Oct 25 2021 Regular School Board Meeting D128 w AD

001and now it's 7 p.m so we will go ahead and get started um tonight uh we are going to say the pledge of allegiance have roll call um i will review the agenda and then we will get started so if i can ask everybody to rise flag is behind to say the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god okay roll call please jim batson here cara benjamin here don carmichael here cara drumkey here lisa hessel here so now carney yeah casey rooney here great we know that everybody is in attendance um tonight we are going to start out with public comment if there's any by email and we have two people that are signed up to speak tonight

002um we will have a brief president's report our um school board representative reports um dr herman has her report to share tonight uh we will roll into our consent vote agenda which is fairly brief these are all the items that we have discussed already in committee um we will have our program and personnel committee uh review where we are voting on the 2022 23 and 2324 school calendars we have some educational tour requests that we will be voting on tonight and some other trips that we will be discussing [Applause] employment of employees and then facilities and finance committee we do have an s 2021 estimated tax levy update we will be voting on a web-based software tool as well as a disposal request for a couple of items and then jim batson will have an

003isb update for us um karate is there a seat all update no seat all update tonight we'll discuss future agenda items and then we will be going into executive session to discuss collective negotiating matters 5alcs 120 slash 2c2 and pending litigation 5 ilcs 120 2c11 at that time uh when we adjourn from executive session we will return to open session no further action will be taken and we will adjourn so let's get started on item number two communication do we have any emailed public comments we do the first comment is from jonathan ciulo my name is jonathan sulo and i'm a senior at lhs i am writing to you because i'm hoping that the board would reconsider letting the team go to arizona co move on dramatically and d128 has done a great job with

004making sure everyone stays safe as a sophomore and junior i was supposed to go to arizona but kova took that away senior year is my last chance to go go on the team trip it would be appreciated and i would be forever grateful if the board would reconsider its travel restrictions we as a team will take whatever safety precautions that are needed in order for this to work out thank you before you go to the next one um if i could just note very briefly the board has not discussed or voted on the lhs baseball spring break trip um or any of this specific spring break uh baseball or softball trips so i think there was a little confusion that we had already discussed and voted against it which is is not the case married

005to divorce communications the next message is from scott and sue sellers dear d128 school board we are writing to you to request your reconsideration in allowing the libertyville varsity boys baseball team to pursue their traditional spring break trip to arizona this year as we know you are aware and sympathetic to the numerous opportunities this class of seniors have missed out on over the past few years it would mean a tremendous amount if we as a community can find a way to safely allow these kids to experience this memorable one we appreciate the responsibility your group feels for the safety of our kids as well as the consideration for parents financial impact if a change in coveted restrictions causes a last-minute change in plans as such we would be fully supportive if the logistics of the

006trip have to be modified such that the kids need to travel and or stay with their parents instead of each other we also are willing to accept the risk on flights and accommodation that we personally purchase for our family as well as our share of tournament fees and player accommodations if need be while we cannot speak for all parents we have heard that many we have heard from many that share these same thoughts as we are sure you will hear similar sentiments from others via email we also wanted to send this note as an assurance of our agreement with the messages from our peer parents thank you very much for your time and consideration married to different communications the next message is from chris and christine max mrs herman and board members agree with our

007friends and colleagues thank you very much for your service christine and i are not going to say anything that anyone else hasn't we'll summarize with it would be wonderful for these boys parents and coaching staff to go to arizona for spring training it would mean more than we all realize thank you for considering married to different communications this message is from gwen jamsen board members thank you so much for your service to the community during what has been a very difficult time for everyone i am writing to ask that you please vote yes on resolution 15 to strengthen our state's existing safeguard storage guidelines so that they protect our high school students too every year 700 children die from firearm suicide with the increased strain on students mental health caused in part by the pandemic

008this is a bigger concern than ever before as you may know most people who attempt suicide will not die unless they use a gun guns are fatal ninety percent of the time when used as a suicide method all other methods combined have an average fatality rate of four percent yes four percent that's one of the reasons it is so important to restrict unsupervised youth access to loaded unlocked buns it can mean the difference between whether or not an adolescent survives their mental health crisis to get the help they need tragically 40 percent of of child and teen suicide do not involve a gun as a method used leaving them no second chance to survive and get help we know that when children and teens die by firearm suicide an overwhelming majority 80 percent used a

009gun belonging to a parent or a family member pre-coveted 17 of teenagers surveyed reported having considered suicide in the past year and 41 of teens in gun owning homes reported having easy access to their parents loaded unlocked gun the emotional stress created by kovid and the unprecedented spike in new gun purchases during the time have undoubtedly raised both those statistics thus increasing the risk for our kids what's more almost all school shootings are committed by students most of whom are under 18 using guns that they took from their home or the homes of a friend or family schools can and should do all they can to keep children safe and helping ensure that guns are locked up is more important now than ever before as you know this is not an issue of restricting guns

