001>>Good evening and welcome to the program and personnel committee meeting for September 8th, 2025. I'm Jim Batson. Doug Flegel had a last minute business trip. He's traveling right now, had a last minute business issue that he had to deal with, so I will be presiding over this committee meeting at this point in time. So if we can, we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance. >>I pledge allegiance to 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. >>And again, welcome everybody to our committee meeting. I'm gonna review the agenda real quickly. We will have a invitation for public comment, followed by some discussion items, employment of employee report, some upcoming educational tours. We're gonna discuss the board governor's handbook
002review process. Talk about a few future agenda items, and then we will adjourn. I have a list, and I see some other folks have signed in on another sheet. So we're gonna start with this list. Again, our public comment, in order to have as many people speak as possible, we'd like to keep this to three minutes each. And I believe you just come up and pick a microphone at the table when your name is called. So we're gonna start with Jill Kreller. >>Good. Can you hear me? >>Yes. >>All right. My name is Jill. I'm a parent here in Libertyville. I have three young daughters. I'm also a mental health professional that specializes in complex trauma, particularly with trans children. I'm here in support of D 128's gender support guidelines, which I've noticed seem to be
003up for debate and up for question. I wanna point out that we've been here before. The longest lasting argument for segregating schools was the belief that Black boys were inherently hypersexual and posed a danger to women. I will point out some pictures. We all remember. All of these people in these pictures are younger than my grandparents, okay? This was not a long time ago. "Integration is a moral sin." Same thing. We literally have been here in history before. White women set forth the belief that Black boys were dangerous. And the school board said, "No, we can't say that. "That's discrimination. "You can't say someone's dangerous "because of their identity." No one in our community has been victimized by a trans individual. Nobody. Who I will tell you is in danger are trans children. Prior to
0042024, the trans rate of suicide for children under 13, 44% considered it and 34% attempted. Since these policies have been put in place, we've been tracking data across states, and states that overturn policies that protect trans kids have seen a 72% rise in these numbers. And I know, I mean, I've heard that our math is getting all bad because we spend too much time focusing on DEI. But I will say that brings us close to 100%. We are putting these kids in a situation where they are near 100% likely to consider and attempt suicide. My job all day, every day is to keep these kids alive. And what they ask for? They don't ask for parades. They don't ask for access to little girls. They ask to be included. They ask that the adults around
005them stop basically just bullying 'em and erasing them. And all day, every day my goal is to keep these kids alive. And what we are seeing is direct correlation, direct causation. The states that are implementing policies that go against these kids are seeing suicide rates like you would not believe. Inclusion saves lives. These kids have a nine times higher rate of violence from their peers, a nine times higher rate of dying by guns. These kids are not a threat. No one in this community has hurt anybody. Anybody. But I will tell you, there will be so much devastation if this policy gets overturned. And amongst being on the right side of history. I love this picture 'cause this woman screaming in the face of this young Black girl trying to get to school wrote a
006book- >>Your three minutes is up. Please wrap up. >>Apologizing for her behavior and being on the wrong side of history. Everyone thinks this is wrong. This is exactly what we're seeing here again. Thank you. >>Thank you. (community members applaud) Andrew Kimmel. >>Hi, I'm Andy Kimmel. >>Hi, I'm Sue Newman. We wanted to make a joint statement. >>We've lived in and been taxpayers to District 128 for over 30 years and happily we plan to continue to do so, and we're very proud to live in a community that welcomes and supports a diverse student body and that gives students a wide ranging education that prepares them to be kind and responsible citizens of the future. We support your efforts to follow the law and common human decency to provide an environment that promotes support to and acceptance of
007all students. We especially are concerned about the treatment of students who come from diverse backgrounds or who are struggling with issues of gender identity. >>We support the district's gender support guidelines, the Illinois Human Rights Act, and the Illinois High School Association's policy and school recommendation for transgender participation. We are disheartened to hear that community members have been receiving abusive and threatening comments and messages relating to transgender students. These actions are funded by outside extremist groups and are mischaracterized as grassroots concerns. We appreciate the work you do as publicly minded neighbors to guide our school district. Please know that we back your effort to support all of our students, helping them learn how our differences create a better world. Thank you. (community members applaud) >>Thank you. And you said you were Suzanne, right? Suzanne. Yeah, thank
008you. Next up, Carol McKinney. >>My name's Carol McKinney. I am a parent of three LHS graduates, and I've also been a high school teacher for 14 years. I would like to thank the District 128 for their support of all students, including LGBTQ students. Teachers are expected to provide learning strategies, support scaffolding to address the individual needs of many students. In my experience, many of these strategies developed to help a few actually benefit all. I feel the gender support guidelines such as listed in the guidelines is a similar type of support developed for a specific need but beneficial to all. I've seen firsthand in my personal and professional life, the added stress LGBTQ youth and adults are facing. Although I do not have specific data to share with you tonight, I know that the rate of
009suicide attempts by transgender youth is much higher than their peers, and that gap has increased even more in states where anti-trans laws have been passed. I applaud this district for continuously striving to meet the needs of all students and to promote a culture of kindness, compassion, and understanding so that all students have the liberty to be the best versions of themselves. Thank you. (community members applaud) >>Thank you. Carol... I'm sorry. Rebecca Gables. >>Good evening. My name is Rebecca Gables, and I'm a parent of two recent grads from Libertyville High School. First, congratulations on both high schools being named among the top 25 in Illinois by US News and World Report. That recognition reflects the hard work of our students, staff, and leadership, and it's something the entire community can be proud of. I'd like to
010voice my support for D 128's equity and inclusion policies, including the gender support guidelines. These policies are part of what make our schools exceptional, ensuring that every student feels safe, respected, and able to succeed. At the last meeting, we heard from members of Moms for Liberty, and I'd like to offer another perspective. Executive orders do not overturn existing law or prior court decisions. Illinois law clearly protects students from discrimination based on gender identity. And the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Illinois, has ruled in favor of transgender student rights. But beyond the law, the human impact matters more. As was mentioned earlier, youth face much higher risks of depression and, sorry, transgender and non-binary youth face much higher risks of depression and suicide compared to their peers. But acceptance and inclusion dramatically reduce that
