001we have so many guests I'd like to get started I could ask everybody to stand to recite the Pledge of Allegiance please okay please Jim Batson here Cara Benjamin here Don Carmichael here Tara drumkey here Lisa Hessel here so now Kulkarni here h.c Rooney we note all members present except for Casey Rooney we wish her condolences she's out of town for a funeral Casey is our facilities and finance committee chair our board secretary Don Carmichael is going to take us through the items for action for fnf that came out of committee um reviewing the agenda for the evening board president Lisa Hassell we have a packed agenda we always start with communication and we will begin with student recognition we have so much to celebrate tonight so thank you all for being here um after
002that we will have an invitation for public comments and then we will hear our student School Board representative reports uh we will announce our foia requests and have some good news to share then we will move to our consent agenda for those of you that follow along regularly you know that those are items that are routine like bills payable approving field trips things that we have already discussed extensively in committee those items all that discussion can be found on our website as well as in the board packet that's available tonight if anybody would like to look at the agenda and the supporting materials you can go to our website d128.org click on board meeting uh sorry board of education click on board meetings and then you can go right into board docs where it has
003the agenda and all the supporting documentation for everything that we will discuss tonight as well as what we've already discussed in committee that will be approved in one motion for the consent vote agenda can I ask are there any board members wishing to request anything to be taken out of the consent vote agenda for discussion tonight okay seeing none we will proceed after that we will have items for action those uh first four items are items that came out of PNP our chair gym Batson will take us through those uh the second four uh came out of facilities and finance and Don carmicha will take us through those uh there may be some discussion related to those items and then number five for information we'll have our superintendent's report from Dr Herman the board will
004share any comments on events that they've attended since last month uh do we have an iasb Illinois Association of school board report tonight okay so our ISB uh delegate Jim Batson will share some brief comments uh do we have anything from cetall no but we're meeting this week so I'll have something for you next time we meet okay great um and then uh if we have any other reports um if board members have any other information we will discuss future agenda items and we will convene an executive session excuse me for the purpose of discussing two topics um Collective negotiating matters under 5il CS 1202 C2 as well as the employment of employees under 5alcs 120-2c1 um after we complete our executive session we will only convene an open session to adjourn no further action
005will be taken so let's get started with the best part of the meeting student recognition all right yeah good evening everybody I'm John Gilliam principal of Vernon Hills this is uh the best part of board meetings is when we get to celebrate our students and this winter we had a lot to celebrate both schools so we're going to start what will bring up um the directors of these areas and the coaches to talk about the they're maybe in some cases they introduce the um the staff and then also the kids but we're going to start with uh some success in music uh and acting and I'm going to bring up our fine arts department chair Drew Russell bring up our fine arts department chair Mr Dustin helvey camera pans to lectern and assembled crowd thank
006you first step is peterfest we had a couple of Allstate theater students uh at Vernon Hills High School and so for those of you that are aware with what feed theater Fest is it's the largest by the way Dustin has a really well polished description I'm going to try to do it justice right now it's the largest non-competitive theater Festival in the world they also have yes right okay they also have um they they have auditions for the All-State production which is is really the the top students in the state on for the cast behind the scenes also in the pit Orchestra are selected from video auditions to go down state and perform and this year the show was Shrek and we had a couple of students from Vernon Hills High School in the cast
007was Jonathan protis Applause come on up when I call your name Applause while students receive certificates and in the pit Orchestra was Caleb gumager students take pictures with administrators and school board members LHS Fine Arts director Dustin halvey good evening and similar to Allstate theater we have All-State music and it runs a little bit differently in the fall the Illinois music educators Association hosts auditions around the state in nine different segments and our district number seven uh is the eastern half of McHenry and all of Lake County and the northern part of cook and involves about a hundred different high schools so students uh in both voice and uh instrument will audition and from there they are selected for our district seven um Festival Ensemble and then from there our top students get selected for
008the Allstate Ensemble which happened the end of January in Peoria so uh we have um one student who is representing Libertyville High School today and that is Lenny Biggs Applause while students receive certificates students take pictures with administrators and school board members vhhs Fine Arts director Drew Russell all right and we have several students from Vernon Hills who also were in were selected for All-State music this is I just want to take a quick moment for all the students that have been selected for All State arts and I want to thank the parents you I know personally how much dedication it takes to commit to private lessons and bringing your kids from A to B and before school stuff at 7am and after school and the constant ongoing effort that it takes on your part
009to get them everywhere they need to be to make us look good and have these moments where where we get to recognize them thank you so much for supporting your students in the Arts it really means a lot Applause oh yeah and students thanks for practicing all right as I call you come on up the first up is Jeffrey Braums Applause Kaylee Kim Applause not feeling it John Lee Applause I don't know for eign foreign Applause while students receive certificates Ryan serali Applause while students receive certificates Emma Anderson Applause while students receive certificates Applause while students receive certificates students take pictures with administrators and school board members LHS principal Tom kulantes all right one one of the things um that I hope our community understands That's so exciting is um we have Excellence across all
010aspects of our schools uh so while we just celebrated the Arts we're now going to move to some of the academics Awards and uh specifically we're going to bring up um Rick Brenner who is our LHS math team coach extraordinaire and also in his uh ultimate season as our math team coach so welcome Rick and I know you're going to talk about some extraordinary academic performances Applause wow thank you for that intro thank you for this opportunity the LHS math team participated in the 25th Annual High School mathematical modeling contest is that a mouthful there were 854 teams participating worldwide from 18 countries uh the top 22 percent get to move on to the next round of competition the international mathematical modeling challenge the kids are tasked with solving real world problems two years ago
011they investigated ways to make boarding and deep planing and aircraft more efficient wouldn't we all like that last year they investigated ways to reduce the stress on Lake Mead this year I read their paper it was over my head they investigated the to try to discover and analyze relationships between CO2 emissions and temperature as related to global warming and to predict future values of said criteria and increased recognition of the problem of global warming then the experts grade these and they take the best papers and try to implement them to solve the actual problems from high school kids such as ours we had four team members qualify for the next round of competition it is my privilege to introduce Tasia Patel Belinda Lee Audrey wadeck and Ian Lee Applause Applause while students receive certificates students
012take pictures with administrators and school board members so we've had a fine Performing Arts a little bit of academics uh and then we move into our Athletics both schools had some amazing performances on the athletic competition fields and gyms this winter and for Vernon Hills this is two years in a row that we've had many of these young ladies up here celebrating a significant sense success in the gymnastics gym so I would like to bring up a head coach Denise Caton to recognize these awesome athletes Applause uh thank you first first um I just want to thank the board for you know bringing us in once again um staff the girls my parents we've had an incredible last two years um and I cannot do it without my puzzle pieces the girls the team um
013you know having the opportunity to win Conference win regionals win sectionals and then two years in a row make it to the Big Show um it's nothing but you know honor and all the girls hard work um obviously we can't do it well without them um so let's bring them on up um Annika Tutti Applause while students receive certificates Applause while students receive certificates Sarah gutowski Applause while students receive certificates Christina Raquel Applause while students receive certificates Becca Tron Applause while students receive certificates and then not able to make it tonight who is a gymnastics practice of all things is livitron Applause students take pictures with administrators and school board members LHS principal Tom kulantes while we're very proud of our uh bhhs gymnastics team LHS also had an extraordinary gymnastics season our team did
014very well and here tonight to talk about one athlete in particular is coach Tiffany Owens Applause I have to go even lower thank you so much for allowing us to come to recognize some really special students tonight and I wanted to talk a little bit about the Libertyville gymnastics program in light of the 50-year anniversary of Title IX this is the 50th year Libertyville has had a girls gymnastics program and how fitting to have the most decorated gymnast in the history of our 50-year program to celebrate with us today Anna Becker Applause while students receive certificates [Music] most dedicated positive influence on her teammates positive role model to her teammates one of the most supportive teammates I could not be prouder of everything you have accomplished this year and in all four years so congratulations
