001fade into board members seat at a table. I'd like to welcome everybody. Oh, need to pound my gavvel that's not here. Um, welcome everybody to the March 17, 2025 regular board of education meeting. Um, we're going to start with the pledge. Everyone stands for the pledge of allegiance flagisy and justice for all. Everyone returns to their seats. Jim Batson. Okay, welcome everybody. Uh, can we have a roll call, please? Jim Batson here. Cara Benjamin here. Don Carmichael here. Cara Drum, Lisa Hessel here, Middleish Cotwall, Selcarnney. Okay, we do have a quorum. Uh we have a some board members with a lot of things going on. So uh we'll uh keep this short tonight. Uh just going to review the agenda briefly. Oh yeah, let's do that. Thank you again for reminding me. We need a
002secretary prom. So, I'd like to appoint uh Lisa Hessle as the uh secretary for tonight. Okay. Um going to review the agenda. We have a public hearing on our e-learning plan. This is just actually a renewal of a plan that's already in place, but we have to go through that process. Uh we have uh under communication, student recognition, uh invitation for public comment, a teacher union report. I understand we will not have a educational support professional union report tonight. So, um, uh, school board representative reports and we're kind of must be the, uh, the night. A lot of people have lots of things going on. So, but we look forward to hearing from the two of you. Um, we have a couple foyer requests and then we'll have a superintendent report. Uh, consent vote agenda
003will come after that and then we have quite a few action things, but we'll get through them quickly. We'll vote on the e-learning plan. We have an ombbudzman uh service agreement. Uh IHSA membership. Um I don't think I'm going to read through these. We're going to get to them. Um have a coupleformational items. Um uh anything from Seedall? Okay. We'll have a Seedall report. I'll have an IASB report. Um okay. Um and then we will have executive session tonight uh for collective negotiating matters and employment of employees. And we uh will have uh likely one action item after that close session. So let's go back to the top. Um uh we'll start with the uh public hearing on the e-learning plan for the 25 26 through the 2728 school year. So, I declare the um
004public hearing open. Uh have a little presentation here. Um or discussion. Yeah, discussion. I was going to say not much of a presentation tonight was uh presented in the uh committee meetings last week. There are no changes to our plan. Every 3 years, the district has to submit our e-learning plan to the state of Illinois. This plan would be put in place if school had to go remote and uh that would be also for weather related types of issues so that we would not have to go to a full school closure. As you know we have two emergency days built into our school calendar each year. So the first two days, if we had snow days, for example, those would be traditional snow days. But if we needed to do a third day rather than
005extend the school year into June, we would put into place our e-learning plan. And the e-learning plan um as you read outlines exactly um what our teachers responsibilities are, what our student responsibilities are, and how our students and families would be notified of that. Um this has been the plan that we've had in place for the last several years. and um when we've had to use it, it has worked very well. Okay, let's just hope we don't have any snow days yet this year. I hope we're out of snow days. Uh like it can be used for other things as you say it used for a lot of things uh that that would help uh avoid using additional u days off. So, uh we do have a an opportunity here for public comment. This is
006related to the e e-learning plan specifically. So if anyone has any uh comments or questions uh please step up to the microphone. Okay, seeing none uh I will declare the hearing closed and we will vote on this later in the agenda. Okay. Uh moving on, we have uh some student recognition. Dr. John Gilliam approaches the podium. Good evening. Um I'm John Gilliam, the principal of Ernie Hills High School. Welcome everybody. I have the privilege of uh wrapping up our winter season with some uh fantastic results. Uh some tonight, some will probably be next month. Even even as uh recent as Saturday, we had a second place in state for our unified basketball team. That's a that's a district sport. So, some some excellent results. And tonight we get to honor three of our uh athletes
007who are part of teams, but tonight we recognize their individual accomplishments. And these three are pretty remarkable young people. So I'm glad we get to uh stand here tonight and celebrate them. I'm going to first bring up um coach Jesse Walter who is our wrestling coach. Uh and he has with him uh one strong fine young man, Ilia. So uh coach, I'll let you come up and talk about Ilia. Jesse Walter approaches the podium. Thanks, Dr. G. This is uh this young man is Ilia D'voranov. He's a junior here at Vernon Hills High School. Uh we spoke about him last year. He's one remarkable athlete. Um he placed third in the IHSA wrestling tournament this year. Uh 165 pound weight class. Uh last year as a sophomore, Ilia told me that his goal was to
008be a state champion. and uh he had not he didn't even place his freshman year. He came close, but he lost in the match two place. So, that was a pretty bold um goal. Well, he found himself in the state finals last year and placed second. Uh he had an unbelievable season. So, this year he had he had his sights set on winning it and uh had a um a tragic loss in the quarterfinals uh that was one that just slipped away from him. Uh and and could not have been more proud of this young man's response. uh you know adversity reveal re reveals character and that showed at this tournament. Uh he came back and rattled off about four wins to place third this year. In the third place match he found himself uh
009against the kid that we were hoping to see in the state finals. The kid was the number one seed in the state. He was 40 and0 going into the state tournament. It was the the match we were looking forward to. So it was it was good that we got the kid for third and we end up getting the better of him and winning that match to place third. So I left the tournament feeling like Ilia won the state championship. I know he didn't uh and he's hungry for next year, but uh I I left there feeling like we did. Just a couple quick stats about Ilia. Um Ilia leads all our records, not leads, sorry. He falls in the top 10 in all our records that we have in the wrestling program. Uh we have
010he is third in career takedowns. He has 240 takedowns as a junior. He will for sure surpass the the number one person next year as long as he has a season similar to this year. Uh he is sixth in career falls with 49 pins uh in his tenure here with us. Uh he is ninth on the career wins list 109 or I'm sorry 107 wins. Um and if he replicates this season uh he will leave holding all three of the career records for takedowns, pins, and wins. Uh, no doubtly we've had three I'm sorry, we've had we've had three previous athletes in the wrestling program that have been three-time state qualifiers. Ilia is the fourth. We've had Ilia is the third two-time medalist. So, that means he comes home next year as bringing a medal