011risk. When we encourage students to support one another, we are not grooming them, we are saving their lives. I know this is a challenging moment with conflicting political pressures, but I respectfully ask that you continue to stand by policies that protect and support every student. That commitment to inclusion is one of the reasons D 128 is so successful and it's something our community can be proud of. Thank you. (community members applaud) >>Thank you. Jennifer Rich. >>Hi. Good evening. As always, thank you for volunteering your time to be conscientious stewards of the investments that we as a community are making in our kids' futures and for being thoughtful role models for the student representatives who often sit on the days with you and experience these conversations as they unfold. As always, our children are watching. As
012this new school year begins, that can't be an easy task when a handful of people in this community are inviting culture warriors from around the country to flood your inboxes with their opinions about how we should care for our kids here in D 128 and to make threats against our district and its leaders online. As a D 128 parent and taxpayer, I hope you'll stand with the community and strongly reject that outside interference. Further, here are my expectations for our district. One, that we follow the law and that our policies to implement the law are rooted in care for all of our amazing students no matter who they are. Two, that we are clear that all of our children are safe when all of our children are safe. Those who invite harm on any one
013of our children are inviting harm on all of our children and should be condemned by all of us. Three, we recognize that the world outside D 128 is big, beautiful, and full of all kinds of people. Our kids have the best chance of succeeding in that world when our school community embraces difference wholeheartedly and teaches our kids how to navigate it with care and kindness. Frankly, I'm not worried about our kids. They know the world that they're graduating into. My concern is the community members who seem to wanna make it harder for them to succeed by distracting our board and administration from the real work that needs to be done to make sure that all our children thrive. Stay focused on the real work, please, because that's what our community wants. Thank you. (community members
014applaud) >>Thank you. Next on the list, Marnie Navarro. >>Can you hear me? Good evening. My name is Marnie Navarro, District 128 taxpayer, lawyer, and incoming parent. I speak for myself. I spoke last week about District 128's gender support guidelines, which violate federal law, unequivocally, by allowing biological males in female bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports. Prescribe forced use of preferred pronouns allows the district to gender transition students without advanced parental knowledge and consent and expressly includes gender identity in curriculum. Under this policy, this administration allowed an 18-year-old man to enter and use the LHS girls locker room and observe numerous minor girls indisposed and changing. District 128 denies none of these facts. Sadly, this shocking event did not occur in a vacuum. It is illustrative of the proliferation of radical gender ideology at District 128 and
015raises serious concerns about the direction of District 128's curriculum and ideological messaging embedded within. District 128 has fallen far away from what its primary purpose should be, providing a safe learning environment and academically rigorous education to all students. Instead, District 128 has dramatically shifted from education and towards ideology over the past five plus years at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars and with a dramatically negative result. Look to our daring acronym and the three pillars of our strategic plan. Not even one mention of education or academics. A public school with $104 million annual budget that spends $30,000 a year per student where parents pay the highest property taxes in the state and country and District 128's avowed purpose does not even include education, and it shows. In addition to our declining enrollment, our state
016report card reflects that all student groups are performing worse on standardized state testing with the exception of our Asian and Indian students. The gap between IEP and non-IEP students is widening. Our African American and Latino students for the millions of dollars invested in DEI have gone backwards. District 128 still does not have a standardized grading scale, robust MTSS system to support all students, and still is not in SPED 70/30 compliance. Indeed, our 10% IEP SPED student population are among the most woefully underserved. The man in the girls' locker room illustrates just how far District 128 has jumped the shark. Just a few weeks later, this library, LHS's library was blanketed with LGBTQ flags. I know, I was here for this meeting. How does that make our girls feel that one alleged trans man's rights are
017so clearly prioritized over their rights to safety and privacy? Double victimization. What District 128 has done is invert responsibility. Allowing an adult male to enter girls' private spaces is not inclusion. It is dereliction of duties. Telling the girls that they are the problem and need to relocate, a dozen girls relocate if they object is not compassion, it's betrayal. It trains them to doubt their instincts and accept fear and humiliation as the price for speaking truth, and it's a profound form of institutional abuse. >>Excuse me. Your three minutes is up. >>Excuse me, Jim, I'm gonna finish this statement. Thank you so much. >>Thank you. >>I'm almost done. I have two paragraphs. It is also wildly immoral and wrong- >>No- (community members shout) >>You know what? A year and a half- >>Three minutes. >>A year and a
018half- >>You're wasting your time. Come on, finish your statement. >>These slides from the fall ninth grade... You know what? This heckling and talk about people who are not from our community. Parents, look at what they're teaching our children in health class. Look at what... This is from... You know what, you psychos, let me speak. These slides are from this fall's ninth grade health class. This is not biology, this is ideology. It is seeped into every aspect of District 128. The curriculum, the flags, the books, the hallways. If you want to teach your kids in your home about intersex, non-binary, pansexual, aromantics, that is your prerogative. But that is not what this is for. >>Your time is up. >>On other people's kids in public school. >>Your time is up. Thank you. >>Yes, sir. District 128 is
019hostile. >>Your time is up. >>Jim, bring security then. >>Okay. >>This administration is hostile to our 50% female population and families of faith, and we agree that you should follow the law and you are not. You are failing. >>Moving on. Is there anyone else that wishes to address the board? >>And protect our girls and our tax dollars and return to academic rigor. Thank you, Jim Batson! We understand. Crazy. >>Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, everybody. We're gonna move on. Yeah, I'd ask once, is there anyone else that wishes to speak to the board? Okay. Three minutes please. >>My name is Kristen Christensen. I have four kids that either have gone through LHS or are in LHS right now, and I would just like to ask every parent here how would they would be comfortable
020with your daughter being undressing, 15 years old, and a person comes in dressed as a man, is a man later that day in his class, yet he's allowed to sit and watch my daughter undress in her bra and underwear? My daughter's 5'5", she's 130 pounds. This guy was six foot something and he's very well built. He's gotta be at least over 200 pounds. So she has no way of defending herself. You guys had no policy that I have ever been emailed, I've asked, to even screen this person, but yet they were allowed to be with my daughter. I would like question whether or not any of you would ever wanna be changing in front of your peers that are the opposite sex. How comfortable would that be for you? I guess you can't answer anyways,
021but thank you for your time. But I'd just like you to think about the girls for once, how it feels to be a 15-year-old and not even be told, not even giving you a choice before it happened, that some man is going to be watching her undress, which it was and that man's girlfriend was also in the room too, the locker room. So I mean, I don't know. I really... I guess I question whether or not you really care about students or not in a lot of ways. Thank you. (some community members applaud) >>Anybody else? Please. >>Hi, my name is Kim Arnold Wadley. I have a current LHS sophomore. When I was walking into the library, I saw a sign just now. I was not intending on speaking tonight. But the sign says, "Hate has