015Applause students take pictures with administrators and school board members LHS principal Tom kulantes so from a top placing team to the all-around champion in gymnastics we also now have some wrestlers that we want to celebrate from both schools and from Libertyville we're going to bring up coach Vinnie judita come on up Applause um it's coach judita just for the record no no problem my name's been butchered for years so it's all good um the first thing I'd like to say I'm sitting in for Coach Eggert that couldn't be here and um I wrestled for him and currently his varsity assistant and uh he's one of the best coaches to work for that I've ever been around um I learned constantly every day they call him the Godfather of wrestling um if you know or been
016around him or talked to him or did anything with them in the past um you know that he is scientific his uh research and development is phenomenal and that's really why we keep putting out great wrestling teams um it really goes back to him um I'm just glad along the ride with uh such a great coach and learning so much and being a part of these boys lives um it's really something special but we're here to honor our two All-State wrestlers um I I will say I've stole the give you a little information on these guys um they are the hardest working guys you've ever seen they work out before practice they work out early in the mornings um they're constantly running the cardio the conditioning and the wrestling um they work hard on the
017books so it's in and out of the classroom also um they're just great all-around human beings first of all that's our number one thing we're making great students first and great athletes second so but saying that they are great athletes and I'd like to um call up Matt cubis uh he took fourth in State this year um Applause while students receive certificates a little bit about Matt um he relentlessly works all the time um he's had some injuries in the past and battled through them he comes back from everything and he worked so hard just to get through the season healthy and this year he took fourth in state a lot a lot of great wins I wish I had a photographic member like coach Edgar to share them all with you um however he's
018done a great job and took fourth in the state this year congratulations Matt not a great year Applause while students receive certificates that you want you to hang up here um this next gentleman uh Cole metal Rinko come on up please Applause while students receive certificates I took first and state this year that is an accomplishment above all especially the quarter West Applause I'm going to tell you a little bit of the inside track because I have it and uh I'm kind of you know always in this corner and um he says a lot of things to me and the first thing he said to me is coach I'm ready I'm going to take this and I was like all right and he's like State and I was like okay I go one match at
019a time so I know we get excited a lot of times on our goals and we see the end and we're like we're going to get there but it's one match at a time and so he said okay coach and then it was one match at a time but I've never seen a guy so focused in my career he was like every guy's my next victim and they're going to lose so and it did it happened and it was pins and then there was wins and then there was more pins and then there was technical Falls and then there was you know it just kept going and I'm like wow this is great but there's still one more to go okay so when you get to the semifinals and you win and then you're off
020to first place in state all the pressure is on you okay it's very very intense for wrestling um so I'm even nervous about it still today um he goes in it's a guy that beat him up last year um and and handily and so he knew that he had a big Challenge on his hands and when they shook hands and we did the Grand March he went out to the middle and I was like he is focused he is ready and this guy was kind of like yeah I got this guy and I was like I don't think you do so I'm sorry I didn't mean to make this long-winded it's just he had to be there kind of thing so I'm hoping to be there and and so then we get down on the
021match and he's ready he's warming up and he's like I'm ready to go get it I'm like let's go get it so he goes out there and I mean I didn't know he was gonna give it this hardness fast so he goes out there he goes and then stubble 31 seconds in my life a million and I'll tell you there was never one that was so impactful in my career 31 seconds he just beat his state champ he is now the state champion he's the man congratulations it was awesome the best moments I've ever had in my career Applause while students receive certificates students take pictures with administrators and school board members vhhs principal John Gilliam all right we had some success on the wrestling mats and to introduce our victims Jesse Walter Applause first
022thank thank you to the board and the community for celebrating these uh amazing students and athletes um pretty awesome for them to get this recognition in front of uh this many people so thank you for that um recognize our senior All-State wrestler Max acetone Max come on up here Applause Applause while students receive certificates so max had one amazing career uh here at Vernon Hills um he leaves uh with a couple big records he has the most Falls in school history uh 74 to be exact which takes over his former coach uh our previous state champ generally Brazil's record at 68. so that's a pretty awesome feat to have the most falls in the career here at burn Hills uh he also holds the record for the most Falls in a season at 31. um
023max finishes in the top seven with all-time wins with 114 wins in his career and that was that was with covet too and it's unfortunate because I think if we're gonna have that covered here Max probably has that record too Max is one amazing human being he's one tough kid he doesn't back down to anything um he's tougher and tougher than males I mean you see him in a boot right now and just a little story about him at State this year uh Max and I had this little Mantra that we started probably about two-thirds in the season um before every match he'd come up to me and say no kid can touch me or coach I'm one of the top four kids in the state we need to be realistic okay we knew we
024were some we knew it was one of the top all-americans in the country in his weight class um so top four is our goal um max didn't even make it down state last year so just getting there was a huge feat in itself and then when we got there and got to the metal round uh he had to win the match in the blood round to get a medal and he won that and during that match he ended up breaking his toe and we're not sure yet but might have broke his planner plate as well waiting on MRI results um but I said to Max I said max you're fine you're okay like you're fine no big deal it's nothing because all season All Season Max Max is going on uh UW platform next year
025to continue his college football career um over there and all season he was kind of hyper hyper folk not hyper focused but a little worried about getting injured and that was one of the big things was Max you're fine you're okay you're okay so I honestly thought he was okay I'm just telling you he was fine but he wrestled his last two matches unfortunate unfortunately both win losses but um one in overtime another one real close okay with a broken toe and went out there didn't blink an eye you would never even know until he came after Matt limp and he wasn't ripping was out there so uh pretty awesome to finish as a community fun little short on the top floor but um it was pretty awesome pretty spectacular especially the finish of the
026season so great job Max students take pictures with administrators and school board members LHS principal Tom kulantes all right and um LHS is also celebrating an All-State swimmer and actually an All-State diver uh tonight so let's bring up Ethan Paul Applause coach Greg Herman couldn't be here tonight but uh I got to observe Ethan um in his Dives and if you I know uh Mr Carmichael you know this very well but when you dive at the state meet it's dead silence and there's a couple thousand people all just staring at you and you are the only action in the entire pool and so not only do you have to be very physically skilled uh and precise but you also have to be mentally tough and you have to go through uh all of your Dives
027one thing about Ethan he uh it's sectionals shattered um a School record that had stood for 30 years um you have to tell me it was yours was 5 12. he he Dove 512 in 11 Dives and the school record before that was 490 or four 492 so absolutely Applause and he had an outstanding state meet and finished eighth in the state for diving so congratulations Applause while students receive certificates students take pictures with administrators and school board members thank you camera pans back to school board president Lisa Hassell so this is a part of the meeting first of all I want to Echo Drew's comments um really a shout out to all the parents of our dedicated student performers and athletes they wouldn't be where they are without you we know the dedication it
028takes to get your child to that level thank you to all the coaches who poor so much time and energy into our student athletes um this is the point of the meeting where everybody is invited to stay but we are going to proceed with the business part of the meeting so if you have come only for student recognition now would be a convenient time for you to exit but we are very happy to see we have a very well attended meeting and we're happy for everybody who is here to stay good voice students and parents exit the room hey moving on to our next item uh Item B invitation for public comment um we accept public comments related to current agenda topics or other items um it's limited to three minutes um you can't seed
029your time to another person anyone who wishes to speak um I believe we had one person sign in uh when you're called please address the podium just say your name and I'll ask Sarah greenswag to start us off thank you camera pans to lectern and assembled crowd good evening everyone Sarah greenswagen I'm a social studies teacher at Libertyville High School I've worked in this district for 10 years and I'm a proud Union member three years ago my family and I moved into the district and I cannot wait for the day when all three of my children are LHS Wildcats alongside me I have a long career ahead of me and I want to spend it here for these reasons I was asked to speak on behalf of our union membership to express directly to you
030the school board and administration our Collective questions and observations about the direction our district seems to be moving in my fellow union members and I are here tonight out of curiosity and concern we believe that everyone in this room tonight is here because they believe that public education is the most powerful tool to uplift all students we also believe that everyone in this room tonight should be open to feedback and be willing to Pivot if we discover that past decisions have done more harm than good while we appreciate the district administration's recent attempts to solicit feedback from our members in both buildings we feel compelled to share our feedback directly with the school board we have filled out numerous surveys that the district's request expressing our displeasure with a number of issues facing our members
