January 2024 Committee Meetings of the D128 School Board w/AD

001all right good evening I'd like to call to order the program personel committee meeting uh if we could stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge Allegiance United States of America for stand One Nation indivisible with liy and Justice oh okay just going to fly through the agenda real quick uh we'll have uh an invitation for public comment then for discussion uh the d128 racial Equity diversity and inclusion policy report um board policy report second reading um Educational Tours there are four of them employment of employees and then future agenda items so I would like to open the floor for public comment is there anyone here wishing to address the board okay seeing none uh let's go for discussion d128 racial Equity diversity and inclusion policy Y is this Larry all [Music] right is the

002projector even on okay good evening um I am excited to share with you our second Equity policy update for the year as we continue to monitor the metrics within our policy for racial diversity equity and inclusion for Community High School District 128 um this is another of the series of updates that the district provides to the board and to the community on where we are um this evening's update I'd like to partic specifically thank um some individuals our Equity coordinators Tara Young and Matt carstead who were integral in in putting this presentation together um also o uh Charlotte e and the whole data team who supported us in getting this data to uh provide these metrics to you all our instructional coaches who've worked throughout the year providing uh equity-based um professional development for our

003staff uh Mr Dan Stanley in the business office um for their contributions in the work that they've done towards uh resources for Equity uh Miss Mary todderick who has provided us an opportunity to collect data from our community around our Equity uh Journey um Affinity Club sponsors and members who were a part of um some of the information that I'll share with you tonight as well as our underrepresented families who participated and of course our superintendent and board president who were active members of several committees that we will talk about this evening um so this POC this policy update will update us on four areas next slide Dan please um of our 11 commitments tonight we will look at Student Success we continuously come back to Student Success um because it is such a big

004part of the work that we do as School District um we're also going to look at our Equitable resources um for the first time this year and our Community Partnerships for the first time this year and give you some updates on some of the work that we're doing um there to move those metrics and then we're going to take a look at our Equity focused professional learning opportunities that we have provided to our staff um both um optional and mandatory next slide Dan so let's start with commitment three um and so we want to pick up with um Student Success where we were from charlott presentation on the report card one of the metrics that we highlighted in our policy was the data from the isby school report card um Charlotte did a really great

005job of providing some high level data for us on that in our last uh board meeting she gave us two updates um and tonight we're going to dive a little deeper into that report card with a lens from racial equity and how our students are doing um as we compare subgroups and then we're also going to monitor uh and report on some of the GR distributions since we just closed out semester one of the 2023 20 2022 what year is this 2023 2024 school year um and so that's some really uh recent data that we've been able to collect from our our our local assessment pieces next slide please D um and so we've shared with you where we are in terms of our SAT data now the SAT is our nationally normed assessment that

006we are able to collect data from um we utilize it in a number of ways as it relates to our student placement um and so it's important that we look at this data in terms of uh how our our subgroups performing when compared one to another and so we do see some disparities with our African-American and Latino populations um it is important to note that this data is representative of the entire district and not of any individual school so districtwide we're seeing that our African-American students only 25% of them are meeting Proficiency in Reading um when they take the 11th grade assessment for sat um slightly higher than our African-American group is our Latino group um but we do see that these two groups um are performing at a disparity when we compare them to

007the other groups of students that we have there and so we want to dive a little bit deeper into what does that proficiency Gap look like next slide please and so comparing the groups white to black comparison in the top chart and then our white to Hispanic comparison in the bottom chart we're looking over the course of the last three years of data um and we're looking at the the percent proficient um for our white students that middle column is uh comparing is the subgroup for black and African-American in the top and Hispanic a Latino in the bottom and then that last column tells us what's the Gap there um in terms of proficiency for those uh for those groups when we compare them to their white counterparts um and what we can see is

008that over the last three years that Gap has been inconsistent from year to year now this data does not track one cohort of students over time but it rather it looks at the each individual class so the class of 2023 compared to the class of 2022 class of 2021 so these are different groups of students um each year um and so what we're seeing there is that um over the over the last three years it really has been inconsistent with um any growth or any any increase in gap so it just is sporadic um in terms of how these groups are performing from year to year some years our African-American students perform better some years our African-American students perform worse but consistently we see our white per students performing the same over the course of

009of those three years um so that Gap just moves and the dependent variable that changes there is the performance of the black and African-American and the Hispanic or Latino students next slide please and so proficiency though is made up of these levels that has decided on um and so level one is that lowest level it means that the student has partially met the standard um and has demonstrated minimal understandings um then level two means that they are approaching um they are approaching proficiency but still have not yet reached Mastery of that particular standard and so level one and level two both indicate that the student is not at proficiency once the student meets standards at level three they are considered proficient and then level four they've exceeded the standards so that is also proficient so

010the proficient line really lies between level two and level three right but these levels give us a better indication of to where our students are performing next slide please and so when we look at our African-American students our previous data showed that 75% of them were not proficient when we dive deeper into that 50% of that 75 are performing at level one meaning that they're demonstrating minimal understanding of the knowledge and skills needed um relative to the Illinois learning standards um so that is uh concerning for us um that not only are they not proficient um but this group of students is at the the very uh bottom level of of performance um in in English language arts um 25% of them are at uh level two and then of the 25% who do reach

011proficiency meaning that they have achieved level three or level four um only 88.3% of them are at level four advanced efficiency so um we we do have some concerning data around our africanamerican student performance there next slide please now when we compare that to our Hispanic and Latino student performance one thing to not is that we do have a a significantly larger group in level two meaning that we do have opportunities for our Hispanic and Latino students who are not at proficiency yet um to reach proficiency because they're they're closer to that bubble um and so we could push with intentionality and intentional resources uh or interventions we could push the level two students into level three and therefore um getting more of our Hispanic and Latino students into uh into proficiency um so that's

012good news there and then when we look at our agian students you'll see that more than half of our agent students are exceeding uh the proficiency uh level four um and then a very small number of students in level one as it relates to our Asian um um Asian students so almost the inverse of what we see with our African-American students and then two or more um we see um that the majority of them are at proficiency um and reaching levels three and levels four um proportionately um and then level two and level one um we still have some some students there but overall about a third or third or third and then finally our white student performance um is there where we again again we see that the majority of those students are re

013reaching proficiency very very few in level one and and um and then some students in level two so our Focus uh for our academics is really to push those students who are in level two into level three and then provide some more targeted interventions for our students who are uh in that level level one category next slide please and so now let's take a look at mathematics um in sat we'll see that this data in terms of proficient and not proficient is very similar um to what we saw in reading for our African-American studz as a matter of fact it's identical in terms of uh the percentage of students who are at proficiency uh for our Latino students we see a slightly lower number of uh percentage of our Hispanic and Latino students demonstrating proficiency

014and math when um compared to uh reading um and then by and large over overall our Asian uh two or more races and our wh students are meeting proficiency so again let's take a look at the gaps that we have for mathematics and we see uh the same the same thing our white students when compared to our black students are demonstrating more proficiency that Gap there in that third column we're still seeing is inconsistent from year to year again I do remind you that we are looking at um cohort to cohort data um and so it's just a matter of how this particular group class of students is performing at this particular time time but um our white proficiency is remaining relatively stable um while we see um es and flows in our African-American and

015Hispanic um population and so as we look into the level one uh level two level three level four data uh again identical data for our mathematics is that half of our African-American students um are not performing are performing at level one for mathematics in 5% at level two um again identical data to to our reading so that our African-American students are showing the same um performance gaps in in English as they are in math but when we look at our Hispanic students when we looked at reading we saw a more significant number of them at level two when we look at um mathematics though we do see that that a shift there so we more of our Hispanic students performing at level one um than we saw in reading and then a significant amount percentage

016of our Hispanic students performing at level two um and then very few at level four when we look at our Asian students we see um again level four more than half of our students are exceeding um in mathematics uh with Asian with our Asian population um and and still few few at level one um two or more races again we have the majority uh of our students at proficiency um and um uh about about a third a little less than a third not medum proficiency but then a more equal distribution between levels one and levels two when we look at that particular demographic and then our white students um again performing at proficiency um o over half performing at proficiency um um about 28% at level two that can be moved into level three um

017and then a a smaller percentage at level one um and so that's the mathematic comparison so that was a look at our National Data Trends in terms of how we're doing by by race um so let's look at now some of our local data that we have and that is our grade distribution from quarter one now that First Column is our overall demographic so what percentage of our student body is made up of each um subgroup is there and what we should see uh is proportional representation across um that that graph there um so if uh our African-American students make up 2% of our population then that should be U proportionately represented across the grade so they should make up about 2% of the A's about 2% of the B so forth and so on

018um and so what we see there um is that when we look at the D's um and Fs U that there is over representation of African-American stud students uh at that um particular range as well as our Hispanic students at D's and Fs um and so that's um something that we are are noticing um as a trend for our uh grades by distribution and so some opportunities that we have um going forward what we want to do is as we consider our both our national data and our local data is utilizing our star data to provide Focus intervention to students star is the assessment that that is administered uh within our district and provides our teachers and staff with immediate uh uh assessment data from our students that will allow them to see where students

019are deficient and strength um so that we can we can Target the interventions that we're providing for them in the classrooms um based on the student needs so that that can transfer into stronger performance in their uh average grades uh the GPA as well as uh better performance on the standardized assessments um our work in uh the ninth grade heterogenous class is allowing us to identify priority standards um so that our curriculum is focused on those standards that we've identified are uh the most frequently assess standards or the standards that we've identified as the standards that are um transferable skills that are necessary for our students to do well in in courses as well as on standardized assessments um and in our local assessments um our curriculum design is allowing us to make sure that

020we are providing our every student with Ong grade level materials um that will um uh allow each student to have an opportunity to have a robust rigorous curriculum within their courses um regardless of placement and then some of our targeted intervention programs looking at our tier two um and tier three interventions which are being redesigned for us for 2020 for art 2023 2024 2024 2025 uh still a new year and uh targeted interventions looking at our pause program making sure that those interventions um are targeted and providing necessary um supports for students in need um with our pause program and our um literacy and math Labs will allow students to uh get drop in support um continue to get drop in support as necessary and as we identify in our curriculum areas where our students

021need additional um reinforcement um they can get that from the interventionist in those areas next slide please maybe we could pause I just think it might be helpful for the board be able to ask a few follow-up questions about attend before we shift to attendance sure any questions about student achievement either sat or grades before we switch to another toic I do so Larry when you said am I on here so when you said that we want to push our level two students into level three what does that mean so what that means is we have students who are at level two they are are approaching um proficient no I'm sorry I don't want to interrupt you but I like I understand it means you know what level two versus level three means what does

022that look like when you say that you're pushing them we want to push our students from level to level three is that a part of pushing them into a more rigorous curriculum what I I understand the end goal is to have everybody at three and fours but so that's the goal you're saying that that's the goal yeah so it's the part of our curriculum work in ensuring that we're using data to support um what we're teaching in in in our classes um and so looking at a uh a a level two student right what are the areas where this student is close to proficiency um and providing them with individualized uh support so that they can work on those skills that they're almost there right and so just maybe just so identifying deficiencies and targeting

023those deficiencies to bring sort of buy student by standard by standard and then when you uh said that you were wanting to use the STAR testing data for focused interventions what is that going to look like so exactly that um so we have the SAT data but the star data will give us more real time information um and will allow us our staff to um group students based on uh identified areas that may be they may be similar um so that they can provide small group instruction um they can um assign them to the uh math or literacy dropin Labs um and we can use it to uh give them the additional support in the in the pause program or or move them out of pause because they have demonstrated that that Master in those

024skills so are we talking more tier two or tier three intervent I mean is that something that's going to be implemented through the classroom teacher or are we making plans for additional support for the classroom teacher we are planning to do a presentation on our enhanced mtss tiered intervention um we have had a couple different models at both Vernon Hills and Libertyville with just uh Staffing plans um but this year will be the first year that our plans for the fall will be to have a consistent intervention framework at both schools um so we will be forwarding a pres or delivering a presentation to the board as part of a staffing plan but it will be redesigning the tier one uh you know that when you say what is the plan for this it's it

025has to be systemic and and and actually focusing on Bubble students that that actually is difficult for me to hear because I really want to think about no we're our work is to make sure every student is proficient and some students are closer and some students have a further Journey but that is our goal is for both level one and level two students who are they're not students who are performing at that level um get the instruction they need so that's going to be clear learning targets at the tier one instruction again the students that we're seeing data for here they did not benefit from having access to those rigorous courses so the data that we've been looking at over the last two years showing that the Gap widens actually as students participate in some

026of our lower level courses that is the data that we're seeing right now as our exit as our 11th grade test um is showing so we aren't predicting immediate sat improvements they'll be slow but that's why it's important for us to keep using grades and to keep using STAR testing as that progress monitoring tool to both help our interventions and to let us know how effective some of our other um near term um progress monitoring points will be because we're not seeing any significant close in the Gap in two years right um so what we're doing isn't working well but we really when you say what we're doing what do you refer to I know because I don't know we have done because we have implemented very few things next fall will be the first

027time that we're implementing the heterogeneous curriculum where we're for grade nine um where we are um which that means quite a bit so it means not having co-taught excuse me not having team taught the class where we were grouping students who had deficits so in terms of the things that we've been doing for our Equity plan um in terms of adjusting our interventions that is has started to be in place this year and will continue to improve we've been working primarily on a lot of the affective Parts in terms of the Affinity groups that you're going to see a lot on here um I think moving the needle on ecademic achievement is going to be the one that um requires the most time because it requires the most change in programming across the whole curriculum

028and across the whole buildings um where things like changing our attendance protocols making sure that we have Affinity groups and other things for students making sure that the way we Implement our discipline policy is consistent across all Races those things have a shorter Runway time for implementation than some of the things that we're seeing that will influence sat um scores for 11th graders I just I I keep coming back to like Chicken and the Egg because if you have a population that's 75% % of them are not proficient or even meeting proficiency is put I don't have the answer but it is a chicken in the egg argument I mean just by merely putting them into a more rigorous curriculum does not if they aren't ready to uh be able to access that information and

029that curriculum are we setting them up for more frustration that would be the third bullet there the curriculum design um we have been working all fall and we'll continue to work all spring with the teachers who are teaching that course to embed those tier one interventions when you said what what's the classroom teacher going to be doing the absolute most effective intervention is high quality tier one instruction and so that's been a huge focus of our energy um for this year for last fall and will continue to be for this spring but we'll also use the resources that used to be according to the the team taught teachers or repurpose those into the interventionists that we were talking about in both pause and the dropin labs and you feel like our staff is prepared for

030that kind of Paradigm Shift are we're working on it we're working on it absolutely okay they're very committed that all students learn at high levels and we have the data to show what we're doing right now isn't working so we're going to do everything we can to support our staff and being ready to implement a different way of helping these students meet standard I have a few questions um the students that we have don't arrive here uh without history so do we have articulation uh are we talking to our feeder districts are we sharing data do they have similar plans I I don't know if we're articulating any of this with our feeder districts um I think that with our articulation with our feeded districts um we get information on our a students that are

