April 2025 Committee Meetings of the D128 School Board with Audio Descriptions

001All right, good evening everyone and call the program personnel committee meeting to order. Uh and we will start with the pledge of [Music] allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for its one indivisibley andice for all. Okay. Uh, first item up is public comment. So, if there's anybody that would like to speak to the board, there are microphones at the table. And I am seeing none. Last chance. All right. Moving on. Uh, up for discussion. Item A, digital citizenship and well-being committee presentation. Um, okay. So I think Dr. Herman is going to be taking us through this with uh Miss Todder. Okay, thank you everyone. Um, thanks for welcoming our committee to talk with you about uh student cell phone use in our classes. Uh, so in the fall

002uh questions were coming up about from various members of our community about student cell phone use in schools and in classrooms and kind of what our district policy and practices are related to that. Um so we convened a committee uh from our health and well-being strand of our strategic plan work to explore this issue. Uh these are the members of our committee. As you can see we have uh great representation from both Vernon Hills and Libertyville High School uh representing various roles within the building, various disciplines and um and positions yeah within the and also the district office. So thank you very much to our committee who spent a lot of time and energy um exploring this issue that as we know is changing very rapidly and there's news new news about this every day.

003Uh so the process we went through was to really understand the research and local and national uh landscape and as I said you know these these the news is changing every day. Um, in fact, just after we submitted this uh to the board packet, we found out that Governor Pritskar's uh proposal for cell phone bans in school had just passed through the Senate just last Wednesday. So, this is moving very quickly um both nationally and uh locally. So, we're excited to talk with you about what we've learned and what um our process has been. And so, as our committee shares, they'll introduce themselves and talk about each step of uh what we've learned thus far. We just wanted to start with um our current language, our board policy language, which is also uh the same

004of course as our student handbook, which as you can see states that students can have cell phones and devices at school. Um but the expectation is that they're not using them during class um unless it's for instructional purposes or um at the direction of the teacher. Um so with that context in mind, we'll share uh Dr. Nelson will share a little bit more about our uh the research and the state and national and local context around this topic. Okay. So, we know that this conversation is happening everywhere. Um this is not um unique to district 128 by any means. Um so there have been some um real influential um books and uh documentaries that have really catapulted and catalyzed um conversation around this issue. Um I don't know if you guys have seen the documentary

005The Social Dilemma. That was kind of the first like whoa like there's uh this is something that everybody needs to watch. It's on Netflix if you want to see it. Um but then there's u been a number of other um influential um thinkers um and researchers around this. Um screenagers has been um kind of a throughine conversation um that um has been um on the scene here and in among many school districts um around the country. Um, and then, um, Jean Twangi, I don't even know if I'm saying her name right, um, but is a psychologist and researcher who has influenced this, um, with her book I genen um, stolen focus. Um, a few years ago, we had a District 128 University book club um, around um, Johan Har's um, book. Um, he is a

006New York Times um, journalist. Um, really really great book. And then uh most recently, The Anxious Generation uh by Jonathan Height um that really exploded the conversation specific to u mental health and and the research around um social media, phone use and um a number of things related to that. So um we know that youth often use cell phones to access social media and then social media in turn is linked to poor mental health. Um, in 2023, a survey of adolescence found that 51% reported social media use for at least four hours per day. It's a lot of time, and probably adults um wouldn't be super far behind that. Um but adolescent social media use is associated with higher rates of anxiety and depression, exposure to harmful contact uh harmful content. Um the the effects

007of which adolescence are more susceptible. A number of other things that have been found to be associated with high social media use is body dissatisfaction and eating disorders, especially among girls. Um so sleep issues, negative neurological effects, um cyber bullying are some of the other really major issues that um research is really pointing to as being um profound impacts of um a lot of phone use. And then most recently um things like as the conversation um gets sharper and more detailed, attention fragmentation is a really major problem. And like so when we're talking about cell phone use in the schools, in the classroom, um just that those those moments that a a phone can can pull away that attention um is really profound um for um a person's a young person's education. Um so there

008has been this real strong call to action um for phone free skew for phone free schools and then just how can we use technology in a more intentional way. go on too. So, um interesting there has been um like when f phones first came out, everyone said no phones ever in schools and then um post 911 um they kind of came back um relative to concerns around maybe emergency needs um with cell phones and kids needing to contact parents. Um, and now as more research has come back, the wave is is turning back to like how do we um use this and and and help kids use their phones in ways that they need to but not in ways that um are harmful to their education. Let's go to the next slide. Um, so most

009recently, um, Governor Prrisker, I mean, if like we were just talking beforehand, you know, if we had had this conversation back in the fall, the line, you know, the list of states that have had that had had made legislation around this would be about this long. And like as of last week, you know, it had grown um significantly. Um, so most recently, Governor Pritsker's um proposal to um ban cell phones in classrooms um passed the Senate and we understand it's now going to be going to um the House for consideration. So um here in District 128, um just some things that have transpired here. There's conversation everywhere about it um in a lot of different nooks and crannies um both in terms of staff, in terms of student conversation. So, I'm going to turn it

010over to um Lauren Sheay and Sophia Jackman who are on our principal's advisory board. Um we have a prevention and wellness um student um committee and that has um that on their own um started talking about um this very issue. So, they're going to share a little bit from their perspective. Yeah. So, just to start, we actually did come up with this idea on our own. we're just discussing prevention and wellness and we're like, "Oh, cell phones." Like that's the first idea that comes to mind. Um, and it's obviously huge in classrooms. I feel myself like if I even have my backpack or my phone away in my backpack, it's still like something in the corner of my mind is telling me like like grab it. But like the further it is away from me,

011the better I can pay attention. And I notice that a lot in a classrooms, especially when teachers do give students the autonomy to have their phone on them and trust them to put it away, but it's really difficult to enforce that because I mean it's kids will have their phone out and when teachers try to give like a gentle nudge just like, "Hey, can you put your phone away so happens over and over again and it gets distracting for everyone, not only the teacher, cuz then they're like, oh wait, I forgot like what was my train of thought, you know, and then the like the flow of class just gets interrupted and it's difficult for everyone. Um, and once again, like Dr. Nelson was saying, like the attention pull is just huge. Like for teenagers,

012like our minds are impressionable. We just want to grab the phone. And while we think we have the self-control to stay away from it, we really don't. Um, and I think just overall having a cohesive policy throughout all of classes will make things a lot easier as well because some classes you can have it, some classes you can't. So just having an encompassing cell phone policy will just make life easier I think for everyone. Yeah. Um, I agree. I yeah I definitely like think that we should have a cohesive policy and specifically I think we should use cell phones as attendance for students. That's one of the things we talked about in the principal advisory board and I just feel like that would be very important because like we were talking about like making students

013more engaged and allowing them to focus more. I feel like that would be very helpful. And also less distractions with like if you don't have your phone out, it's like less distractions and students are more focused on the schoolwork. And also another thing is with the cheating, um I feel like if their phones are are away and up on the cell phone hotel, it'll help with less cheating when it comes to tests and assignments and all that for students. [Music] Hi, I'm Greg Stilling. I'm one of the assistant principles at Vernon Hills High School. And I'm just going to talk for a few minutes about uh we did a staff survey to see what their perceptions were about this and then a student survey to see what their perceptions were about cell phone use. So

014based on our staff survey, a lot of our staff is already using some form of a cell phone hotel or someplace the cell phones to go that's away from the students during class. Um twothirds of our teachers use it every day. So this would not be a shock to the system. Most teachers have done this already to some extent. Um we also talked to our ESP who work in the classrooms. They agreed this would be a this is a very effective tool to limit phone use. Uh the biggest concern amongst our teachers is the different practices we have currently about cell phone use makes it hard to enforce. So when we asked teachers about expectations, they said the biggest the biggest thing we could benefit from is a consistent expectations. let this kind of just