010a controversial topic but is an issue about restricting youth access to guns and to increase safety an issue that virtually everyone can and does support i asked the d128 delegate to the upcoming iasb assembly remembers all of this and represents the wishes and values of the d128 community by voting yes on resolution 15. thank you again for your hard work and service to this community married to different communication hi dr herman my name is brendan max and i'm a current senior at libertyville high school i'm sure you've received many emails regarding this topic and i don't want to take too much of your time as a member of the varsity baseball team we plan to go to arizona for spring break my sophomore year but because of covid it got cancelled since then d128 has

011done an outstanding job of keeping everyone safe and putting the students health first because of that i am extremely grateful and proud to call myself a member of the lhs community i am now a senior and this is my last chance to experience the trip that helps make lhs baseball a great part of this community it would be deeply appreciated and i know myself and teammates included would be forever grateful if the board were to reconsider its travel restrictions for spring break 2022 as wildcats and as a program i know that we players will take whatever safety precautions are needed to make sure we are able to partake in this trip thank you the next message is from jack glasgow my name is jack glasgow and i am currently a senior at lhs the reason

012for this email is that i and my teammates are hoping that the board will reconsider letting them go to arizona for spring break kova's had coveted has been hard on everyone but d128 has already done a great job of covid precautions and i have no doubt that this will change in arizona this is my last chance and many of my teammates last chances to go to arizona and we would all greatly appreciate a reconsideration we are all willing to do whatever it takes to make this work out thank you for your time married to different communications um this message is from corrine and raul malhotra we are writing to ask the board to please vote yes on resolution 15. thank you concerned citizens and d128 district parents catherine king writes i am writing to ask

013the board to please vote yes on resolution 15. lynn lens writes district 128 school board as a resident of district 128 for 22 years with three children who attended and graduated from libertyville high school i am writing to urge you to send a delegate to the 2021 iasb conference and vote in favor of gun safety there are two measures that will be voted on during this year's conference resolution 2 and resolution 15. resolution 2 addresses whether individual school districts may have the choice to allow staff members to carry firearms i am asking you to vote no for resolution 2. research shows that introducing guns to the school does not make the school safer instead it increases the risk of an accidental shooting by a teacher or access to the gun by a student or staff

014resolution 15 addresses strengthening child safe gun storage laws and increasing the age from 14 to age 18. i am asking you to vote yes on resolution 15. safe firearm storage commonly called child access prevention or cap laws protect youth from three primary in three primary ways reducing school shootings reducing completion of suicide and preventing unintentional shootings by children eighty percent of the guns used in school shootings were where the shooter is 18 or under were acquired from a home or the homes of friends or relatives thank you for keeping our school district community students and students safe from gun violence in all of its forms this message is from leslie lazar please vote yes on resolution 15. eric levin writes dear d128 board of education members i hope you and your families are doing well

015thank you for all of your efforts to keep the community safe and provide a quality education to the d128 community during these challenging times this email serves as an opportunity from for some of the student athletes and families from the vernon hills baseball program to express their perspective about the potential change in current district policy that limits trips for athletic programs during the 2021-22 school year due to the pandemic we understand and appreciate the concern you have for these sorts of trips but we hoped to provide a reminder about the benefits of the trips of this nature how they can have what they can have for high school teams please see the attached comments for specifics thank you thank you for considering our perspective on this topic and he provides four comments about the benefits

016of the baseball trip the first is from gabe friedman a verna hills senior baseball player the senior baseball players have been looking forward to being seniors for many reasons one of the biggest being varsity baseball players and taking our senior trip just as so many senior classes before us the trip has in essence become a rite of passage a school tradition something that sets apart vernon hills high school baseball from so many other schools during the last two years the seniors have spent almost half of their high school careers at home covid has robbed us from of so much it has taken away the time it takes for our team to bond as players it has taken away all that we love to do to play baseball during this our upcoming second semester of senior

017year and the final time to play together as a vernon hills high school varsity baseball team and proudly aware they're blue and white and represent the school and our communities please reconsider allowing us this opportunity to finish what we started what we've been looking forward to since taking the field as freshmen and how we want to end our high school careers experiencing their senior trip together with our coaches joe joey was i'm sorry was sub wizard thank you senior baseball player going on a spring break trip would be a great experience for everyone involved us seniors have had this opportunity taken away from us the past two years due to coded looking looking ahead to this upcoming spring it is incredibly unfair to say something like a spring break trip can't be done as a

018freshman i had the opportunity to go with the team to pompano beach florida i know how much fun it can be to go on a trip and play games with your teammates being able to do so with a special group as this team would be an incredible addition to our senior season danny was a who is a baseball alum from the class of 2019 says the experiences i marry i'm sorry to interrupt you um this has run over the three-minute limit and we really want to hear from the students is it possible you could pardon me you could email the board the rest of this public comment yes thank you yes i have them all as pdfs they'll show that perfect we'll look forward to reading those when we receive them merry to do communications

