 calendar, you will see highlighted in a dark green the last Wednesday of the month. That is a normal start time for teachers, but a late start time for students. So, we want to make the Board aware of that. The other thing that was negotiated as part of the
023collective bargaining agreement was a late start on the day after Open House. And so that on the 26-27 calendar is August 21st. There will be a late start and that will be for students and staff because Open House at Vernon Hills and Libertyville, you can set your calendar now, is going to be Thursday, August 20th, 2026. So, this calendar is just been updated to show you and ultimately our community, those late start dates so that families can kind of adequately plan for those. >>We'll have to approve this? >>This calendar you do not approve. It's really informational. When I bring you the 27-28 calendar, that is when you'll have to vote to approve. >>I guess the late starts are still school days, so- >>The late start, yes. Yeah, they do qualify as school days. You bank
024time with, as you probably know, you bank time with ISBE, and they qualify as an official school day, contractually their official school days because teachers work their full time. >>Yeah. >>And this was part of the collective bargaining contract from last spring. >>Yeah, yeah. If it had changed a day or, you know? >>Yeah, if we had for example said we, you know, are only gonna have kids here 174 days and we were eliminating four days of attendance, you would need to vote for that, but- >>Okay. Any questions or comments? >>I have a quick question, and this is just more of a, I guess confirmation. With these late starts is that, that doesn't jeopardize any of our hours, I guess 'cause we're required to be in session for so many hours, correct? >>Yes. >>'Cause wasn't there an
025issue a few years ago when they did late starts and it ended up that they just stopped doing it because wasn't that an issue with not being in school for nine hours? >>Yeah, there, yeah, you're, well, if I think, I think we're on the same page, you're referencing a few years ago we were looking to do some extended like professional learning in the morning with late starts, and the question was, were we banking enough hours in order to do that, and were we recording student attendance in the correct manner for that to qualify as student attendance days? So, we've done our homework on this, and these days, our late start days, kids will start at 10:00 AM, and when we look and calculated all the hours of attendance, we met all of the ISBE guidance
026and requirements for these. >>Great, thank you. >>Mm-hmm. >>Good question. Anyone else? Okay, moving on, Course Proposals and Revisions. >>This is again, Teaching and Learning. So, I sent you as a Board a packet of course proposals, course changes, course removals. Some of this is for your information and others of it you'll need to vote on at your Board meeting in two weeks. Let me just give a little context for you. When we as a district do this process, it actually starts in the Spring where departments, teachers, staff members can propose courses. Those come forward in the Spring and are reviewed internally by school and district administration. Then in the fall we also seek course modifications, name changes or any adjustments to the way that we describe a course, any adjustments we're gonna make to the student
027population who's eligible for a course. That gets discussed in the fall along with the new course proposals. When we are developing course proposals, last year we didn't bring you any, so it really is based on the work that the staff does. And this year the course proposals that you're seeing are designed to expand student access to rigorous post-secondary education opportunities. We are building out and adding some AP courses and building out and adding some dual credit courses that also connect directly to the career pathways that we are building out through our exploring multiple paths. We wanted to fill, some of these proposals fill some curricular gaps that we had identified. So, looking at where a student might have a gap in their educational plan, where a course might be absent that a student might wish
028to take. We also, these courses are targeting some of our unique student needs, specifically students with IEPs and learning disabilities who may need some different types of unique educational experiences. And then these are also designed to extend popular and valuable courses that are in place at one school to the other high school so that there's equity across the district and students at both schools can access that. So, the courses that you would be voting to approve would be those that are the new courses at the beginning of the document. And then we also have two new summer school courses that we are asking you to approve. Both of those are designed to really create unique enrichment and unique educational opportunities for kids that they can't get during the school year. So, we have the Field
029and Restoration Ecology, which is a course that is steeped in environmental science, but we'll get kids outside restoring and helping to conserve the natural areas of Libertyville and Vernon Hills. We also have Dramatic Literature, which I just discussed, which is designed to expose kids to theater and writing, and then all of our summer school courses that we look to build this year, we wanted to respond to you as a Board and expand options for incoming 9th Graders. So, another course that you don't see in this packet, because it is not a new course, but that is gonna be new in summer school, we will be offering Art Exploration as well, which is a course that is offered at Vernon Hills High School and it'll be part of our summer school curriculum that students can sign