015become how we operate as a school instead of all teachers doing a little something different. Um, the LST agrees that would help tremendously in enforcement and kids working with us on this. And when we surveyed the staff, 88% could get behind a universal use of cell phone hotels. Um, and now to talk about her experiences in our classrooms is one of our math and pause teachers. I'm just going to echo what you two said. You said it beautifully. Um, but really as a teacher, I'm feeling the same. So, I've been a math teacher in district 128 since 2007. Um, throughout my career, I've seen technology evolved significantly, bringing both many, many advantages that I use every day. And then there's also the challenges that you guys spoke of. Um, like many educators, I've experienced uh

016experimented with a variety of approaches to managing cell phones. Um, I've had no policy. I've had let's keep it in our pocket our backpack. I've had let's keep it in the cell hotel all 45 minutes bell to bell since co and maybe a little bit earlier. I found the most success using the cell hotel system in my math classes and has had a consistently positive approach on the classroom environment. Some of the things that I've noticed is it reduces temptation. Even as I sit here with my smartwatch and my husband's texting me, I'm like, "Oo, what's going on at home?" Right? like they're having the same experiences in the classroom. Increased engagement from the kids. One of the big things I've noticed is actually the healthier social interactions. So, if there's a few minutes of

017downtime during class, the kids will actually talk to each other and they will maybe like do some mindfulness instead of going straight to their screens. Um, it's improved my classroom management quite a bit. Um, I've been able to concentrate on teaching instead of policing the cell phones. Um that said, without a consistent schoolwide policy, um it's kind of been tough to enforce it on a daily basis. Some students need frequent reminders to use the hotel or find ways to kind of bypass the expectation altogether. When students keep their phones on them, I've observed obviously distraction during instruction. Um as I said, even when it like lights up or buzzes, they're so tempted to look at their phones. Um academic integrity. So teachers spend a lot of time writing assessments and when those are compromised that's

018tough. A lot of shallow learning too. Um especially I have the experience of being in the pause classroom kids will automatically turn to an app for example photomath or chatbt to try to help them jump into a problem right away instead of having that productive struggle. It's hard to monitor as a teacher too. So the earbuds are like becoming a thing where they just cover with the hair or even when we ask them to stay off, it's like kind of in their lap. So I agree. I think it would be wonderful to have more unified schoolwide approach with clearly defined consequences um just to cons make a consistent learning environment for the kids, clear expectations, and hopefully lead to improved learning outcomes. All right. So, now I'm going to talk a little bit about our

019student survey we put out and what our kids perceptions are. I I found some of this interesting. So, kids reported it's very easy to limit their cell phone use at school and at home while doing homework. I can tell you our staff would disagree that it's easy. And in fact, our two students who are here seem to be agreeing it's not that easy. Um, so they shared with us some of their methods for limiting cell phone use. Uh, the biggest one being just put it on do not disturb so they don't get a notification or anything, which makes a lot of sense. Um, our students also shared with us some reasons why they have to have their cell phone on them, like why is it important that I have it here? Uh, one we heard

020several times was for medical reasons. And I know that's absolutely true and we have always worked with students and parents if there's a medical need they have to keep their phone on them. We can handle that. Um but some of these other reasons like I need to contact my parents. It feels like that could happen in a passing period. If there's an emergency, call the main office. We'll come get your student. Um some of the other things though they did mention is while they say they can limit the use they absolutely recognize that a benefit of putting phones away is you know increasing their attention on school and limiting distraction. They also mentioned which I think is part of what Brenda was speaking to just the social interaction. like this is a now a generation

021who has grown up with cell phones and they don't interact socially the same way as previous generations did. So they recognize that as a potential additional benefit and some kids said there's no benefits. Let us keep our cell phones at all [Music] time. You I'm Mary Todderick. the communications director for the district and I am going to talk to you about our concl conclusions after doing all of the research and surveying. Um we clearly see that the wording of our current policy is sufficient but the the problem lies within the implementation and we need to strengthen that. Um the implementation can be enhanced by increasing consistency among teachers by messaging. Um and by that I mean um have a have a plan in place where we're continually telling students and teachers and families um here's

022why we're doing this. Here's the importance of it. here's the benefits of putting yourself in the cell phone hotel and um and also increasing our student supports um regarding MTSS. Um next slide. Our committee um recommends that we increase the consistency and the supports and encourage the widespread use among all of our teachers of the cell hotels. That we promote a communitywide learning about the why and the how related to putting the phones away and a healthy relationship with um students and their devices. And again, implement a tiered approach for supporting the development of knowledge and skills related to the use of your phones and all of your devices, digital citizenship. Looking ahead, excuse me. Um, our committee as well as others who will probably come on board to support the rest of the work

023that needs to be done would be u creating messaging and communication to our to our parents, students and staff regarding the the importance of this work. um developing the tiered supports for students and continuing to engage with our students and families um around like all of the the books and the um movies and things that we can share with them um related to the importance of putting your cell phone away. So that is our report and uh we appreciate you letting us share that with with you and um do you have any questions? Yeah. Thank you so much for your work. Um it's a big committee and it's a lot of work and it's one of those big nebulous subjects that is not always straightforward to dig into. So thank you for bringing uh your

024work to us and for all the time you spent doing it. It's especially nice to see students at the table. um and it in in addition a teacher because we need all the voices at the table so that we can be successful as we move forward. Um I think you touched on this. Could you be a little bit more specific when you talk about messaging and communication? Specifically, my concern is the policies, lowercase P, policies, procedures that will be followed consistently in classrooms so that students and parents are very clear not only on what the expectation is, but what the consequences are for not following the policy. I can start. So with the messaging, um obviously that is yet to be done, but we would want to take time to have some presentations to staff

025to have um people like Jess talk about their experiences. Um kind of I hate to use the word sell it, but with a C, not an S. Um and I didn't even plan that. Um you're all weak. um to to make it a grassroots effort to have our own own people who are doing it teach the others the importance of it and also with our families and with our students um making sure that everyone is on the same page. This is not a new policy. It's just a policy that we need to pay more attention to and be consistent with. So, it would be a whole communication plan and probably um posters and things on the website and social media and all of our means of communication. And just as a quick followup, um I've

026been following the legislation that came out of the Senate and is going to the House for a vote. Um the governor will sign it when it comes out. Um will we have the time that you're envisioning to move towards implementation and the communication of the expectations to students and parents as well as any disciplinary action for not following it if I I'm just wondering if the the statewide policy could force us to speed up our efforts or is there a longer runway in the policy wording that will give us the time that it sounds like you're planning to implement this carefully and thoughtfully. I think you want to I think that it would a lot would depend on if he passes it or if the the House passes it, what is the deadline for doing

027it? Is it immediate? Um do we have till the start of the next school year? Um I think our our thought was if it happens and it's for the beginning of the school year, we've got that runway of summer to work on it. But um a lot would depend on what those deadlines are. Yeah. Um and I think to the the fall being a time, right, where we come back and talk about what what do we value, what are we about here will be a really good natural time to kind of re um engage in this conversation with students. Um, and I think some of the like logistics around the the student concerns and the staff concerns like related to medic uh emergencies and you know needing a phone for medical purposes. Those kinds of

028things will be we'll have to kind of just think through more procedurally what that will look like. Um, and I know that's um accounted for in the the bill that's going through um the state as well or the um the motion just because those are of course things we need to consider and so have being really excuse me thoughtful around all of those procedures um in addition to that like larger why campaign. So, we we were think we're excited about this timing knowing that this this can be kind of the soft uh launch right now and then take some time in the summer as as Miss Todder shared to really work on that campaign and then in the fall engage in that district-wide dialogue with students and families. I just had a a quick follow