022no home." That is something our students see every day. I'd like us to keep that in mind and keep it in our hearts and really move forward in a way. I don't want our community known for this. The majority here do not want this type of behavior. And I think if we are really concerned about our girls, why isn't there outcry, clapping, calls for attention on a national stage regarding the three teachers at D 128 that were arrested for sexual misconduct and sexual crimes against children recently? Why isn't that being the outcry that is brought to the table? Why instead are we fabricating things that hurt children? Let's keep in mind that hate has no home here. Let's actually live by that. Thank you. (community members applaud) >>Thank you. Anybody else? Okay, moving on. Oh,
023okay John. >>Good evening. John Hetzel. As you know, I have two daughters in the high school. First of all, I've said it before, that flag over there is a pledge of allegiance and it does say "liberty and justice for all" in the last sentence. And I do believe that our school district does provide that. I don't think anybody in the district doesn't feel that everybody has a place. I think that's the big misnomer that's being... The narrative's being falsely accused at this time. I think what people don't agree with, and I don't agree with, is a male coming into the girls' locker room when my daughter 15 or 17 is in there and changing his clothes. I think that's inappropriate. I think anybody with moral or religious beliefs can honestly say that's the way they
024should feel and do feel. I don't think it's appropriate for that to take place. I do feel that we have some violations also in our Title IX as well as our federal law. It's not executive orders only. There are real federal laws that we are in violation of. I do believe that this school board and this administration needs to take a little better look at that gender school policy. And everyone's welcome, just boys should not be welcome in the girls' locker room. That's just not right. And to be quite honest, we've already seen what takes place when boys, and you don't ever see girls transitioning going into boys sports. It's always the boys going into girls sports. It's inappropriate, it's not fair. It's biology 101. So at the end of the day, we need to
025be better at what we do as far as how we articulate what we have here because everybody is equal. Liberty and justice for all. It used to be live and let live. And I still believe most of the kids feel that. So where all this hate's coming from, I have no idea because there's not hate being spewed at people, it's just trying to get course correction so that we are in alignment not only with federal law but Title IX, which we are not currently. And I also believe from a moral and religious point of view, it's the parental right, as Kristen said. You know the parents should be aware if there is going to be something like that. We do have gender bathrooms. That individual could have gone and changed in a gender bathroom and
026he did not. He decided to go into the girls' locker room. So if you guys think that's appropriate, then we have a fundamental problem with the individual, moral, and religious beliefs of several people in this community. And I also believe that we have to be smarter about how we approach handling this situation. Thank you. (some community members applaud) >>Thank you. Anybody else wish to address the board? Okay, hearing none, we'll move on. Next agenda item is a employment of employees report. Anything to know? >>Monthly action items for our personnel report? >>Yeah. Any questions or comments from any of the committee members? Nope. Okay. Moving on, we have some educational tours. >>Yes, good evening. Just re-logging in here. One moment. But there are some educational tours for the board to review. LHS Model United Nations to
027South Bend, Indiana for a tournament. Our LHS boys lacrosse program to South Carolina for a spring break team building and competitive trip. LHS baseball to Scottsdale, Arizona for spring break team building and competitive trip. And then a ED tour, this was submitted, was started to be worked on last year. It is the D 128 social studies tour to Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. It is open to all District 128 students but they are targeting students who have taken or are interested in AP or regular college prep psychology and geography. They are going to the happiest countries on earth to study what makes people in those countries so happy. This is a custom tour that was put together for our students. They will be visiting schools, they will be visiting parks and community centers and government institutions.
028They'll also be doing some wellness things like yoga and hiking. So this trip meets sort of the emerging focus that we have of finding connections to our curriculum, finding connections to student career interests in terms of their exploration while they're in high school. I do wanna ask the board's guidance. We're not voting on this tour tonight, but because this trip is proposing to go to Scandinavia, we do know that that tends to be a more expensive tour location, and this trip has been custom designed for District 128 students, which adds a little bit more to the cost of the trip. It is not a canned trip that students in other schools are able to participate in. One question that I would like to just hear perspective from the board, the trip by itself is $4,700,
029and in reviewing the tour company, this is with Education First Tours, they are a global leader in student travel, and they have a number of trip protections already built into the cost of the trip. So they have a robust and substantial tour protection program where if there are to be problems or any types of issues with the location, students would be able to apply their tour credit to a different tour that the company offers. With that in mind, the question that the administration is seeking a little bit of feedback on is historically since 2020 we have mandated that all international tours do require cancel for any reason insurance. In this case, the cancel for any reason insurance is $590 additional to the $4,700. So that increases the price over 10%. And a question that we
030are wondering is would our board be comfortable with us offering the cancel for any reason insurance as optional for families who want to reduce the overall cost of their program? This was something we had discussed. The board in reviewing our ED tour committee feedback had asked us to consider ways to make the cancel for any reason insurance optional. So this would be something that all families would certainly be able to purchase but would not be obligated to purchase. And one of the reasons the administration is considering that is due to the strength of the company and the strength of the protections that are already built into the trip cost. So I will now take time to answer questions about all of the ED tours, but would also invite any perspective about the cancel for any
031reason insurance specific to the Scandinavia tour. >>Okay, thank you. >>Can you give us what is included in the protections with that particular program, the last one you discussed? >>Yes, there are a whole long series of those things, so I don't know if you would want me to share them all right now, but I can summarize that there's 24/7 emergency service and support team that is available to the students while traveling. There's a global travel protection program that is in place for the students where if something happens 30 days prior to the trip, the company allows for there to be refunds and then 45 days there's increased amount of changes that are made. While traveling there's something called the Peace of Mind program. And that program provides the group with the flexibility to change dates and
032destination of tours if there were to be some uncertainty happening in that part of the world prior to departure. So I can send the board prior to the board meeting the specific coverage, it's lengthy, and we've reviewed it. It does not though allow cancel for any reason. So the cancel for any reason insurance, as you're aware, provides 48 hours of cancel for any reason where we have income protection and families would receive 90 to 95% of the cost of the trip returned to them if the board were to decide we couldn't leave up to 48 hours in advance. >>Is it possible that since we won't be voting on this tonight you could include in our upcoming board packet what's included with this tour company's guarantees? >>Yes. >>And what's included with the optional cancel for any