031coming to us we get to teacher recommendations um and they provide us with information about each student that that the teachers can can impl that's the extent of of where we are right now and that's always been the case yes like we've been doing that for ages the one thing that we would have i' say that is different is um we have for all students not just the students who could attend on Saturday so I think our last time we had the Saturday um PSAT it was about 94% which is still very high but some of the students we needed the most information on were the ones who didn't attend um so we do have 99.9% of the students participated in testing this fall so we have M more data about more of our students

032that was required for APA but is also going to be helpful in placing students in the the appropriate um support so all students will let's say go into English n but it's going to say do you need English n and a once a week meeting with a reading Specialist or do you need English nine and every day for 20 minutes with an interventionist so that we already have the data for that on every student and we're using that to make placement recommendations into the intervention from drop in meaning we we don't have any evidence right now to place students in there but we'll have the staff available should they start to struggle to enter into the the tiers of intervention that that we're expanding from what we have this year we'll have more next year

033I had a similar question that I I think asked before is is there a way for you to since you have that incoming ninth grader assessment or where they are placed already can they be put into summer school and such before they even start nth grade so what can you do so they're just better prepared for high school and get start that Journey better than after they get here we do have um uh summer school requirement for students with IEPs who need what's called esy extended school year experience and that's called for in their IEPs um for other students um we've had a some or Academy but the evidence to show if it's really implementing and meeting the needs of students we haven't done all of the work we needed to collect that kind of

034evidence um but we are planning to redesign that particular program as we're developing the nth grade curriculum so it's one of those things we're redesigning the nth grade curriculum so it is accessible to all students um and as we have the learning targets and some of the common assessments and other of those things developed it'll be much easier for us to then get data from our eighth eighth grade feeder districts because again they use different progress monitoring tools but they could report to us areas of strength and areas of deficit by learning standard we just have not had that kind of communication yet it's been definitely more holistic about recommendations um about um I would sayal needs or students who might have attendance concerns or um other kinds oops excuse other kinds of um uh

035Behavior Andor attendance again we'll we're going to get to attendance next because that also plays such an important role in Student Success they have to be here to learn so you know I don't want to downplay the information we get from our eighth grade feers on profile of student attendance and other things because that greatly impacts their learning um but we definitely now we'll have more specific information on what might be the deficit in math is it numeracy or is it number sense or is it fractions um that is not we haven't drilled down in the past to get that as focused of information from our feeder distance I've got oh go ahead you sure okay I've got some questions and this may come across as more of like a commentary than a question um

036so I'm looking at the information and and I understand how vital it is to our diversity equity and inclusion initiatives and I and not questioning um kind of our our charge with that but um some of this some of the data and some of our goals surrounding that to me seem a bit in conflict with some of our strategic plan goals one of which being mult multiple Pathways um and so when I consider multiple Pathways and that goal of providing students with perhaps different Pathways that don't end in a four-year University uh experience um and then I see that kind of The Benchmark that we're using is the junior year SAT score and that sat is also informing goals of our curriculum things seem to be at odds are in Conflict a bit and so

037I'm I'm wondering if perhaps we're not necessarily missing an opportunity but for students who and I I don't I I'm not suggesting we lower our expectations or bars but for students who identify kind of early on that they're interested in a pathway that's not the outcome of an SAT score you know um are we missing an opportunity for them and does it kind of force our Educators to teach more toward a test than anything else are we kind of highlighting that as the end goal is that we're hoping for better proficiency on the SAT as kind of this Mark that comes through junior year just to show us that we've done our job as Educators so again part question part commentary part a personal concern for kind of the education system that that we're trying

038to support um and so when we survey our students um specifically our students of color um 90% of them indicate that it is their intention to go to a four or two-year University um and the SAT is often the gatekeeper for um financial aid and admission into a four two-year um institution um and so um knowing that that is the the goal the Dream of of our students we want to make sure that we're supporting that as one of our multiple Pathways um and so in order to do that we have to prepare them for uh the level of rigor um and assessment that they're going to see on on the SAT um because it's it's it's it's it's the test that they that they have to take um not necessarily saying that we agree

039with that being the one indicated many schools and universities are moving away from um the SAT is just that is just that one U piece of information for that for that very reason um but it also gives us the indicator of it says that this particular student is uh college or career ready um based on on on on the standard that we have set um it is also the indicator that that state of Illinois uses for high schools to to to judge um and measure um the effectiveness of of our instruction um so it's it's difficult to uh to negate the SAT while also we we I do acknowledge and agree with with with what much of what you said right as even as we think about Equity um considering how um cultural biases may

040exist in in standardized testing right there's a body of research on on that as well um and so it but it puts us in a place where we have to um figure out how do we do both um how do we acknowledge um the students uh multiple pathway and and interest um as well as provide a pathway for students to have the uh ultimate access accessibility um to their post-secondary um careers I I would Echo everything that you said Larry thank you for sharing that one other um point I always try to remind the the pathway that we sometimes think of multiple paths as having less rigorous requirements the requirements to get into the HVAC system require higher reading and higher math scores than many other bachelor's degrees do so I think that's one other

041thing when we think about multiple paths it's not about higher rigor or lower rigor every student needs basic math and literacy requirements to be a functioning adult and I do think that that is what the SAT is measuring I think for what it was 10 years ago is pretty traditional content acquisition the changes that it made that um allow that prompted Illinois to switch from the ACT to the SAT because they felt it was better aligned with the standards so I I think one of the things that might be helpful is if we just keep thinking of that sat as the measure our state is using on if our students are proficient for our standards and sort of let go of the idea that it was primarily a college entrance exam before um because I

042think that's could be holding back some of our thinking about how this tool can really help guide us and again it's not teachers teaching to the SAT test it's teachers teaching to what the state of Illinois says is required literacy standards and so I think if we if we can as much as possible use some of our Lang language that way and and make sure our thinking is aligned to what we know that is what our equ Equity plan talks about is ensuring all students are proficient at reading math science and and other standards we just happen to use an assessment tool that used to be primarily a college entrance exam I appreciate that explanation from both of you and if I may just ask kind of one more question um related but slide 19

043for me I'm I'm not a charts and graphs person all the time this one this one is giving me stress a little bit just because I it's a it's a me thing it's a me problem no one else but can you comment on kind of the alignment of the grades by race um versus or how they relate to the data we have the data spreads for the SAT results um so you may have made that comment before but like when I look at this grade distribution uh would you say that's pretty well reflected also in those 11th grade sat results um and then I think Denise just really clarified a point that we are aligning our curriculum probably always kind of have been looking at our Illinois State Standards that's that's education um but you

044know to to build out our curriculum so could you just talk about um kind of the connection between the grades data and the SAT data yeah um so ideally what we should see um that our grades should also be aligned to our standards um and so our grade should be an indicator of how well a student will do on the SAT because the the standards and the skills are the same right so um if if if a student is mastering any specific or particular skill in a class that Mastery should transfer into Mastery on any any assessment um whether that is sat star or or um any of our local assessments um it should transfer there right now we do not have that necessarily we we've not collected um or had some intentional work outside

045of the work that we're doing right with the ninth graders to ensure that alignment is there the work right now with the ninth grade heterogeneous class is to ensure that our curriculum standards that we identified our priority standards and our transferable standards standards to ensure that that we have a curriculum and assessments in our in our classrooms that are reflective of the um skills and standards that they will they will see there um and so there should be that there should be that alignment there in the future that um that we I can't say for certain exists right now um I think maybe one other point you're talking about the alignment between standards and uh and test scores I think your question was alignment between the grade data and the SAT data and pro that

046the curriculum is aligned with Illinois State Standards which are also aligned with the sat right right but what I see from this data is that um students who are currently earning D's and Fs and again this is not in any particular this is just overall grades um is disproportionate meaning we have 12% of our students are Hispanic yet they are earning 27 and 40 some per of the they're over represented in grades that would that would communicate to us that they're not achieving proficiency yet in those courses so if we're looking at course grades as some of those progress monitoring tools to say are these kids going to be successful on the 11th grade uh assessment right now currently our grades would be saying they're also showing dis proportionate that we have students who are

047minorities are also receiving lower grades in the courses currently one question there though right like when you're using percentage as a standard that is a little bit deceptive or tricky at times right because if you have a a particular race that is in a minority a very small change in the grades or level would change that percentage by a lot yes right it might sometimes take just even one student to go from one grade to the other to change the percentages dramatically so we probably need to look at numbers a little bit differently and not just in terms of percentages because that doesn't tell the full story it might just tell the wrong story in there so have to be careful I I do think that keeping in mind the number of students in these

048groups is one then that's why we're presenting District data so it's not it's to increase the sample size um because there is small populations at each site so when we look at District data it is somewhat combating the really small uh sample size and the over impact it can have but that definitely is something that I think accounts for that volatility that we're seeing from year to year where the white students where we have hundreds of students in that group it's only changing by a few percentage um but what's staying the same is the gap and so I I think that that's really the data that to me we need to be uh keeping our eye on the other thing to note is that um we are accountable in the state of Illinois for those

049percentages so you know it doesn't matter if it's four kids in that group or 40 kids or 400 that is the accountability metrics that the state of Illinois uses so I think we have to look at both percentage and number of students okay I'm going to jump in um so my it's a concern it's not really a question um I have a number of friends who are currently teaching in a model where it's a heterogeneous classroom where they have populations of students who have been separated out before who aren't now and he has reading levels they have I'm thinking of one in particular right now uh of students that that are reading at the third grade level and students that are reading at just that like ninth grade level um and that's that's a huge

050disparity in abilities within the classroom backgrounds what they can do what they can read so it's the uh my uh concern is the training that we're giving to the teachers to be able to accommodate teaching in a heterogeneous classroom and then the support so for example that classroom teacher is going to have to provide the data that's necessary for someone to say that that student needs to go to pause or to one-on-one intervention so beyond just teaching that day the teacher also going to have to figure out the eight or nine or t kids in any particular class that are going to need any particular intervention that just takes time so what supports are we going to be giving to those teachers who now have a workload that's greater than the workload of other teachers

051when it comes to just reporting out on kids if I'm an AP teacher I don't have too many kids that I'm going to be assigning extra time to to go to pause just because those students have tested into a higher uh level of rigor in curriculum they're not going to be remedial so I guess I would maybe push back on that a little only because our EOS program is identifying students for whom this would be their first AP class so I do think that when I imagine the supports that our teachers are going to need to meet the needs of diverse Learners I think that's almost every teacher in our in our building um there'll be greater need at some of the earlier level at n9th grade course courses um and that is why we're

052giving them time to work together this year to write the curriculum and to receive some additional training but it's also why we would invest some of that human capital in additional intervention positions it it won't be up to individual teachers to say Lisa you need this this because we have STAR testing and then they're also writing assessments that have by standard and success indicators so their normal classroom assessments at the end of a unit will help identify Lisa needs this because her performance on this part of this project or this assessment tool showed this that will be easily communicated then to the drop-in lab or the pause person it's because it's not every teacher doing everything in isolation randomly that we're having them work together that this system could could not probably I've seen it

053work at other school districts where it's not every teacher working in isolation it's PLC teams coming together and saying when we gave that assessment last Friday which kids needed help on writing their thesis statement and which kids rocked on it okay great let's do some tier one intervention here in the classroom and after we try that if there's students who still need that support on that writing task that's the students that we would recommend for the drop in lab it is actually a part of what high school um plcs is all about you served on effective plc's that was some of the work that isn't in addition that's the core work of being a teacher um so I I just think that it's be we haven't necessarily had that be the focus of our PLC

054work in the past because we haven't had an intervention place to even send the students to it's almost like each part of this of the ca are coming together and nth grade is going to be where we have the curriculum where we have the assessments where we have the intervention people to come together and collaborate um but it it's that's why we're working so hard this year to make that happen okay I'm good are there any other questions I interrupted you and I didn't mean to but I was just thinking you know thinking about what you said Cara uh with multiple Pathways we're talking about proficiency and our charge is to educate all of our students in proficiency not Superior you know so my expectation is it doesn't matter what pathway that all of our

055students have the opportunity and the possibility of being proficient so I think that's diff you know that that should be our goal 100% y agreed so I apologize for interrupting no and it will be um one of the things that we're measured on as we as as the state moves forward in identifying um uh each year we should be at a certain level of our all of our students meeting proficiency and so that's going to increase from and so yes um it's it's something that we'll be measured on on by the state is that as a district what percentage of our students are are me efficiency and are we meeting the goals set by the state the targets set by the state but I guess one thing that makes me so proud is this policy

056called for that even before those tables of ex uh in the next 10 years how are we going to get all students to 90% proficient this policy had the expectation and required Administration to report this to you back in 2019 so I I excuse me 2021 um Time Warp there um I I just think that we are committed to making sure we're not not only saying we want all kids to achieve at high levels we're also making sure you hear evidence of that and where we are moving forward so yes we have external accountability by the state but this policy is also our internal accountability um if you wouldn't mind will you address because next year is going to really be the first year of the ninth grade heterogeneous classes and it's only for one

057subject no it would be for English math and biology and some students also take um social studies nth grade but not all but we also are working on that curriculum and for some students for classes so since the next school year 2425 will be the first year that that's implemented and we're looking at all of these four things uh identified on the screen as opportunities that we're doing to move the needle what's realistic in terms of of seeing the data start to change so I wouldn't expect and I want to be sure we set the expectation clearly of it it's like a big giant cruise ship that we're slowing down and adjusting the direction and that doesn't happen in one year so next year it'll be for nth grade right then that will expand and

058then we're going to start holding the system accountable for producing results that would look like closing the gaps those ninth graders aren't going to take the SAT for two years so I just want to be sure we set an expectation that's clear for us and for the um for the public as to when when really will we start to see changes so that we can expand adjust expand and and just be realistic about the if I could just add um I think thanks so saying that because I was about to sort of go there myself is I would also like to see how you're going to track progress for that cohort by cohort because you have the ninth graders who will be incoming who are going to get some of these um you know instructions

059well how you're going to Baseline them and then you know how did they do in in the 10th and then eventually they'll take the SAT the 11th and like to see how are you tracking kind of that group versus I think when we have a mixed cohort where some had the benefit and some didn't it's a little hard to say how how are you progressing um so to respond to both um concerns uh the data that's reported on the school report card is 11th grade is 11th grade data um and so when we talk about heterogeneous class we're talking about um next year's ninth grade students the data on the report card will not reflect that as you as you as as you indicated um but what we will have um and what we can