029up on this too that I appreciate the uh the on the one slide it says promote communitywide learning about the why and how related to healthy engagement and I think that's almost as important as you know removing them from students possession during class that kind of thing. I think that's really the key, the crux of the situation we're in. And I think that could be, you know, that's that's a big process in and of itself and that will be also an evolving process and how you approach that. But I would encourage you to keep that in mind and with all the communications and as we move forward because it's one thing to just say, "Nope, we're going to take them away and put them over here during class." It's another thing to say the reason

030why we're doing that and this is how you you know how how we start to change how we interact with these devices. I I do want to bring up one question and I don't expect an answer but it's one that's going to sit in the back of my mind for a while and that's something a couple people sort of alluded to and that is I put my cell phone over there. Now, mine buzzed once during this conversation, which I thought was ironic, but if I put my phone over there and I still have my smartwatch, it's going to buzz, too. And so, I'm not too sure how we address that. Do we have a hotel for watches, too? But it's just I'm putting it out there. I I don't know that there's a perfect answer

031for that, but that's just something in the back of my mind. No, thank you for your presentation. It was great information. Thank you. I had a comment and question. Um, okay. So, first of all, I'm so glad this conversation is really coming into its full fruition and I'm really looking forward to seeing what shape this ultimately takes in the district. Um, I for one have been so I think energized around this issue personally for a few years already and um very admittedly consider myself a disciple of Jonathan height. So, this to me is like my my language, but um I did have a question in your presentation. Thank you for all of that data and information that you gathered from staff and students. My question was when you guys refer to a tiered approach, what

032does that mean? What does that look like? We know about tiered approaches and so many other aspects of education, but what does that look like in this case? Yeah, good question. Um so thinking about the the universal experience will be kind of what are our expectations for all students and all classes um related to having the cell phone away and then also that education around the why and kind of the values related to that and just kind of um who are we as a community and and why is this important to us to be able to engage? Um and then looking at kind of when a student's struggling with that, what how how do we respond? So that's what we mean by that tiered approach to kind of what are our next steps when somebody

033is struggling with that and those individualized circumstances that might be need you know special considerations or a different approach. Um so looking at that at the um kind of preventive level and then also responding to students that for whom that universal approach is not sufficient or that you know they need more support in in meeting those expectations and or have individualized circumstances. Does that answer? Yeah, I think so. And then I also just wanted to kind of discuss more broadly, and I'm sure you guys know this, but digital citizenship education ends earlier, I feel like, than we need it to for our kids. Um, my son is now a sixth grader and it's basically fallen off the radar, whereas our media specialists used to handle that in elementary school. It's really not part of the

034academic conversation anymore. And I would assume even more so as kids get older, right? So um I think there is so much importance surrounding that almost direct instruction. Um how how are we not how do we avoid becoming you know owned by our phone? Um how do we do that? What are the strategies? I mean as adults we we all experience it too. It doesn't just miraculously end when you turn 18. It it gets worse in fact I would say. So, you know, how do we how do we model that for our kids as they move through our system, but then as they are moving on to independent endeavors of their own, phone in hand? Yeah, we've talked a lot about that too and and how this work intersects with all of our work with

035like SEAL and mental health and and helping not only right provide that structure for students, but help them develop the skills, the inhibition and the um engagement and all of those like social, emotional, and life skills. um and how to yeah safely navigate the internet and um those kinds of skills. So we're seeing this is kind of our first step, but then we've had all those conversations too around like where is this happening? Where are these conversations taking place in school? Um and how can we kind of enhance that school? Well, I will, you know, when I reference some of the conversations that have been happening among students at our Wildcat Summit in January, total spontaneous conversation among about a hundred students um just about cell phone use and um and no adults prompting that

036conversation. And then in the committee, one of the things that really stands out to me that they were saying is like when you know if something new rolls out, we need to um have like coming from students. Why is this important? So, you know, to to your point about the why and the how. Um, but to have meaningful conversation around it because it's not just about like chuck the phone because there is always going to have that buzz like what do we do inside our phones to further keep us from distractions in terms of turning off notifications and why what is it doing to our brains and what is it doing to like just the richness of our lives, you know? So, thank you. I I would say a couple things, right? Like one recommendation

037I would have is that as you roll out the plan uh plan to have parents/ community volunteers as a part of the plan because that would help enforce it at home and students talking about experiences on how they've dealt with it because I will tell you from personal experience I was there where I was on my phone for work purposes and I was telling myself oh I'm just doing it for work and responding and it became a me rather than them. I remember being on a vacation at the beach and I wasn't looking at my cell phone for a few hours and panic had struck at work because I had not responded to an email in 15 minutes and I realized that was not them, it was me because I'd set that expectation. So to

038step back, that was a me thing. And that's where parents come in, community comes in to say, what's the result of that? I would almost call it an addiction to our cell phones and devices and how do we figure out ways to cope with it. I wanted to add I I don't want to belabor this and thank you so much for sharing your perspectives, the student perspective and the teachers. Um I know in my own district we call it away for the day, but they're six and seven, so we get away with that. Uh but I did as I was going through the presentation and as a undiagnosed phone addict myself working on my own you know how to put it away I worry and having students that have recently um graduated the substitution I

039mean I just I talked to my kids in college and I I wholeheartedly agree with putting the phone away but it doesn't eliminate the problem of the disengagement and how you know every student has to have their Chromebook and I know this is a balancing act. So I think it has to be a part of the conversation that you're not substituting because they are going to have to have their tablet or their Chromebook. So any policy or any roll out when you talk about the Y has to be it doesn't matter if it's the phone or it's the Chromebook. We're we're getting you to be engaged and that is um I I I think you have to think about that as a part of the policy or at least the implementation. U thank you all

040for this work especially our students here and I know it's not an easy conversation when some of your friends may not agree with you. So um thank you for that. The only thing I will add is as you think about the tiered approach I was when I was listening to it to me it still feels like a carrot versus a stick approach. I know you want to start with a carrot help people understand but eventually you got to say is this working or not? So maybe have some kind of measurement in there to see is your I've sold this concept to all my teachers and we still don't see a consistent implementation kind of what would you do next right would you just pull out those teachers who are not and go with that or

041are you at some point going to say this is like put something in the student handbook like at what point do you make it a this is real you're going to have consequences if you don't listen. I think keep that in mind because I mean I have a teenager too and it's not an easy conversation to have at home either. But thank you. Thank you. I was wondering as well what we meant by more consistent. So does every classroom right now have a cell? No. No. No. So I would say by fall yes every classroom will have one. So then the expectation will be that day in and day out teachers are using the cell hotels and then to your point uh if it becomes the expectation then that's just something that goes into evaluations.

042So first thing of every class the cell hotel is utilized and that's a check box in the evaluation. So anyway thank you for all of the work that you have done. Um I agree that the policy is appropriate and I agree that we need to do something. So thank you. Thank you. Any other comments? I just want to add um just to clarify as well that from our understanding of the bill that is in Springfield um now it could always be changed with with amendments and things, but from our current understanding of it, if it were to be implemented, it is aligned with the recommendations of this committee as well. So, we would not have to redo this to align to any new legislation coming out of Springfield. Um and so that piece is important.