033reason policy? >>Yes. >>I think it's a reasonable thing for us to consider. And it would be helpful to be able to just review that at our leisure >>And that was kind of what moved the needle for us as well. We met with representatives from this company, and they are certainly willing to provide us the cancel for any reason, but they too understand our district's goals of creating accessibility, and while we know this one is a more expensive tour that we would offer, they wanted to highlight all of the protections that are built in and that drew our attention. So we wouldn't be recommending this necessarily for every single trip, but it was some of the strengths and the guarantees that were in place already that made us think about that. And so I think that's
034a very understandable request from the board, and I can provide you all of that. >>Great, thank you. I also noticed that it looks like there's a maximum of 30 students that could participate from either of our buildings regardless of whether they're signed up for the classes that you mentioned, correct? >>Yes. >>Is there also a minimum number to run the tour? >>I think 30 is the minimum. >>Oh, 30 is the minimum? >>Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that would be our target for the, so the way that, that's for the cost. There are tiers. Like, the travel company would take 15 students, but the price would increase significantly. So the target was 30 students for the $4,700 price. And then our teachers in talking to them, they're very cost conscious as well, this program, if we were to move
035this forward, students would have the option to begin paying on an installment plan as early as October, paying monthly. But the teachers are also aware that if this is something that kids, we don't have enough students signing up for this year, they would consider offering this in 2027 to provide families more runway to prepare their finances for this. >>And just as a point of reference, and I think most of us recall this, the reason we changed that policy was it was optional in the past and in 2020 we had a number of tours canceled at the last minute. >>Right. >>And there was a lot of issues with people struggling to get any kind of refund. And we went through a lot of... I think the district did a really good job in trying to get
036as much of that funding back for our families as we could. But that was sort of a concern that we had moving forward. So we put this in place with good intentions of protecting our families and our students from possible issues in the future with future tours. I think... I agree with Lisa. I'd like to see the details on some of that. And I guess my only opinion would be we would need to make sure if we veer from that policy that we make sure that those families know exactly what they're getting into, that there's a risk and, you know, this is the risk. But if that's the difference between their student going and not going, it might be a risk worth taking. So that's my only thoughts on this. Anyone else? >>Yeah, two or
037three comments actually. Jim touched upon one of them. But first of all, I think it's really helpful that when you provide the perspective of what the tour is about, I think that helps the board to know what is the intent and the goals behind. And obviously there are educational goals. The second point I wanted to make was, since you stated that this is intended more for the AP students who are taking psychology and those type of courses. So I just want to ensure that when this is offered, that it's made clear that maybe if there is a preferential treatment, that what's the reason behind it if that is to happen so that parents know and don't feel that, oh, why was this particular kid allowed to be part of the tour and why my kid
038was denied that. And also the upper and lower bounds of how many students are minimum required plus what maybe even there's a max limit. I don't know. And finally, with regards to the insurance, I think Jim did touch upon and other members have asked for information, but it is important that if the board decides based on what we get that, you know, maybe you can make the insurance optional that this information be clearly communicated to the parents that the downside of this process is you can lose up to $4,700 despite all the protections because sometimes that gets lost. And people think, oh, there is some protection that's there so automatically we are covered. And that may not be, so that needs to be very clear. >>Yes, I appreciate that. And we would work very hard
039to make multiple messages about that. The other thing I just wanted to clarify is the trip is open to all students in psychology. So college prep students. We have a college prep psychology and an AP psychology. Both students are being equally encouraged to apply or would be equally encouraged to apply, as would be our college prep geography students and our AP geography. So it's not exclusively to one part of our academic program, it's geared for all. But even a student who had never taken psychology or geography but was interested in the experience would also be able to apply for the trip. We don't want to exclude a student. >>That's awesome. >>Okay. Thank you. Anybody else? Go ahead. >>Does the cost of the trip go down if we have more than the minimum? So for example,
040if 45 students decide to sign up, does that decrease the cost of the trip? >>I will need to double check that. When we met with the representatives, we talked about 30 being the, I think the minimum level. So I think that's the cost floor and the trip going up from there with less students. But I didn't specifically ask about if 45 students were to attend, does that lower cost further, so I can get that information. >>Okay, thank you. >>I would assume some of that is transportation. If you have a bus that holds 30, if you have 35, then you gotta have another bus. If you have less than 35, you're still paying for the bus. >>And potentially additional chaperones. So we'd have to examine what exactly that would be. >>Okay. >>But the goal of the
041company and the teachers was to show parents the high amount, knowing that the goal would be not to exceed that. So for their planning. >>Okay. Any other questions on this or any of the other tours? These other ones are pretty routine. I know LHS has gone to Scottsdale for many years. Quite a few years ago, my family joined in and got to observe the team play out in Scottsdale. It was a really great experience for the kids. And so we will see these at our boardroom. >>Correct. And so just so I'm clear with the board as well, we are certainly not approving the trip to Scandinavia. The tour sponsors though after this discussion would like to begin to potentially advertise a parent meeting immediately following the board meeting at the end of the month so
042that it would all be very clear pending board approval, but because they would wanna start giving family, if this were to be approved, they would wanna give families the opportunity to start their monthly savings plan or payment plans. So they would begin to just kind of say, "This is being discussed at the board level, "pending board approval. "This may be an option for students." But they wouldn't have the meeting until after official board approval. But just kind of making parents aware of the date when it would happen. >>Yeah, I think if anyone else has a concern with this is I would put this on the agenda for the board meeting later in the month. We don't have to vote on it, but based on the information that we get, we'll have a better feel for,
043you know, if we need to tweak something or adjust something. We can always, you know, table it. We can always vote on it. >>So it'll be on the consent agenda, correct? >>It would be and then we would pull it out if we need- >>If anybody, yeah, wanted to discuss it further, we could pull it out- >>'Cause these would all be on the consent agenda. >>Part of the consent agenda. >>But I think it's just proactive just to put it there and then if we need to pull it off because of some concern with the information we receive, we can certainly do that. Otherwise that way we don't delay any further moving forward with it. >>Okay. >>Just one other quick note for the board. In moving forward, any international travel will require at least one year notification.