031our students and our schools we hope that the board has seen not only the data but also the narrative feedback from these surveys that being said we still feel compelled to share our unfiltered voice directly with you tonight our Union is a body of 291 members each with their own unique and diverse perspectives and experiences while we cannot speak to all of them in this limited time frame we want to provide a snapshot of some of our Collective Curiosities and concerns number one a lack of timely and effective communication for one example this is now the second time this year that the final exam schedule has not been communicated to staff or students making it difficult to plan to end-of-year experiences and adding stress for our kids number two low morale of teachers and staff
032for example the widespread perception that our district is adopting a more top-down business-minded model that feels impersonal and disconnected from the humanness of our work with students number three allocation of financial resources for example the potential Fallout from the increase in special education class sizes at the expense of one of our most vulnerable student populations this is in addition to the expansion of administrative positions at the district level at the cost of in-building leadership that's more accessible to staff and students number four the maintaining of our reputation as a high achieving District for example expectations for students have decreased both academically and behaviorally in addition this district has historically been a destination for families and teachers attracting the most talented and motivated people in the field today we fear we are moving in the opposite
033direction as our best and most talented are stepping down from or simply not seeking leadership positions so that's three minutes but I want to give you a chance are you close to being done yes great thank you thank you we believe this list gives you some perspective on a cross-section of issues that we have regarding the direction of the district and our concerns with the leadership we look forward to seeing the actions that the District administration and school board will take to address these issues we also want to make it clear that we support our Union leadership and their continuing efforts to raise these and Myriad other concerns to District administration and to you our school board if you would like more information and specific accounts of what we have already touched on we invite
034you to attend the superintendent's roundtables at each building in the near future to hear directly from us the staff and teachers on the ground with our students thank you for your time Applause thank you Sarah is there anybody else wishing to address the board if so please feel free to approach the podium a man approaches the lectern I don't think I signed in I guess they started by who I am and where I live correct just your name Socrates Vela so I'm not surprised to hear what she said about where the academics are going um there was an incident a couple a couple of weeks ago two three weeks ago where a boy was severely beaten in one of the bathrooms here in this school and so that video went viral and so I'm here
035to kind of to address that two years ago I believe I asked Dr Herman superintendent about Panic buttons in the bathroom and I think that would have been helpful for that boy when he was getting beat up by four kids so I like to bring that up again and say what else that needs to happen to get panic buttons in the bathroom I went to UIC University of Illinois in Chicago it's a while back they had panic buttons everywhere some schools in Chicago high schools have metal detectors at the entrance correct I'm glad we're not there yet but I think for now Panic buns in the bathroom might be helpful not only for the students or for the staff you have an Illinois where you let males use female bathrooms correct um our biggest fears
036have occurred not here but other parts in the country and that's kind of what why I had brought up the panic button in the bathrooms because a couple years ago an incident had did occur in Virginia again I have two daughters there's female staff here I think we need to give that safety layer to them so with that said I don't really have anything else to say tonight and I think Dr Gilliam um done a good job trying to communicate with what the intentions are for the future but I just wanted to make it public that I really want to see something along those lines so I don't know who the person's in charge of security maybe it's um um gentlemen there I forgot his name so are you uh gesturing to Bryant Kelly Mr
037Kelly yes if he's head of security or whatever so that would go through Dr Herman Dr Herman okay so thank you for your time on a positive end I'm really happy of some of the things that have been going on around here food trucks coming to the school the Cinderella play it's a great school and it's staffed with some wonderful people and I've only lived in the area since 2002 so you probably go back a little further maybe with the so you guys are doing a great job but there's some tweaking and remember what I said a couple years ago when you fix something you got to be careful because in your position you might be breaking something as well so thank you for your time Applause board president Lisa Hassell thanks Mr Bella anybody
038else wishing to dress the board please approach the podium going once going twice okay we're gonna move on and I'm so happy that there are so many teachers here to hear this next part of the meeting because some of these student board reps are your students and we are so proud of the work that they do and the valuable perspective they bring by giving us the student voice so without further Ado I will hand it over to our student School Board Reps for their reports vhhs student Ariel schiffrin would you you know I'm sorry first of all could you bring be sure the microphone is close enough since also if you wouldn't mind so everybody gets to a chance to know who's speaking hi everyone I'm Mario friend I'm a senior at Vernon Hills High
039School um it's my pleasure to be speaking with you all tonight throughout this last month Vernon Hills High School students have been immersed in athletics Civics Fine Arts and research for the world languages classes athletic programs both old and new have garnered attention from the student body as winter seasons come to close the ping pong team a new addition to the cougar athletic Pantheon has had an active season of intramural competition raheel sheth a senior found it fun to be in the city as a team competed at Whitney Young high school and was proud of their performance at the recent Founders Club tournament senior veteran jaganth said that the tournament was competitive but fun and enjoyed playing against schools like Stevenson rahil is hoping to find new leadership to continue the team's success in coming
040years basketball has been active both as a VHS team and intramurally Eric Beamer just completed his first Yana team describing as a good time in a fun season where he could spend time with friends on the team cardiac vasudeva Jr spoke highly of a second year on intramural basketball marked by team vasudeva competing School staff at the recent pep assembly those staff took the victory Carter called assembly a great experience and a fun opportunity in a similar season wrap the Vernon Hills jazz band culminated its year with the jazz festival rehearsing since October the Jazz Band demonstrated its repertoire joined by the middle school jazz bands for a rendition of Watermelon Man senior Ryan serali highly recommends other cougars to join The Ensemble and says that he is sad to leave a program that he's
041been part of since sixth grade Ben Evans who took on trumpet solos despite his usual performance of French horn said it was really exciting to see the product of their work come together and that soloing in front of a such a large audience even though it was scary was a great opportunity during the school day world languages students have been working hard on a department-wide passion project as a new initiative student sentiments vary regarding the project one Junior and AP Spanish show that while he enjoys the research and analyzing how his topic impacts other cultures and communities he was not as excited about executing the physical components of the project French student shared concerns over the projects and Project's impact on class time as she approaches AP testing and an AP German student though appreciative
042of the creative in-class work time offered struggles to make his research relevant to his test preparations a junior noted the overlap between the workload of the research of This research project and their history fair project struggling to find areas of interest for this project given the redundancy identified overall students are adjusting to this new component of their language immersion hookers have had no shortage of excitement as they explored music Sport and language over February span vhhs student Hari June hello everybody my name is Hari Jun and I am a senior at Vernon Hills High School February has been a very busy month for the Cougars firstly backlight Theater Company proudly concluded a successful winter season with the winter play Murder on the Orient Express on Feb February 2nd to the 4th and the freshman sophomore
043played Treasure Island on February 17th through the 18th after these fantastic performances the spring play the complete works of William Shakespeare Abridged revised again is in the works on February 23rd burn Hills High School had a blood drive where the Cougars were able to give back to their Community many signed up and for senior Anna Sigler it was rewarding to know that she was helping someone in need for money cougars the testing center is like a second home a place to take a missed assessment or retake one starting early February the testing center implemented a new policy in order to take a test students would have to sign up on a Sign Up Genius for a designated time slot this was to avoid the overwhelming number of students that came in after school to take
044a test and to avoid loud noise that would distract students that were already sitting down to take one while this new policy has ensured more Tranquility in the testing center students show frustration senior Sonia Allen noted that it is very stressful knowing that a student now has no guarantee that they will be able to take a test when they feel the most confident about their material and that they now have to worry about finding finding a time at which they will be able to take it with the limited availability of the seats in the testing center Sonia noted that using the arc as an extension of the testing center would help to stop the stress that students now have regarding whether or not they will be able to take their tests and help with spatial