043The other thing I just wanted to comment on um the the this committee did an excellent job looking specifically at uh the cell phones. Um and we also had a question from the board about our continued work with AI. Um so we as a district have been um en last year at this time we brought forward some AI guidance to you. Uh we've been monitoring our AI implementation this year. Um that has been going very well. We still have some occasional um student use of AI for academic dishonesty. When we catch that, we address it. We deal with that. But um our teachers are not reporting widespread use of AI for academic dishonesty. more and more of our teachers are using AI as a teaching tool to help them. the big the greatest um and

044we're still learning this, but where we're really utilizing it is for differentiation of resources for students in particularly students of different um language abilities and students of different um uh with different um um individual education plans where we can do kind of classroom accommodations in make sure that students are able to access the curriculum. um but that different resources are being provided to help students who have different learning needs. Um we've audited our use of AI materials um as part of our budget cycle because we wanted to determine which tools does the district want to invest in for our teachers and students and which do we just want staff and students to use like the free version of. Um, and next year our district will be implementing a universal license for all staff to use

045what's called DIFFIT AI. Um, DIFFIT AI is a is an AI software that is designed specifically for teachers to help teachers differentiate instructional materials. Um, it's an extraordinary program. It's getting more and more powerful. Um and so every single teacher in our district next year will have the premium license for DIT. Um AI is being introduced into all software programs as you're aware. And so next year what um we anticipate doing is uh creating sort of a a teacher and student um kind of user group to advise our district technology department about the AI programs that are being used um and kind of the needs of the students and the staff so that we can continue to make sure we're providing the right tools and um equally as important kind of blocking the tools that

046we see as being um not productive for a high school setting. Very good. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate your presentation. All right. The next item up for discussion item B is the ISBE discipline improvement plan. Thank you. Um I am presenting to you the um discipline improvement plan that you um have seen attached to the board agenda. Um, the reason why we have to put together a discipline improvement plan was as identified by Illinois State Board of Education, ISBY, that we had a racial dis uh disproportionality um in the number of uh students of color um that were um out of school suspensions. So, there were three criteria on whether or not you were identified to um have to submit a dis discipline improvement plan. and that was the reason why we were

047identified by Illinois State Board of Education. So, Dr. Jessica Herman and Larry Vaughn um director of equity inclusion um will be working together um with the team members that they have all um talked to and had conversations with um to address um our racial dis uh proportionality. I think it's important to note that um you know the work that um Dr. Herman and Larry will do um in our goal of reducing our racial disort disproportionality rate um by the 2526 school year and that was outlined in our discipline um improvement plan that was submitted here on the board agenda. You as a board, it has to go before the board of education and then we need to then submit it to the Illinois State Board of Education. If you did read, it said it had

048to be submitted to ISBY by February 1st. For some reason, we didn't get the information from Isby until the end of March. So, we were not, you know, laxing our duties of um um getting the this information. They sent it to us um late and um we jumped on it right away. So, does it require board action or just does this presentation suffice? They'll have to you guys will have to approve it at the board meeting at the next one and so we will put that at an action item. It won't be in the consent agenda. Any questions? Moving on to employment of employees. Going to note uh two of my former colleagues are listed there so I want to just shout out yay for them. Um so this is our employment employees. As you

049can see we're getting to hiring season. So, these will be um on the consent agenda at the next board meeting. Uh we'll probably also have um some other items that didn't make it to tonight for action at the uh April board meeting. Okay. Item D, annual educational support professional staffing report. Yes. Um so, uh we are bringing the ed um annual educational support professional staffing report. If you recall, we started our process of staffing um back in the fall when students started when we had put put the curriculum together. Students started um choosing their courses. Um some other things that you as a board have taken action on um is approving our administrative contracts in February, approving our certified staffing report um in March. And so now we are bringing our ESP staffing. So, our

050ESP staffing, um, we consult with our building administration on all of our positions. And so, our positions, um, you know, they run from your, uh, administrative assistants in the buildings to pair professionals to campus safety to IT. Um, so there's there's quite a, you know, few uh, number of ESP uh, across the district that are integral to our education. Um we then also um review any programmatic changes that we're looking at. So there are a couple things in here that are programmatic changes. That was one of them was um the recommendation that came from the uh joint committee for the intervention program. So if you recall the joint committee that got together to look at our intervention program made some recommendations. We approved our intervention positions and our certified staffing in March. As part of

051this, um we did um look at a reduction in some of our ESP tutors. Um but we kept some of our ESP tutors. So we kept math tutors um at both buildings. Um we actually increased our part-time math tutors at both buildings and we kept a science um tutor position at Vernon Hills. We also kept our executive functioning tutor positions in um in in those positions at both buildings. However, we did um decrease our English um and our science tutor positions um at both buildings. Um again, the joint committee uh headed by Dr. Tom Clennis looked at that, reviewed all of that information. We had um conversations with our uh ESP um union executive board in looking at that. Some of the other things that um programmatically we looked at staffing for our assessment and

052accommodations. Um so over the years um I think the workload that goes into both accommodations uh for testing and our assessment you know due to AP due to state testing due to everything has increased. We've had that staffed by some of our um certified staff um with just release time. So, we have um through certified staffing, we've created um worked on some of those positions that are able to handle staffing, but they also need help in the buildings at um the ESP level. So, our additions on those positions were um listed as assessment and accommodations administrative assistance. The other things that we are dri you know driven driving the ESP staffing are um really our pair professionals and those are driven by our student needs and our course request. And so if you really look

053at um you know special services e physical welfare they're you know a big driver of our pair of professionals. And so um due to our students um you know again their needs and their course requests um there is some um reductions at Libertyville and special services reduction at transition pathways but increase at Vernon Hills. Um and then also um we listed it the district office is a 02 occupational therapist but um our OT's work between all three buildings um and so that's the way that we have it in our um staffing um in our employment management system. Um so really when you're looking at the overall district staffing um it's a minus one in ESB staffing. And so that's our recommendation. Um there's also obviously the human side of our staffing because there is some

054reductions in our h you know in these positions that are occupied by people. We have individual conversations with all these uh individuals that were affected with some openings. However, at in special services at particularly at Vernon Hills um due to some of our um aid special services aids have moved on and to student teaching and actually um one we recommended to become a teacher for us next year. So some of the things that we were able to put in the ESP contract tuition reimbursement release kind of their job holding their job while they go and student teach. Um we do have openings that the tutor uh positions they have will have jobs for next year in special services. We also know that there's going to be um probably some turnover in some other positions. And

055so um as of right now we have jobs for every person. So there is no reduction in force um action that you have to take um at the board meeting. And again we had individual conversations at the building level with um all the people So that is our staffing report that I'll bring back at the board meeting and do a overview uh for your approval. Brian, is the assessment and accommodation administrative assistant new positions in both the buildings? Those are new positions in both buildings. And what is that role look like? I mean, what is the purpose of that role? So, that purpose of that role is to work with our certified staff and our um director of data assessment, Charlotte, and to work with our assistant principles that um oversee teaching and learning and

056to work with their administrative assistants to help coordinate all of the uh accommodations for all of our students. Um and then work with um the assessment that we, you know, have to um do throughout the year. you know, some of that might be communicating with directly with families also. So, there's a lot that goes into it and it keeps growing every year and it has just um it we've seen the need now to have this um these two 10-month positions. So, they're not 12-month positions, they're 10-month. Anything else? Okay, very good. Moving on to educational tour requests. uh only one this month and that is the um standard that's the VHS business professionals of America. This is uh part of their competition cycle. So they are a dominant uh force to be reckoned with and

057they would be going to Orlando, Florida to compete. Um normally on an ed tour, you know, students are not missing school. this one due to the competition dates um we have no choice but it's something that kids go to every year um so it's pretty standard from our perspective and congratulations to them uh item F the 2526 textbook adoption requests uh yes so every year um teaching and learning brings to you uh the board and the community the books and that we are recommending for adoption um this says textbooks but it's also in today's world uh digital resources that are used as a primary um teaching instrument in the classrooms. So we don't have a an extensive list this year. uh new textbook for AP chemistry. Um algebra 1 uh I wanted to highlight that

058that is both math departments Vernon Hills and Libertyville did a year-long investigation of what would be the best resources to use for algebra 1 as we of course are wanting to address our student math performance. Um they both settled on amplify Desmos which is um an online resource as well as um print resource. Um, so that is a new kind of uh approach to algebra 1 we'll be taking next year. Our English learner program uh continues to grow and with Spanish language arts supporting native language instruction. We have textbooks um for that program as well as some traditional desk atlases and online uh access to um world atlases for geography. Uh all in all, this year's adoptions is approximately $52,000. That would be budgeted as part of next year's budget cycle. Right. Item G, the