044So this one provides a bit brief of a runway for students and families to prepare and fundraise. And so one change you'll see moving forward with regard to any international trips, we'll have at least one year and maybe even more to allow enough advanced notice in planning. >>Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Anything else? Okay. Moving on. Board governance handbook. This is something we actually discussed at our board retreat. This is a handbook that was developed a number of years ago. There's a copy of it in the board packet for everyone. It asks us to renew this every two years or reaffirm this governance handbook every two years. And I know we've discussed this. I haven't really received any concerns about the content of this. And I guess really the question I have for the board
045is how comfortable we are with taking a formal vote or taking an informal consensus on this? We could certainly put a vote on the agenda for next meeting. >>I've read through it and I don't have any issues with it. >>Okay. Okay. >>Same here. >>I just, one thought maybe we could expand the new board member part a little bit and really define who's in charge of doing what for the new board members. >>Okay. >>Because I felt like that's lacking. >>Do you have maybe a draft of some ideas or thoughts maybe- >>I could come up with one, yeah. >>And put that in. >>I just didn't want to- >>And then what I can do is incorporate those in and then send it out to everybody. >>I just didn't wanna spend time on it if there was a consensus
046or if any of the other board members- >>I think at this point it's a living document. We've at one point in time made some adjustments, not at the, you know, we don't have to wait two years to make adjustments. So I think it's appropriate to consider them now, and it's also appropriate to consider them in six months. It really doesn't matter. I think we're just trying to keep our obligation of reviewing this every two years. And so I think if we have that and I can send it out and we can, you know, come to consensus at the board meeting, I think that'd be a good thing. >>Agreed. Can I just ask where does it live on the new website? Because it's always been on the board of education site, and I tried to locate
047it, I'm probably just not clicking on the right thing. But just wanted to confirm that that document still does live on the board of education page or somewhere on the district website for transparency. >>Don't wanna put you on the spot. >>Yeah, sorry. And if it's not and there's an appropriate place for it, we can talk about that too. >>Yeah. Okay. Any other questions with that? We have a list of some future agenda items in the packet here for both the September meeting and the committee meeting in October. Any questions or comments on those? Okay, we're gonna move on. I will adjourn the program and personnel committee meeting and turn it over to the chair of the facilities finance. >>All right. Is everyone good to continue? All right, here all. Okay, let me know when you're
048ready. All right. Good evening. I now call the facilities and finance committee meeting to order at 6:15 PM. I'm gonna review the agenda. First we'll start off with an invitation for public comments. Then we'll move on to our discussion items, which include the LHS cafeteria project, the additional work, the fiscal year 2025 employee compensation report, and the fiscal year 2025 site-based expenditure report. And we will discuss some future agenda items before adjourning. So now I'm gonna open it up for public comments. Is there anyone here? >>I would like to speak. >>All right, Mr. Hetzel. >>I find it ironic that prior to 2020 reviewing board meetings for D 128 as well as board meetings across the country, three minutes was not an issue. Sometimes Jim Batson and Lisa Hessel, I watched meetings you were at and
049you were letting people go on for five and 10 minutes. So what fundamentally changed there and why do you restrict it now? So it's ironic because it's not consistent. It's like a new rule you made. Anyway, mission statement. It is a fact, kids test scores and the scorecard showing the wrong direction for the majority of the students. And the ones that are supposedly the ones least, I mean the most vulnerable. So five years we've seen that regression, who are the architects of that? Where is the accountability? Well, there's two people sitting on the board that have been around that long. We also have a assistant superintendent who has consolidated a lot of power who's been part of that too and everything seems to run through that individual as well. So how can we accept going
050backwards, continuing with a mission statement that has failed the students? I said earlier, liberty and justice for all, one flag for all. That's what it's here for. That's what our founders were for. That's what they represented. Everybody. And again, I still believe that that's the case here. It's just how we go about making sure it's fair and reasonable for everybody. Some of the reference data today is in fact true, but it's also coincidental that it correlates with a huge spike in kids identifying as trans, especially the last five years. So fundamentally feel like there might be some other issues that are tagged to that. Mental issues, health issues, ideological issues. And sure any family can have what they want for their child and they're welcome here. But the fact that it's being elevated above and
051beyond majority of the students and they're getting preferential treatment makes it discriminatory and to some degree racist. And that's the problem that we've had with DEI all along and that's why all the major universities and businesses have dropped it because of it. And it also violates federal law just like Title IX and how we're doing it. So again, I think these are some things that really need to be considered. It's been dismissed for the last three and a half years that I've been coming and speaking at these board meetings. But I think it's really time now as a board before it's too late 'cause I was also told I didn't know what I was talking about, that we're gonna lose our federal funding. Well, we are. And we will have a national audience on us
052in due time. So it's up to you guys. I think we need to be a little bit more prudent in how we go about our policy, and it needs to be articulated a little bit better that accommodates everyone. Thank you. >>Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to give a public comment? All right, seeing is there are none, I will move on for our discussion items this evening. First up we have the LHS cafeteria project work. Mr. Stanley? >>Yeah. Hi. So we're gonna be joined tonight from Gilbane. We got Tom Fallon and Edgar Soto. Tom's the project executive with Gilbane and then Edgar, oh, actually I don't know what the titles are for the role, but you wanna just introduce yourselves? That'd be helpful. >>Hi, I'm Tom Fallon with Gilbane. I'm a senior
053project executive for our firm, and Edgar's our- >>Good evening. My name is Edgar Soto, and I'm the project manager for this project. >>So we wrote in there kind of what the situation we're in right now, looking at additional costs for the project. And so we've got information there that we included in the packet for you. I also wanted to bring Gilbane in to talk through and answer questions. So I think maybe first what might be helpful is Gilbane, if you wanna walk through, walk through the schedule and just a little bit of the story of kind of what's been going on with the project. That's probably helpful to give context in addition to what we gave the board. >>Yeah, Edgar's been most intimate with the schedule for the last eight, nine months, so let him