045availability voices and prevention has been on a roll this month going on field trips to elementary schools such as Rocklin Raptor Elementary School to perform skits regarding relationships bullying and peer pressure senior Dylan turani noted how nice it is to see the children get so engaged while watching the skits and how gratifying it is to know that he is able to make a positive impact on the students after a Day offers teacher Institute day the Cougars came prepared for the first day of Winter Dance spirit week while jamming to Hollywood songs that played during the passing periods many students were dressed like one another and depending on the day I think I even saw Adam Sandler as well no doubt the Cougars came fully equipped with school spirit the whole week leading up to the
046winner dance and on Friday in the school assembly there was so much excitement for Saturday night the Winter Dance was very fun and depending on the room that you were in The Vibes were very different for example students that were watching Shrek in the studio theater were very calm while just a couple of steps away in the gymnasium people were moshing all in all the Cougars had a very great time the month of February was huge for a lot of seniors after getting their early action decisions back a number of seniors committed to college this month senior Jenna Sala who committed to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign noted that it is such a relief to not stress about waiting for more schools and further future planning with that being said she also noted that
047she has noticed a little bit of a decrease in motivation because she is more relaxed now with all of these commitments I am only hoping that I'll follow in their footsteps soon as conversations in the hallways have shifted from the discussion of Valentine's Day activities to when spring break is going to come the careers keep moving and grooving to the beat of Their Own Drum thank you vhhs student Sophia Marin hi my name is Sophia Marine this month has been one focused on empowerment Emma Anderson a leading Club member of the black student union BSU says it's been a month of quote celebrating black success and culture of Shining Light on experiences that they face and the richness of their identity school-wide trivia questions give classes the opportunity to discuss small exciting but meaningful topics
048about impactful black leaders she just scrambled to call into the office to submit an answer to the trivia questions but it didn't take very long for the school phone line to get all overwhelmed in my class students were quick thinking hopeful that they'd win the Enterprise which thankfully we did being one of the first winners we got to indulge in deliciously made chocolate covered Oreos made by black owned local businesses according to Anderson the trivia was much more than just a game but rather about quote highlighting events in the world that have to do with black culture throughout these past couple weeks they've done just that at vhhs's first BSU family night black vhhs students and their families came to meet and as Anderson said to quote talk about their experiences at the HBCU event
049on President's Day underclassmen got to hear from A diversity of colleges speaking about the unique and supportive communities that they have at the BSU movie night students got to laugh in Kindle new friendships Anderson mentioned how healthy and quote good it was for us to get together even though we're not at the same school but more importantly she says all these events have been an important quote opportunity for kids who aren't black to understand the impact that black people have have had on inventions education and to see why we Face racism and why words are hurtful throughout High School Anderson has been inspired by BSU the safe space it's built for her the layers of her identity that she's found and that she's able to help other people find it showed her from the guest
050speakers that have come in to speak to the many BSU events that quote being black isn't just about the focus on racism you don't just focus on racism but also in believing in yourself in my conversation with her she said something that struck me and unsettled me quote initially I didn't I did not I did not feel comfortable in my culture because I had only ever I had only ever had white friends I realize you can't hide from your culture I was able to grow so much because I joined BSU the reason I say this is because Anderson's probably not the only one the community and the Affinity space is something that she's so thankful she found because it showed her what it means to be uniquely and unapologetically black and to be proud of
051that fact yet beyond that community and Affinity space at times it's not perfect or even safe Anderson explains that she hopes more classes especially English classes can quote teach things like affirmative action and institutional racism even when it's not during Black History Month additionally she wished that quote there were more people of color teaching in English classes because of how much it would enhance students education with more well-rounded perspectives it is unsettling to think that some students like Anderson don't get to see that many people who look like her in authority and teaching positions at our schools it's unsettling to think that even among such a supportive culture and school that that's influenced her that the black identity is off and very deep Perhaps Perhaps it should be a wake-up call to me to you
052to the school within the Hispanic and Latino Community there were there was also a lot of Celebration and opportunity just a couple weeks ago the Chico's in chicas Club went to the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute conference where they heard from inspiring speakers that talked about educational Equity work-life balance and the pathway towards Excellence through internships and career networking inspiration and encouragement is a unique concept one that we hope to ingrain into the culture at the HHS just a couple days before Valentine's and Valentine's Day dare to empower vhhs's gender advocacy Club held a table giving students the opportunity to write affirming positive statements among the chaos of students busy homework and sports filled lives it can be reflecting to just stop for a moment and add some positivity to the hulls and maybe the
053minds of students aside from a lot of the cultural Affinity spaces the sports Community has also prospered finding lots of success and Trophies the gymnastics team placed second in state for the second year in a row after a season four of a lot of success underneath all the trophies there was a lot of hard work senior Becca Tran says that quote going to every meet with such a good team felt so exciting and that it felt incredible to compete so successfully this season and eventually make it to State Bowling also made it to State Ashley Shoemaker making it to the finals of State said it was a long but rewarding Journey need to see how much progress and hard work the team put in the fencing the fencing team a lesser-known sport has also had
054a successful season sending inventors to the Junior Olympics and beating teams like Stevenson Deerfield as well as schools in Indiana at the conference Championship which had a culmination of schools across three different states competing the men's team got first and Bethany bohemer got third senior Bethany bohemer a member of the women's fencing team said that the sport has been thrilling and exciting despite the community and supportive teammates she's found she also says being a lesser known being in a lesser known sport can be frustrating and a quote by her she said I just wish more people knew we existed most of the reactions I get when I talk about our team is what we have a fencing team it's frustrating that we never get recognized except for notes in paw prints whereas other teams at
055vhhs will get shout outs during announcements for doing well at the end of their season trophies have filled the shelves of VHS hallways but so has the not so visible Journeys and what students and Affinity groups have taken to empower reflect and Advocate and educate LHS student fate mileman Choi hey everyone it's a pleasure to be here tonight I'm Fatima man shall we um I'll just start off the LHS report so suko is wrapping our shine season as we dance the night away at our Winter Dance on Saturday we enjoyed our silent disco and photo booth moments a refresher from the cold a long semester in our assembly students and staff participated in relay races in blow-up costumes teachers were represented by a gigantic giraffe and they won the big game of Hungry Hungry Hippo
056our arts department has a ton going on this month including our choir Cabaret concerts which was celebrities Edition this time on Wednesday night students dressed up as celebrities like Beyonce Elvis Presley Harry Styles and performs music from some of our favorite movies and plays including La La Land and Tick Tock boom senior Samantha Chen our very own senior concerto competition winner will solo at the orchestra Winter concert on Thursday March 2nd and she says she's super excited February is Black History Month and LHS students and staff plan many events to educate everyone about important figures in black history for example in my AP Lit class my teacher shows us a different poem Every Day by a black poet as we learn about their work and its meaning we also visited the Black History Month Museum
057in the library during our social studies class like in my government class and we also discussed achievements of black artists and athletes in the United States this is so important as it ties back to our daring Mission as we value diversity equity and inclusion additionally our daily mission includes encourages students to be aware and Wildcats definitely exemplify that as students brought in hundreds of water cases to donate to Palestine Ohio to assist the residents that were affected by the training by the train crash that um spill toxic chemicals into our community so very proud of our Wildcats for exemplifying this daring Mission this month LHS student Jasmine lofida Jasmine I just want one of the main things that I want to talk about inside of my board report actually does Echo what some of the
058teachers were saying or what um screen swag said during I'm the teacher public comment which was confusion over the calendar for this year it's already March and I know that a lot of my friends and myself are kind of frustrated at the fact that we still don't know what's happening with finals for seniors and just finals in general it's causing a lot of anxiety among students and staff because I personally and a lot of my friends go through classes differently when they're when we have in mind that there's a final at the end of the year it requires a lot more long-term planning and a lot more thought going into your schedules if there's a final and we're already almost halfway through the semester and we don't know that yet a common sentiment I've heard