059driver education waiver renewal for simulator use. Yes, we are. Um so the state of Illinois has a law that says students need six hours of on the road behind the wheel time. Uh however, we can uh Illinois high school districts can provide a waiver um where we can go up to two hours using a simulator. Um so in order to do that, we have to have a public hearing about that. We have to give notice and then um you as a board would um send that waiver forward to the state board of education. This is something that we do every 5 years. We're allowed to apply for this waiver. Um, remember Vernon Hills does not have simulators. So, they fulfill the regular behind the road requirements. Their program is set up a little bit differently

060uh than Libertyville's. Libertyville has the simulators. So, this waiver is for Libertyville High School to utilize simulators uh for students to complete their behind-the-w education. Okay, no questions there. Uh, we do have a question. I'm sorry. When I was reading this over earlier, I didn't know that there were no simulators at Vernon Hills. I I just I didn't know. I haven't taken drivers out here lately. Um, but can you kind of speak to that and why the discrepancy between the two schools? Um so his going back for several years um part of it has to do I believe with the size of the schools and the way that the student um program is designed. Libertyville has what they would call a three cycle program where students are on the road in the classroom or in

061the simulator. Vernon Hills is just on the road and behind the wheel. Um I don't know the origins of that. It's been more than 10 years that the programs have been different in that way. I'm going to look at my historian Bryant to see if he remembers, you know, when that started. It's been a number of years, I think, since they haven't had simulators at Verdon Hills. Yeah, I think some of it had a little bit to do with space and then number of students. And we asked when Vernon Hill when Libertyville when I was principal here, Libertyville was getting new simulators. This was several years ago. and we asked Vernon Hills if that was something they were interested in. Both schools are very satisfied with the programs that they have. In my checking around

062the state, um most drivers ed people would say that it's sort of 50/50. You can run a world-class program without simulators and you can run a great program with simulators. So, our schools evolve differently in that way and um Libertyville uses their simulators um to maximize the amount of students we have in the building who can access driver's ed. Vernon Hills with a smaller student population doesn't face that same challenge and is able to function with um without them. So, in your professional opinion, no no disadvantage for not having them at Vernon Hills. That is what uh Mike Mallalu and the driver's ed team there believes that um I have no reason to doubt that. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. All right. Moving on to item H, the board management board meeting management system. Yeah. I'm

063going to turn this over to Carol. I'm just kidding. Put her on the spot. Um but I do I do have to acknowledge Carol. Carol was um did a lot of the work uh behind this in looking at what management system that we use for our board meetings. So going back before um you know board docs, we used to use Google um docs and PDFs um and you know it just it wasn't easy for our board to manage um board meetings. it wasn't easy for administration to manage it. So at that time um we did look into moving to a system and we moved to um board docs. Um however um much in like in education um things change. Boardocks is um owned by Diligent so it's a different company um but they are sunsetting

064boards um and when they notified us of that Carol started doing some research and looking at um you know what system um should we be moving to? Well, when they were sunsetting board docks, they also um said, "Hey, we're moving to this other system and we are going to um increase your price." Um and that's when we started looking around and and you know, IASB, so Illinois Association School Board, they partner with Board Book. So, board docs and board book, two different, you know, kind of companies, but we looked at the difference in the cost. We looked at the difference in the usage. Um, and for $8,000 a year, over $8,000 a year difference, almost $9,000 a year. Um, you know, we thought that it it would, you know, be a good time for us

065to move to, um, you know, board book um, for FY2526. I've given you some examples. We'll save 8 to9,000 by moving to board. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And and there, you know, some other schools, District 68 is using it. District 70 is using it. Oak Grove, uh, Libertyville, and then District 127, Grace Lake High School, um, you know, are using it. And, uh, Carol also, um, spoke with administrative assistants at other schools. Um, and we believe that the, um, the the move to it will be, I want to I don't want to say seamless because there's always hiccups, but close to seamless. um and moving to it and um we'll be able to train the current board members and the new board members on the system. What about all the data that's in board doc? So

066we are working on how that will be housed then um moving forward so that we still have access to our information. It it sounds to me like there was a transition no matter what. I mean with board docs they were they created a new system that we would have to transition our data to anyway. Correct. Um, and I can tell you personally I've used board book and actually was involved in the deployment of board book and for what we do they're very very similar in terms of the capabilities for for what we see and and how we navigate and in fact u board book not long ago maybe about a year and a half ago did a major refresh on their product. So it's it's a correct it's been a bit updated as well. So

067yeah, I I don't have an opinion about which system we use. I just want to know that we can access for sure five years of data and we need we need it too because we use it quite a bit and kind of okay what did we do, you know, four years ago and very good, Carol. Thank you for that. All right, item I 2526, draft of committee board meeting schedule. Back to Carol again. Anyway, this is Carol again. Uh, you do have a draft of a committee and board meeting schedule. Um, we do realize that we will be s seating a new board in April, but we also want to get this information out there. Um, you know, we do have, you know, some board members that will be uh still on the board and

068get that information. Um and and again if we you know even if this gets um adopted changes could still be made to the schedule um moving forward. But we have I I think um looked at um any of the religious holiday schedule um and move meetings um as needed. We there is a January meeting that there's usually ED red. It's our legislative um dinner um in the fourth week in uh January. So that was moved to a Tuesday. Um and again most the meetings are the second and the fourth Mondays. Um and then in the um you'll see in July um there's only one meeting um in there and this actually will be it's sort of a precursor to the next agenda item. This will actually be adopted by the new board as part of

069the onboarding process, no pun intended, but that this is, you know, it's a normal thing to do every year. So, for those new board members in attendance tonight, that's the one that you've been looking at really closely. Uh, all right. So, on to item J, reorganization of board meeting process. That's just to familiarize the board members here and the oncoming board members what the process will be for transitioning to the new board. Yeah, I I had actually suggested putting this in here. They the um there's a script document that everyone can see and it's it's mostly just so that we understand and for any uh uh of the uh the likely new board members that'll be joining us. Uh we look forward to that. But um I think probably the only twist in this is

070because we have only uh a few of us remaining on the board. Um the first thing that happens is I appoint a president prom which can't be me because I'm currently the president. Can't be mash because he'll be taking the oath and the president prom administers the oath of office. So we only have one option for that. So when that time comes, I'll be uh nominating uh or appointing Lisa the president prom. The rest of this sort of flows down and we appoint the you know we take nominations for president, vice president, secretary, that kind of thing. Um, and if I recall, once the the first thing that the president prom does is ask for nominations for the president and once that person is elected, it's turned back over to the president and the president

071prom is no longer right involved. Yeah. So, just so that we're all all on the same page and understand that that's, you know, it's not arbitrary. We're sort of in a position where that that has to happen. So um and the rest of and part of this document um you know includes the the schedule and uh for board meetings that type of thing. So and if I recall this is exactly the same process that we use every two years. There's no changes. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's in fact a lot of it's outlined in board policy. You can see the links to the board policy and the content there as well. So, and I believe all that's public accessible. So, anyone wants to review that, they can see what that looks like. Okay. Future agenda items.