011home, hopefully this the state championship medal. He will be uh the only wrestler in Vernill's history to be a three-time state medalist. So, I know he's got his his sights set high. We have them for him as well. Um the sky's is the limit for this kid. We're we're super excited for one more to have one more year with him after after what he's done the last three. All right. Thanks. Students receive certificates and takes pictures with school board members for about the next 30 seconds. Dr. John Gilleon. All right. Next, uh we're going to bring up two gymnasts. Uh one Maya is uh a young upand cominging gymnast who had some tremendous success this year. And then we're honored to have up here one of our seniors who has been uh to this podium
012several times. And just on a uh personal level, it's been a joy for me as a building principal to watch Libbyron compete in multiple sports over her four-year career. Uh she kicked this thing off with a state championship as a freshman and has continued to win medal upon medal upon medal. So, um, maybe the last time I get to introduce her, uh, to this crowd and, um, I'm just honored to have been her principal. So, uh, Denise Kaden is the women's gymnastics coach, and we're going to bring Denise up to talk about these young ladies. Denise Kaden approaches the podium. Um, once again, thank you to the board um, for having us. It's kind of become routine for us every spring. We get to, you know, kind of show our faces, show our accomplishments. So,
013thank you once again for having us. Um, first off is my sophomore, Maya Brusso. Um, Maya has been a member of the gymnastics team for the past two years. Um, in her freshman year, she was my only freshman on my varsity squad. Um, so if that says anything, right right there. Um, she settled in. She made an impact. um right away she earned, you know, one of the top three spots in my lineup as a freshman on our varsity squad um her first year and individually um she qualified to state on um beam floor and all around last year. Um and then helped us bring home another fifth place team finish last year. Um Maya's a very humbled athlete. Um you would never know, you know, her strengths, how well she performs. Um she's just
014super humble and she spent her off season doing what she does best um which is working hard, setting goals and that brought her into this season where she qualified for state on every single event and allound. Um and brought herself home a third place all-around medal. Um which, you know, not many gymnasts do. they don't do that. Like to excel in all four events, you know, is something super special. And I'm very proud of her. And for only being a sophomore, I can't wait to see what she does the next two years. And then uh the second athlete I have to honor tonight is senior Libby Tron. Um, Libby has been a four-year member and a vital part um to our success of our team. Um, along the way, I had to write a lot
015out because there's a lot to this special girl. Um, Libby started her career as a freshman and she had success throughout that year helping bring home our first state or second place finish um as a team. but she also came home a state champion as a freshman on vault her freshman year. 2023 brought more success for her as she was able to help secure another second place team finish and then added three more medals of her own her sophomore year. A third on floor, fifth on vault, and fourth allaround. Um her 2024 season added another amazing accomplishment um to her wonderful resume. Um she finished fifth on vault at state and helped us place fifth as a team again last year. Um Libby is an athlete who doesn't take no for an answer. She's a
016determined athlete and it showed so much through her final season. Libby has been dealing with shi issues the last couple of years and she set a goal to finish her senior year strong. Her ability to communicate with me, communicate her goals. we were able to set um uh a training strategy together to keep her healthy and she learned to lean lean a lot on her teammates this season. As a senior, she ended up qualifying individually to state on vault beam floor and allaround. Libby had a phenomenal night at state by placing second in allaround just right right above Maya. So to have a two and a three, you could not have a happier coach. Um, it's such an accomplishment. Um, in that accomplishment by itself, it also followed up with her final medal, which was
017a fifth place on vault this season. Um, I can't even keep track of all of her medals. I try and count them all up. I can't. It It's tough to count up. Um, but I think what's more importantly for Libby is the person she's grown into in her four years here at Vernon Hills. um and to her teachers, her parents, to everyone. Um to have not only an athlete grow athletically but personally is such an amazing thing and I'm proud to be a part of it and I'm honored to be both their coaches. So, thank you so much. [Applause] Students receive certificates and takes pictures with school board members for about the next 30 seconds. Rayal bin approaches the podium. Good evening everyone. Um while uh Libertyville 2 had a couple of student athletes worthy
018of recognition uh and though they could not be here tonight, just want to read their names into the record. So in boys the swimming and diving, Hayden Cook uh finished 13th in IHSA and diving. And for the first time ever in the Libertyville High School athletic history, uh Mary Manugg finished sixth in IHSA girls wrestling. uh and that is the first at Libertyville High School. So, congratulations to both of them and we will get their certificates to them tomorrow. So, thank [Applause] you. Thank you. Before uh before I sit down, I just want to recognize something that happened to our Verden Hills uh community and family over the weekend. Coach Bill Monroe was a tennis bowling coach. He most re recently worked uh as a valued member of our ESP staff as an instructional aid
019in the physical welfare department. Many students know him as uh the kind gentleman who lends the rental PE uniforms to those who uh occasionally forget them. Uh, Bill Monroe was a fine man. I don't know of a single person who has ever said uh an ill word about Bill Monroe. I spent many years with Bill and his wife cheering on our own children on the tennis courts and the bowling alleys. Uh, and over the weekend we lost Bill. Uh, he succumbed to some injuries after an accident and it has devastated our Vernon Hills community. Bill is survived by his wife Lynn and his two sons who both graduated from Vernon Hills, Jared and Alec. And so our hearts, our thoughts and our prayers go out to his family and uh his loved ones. Um like
020I said, he's a member of our physical welfare department and I know for a fact there are many of those teachers uh and ESP members who are hurting distinctly today. We met this morning with players from his bowling and tennis teams who are uh mourning the loss as well. And so I want to recognize tonight uh what a fine man Bill was and the impact that he had on our school uh and on this community. And at this time, I'd like to ask for a moment of silence to recognize Bill Thank you. And I do know this Bill would say continue on and celebrate the good work of D128. So I know in a second we're going to turn it over to these guys to celebrate what happens in these schools and he would want