059among teachers and students alike is that it's already almost March and we still don't know the state of finals and another thing is lots of seniors don't even know when our last day of school is which is kind of rough um a lot of us think it's May 19th and that's what we've been told but that still hasn't been finalized yet and it's just in general very confusing and frustrating that we still have the spot the schedule for the end of the year which is in pretty much two months still not done yet um but on happier note state tournaments have been coming up for many clubs um lots of clubs are preparing to go on to State series scholastic bowl is heading to their regionals tournament this Wednesday at Lake Forest High School and
060if they win they'll move on to sectionals I'm personally really excited as a member of The Varsity Scholastic Bowl team Mac team won their regional tournament this past Saturday beating Vernon Hills by only one point and they'll be headed to State soon senior and math team vice president math team vice president Omar Mahmoud said this team the team has been rolling on also cylinders year the team has been rolling on all cylinder there's all year long especially this freshman team everyone is excited about the regional win but there's plenty of room for improvement and to clean up on careless errors made so State should go even better everyone is looking forward to the first true state meet in four years debate junior varsity is headed to state next weekend and varsity is headed there the
061week after that and I'm on debate and I'm actually really excited I'm unfortunately not able to compete at Varsity State this year but I'm really excited to be judging um JV State and I'm just really excited for my teammates and seeing all of the preparations that's been going into the state tournament as well on the same line of State we've had a lot of athletic wins at state tournaments lots of LHS kids have won or placed two of the state winners here they were just here earlier but Cole madalenko once stayed in wrestling and Anna Becker won in gymnastics so we're just really excited at all of the athletic and academic accomplishments of the Wildcats LHS student Sarah Wu hello my name is Sarah Wu so as when the winter season wraps up for sports
062we had a lot of tryouts begin today including badminton boys and girls lacrosse and water polo students are really excited for the final Sports season of the year and um Jazzy mentioned finals another thing that has been on students Minds um recently and also I feel like for a long time has been the bathrooms at LHS I think it's something that we oftentimes take for granted but um our bathrooms at least the girls bathrooms um that I've been in they flood very easily there are um just like very outdated where doors don't close all the way or doors are broken or there's locks that are broken or the locks aren't there at all um there's also sinks that you know like where water doesn't come out and the paper towel dispensers oftentimes it's kind of
063like a hit or miss you don't know paper towels are gonna come out um and um you know just like visiting other schools for like sporting events I've seen their bat restrooms and bathrooms and I feel like our school um maybe doesn't kind of Meet the standard for that and um I think it's not only like a sanitation issue but also I think there's some accessibility issues so it can also be an inclusion in equity problem senior Leah Trudy said that there's only a few locations within the school that are in convenient places and or like the nicer bathrooms are in inconvenient places while as the ones that are that more um like people go through they're just like in very very um poor condition Alex Clark said that the boys bathrooms are very dark
064not inviting and again there's drainage issues um so just on behalf of students I think this uh the bathrooms and improving the bathrooms is worth the investment and something it's since it's something that students use every day um we really think that more attention and Care needs to be paid to the bathrooms um and I also think this gives us room to maybe expand more gender neutral bathrooms or just find out different ways that we can you know be more Equitable and inclusive and that aspect of the school also so thank you for your consideration board president Lisa Hassell as always very nice job thank you you brought up some good issues and in the interest of time we are definitely going to circle back to those issues um I think a couple of those
065items will are coming up later in the agenda as well as in next month's committee meetings so we hear you on those bathrooms for sure uh we hear you on the final schedule for sure um and those are two things that the board definitely is paying attention to and looks forward to a resolution um moving on next we have our foyer requests yes we received seven different foyer requests since our last board meeting the first was received on January 23rd and it was requesting a documentation from um uh bid and bond for all documentation and outstanding we responded on 127. the second came on January 26th it was from the Illinois retired Teachers Association asking for the names and email addresses of any certified staff member who are retiring number three we received a request
066on January 27th from a local lab asking for information um on disseminating information for public interest and not personal communication it was for all teachers for the years 2020 2021 and 2022 we received another commercial request on February 2nd from Smart procure for any information about physical copying scanning or printing materials that we use um number five was a commercial request from February 7th asking for information from the bid and tabulations for the Vernon Hills project for roofing number six is a commercial request that we received on February 22nd again another request for a bid opening tabulation for them to have those bids released and the seventh commercial request received on February 24th um asking for bids and tabulations for the resurfacing at Vernon house and we reply to all of them promptly great thank
067you for the time that it takes to respond to those lawful requests moving on uh some more good news yes this has been an evening of good news and some of the students reported on some of the things that I had on my list so thank you for sharing them in the student voice so that will make this a little bit shorter first I want to recognize that 16 students received the February Ellen swick cougar Class Act award congratulations to Olivia Irvin Amy rupsis Alexis reinstein Elizabeth itel Sophia Marin the slav Sagan Alexandria silinski Courtney euglinka Jaden Rush Nathan klemstein raheel Seth Sophie Caudill Emma Anderson Christian lesko Caitlin Hughes and Ashley Shoemaker I don't want to prolong your good news report but Jasmine do you want to share which teacher nominated you in for
068for what I was nominated by Miss rash and Miss Klein it was uh me and then uh four other people or four other people from the dare to empower club that I'm in so that's a fairly new club and they wanted to recognize us for basically helping to lead and grow the club congratulations thank you next up we recognize department chair Deborah Kellum as she was named the recipient of the iacte Lifetime Achievement Award during the Illinois Association for Career and Technical educations conference the Lifetime Achievement Award is given to an individual member whose dedicated contributions have been identified with the work and purposes of the association over an extended period of time during her 34 years in education Deborah has contributed in countless ways to the growth and development of of her CTE teachers
069and programs next we have additional students to celebrate and this is for our d128 National Merit finalists and we have two of them who are sitting here with us at this table Jasmine lafida Applause congratulations um others from LHS are Omar Muhammad Belinda Lee Aditya chakra Charles verkulin Chase Hauser Zhang Zhu and Samuel lamb and then from Vernon Hills we have Arielle schiffrin Applause as well as Chloe body Jeffrey Brahms anaga srisha David Wang and Jacob Wang congratulations to all of the finalists Applause and then a few additional things we also get to recognize as we did before not only academics but some arts and some success in art competition the following LHS students won awards in the 2023 Scholastic art and writing Awards the gold key went to Samantha Chen for painting and drawing
070Elias irizi for digital art and Roe potsik for printmaking silver key went to the Samantha Chen for sculpture and print making Abigail Flanagan for digital art an honorable mention were Lily Castro for digital art Samantha Chen for comic art and drawing illustration Brianna dunworth for painting at atalia Hermann for print making and Elias arizi for digital art we also had students compete in the family and consumer excuse me family career and Community leaders of America which is FCCLA at Harper College congratulations to Erica Von kirkbot for go receiving a gold in the frosting competition Margot Kaufman for receiving a gold in the relish tray Elizabeth Mulligan silver in fondant competition for gold and most outstanding in children's literature Shannon Paola silver in apparel construction and Mirabella marubio gold and apparel Construction and we also have
071vhhs Junior Haley kalinskowi was crowned Miss Lake County of 2023 on Saturday that's really interesting and then finally we have students from d128 who were recognized at the Illinois Council for exceptional children's Northern recognition yes I can awards ceremony and I'd like to congratulate Danielle murakoa Noah Hewitt Danielle granados John Keating and Eric itel and one last one I know I skipped we have one special Olympian who brought home the gold in 2000 meter and the bronze and 1000 meter snowshoeing from Special Olympics and that is Joseph Mahler so that is a wonderful list of accomplishments for all of our students and staff great thank you Dr Herman moving along for Action um I'm sorry for the consent vote agenda um I'd like to have a motion to approve the consent vote agenda please so
072moved second Carmichael grumpy sorry Carol no worries um roll call please Benjamin aye car Michael hi drum Keith hi Hessel hi oh Carney hi Beth Center hi great the consent vote agenda passes um moving on to items for Action I will turn it over to Jim Batson to take us through those items that came out of the property and Personnel committee okay good evening we have um item a is the board policies this is a second reading so this means these have been reviewed in uh committee meetings for the last two months and also uh read into the record for a first reading last month's uh board meeting so uh I think we've reviewed these putty and made any tweaks we needed to do and ready to uh um accept these for a second reading
073and adoption so we can have a motion please move to approve the uh updated board policies as recommended any uh further comments questions okay a roll call please Carmichael hi drum key aye aye call Carney hi Batson aye Benjamin aye okay motion passes the next item here is for the uh ISP uh press plus uh policy update services this has to do with the uh the service that the Illinois Association of School awards provides to maintain and uh uh actually help us publish uh those policies in a in a very easy to use format uh so uh we can have a motion to approve this uh purchase uh has slow motion to approve the contract with ISB for press plus policy update services for a one-time fee of 7 800 for board policy manual customization