030up for. We did that as a direct response to wanting to build out more exploratory opportunities for incoming freshmen to take in summer school. There are also some name changes. Those are there for you to vote on as well because that becomes part of our official course transcripts and program of studies, and then some course removals. So, sometimes we create courses, and it could be many years go by and we are changing programming and philosophies and we decide that we wanna remove a course that is also something you need to approve because of, again, it's impact on our transcripts and course offerings. And then finally we have course expansions. So, these are courses that you've already approved as a Board that we just gonna be offering at the other high school. So, that's why we
031call it an expansion. And those, we just give you that information so that you have it and are aware of that in case you know, parents or students or in the community ask you questions about what courses are available at which school. And then there are no modifications this year, so we don't have any of those for you to review. So, I could take questions on all of those. I just wanted to give you a larger context of that document and the work that you as a Board have to officially vote to approve and which parts are just for your information. >>I have a question. Is there summer school done at both schools? >>So, summer school is available to all students, but it rotates campuses. So, last year it was at Vernon Hills High School,
032this year it will be at Libertyville, and the kids from Vernon Hills come to Libertyville. And so that kind of process, typically it rotates back and forth. Some years due to construction we might run summer school for consecutive years at one building if there are big construction projects happening. >>Other questions? >>I had a more of a question, comment or information if I may say. So, when these courses are developed, do we put thought into like especially in the courses that are niche, sometimes you may have enough enrollment on both campuses. These are not, I'm not talking about the summer courses, they may not be enough, but still it's a good course to have. So, in the planning of these courses, in terms of timing, do we put in some thought on trying to see how
033we can still offer a niche course that would be appealing to a small cohort of students, but not trying to duplicate it and all the other costs that associate with it? So, how do we go about that? >>Yes, so historically we haven't tried to do that where we were running courses, what we would call that a concurrent course, a course that's running, the same course that's running at both schools in the same section, right? So, we run AP Economics at both schools (inaudible) different sections. This would be kids from Vernon Hills and Libertyville being in the same class together at the same time. Historically we haven't done that because for a long time Libertyville and Vernon Hills had different bell schedules, different start times, different end times. However, recently as we've tried to build out
034more courses to connect to more student interests, we have recognized that that is an area that we need to really look at. And so we Teaching and Learning is exploring that this year and saying, what might that look like? When we get to the staffing process and sectioning process after kids make requests this year we would look and say, ooh, this course has eight students interested at Vernon Hills, it has 10 students interested at Libertyville, can we run that concurrently? We think that we can experiment slowly with that. We think we can begin to build that out. And we think that next school year, depending on the numbers, we will be ready to kind of offer that as an experience for students. We don't yet know if students will be interested in that because to
035do that would require students to have to transfer to campuses. >>I was just going to offer a suggestion on that because I think that's how many of us think about it. But the fact that we have satellite campuses in general for colleges and universities and stuff, the opportunity here could be the teacher, the instructor, they could swap between the two buildings. So, one week they are at Libertyville, the second week they are at Vernon Hills. This way both students get, again, equitable experiences, but at the same time we don't have to do too much of shuffling of students moving people around. >>Yes. >>So, that could be a hybrid approach that I think should be encouraged and explored in more detail. This way we have opportunities with less use of resources to offer more courses that
036could be of value to students from college perspective even difficult courses for that matter. >>Yep, so we absolutely see those possibilities, and there's different ways we could structure it. And so I think, you know, again, I anticipate after the student registration, we would be coming forward with updates as where we're at with that. >>Any other questions, comments? >>I have a question. Is there a document that exists that compares the course offerings from Libertyville High School versus Vernon Hills? >>Well, all of our courses are in SchoolLinks. So, you would have that, but in terms of a side by side document- >>Yes. >>No, there isn't one that has like every single course listed and what it's named at one school versus the other. That would basically be in our kind of SchoolLinks Curriculum Guide, and it would