054take that course. >>Yeah, absolutely. So I guess I'll start at the very beginning here as far as the timeline. The work itself is isolated to a section of the project, which we call phase three courtyard, which is the open atrium here right around the corner as you lead into the cafeteria. This work began early March, middle of March on second shift. It's when we first started to remove all the pieces and eventually start digging underground, which was part of the scope. The initial work test that we needed to accomplish was to remove all the soils and get down to an elevation that was proper for us to pour in the concrete footings before we start building our way up. As we started digging down into that certain elevation, part of the contract is to contract
055out a third party agency to test the soils to make sure that they have the strength, the proper strength before we start putting all the foundations on top of it. The soil that was expected was part of the as built documents, it was supposed to be clay-like soil to support the new foundations going into place. What we found as we started digging was not that type of soil. So there began the unforeseen condition towards the middle of March. At some footing locations they were digging into, we did find some suitable soil as determined by a third party agency. Other locations we only had to undercut or remove about a foot or two before we found that proper soil. And through those challenges, we were able to work through to continue the schedule in March. As
056we were digging through the footing locations, we came across one footing that was part of the sequence. We were digging down as far as 10 feet and we were still not finding suitable soil. At that point, the machines and equipment that we have in there were not suitable to keep going down further to test the soil. So we did not get the green light to start framing or pouring any of the footing at that moment in time. So given that unforeseen condition, we had to go back together as a team along with our trade contractor experts, the third party testing agency, as well as the structural engineer to determine what the best course of action would be to get us moving forward. Right around late March or early April, the solution of adding additional foundation
057support systems was determined by the structural engineer, which meant helical piers is what we call 'em out there. So that in itself was gonna be in addition to... At its scope from contractors that we had in there. So at that moment in time, we had to go out to bid around April, which was bid release number three. There was enough funds in the contingency to cover these costs. So once we got bid release three out on the newspaper on 4/26 that went through its normal bidding process and by 5/12 I believe it was a special board meeting to approve those funds and award the trade contractor that specific scope. So towards the middle of May we had the approval, we were going under contract with this trade contractor. We were getting the submittals, which is
058all the engineering required for us to determine what the foundation support systems would be. Material procurement and everything else that went with it. So work continued at the courtyard. On 6/26, we were through the, what we call the base scope of that bid release, and we kept digging around for the next foundation since the next part of the sequence where we continued to find bad soil at those locations. So as we kept digging into the next set of footings, we found more bad soil. Before we had awarded the bid release, we had placed an allowance just for cases like this so that we wouldn't have to go back out to bid. It was still covered on the contingency. We will continue with the same leg work to keep the schedule moving forward and not hold
059it up. So through that process, we were able to get five of the eight gray beams fully poured, not without challenge, but it did exhaust all of the allowance that was awarded to that bid package for bid release three. As we continued and ultimately got that pour sequence done, that took us all the way through the end of June to the middle of July to get to that stage where we're actually back filling the space, and now we're turning the equipment from the area that we had excavated for that period of time into the next section, which would be the final phase of the excavation of the courtyard. When we started digging around for those footings, we ran into worse soil than what we had encountered initially. So given the bad soil, we had to
060go back out to bid for the helical piers to add the scope into that trade contractor. That work itself was bid release four. That went up for bid early August. At the same time, we were also chasing down details to increase the size of the footings from construction engineer as that is also a requirement for the unforeseen condition with the bad soil. Right around the same process where we got the RTA sign and the bidding process was ordered for bid release four, we got all of the details for the increased size footings, which we present to our concrete trade contractor for pricing and sequencing to see where we're gonna be at and if there was anything that was viable to issue to that trade contractor to perform now to get us ahead of the schedule.
061Unfortunately when the pricing came back, it exceeded the 10% allowable amount that we can give to a trade contractor, which requires us to go back out to bid. So that is the, I guess the reason why we're here for bid release five is to get all of the work that's required from a concrete trade contractor to assist on the helical pier installation, get that out to bid, and keep us going in the courtyard. >>And maybe just to summarize a little bit is, the delay in the slab, on getting the concrete down in the courtyard is really pushing the whole The slab on grade was supposed to be finished in August, you know, on our June schedule. We ran into this unsuitable soil. And the real problem really was we had the report that said everything
062was good or close to good, which is fine. We could go do a little bit extra digging and get it down. We wound up going 10 feet down for a lot of it and thought, okay, that's gonna be what's gonna be left. The rest of the way, let's even double it. Let's figure 20 feet for the rest of the bad soil. It wound up going 40 feet down, something that's just really kind of... No one could see that you would need that kind of depth in a courtyard that's surrounded on all four sides by buildings that are not sinking or any issues with them. So that's really why we're back again 'cause we tried to anticipate the worst case scenario and it was worse than we thought. So that's kinda the real reason we're pushing
063back. But the slab on grade is the key to the schedule, and the slab on grade that we had set up in our June thing had us finishing in August. Now with this delay is pushing us back three and a half months. Three and a half months for the slab on grade, which is pushing the project out three and a half months. So we're now looking to finish in mid-February with the courtyard and everything completely done and walk away. So that's kind of our schedule saga. >>So big picture, that's what's been going on with the schedule. You've seen the numbers. You know, Gilbane manages the construction part of the project, but then we have additional costs on the owner side, then we have an addition to construction costs, so design costs. Like, so paying the
064architect, that's above and beyond the cost of the construction. The cost for asbestos abatement, if you remember hearing that word a lot over the last several months. That's additional cost that we bear. And so when Mark and I looked at all the details, we found some monies left unspent in the budget that we can offset the additional work that they're looking at. So right now our best sense is that basically the cost of this project going from essentially 16.6 million to potentially up to 16.9 million based on the additional work that either has been done or needs to get done, especially with this additional bid package. So that's the context of what we're talking about. All the changes we've talked about up until this point have been within the project budget. This is the first