060track will be that star data so we will be able to collect where are those students when they come into to us at ninth grade this is a beginning of the year Baseline diagnostic data that we have for them um then we will provide for them instruction over the course of the first semester and then in Winter um they would take their middle the year assessment that would allow us to see how effective was our instruction for those ninth grade students from the time that they came to us into where we are mid year um and again they'll do that same thing at the end of the year so that will give us an Apples to Apples comparison and something that we could report out to to you all in terms of how effective was

061the heterogeneous um work right did we see these students grow um from where they came to us um at the beginning of the year to to when they left at the end of the year um do they grow academically uh one one other tool that we'll have for nth grade and again this is going back to the presentation that Charlotte delivered in addition to the 11th grade we also have PSAT 9 or Ps 910 so we'll have it the fall of their eighth grade year then a year and a half later we'll have it the spring of their ninth grade year and the spring of their 10th grade year prior to the spring of their 11th grade year so because we invest in that um that is one additional progress monitoring tool so we have

062grades once we have more common assessments that will be comparing Apples to Apples we'll have star which will be three times a year for all students and more frequently for those receiving intervention and then we'll have the exit one the the sat at the end um so we will have multiple measures and I'm hoping that as the course teams work we continue to find even more Capstone experiences and other things like that that we would say could be something that that would be worthy of reporting to the board on an annual basis and again that's why that that standards alignment is so key um so that when we are assessing in our classrooms we're getting uh reliable data on how students are performing in relationship to that particular skill um that we should also see

063when they take the star which would be aligned to those same skills and standards as the uh sat and when they take that Suite of PSAT or sa PSAT 89 um we should see like consistency throughout um there because of the strong alignment to the the one thing that is weaved in between all of those things are the skills and the standards um and so the stronger alignment that we have in our curriculum and our assessments um we should see uh it would be an indicator for how students will perform on that on that final sat um but again you won't see that data on the report card until that cohort of students gets to gets to 11th grade so 2425 is going to be the pilot year for nth graders so 2526 when they're

06410th graders both the 10th graders and the new ninth graders will be in that system so it will take four full years for all of our students to be receiving this type of of evaluation and instruction our our plan that we presented to you was to focus on the 9th and 10th grade and then because 11th and 12th grade have so many classes that are together that would be that third year of implementation so our goal is to have um no more team talk classes in the Junior and Senior year that three years out because we'll have already had two years of understanding what the students need and making the adjustments in the curriculum um and um just by attrition we know that there'll be fewer and fewer students among that population um so we

065felt we could do two years at once because again a lot of those students are in um some of the same kinds of courses so just to be crystal clear it could be three or four years before we see meaningful differences on these these numbers that we're looking at tonight when we look at them in three years we'll be able to see how our interventions and how the systemic changes are affecting those subgroups for sat achievement there are a few other areas on the state report card that will show some of our intermediate progress um if you recall Charlotte did a presentation on the equity Continuum and where we had dropped down in one area one of the areas we dropped down in was student students of color participation in advanced coursework so that was

066one area I think we went from a 1.9 to a 1.2 or something like that so that that is something that as we show increased enrollment and students aren't at students of color aren't placed in lower level courses that they're on grade level or taking honors in AP or dual credit courses that will be one progress that will show immediately because they take our uh enrollment data every year so again it's not the main achievement one but it will be showing progress on us making sure every student has opportunity to rigorous coursework but I just want to make sure I understand so entering freshman for 2425 will have an eighth grade entering PSAT that you said had 99% participation so when we're sitting here next year when they will be having at the end of

067the year apsat 9 we should be able to compare their entering PSAT 8 into their nine so that can be a part even though it's not a part of our report card from state that is something internally we can be looking at is the gap closing widening staying still and then going forward not only will we have that entering ninth grade but then we will have now a 10th grade that will have had two years opportunity yes so internally we can be comparing that yes even though it's not on the report card correct which I'd much rather be spending more time about talking about is it work and so in your experience did you find that as you had heterogeneous classes and you've had experience are we going to be investing in more Personnel in

068the form of intervention I mean do you need more people to do this or is it a redistribution of people it's a redistribution of people um one of the things that or actually at our Labor Management committee meeting we are um the topic for Thursday morning's meeting is looking at the recommendation from ISP for the fair funding model and what how many Math teachers should you have how many intervention people should you have um based on what they say are an effective program um the tentative plan that we have is definitely over what the ISB funding model would be recommending for both our classroom teachers so our class our original class sizes is smaller but also what they recommend for reading specialists at the secondary level or math interventionists at the secondary level our preliminary

069plan is already exceeding what those guidelines would be for my experience it was not more people it was less time so I had to spend more time reporting out to our support which students required what interventions which left you with less time to instruct is what you're saying it I had less time yes so I'm interested to see how Stars helps us with that but I mean in the old days you would just say Timmy you need to go get more help go to the resource center and now we have tests and the ability to uh to have some data collected that might take some of that burden off I hope so because it's I mean just reporting out on your IEPs you have a large number of IEPs those teachers have to take a

070lot of time to I don't I don't know if every building does it the same but every week I had to report on every one of my students that had an iub that is not that is not the current practice in our district okay I just have one question that came up to my mind through all of this is what do we do with the students who did not have the proficiency levels at n9th at 11th grade but they still have one year left of high school is there a way to kind of catch them up before they graduate or what's the what's that plan for what's the plan for those students in the last year of high school um I think again we use this data for our our um course placement um so

071for our senior senior year those students who are not performing at proficiency um are placed in in courses that um like our College writing course um to sort of um give them an opportunity to remediate whatever skills they may be deficient prior to um graduating um so it's similar to to what we what we've been doing um is providing an opportunity in our classes and in our curriculum for uh a course for the students based on where their per where their performance uh level is right now um or at the at the um time of course recommendation um to try to remediate those those deficiencies that they have it can be difficult to use that um assessment information for placement because it comes so much later so the junior assessment they take it in April

072we get the data but they've already made their course selection for senior year and actually by the time we get the date on individual students it's August so it can it it informs I think we look at the trajectory of students and try to make sure that they are receiving ongoing intervention but I do think that's an area of improvement for our intervention system would be as we get that data over the summer to do some more intentional support mapping of the students in addition to placement so again that that's something that is not part of our current practice taking the data of the individual students who aren't proficient and putting together a support plan um but that's something we definitely need to do yeah I think to me it's almost like when you enter

073ninth grade and you create like here's my four-year plan the desired State you almost want to build something like that for students who might have an achievement Gap right um that was my only question because the SAT is a point in time thing and no one just gets to be less proficient only in the test they got there over time yes so it's just a metric in their entire um journey I was just wanting to make sure that we still have one year to catch them up after that so they still graduate with the skills let's go to the nextend yeah okay um and so when we look at our attendance by um race and ethnicity um we do see uh consistency across all groups um except for our black African-American students last year were

074um slightly lower than each um of the other groups uh but when we uh look at our attend for last semester um we see in the darker blue uh where we are for semester one of this year and our African-American students have increased their attendance um across the district um from last year through semester one so if we see these Trends continue for semester two um we will have eliminated that gap for the attendance for our black and African-American students and increased our overall attendance uh and so what have we been doing how have we gotten this what's happening what did we do um and so Dr uh Ellis Bowen and the LST and her team came together and evaluated the attendance uh procedures and so this is one of those areas where we can

075see immediate change in in next year's report card right based on uh initiatives that were put in place this year um and so they reviewed and updated our attendance procedures and through that review and update obviously we see the fruits of that labor um that all groups are hire in attendance this year and I and and and consistent across U our all of our races and ethnicities um they they're holding student meetings um with students um I think she talked about that process of identifying um points in time where students would be called in as well as families for these meetings as as they uh accumulate absences um conducting risk assessments and providing mentoring to students um our Wellness um our wellness and prevention coordinators um are um assigning mentors I serve as a mentor

076for two students at Vernon Hills um and so that work is really paying off and we see that that change in uh in attendance rate already um so as we double down on those efforts in semester two um and continue to implement those we should uh see uh increased attendance for all groups um for 2023 2024 compared to last year next slide please and now commitment four um looking at Equitable resources um really in the policy it talks about how it's important for us to determine how we're allocating our resources and move away from a fairs equal approach right I'm really following the dollars uh because how we allocate our funds um gives us a good indication of how we prioritize Equity as a district um and so metrics that we're going to be looking

077at um tonight include um a reporting on some of our student programs um identifying and Reporting on our professional learning programs for staff and um looking at a District budget and how some funds have been Equity equitably allocated and so we looked at this in really three areas of of what we are calling resource Equity right our Capital project prioritization uh our professional learning allocation and our specialized programming and staus um and so Dan Stanley and his team um really took a a AE on approach to what are the areas in terms of how we allocate our resources that we can evaluate for Equity um that we can create resources and tools that will allow us to more equitably allocate those resources um and then allowing our um most um the most needed groups of

078students to receive uh allocations and funding in an equitable way um which may mean that we're providing additional resources to certain groups uh for for student achievement so let's Dive Right In um and start off with our professional learning budget so last year for the first time um we really evaluated how our staff um professional learning opportunities were going to be improved um and so uh we looked at three big priority areas that were going to drive the work of of of approving those um requests um and in in no particular order but one of the priorities is that is it a requirement right is it required for the staff member to attend this if so then uh that was it was awarded points for that um does it align to our strategic plan goals

079um of the three and with equity and inclusion being one of them and making sure that it is specifically a part of that action plan that was designed for those three goal areas and if so it was awarded points for that and then third other considerations that we considered were um does it support our broader strategic goals um does it impact instruction um and providing High imp high impact instruction for our students um does it uh build the leadership capacity uh or and does it support the curriculum and content knowledge and so these three priorities of how we uh assess the uh requests for professional learning to determine what professional learning would be approved um for our staff to attend next slide um the second area was our capital project criteria now you all have

080seen this rubric um already um Dan did a presentation on how we came to our prioritized uh list of capital projects but when we think about equity and inclusion from this list next slide please um we narrowed it down to what were the key criteria that was connected to equity um and so we identified for each um area um that one if this if it is aligned to our equity and inclusion um strategic plan goal um that makes it uh ensures that it is prioritized in equity um and then student impact the impact that it would have for um students looking at uh the number of students but also which students are going to be impacted and what that impact would be whether it would be academic U sdl or behavioral and then looking at

081our systems Improvement does it improve accessibility um for um students with disabilities and does the project uh have a a specific impact on or improve our delivery of instructional services for students to allow them to uh better receive the intervent the uh to better receive the instruction that we are providing and so these areas were the areas that we said here are those that are directly aligned to our Equity goals our Equity policy um and so within that larger more comprehensive uh review it includes making sure that as we prioritize that Equity also played a role in how we were Crea that list of prioritized projects and then lastly um for our specialized programs um this year we did we did a lot with our El program and providing additional funds um from our budget

082to support the students and the El program um and some of those things included uh additional FTE allocations for a department chair making sure that there was an administrator um designated to um overseeing the E program um course sections um based on the number of students that are um enrolling in our e program uh and then our teacher assistants making sure that we have uh a a proportionate ratio for our teacher assistance to support our students in our e program um and and and when we talk about that ratio that was something that was developed this year um to decide what is the right number of um students to each teacher assistant and looking at the setting in which that occurs um and then including in our postings for teaching assistance a preferred language to

083match the needs of our e students and then ongoing program monitoring to ensure that as we are putting these uh initiatives in place for our e program that it is supporting and impacting the achievement for iel students and so that work um really is uh three areas in which um we are diving in to to support the resources um that we are providing as a district um that Alliance High great piece and then commitment nine Our Community Partnerships um looking at how we are um supporting and partnering with our community um to uh to promote equity and inclusion and we're going to be looking at the Partnerships through meetings and opportunities for the back and two a communication than slide in our action plan we specifically uh highlighted that we wanted to partner with families

084um of under represented um families within our community and increase that level of Engagement um and so we've done some work to do that and get feedback from them and and engaged with that two-way communication that we talked about in the in the policy the ways that we've done that next slide have been through our family dinners um we've had three family dinners over the course of the implementation of the equity uh action plan um one for our black and African American families one for our Latino families and one for our our Asian families um and so with those dinners we had over 200 uh family members come out and we had over 200 families um to support those those events I'm Sor over 200 participants over 40 families um to support those events and

085give us an opportunity to have direct conversation um with them these uh dinners were provided in conjunction with our um student Affinity groups of of each area and so some of the feedback that we received the top five things that our families um said that um we asked them how could District 128 better support your student and your family and one of the things that they said is uh number one is more opportunities to network with families of color um that they are a part of the community as well um which is a reflection of our schools and so they want more opportunities to spend time with other families that look like them um and and and so they appreciate the work that we had done in these um initiatives and would like to see

086them continue also an increase effort to promote belonging for families of color ensuring that our buildings are are welcoming and inviting that any correspondences that we send out um and that um as they are engaged with our our schools um that they feel a sense of connection um to it um and then they want to host informational sessions for families of color giving them opportunities to say we want more information about this particular initiative happening here um and um and and then providing that information for them then offering mentoring opportunities for students of color um making sure that we are providing more of that um and in addition to the work that um I talked about earlier with the uh Health with our wellness and prevention coordinators we're also bringing in uh for uh both

087Libertyville and Vernon Hills High School a partnership with um the My Brother's Keeper Alliance um that will will allow an additional opportunity for mentoring for um 40 boys of color across across our district and then also they wanted to ensure that we continue to work on enhancing the representation in our curriculum um and this work is happening through our um curriculum redesign as we are evaluating our core um courses um specifically our English and um social studies courses our literacy courses at the ninth grade level to make sure that those courses are representative of the very ious cultures and diversity within our uh d128 family next slide and then beyond um race and ethnicity we also have devel developed our Interfaith Advisory Group um this group um met for the first time um in December

088uh and will continue to meet throughout the course of the year and and and years to come and it started off in response to our shifts to the operational calendar but as this group came together we found that our work really is more than about um talking about the calendar and religious holidays the purpose of this group Next slot is that we want to make sure that we're here as a a a resource for the district um that we're providing opportunities for that two-way communication between the district and the community um that the policy called for and that we're able to create connections um and support systems for our students of various faiths um to support our staff um in ensuring that we are creating an inclusive environment that allows our students to observe their

089religious holidays and provide more information for um both our students our staff and our community about the nuances of specific Faith so that we're all um all that we're building the awareness of all stakeholders across d128 so that work has really um transformed into um a a a a larger more meaningful more purposeful uh group that is going to be continuing throughout the course of the year and into next year and years to follow now commitment 10 um is the final commitment that we will um uh talk about this evening and that is our Equity Focus professional learning um and our policy requires that we have both mandatory and voluntary Equity focused professional learning opportunities and that we report out on the participation of those um opportunities and so for our uh optional Equity focused