037say if a course is offered at one school or the other, but I don't have like a visual document that would show it side by side. >>Okay, thank you. >>Other questions, comments? Okay, thank you, Dr. Koulentes. Moving on, IASB Resolutions. So, especially given that there's a few newer Board members, not to mention our newest Board member, but I'm sure she's been through this process before. Each year we attend the IASB. It's part of a joint conference with several other organizations, but IASB, the Illinois Association of School Boards is our primary professional association for School Board members in the state. And along with that conference, there's a meeting, I'm selected as your delegate to that meeting and so I represent our district at that meeting. And that meeting, several things happened. The officers of the organization
038itself are elected, appointed, voted on. We have a constitution that the organization uses to run the organization. And then probably the most significant part is a, what we call the Resolutions Committee Report and resolutions that are gathered from people throughout the state. These are things that districts, representatives from school districts across the state feel is an important topic to advocate for on behalf of all the districts in the state. So, these are a list of things that the IASB use as its sort of marching orders on what to advocate for, both from a legislation perspective, from a funding, from whatever it's there from an organizational perspective, it's the things that they should deem as important. So, each of you would've received a few meetings back this document, this Committee Report. Typically there's quite a few
039resolutions, but just looking through this document, first of all that the, there's a bunch of constitutional amendments. So, as you look through this, you'll see some amendments, some of it's language cleanup, some of it's sort of maybe some minor philosophical changes, but it has to do with the constitution of IASB and how the organization is run. These were well thought out and the officers, a lot of people had feedback on these through surveys and things like that that we all received. But it's just, you can read through this and see if you have any questions or concerns about any of these particular things. I will be voting on our district's behalf. Of course they're recommending that we vote to adopt all these modifications to the Constitution. What I would say on any of this, if
040you have some thoughts now that you want to voice, that's great. If in reading this over the next couple weeks you have some additional thoughts or some concerns and you wanna bring those to my attention, certainly reach out to me and let me know if there's something that you feel I should be aware of or that I should consider. But in general, it's pretty straightforward. There's usually not anything too controversial, although there have been years where there's been some things that are pretty controversial. So, in addition to the constitution changes, there's usually a list of resolutions. This year is unusual. There's one resolution to vote on, it's under the heading of, they organize some of the state and public education funding or financing public education. And this has to do with school bus safety. And
041it's some things that some district, in this case, Sycamore Unit School District 427 proposed this language. All these resolutions are gathered, they're reviewed by Resolutions Committee. Each of our divisions has a member that sits on that committee and they review those, people from all over the state. And then they recommend whether we adopt, whether we don't adopt, whether it's a legitimate request, whether it's a duplicate request and sometimes they merge 'em. But as I say, this is, there's one item here and it has to do with school bus safety and they're saying that we should adopt that. Unless I hear anything from anybody that we feel that we shouldn't adopt this, I plan to go ahead and vote in favor of this resolution. So, typically we would have a much longer conversation at a meeting
042like this just before the conference, because there might be 10, 15, 20 resolutions that we'd have to read through. But this year's very unusual. So, we'll probably set a record for the shortest meeting, although these meetings typically go pretty long. So, again, I will be representing our district. This happens late morning on Saturday of the conference. It's the 20, I forgot the date. It's the Saturday before Thanksgiving. So, any questions or comments on this process or this in general, what's happening here? No? Okay. And we have a list of future agenda items here just for our review. If there's anything that sticks out or we feel is missing that we should talk about, otherwise I will adjourn the P&P and hand it off to Wes Polen for the Facilities and Finance. >>All right, anyone need
043a break? We good? All right. Good evening, welcome to the Facilities and Finance Committee Meeting on Monday, November 3rd, 2025 at 6:09 PM. I'm going to review the agenda. We are going to ask if anyone from the public would like to make a public comment, then we move on to discussion. And our discussion items this evening are a proposal for Security and Emergency Planning Assistance, the Fiscal Year 2026 School Maintenance Project Grant, Disposal of District Property, and the 2025 Tax Levy. We will review future agenda items and then we will adjourn. So, now I'm gonna open it up. Is there anyone here who would like to make a public comment? Ms. Navarro. >>Good evening. I'm Marni Navarro, District 128 taxpayer, lawyer and incoming parent. I speak for myself. I would like to call the community's