072Uh those are listed. If there's anything that anybody else uh sees is necessary to add. So, then I will adjourn this committee meeting and turn it over to Dr. Matson with the apology that I ran 35 minutes long. You can run 35 minutes long on your final u um committee meeting here leading your final committee meeting. So which we greatly appreciate. So let me get back to Okay. So, we will call the facilities and finance committee meeting. Everyone's good. We don't need a break or anything, right? I'm good. Okay. Um, call to order. We've already done the pledge invitation for public comment. Anyone want to address the facilities and finance committee? Hearing none. Okay, we'll move on. Um, first up, student internship presentation. All right. While we get this set here, um, for our board

073members, for several of you, as this is, I guess, technically going to be your last committee meeting. I can't think of a better way to start it. Um, so we've got Zach here, and I won't spend uh too much time. Uh, I'll let him introduce himself to you. Can you guys see? over there. Is that good? All right. Um, we got to tell Zach's origin story, though. So, we have uh we have a new class this year at uh Libertyville and Vernon Hills High School, our um workplace internship class, and it's part of our exploring multiple paths program. And it allows students the opportunity to sign up and to uh conduct internships in areas that they're interested in. And actually, Lauren Vogue is here. She is the teacher at Libertyville who runs this program, does

074an extraordinary job. And Lauren contacted um me back in the fall, early in August, and said, you know, I've got this this young man, Zach Syler, and he was really interested in in doing an internship around finance and um investment banking, and we just we really couldn't find anyone for him to be connected to. Um, and so, um, Zach, you know, he got stuck with Dan, um, and I, so, um, and, you know, I said to Zach, um, that he could work with me on doing curriculum work around exploring multiple paths and helping to build out our business curriculum because Zach uh, took many of our business classes here and had ideas. is he has a passion for business education, wanting our students to be as prepared as possible uh to move into investment banking

075or other uh finance positions after high school. And so he was interested in working with me on that, but he really wanted to get his experience also looking at numbers um and looking at um kind of some of the more um harder kind of data around finances and investments. And uh so he worked with Dan um to come up with some projects for that. So Zach could talk for a long time about his work with me, but tonight he is going to focus on his work with Dan. And Dan's um going to take it away. I just would say that uh Dan and I were fighting over Zach's time because we realize he's much more than a student intern. Um he is a young man with a very bright future and uh if he wants

076to be a future CSBO, um that's very much on his list. as far as I'm concerned, he could be a future superintendent because of the way he thinks about curriculum as well. Yeah. Uh thanks for that, Tom. We also um through the internship, part of it was trying to find out something that would be meaningful, not to just check a box for him, but something that would actually uh serve him and what he's interested in, but also uh selfishly something that would actually help me as well. And so we tried to think of something real. Uh, and this is about as real as it gets. Uh, so with that, I'm going to turn this over to Zach and and also thought thought it would be great to come and talk to the board. Uh, and

077so this was the time that worked out for it to happen. So, Zach, feel free to go ahead get going. Just let me know when you want me to change the slide. Yeah. Thank you very much for the introduction, Mr. Stanley and Dr. Clintis. I appreciate you all being here and giving me the opportunity to present. Um, I'm going to give you a little bit more of an about me um, past just my work. um with our superintendent and superintendent of finance. I'll try not to give you my whole life story, but um I'm a Libertyville native. I'm a senior here at LHS. Um big base into baseball. Uh so we're pulling away from Lake Zurich right now. So I'm rooting for my guys. As far as involvement at the high school goes, you know,

078I try to do my best at leaving an impact. Um just to name a few, I've participated in Green Dot and Link Crew. Those are two programs we have here at the high school for um bettering the community. Um link crew I'm able to leave my impact on incoming the incoming freshman class green dot um improving the spaces around our high school and that and more I could go on like Dr. Clint said for a long time but um the big one I would say is I run a club at um LHS called Young Investors. It's centered around my passion for finance and my passion for you know educating people un to follow that same passion that I have. Um to get more specific with what brought me here is exactly what they said that

079internship workplace uh program that I joined. It was it's brand new this year. They just brought it back and so it was a little daunting going and joining the class but I'm so glad and blessed that I did. U just to highlight some of the projects that I've done with Mr. Stanley and Dr. Clintis. Um we with Dr. K I'm working on improving the business curriculum. Um so we are investigating our shortcomings and um researching possible solutions to those shortcomings in the form of student surveys um you know talking to past students. We'veorked with uh past students and also collecting data associated with course participation um with Mr. Stanley, I've looked at real estate. So, we had a um submission for what our property is being used to the government because um Vernon Hills High

080School sits on a land grant that we received from United States government. It was former formerly the Nike site and so I got to help with the organization and the reporting to the government with that. And I performed a cost accounting project. So, you know, accounting basics, um, determining the co real cost beyond just the surface level cost of doing a baseball facility here. And now I am presenting to you our district investment project. Um, Mr. Stanley provided me with our district investment portfolio and I've done some um, exploring of our investments, updated the rates, but also went a little past and Mr. Stanley prevented me with the question of, you know, can you find me a baseline for our portfolio of performance? And that evolved for me into, you know, how can we better

081evaluate the performance of our district investments. Um, the first way we need to address this question is by looking at our core values as far as why the district needs to invest. Um, whenever we look at our investment strategy, the district highlights a low-risk investment strategy. We participate a lot in bonds, CDs, funds, and government agencies. I want to highlight that our participation in funds isn't the typical mutual fund or um fund of companies and stock that you might think of, but rather a fund of high schools uh collective high school fund that is a low-risk um a low-risk investment called the ISDL fund. Um secondly, uh limiting liquidity exposure is very important. As a district, we want to limit our risk associated with not having liquid assets. We have to have enough capital and

082cash so that we can cover expenses in case of emergency, but also so that we can continue the flow of real estate learning and other district improvements that are so vital to our students. Um, finally, retaining buying power is the main goal with our investment strategy. Um when we consider our goal for investments, it isn't um the purpose of our investing is not to provide a stream of income. Um our power with taxing and uh property taxes especially provide a sufficient stream of income. So when we consider why we invest, it's important to remember that we're investing to protect against the depreciation of our capital assets, which includes um buildings, aging, but also um inflation. So with this in mind, um there are a few avenues that I explored before ultimately coming to the benchmarks

083that I selected. Um the first one that came to mind for me, it was the federal funds rate. Um it is a good option. Um but there are a few reasons why we I didn't specifically uh choose it. The federal funds m rate is a benchmark assigned by the Federal Reserve. Um it is very influential as far as the cost of um interest goes um among the United States and it sets the interest rate for a lot of assets sold by banks but also assets sold by the US Treasury. Um the drawbacks that I experienced with the federal funds rate specifically um is really the federal funds rate does not take into account um interest rate sensitivity. Um basically that is how much the price of securities change based on fluctuations of interest rates. But

084secondly I found which I found more specifically pertinent to what I ended up selecting was that the federal funds rate is not a security or asset that we would be part participating in or investing in. It's rather a markle a marker excuse me of the you know Federal Reserve and it's what they're releasing and what they're saying they want interest rates to be. It's not a tangible asset which we will go and invest in. Similarly, I consider the S&P 500 um it's a very popular benchmark for many portfolios um and it's a good indicator of economic health. However, whenever we think about our uh goals as far as a district goes for investing, it doesn't pertinate to us because of market volatility, um you know, recent um events also show very well why we can't

085invest in the stock market and it's too volatile and it wouldn't allow us to protect against our liquidity risk. And because of that, the S&P 500 um would not provide a suitable benchmark for um our district's invest in investments. With that being said, um there were two benchmarks that I came to the conclusion for which covered our investment goals as a district very well. Uh the first being CPIU, um which is the consumer price index for all urban consumers. It's an inflation metric and it tracks market baskets of goods for typical urban consumers like yourself or myself. Um by tracking the increase in those market baskets of um popularly consumed items. So you know gas, anything you might buy at the store for groceries. Um and then our average US Treasury marketable securities are you

086know US Treasury securities are debt instruments issued by the US government to raise funds for our national debt. They're backed by the faith of the US government and they come in the form of securities typically bills bonds um tips which are um uh treasury inflation protected securities and no uh treasury notes as well. Uh the distinction made for our purposes are marketable. A marketable security is a security that is more easily sold um and resold on exchange markets than non-marketable securities. Um which I will get into a little bit later of why I made this distinction. Uh specifically why these benchmarks were chosen. Um first US Treasury marketable securities serves as a global benchmark for interest rates and the cost of borrowing uh globally. They are the most significant piece with US Treasury securities are

087that they're free of default risk because of their backing by the US government and faith of the US government and many financial institutions fixed income securities rely on uh the interest rate of these specific securities. So, not only do does our district hold securities that are US Treasury securities, but we also hold CDs and other securities that are from financial institutions. Well, those financial institutions securities also rely on the interest rate of the US Treasury securities. Um, lastly, popularity and large volume of trading on active exchanges of these securities produces a narrow bid ask spread. Um this is significant because the de it displays the demand um worldwide for these securities and it it excuse me it shows us that they are very a fairly liquid asset which aligns with our mission of liquidity risk.