021it no other way. So thanks. Thanks John. Jim Batson. Okay. Um now's the time for a invitation for public comment. We have nobody signed in, but I will open up the the microphone if anyone wants to uh make a comment. Pause for the public. Okay, hearing none, we'll move on. We have a uh uh teacher union report. Paul Karnstead approaches the podium. All right. Good evening. Um, so, uh, I have one quick news item, uh, to open our report before we kind of get into the larger report. So, last week we held our executive board elections, uh, for our teachers union. Um, we hold this every two years, and we wanted to share with you guys the officers that will lead the union for the next two years. So, Monica Calicott, uh, Vern Hills librarian,
022will be continuing as our president. Um Paul Karnstet, that's me, um will be serving as the vice president. Uh Mary Kate Shane Beck opted not to run for reelection. Uh Sarah Gorley, an LHS math teacher, is going to be serving as our secretary. Nikki Lessky, uh LHS math, is continuing in her role as treasurer. Uh Katie Bacher, who's a science teacher at LHS, will continue as our LHS building rep. and Wendy Meister Lauria, who is a Vernon Hill EL teacher, will be serving as our VHS building rep, uh, replacing Jason Rush, who also didn't run for re-election. Um, we will, uh, be transitioning over the next few months. The terms don't officially start till June 1st, so I I, as much as I want to thank Mary, Kate, and Jason while I'm here, the reality
023is they still got two months left on the job, so I'm not going to do that. Um, so anyway, um, patience to all by the way. Look forward to working with you. Thank you. Uh and we look forward to working with you guys as well. Um so tonight our union felt it was appropriate to update you on a very important topic that you guys discussed last week and are discussing later tonight and that's sectioning and staffing. Uh so last Monday you received a staffing report from our administration at the PMP meeting and you're going to vote on it tonight. Uh this process and its effects on class size, staffing, and programming have been a fairly contentious topic uh during the last two years, especially in light of decreasing enrollment in our schools. So, we recognize
024the tense tenor of our reports on these topics last year, and some of you might be feeling some unease that I started mentioning that, but I want to start by just injecting a little relief at the top of this address. Um there were a lot of positives about this uh process about sectioning and staffing and a lot of things that we are happy about as a union that we'd like to acknowledge. Um we will address some concerns that fall on the table of the board of education, but we want to start by reporting on the positives that we feel everyone in this room wants to continue. Um so this year the district started following a memorandum of understanding in which our union executive board and district leadership met and went through sectioning data and discussed
025any potential concerns. We had two separate meetings. It was a Friday meeting and a Monday meeting. Um, and our administration listened to all of our concerns, both big picture and granular. Uh, we felt heard. We saw action on a few of the items that came of this meeting and we were very pleased to see that. Um, we had some really constructive conversations about class optimums. Um our teachers do uh sorry our teachers do not feel that being above the optimum is best for students in a single class section as simply it decreases the amount of individ individualized instruction for any student. On the other side the district needs to be financially responsible and needs to run courses as close as possible to this optimum without extending financial resources to be overstaffed wherever possible. These two
026priorities are going to sometimes be at odds um at multiple points throughout the process every year. Um there's always contingency FTE etc to put some ease on this process and allow some grace when balancing these two. Um but in our different positions as teachers union and district we may weigh these two priorities a little differently. An environment of collaboration respect and trust is necessary in order to navigate this. We're pleased to say that we're mostly satisfied with this process. We hope that we had some input that helped and it also gave us the ability to communicate with our members with more context when they come to us with questions. So this process really feels like a net positive and we feel the collaboration should continue. Um we felt it important after these meetings to emphasize
027to the board a few philosophies as a union as it relates to section that we shared at those meetings. We feel we felt we wanted to publicly acknowledge um these phil excuse me these philosophies. Um so we believe first in the talent of our staff. We believe our teachers are an important piece of our district's overall uh educational success. Recognizing this important fact isn't an issue when enrollment is steady uh and it's not an issue when enrollment is increasing. But when there's declining enrollment and there are financial challenges in a district, it can be difficult to keep teachers whole. That's union speak for retaining a full-time job um without challenging the usual class sectioning practice while waiting it out for retire for someone to retire or enrollment to swing back in a positive direction. This
028might mean running an extra section of a class here or there. Some of our teachers may have to shift to other subjects they're certified in but not necessarily as experienced in order for for a year or two in order to alleviate some of the sectioning pressure elsewhere that might cut a full-time teacher to part-time status. We wanted to state on the record that a declining enrollment should not result in losing our talented teachers. Remember that these are the teachers who will be the experts as enrollment is increasing. Uh the teachers you will depend on to provide quality education. we expect at district 128 years down the road. The teachers who you want mentoring, the young teachers of the future in the district. This philosophy was discussed during our sectioning discussions last week and we feel
029our administrative team agrees with us. We feel there were a few small changes amounting to less than one FTE they made in order to ensure that we retain our excellent staff. Uh while they were not the exact suggestions we had, we um they made it happen and we applaud admin's decisions. We believe and hope that you guys applaud those decisions as well. The second philosophy that we have as a union is about the importance of running electives. As an example, uh we expressed our disappointment last year when the decision was not was made to not run French one at LHS during the 2425 school year, excluding students who did not have an opportunity to take that class at their middle school. When approaching our electives programs and sectioning, it can turn into a numbers game.