044attention to the fact, pursuant to my previous public comments with regard to District 128's continued focus on politics and ideology in lieu of academic rigor. A recent occurrence that happened here that I believe is very disappointing and illustrative of how far we have fallen off the path of what a public school should be for, which is providing a rigorous academic education to all students with points of entry where everyone, every student may enter and access our resources. Unfortunately, as I've exhaustively with Herculean attempts for many months attempted to bring light to our community, that has not been happening here for a long time, and I'd like to share a couple examples. Recently, we had a daring week at both campuses, and many community members were concerned with respect to the content of what was being
045proselytized to our students. For example, with regard to our freshmen, they had a day dedicated to Green Dot training. It was very difficult for parents to get line of sight into what precisely that consisted of. The information that was shared was very ambiguous and seemed to be focused more on SEL sort of content. Again, very ambiguous and hard to get any clarity, but some of the things we're talking about verbal microaggressions, just great community concern with regard to what exactly are you guys doing? What are you teaching our kids? And then it was very disappointing to hear that with regard to the sophomores who had a Career Day, which I think is a fantastic thing. It's a wonderful thing for our students to see what was actually available and how they take their education to
046procure gainful employment and be successful in college and career and beyond. But at Vernon Hills High School, the panel on law was canceled. Canceled because allegedly there was insufficient interest by community members to serve as panelists, as lawyers, or in other areas of law like paralegals, judges, law professors. And I was so disappointed to hear this as were many other parents because it seems that there is such an incredible expenditure of time, money, and effort by District 128 to bring in radical gender ideology and politics and indoctrinate our children. And yet when it comes time to actually showing our community members like myself who are successful career lawyers, litigators with national coverage practice, anyone could have called me and I could have assembled a panel of 12 or more state's attorneys, judges, lawyers, in-house, private
047practice and put together something really compelling for our students to learn what you can do with the rigorous education that I and others receive from this district. So, I think this is a good example, also recent FOIA reflects that while we couldn't bring in lawyers and judges to speak to our students, somehow District 128 was able to bring in individuals from the LGBTQ Center of Lake County transvestites to come multiple times to both campuses to attend tables at lunch hour. So, I and others (crosstalk) are querying what the focus is of this district. Thank you very much. >>All right, thank you. Is there anyone else? All right, moving on items for discussion. First up, we have the proposal for Security and Emergency Planning Assistance. >>So, good evening, Board of Education. On the agenda for this
048evening, we are proposing a security and emergency audit to be conducted in the district. And there's a number of reasons why this recommendation is coming forward to you. First, the last time an audit was done on the safety and security practices and protocols was back in 2018. And since then, you know, in addition to our two high schools, Vernon Hill and Libertyville, we also now have the creation of transition pathways. And so we have an additional campus, and so therefore a need to evaluate how safety and security practices are being handled on those campuses. Another need that we have, while we do have emergency response practices and protocols on each of our campuses, we have opportunities around systemness, in other words, looking for commonalities, a system-wide approach to safety and security so that while our
049campus footprints look different, we wanna make sure that our practices and protocols are quite honestly identical. And so there's a need to take a look at our emergency planning protocols as well. All of this and the fact that it's been a little over seven years since we've evaluated our safety and security practices and protocols to ensure that they are best in class, to make sure that staff and student safety is primary, our primary focus and concern. So, it's incumbent on us to take the time to audit and evaluate this. Attached to your agenda this evening is the full proposal. I would draw, I'm not gonna read through the entire proposal, but would draw your attention to the project scope, which really looks at five areas, including a district-wide approach policies and practices, video surveillance, intrusion
050detection, et cetera. Just property and assessment and out of property signs, fencing, et cetera, parking, building that would have to do with our main entry, vestibules, access controls, window, et cetera. And then classroom and interior supports, locking capabilities, communication systems, et cetera. And in addition, as I mentioned, we are looking to review individual emergency response manuals and compile them into one central emergency response manual. So, we have phenomenal partnerships in collaboration with our law enforcement partners at both Vernon Hills and Libertyville. We tightly calibrate and coordinate with them. We have exceptional staff safety and security personnel and SROs. But it's time and the recommendation would be to take a look at our practices and just make sure that we are truly best in class. >>Thank you. Any questions, comments? >>I have one, is it possible