074an annual fee of 950 for a subscription to press Plus for a customizable maintenance updating service for the d128 board policy manual second thank you any uh questions or comments on this okay can we have a roll call please rum key aye hesso I oh Carney I Betson hi Benjamin aye Carmichael hi okay motion passes uh the next item is the uh transition Pathways administrative assistant oh I'm skip C I'm sorry my cursor went one too fast uh English learner department chair um someone give us some Yesenia will give a short summary yeah thank you yes so this is metal support our El teacher teacher currently been to come with the El Department such as coordinating a screening of any new students as well as administering the test ensuring that proper placement that they're placed
075properly also preparing all of the annual parent notification letters articulating with schools where students transfer in and making sure they have all the appropriate data to place them correctly also articulation with the feeder schools in preparation for any Uprising freshmen the coordination and administration of the annual access testing and then monitoring and tracking student progress for both current students and our students who have exited and our monitor as well as supporting the bpac and coordinating some of that and then of course the task of developing courses to meet the very specific linguistic needs of students who may be coming in newcomers we've had a significant number newcomers this year um versus you know a language level four student or a language level five um and then they also have the task of providing professional development
076to other staff to help them better support students so this will be structured like a department chair where they will teach two classes and then the remainder of their time will be dedicated to the administering of the program we do we did have a significant increase from last year to this year from 81 students to 120 and Dan was telling me that he can see what's coming from the feeder schools is it is it his crystal ball or does he have data he has some data and he thinks we're going to have a significant increase okay I'm not ready yet but like but yeah sorry sorry is it enough to trigger the mandatory full-time administrative position assistant superintendent for business Dan Stanley um it's too early to tell what I can tell you is eel
077will be a prominent feature of District 128 for the foreseeable future and I do think that's something that we talked about at previous meetings is once our student population reaches 200 we are required to have a full-time administrator to do all of the work that Yesenia listed um and we are so thankful for the teachers who've been doing that work up to this point but because we're at 120 we definitely for next year want to invest in that system and making sure we support those students and those teachers so when we discuss this in committee I mean that the purpose of this is to alleviate the responsibilities that the classroom that the teachers are taking on overburdened to put into this District even though we haven't been triggered by that Benchmark number yes in preparation
078and anticipation of and to get them to speed okay thank you thank you for the that explanation can we have a motion please move to approve oh sorry Carmichael move to approve the new English learner department chair position to serve Vernon Hills High School and Libertyville High School Benjamin II any questions or comments from the board okay roll call please hustle aye Cole Carney aye Batson aye Benjamin aye Carmichael hi drum key aye okay now we're up to the transition Pathways Administrative Assistant for those of you that were able to attend our ribbon cutting ceremony uh just over a week ago at transition Pathways um our facility is up and running um it's great to you know have the facility for our students it's been a challenging year with um starting at Sullivan Center in
079Vernon Hills um using district office uh for that program but we're happy to be in our own site on Milwaukee Avenue but because I think our staff did such a phenomenal job of taking this program back from cedoll our numbers of students um exceeded what we expected in year one um so uh you know we had set when we looked at this two years ago two and a half years ago of setting our program with Staffing uh with space um one of the things down the road was to have a dedicated office uh Personnel at transition Pathways um we want to up that timeline a little bit and um get approval for that um administrative assistant position to be at transition Pathways to help with paperwork Transportation but budget items that are currently being kind
080of spread between the transition pathway coordinator teachers the aides the special education administrative assistant and the LHS and vhhs data processing teams doing the work in PowerSchool so we want to bring that all into one kind of own school and have this administrative assistant and again that was in our projections that we talked about before um was two and a half years ago but with the number of students we'd like to up that timeline a little bit superintendent Denise Herman just to remind people that with the increase in students it's the cost savings that we avoid from sending the students out to seadall so when we expected 20 and knowing next year we're going to have 40 we really see the need and the investment so it's not like this is an additional cost this
081will come from the cost savings from those students not having to have outside tuition okay thank you for that explanation could I have a motion please motion to drum key sorry Carol motion to approve the new full-time Administrative Assistant for the transition pathway Hessel second uh is the board have any additional questions or comments no we discussed it extensively in committee no okay thank you uh roll call please call Carney hi Batson hi Benjamin hi Carmichael hi drum key aye Hessel aye Ocean passes we do have a few additional employment of employees these came in after the committee meeting earlier in the month so these are we're not in the consent agenda so we have a motion to approve these hustle a motion to approve five employment items that occurred after the PNP committee meeting
082second thank you any questions or comments roll call please I yes hi hi motion passes uh the yearbook was under PMP right okay your book is in PNP is it evidence okay then I will pass this over to my colleague done thank you filling in for Casey Rooney but I'll turn it over to Dan uh this is a private agreement uh with Ruth Jones um for the printing of the yearbook at Vernon Hills uh there's a similar agreement we did a year ago for LHS so this is a very similar the students you know pay for the yearbooks um and yeah so this is uh with her Jones for five year agreement cost of sixty five thousand seven thirty seven eighty eight per year board president Lisa Hassell I moved to approve the five-year agreement
083with Herff Jones for the printing of vhhs yearbooks at an annual cost of 65 737.88 that's in second 30 further discussion also covered well at committee all right Carol Benjamin aye Carmichael aye grumpki aye Hessel I call Carney I Betson aye Board number Don Carmichael okay the next motion oh the motion passes forgot my role um the next bit is the 10-year Life Safety survey which was a panic the first time we read it because it seemed like it was overwhelming and Incredibly expensive um Mark did a very nice job in Committee of going through the individual items and letting us know a little bit about why some of them were overstated so thank you for that it relieved some panic but I guess I can turn it over for Mark to philson or Dan
084whichever view it loses I'll fill in you fill in any gaps um so this is a 10-year tenure required the processes it goes before the board then it goes to are we and then goes to isby and at each each of those stages they have to approve review each item and approve it so once we get that information ultimately back from isbe that's when we can really work on an action plan to address it this is really to acknowledge the knowledge the the light the the the violations on the list and then um and then once we get the information back from MSB that's where we develop a plan uh to address them they've already addressed a ton of the issues but I mean there's a significant amount that's already an address yeah corrected right
085yeah yes but we you know we they still have to be documented and go through the process so yeah so and there are other items that we did complete you know during covid that weren't on this list as as it was delayed you know during covert being submitted so um and we will work with Str and and finish things in-house it could be finishing house and contractors to do the other items and and uh the costs aren't really representative of what is actually going to cost you know it's going to be less so the updated values that we saw on the a b and c do those include the what we expect to be cost savings if I looked over the items for a and it came in at like 350 000 and this one
086says 305 000. so you've already gone through and said this isn't going to cost this much the new signs aren't going to cost that much we got those numbers directly from the architect which puts in the numbers so okay there could be a slightly different number from actually the architect puts in both numbers so they shouldn't really be different but the difference is immaterial is the real the focus is really the actual violation right and then going through that process but there shouldn't be any material difference in the number I mean slight differences maybe but it shouldn't be a material difference in the numbers okay and then items that are listed as C those are the ones that we don't have to do but we're still likely to at some point like there's a sort
087of children are equipment items uh air handlers things along those sorts they're on schedule anyway on schedule already on our long-term capital project list that will be addressed in the future so um but they're not required at any point to be done for the light safety so uh we're asking for uh the board to uh prove uh the light safety report as submitted um can I hear a motion Batson I moved to approve the life safety report as submitted hustle second further discussion and just to be clear this is the report that we're submitting we're not asking we're not approving doing these things we're just proving submitting this on up to the process we're just acknowledging the violations yeah yeah very good Carol car Michael hi drum key aye Hessel I call Carney aye Batson
088aye Benjamin aye okay the next item up is a bid approval for Vernon Hills High School Roofing yes we went out for uh we looked at first background we looked at the roofs on Vernon Hills High School that are due for replacement and we chose the roof that was leaking uh the most in in most need of work uh which is roof number 16. uh we went out for bid um for replacing that roof over during the summer um uh the apparent low bidder was A1 Roofing um at a cost of 985 500 um they acknowledge the scope of the work uh we have contingencies in in the in the bid uh for material cost increases and other items um so uh per consultant we are recommending this board approve this uh bid Board number