030If only 10 kids sign up for a class, we may not run it every year. Some classes have always existed this way and some classes still survive by running every other year. However, there are some classes that are connected to others and their success has potential fallout. An example for this upcoming 2526 school year is German one at Vernon Hills. There are low number of requests and the staffing report you have in front of you does not include running German one. We view this as a potential program killer. From our vantage point, this decision says to us either we no longer can support our German program or we can't afford a German program any longer. It's shortsighted to take steps that move towards eliminating a world language from our curriculum when our enrollment is expected
031to start rebounding soon. And there's a new world languages requirement in the state of Illinois starting in the 2829 school year. A different example we have is a new project lead the way course at Vernon Hills that was scheduled to be added this year. It's not running even though students requested the class. To add hurt to this loss, a previous class, electronics 1, uh, which has run every year, was eliminated to make way for this class. But rather than giving that course its year to get off the ground, it was decided not to run. All told, so we recognize as a union that there's some financial challenges that come with running a low numbers class. But all told, there was less than 1.0 FTE worth of classes that fit under these elective program concerns that
032we have. To admin, they listened. They considered they spoke more to their teams about these electives. However, the concern that was relayed to us is the district has limited resources and we need to be careful with how we dedicate those financial resources. We accept this argument and this is why we bring it to the board. We're not asking you to micromanage our administration. We trust them when they say they've had to make some tough decisions. They've been very open with us along the way. However, we don't think this is a very significant ask in the broad scheme of things. If you have been tracking our numbers across both our big priorities as I've been going here, retaining talent and retaining programs, the additional FTE that we felt would benefit our students now and in the
033future amounted to less than two FTE. The total FTE you guys have on your report is around 300. This is an ask of less than 1% of an increase. This ask costs much less than the contracts that the board approved for just one more year last meeting. This is much less than the anticipate unanticipated interest we made on our different investments this past year. As a district, we section efficiently. On average, 22.6 students per classroom, according to the Illinois report card for 2024. This is in spite of the variety of electives we do offer, which sometimes run a lower class size and would lower our average. That 22.6 average is higher than some of our neighboring districts and lower than others, but the state average is 20.8. This is all to say the district does
034not section inefficiently. This sectioning practice, in fact, our efficiency elsewhere applied to the vast majority of our classes, allows us to have some flexibility when it comes to adhering to these values of retaining teachers and programs that we feel are community values. We feel this shouldn't be a discussion in a school with the resources such as district 128. We call for our school board during the sectioning discussion today to publicly acknowledge that retaining our talent and retaining our unique elective electives, excuse me, are priorities for our district. Please support and empower our administration to make some decisions that won't necessarily benefit the bottom line next year, but will certainly benefit our schools long term. Don't deprive students who happen to be attending our schools at a time of enrollment decline from the quality programs that
035have made our district special. We will ask this of our next elected board as well. We look forward to the very near future when our enrollment is projected to increase again and hopefully this appeal will be unnecessary. Thank you. Thank you very much. Jim Badson. So, no ESP. Let's move on to our student school board rep reports. Victoria Dios Martins D Costa. Good evening everyone. March was a very busy month for the Wildcats. So, I will just be mentioning many different activities that happened. Starting off earlier this month, LHS held their activities fair. This activities fair is a very popular event where we welcome some of the incoming freshman class for next year. At this event, various different clubs and sports have popup booth where they explain their activity to encourage the freshman to join
036with their when they come to LHS. Due to LHS having so many clubs and sport, this event takes up the entire main gym and is always packed. This year, LHS welcomed the class of 2029 and we are excited to meet them in the fall. As March slowly comes to an end, AP classes have also started to AP test prepping. For the majority of AP classes, this includes finishing learning new material by spring break and starting and or continuing practice FRQs. Some classes even start a thing called AP Tuesday. In these practice FRQ, students are timed with how much time they would be given in the actual test and typically are given old test questions so student can start to see a pattern between questions and learn how to manage their time during the test that
037will happen in the beginning of May. Next, HOSA the club of future health professionals went to state earlier today and will be in Springfield until Wednesday. In fact, that is where Sire and Prem are currently. So, let's wish them good luck. At state, there are many different categories that students can compete in, which include biochemistry, veterinary sciences, biotechnology, and many more. These competitions can include test taking, public speaking, and or answering typed questions. Additionally, many spring sports have already started and had their first games. Some sports such as lacrosse and girls soccer also had their team pictures this Saturday in order to get ready for the upcoming season. Lastly, many seniors have also started to make their final decisions on post-secary pathways, which has been very fun for the community to see and celebrate with
038them. Both students and staff are now looking forward to their spring break next week and excited to finish out the year strong. Thank you. Griffin Nichols, good evening aboard. sadly that Danny and Iman couldn't be here tonight, so you're stuck with me. Um, this month at Vernon Hills has been filled with act activities and things happening all around the school. Most recently was our unified state basketball team which secured second place. In addition, on Friday, March 7th, our inclusive fine arts class performed during 8th period and again at 7 p.m. The theme of their per performance was the Olympics. Senior Mile Weinstein said she thought it was very cute and was happy to have seen it twice. Her favorite part of the show was the stage portion, especially with the ending with the bows where