051to see the 27, 18 last report that was done? >>Sure we can. >>And any recommendations that were made with that? >>Absolutely we can make that available to the Board and so we'll share that with you tomorrow. >>Okay. >>I have one question, maybe just because I'm new, but how did we arrive with Allegion and was it a bidded contract or is it previous? >>So, Allegion, we have not used them before, but Paul Timm who works for them is one of the foremost experts on school security. Speaker at many different events, whether it's, he's spoken at a Triple I Conference School and Safety Seminars across Illinois and across the nation, works with Illinois Principal Association. So, previously when we did the previous one, Paul was with another company, but now he's with Allegion. So, when we, you
052know, were looking for someone to use, again, I looked to see where Paul was working at and that's why we approached that company. >>Thank you for your answer. >>There have been a lot of surrounding districts, including District 73 has used this company. So, trusted vendor. Anyone else? >>As Briant says, Paul is like a nationally recognized expert on school safety. That's his primary focus and has worked with so many. I've worked with him at school districts that I've worked in. And he's very thorough and very knowledgeable, and is often called as a, to evaluate safety incidents at school districts across the country, you know, in the event of some kind of a disaster or some kind of, you know, issue, safety issue at a district. He's just a very well respected expert. >>All right, and just
053for clarification, when this audit comes before the Board, we will be meeting in closed session, correct? >>That's correct. So, any recommendations that would come forward, we would be discussing this in executive session, right? >>'Cause they're, and just so that the community knows, there is an exemption to the Open Meetings Act that allows for us to meet when we're having discussions regarding vulnerabilities, potential threats or response plans. Because we do not wanna compromise any of our security measures, and we wanna make sure that we are keeping our students, teachers and staff safe. All right, is that it? Okay, moving on. Fiscal Year 2026 School Maintenance Project Grant. >>Yeah, so this is what's turning into an annual grant, which we're very thankful for (clears throat) is a $50,000 matching grant through the state. And so that portal
054opened, and so that is a matching grant that you have to get the 50,000, you have to do a project that's at least 100,000 dollar for dollar matching up to 50,000. And so after approved, the district has two years to expend the funds. For a project to be eligible, it basically has to be a project you're not doing right now. So, it can't be already be bid, it can't already the work started. And so the project we've targeted is the Vernon Hills pool air handler, which is on our summer project list for summer 2026. And so that there we are gathering more information and things like that. And so that's the project that we would tag under this. And so this requires, per the grant, it requires Board of approval. So, it'll be there for
055your vote at November's Board meeting. >>All right, thank you. Any questions? >>Question. Is the 50,000 guaranteed? >>We click submit and we get the 50,000 pretty quickly. Like they are very, surprisingly, very eager to send this cash. So, they'll send it right away. And we just have to make sure we follow up on our all (crosstalk) signature reporting. It's been extremely reliable. I mean, it used to not be, you know, I've got the history that it was every few years they would do it, but they've done it consistently for the last several years and that they are very quick to send the cash. >>Okay, great, anyone else? All right, moving on. Disposal of District Property. >>Yep, so we have a Board policy that talks about disposal of property, anything beyond a diminutive value. So, we have
056two things there, a fridge and a mower. So, that will be for consent's agenda approval at the November meeting. >>All right. Any questions about the fridge or the mower? (Board Members laughing) All right, moving on. 2025 Tax Levy. >>All right, so this is the third time we're looking at this. This was the same, this has been the same number since the last two meetings. So, it is, except this time now you have a sample of the actual resolutions that are there for approval at the November Board meeting. So, just a recap, you know, we're set at CPI, which is 2.9, which is what the average homeowner would see. We have new construction, so we have new property in the district that has been added since then. That'll brings our estimate that we think up to
057about 3.7%. And so we're gonna levy 3.9 is the recommendation and that gives us a cushion of about 300,000 because the way the formula works, there's four variables in the math. Two of them we will know, two of them we don't know and so we have to guess what the number will be that we'll know in spring. And so that just gives us a little bit of wiggle room in case it's off. So, the 300,000 cushion is there. So, 3.9-ish is about the levee that we're recommending. So, same information that we've had at the last couple meetings. >>All right. Any questions regarding the tax levy? >>No. >>All right, we have our future agenda items listed. We've reviewed those and that's what we on the agenda for the November 17th Board meeting. And now I am
058going to adjourn the meeting at 6:22.