089Don Carmichael I hear a motion to approve a bid with A1 roofing for the 2023 Roofing removal and replacement project at Vernon Hills High School for 985 500 so moved second Batson discussion uh we've discussed this extensively for years it's been a budgeted expense that we've known is coming this is kind of putting the punctuation on a Year's long conversation indeed okay roll call drum key I hustle I call Carney aye Batson aye Benjamin aye Carmichael aye okay and the last one is a oh gosh darn it motion passes do we have government students here tonight I'm a model of what not to do no we're setting a good example we're setting a good Civic engagement there you go perfect uh okay the last item is a bid approval for the Vernon Hills roadway and
090LHS Stadium Hardscape replacement director of facilities Mark hoop man okay thank you uh we went out for forbid for uh the VHS VHS roadway uh replacement which is cougar way um and we also uh looked at the LHS Stadium Hardscape uh some issues over at the stadium uh so we're looking to upgrade some areas there um so um we bid it as uh multiple projects um uh the base bid was for the cougar way replacement to that that's a mill grind and replace of the surface uh replacing some curb work in in other items along the way um and then alternate number one um replaced Hardscape over at Libertyville High School in the area where you enter uh ticket booth area um along that space uh we put this walkway uh to the public restrooms
091which has um sunk into the ground some and uh so we're trying to bring it back upgrade for handicap and as well as along the front of concession stand uh replacing the asphalt along the fence line there um so um the bid for the base bid for the um well actually we had uh um six bidders on the project we had um eight um contractors come um the base bid for um the Vernon Hills uh project was 224 000 and eight dollars and for Libertyville alternate number one was a 118 000 and three dollars for a total cost for both projects of 342 thousand and eleven dollars and we asked the board to uh approve uh both of those projects for um to go ahead for the summers work that's also moved perform that's in
092second and and we might have a discussion item comment yeah I just wanted to give the context like the we had an estimate of 50 000 that we had originally for the escape and this is way higher than that I I gave a little bit of narrative but I just wanted to emphasize that this was way over what we estimated I think when they actually walked when they walked and actually wrote out the scope to realize that the work that needed to be done in that area was larger than we had originally anticipated and so when we got all the numbers in because some of the other projects have come in under we felt like we're still kind of at that near the four million dollar number that we had said back in um earlier
093in the fiscal year uh or January maybe yeah um so that's why we felt comfortable recommending this project going forward normally if we had a project that we estimated at 50 000 and it came in over twice that amount we would pick a very serious pause there but we felt given the context of all the other projects we're looking at why we felt comfortable moving forward uh with the work because um we do feel that it's important work that's needed uh for safety reasons so uh we've had a motion in a second so roll call hi and the motion passes I thought I was going to forget yeah and we move on okay moving on to for information I'll turn it over to Dr Herman for a superintendent's report certainly the first thing that I
094want to celebrate are the wonderful learning sessions we had last Monday for our staff administrators teachers um our ESP staff all participated in some very high quality learning about microaggressions and our work towards that inequity towards Faith's law really understanding The increased restrictions that there are now on Educators and their students in terms of appropriate boundaries and relations we also had a required El training that again as we're increasing our student population all staff we have to show that we've had all staff trained in whatever aspect of el they might provide support for families or students and then in the afternoon we had few different ones some of our teachers presented we also had some outside presenters but that was more of a variety and then in closing we had an amazing keynote speaker who
095was actually a recent graduate from underline High School who also a few weeks ago gave a spoken word performance at the Chicago Bulls and it was very much about celebrating the power of education and everyone um how much he appreciated having teachers show him the stage and letting him find his Niche and being an amazing learner and how much he encouraged and celebrated our teachers and doing the same for our students so anyone else on our team want to acknowledge anything else from the professional learning day superintendent Denise Herman wonderful okay the second thing that I'd like to do and I'm actually going to head up to the podium just because there's a couple of documents I wanted to show we have received as a board and I get copied on all the emails that
096you receive um from parents and some students asking us some questions about some of our program differences and so I thought it might be nice I've been answering and copying you on all the individual ones but I had two meetings in person last week also so I thought this might be a nice time with my update to give you just sort of a status of where we are so both people slide superintendents update thank you Dr Herman is at the lectern again so these are a few documents that I pulled that are going to help me just demonstrate where we are in the process of responding to one of the things that's really called for in a racial Equity policy so if you can call that up Beau slide racial Equity policy so one of
097the things that we did over as we've been reporting to the board is trying to make sure we're very clear on how are we Gathering the data and what evidence are we providing the board to show progress towards our racial Equity Pro policy one of those commitments is commitment three and the part that I want to focus on um and again Larry and the district Equity leadership team have made other presentations but this particular one has an administrative Focus because it is to Monitor and assess the impact of educational programs on the achievement of all students which students have access to different programs and then to do some sort of a curriculum audit you know from our strategic plan that a long-term curriculum audit project process is going to be undertaken over the next five
098years so not specific curriculum that we've paced out over time but the idea of access what do students have access to high quality instruction and similar opportunities at both campuses so if we can go to the next document bow so one of the things that we did was we work with the administrative team and we created some categories of which parents and students had made suggestions on our um satisfaction survey last December where there were some differences that they wanted us to pay some attention to so the idea of differences that might be between Vernon Hills and Libertyville on student schedules on courses that are offered if you can scroll down spreadsheet LHS and vhhs program differences programmatic differences and again there there were a lot of there were a lot of things that we
099identified some very minor and some major so one of the things we did next is knowing this list is not something we can tackle immediately it was going to take some time so we then asked for all administrators to give some feedback according to those priority statements this is not Equitable access and it is an immediate concern meaning it's something that we would really either legally or ethically want to make sure we remedy very quickly the next one is it does have some possible Equitable concerns but it's something that we either need to get more time in terms of more data or potentially more student Voice or something like that so we said it is important but it's not something we can do immediately the third category was this might not be Equitable but it
100might not be an area of concern it's just due to differences that may be outside of our control a physical difference in the building or something like that so we understood that there were differences the next document please Beau spreadsheet program differences admin responses so then we worked as an all admin team and worked in groups of four so we had 11 different groups and that we went through each one of these where we had mixed teams they were talking about the nature of each of these differences and so what we did from all of the administrators in the district we gathered some priorities and you'll see here that the top ones are listed many of them being direct interventions for our students and direct ways that we're delivering instruction specifically you see pauses listed
101there we also have some course structures the finance and the facilities so you see what some of the things we talked about now with bathrooms and you know having Equitable access to those kinds of Life Safety things that both buildings the administrators also Place tie on the list so next slide your next document so from that ranking order what we did is said what really should be for this school for this school year meaning kids registering for class because a lot of those things were related to student course request we set up some things that we thought could be manageable this year as the more immediate knowing the other things would come in future years so we identified looking at equity and access for the pause program the El program which you helped us do
102today in terms of making sure that students have access to both the building leadership and the district leadership on these issues the department budgets making sure that we are auditing and being very clear with the differences of allocations between the buildings as well as among different departments in a building and then the facilities which we will be bringing to you in March with our priority recommendation um the last one the early and late start this is one that we feel is important but we could not make that happen before this particular course registration um but parents it was one of the things that was cited in one of the parent emails to us where students at Vernon Hills are required to sign up for seven classes in a lunch and students at Libertyville have the
103opportunity to have an early or early early release or a late start and parents were questioning why that difference is allowed between the two schools so I wanted to let the board know in a bigger context because we've been receiving parent feedback about some of these things in isolation but I wanted you to know we've been working on this in a very methodical way to try and get input and set some priorities and make this move forward in a way that's responding to student and parent concerns but not so quick that we're not doing due diligence and not doing our best work in our best thinking um back to the one other thing that I wanted to point out we several of the emails that we received were also asking us questions about grading and