039eachbody had their own song to bow to. Secondly, we recently celebrated World Languages Week here at Vern Hills. Throughout the week, we had fun act activities in the foyer full of themes of cultures all across the world. It all culminated on Friday where our AP world little language students showed off cultural theme projects in this very room. Some of the favorites that I heard about were the geek guillotine, the many food stands and ice fishing. Recently, we also had our winter dance towards the end of February. From what I've heard, the roller skating again was a big hit, but many upper classmen such as myself are are looking forward to prom. As of now, we are debating between three possible themes. Lastly, to end my segment for tonight, Vernon Hills and LHS recently had a
040joint field trip to the YMCA camp MClean for our annual snowball event. This year we had speaker Matt Bellis who spoke about embracing the moment. We had painting outdoor adventure and so much more. Sadly Burn Hills lost the snowball fight for a second time in a row. I mean we put up a good good fight but the next year. All right that's all for me for tonight. Thanks folks. Thank you. Thank you guys. It's a big duty tonight for both of you to cover for everything. Um, thanks again. Uh, we had some foyer requests here. I'll just acknowledge. Um, and then let's move into the superintendent report. Yes, I have a few more celebrations to share. Uh, we have news from our our current and former District 128 Special Olympians. Our District 128 unified basketball
041team finished second at Saturday's IHSA state championship. Our 2015 graduate, Mallerie Marvin, competed in last week's Special Olympics World Winter Games in Trin, Italy. She earned a bronze medal in the 50 meter snowshoe championship. District 128 Special Olympian Rishi Arun competed in the state basketball skills competition this month and finished in fourth place in division 12. Next, we have nine uh Liberty Bill High School students that recently represented District 128 in the regional America American Chemistry Society's Chemistry Olympiad. Only 17 students from our entire Chicagoland area can move towards the national exam with a maximum of two students from each school. Eli Qui and Eddie Lee both excelled in the first round test with Eli earning the highest score in the Chicagoland area and Eddie placing third. Now they advance to the national exam on
042April 5th at North Central College. Congratulations and best of luck to Eli and Eddie. Next I want to do a little board celebration. Got a little uh congratulations on receiving the uh two board members here tonight received a IASB board leader recognition certificate. IASB, the Illinois School Board Association, recognizes schoolboard members for individual time and effort devoted to learning and leadership activities provided by the association and for service to the public education community. Individuals that earn these recognition status are recognized by ASB and had did so recently at a spring division meeting. And I'd like to acknowledge uh Don Carmichael as an established board leader. Congratulations. [Applause] And then Jim Batson got the annual marriage recognition. Congratulations. Next, I want to let everybody know that the new district 128 website will launch during the week
043of spring break. We're excited to share a fresh new look. Uh soon we will have an opportunity to share with uh stakeholders about the new tools that are part of our finalist communication suite. There'll be also opportunities for everybody to give us some feedback. So, we're wishing uh Oh, one more thing. Nope, I got it. We're going to just wish the entire district 128 community a relaxing and safe spring break. Next, I have a title n action plan update for you and Dr. Bryant Kelly will just give us a update. Yeah. So, we u presented back in January the draft action plan to you on title nine and so we um said that we would come back in March and um provide you an update and um a finalized action plan. So, that action plan
044is attached um to the agenda for everyone to see. Um, and we have started on some of those items already and have had meetings and have made some adjustments um, with uh, some of our locker room assignments for the spring and we last week sent out a locker room survey to all of our students and staff at both Libertyville and Vernon Hills High School. Jim Badson, anything else? Okay, thank you for that information. Um, move on to the uh, consent vote agenda. These are, as a reminder, these are all items that have been uh discussed in committee andor are regular items that happen occur on a regular basis um that uh don't need any additional discussion. So, I'll ask for a motion. Carmichael move to approve the consent agenda items as presented. Hel second. Okay.
045Any questions from any board member? Okay. Can we have a roll call, please? Benjamin I Carmichael I Hessel hi Batson hi. Uh motion passes. Um okay now we got some action items. I will turn this over to uh Don Carmichael for the things coming out of the program of personnel committee. Very good. The first item uh a is the e-learning plan renewal that we heard uh at our meeting at the beginning today. And now uh I don't know that we need to talk any more about it since it was already presented. So I'm looking for a motion to approve the resolution to adopt e-learning program in lie of the district's scheduled emergency days three-year renewal 2025 26 and 2728 school years. Batson so move. Hel second. Any discussion? Very good. Carol roll call please. Carmichael
046I. Hessel I Batson I Benjamin I and the motion passes we'll move on to the next item which is the OMBbudsman alternative education services agreement. Uh we probably should have a moment here to so the Umbbudsman um agreement is an agreement that we've been um signing yearly. Normally we have reserved slots in the past um due to I think just some of the things that we're able to offer and then also the Lake County Regional Office of Education uh can offer our students. We're not reserving spots but we are going to sign an agreement that if we do need um a student to uh use use their services that we're agreeing to their pro their amount per day. So and we talked about this at uh program and personnel. Very good. Uh, can I have
047a motion to approve the Ombbudsman alternative education services agreement for the 2526 school year as presented? Benjamin. So moved. Second. Any other discussion? Carol. Roll call, please. Hel. I. Bettson. Hi. Benjamin. Hi. Carichel. I. Okay. Moving on to the IHSA membership renewals. This is our annual um membership renewal for both Vernon Hills and Libertyville High School to be members of the Illinois High School Association and um participate in their athletics and activities. Um and so this is again we uh brought this at program and personnel but um we will need the board to vote on this and in order to do that may I have a motion to approve the 2526 IHSA membership for LHS and Verden Hills? Batson second. Any other discussion? And roll call, please. Batson. Hi. Benjamin. Hi. Carmichael. Hi. Hel. I.