090professional learning this semester um last first semester of last year uh d128 offered 87 Equity focused professional learning sessions um over the course of um from SE from August through December and we had uh 1,388 U participants enrolling in those sessions um topics for those sessions included things like grading for Equity um differentiation so that um we could provide more um culturally responsive interventions for our students curriculum development um that we talked about some inclusive service exploration making sure that we are providing opportunities for our students to receive their services um in the uh in the least restrictive environment um some reflection on bias and beliefs how to use star data for instruction and how to build us a sense of belonging in the classroom um with some of the topics that that were covered

091in the first semester and then I require training for first semester Mester for all teachers was our Advocate training um from EOS or what we call our trusted adult training uh and in this course it was um provided to all staff uh our students took a survey and they indicated who their trusted adults were as our as we create our um Outreach list for students who we're targeting for um our Advanced uh placement opportunities um and diagonal movement um we wanted to be able to have an conversation with that student with someone who they uh who they respected um who they identified as that trusted adult so we trained every every staff member um not every staff member may have been tapped in at this particular point in time because we had a targeted group

092of students that we were uh focused on uh getting to enroll in in a higher level course um but whoever that student identified as a trusted adult um that person was to have that conversation with them and to really Inspire them and Advocate um with them that they had the qualities and the potential to do well in in a in a more rigorous course um and so we're pleased and and happy that our teachers took that initiative um because it really speaks volumes to the work that they're doing when our students say this is somebody that I have a strong relationship with and it means a lot when we can have those kinds of conversations facilitated with our students who may be um reluctant or may have may have never considered taking a more advanced

093course um but having come from this particular individual um really would make uh uh a world of difference for them for them um so we're pleased that our staff um took that initiative on and that is the end of the four um commitments that we're reporting out on today if there any additional questions we'd be happy to take those at this time for the um Advocate training how often is that going to be offered once a year once a year okay thank you not a question but just a point of Celebration I think is uh the the increase in districtwide attendance um just want to call attention to what a remarkable you know amount of growth that was in such a short time so Larry thank you and your team for working so hard on

094that that's great I only report the data that the kudos to that really goes to um Dr Ellis Bowen and her team um who designed uh an attendance um intervention plan um who saw the need for uh uh the work to happen to really address what's our our attendance concerns well I will make sure to celebrate them accordingly thank than you nonetheless yeah that's a topic that is being reported nationally as a challenge to um recovering some of the learning loss from the pandemic and the fact that we're making progress um not only in the gaps but in attendance I think um is definitely something to celebrate so I want to amplify that point Larry the professional learning was that mostly inhouse or was that is that everybody going out to different workshops and conferences

095or were most most of those opportunities inhouse and were they given by our colleagues those are all in-house opportunities that have been led by our um uh Dynamic um uh facilitators here in District 128 so our instructional cultures um put together um uh presentations our Equity coordinators put together presentations um some of our administrators put together presentations some of those things were um train the trainer models where our instructional coaches may have gone to uh a training on doable differentiation specifically um and then they came back and provided that that uh information to our staffs and and that's exactly what we what we want to happen when we invest in them going going to these um oh for sure things like that so are those numbers pretty consistent or are we seeing more participation and

096more interest I'm I'm just going to jump in on the there's that's a combination of different kinds of Staff learning so the ones that Larry has been talking about because we draw this data from our Frontline system we're teachers register for anything from a lunch and learn to an after school session to an all day training about um inclusive practices so those sessions would be almost teacher or staff because some it's not only teachers at staff also staff documentation that we need to be able to give them credit for their lure so that's where we pull the data from so it is a combination of lunch and learns before school meetings during school where they might have needed a sub um an evening course um so I think that um have those things increased um

097I think i' I'd have to actually pull the data on that Larry do you have a sense if you think those have increased our offerings have increased um I think it's a it's a it's a two- layered question uh at least I see that's a two- layer question right our offerings have increased have have the number of participants increased well with the offerings increasing yes are the same people taking advantage of those opportunities would also say yes uh right so are we reaching more um of our staff members with our optional with our optional um offerings um not significant thank you are there any other questions okay oh I I'm sorry no sorry no yeah does it doesn't work that way no I'm sorry yeah thank you we would appreciate a question by email though

098so we can respond thank you thank you all right uh I think we're moving on to Bryant now right policy board policies board policies this is our uh second reading um and hopefully we can adopt our new updated board policies at our January 30th board meeting so again just to review that um I think all the dates are in there that uh the background information of um us going through and um reviewing our current uh procedures our current policies working with iasb um on those and then um and then you know going through just from June through September working um in our committee on updating our board policies reviewing them all sections one through eight and so we are bringing the whole board policy to you um to be um updated I've included that document

099I think some of the other uh highlighted some of the changes that uh we have in the document and our goal is to have this for approval in January and then following that we'll probably have some more updates coming right away so I appreciate the memo the notes that sort of uh summarize all the changes um were very helpful because it's hard to go back to the old policy manual and compare it to the new policy draft but having the memo even though we did we've discussed it it was very helpful to have so thank you for doing that yeah it's a lot uh I was going to interrupt Dan but he he uh he looked like he needed to take a walk there um there is a something came across today frantic uh sent

100something out about um the threshold so we've had this conversation before but I thought it would be appropriate to the $25,000 to $35,000 threshold three of us did communicate about that today yes so our threshold our current board policies at 25,000 the uh board policy um because of the timing of us updating our board policy some of the new changes are not in this and that's why a new set of um recommendations will be coming forward from the ISB press and so that that may be included uded in there so what what Don's talking about is that going out for bid the current um threshold is $25,000 and so anything over $25,000 we have to go off for bid the recommendation the the the language has changed that you can increase that to $35,000 obviously

101so we're not not not not in compliance because 25,000 if something is 27 we follow our board policy we go out forbid on it and it's within the law um it's just a matter of whether or not we want to increase that to 35 so that'll come in our next round so it's just the odd timing of us trying to get this and ISB um I think Tammy you know had indicated maybe that some of those were going to come out in early fall they got delayed a little bit their recommendations from ISB um they usually put it together in a whole packet so okay and then there was one other uh there was a law that changed January 1st for library media centers that um said that districts had to either adopt the um

102National American uh library association's library Bill of Rights uh or they had to come up with a policy statement uh that forbids book Banning uh we already are compliant we already have as one of the points in our current policy that we will be adopting that we follow the American library association's library bill of right so we're good to go there too and then were there any other comments about board policies the second reading were usually exhausted so I have none others all right let's move [Music] on Educational Tours yes there's four Educational Tours that you have access to I would like to um file this under there are no dumb questions what is the HOSA Club so funny that's the only question it's not even on the activities list yeah it's not listed in

103our Student Activities I think it's Health occupations and it might be uh I don't it should be listed on there but it is one that is connected to our CTE program and uh is actually a club that we need to have in existence to be eligible for certain grants um so not only is it a good OPP criticizing or just want for my own I'm I'm 99% certain that it's Health occupation student something Health occupation students of America awesome future health professionals and then for future reference can we just have them spell out whatever that club happens to be because sometimes I find that I have to go look that up or can get it contextually because they're having a chess tournament or something so I I figure that one out but we will we

104will put a reminder to spell out all acronyms in the application yes thank you uh if there aren't any questions employment of employees Personnel Report with um an ESP and a couple coaching extracurricular staff positions and any questions okay we're moving on to Future agenda items there are a number of future agenda items listed is there anybody that would like to have something else placed on a future agenda okay seeing none I'm going to adjourn the P&P meeting and move on to fnf right and Jim's absence I will take us through fnf and the first item on our agenda is an invitation for public public comment is there anybody wishing to address the board since we have no one in the audience we are going to move along uh first item for discussion is radon

105testing is your agenda name pardon me my agenda is not opening now it just did Sor did you get it yeah okay great um so happy radon Awareness Month um is it actually it actually is it's just a coincidence but let's give a little background um as to why we are talking about this even beyond the background information um radon testing is not required in the state of Illinois for public schools so the reason why it came up is because there has been some talk about whether or not it should be required because it's required when you buy real estate um the reason it's required is because radon is a colorless odorless tasteless gas that causes lung cancer it's the second leading cause of lung cancer it can also cause any cancer not just lung

106cancer I did not know that I thought it was primarily lung cancer in any event um that's why we are wondering if it's something that we could undertake in our buildings for safety sake um since we've received these quotes we did um discover that the state of Illinois does provide grant funding um and public schools are one of the areas that they identify as especially um as a priority for those grants um so as we move forward um it is something that I know that um Dan and his staff are going to take a look at whether or not it's possible for that funding to be available should we decide to proceed um there is also the opportunity for um us to have a staff member certified um to perform rate on testing so that

107in the future we wouldn't have to go um out to bid for the additional expense um so um we could talk about a little bit the first proposal that we got and then the more recent one that's in the board packet maybe some recommendations as to um how we might want to think about rate on testing for the district yes so uh the first proposal we G we asked our environmental consultant for they came back higher than any of us would have guessed at 145,000 that was a pretty comprehensive look do you uh can you talk about that first one we that we got yeah basically in the first one I sent out maps of all the schools and try to highlight the areas uh that are either over across your might closer highlight the

108areas either over crawl space or on slab or at grade um when we saw the numbers that came back uh realized you know we needed to do an in-depth walk build walk the building and go classroom by classroom so uh I proceeded with that for the second quote um explained every area when we walk through we're over crawl space you're on slab you know marked all locations every classroom office um you don't do washrooms you don't do utility closets things like that so just occupied rooms so that's where the second quote came from we took the initial maps and then we you know put an actual scope together and then since then we you know we've had some questions uh that have come in today about it so a few things one is we didn't

109really look to our the buildings that we leased to have to look at that that might be something included that we can just request of the owner we don't know that we'll have to look into that and find that out um um and then um something like this due to this the size of the cost it would need to be bid uh there's while while while we're not uh experts on chemicals and chemistry not all of us at least uh radon testing isn't that complicated uh to do and so uh we can get people to do that and so it's not something that's exempt from the bidding uh laws uh for example some people might be able to try to claim like a a high level Professional Service that you uh need that but you

110wouldn't really have that for something like radon testing uh so there's more things that we can investigate in terms of uh could you look at a smaller sample size uh to give you a sense and then see if that indicates you need to do more testing uh like similar what we do with indoor air quality testing we kind of pick some random spots each year uh to test to try to get a sense and then if something comes up we'll investigate more further in those specific areas uh but we were trying to respond to just a holistic looking at all of our buildings uh what would that what would that look like to test those uh so that's the background information really that I have on the testing and finding out um you know it's

111it's not required by the state it is it's recommended by the state recommended every five years um we ever done it pardon have we ever done it not to my knowledge and not to my knowledge either so is it worth postponing um going out to bid to in order to um do some research into the grant opportunities or do we have to have a bid that we've approved in order to qualify for Grant without having to review any of that grant information not I couldn't answer that question uh I I don't know I don't know yet okay my suggestion would be that we sort of um that we pursue that and that we know in what order we need to do this before we decide whether or not we're going to approve the funds um

112it's possible that we might have to have a you know they call it a shovel ready project in order to qualify for the grant and if that's the case then we can put it back on the agenda and decide whether or not you know as a health and safety concern it's something we want to prioritize or um how we want to handle it but I think we'd probably uh be best off before we um move this to the board agenda for a vote um give the administration a little bit more time to do the research and find out what the um what the correct order of things might be as well as to find out if that least building is our responsibility to test or if we can um either have the landlord do it

113or partner with share the cost with the landlord Bo and that wasn't a part of the buildout for transition no since it's it's not required by state law um it would have been part of the build out and since it's not required by state law it's technically not their building owner responsibility if we were doing a daycare center or something there um then it is state law you have to as an example um but there is I've I've been hearing rumors that there there are people trying to push push legislation uh to make this estate law that every every school has to comply so I'm not sure where that is um that will result in people complaining about unfunded mandates yeah it's it's the double-edged sword we say we want these kinds of requirements but

114for some districts this will be very difficult to fund yeah as you can see we're we need to test 428 locations you know different areas yeah you know building the state has already at least provided some funding and a willingness to fund testing because it's easily it's not difficult to remediate and you know it's it's sort of a it's a preventable uh situation so um you know I appreciate that you know that balance between unfunded man and you know a school like ours has the resources where if we decide to make it a priority we can do it but that's not really Equitable so addressing that at the state level would sort of you know answer the equity question um why should well-resourced districts be safer than but I think for for our concern I

115think um I'd like to know you know what order we should do things in in order to possibly qualify for a grant and if the landlord would be willing to partner with us on it you know it's not a daycare but it is there are students there and if radon is detected there that would be beneficial for not only us as a tenant to know but for it would be a benefit to other tenants as well so it's worth asking if they're willing I think I would also like to explore the possibility of doing some sampling before just doing a blanket and the reason that I say that is can you explain what you mean by that so so however many ground level because we're not worried about anything that's above second floor we have

116positive pressure in the building it's blowing air out all the time so radio nuclears are probably not building up in this library but if you are downstairs um then that possibility exists um and is that the The Proposal that we got was that just for ground level and below ground so it be lower level below to to is a lower level here but the majority of the school is on ground level or has a crawl space below it so but it's it's correct all those areas upper levels are not no the way it comes in is through cracks in the foundation or cracks in the flooring uh yes it's a odorless colorless gas um comes from uranium de Decay underground Works its way up and if you happen to have uranium over there then it'll

117show up over there but it won't show up over here so houses right next to each other one can have rate on and the other W just depends on whether or not has a pathway so sampling I think would save us some money um and if you detect it then go in with more aggressive because my guess is that most of the spaces here are all going to be under the threshold well under the threshold and if you find a space that's even at the threshold or a little above then you can really dial in and find out where it is so I believe you I'm also not an expert on radon and that's why in order to protect the district's liability we should check that theory with the environmental company that gave us a

118quote and make sure that doing that sampling would satisfy true the requirements because what I don't want to happen is us to have a situation where we had undetected rate on and then somebody said well you said that we right right and that's not a position I would ever want you or our board to be in so let's check that and see if it's possible to do just a sampling if the environmental company is on board with that and if so then I think that's an excellent approach one of the things that you said Lisa I just wanted to maybe clarify you said with the requirements I just want to Circle back and make sure this is not a requirement uh yes thank you for clarifying that I meant in order to consider the testing

119be valid yeah yeah because all of this is a potential proactive measure by the Board of Education this is not a requirement okay I will check with our Consultants about you know random testing but you know for my experience in situations like this uh you run the same thing One House next to another there could be a crack on the floor in one room and you do the room next door it doesn't show up right now you're giv a false sense of security or you know comfort that people that there's no R down when there actually is in the room next door so um I personally advise advise against it but I will check into it and you know see if it is a viable option okay just that we're we're going to look at