088Um the narrow bit ask spread embodies the liquidity like I said of these assets and that protects us against non-lquid assets. Uh secondly, the CPIU inflation measurement. Um it is the embodiment of how well we're retaining our purchasing power. So that being one of our goals as far as our investing goes. Um CPIU also gives us the ability to evaluate real return capabilities. So when we want to evaluate not just the interest rate return that we're getting from our securities, but what is the real return? are we making any income from our um investing past just the interest rate that we're receiving? Um and also CPIU and inflation as a metric is very universal and simple. Um it's easy to understand in the presentation of our district investments and it allows for clear communication of

089district investment performance. So this is the graph that was put together. um using these benchmarks, the data from treasury.gov is our um average weighted yield or sorry, our total markable securities yield and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics is our CPIU metric um both very reputable and they both report on a monthly basis um ahead of the district. So we can continue to update this chart as we move along. Um whenever we look at this chart um it's nice to see that our performance as a district does model the total marketable securities trend and um that displays an effective approach towards investing. When evaluating this graph as well we want to you know it's easy to kind of look at the spike in the CPIU and um there are abnormalities that may happen. Um, whenever

090those abnormalities do happen, we take a step back and we evaluate whether or not there was um, excuse me, a missing link in our investment strategy or if it was just a market abnormality um, with CPIU in 2022. Obviously um CO 19 um has heavily affected inflation and you know because the district can't unfortunately predict um a national uh epidemic um you know there's not much we can do. Um but what we can evaluate is we can look at the graph and we could say our average weighted yield was actually increasing in that time in which um the market was hurting very poorly and overall that would be a success for our investment strategy and I do I remember one also thing you said was even in the period where a spiking CPIU you noticed

091that the total marketable securities didn't have the extreme volatility as well. Can you talk about that for a second? Yeah. And um that's why the um total marketable securities is the benchmark that is kind of selected um is whenever you take a look at the S&P or other um market um benchmarks u it will display volatility um as it pertains to inflation because um you know the market and um stocks moved a significantly than um securities, the security market does. Um and with that being said, whenever we're trying to avoid the volatility, we want to look at our security market because it isn't affected as greatly by inflation um as other benchmarks might be. Yeah, these are so part of this was to create something real. And so going forward, my plan is to use

092those benchmarks in our monthly investment reporting because to the point of what we said before, what um we can we can report on our our weighted yield, but give give me something to compare to. How how well are we doing? Like we're I doesn't sound like we can compare to the S&P 500 because they're playing by slightly different rules than we are. That's why I really appreciated Zach's idea of um the total marketable securities to give us a benchmark to give us a sense but also CPIU in the sense of comparing ourselves to what's happening with inflation both in terms of buying power in a portfolio. Um so I thought those are really helpful and uh the easy and simple is really helpful too because those have links that we can go to we can

093download the data we can upload it. It's it it's very quick to get the data and to do that on a on a regular basis because this is something that will just be part of our operations going forward. Yeah. And I just want to thank you guys very much and open the floor to any questions you might have about this project or any others. Yeah. Thank thank you and well done. I look forward to uh I hope you follow that path towards a CSBO because you know some school district and a superintendent and a superintendent. Yeah. So I sorry I didn't mean to cut you. Yeah. Go ahead. So I had feedback for all of you. So first of all I'm going to say for you excellent presentation. It had Dan written all over some

094of these. I think I want to give you some feedback. The slides were simple. You had a lot of white space. Most importantly, you did not read your slides. Always keep in mind that's a pet peeve. You explained terminology that many of us would not know. And it to me as a listener and a reader, I could tell that you knew what you were talking about. So, really good job on the presentation. Thank you very much. I think the more you develop that, it's only going to help you in your career. So, excellent job there. I do want to call out to both of you. I have an intern as well. It takes a lot of investment of your time to make the experience for them meaningful. So, they will actually want to do that

095more. So, I know it takes a lot of effort. So, thank you for that. And just for me, it's it's fun to watch this. when I first put my name in to run for the board, this was an important thing for me that student get outside experiential experience. So, thank you for putting this together on my last committee meeting here. It's very nice to see. Thank you and good job. Thank you very much. Thank you, Zach. I just wanted to uh tell you I'm absolutely blown away by this very high level presentation for a senior in high school. I don't know what I was doing with my life back here at LHS in 2001, but clearly you're doing a lot and that's fabulous. Um, you serve as a testament to the incredible education you're getting

096here in district and um, how lucky Dr. Kay and, uh, Mr. Stanley are to have worked with a young man like you. Um, man, I can't believe you kept this secret all semester. I would have been bragging my head off about this, kiddo. Um, but this was too cool. We do not get enough opportunity to see this real life stuff here in board meetings and this was just such a treat. So, thank you for coming and presenting. Thank you for having me. How long did it take you to explain to your parents what you were doing? Um, this weekend I told him, "Oh, by the way, I will be missing the baseball game on Monday. I have a presentation and you are invited." So, and much credit to your parents. Thank you for sharing him

097with us. Anyone else? Just thank you. So impressive. And what is your So, what are your next steps? Yeah, so I just this weekend put down my deposit and I am going to attend Southern Methodist University um next fall. So, thank you very much. Um I will be pursuing a degree in finance at the Cox School of Business and um I'm joining a few programs there. I'm going to be a BBA scholar and a Hilltop scholar. So uh that's program Hilltop is a program for um leadership. Um so they have a few classes and um service programs and um you know with service hours and outreach with the community. And the BBA scholars is a honors program within the business school um where I get to collaborate with other like-minded individuals and um network. Uh

098but also I get access to a few um programs like they have a career acceleration program. So I'm really excited. They're very lucky to have you. Thank you. Thank you very much. And if you are quick, you probably can help them clean up the field. As a baseball mom, you are excused. Anyone else? Did you please did you sir? I I just wanted because you're going to go and we we still have more of agenda, but I I wanted to get a chance to tell you this publicly with everybody watching. You did such a great job, not just with this project, but with every project you did. You worked hard. You were thoughtful. Um and even this project is more than just getting numbers on a spreadsheet as we've talked. like presenting this idea to

099a board is a leadership level and I I you you did such a great job and I just encourage you keep going, keep leaning into your passions. You're very gifted. Um keep going and I'm just excited to just see where things take you. But you did an excellent job through and through from the presentation to all the other work that that I've been a part of working with you. So I'm really proud of the work you've done. So thank you. Thank you very much. just so you know kind of finalize this part of the presentation. This is what our daring mission is all about and the work that we're doing um to develop our students um more and more of these opportunities are going to be presented to our students and um my hope is

100that you'll see more and more of these presentations as a board in the future. So, I forgot to add one, but I love the fact that you explained the number slide and all the different lines and how they mean and interact with one another. So, any just wanted to call that out. Thank you. Yeah, very well done. I mean, everyone's saying thank you. I I echo that, but I actually say sorry to the people who are following you. Hard thing to do to follow this. Okay, thank you again. Thank you very much. Moving on. Next item, uh, budget hearing date. Back to Dan. Yes. So, we need to set a date uh for the hearing um for our budget. And so, there's really two realistic options. Um, either we schedule the hearing on the date