048Motion passes. Moving on to an employment of employees. These are uh new additions or changes that have occurred since uh our PNP in committee. And so they appear here. They are as presented. Just three items since uh last Monday. Okay. May I have a motion to approve the employment items as listed? Benjamin. So move and hle second. Carol, roll call. Pause for roll call. Batson. I. Benjamin. Hi. Carmichael. Hi. Hel. Hi. And the motion passes. Now we're up to the annual certified staffing report. Yes. Um, so our annual certified staffing report. Just to give you a little background, we did discuss the process at the February 10th um program and personnel meeting. We also discussed the process and then this information at the March 10th program and personnel. So given background I think to the
049board to you and to everyone else uh on this process. Um and again the process um for sectioning staffing starts back in November with um the courses that we will be offering this year. um in December um normally we look at our programs and if there's any changes in our programs um we start looking at that process the two biggest drivers of um FTE so a full-time equivalent for our teachers is both programs that we offer and al also the courses that our students select um this year one of the programs that we did look at at that process started in January was looking at our academic intervention model and so that academic intervention model is included in our staffing report. So, that was one of the big programmatic changes. But again, the biggest driver
050of our full-time equivalent um for our staff and our sectioning is uh the courses that our students select in January and February. Once that selection is done from our students, um our buildings, our department chairs and our principles work together on looking at what courses that they um are able to offer um in their departments. And again um looking at uh utilizing the collective bargaining agreement that we have with our teachers union that includes the optimum of our classes. Most of our optimums are 25 um yeah 25 um we have some classes that may be uh smaller or bigger depending on the course that is being offered but we do our best to look at that optimum. Um, in the past, I think this past year, 90% of our classes were at the optimum or
051below the optimum. Um, and so we we take that in consideration when we are choosing which classes that we are going to offer. There are some tough ch uh choices that we have to make and that's working with the department chairs, our building administration, and district administration when running classes. So if we have enrollment that um doesn't um meet usually in like the 25 optimum if it's not 15 then we really start looking at um whether or not you know we should run the course and there's some drivers on what whether or not we run the course. What's the history of the class? Um is this something that we have offered every other year and the enrollment goes up and down? Um what's the effect on students and staff when we're looking to run the
052class? Is it a capstone class? Um, can the CL course be combined maybe with another one? Um, so there are some classes that we do talk to the union about and we look at combining um those classes. So a teacher, for example, might be teaching acting studio and u theater technology together so that those students can still have the class. So we're looking at ways that we can offer as many um courses to our students as possible. We do offer a lot of electives um I think across all of our curriculum, but there comes a time we have to make some you know tough decisions and weigh the um you know both the people and the financial aspect of it and make some of the tough decisions. But I thought um in looking at our
053collective bargaining agreement and looking at our MOA that I know that um Paul referenced that we had good discussions with our union. we worked um together um on coming to some of our decisions. And so the um sectioning and staffing report that you know we have um before you today um we kind of broke it down into you know we look at our classroom FTE and you can see that we are recommending a 1.0 uh increase in our classroom FTE. Then you also have classroom FTE with EL um our PAUSE program special services and then also transition pathways. And in that classroom FTE you're looking at a 0.5 increase in the non-classroom FTE. We do have some non-instructional assignments that um teachers have. So that could vary from being um an equity coach uh instructional
054coach, a data coach in the buildings. We also have our student services, our LSTs, um, and so your social workers, your counselors in the buildings. Special services, um, our non-instructional uh, positions. Um, you can see that there was an increase of 1.3. At transition pathways, there was a decrease of, uh,.3 um, I think tied in with speech pathology. at transition pathways. There was a um a a slight change I want to point out from the report on PMP to now. Um it did show that the district office uh personnel um it was a little slight different change. we for the first time last year had a hearing itinerant that we hired and so I think my calculation with the hearing itinerant on what we um are using her for and what shared service um was
055a um 1.8 point8 last year now it's a 7 so there is a slight difference I showed a total FTE at PMP of 2.5 and now it's showing 2.4 for. So that was just that hearing itinerate. Dan and I when we looked at it, we wanted to make sure that we are capturing um um we have two people um that we call in the district office, but really they're working with all of our students um at transition pathways Libertyville and Vernon Hills High School. They're just kind of they're housed there. So our um therapeutic day students that are being placed. So this is our staffing report. The other thing um that we do when we look at all of our sectioning staffing is yes, we do take into consideration our people because our people, our
056staff um you know both our teachers, ESP are very important to us and so we we really um you know take that um into consideration and really u make sure that we are u making good decisions not only for today but also for the future. So that is our staffing report. The next um there is another agenda item. So we're asking for the board to approve um this um sectioning report which includes a FTE um total FTE change of 2.4. Don Carmichael. Um I noticed that there's also an additional contingency contingency request. So, the contingency request is something that we add in uh every year. Um, and so you could have things that um change um over the spring or the summer from um you know, students moving into the district. You could have that
057when you put the schedules together um that for whatever reason um you know, maybe they they can't get into a class that they want and the students move. And now we start looking at um classes um that might be over that optimum. So our buildings um do our assistant principles for student services um you know do a good job I think of uh looking at that keeping their eye on that and then they'll talk to building administration and then district administration and I know in the past couple years we have used part of that uh contingency Don Carmichael. So that's if um momentary pause students are sectioned perhaps because of the APA they're placed into a class that they might struggle with. If those students move uh that might overburden some of like we had
058a plan for that last year. So is this sufficient to cover? So like last year a lot of if we had we we look at some classes that maybe we have students that um drop down to and we had room in some of those classes to be able to um you know absorb that if you have that drop down like in the fall after classes start and you have to add a contingency. Yes, we could do that. We most of the time our contingency is used spring summer getting ready for next year. Dr. Tom Culentes. A good example from this year was we had a large number of students sign up for government for summer school. And while that is a graduation requirement and we believe students are sincere and that they're going to pass