120the Grant in terms of the timeline of what would be the ideal timeline for that looking into our lease buildings and partnering with the owners or something like that um and then looking at as a potential sampling option uh as an alternative First Step perfect and then how much time do you think is reasonable before we see this on a future agenda I I'm trying to discern if you're asking me like are you really asking me can we see an answer to these questions at the January board meeting um versus like a febru the next February I I just wanted to set the expectation of when it would be realistic to see this on another agenda time you need I think it's most realistic at the February committee meeting that's fine I then if we

121could just add that to Future agenda items for February committee and if we don't have the information at that time we'll will re-evaluate when it's practical to add it yes okay thank you uh Vernon Hills High School Chiller replacement uh yeah so we are uh now entering into like the slew of our summer 24 capital projects uh and so the ones that we presented back in October uh Markus been working diligently on the scope and bidding those out and so we have a number of them uh here tonight not all of them and so we have provided you updated information on the total for the summer and then each of these kind of ticking off because there are distinct bids that we want to make sure we acknowledge and the the law requires the board

122to react to each bid um we did I believe get attached pictures and uh visual uh so that you all have that as well as a reference point so uh with that um maybe let me just walk through uh each one and see how we go is that all right Perfect all right so the for the for the chiller uh we had boy I know I wrote this down bless you oh the chill sorry the chiller uh this has not bid uh this is a co-op pricing contract with Omnia this is very similar to what we did with the LA just Chiller uh for is the what's this is that installed right now uh they they it was just arrived to the storage building so we'll be starting it here end of January beginning of

123February so extremely similar process just replicated for Vernon Hills um except the chillers don't work exactly the same way I think right yeah it's different type of different type of chillers thank you uh so the proposal is 1 1,170 th000 which is lower than 1.2 that we estimated does have a contingency of 100,000 in there um this one is pretty straightforward in terms of that it's not like we had competitive businesses a train Co-op pricing any questions about the chiller does that eventually go out to bid or is it because it's part of the co-op we don't have to bid it uh it is already considered bid through the co-op pricing um so they we had meetings and brought individual contractors in and they put all the pricing together and then came with the proposal

124under Co-op pricing okay and this is uh this is not unique necessarily to the chiller but it's more the whole context I did put this note in each of the ones um we are trending under in our total so far based on this so in order uh to off not to offset uh in response to that Mark is looking to add more HVAC uh more HVAC and hallway ceing ceiling and lighting um to do those because we need to do them anyways and so if these come under he's looking to add more there but we don't have all that information exactly yet um so I just wanted to give that context for that that will come at a future meeting okay moving on to the Vernon Hills High School roof roof Replacements uh so we

125originally had listed on there roofs 10 11 2 and 2 a uh those came in under bid and Mark had an that was added for roof n and so um taking the recommendation uh with rof nine um Redford is the low bid um with a total cost of 1.1 1629 million um for that project which is uh less than what we estimated at 1.4 um Mark do you want to talk a little bit about that one because that came in a a bit under what we estimated you have a sense of what that is attributable to um pricing is held on on roofing materials um and labor U across the board everybody's been bidding early um so I think it's everybody's been locking their bids in they actually doing roofs in September um so um

126we're fortunate enough to you know we went out early went out in December did it and um able to lock in you know a pricing so people are scheduling getting all their work locked in for the summer so it was pretty competitive um the bids were were fairly close across the board so um I think that going out the you know early this time um a little bit earlier uh has helped us and with pricing you know holding on material s also help so and I just want to Circle back to something we talked about at previous meeting in terms of uh looking at solar as well for these R so we don't have that yet for this what we've been working on is like a like a a bigger look at solar almost like

127a catchup to the roofs that are we've already done and these ones that we'd be doing so we're kind of working on that that's kind of a bigger catchup that we're just not quite ready yet um so that information will be coming shortly but we're we're just not ready with and that's separate because you explained to me it's a separate contractor it's separate materials it is not something that these roofing contractors could have bid on or helped us with correct that was our understanding there are a few people out there that will do the whole package um uh but with our roof consultant and the way we do our roofs um our roof consultant would be wouldn't be involved so um at this point not knowing what we know or what we don't know um

128about the solar and how you purchase it the different options you have um you know for f future projects it could be possible to do it all in with one company but for right now um it's best I think for us to separate it and obviously our roofs are already done so the roofs you know that that are available to do right away are already in place so you would we wouldn't be using a r contractor but as we learned more about the process we can look into that for the future you know for future roughs on verer hills and Libertyville High School okay you mean having both a company that does solar and does Roofing at the same time that's what you'd be looking into in the future it's would be an option or

129we bid it at the same time we have our solar layout and we do the roof and then we tell our roofing company here this is where you put it the Solar Company comes in afterwards um and then installs the equipment so ideally we'll get to that point you know once we know more about funding and and things like that um um in the future you know budget wise and if we know if the structure can handle it you know then we can look at you know doing the same projects you know do it in the same year or coincide you know finish the roof and then the roof panels can go on in the summer I mean in the fall that type of thing so so there's no such thing as being solar ready

130I thought that's what we were talking about being solar ready so these bids are not for roofs to be solar ready basically our roofs will be solar you could put solar panels on them we've upgraded our insulation and uh and they're not Stone ballast roof anymore so they are a fully adhered uh system so they are ready to put solar panels on them so we would not be incurring additional expense by accepting these bids and then doing solar when we're ready you're you're going to have an additional expense with solar because there's no design no I guess that's not additional are it's basically are we are we putting good money after bad or bad uh if we were to decide to do solar in the future would it have been cheaper today to be solar

131ready I mean I'm kind of out of this is not my area but criticisms have come that we're we're going to incur additional expense there's going to be additional outside of just putting solar in yeah there will be additional expense in tie downs you'll have to open a roof you'll have to tie downs have to go down to the structure but without having a layout and all your specific materials you're framing all that totally designed and knowing EX exactly where you have to put it in you have to have that solar package done first before the roofer can start the roof so if we don't if you know President we would there you know we hadn't discussed doing the solar before we did the roof um there wasn't uh as far as I know there

132wasn't a budget for it but we just are doing our roofs that need to be done uh that are over 20 years old you know and we're we're placing the roofs that have had the most leaks and we're working our way around the buildings but I know I read in in the packet for this month and we've talked about before that there are sections of the Vernon Hills High School roof that are uh sold ready in that they they could handle a solar application on top of what we have installed yes of course installed can handle a solar application the president rofson on there no because they have a Stone roof ballast basically the roofing is glued around the edges and they have Rock holding it down it's like laying down a tarp and pinning

133the corners and the whole middle just flaps loose so if we remove the stone the roof could blow off in heavy winds um now we have a fully adhered surface the Stone's not necessary so we're having engineering the stone is so much weight per square foot we're removing that we're increasing our insulation and our new roofing material is so much per square foot leaving us the theoretically the the pound per square foot of the existing structure to hold the additional weight of your solar panels and your your ballast that go with the solar panels it all depends on your design um of the system that you put on the roof so am I am I correct that there are sections of Vernon Hills High School roof that are solar ready yes yes absolutely so we

134have we have some roofs that we've replaced within the last few years that absolutely can hold panels the question is just how many panels can it hold and there's a there's a due consideration in terms of where those roofs are and whether or not they'll actually get any sun to have panels on them uh because if you remember like at Vernon Hills it has that really tall what's it Fly stage that thing and that blocks part other parts of other roofs for a good portion of the time depending on the Sun so we're trying to look at those things to see what what would be um because it kind of is would be terrible if we put solar panels on a roof that is never going to get sunlight so we're want to make sure

135we're kind of conscious of that too that's why we're looking at like a bigger thing I think to the let me two things one is when we're talking about solar ready what we intend to communicate is that the the roof will be able to hold solar panels right now we have a lot of roofs that you can't add any weight to so you can't add anything let alone solar panels to the roofs Our intention is that as we go in for each roof that we're doing them in a way that they'll be able to hold weight of of solar panels how many it depends on the panels and maybe they get lighter like there's a lot of things that go into it the terms terms of how much maybe you can put to maximize that

136um that that we would need a a solar designer to kind of tell us specifically but the idea is so that it can hold weight of solar panels when you're asking about um uh would this be cheaper if you did both at the same time right essentially is kind of what you're asking and I the the answer has to be yes um it would be cheaper if we replace the entire Vernon Hills roof at one time right there's there's a sense that like if you wanted to save money and do something you absolutely can do more at the same time and get more better economies of scale that has to be mathematically true we're we're trying to navigate the logistics of doing the roofs and and just the the the size of that roof is

137just more than what we feel we can handle so that's why we're chunking it and trying to do it in a way that's more cyclical because then 20 years from now we don't want to have to replace the entire roof again at one time we'd rather like segment it out the idea of solar is still new to us and we don't have an established solar system to replicate across all of our roofs and so what we were trying to look at is a way to catch up not only a way to look at not only these roofs but the other roofs that we already have that we've already replaced those roofs um to try to catch us up to get us current um and hopefully establish some type of replicable solar system because it you

138know as we kind of grow this over the years we would like to look at that the other the other thing that I'm reminded of is when we were looking at solar really the request was to look at what what would be the price of Solar as we are doing these rofs to get a sense of of whether we want to do the roof and do solar at the same time and so I think the idea is if you really wanted to do it and save money you already have a decided you already have a decided scope that includes solar and that it can be designed towards that way that's not just been this that's really just not been the situation we've been in that we said we know that we want this scope to

139include solar that is not where we were with these rowes it was that we were going to replace these rowes and we wanted to look at what would it look like to add solar to those rowes and so we're trying to respond to that uh differently um so so to Circle back it would be more you would absolutely mathematically need to save money if you did it all together at the same time that's just not the place that we were at wouldn't we need to have more of a plan a systemic plan for solar figure out like what we don't have a sustainability policy that would guide adding something like this and we don't have the money we don't have we we just we don't we're not ready to jump in with both feet as

140much as it's a great idea to solar so I think there are a few steps that we have to have in place first um both to guide us as a policy and what we're prioritizing for capital projects because we've gone to Great Lengths to prioritize our capital projects we have a very specific plan in place that's guided uh by our strategic plan and we're not going to just blow that up uh randomly we're we're going to continue to proceed with following our strategic plan budgeting and you know the the all of those questions I think have to be answered before we're ready to jump in and add add something um as costly to our entire system as this would be so I think I think there's a couple of steps we have to go through

141uh both from a financial standpoint as well as a policy standpoint a little push back it is possible to have Roes installed that would cost us nothing we are choosing not to do that is are you sure that's true yeah I think that we can find systems where we rent our roof space the problem is we don't own those solar panels then we don't get the full benefit out of them but it it is possible to have roofs installed where somebody else pays for the system I have a friend that's putting a megawatt in a desert because there was somebody that wants to get carbon offsets and so that that organization's not going to spend a dime because somebody else wants to those those things are available but we're not I don't think we are

142aggressively investing ating them so I think we don't have a policy or a strategic plan that provokes us to aggressively investigate them and I don't think it's advisable to set aside all the work we've done both from a budgeting standpoint and a strategic plan standpoint to just decide to add it because it's a good thing to do I think what we need to do is allow the administration to pursue it at our direction if we decide to direct it but that it has to be a much more comprehensive conversation that I think we can have right now when we're looking to I agree the first time I brought this up was in 2019 it's 2024 five years later so I understand Co happened I understand there were supply chain issues I also understand that this

143isn't actually one of the topics of conversation tonight solar's not on the agenda but I I think that there are other ways if we had five different companies come in and Pitch to us what they could do for us well then we'd have more information we have right now but I guarantee you there are companies who will for very little cost if any put solar on our roof that's great and I mean the only push back is we would have to actually examine what those proposals are and how they fit into our budget and our and that takes I understand it takes time from our staff um and we don't have a specific suain sustainability policy but we could if I could just add so we back to what I said earlier like we are

144looking at a bigger solar catchup and because I've said before like the we've looked at our prioritized Capital list and we're solar ranked in terms of us putting additional dollars in is is lower down the list there are other things that are higher on that list and I know that I have a I know this about myself is I can have a bias of the perfect letting the enemy of be the enemy of the good and I know that about myself and so uh a few months ago we started talking about how can we look at adding solar that wouldn't affect our Capital funding um to do that and so that's the pro we're just not quite there yet we are working on this we're just not quite ready to share that information yet um

145about what that could look like and so we are looking at a way to try to see what it would look like to have us get caught up on solar with the roof that we have and potentially at something that doesn't really affect us in terms of needing to put a lot of cash down Upfront for something uh there's different options you have to pay for solar uh over period of time you still end up paying for it one way or another it's just the question of are you paying cash upfront now or are you really spreading that cost over a period of time uh in terms of you're buying energy instead of you're buying um the solar panels necessarily and so so I'm but we're we're not we're not there yet and so I

146want to be able to present with you here are the roofs that we've looked at here's what the system could look like here are the ways that you could pay for something something and then see see what you think so we are in process with that right now um that's not that I'm going to bring that information back to you that's great and I I have heard you talking about it since you first brought it up so in order to avoid frustration could you set our expectation as to when it would be realistic for us to receive that presentation or do you want to think about it and let us know at an upcoming meeting when we could expect to receive that information from you that's probably not info I could give you right now

147I would need to get back to you yeah but I can and yeah let us just in order to avoid frustration let us know when it would be realistic to expect um a presentation about our solar options it may not avoid the frustration I'm but well to whatever extent we can do that we I I I hear you and and I agree it's something that we've been talking about for a really long time and I I agree with your statement that we sort of had to set it aside during covid but it's important that we look at it and see where it fits in with everything that we're doing we we've been talking about it for a long time so I I think the essence of the question I'm going to speak a little bit

148for you cara but I had the same question as I think this roof fixing this roof is required it's like the first step in order for us to do with anything to do with solar in the future is how I understand it but the essence of the question is let's say we do solar in a year or two years or whenever in the future we don't want to rip out what we just did here throw it away and let's start something new before we can add solar on top of it I think that's the essence of the question not to say let's do solar along with the roof that that would that would not happen Okay um I the word that's in my head is that would be unconscionable to bring that to you to

149spend a million dollars on a roof and then to come to you here later and rip it all up that's not what we're talking about what we're talking about is um they would do changes to the roof and we would we would absolutely make sure that you know like the anchor the all the the solar things we' make sure those are done care so that as affect the Integrity of the roof but we're not talking about anything that would undo uh the work that these roof Replacements are doing right thank you thank you for that clarification okay any other discussion about this roof replacement um because it is something we will be um voting on we'll be taking action at the board meeting correct any other questions no okay moving on to the LHS masonry

150repairs uh so for masonry we had them split out originally in our Capital plan for uh the CT Wing here over there at LHS um what's here at L over like I'm pointing it's over there um literally and then the Bas and then the baseball Dugout was a separate thing the masonry bid together because it's the masonry work um those came in higher uh than what we estimated um and so the low bid was Bergland at 89.5 ,000 uh that's higher we estimated 50,000 and so we were we were not correct on there um but that will do the M the the masonry repairs to the to the wing the CT Wing over here and then the the baseball Dugout anything else I'm missing no that's it there the varsity baseball dugouts okay any questions