065time we're talking about something outside of it, which is not normal. Usually our projects stay within budget. So that's additional context. So I guess at this point, open up to questions that you have. Gilbane's here, and there definitely, and Mark obviously is here too. Better experts than I would. >>Would you summarize, in addition to separate from the additional cost, what is the solution? >>He mentioned helical piers. Those are basically we're drilling these piers down, these steel posts that have auger on them down to good soil, and that's supporting the grade beams that will support the rest of the building. >>So the helical piers were not part of the original plan? >>No, there was only expected to be grade beams put on suitable soil. So we're digging down three, four, five feet, pour the grade beams,
066pour the slab on grade, put the steel up and keep going. We kept running into worse and worse soil as we went, and it just, and we couldn't... The other reason we couldn't figure it out all at once because you can only dig so small. The machine's in one half of it, of the thing, you can dig in the other half you can't, once you dig that half, you can't dig the other half 'cause you need to backfill that, move the rig, and cut the other side. So we couldn't tell how bad the other side was until we, so that's why the delay, you know, the subsequent comebacks for approval to get more money to finish it. >>Thank you. >>And another part that you mentioned in terms of going out to bid, and another thing
067is really the 10% is an important thing because once we exhaust that with the trade, we can't just go out and have them spend more money. Like, they have to go out to bid and that requires a 10 day notice in the paper by law, you know, to give everybody their fair chance. And all those things, right, 10 days is two weeks. So just that in and of itself, let alone figuring out what the solution is to a problem. You know, those things kind of compound just to give more context. >>Yeah, the deepest soil caused the grade beams to need to be enlarged, which the structural engineer had to redesign them and we had to rebid that to the, you know, so it's a snowballing effect with this unsuitable soil. >>Yeah, and as you might
068expect, because it's been delayed now school's operating, so it's much more difficult to work in there than if the building was vacant. So that also adds to costs and scheduling concerns. I guess my only question would be, is there anything possible besides the owner's costs moving forward where we can make some adjustments and recoup some of this money? Is there anything possible to sort of bring us back closer to our original budget? And I'm not expecting an answer. I'm just suggesting that, you know, if there's something that we can look at, you know, I think we would appreciate that. >>I will say there's two additional things. You know, every day is a new chapter. And so Friday we were discussing, you know, we might have room in reimbursables as we've, the project hasn't, you know,
069we set a budget for reimbursables that we haven't spent all that. And that's with Gilbane. And so the sense was are we really gonna need to continue? Like, are we really gonna expend what we originally thought in reimbursables now that we're this far through the project? Since it's probably not, so we look at that. And then another one is even in the spreadsheet, like the costs are estimated there, but they're meant to be conservative. They're meant to be high with additional padding inside. And so the expectation is for them to come in lower. We don't really know what's gonna happen until we actually get the results. But based on the best information that's available to us, we believe these numbers will come in lower, but ultimately we won't know until we get the numbers. Is
070that fair? >>That's fair. >>Yeah, especially when it's a smaller scope of work like this and it's already in a project that other people are running, getting competitive bids is gonna be tough. We think we have four different bidders for the concrete, which would be the majority of the cost. So that should make it come in closer to where we expect it to be. >>Yeah, and one of the things will help is if it gets awarded to somebody who we already have a contract with and eliminates that contract period, the submittals, which is all the engineering. You know, so we can save two or three weeks there, you know, if that happens. But like Dan mentioned, we won't know until the bids come in. >>So pardon my ignorance here. I'm not a structural engineer or a
071civil engineer. Sometime in March, April timeframe when we started to get an idea about the soil quality not being appropriate for whatever was the intent, I'm guessing that, was there any kind of a thought put into assume that the area, I don't know how big is this area that we are talking about in terms of digging, that it is likely to have some similar issues and challenges? And, again, it's purely because of my ignorance about- >>No, no, good question. No, we did assume it was gonna be worse. We figured it was gonna be worse 20 feet down, you know, and we were only seeing 10 feet. But we said, let's assume it's double that for the rest of the thing. Well, it wound up being four times that. So that's the $80,000 allowance we had
072in the previous bid package was allowance for extra excavation down to the 20 foot level. But it was further than that. So it's just very hard to believe that soil was that bad in that small of an area. Where we dug the first four grade beams, we had one or two feet that we had to take out. Very good soil at that point. The crawl space, 20 feet inside the building, there's a crawl space that we did some work in there earlier this year. Solid clay, no problem. Same elevation. Down there for some reason it was just a very big pocket of bad soil that went very deep that was not showing up on the soil boring report. >>Fair enough. Thank you. >>So during the initial design planning phase, you just touched on there were
073initial boring reports and you did the soil testing and so none of this came up. >>It's not included in. The boring reports we had did not show any of that soil. >>Okay, 'cause I'm just trying since I'm new here too, trying to figure out how we seem to have missed the scope, but it seems like a lot of this was just unforeseeable, unfortunately. >>Yes, I would say that's a good characterization of it. >>Yeah. I mean sometimes it happens, right? >>It does. Hopefully not as often as... Lot less often than you would think. But it does happen. >>In context to the soil borings, those were old soil borings from past additions with the limited access to get equipment in to do soil borings... Not sure how we would get in. You have to disassemble the equipment
074in order to get in to do the soil borings. And we had accurate, you know, information from the past. And if I would give you a tour, if you went around the building, the original cafeteria was built in 1952, which is on a crawl spaces. It's right next to the gym. So that's the long section. It was built in '52 originally. It's got a crawl space on piers. Second floor was added in 1960, you know, adding more weight to there. In 1969, the cafeteria was expanded and that actually enclosed that courtyard space at that point. Structurally attached all the other additions to the building. There's no movements. There's no cracks in any of the brickwork. There's no broken windows. So we are under the assumption that those original soil borings are good. When we first
075started digging, we were getting good soil. We had to go a foot deeper. We ended up going, you know, 40 feet plus for the helical piers when we estimated, you know, 21 feet. Was not expected at all. So we're not sure being the location where it's at, how did that soil get so bad? But where the rest of the building, there, you know, we strip the floors out, there's no cracks in the foundation. The cafeteria floor has no major cracks, no heaving. Expansion joint is still the original expansion joint from 1969 to the 1960 building is still in place with no heaving. So definitely we're not sure what transpired. Was it sewer work? Was it something that happened, you know, during one of those constructions? But definitely unexpected. So it was just to give you