059summer school government, if a large number of them were to withdraw because their plans change or if we had a number of failures from summer school, that could see a group of 20 to 25 students re-entering this uh the need for government in the fall or the spring. And because we try to staff very responsibly, that might create a need for an additional section and that's when we would review that data and then go and say should we create a contingency section for that. So that's an example of how that FT can can be used. One more context. So for even with everything last year of the 1.0 contingency, we ended up using 08 of it. And so another way to think about it is this the staffing has 301.5 FTE for teachers. Basically what
060we're asking for is authority to go up to 302.5 without having to come back to the board and ask for additional um FT. Especially during the summer when we only get together once a month that could be very difficult in planning for the beginning of the school year. I'd like to acknowledge the participation of the union in the process this year. Uh I think that the MOA was appropriate. Um and I just thought it was nice that the reports that we were getting is that we were really working together and I want to thank you for that. Uh all right. Well, I guess I'm looking now for a motion to approve the annual certified staffing report for 2526 as presented. Batson. So move. Hessel second. Any further discussion? U. I just also would really like
061to acknowledge the collaboration between our teachers union representatives and our administration. Um, this is an incredibly busy time of year for both our teachers and our administrators. um in addition to collective bargaining, everything that's going on uh directly with students in the buildings. Um and it's really nice to see the transparency with which this process went and how we've acknowledged the improvement um after the concerns of the last couple of years. So, thank you to our hardworking teachers union representatives and to our administration um who was really collaborative and responsive. Um, I also want to acknowledge our interim superintendent because I think that there's some credit due there for the facilitating um of those improvements as well. So, thank you to everybody. I would uh echo Paul's words that I think this process um turns
062out to be a winwinwin for students for the everybody in the district. So, thank you. Carol will call Carmichael I. Hessel I. Batson. Hi. Benjamin I. Very good. Motion passes. Now we are at the annual certified staff employment recommendations for 2526. So this is based off of now staffing um sectioning. So this is uh looking at um having you approve um our first and second year and third year teachers um coming back and also recommending some of them for tenure. Um and then as part of uh the process under Illinois that all um part-time teachers are um released um although you know some of them will be coming back in either a part-time or full-time uh status for next year. So again, our um recommendation is to approve the annual certified employment recommendations and this
063was both the last one and this one were also discussed in detail at uh FNF and PMP but they don't go into um the consent vote agenda because these are not routine items. Correct. Since we only do these once once a year, we don't um just put them into consent agenda. Very good. Um let's see. Lisa Hessel and Bryant, you always um do a good job of um explaining to us that all the conversations that affect the people that are listed in the uh staffing report have been had uh long before it comes to the board. So there surprises. Yes. Correct. Right. I I do not see that this requires a motion. Momentary pause. Yes. There's a recommendation to approve. Oh, there it is. It's on the prop. Uh, okay. I had scrolled too far.
064Uh, so may I have a motion to approve the annual certified staff employment recommendations for 2526 is presented. Benjamin. So moved. Batson. Second. Carol. Roll call. Wait a minute. I I have one comment. I'd like to congratulate all those teachers who earned tenure. Oh yeah. With this um motion. Thank you. Jameson. Okay. Carol Esel. Hi. Batson. Hi. Benjamin. Hi. Carmichael. Hi. Don Carmichael. Okay. So, the last item of mine is the nonu uh non-union educational support professional salary raises. So, we have um in our school district, we have our uh teachers uh union which is covered under the collective bargain aging. We have our educational support professionals that are um included in their collective bargaining agreement. We also have um some individuals in our school that uh we also have administrators that are covered under
065their individual contracts. We also have some individuals um that are non-union educational support professionals. And the reason that they um are not in the union is that due to their positions, they're either overseeing other um ESP and so they're coordinators or so they're managers and so they can't be in the union or they um work with um administration on uh confidential information. Um and so we do have uh 15 uh support professionals that are not um covered under the collective bargaining agreement. And so, um, we are, you know, um, coming to you with our recommendation for their yearly, um, salary raise, and this would be for the 2526 school year. Some of them are 12-month positions, so it would go into effect on July 1. Don Carmichael. We have a motion to approve the non-union
066educational support professional salary recommendation as presented. Hess so moved. Carmichael second. Any further discussion? No. Carol, we'll call. Batson. I. Benjamin. Hi. Carmichael. Hi. Hel. I. Motion passes. And now I turn it over to FNF and chairman Dr. Batson. Uh back to me. Uh we have two items coming out of facilities and finance. The first one is the Libertyville High School ceiling and lighting uh replacement project. Uh this will be a summer project. Um, we've talked about this in in the committee. Dan, any last minute thoughts to add to this? No. Uh, just yeah, just to complete the ceiling and lighting replacement in the hallways at LHS. Uh, I'd like to have a um motion to approve the LHS ceiling and lighting project base bid with Ephram uh Carlson Construction for a total of uh
067$223,000. Carmichael. So moved. Hel second. Any questions or comments? Uh, just to confirm that there have been no changes since uh last week's F. The only changes have been uploading accurate letters. Oh, thank you for correcting this. Yeah, got it. Thank you, Carol. Roll call, please. Batson. Hi, Benjamin. Hi, Carichel. Hi, I. Okay, motion passes. And then we have a um a two-year agreement uh for the um uh uh safety system. Um this was also discussed at uh at committee. Um just we did not discuss this at committee. It was discussed at board meeting discussed a pre I'm sorry at a previous board meeting. Um, so we need a um a motion to approve a two-year agreement with Faulk for a total a two-year total of $45,50. Hessle so moved. Carmichael second. Any questions or
068comments from the board? No. Okay. Carol, roll call, please. Benjamin, I. Carmichael. Hi. Hel. I. Batson. I. Motion passes. We have a fewformational items here. Uh something Don will be happy to hear hopefully. Um solar RFP update. Yeah, this took longer than I wanted to, but we are here. So, we um have a draft out to our building envelope consultant who is now making their changes. Once we get those I think he started out in this weekend. Once we get those back, we'll kind of take a look. Um and then after that we'll probably um check with a few other consultants to get a sense of what this is because we want to find the balance of um having it be open enough that gets us uh what we're looking for but not too restrictive
069so that like only one person would ever be able to do something like this. Uh so we're excited to move forward. Um once I get the drafts back and get a sense of when the RFP will actually hit the street um then I can build a timeline of when we would bring it back. Um, so we're we're moving forward that with that process and we're excited for the next steps. Thank you. We can anticipate that in weeks, months. Dan Stanley, I believe weeks. So I I just checked in with Mark today um that the our our envelope consultant uh Tony Loen is working was working on it. Okay. Already. So I'll give him a few more days and then check in to see how it's going. So we may have more information next board meeting.