151moving on uh that Segways us to the baseball Dugout Roofing replacement LHS now the roof that's on top of the Dugout that um the low bit is A1 Roofing 67550 um that is less than the $70,000 estimate and that one is pretty straightforward three bids received on that one great any questions no okay moving on to the Vernon Hills High School hallway carpet replacement yes this one is um trying to finish up the hallway carpet replacement and so the proposal is U just under 180,000 with Shaw that's CAU pricing it's less than the than the $300,000 estimate but we are still waiting on a component uh that in that is includes the help me out here the the pool mezzanine the pool mezanine for um so that that is included in our 300 estimate but

152we don't have that information yet uh so we still would like to move forward with the carpet if the pool mezine comes in too high we're just going to pause that until next year pause the mezanine part yes yeah pause pause the mezine but the other one we want to get that carpet uh moving forward so okay any questions yes at a previous meeting I asked you if carpeting was a good decision going forward for verin Hills High School that if a more price effective uh option and an option that might give us more longevity in our floors would be some type of hard flooring um and so I'm still curious what that answer might be you're yeah you're right I now i' totally forgot that you asked that I'm so sorry I I remember

153you ask well I don't remember you asking but I remember that question question now um and I definitely did not relay that to Mark so can I put you in the spot or not um I think the question is like what if you change the hallway what if you change out what if you change the hallway flooring to tile tile or or something that you don't have to replace every X number of years but you saw what would that uh not sure about pricing if it's about the same um obviously longevity they they presently say You're supposed to replace your VCT Tile you know the tile squares yeah they give it a longevity of 10 to 15 years but obviously we know we get longer like longer life out of it than that so um

154what's the carpet replacement recommendation 10 I thought isn't it it's it's about same it's 15 20 years depending on the carp and if I remember I I think because of the two-story nature of that and because it's Gathering area both for students and for for visitors I think the original design was carpeting as part of a noise remediation and that's why it extended Beyond um so if we want to ask for something else I I guess the building is requested hallway in carpets uh carpeted hallways uh it's spend that way I'm not sure if it it's just uh preference because of sound obviously the sound is better um less noise uh when people are walking down the hallways um I think the future question comes to when it comes to classrooms do you carpet the

155classrooms or do you tile the classrooms at that point in currently I think that's a better question I I think finding out the difference in longevity and cost is a great thing to ask and let us know well and currently the classrooms at Vernon Hill some of them are carpeted but like the lab spaces obviously are not there's here's 's only a few La yeah the few lab spaces that that we have are science labs are not carpeted right boot lab is not Foods lab food food labs are not carpeted um I don't think the stem lab was carpeting there's no carpeting in you know gymnasiums things like that yeah gymnas but as for the uh wood shop autoshop uh art rooms aren't carpeted but anything prone to to mess and spill certainly so could

156we could other rooms are are carpeted could we look at this for a longer term question the reason I ask is because we just replaced the carpeting the foyer Carpeting and that would be a situation where we'd be the contiguous nature of the floor I don't want to suggest that we rip that out to replace it with hard floor but could could we ask the question for the future so that as as we replace things if we're going to phase in a different type of flooring we could do it in a yeah time appropriate manner the one hallway that is well there's two sections of hallway uh just past the cafeteria and the gyms is a section of tile that goes to the first staircase and then the the north Wing uh where the uh

157classes for the Arts are there you know for that hallway is tiled um and then in between the gyms so there's three major hallways that are tiled the rest of them are carpeted there's only three three sections of hallway left to finish all the carpeting in the hallways and this would be the last three sections of carpeting for yeah I I'm really asking more as like a long-term solution so that every you know whatever it is 15 years however long the lifespan is of this carpeting that we're not replacing it when there could be a better option that would Outlast it but not only that I I think of I think of my poor children who are very environmentally allergy prone and uh you know carpeting carpeting just doesn't do the trick typically we you

158know we try and avoid carpeting when possible in our life but um just a just a thought that even environmentally it may be preferable to have hard floors for students I was talking to a carpeting guy at the triple ey conference because that's what you do when you're down in the basement and you're talking to the vendors he said and I'm pretty sure that what we're doing is we're replacing this rolled carpeting with tile right yes boxes of tiles yes so what the vendor was telling me was that the cost savings are greater because you don't replace all the tiles anymore now people tend to walk down the middle of the hallway so that's what gets worn out first people tend to sit or just go to their lockers at the edges of the hallway

159so those get worn out later so you can actually replace the middle sections at a lower cost than replacing all of it if you use roll carpeting now whether or not there's any truth to that he was a vendor I wasn't even buying but that's the idea is that there is a cost savings as a result of using carpet tiles which this proposal is carpet tiles right but do we replace all of our carpet tiles or only certain carpet tiles when we're replacing carpet so we we're this so This the the kind of the phase we're wrapping up here that's been over a few years has been replacing the sheet carpet with the tiles so we haven't lived I mean I mean this space is carpet tiled this is carpet um but I don't know

160we haven't really lived I don't know how long we've lived with the carpet tiles that we've done stuff like that well we we the first year we had the carpati uh um in the foyer then we did all the construction uh that carpet Tower was replaced because I found found it faulty and I proved it a manufacturer so they replaced the whole floor um um but we've been using that same carpet design uh except on one staircase in the in the main foyer going up uh uh but the same carpet ties gone down throughout the school um keeping the same and then when the new Wing was built the classrooms that do have carpet have that carpet tile in it as well as the hallways but yeah I will I will get back I'll get

161some carpet versus some other type of material yeah some other type of tile thank you so much either luxury vinyl or BCT or okay lvt lvp there's so many letters now okay um any other anything anything else on the uh Replacements before we move to our next agenda item which is our community engagement update seeing none I will turn it over to Dan and Mary while Dan is um passing out our homework assignment um just to put it in context we heard from creative Entourage in December and approved our agreement with them this is the first first of the action steps um that they ask us to consider and that is working with the board to create a charred statement from the Board of Education to the facilitating committee that they described um so Mary

162Dan and I worked on a draft of that to share with you tonight and to get some feedback they also um encouraged us to start Gathering names for people to serve on this facilitating committee um so we'll give you just 60 seconds to read over this draft and then Mary and I will and Dan will give additional information and take feedack may I just say so we had the cold weather so I printed these at home and I said I could print them I didn't realize that my printer does this so that's my printer at home and can we add a copy of this to the board packet as well for anybody in the public that wants to review it yes actually and Dan can also pull it up on the screen so as we

163talk about it the public can see that too oh great thank you for so in um bullet point number two allow the board to understand the community's educational beliefs perceptions and desires um I think beliefs perceptions and goals might be a clearer term I actually like aspirations because a little open-ended you because you're talking about sorry you're talking about the community out there they may not come with a set of goals two different things right right this is the bullet right perception so aspirations this is perceptions and aspirations yep so so she was talking about this one you're talking about the top one I'm talking about yeah oh sorry oh sorry you looked at the number bullet point or not bullet point number two right I yes I'm I'm at the top of the second

164bullet point so the way they recommended that we structure this is to have an introduction and then to focus on the collaboration why collaborating with the community is important in general the second part is oh and by the way in order to effectively do these collaboration efforts we're going to need a representative committee and here here are the products the charge that we want that committee to generate for us so it's almost like the top bullet list is the why why why do we value Community input in this big decision the second part is what do we want from this committee before May 20th so if that helps frame those two lists a little better it does and then I would leave it as desires I would undo the change I suggested because really the

165charge from the Board of Education will Define goals right and I think that would be more the committee to help again that's going from the what do 56,000 people Inver in across our communities want those are bigger picture things the committee is going to help distill those down to priorities and recommended actions that the board consider taking yes thank you for that clarification but then the the first bullet point can stay at has aspirations and we make the change and the top one also to say aspirations because then it matches right we seeking their aspirations and then we are outlining the community's aspirations again to just match those two things uph the other item that I think we need to understand from our community is also what's their willingness to spend right there is a

166financial appetite or a spend appetite if you will um well we tried to capture that in um actionable Step create actionable steps to fund and implement the plan um because we we sort of saw that it was important when we approved the engagement with this firm that we have an opt out should the community at through the first few phases of this work say we are not interested in additional funding that we' be able to pause it um so we wouldn't necessarily develop a lot more of the details of the plan because that would be something that the community would have you know when we say what are your beliefs perceptions and desires about the future of our facilities um and so if they say yes we want high quality very Innovative facilities in which

167our students can learn and we're willing to pay for it then we get down the okay so how much and and and go into those details of the funding plan um but we do want this document to capture your intentions so as as we're talking this through I think we can even get more and more clear with our language then I think we should have as part of number three if there is a an early exit that emerges from the desires and aspirations we want to do all these things but we don't really want to pay for it or not yet I think that needs to be a clear sort of a deliverable if you will can we Implement wording like that in number four yep well you wouldn't get to number four if the

168outcome is we don't really want to do anything or not yet so I I what I'm saying is we need to get an early indicator of do we want to proceed or do we want to pause and that needs to be a decision Point early enough so we don't go and do all this work just to get to or we don't really want to spend I think oh go ahead one one thing there is right we are going to get the priorities from the community in the community engagement right if we could as a part of creating the actionable steps to fund and implement the plan have like a framework that we say that this is what we are using we are using your priorities they are giving feedback on resource allocation and facility improvements

169how they want to spend the money we use that as input to create the funding plan and implementation plan and we make it clear to them because then that way we are utilizing their inputs to create and fund this plan I I agree and I think the conversation we had last week was it this is an iterative process also so as the community learns about our needs and as they feel like they're having meaningful input into the priorities their willingness to fund that work improves so we can't at the very beginning say are you willing to fund this it has to be something where we've educated them on the needs on what it could mean to student learning and we've listened and made adjustments on the priorities and then we say is this something that

170you're willing to fund and and that would be our exit point before we go on more with the campaign or putting it on the ballot or some other things like that and what I'm trying to say is that we showcase to them that this input has how that input has played into this funding plan like this is you indicated X on resource allocation how would you like to use the resources and that's what drove the priorities here we obviously give them a chance to provide for the feedback but then that way they see the rationale on how the plan came about I'm I'm curious as to how the um order of the top five was that something that was discussed because I don't want to muddle with it if that was their best recommendation they're

171the bull points on the top the top five bullet points the order of them that was the brainchild of Dan Mar and I so we have not received they gave us lots of almost like sentence stems and they gave us good examples of charges that have proved to be very clear from other school districts um so we then took what we knew our situation was their guidance and their samples and pulled that together for this so we are meeting with them again on Thursday afternoon so that's why we wanted to get your input tonight so we can take the feedback that you want us to incorporate and we will then conference with them on Thursday afternoon to finalize it I I might be in isolation but I think the last bullet part the last bullet

172point is the strongest and that is the essence of the why we are trying to strengthen the communication engagement and I would say input from the community um and that is that is why we even aligned ourselves with this company because we value their input and I would I think but the the the word engagement though makes it a two-way conversation because yes we definitely want the input but we also want the engagement in terms of it being two-way oh I don't care if you add input I just think that should be number one I think so your suggest I'm saying that if we're doing this in priority that is probably the number one that I I would start off with that but I don't did I did quote you this afternoon when I said

173I think this one is very important to Cara which one the bottom one the bottom one yes hate being predictable no not predictable I I just I remember you voicing how important that was to you in December and so of all of the different things we could have listed we made sure that one was in the top five I could be in isolation so you that's important to me and like I don't know that maybe maybe we view it into some of the other bullet points because I feel the way it is ordered right now you give them something tangible and then you talk about what what the outcome that we are trying to achieve with this right like if you don't give them something tangible upfront you kind of start losing them because they

174feel it just qualitative and you're just talking about things here you're giving things back to them on what we're trying to achieve very very concrete things I would agree and I think just as a communication strategy and Mary please give me your input on this you sort of build toward the point yeah and the point is number five the point is all of this leads to strengthening communication and engagement with the community so I'm kind of okay with it being the finale yeah but I also don't have a strong feeling if we want to move it to be the first one but I do think it has more of a qualitative sense and it's a little bit more General and if we have it as the grand finale that's sort of the point of all

175of it yep and we won't lose anyone that's the punch line it and I and I like the word huh if they read that far and I like the word input because that is sort of of the reason yeah why we why we are doing this so instead of in the second bullet point on the top allowing the board to understand maybe it is gather input y on the community's educational beliefs perceptions and desires so that so that that was that was a I would just wanted to go that that way because that was an intentional word there um because originally we had like to to hear uh to hear uh their input and I I I uh just having lived through a few surveys that we've done over the last year or two here

176um I don't know that people want to necessarily uh getting their input is not enough understanding them I think is is what you're trying to achieve which is different than hearing them yeah that's point we can gather the information but if if we don't what what are you going to do with it right um so that that was why there was an intentional decision to write the word understand um there even though that word is somewhat ambiguous too but the the intention was to try to make sure that we're we're not just hearing them we're we're we're the the goal is to seek to understand them right good point so then I would ask then if we're really trying to add the word input somewhere is there somewhere else that those of you that feel

177strongly they'd like to see that word somewhere where do you suggest it go and Mary maybe you could help us with that as well with your can I also provide two some slightly bigger picture comments on this one is we want we'd like your input tonight but also recognizing maybe uh you sometimes you're like me and I need to think about it for a little bit and so that we could give you some time to think about it and give us this information at least by Thursday sometime so that we could incorporate that into what we're going to share with creative Entourage the other thing is only problem with that suggestion is we can't discuss it contemporaneously and I want to be sure that we have consensus as opposed to one board member in very

178good intentions emailing you something they'd like to change but not having the consensus of the board and this is the this is really the yes a con is if we waited to get your feedback you all wouldn't be able to process that feedback without violating the open meetings act so this is your chance to process together as a group I think a lot of this is stylistic I think you've kind of comprehensive you've gotten most of all of the discussion we had back in December they heard us and I leave it to the professionals I don't find anything in here there doesn't seem to be anything missing and nothing offensive and I think we also want to definitely get the input from the folks at creative honorage right so there could be some further refinements

179right and they they could absolutely maybe have an opinion on that fifth bullet points should that be first or shouldn't it be for some reason you know they they probably could say that yeah they they could they could add um context and the only other thing I would add maybe and like judge from the Board of Education second bullet is it's not just student achievement and co-curricular there's also health and wellness and you know make that sort of the complete the complete student achievement we had a lot of we had curriculum and all academic we had all these different words in there and that's why we just narrowed it down to achievement because we thought was mental health it kind of encompassed everything I think the more specific we are though the better because we