076context of where we're at and, you know, how this was unforeseen and how extreme it got that we seen. So we're actually bidding for, I believe minimum to have 45 feet is what we're calling for in this bid package for the new piers to cover. >>Okay, so just so I'm clear. So you did or didn't do soil? >>We did not do any new soil borings. We were using records, old records that the architect had for soil borings that were conducted as additions were done around that courtyard was enclosed. >>Got it. All right, thank you. >>You said part of the reason was you, the equipment's in- >>Part of the reason, getting equipment to try to do >>Like the sides? >>To try to drill down. You're limited. You could do a hand auger type thing. You're limited
077in your depth. And it wouldn't have shown. You know, we would've seen probably what we saw, you know. >>And the assumption the dirt didn't change. Didn't pull anything out, put anything new in, it's just the same dirt that was there. Yeah, the same soil. Yeah. >>It's a rough one. >>All right, anyone else? >>Thank you for being here. >>Thank you so much. >>So our next step is we have to continue with the work and so that next bid package will come. >>Yeah, we open a bid Monday the 15th. So we will have the results from the bid. They can- >>Then we'll be able to update with more accurate numbers. >>Prior to the board meeting and how the numbers come in. >>Will we be voting at the next meeting? >>Yeah, it'll be on the agenda to vote
078for the next meeting. >>Thank you. >>All right, the fiscal year 2025 employee compensation report. >>Yeah, this is supposed to, especially for new board members, this is an annual thing that school districts have to do, is that post on their website by October 1st. The salaries, benefits for teachers and admin. It's most of our teachers and admin. It's not all of them. It's kind of, we put all the data into ISBE system and they output this report to us. And so this will be there. It has to by law be presented at a board meeting, and so we annually present this at the September board meeting. There's nothing you have to vote on. It just has to be presented, which it will be. But I usually like to not surprise you with a new thing at
079a board meeting. So you will see this at the board meeting for presentation, and that's to comply with the law, and then we'll have it posted by October 1st. >>All right, any questions or comments regarding the employee compensation report? No. All right, moving on to fiscal year 2025 site-based expenditure report. >>Yep, this is also an annual report that we've had to do for several years at this point. And so the idea is really a federal requirement in terms of reporting how much you spend per school. And this is probably more significant for districts with large numbers of schools to be able to see where the dollars are really going. And so it's very common in a district of our size that the numbers are fairly close. But what we do see in the data is
080very similar to data we've been seeing for the last several years we've been doing this. And that is that in terms of dollars per student, it's more at Vernon Hills High School than it is at Libertyville High School when you're considering those. And the biggest two reasons are the most consistent one is administration. So we have a similar administration for less students. One example you can think of that is like, we have a principal. And so there's a principal for 1,400 students versus a principal for 1,700 students. So dollars per student on principals is higher at Vernon Hills and it always will be that way. That's an example that shows up in the data every year. Another one that is consistent in the data is there are more students at Vernon Hills that ride the
081bus. If you think of where Vernon Hills is located, it's not in a neighborhood. It's in a business park. Versus Libertyville in a neighborhood. And so there are more students that ride the bus. So therefore our cost per transportation per student is higher at Vernon Hills. The third reason that popped this year that was more prominent than prior years is spending more per student on EL services. So English Learner services. So that's teachers, that's aides related to our population. So the EL population at Vernon Hills is twice, if not more the size that it is at Libertyville in terms of raw numbers, and so therefore you have a much higher staff. But when you look at as a percentage of its student body, much higher EL population percentage at Vernon Hills than at Libertyville, causing
082more EL services per student spent at Vernon Hills than at Libertyville. But again, responding to the needs at the individual building. So that's what's in the data. And then Transition Pathways is our special program for students 18 to 22. That's out in the strip mall on Milwaukee. And so that's a specialized school, and so that is always going to be much higher than our, you know, our two bigger high schools. And so that data is pretty consistent to with what we see with other systems that have programs like that as well. So that's not anything that you have to vote. This is the time you'll see it. It'll be public, or it might be public now whenever they do the report card and stuff. But this is public data, and so we wanna make sure
083you have access to the data. And yeah, that's it. >>I have a question, maybe a request. Is this template required by the State Board of Education? And I'll tell you why I'm asking that question. >>Yeah, so what happens often is there's a database that we have to input the data to, and then they output a report to us. This is an output report, very similar to the previous agenda item. That's the report that gets output from the system that we use. And so this is the data, this is how it's gonna look on is ISBE's website too. >>I think then it's fine, but I think we may want to put some qualifiers because as you said that this will get public, and it's like why are Libertyville students, we are spending more and less, and
084you actually clarified it very well that it is for very different reasons. So if there's a mechanism that we have internally to add something else to say this percentage of that amount is allocated towards education and that might be consistent and the rest of it is transportation or whatever it may be is for other things, and per student education cost is basically similar or same across the two schools. I think something of that granularity would be more helpful for anyone who needs that. >>Yeah, we have control over the narrative. So when you see the district narrative, like we input that data, that text, and so we are able to write whatever we want there. We've historically kept it, not vague, but a more generic summary of the data rather than providing more specific data. But
085that's something we could look at too in terms of giving more data to give context. But the public narrative does go with it. Districts can say whatever they want. Some districts choose to say nothing. Some districts choose to say a whole lot of things. So we've tried to find that balance over the years too. >>I think again that emphasizing that education distribution is exactly similar, that makes it a lot easier for people to understand where are the extra dollars that are not really going to education, just moving people around and all the other costs that are function of geography, if I may say. >>And a function of two schools. >>Yeah, absolutely. >>All right, anyone else? Okay. So moving on. Our future agenda items for the October 14th, 2025 facilities and finance committee meeting will be
086the 2025 estimated tax levy, summer capital projects for summer of 2026, and the fiscal year 2025 budget performance. And any questions regarding those? Any add-ons? Okay. And with that I adjourn the facilities and finance committee at 6:45 PM.