070Uh, okay. Uh, board comments and events. Yeah. Okay. I'll give a brief IASB report. We had uh our um spring or win I guess spring meeting uh for the uh lakes division of IASB this past week. Lisa joined me in uh that dinner. So that's where these things came from. But there's also a great uh meeting presented uh by a couple individuals talking about the ISASB's uh vision 2030 which is a new initiative that they have. Um so uh that was a good meeting. Uh other than that there's uh we'll be having a I'm on the division leadership uh team. So we're planning our next meeting but probably not until early May. So we are working on that as well. Um and I will be um spending some time later this week uh representing uh
071D128 at the national costbook conference, the consortium of uh school state school board associations. That's a big mouthful. Um so happy to re represent uh D128 and the lakes division at that event. So se doll. Yes, we have a little bit of an update. Um, we had a meeting back on the 5th of this month. Um, just as a reminder for anyone tuning in, we have uh students uh from our home district 128 placed out to seedall schools. Uh, the co-op serves as uh a place where exceptional students can receive exceptional services that they may not be able to have access to within district. So um Seedall has had a few years of light tumult. There's been leadership changes. There has been um a few uh financial auditing issues that have come up uh that
072are challenging. And then there's also the added challenge of uh upcoming uh changes to our membership uh costs to member districts. Um, so we had an update on our continuous improvement plan which was put into place back in uh the fall of 23. Uh, goal one deals with student performance and improving that. Goal two addresses a sustainable and equitable financial structure that best supports needs of student and uh, member districts. Ultimately, the goal is for twothirds of member districts to say yes to the proposed structure. Uh and this is going to be top of mind for our governing board in the near future as exact board brings us recommendations that will determine the financial health of the co-op uh and accessibility for students in member districts for the short term and for the long term.
073Goal three has to do with uh advancing our high standards and expectations. This means lots of increased professional development for staff and building a procedural manual actually for IEP management, which one would think that would exist already, but believe it or not, these aren't necessarily um the they don't operate the same in every district or co-op. Uh and Seedall is looking to streamline their IEP management. Goal four deals with advancing effective collaborative team practices uh which includes communication improvements, unveiling a new website, sharing of uh growth and celebration surrounding that growth uh and also a more public um sharing of goals and accomplishments. In terms of finances, despite a very glaring miscalculation and misreport from last fall, it is expected that the uh fiscal year 23 audit, I know we're still auditing back our uh
074FY23 year, will come back as uh a clear opinion. So, that's good and better than the co-op expected. That audit is completely near uh is near completion. We're just waiting on um reporting regarding our ESSER funds which as a reminder is uh co like during COVID funding for um anything related to lost learning um etc. So uh we anticipate an accurate FY23 fund balance and uh our FY24 audit completion should uh it should happen by the end of this current fiscal year. And with all of this uh you know we are hoping to support our financial system changes that as we move forward as a co-op will provide greater assurance and transparency for the seedall community and member districts. This is all important because again we have students that we place out to seed doll
075and as stewards of the tax dollar this is something that collectively we we contribute to as a community. So, it's important to know where um finances stand uh within the special education district of Lake County. And that was my last meeting. It was my pleasure to serve as the liaison to seed doll and I hope the next person enjoys serving as much as I did. So, thank you. Thanks, Cara. And thank you for your service on the SEO board. It's been very very helpful, I'm sure, for them as well as us. It's an exceptional place. And if you don't necessarily know a person or have a person who's gone uh you know used the services of Seed Doll very quickly you've come to realize uh by attending these meetings that they are just absolutely essential
076that the things Seed Doll is able to do for students we can't do. So our own district kids get opportunities beyond what we can provide here. So it's really it really is a wonderful place to be a student and a staff member. Great. Thank you. Uh next on the uh agenda is uh just a listing of future agenda items for review. Uh we have our committee meetings in April and our upcoming uh April 28th board meeting. Um we are now going to convene into close session uh for two topics. Collective negotiating matters 5 ILCS120C 2 and employment of employees 5 ILCS120/2C1. Uh once that is complete, we will have a an action item as noted on the agenda when we come back. So uh I have a motion to move into close session. Carmichael. So
077moved. Hel second. Roll call, please. Harm Michael. Hi. Hel. Hi. Fatson. Hi. Benjamin. Hi. Okay. Move into close session. Thank you. Text on the screen says the board is in closed session. Fade into board members seat at a table. Jim, you're gonna ask the motion. Jim Batson. Okay. Uh, I need a motion. um to um where am I to resume uh um live stream recording? No. A motion and a second to re open uh return to open session. Hustle. So moved. Carmichael. Second. All in favor? I. Okay. Any opposed? Um okay. I need a motion to approve the resolution authorizing notice to remedy. Uh, I move to approve a resolution authorizing a notice to remedy for Sean Ferrell. Hel second. Uh, okay. Uh, roll call, please. Pause for note takingaking. Um, Hessel I. Batson. Hi.
078Benjamin. Hi. Karma. Hi. Okay. Motion passes. Uh, need a motion and a second to adjurnn. Hessle move to adjurnn. Benjamin second. All in favor? I. I. Any oppose? No, I can't vote. So, is not here to oppose? Okay. Thank you. Good night. Thank you. Fade to district 128 logo. Fade to black. End of meeting.