180we want to demonstrate that we're focused on students and not just their academic achievement but their whole I think adding something about well-being would help round it out yeah so I appreciate that comment so we we can definitely work with them to add that component of whole Childs okay any other comments I I think it's great I'm I'm all good with it I tried really hard to find something that I could you know tweak got nothing y that is a the comp a compliment of the highest order for Dan Mary and yeah you shouldn't expect much I get that so so the second thing that we need input from the board on in addition to this language so thank you very much would be ideas for people we would want to consider inviting to participate

181on this committee um we need to invite more people than we think would serve because some will say no not many according to um what the consultant say once we've identified people who we think have the time because they're predicting two to three meetings a month between February March April and May so it's a it's a compressed amount of time but it will be two to three meetings per month and they just want possible participants to know that going into it um they recommend that we look for people who they say are involved in the schools but not the same old people who typically lead everything so not they call it not your usual suspects um and and to to be thinking about differences in geographical location among the diff dist differences in age differences

182in background um so we would be looking for each of you to and again separately email us um email me and then I will we we did the same thing with District leadership team last week and this is just a brainstorm list but you know neighbors you know other people who you think might have a passion for supporting the district in this way and we would appreciate your input and again that would not be violating om my you're just adding possible participants to a list those are people that are going to serve on the committee that that's not the people who everybody will be invited to attend so just because somebody is not um brainstormed on the list to serve on the committee doesn't mean that their input and Council will not be taken into

183consideration would it be helpful if I send the board the same form that we're using for everyone and then we'll have all the same criteria and that would be wonderful how big is the committee 25 people approximately yes and so that leads us to our last question for the board um they recommend that we have two board members serve on the committee um so this would be two to three meetings in addition to our regular meeting so this is a compressed big ask for two of you um but I want each of you to consider if this is one area of um interest that you have or one way that you think would be would be best using your talents and and how you serve the board um but when Lisa and I talked we

184wanted to have this open for people to say yeah I'm interested um and to see if that's one two three people um but I would also be looking for potential volunteers are these meetings uh anticip anticipated to be held primarily during like the spring months one over the summer do we know well we're looking to have a written report by May 15th so got it right spring witer yeah yes yeah so we would imagine this group beginning its work in early February and completing its work middle of May with some people carrying on depending upon what the recommendation is and what the vote um if we do end up placing anything on the ballot some of these people in most districts continue on to serve in some sort of other um vote Yes kind of

185committee um but that would it would reshape into something different that would no longer have direct ties to the district but many people who serve in this sort of leadership and exploration find satisfaction and get attached to the issue and and see it through to the end to voting day and would these meetings occur in the evenings or during the work day from what they say the committee decides its meeting schedule but typically it's to try and get as many people to be able to attend as possible so I think they probably do have evening meetings so working um parents and community members can participate but I don't think it would be exclusively evening meetings um I think that would be up to the committee membership to try and find the best possible calendar and

186did you say two a month you said from now till May two a month two to three and there're could be and again not everybody would have to attend every meeting and what I mean by that is there's the planning part we need to do and then there could be let's say three building tours and they might want one person or you know each committee person to attend one of those three so that might be a regular meeting of the committee and attending one town hall meeting or one uh facilities tour or something like that so I also when I when I'm talking about meetings I don't think it's all sitting around a table and doing meetings there'll be a few of those to organize the work but it would also be participation at I

187would say more community events would be another way that their time would be used so two to three of those kinds of obligations as a Committee Member do you have like a write up of that because if we are going to reach out to people we know that they're going to ask some of these questions it'll be easier to share something consistent with them so they can evaluate if they can so I think at this stage when we're asked and please C me if I'm wrong when we're asked to submit names we're not looking to go have conversations with people and I I think that will be done in a centralized way when those people are invited which would be the beginning of February I think and that's something that would come from district office

188yeah got it and would be part of the work of the that that's part of the work they do for us is taking this list vetting it down especially by because they want it to be a very well represented sample so if we want 25 we're probably going to need to have 35 people on the list you know what I mean and then they'll help us in consultation with what we know about these people what they know about good demographics and good mixes to have an effective committee will then together do the final invite okay got it thanks how soon do you need names well we're meeting with them Thursday so are I believe we're looking at the list on Thursday right we're taking our first pass at the list on Thursday again this is

189coming very quick if we want to start the community engagement in February they want this committee meeting like the first week in February because nothing can happen until the committee forms could we say noon on Thursday then and you all have the link now I already sent it okay any volunteers I'd love to but I'm already missing the first meeting yeah I would love to as well but I'm out of town in the first two weeks of February so if we can work around that then I would love to participate after okay I'm sorry I was brainstorming when you may have mentioned this but um did you mention the first the first or second meeting dates no those have not been identified but we imagine the first or second week in February just to get

190that because this the last week of January from what I recall okay I'm happy to throw my head in so joh you were a love to vac can't I I'll be gone through the second week of February well I'll be back in time for the next board meeting in February which is the 12th okay yeah I'm gone from 31st gen through 15th F but I'm here after that so if we can work around that schedule we can and again this doesn't prude other board members from potentially attending a town hall meeting or something like that but we can't have more than two people be a member of the committee or violating the open meetings act so this is to to make sure the board stays informed and we have the board's perspective active at the

191table but we'll make sure that if you're not serving on this committee that's what the last sentence is about having frequent communication and transparent uh notification to the community and the board of every step that this committee moves forward is it possible I mean I know I want to I would like to participate uh I just don't know that I can commit to the time frame that you're talking about can we do this as uh partners and have our own backup so that if I can't go to a meeting SEL can go in my place I mean I don't I don't mind putting four names on as committee members if you can't but it at least share some of the burden you can ask them on Thursday yeah I don't know that answer I'll be

192your partner I actually think that's really smart especially since we don't know all the specific dates yet I mean I'm volunteering right now but heaven knows right so right I I actually support that idea yeah also haven't asked my wife that is true and to be honest I love the idea of you doing that um especially if you're up for re-election not because you're politicians but because it gives the community a chance to sit with you and get to know you and sort of see you in action and I think that's a timely uh thing to coincide with that cycle I can reach out to Jennifer and Rod tomorrow and ask them see if we can have two pairs yes that share yes may I just clarify a point um would our involvement in these

193committees then kind of be not the end of our involvement but like in any official capacity in moving forward um you know any any support of the impending referendum or whatever it's going to be that's a good question because do you know what I'm saying like if if now I'm volunteering to be part of this committee and then down the line suddenly I'm a lead but I'm also it seems like a lot of so there's a separation um and maybe one of the administrators could uh explain it but once we do decide to move forward there's a point at which we're no longer involved um so I think the answer to that question is no it's not it would not preclude you because I think we're all precluded from involvement after a certain point right

194so okay you're basically for all intents and purposes done after that phasee in that in that part of the work you are done helping the meet the that charge so the charge from the board would apply then to you too to be one of the people at the table to gather the input that we're seeking and to help prioritize the list and to do all of those things you're one of many then once the recommendation comes to the board and if you would if the recommendation is to move forward and put something on the ballot and you accept that recommendation once you say yes we want to put that on the ballot then you shift from any advocacy for yes to advocacy for voting got it and that is it how important it is for

195everyone in our community to vote and that will be the threshold of what we can do as elected officials and advocating for the outcome the other people on the committee who are not elected officials can continue on with a vote Yes campaign should they choose Thank you for clarifying that's exactly what I needed to know and we can make sure that we've got more clear guidance because part of behind that is you not spending public money on on a vote Yes campaign you can't do that in Illinois um so that that's part of the reason why is is spending money on things like that yeah you can take it out of my salary it's Baby's First referendum for a lot of us so we appreciate your real time suggestions to make this an even better

196document we look forward to receiving some recommendations you might have for potential people to serve on the committee and we'll look for those from you by noon on Thursday okay thank you moving on to the school fees review all right listen I know no one likes to talk about school fees almost as much as they don't like to talk about taxes but here's what I would say here's what I will say um our district continues to face increasing costs and as a board there are really only two sources of revenue that you can that you realistically control one is the property taxes and the other one is school fees it is part of our system to annually look at property taxes and part of the rules associated with property taxes of why we have to

197look at that every year and we have to do the things that we're doing school fees don't have those kinds of restrictions and so it has been this District's practice to look at them every X number of years and so uh with me looking at everything what I'm recommending is that I believe now is the time for the board to review your fees you can review your fees and decide we're good as it is or you can make changes but I it it I think it is important for it to be in front of you and for you to review these fees so my intention is first and foremost to give you transparency into your fees and let you have a chance to review them um also uh with what I wanted to do is

198present uh some type of way that you could process what a revision could look like I'm not saying this is the one that I think is the one you should do I'm trying to give you something to respond to um and so looking at the different data points that's why I and I I tried to do something that I could rationally explain in terms of looking at feeds so uh it's really the idea is to uh see your fees and then give you something to react to to see what you think and what you want to do with fees because there's a lot of there's a lot of options available to you um the other thing that I do want to say is there's a was a really good sleuth that noticed I had an

199error uh one of my fees I had our activity pass as at $50 it is not it is 25 so that person knows who they are thank you uh the total dollar amounts don't change just that fee in that specific list is incorrect on our our things there might be errors too but I just wanted to be transparent with that uh so with that um I you have the attachments I did uh look at a summary of surveys of of districts um I looked at um tried to find a way to get an Apples to Apples in terms of the basic fee which I did a blend of the four years fees because some districts charge different fees for freshman versus sophomores versus Juniors versus seniors so I averaged those and then I added in

200the Tech fee some districts include their Tech fee in their basic fee like we do other districts it's not um and so I wanted to get as close to Apples Apples I could it's never going to be perfect uh because there's a lot of different fees that districts could be utilizing and then some districts do some and some districts don't do others and so that's a little tricky uh to get around Dan for those listening at home when was the last time our fees were reviewed in this way I believe the last time our fees were reviewed was 1718 uh like right when I started they had already kind of done it so or it was in the middle of being done so it was about seven years ago so these are the student fees

201that have been charged yearly to our students since that time uh yes some of the fees are optional so it kind of depends on the situation like like driver ed is in charge to every student but it's every student that's participated in driver ed that that's what I would say the fees haven't I don't believe the fees have changed since then okay may I ask a question kind of piggy backing off that I I only know from elementary school fees and they're kind of all the same um so at the high school level it's more of an Al not allo cart but you pay for what you are getting essentially right my my student isn't paying for a graduation fee if they're a sophomore and and my student isn't going to pay for parking if

202they're a freshman necessarily that that's how it goes it's kind of this alart model yeah it zooming out 30,000 foot view the idea of how do you fund education does everybody help fund education whether you use it or not and our system is largely designed around that so you have people in our community that don't participate in our school system that absolutely fund the majority of our school system and then you have the idea of how much do the users of that system pay and so school fees is kind of an attempt to move the needle a little bit in terms of all right now that you're using it you're going to pay a little bit more and that in theory is relieving some of the people that aren't using it and so that's what

203you're seeing some of these itemized fees out you could have in theory one fee that kind of covers everything and then no additional fees there's a lot of philosophies you could have about fees for sure it ranges a full spectrum uh this one and what we have been doing and what I have noticed many many other high school districts do is that there's a basic amount that everybody pays that's the basic fee and then there's the you pay as you use it so when you're in driver Zed you have this fee if you want to park based on you know how they do their rules you pay this fee things like that and are those additional fees assessed at the at the start of let's say the school year or at registration I'm not sure

204when are so it's not um you know at semester two certain fees are collected that weren't collected like for instance if you're taking drivers at semester 2 you didn't take take take semester one they were still assessed at the beginning of the year or whenever reg it's an annual fee that we charge if the student had a schedule change that might change the fees but that would be on a rare occasion and Athletics depending upon what season you participate in yeah to to be honest so to answer your question like for instance if they knew they were going to take semester two of driver's ed did they pay the fee at the beginning i' honestly don't know that answer I I can find it out but I don't know that exactly I'm pretty sure I

205know the answer and your fees are tacked on when they are in curred so you would get a your you now have a balance on your student account yeah you're giving me the crash course here which I appreciate because I just don't know and then earlier sorry last question here the the you mentioned that other um peer districts uh have like you know the Freshman fee or the sophomore fee based on grade level you're saying we do not do that we have this base level for everyone and then yeah it's it is more common that districts have a consistent fee across grade level what you see sometimes for so for example one one of the one of the districts actually charges a $400 Tech fee to freshman only and then no fee for sophomore junior

206senior versus what we do is we charge $100 to every year that's so six and one have does in the other you see things like that or sometimes as freshmen they may include a PE uniform and lock fee but then it's not in the future years basic fees they but what they have is just a replacement if you want a replacement then you got to pay you know whatever amount is to get a new uniform uh but if you can somehow keep yours for all four years as an example that's usually what I've seen in terms of why there's a difference thank you so much so could you reiterate when was the last time we changed our fees uh seven years ago was the last time we updated the fees there was a multi-year roll

207out to that because it was kind of rolled out in like freshman then Juniors then sophomores and Senior the right way sorry freshman sophomore junior junior senior to do that uh but that fee plan was determined 7 years ago um and so so times change things change and so that's why I have this in front of you uh to look at uh so in terms of the analysis I tried to look at what other districts do I tried to give you an average and then even do like a kind of like a percentile it's technically percent rank but it functions essentially as a percentile what that means is so for example if you see basic fee uh at percent rank 50 that means we are higher than 50% uh of the of the other districts

208that are listed if you see for instance 11 that means we're only higher than 11% um so you can see there are some fees based on those things that if you look individually we are uh either on the higher end we're very very much on the very very low end on some of these fees like drivers ed dri driver ed and um so but I didn't want to miss the force for the trees so that's why I tried to look at a a Max I guess if you will so we were talking I guess this is a a senior who's graduating that is taking dri at and is in one sports so I tried to like give a theoretical Max maybe uh and that's I tried to do that too to look at the whole

209picture because you know you could you know I don't know if they do this in Vernon Hills but in Libertyville they're able to split a parking spot is that GNA are you going to continue that so many times that parking fee can be split between two drivers I think we would allow that to get whatever that building level practice is we would I I don't see this fee structure changing those options and I'm just curious do most students choose the I know I always chose the activity pass for my kids so in essence the actual basic fee would be going down by $25 if you assumed that you were getting an activity pass because you're going from 300 to 325 and that's including now and what would have benefit $50 activity pass uh so that's

210the one that it's 25 uh $25 not 50 one mistake oh oh so it's the same that was the I was that's the first identified mistake yeah it's late sorry so in essence the basic fee is pretty much staying the same if you include the activity fee is now included in their just registration with technology and everything else is an add-on and it it's just an option to consider so I think what was going through my mind is you know the activity pass is is intended to allow students to participate in I think it's home basketball football games something else probably and the idea is um maybe this could be a way to remove a barrier to allow more students to participate in school functions uh so that that it so it was just an