104Grading practices um that was one of the top things noted in the parent survey last year and we have been having some specific instances um come to me and the board asking about questions about that and I did want to remind the board that we do have a committee of Administrators and teacher leaders who have volunteered to study this and who will be bringing us back some recommendations it might not be a complete you know um 11 commitment sophisticated policy like we've we had for equity and inclusion because grading is very complicated it's a very complicated issue but we know from some of the things we're hearing our parents do expect us to be able to measure student learning in a very Equitable way so we're going to be navigating that but I wanted you
105to know because of those parent messages that we are working and the teachers are playing a very important role in that and then the last thing we have a retreat coming up in March and um I'm going to be asking and I probably can do this at closed session but one of the things that we're going to be doing is using um uh primary resource to read as a team so there's some shared learning and I want to know if you want the hard copy the audiobook or a PDF of the chapter because I want to make it easy and accessible for everyone who's going to be there so I'll get that information from you but that's my update board president Lisa Hassell thank you Dr Herman um for board comments and events who'd like
106to get us start off started off on some things that they've attended or learning that they'd like to share board vice president Jim Batson I can go ahead did somebody else say no I can go ahead and start um attended a couple of things um as you know we're part of Ed read the education average advocacy group uh I sit on the safety School Safety Committee for that group and we had a meeting earlier in the month primary focus was on the clear and present danger legislation that uh there's a number of people trying to clarify and really um solidify the role of Administrators and Educators and how that law applies in the in the academic setting uh and then related to that the the follow the prior week I had attended the um ideacon
107actually attended for my my day job so to speak but it's also relative um uh the uh Illinois uh educational technology leaders had a session there with Paul Tim also on school safety uh Paul is a great resource and really um This was um uh the day that which mass shooting there was so many this last few weeks but there was a mass shooting that had occurred that day and it was a very interesting conversation that came from that but uh it was a very very nice session in addition to ideacon being the like the premier Illinois Statewide technology education technology uh conference so it was nice to be able to get both of those this month good and I know you would have been with us at the ISB legislative breakfast with the legislators
108but you unfortunately were ill so we tried to represent in your absence we got to hear from Mary edley Allen Dan diedich Laura fever uh Diaz and uh nebula Syed it's the first time I met the new um House member and um it was an excellent panel discussion they talked about their perspectives the Committees that they're participating on legislation that they're paying attention to and then to questions from the school board members in attendance that I thought it was very worthwhile yeah my takeaway was that all four of them are ardently committed to education like they're they're the real deal they really want Illinois students to be free of birds of encumbrances to the educational process they uh I I think that they their hearts and minds are in the right place when it comes
109to education and two of the four are Educators which is really nice to see yeah Mary and um who's the other one uh Mary uh Mary Ellie Ellen as well as Laura also is a history teacher um I also had a chance to attend um the microaggressions workshop put on by Larry Varn at The Institute day I learned a great deal it was incredibly worthwhile um I also attended with Dr Herman the black history uh Museum exhibit at LHS which you heard about from the students very impressive very uplifting um it would really did a great job shining a light on a very wide spectrum of black Excellence um things that you don't always see or think of you know I think it used to be very widely associated with Rosa Parks and Martin Luther
110King Jr and those are very important people to continue to learn about but there was a spotlight that was shined on so many facets of Black Culture um music in the Arts technology agriculture um entertainment I mean just so many different facets it was really incredibly well done and I want to shut out to in Singleton and the librarian at LHS Amy Wiggins the EQ um for really pulling together a lot of resources and look forward to seeing that event continue hopefully in the future anyone else want to share any events or learning uh I I attended also the Lakes division meeting and the microaggressions uh training held last Monday um agreed both were very uh very good use of my board time I felt um but I especially enjoyed learning alongside our district 128
111Educators over at LHS um and I am up for doing more of that whenever the opportunity presents so thanks for allowing us to join your learning great thank you um there was no CDL report correct meeting is tomorrow so we'll hear back next month yes oh right right over you Jim can we can we please hear from the ISD delegate yeah and and one of the reasons I wanted to do that is the February 11th the uh Lakes division legislative breakfast I I was so sad to not be able to um you know that I could not attend that but I did want to give a shout out to Carol and all of those that were involved in hosting that that was actually hosted at Libertyville High School so yes thank you thank you so
112thank you uh to all those who were involved with that so and they they were very very happy with that uh that result we had not done one of those you know in a while so at the uh Lakes division level we had discussed that uh since about late fall we've been talking about doing something like that so I was glad to be able to uh to help facilitate that a couple other things just a reminder the Lakes division meetings March 8th I know a few of you have signed up anyone else wants to attend that uh it's up in Ingleside this time and that'll be coming up um before we know it and then each of you received this is the the the results of our meeting that I attended on your behalf in
113November updates to account iasb Constitution and the position statements that we uh all discuss and then collectively vote on buying all the districts across the state so you have a copy of that and that is my iasb report and I forgot a shout out to the best buddies at LHS because right after that meeting we had an opportunity to go down into the gym and see uh it was just joyous it was fun um a lot of families brought their kids and there were bouncy houses and face painting and the most incredible balloon animal art I have ever seen by far like a giraffe is nothing to this guy he was doing like squids and they had noise makers involved it was Art yes it was spectacular um so I just wanted to say thanks
114to those who put all of these extra things together for our communities I think the community really appreciated it yeah great event one more event to acknowledge and I want to thank you for being an excellent ribbon cutter at the transition Pathways event Casey Rooney also attended um and it was just wonderful students staff everyone was there and really appreciated the board's support and making that happen and I learned that those giant cartoonist scissors those actually were okay future agenda items um we have them listed in the board packet there is one additional one for March based on some teacher feedback we're going to be adding um discussing the Vernon Hills High School language lab to our agenda for a March committee any other suggested agenda items at this time well I'd like to address
115I mean that's a very specific thing but I'd like to hear what our plans are going forward based on some of the comments that we heard here tonight so I don't know how to put that as an agenda item but I would like to continue this as a discussion yep I'd like to add I think uh the feedback also from the students about the calendar and not knowing the finals schedule Etc like to get an update on is that something we can reasonably accommodate at the March committee meeting I know the committee met last Thursday so teachers and administrators have been meeting to work collaboratively to make the decisions so I don't want to speak out of turn Yesenia when will that be ready to share so we met on Thursday and then on Friday
116I um sent some documents over to our attorney Mr fester and so as soon as he clears up some things for us we should be able to have a resolution okay so possibly at the March committee meeting we'll get in I think we will March 13th is yeah and if we hear back we would be reporting that we wouldn't wait until March 13th as soon as we hear back from our attorney that it's okay we will share it with all stakeholders but then we'll give you an update on what that ends up being perfect board member Cara Benjamin I'd like to um propose that we add an item to the agenda regarding something a little more specific uh when we're talking about inequities between the two schools and something that's kind of been brought to
117my attention recently that I wasn't aware of as a community member was the differences in how we celebrate our graduates within the district um and particularly our graduation ceremonies um I don't want to open an entire can of worms but I think it's something we need to discuss sooner than later and so I'd appreciate if we could add that to the committee meeting for next time board president Lisa Hassell okay any other future agenda items items okay then if we have no other future agenda items to propose I'd like to have a motion to adjourn for executive session move to convenience closed session roll call please we have to identify the ilcs oh yeah I did in the cold Carney review hi um Batson aye Benjamin aye Carmichael aye drumki aye Hessel I okay we
118will um convene an executive session it's 8 15 now let's take a five minute bio break and then we will uh meet and there will be no library and we will be taking no action when we return to uh simply adjourn the meeting go on the school board returns from executive session sorry Carol don't worry president Lisa Hassell okay now we are ready to have a motion and a second to return to open session Batson so moved Carmichael second okay Voice vote all in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed motion carries uh may I have a motion in second to adjourn the meeting at 10 51 pm Carmichael second all in favor aye aye any opposed nope we are adjourned [Music]