101that we actually would adopt the final budget or we would do it at another date. I would recommend scheduling it for the June 9th hearing, which would mirror what we did last year. Good news is I will be here this year. Uh because I forgot that I was out of town when we scheduled that last year. I will be here this year. Um and so I I would prefer to have it scheduled then. Um I know we're going to have a new board soon, but I'd rather pick the earlier date and then if we can if the new board wants to change, we can change it to a later date, but I'd rather not set a later date and then change it to a earlier date. So, um, yeah, that's that's what it is with

102the what what's the last point the like? Is there a time frame when we need to have that? If there are recommended changes, can we make those changes up until what point? We just have to have um we have to have public notice of the hearing 30 days prior. Okay. And so roughly what this means is uh we would need to put a we would put a a notice in the paper no later than really Friday, May 9th to have the meeting on June 9th. So there's there's a little bit of time, but um we need to at least pick something now and then we can change it later. But come real soon, you know, you depending on the timing, you might not have a choice. So I' I'd rather just stick with the nth

103right now and then we can adjust later if we need to. Okay. this requires action at the upcoming board meeting to set this. I don't think it technically requires action, but we've has we've for the last little bit of time we've we've taken action just so that it's very clear to everybody. Um this is when the date is and I would suggest we do that and we do that at the part of the agenda where the new board members are seated so that we can make sure we get their feedback. Okay. Anyone else have any thoughts on that? I agree. The earlier the better. Um, yeah, because Yeah, it gives us some cushion. Yeah. Okay. Disposal of equipment. Next item. Anything to explain here? No, just some custodial and vehicles. Uh, and so part of

104our board policy, typical stuff. Um, yeah. Okay. um uh some lighting upgrades at Libertyville. So, this might be a committee meeting of cool news. Um so, th this was uh pretty cool. You you may be surprised to hear, but uh Mark and I get a lot of sales calls for all kinds of things and it is difficult sometimes to wade through what's real and what's not. And so, um, Mark was made aware of a a program through Kameed and, um, I believe it was a little bit hesitant at first, but then they investigated it a little bit further. Uh, and at this point, I'm going to turn it to Mark if you want to kind of walk through the rest of it. Yeah. So, we were notified by, well, actually, Rey Albin was notified by

105a community member um, a parent of a student of the program. Kameed changes their programs constantly. So, as Dan said, I get contacted from companies, you know, oh, we can replace your lighting here and do this and, you know, okay, show me the numbers. Well, this time it actually worked. So, at no cost to the district, um we were able to uh replace the lighting in the main gym, um and the gymnastics gym, the west gym. And believe it or not, the lights that we put in three years ago, uh and the fieldhouse are failing and they no longer make them anymore. They're already LEDs. So this program that they're in, we're actually able to replace LEDs with LEDs at no cost. Wow. Oh, nice. Um, so presently, um, so it's all, um, COMMED, you

106know, I sign the paperwork and then KMED pays the contractor directly in the program. Um, so we're working on evaluating uh, the classrooms in in the high school here that we haven't remodeled um, and changed the lighting on. Um we haven't done for two reason mostly because of when we were doing remodeling in the classrooms the majority of the classrooms don't have sprinklers. So you have to take down a ceiling. If you put up lighting and you take down a ceiling and you know do all that work uh to retrofit the room um and come back and you know put sprinklers in later we ruin the ceiling and lighting. So, um, if this works out, they can retrof, you know, retrofit fixtures and replace fixtures. And if we can do it at no cost, we

107will move forward with um with that project this summer. There's literally no cost. No in literally no cost to to the district. They just come in and do it or they reimburse our contract. We all we all pay for this program when we pay our electric bills, right? So, the district has been paying into it. We've all do it as taxpayer. you know, if we have a comment or whatever our utility is, it goes in as part of your utility bill. There's there's there's no there's no cash at all flowing through the district for this. This was totally an outside program through come in. What a great Why is it just LHS that was concerned? In 2021, we did all the classrooms in and hallways at Vernon Hills. The program wasn't available at that time.

108Um, but now that they have the program available, um, I will take them over there and and we'll look at some, uh, we didn't do the specialty fixtures at at Verner Hills, the can lights and that. They don't really have a retrofit program for that at this time. Um, so um, but I can do an assessment over there for some of the lighting, the foyer and that type of thing. That's amazing. Thank you. Yeah, James is you'll see a major difference in the gyms. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's better light. It's going to bring brand new fixtures in and it's going to save us money because LEDs are lower cost to operate. So, it's a what's their and this program is good right now. You know, in three months it might change. So,

109taking advantage of it while we can. Yeah. And do they have a limit on how many classrooms they will do or how many fixtures they will do? Uh, no, there's no limit on that that I'm aware of. It's, you know, if they, you know, can replace or retrofit the fixtures. Um, I think they're estimating around 200,000 for classrooms. I just need to verify what they're doing and what they're not, you know. So, we're working through that at this point right now. That's wonderful. So, we won't see this at the board meeting because no action is required. No action is required. It's it's already taken place. So, when we here in a minute when we go on a tour, we can actually pop our head into the main gym and you can see the difference in

110the lighting. It's all dim. It's It's all dimable, too. There's an app that we can go on and we can dim it. It's actually at 100%. You can't stand in there. It's way too bright. It's really bright. So, it's actually dimmed down. I think we're at 75% right now. I'm not sure, but it's pretty close to 75%. This is our chance to save. This would be part of the summer program. That's why I said I want to verify they got every space. Uh the last thing I want to do is come back and say we did we did it and then oh we forgot the library or we you know want to make sure we can hit everything we can. So this is our chance to say thank you to buildings and grounds and finance

111and to comed for providing this very valuable enhancement not only to the lighting but the energy efficiency and to our budget. Well well done all around. Okay. Any other comments on that? Okay. We have one more agenda item. Um, and just from a logistic standpoint, we're going to do a quick tour of the cafeteria. When we come back, uh, we're actually, uh, going to have a special board meeting, but it's for a closed session. And so, we'll be relocating to another space. So, uh, we'll be vacating this room, uh, once we come back. So, I will call the I won't call us a journ yet because this is part of the committee meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, we'll call it adjourned afterwards. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break.

112Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on

113break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. Currently

114on break. Currently on break. Currently on break. currently on break. Currently on break. Okay, we're back. Um, thank you for the tour. That was very, very enlightening. That was very helpful. Um, we appreciate it. Uh, so at this point in time, I'm going to call the uh close the or future agenda items. Oh, future agenda items. I'm sorry. It's a list of future agenda items on this uh on the document to review. And I noticed there's nothing about solar on that uh last meeting in April. Just pointing out you should have you should had an update on Friday. This is that included update on solar, but probably has a chance to read it yet. There you go. We won't just just we'll we'll talk about it on the agenda meeting next week. Um so future

115agenda items. Okay. Anything else for the FNF? Okay. I will call this meeting adjourned and then as long as I got the gavl here, we will open our special uh board meeting. Carol, are you ready? Okay. Um, can we have a roll call, please? When you're ready. Batson, I'm sorry. Jim Batson here. Cara Benjamin here. Don Carmichael here. Cara Drum here. Lisa Hessel here. Middleish Cotwell here. Sel Karnney here. Okay. Um purpose of this meeting is we're going to have a close session. So um and we will not have any action after the close session. So we will um go into close session. We need a motion to go into close session for uh cont uh negotiating matters contract negotiating matters 5 ILCS 120 C1 C2 C2 I thought it was C2. Um Carmichael so

116moved. Drum key. Second. Um, any comments? Nope. Benjamin, I Carmichael. Hi. Drum key. Hi. Hel. Hi. Cotwell. Hi. Col. Hi. Batson. Hi. And as mentioned before, there will be no action taken afterwards. So for those of you out there, good night. Your animal is free.