211idea that you could maybe do that and that might offset oh I love that I mean I think it's um so the total fees I'm looking at the um 2024 student fees survey it looks like there's two of them so tell me what's what are the total What's the total annual revenue that we collect in student fees oh that is information that I don't have in here um I it's around a million but I I couldn't I don't have an exact number for you it's around a because when we ballpark is good ballpark is around a million maybe 1.1 because when we during Co we uh re we had already collected the fees but we refunded them it was right around a million dollars um at that point so that's right that was slightly different

212enrollment but it's around there so I am completely on board with the suggested new fee with technology and incorporating the activity pass to encourage every body to attend and remove that barrier um I am strongly in favor of increasing our fees for driver's ed they're too low um what I am not in favor of is increasing our parking fees uh because if you look at what what certainly our cost to maintain the asphalt and the striping is and snow removal has gone up in the last seven years that's indisputable but I think our Revenue our other Revenue source is so much bigger and has gone up every year that because we're not giving any additional value to the users in parking I I'm okay with leaving the parking fee where it is but I support

213increasing the uh driver's ed fee and raising the current enrollment fee from 300 to 325 and including the activity pass uh one to the point about the driver's ed I may not I may have forgotten to write this in there um uh the general assembly has to allow you to charge that much uh so you have to do a waiver process uh to change the fee to get to a level that's I think the the max is like 250 without a waiver ises that sound right Carol yeah so 250 without a waiver so you could move it to 250 on a whim uh but you have to have the general assembly approve it it's extremely common and if you could notice there's many districts that charge more than that and so you would have to

214go through that process we even if today you said yep let's do it we would not be able to actually legally do that until the thank you the 2526 school year which I'm fine with because it gives our residents plenty of Runway and notice that that fee will be changing and I think it's because our costs to have that program have demonstrably gone up um and our fees is lower than our peer districts I I I think that's a fair reassessment um and I I'm open if anybody disagrees with me about the parking but that feels a little nickel and DIY to me because they're not getting any additional value or services and again the cost to maintain our parking facilities is not insignificant but our much larger Revenue source that has gone up every

215year should be but it's not just maintenance it's also security security sure we have we have three or four adults every morning and every afternoon out supervising student parking primar and parent dropof which can be a challenge too but a lot of people to supervise um safe the parking are safe students walking through the parking lots and driving and and it it is not just Hardware it's Staffing to make sure that's a safe place is that the things that we could phase in if we do make a change that we wouldn't change the parking fee the first year we could change it the second or the third or so drastically I mean we're increasing Athletics by almost 50% why would we not increase I I don't know that that is uh realistic and I don't

216know and I almost a little bit pecuniary to people who want to participate that's it's a hefty fee when you're not planning on it especially if you have three kids I know there's a family Max but that happens every trimester every season so you have somebody who plays a two sport athlete or three sport athlete you're 600 bucks in with two kids um so I I don't know I I would start looking at percentages wise so we're almost increasing Athletics by 50% and and if you're suggesting that we don't do anything with parking um I think there's a lot of opportunities for kids to try and share a spot and and make that a little bit more um to give context the reason why I would have changed any particular fee is based on what

217I saw in terms of how it ranked with the other ones and so I tried to look at a number that put it I think mostly like around 50 or higher than that if I saw that I mean I didn't think we need to be at the top not that like someone is going to see our Fe and then go move to another District because of the school fees so like there's there's limits to this in terms of analysis so there's also there's a sense of what is other what are other districts but then there's also the sense of what is the change for people that is a very real thing for sure uh and to have dri said still be at the 28th perc when I know when I even three years ago you

218couldn't get a private at any driver's education facility for under $700 yeah so I don't I mean that is a benefit so that that that's a fault uh just of the math so if you change that number to 351 $1 more it immediately goes to like 83 83r percentile because again percentile means it is higher than 28% of the I did read that on the list so it that $1 difference so basically the 350 puts you right in line with the vast majority of the other districts that's where percentile fails you and I agree it's a phenomenal value for what you got I would also say as a parent of an athlete the the value that you get in terms of the coaching the time spent the activities the um the non-classroom educational value of

219that far exceeds um whatever we charge and I I I did notice that I was taking exception with a smaller thing but I actually support the Athletics being at the at the higher rate I think for the value that and because there's that family maximum when I think about all the time spent when somebody is in one of those programs it is it is well worth this increased cost and I would also note could we review um the that's per season right the family Max is per season it's not per year no the family Max is per year so when the 60 was put in place that that gave you maximum of five sports um for family for family and then so now with a hundred it's it's you're maxing out at three Sports so

220if you have two kids and they're in three Sports both both of them six Sports total you're only playing you're only paying with that family limit for three out of the six three because you're it's $300 so if the new one goes to $100 and your bill should be $600 you're only paying 300 the old limit the old $60 based off of the Athletics family limit allowed your family to get into five sports anything over five so the $100 increase by not changing the family limit you are getting a little bit more of a break for a family with two kids playing two two sports you're probably going to hit the family limit whereas with two kids in two sports did not hit the family limit I mean you'll hit the family limit if you

221have one kid with three Sports it's $300 I mean you're not getting a break but yes when you break that down hours that our coaches spend between practices and events and the skills that are built I feel like that's a justifiable fee I feel like there's tremendous value well I think that's priceless I don't think the whole activity fee so I'm not seeing the student the athletic activity fee as supporting 100% our coaches they're paid well more than what that activity fee is I mean that's kind of to make the district whole that's what the sport activity fee right it's not an it's not a one for one ratio the $100 completely supports all of the coaches we know that the coaches make more goodness those participants in their $100 so I understand that I

222am thinking about families that are making decisions now I also know that we also have some um waivers students can always apply for waivers could we review what the fee waiver situation is how a family qualifies for fee waivers and how many roughly we have or what percentage of that I I would not know right now what percentage we use the fee waiver is analogous to our families on free reduced lunch and I know that percentage I I don't know if we have an exact alignment between that number and the number of students who also take advant Vantage of the fee waiver for athletics we try um lsts and social workers and other people try to make sure that we're doing that cross analysis um but there are I believe it's about 16% of students

223at Vernon Hills are eligible for free reduced lunch and about 9% at Libertyville are eligible if I recall our our last I think it's like districtwide I think it's around 11 so that but I I don't know the specific split between the buildings it's around 11 and actually now that you're all talking through this I don't actually think the total dollar impact will be that high I think it'll be lower because I didn't really I would need to refine that a little bit so I don't think the the dollar impact for athletics like the the $100 but the total impact because there's going to be people that cap out that aren't camping out now and so I would need to reduce that by some it still would have a an impact for sure on the

224total of dollar amount but it won't be quite that high I don't think okay so what what would you like in terms of feedback or consensus from the board well I first love that you're talking about this so thank you for at least entertaining the discussion um can you st your question again I'm so sorry what do you need from us what do I need from you in terms of direction or next steps like if we were satisfied with everything that you have presented here then what happens or if we wanted to change something then what happens so I I think my first question is there more information that that you feel find would be helpful to help you uh potentially make a decision towards something like this um and then I guess your your

225sense of where you like this if you would like an option like this presented for you to approve or if you would like to see something that's slightly modified to approve um that've taking I think we've been taking some notes on on some of the things um driver ed thumbs up we know that we would need to communicate that that would be implemented over a two years because we can only go up to 250 without getting State uh approval so that would be the full implementation would be in 26 excuse me 25 26 um but I think this conversation can then be mapped on to the few adjustments you've asked and we could bring it back for approval of a fee structure yeah I was also fine with the parking fee because never paid for

226it my kids paid for [Music] it like they they didn't get money from you though no okay they had to work it's a150 a day regardless of who's footing the bill I think the jump from 170 to 250 is too high for no change in what they're getting if they are allowed if they are allowed to share parking passes which I'm not sure they are right now allowed in VH CHS at least I just don't practice that Vernon Hills High School has in place can if we put that then that might encourage them to share more and fewer students on the road and fewer students in the parking lot so it will also say there's an environmental impact that we are producing with that right so it might be justifiable and we might it's it's

227okay to increase the fee I mean I have a high schooler I know and I'm I'm personally okay with it that's a clever idea um I actually just had a question about kind of the the change so I I understand the logic in needing to increase our fees over time and that's what you know partly we use to run the district but what is the logic behind the dollar amount change so if parking went from what was it 170 to 250 in this proposed plan um um what what are we using to account for that $80 change I guess right because we're not we're it may bring us up to our peers you know within their Windows a little more certainly but certainly those amounts aren't just thrown out there arbitrarily so can you give

228me a little more info as to why 80 why not 30 why uh it was purely based on percent rank with the peer districts so um you know I I would imagine what we collect in parking for sure gets eaten up by the amount of money we spend uh to maintain and to maintain that parking um and the roads associated with that so I this similar with really all of these fees these really just offset I mean the parking offset's probably a higher percentage than the other ones like the athletic is a small dent that's a five six million doll program and so generating $150,000 is not a big impact to that uh even generating on basic fee um several hundred thousand dollars on a system that is a multi-million dollar organization um that's not

229a very large impact um the driver ed uh even that um is probably roughly a tenth of what the cost of that program is um parking probably has a bigger impact in terms of the total cost if I'm thinking about the various parking lots but I I mean I'm just think how much did it cost when we replace the parking lad said buron Hills was it 800,000 it was like that versus [Music] 300 I'm just saying if you're talking I don't know if it's 300,000 for every parking lot that we replace and we're doing that every half okay so like it meaning it it it's not it's not nothing in terms of that cost but it probably has a bigger portion than maybe some of those other ones so you're saying you're talking about this

230too much so no I I think that brings me to the thought if it has such a minimal impact on aund million do budget in a year where we're asking people to consider a DB and we've raised taxes leave it alone except for the use fee so driver ed apply for the increase to 350 Athletics increase from 60 to 100 and keep the max at 300 but leave everything else alone and if next year we want to revisit the rest of the fees depending on whether or not the DB is successful let's let's not do this now ex except for the use fees ex except for one thing we can do um which can be a hybrid option is we have 170 if you're not sharing parking and if you want to share parking you

231can do 250 and two people can share the parking so let's see that would only apply for Vernon Hills High School because they're already doing that at Liberty bille High School I would like to get the building input before we yeah suggest because to us it might seem like a great idea but the building level I think needs to have their input of the feasibility because there may be some things that we're not thinking about in terms of how it applies to a different that's fair so let's let's maybe float that as an option from a sustainability standpoint um but I I'm curious about the thoughts about that let's take a step back and see if this has if fees have minimal impact on our hundred million budget maybe right now is not the time

232to have this conversation maybe we there's wisdom in that maybe we just look at the use fees the the the driers that in the Athletics and wait and revisit this next year that's kind of where I was as well when I DEC saw this yeah because we have like two years of higher taxes right we've had increased our um taxes consistently we have a dup going I think it just feels like maybe not the right time to add additional fees I think the drivers is and athetics is a is a good one the one other idea I heard a lot of positive response to was the idea of incorporating the activity pass into the basic fees um and that's really what we were talking about doing going from 300 to 325 but including the activity

233fee so it really on very very few people would be an increase so I I think if we talked about it that way like we're just going to roll that in rather than having it be a separate user fee we really weren't expecting additional is the activity pass optional or yes okay so if you don't have an activity pass you could pay at the door yep or if a student doesn't want to attend then they don't incur any fees but I think our thinking is we want to encourage yep engagement and we know the direct impact that student involvement has on educational outcomes so I I really like that that idea let's roll it in yeah um so that hopefully it it it does what we hope it will and it will increase engagement yeah

234I mean and to a lot of these it's it's all about the messaging right like we would have the right messaging on some of the areas just to increase the price because we are trying to get in line when we are asking for other increases but Activity part has good messaging around it mhm um and maybe we could look at some of the other ones to see what's the right positive messaging around it if we are increasing what are they getting back more in return yeah I don't think anybody would question that driver ed fee everybody that has a kid who looks at private driver's ed knows that if you get it for 350 it is a bloody bargain and we do have some years correct me if I'm wrong where we have kids who

235want to sign up for drivers said who can't because it's full all of our Soph are able to do it we have some young some freshman right if there's some freshman we do have spaces to meet currently all the need of our sophomores who are turning 16 yes and juniors thank you for the clarification yeah I don't think we have to sell that that one that one's so obvious and and again families that qualify for a fee waiver still qualify for a fee waiver for sure yeah but that's a hard threshold to meet especially in our community so there's many families that that's going to be a hard it's going to be a hard decision I I kind of disagree with the Athletics but I I don't think that should be increased if if it's

236under the same logic and argument of let's make this palatable and and now is not a time to raise uh prices most of our students TR we ask them to participate and I don't think that $100,000 is worth making kids or families have to choose yeah that I think that does make sense what can we just I I don't want to I know it's not further discussion but can we just thumbs up or thumbs down on raising the athletic fees or just in the context of this is not the year to do it thumbs down and leave the Athletics fees where they are right now can everybody sort of give their so down is down is stay the same down is stay the same yes what down is stay the same raise them keep them

237the same okay so it looks like then the only thing that we're going to do is roll the activity fee into the general fee and apply for the 350 for driver Zed not for 24 25 but for 25 26 which be the soonest that we could do it and then we can revisit this again in December let's talk about it because we'll have a different perspective in December and look at the feasibility for sharing parking spaces at V thank you for the reminder yeah let's get some building level input yeah on that idea I think it might be happening but I will check with principal Gilliam I just for some reason when I was over there I thought I heard like it's one of those things where like in my mind I'm hearing them talk

238about a challenge they had with students sharing parking passes um so they maybe have implemented that recently I think it was a problem that people were sharing them who didn't pay for them so that they could so in Libertyville you get one p when you share a spot two seniors have to agree that they have one spot they only get one ticket yes so either they're going to switch it off with each other or like my son shared a spot with a another who did not have a car so he had to pick a up every morning and they got one spot and they got to split the spots there's a lot of ways to do it but it's only one pass so we'll find out we will do that okay anything else on the

239school fees Dan go ahead I was just gonna mention Vernon Hills has a free lot now they have for a while the junior lot over by the baseball fields right over by the baseball fields yeah they have a that's now free oh they're used to be a charge be charge now free so you if you want to walk and you're a senior you don't have to pay a fee so it's there's a considerable amount amount of parking over there than used to be when I started here 10 years ago now that it's free it's yeah yeah thank you for so just a little FYI great no that's a good point thank you okay anything else on the school fees um future agenda items we have listed they're the same ones that we looked at at

240the last meeting so um it is 8:58 and we will consider ourselves adjourned um I just wanted to maybe add one item to the Future and that is is there an update on the cafeteria designs design or whatever is going on with that um yeah I give you a quick update yeah we'll add it to Future update oh future update okay yeah so um then we will declare the facilities and finance meeting adjourned and we will take take a quick bio break and then convene for a special Board of Education meeting will we be taking any action coming out of that meeting no action will be taken okay so after the special board meeting uh we will adjourn no further action no action will be taken um thank you everybody