019uh amy thompson writes hello i am writing to ask the board to please vote yes on resolution 15. thank you so much for your attention to this matter andy wang i am a daughter of three teenagers in the district i'm sorry i'm a dad of three teenagers in the district i'm sorry and i'd like to vote yes on a iasb resolution 15 asking iasb to lobby for a stronger safe gun storage bill that would protect our teenagers given the increased stress level among teens and the consistent rising statistics on used suicide deaths we can no longer afford to leave teenagers 14 and older unprotected countless studies have shown that while teaching kids about gun safety is helpful it is definitely not enough to guarantee their safety kids are curious and studies consistent consistently show that

020even when they have the best intention kids don't retain and put into use what they were taught when faced with real life encounters with a gun more importantly all the gun safety education in the world will not prevent a teenager intent on killing themselves from accessing a gun nor will that training help if a teenager is intent on committing an act of gun violence on school grounds 700 teenagers die every year from gun suicide eighty percent of whom used a gun belonging to a parent or a family member it's time to act to protect the kids responsible storage is something responsible gun owner owners pride themselves on it's recommended by gun enthusiasts organizations and law enforcement this isn't controversial it's just about safety and he includes a link to an article in forbes magazine about

021gun safety married to different communications next message is from janice stock i am writing to ask the board to please vote yes on resolution 15. as i understand it the d128 board is sending jim batson who isn't sure he plans to support resolution 15 as the delegate to the iaasb assembly the rest of the board overwhelmingly supports the resolution so it's alarming that he doesn't necessarily plan to go and vote to represent the wishes of the board as a whole he should be voting for our community's best i'm sorry community's wishes and best interests resolution 15 is about safe gun storage it's not a gun control measure but it is a measure intended to keep guns out of the hands of kids the guidelines are already in place for elementary age kids but resolution 15

022seeks to extend those rules to high school ages as well this is especially important as a preventative measure with recent high school shootings and the increased mental health concerns brought on by the pandemic as this is already in place for young children we want our delegate to to vote to support extending it to include high school age kids as well thank you for your consideration lisa cosin writes as a parent of two kids in the district i am writing that you please vote yes for the iaa excuse me iasb resolution 15 asking to support strengthening our state's secure gun storage law by raising the age from under 14 to under 18. safety of our children is the important priority for all of us resolution 15 addresses the risk to teens posed by access to unsecured

023gums guns at home it will help prevent youth suicide deaths unintentional gun deaths and it will go a long way toward preventing a school shooting which will keep all of our children safer thank you linda de gotti writes i am writing to ask the board to please vote yes on resolution 15. tracy jansen says good afternoon i am writing to ask the board to please vote yes for resolution 25. rebecca snyder writes i am asking the board to please vote yes on resolution 15. marcy postus i am writing to ask the board to please vote yes on resolution 15. sarah nidznik i am writing to ask the board to vote yes on resolution 15. and finally alicia noonan writes please vote yes on resolution 15 to keep our students safe great thank you mary okay

024for in-person public comment the first person to sign up was michael shank the floor is yours public comments technical difficulties public comment technical difficulties so uh my name is michael shank vernon hills 587 central park place last week i sent y'all a letter regarding an email from bernie hill's high school about the elimination of the athletics chenille awards or simply simply explained the physical varsity letter that's given to the athletes um i'm not here tonight to reread the letter i sent you but i do want to touch on a couple of things to make the public more aware that this decision was made in fact many families i spoke to the last couple weeks of football games some were not aware the ones that were were upset and they were asking why and what i

025was told it was cost and when they looked at me for cost they kind of a little flabbergasted giving our our budget and our reserve fund here at district 128 and the other reason was that students don't really care about it anymore it's not really a thing at vernon hills high school and their response to me on that was well nobody asked my kid so and they were all four i would say honestly realistically four out of at least four out of five every four out of five people i spoke to were for keeping it now it was only announced to the fall families but my assumption is it's for all the sports for all year round it made social media there was a lot of um it was not taking very well on social

026media and to be honest i think this is a fight that's worth taking up because i get budget cuts and i understand it okay but we're 169 adequately funded according to isb district 128 we have a 75 million budget and 65 million dollars roughly in reserves and additions were built out of reserve as a tune about 51 million i think we can afford keeping the varsity letter program at vernon hills high school especially when it it still exists at libertyville high school so i don't think we should separate one or the other i think it should all all or none personally if there's no reason why we shouldn't keep it because what is the meaning of the varsity letter for some people sense of accomplishment teamwork individual hard work overcoming adversity identity and school pride

027it's a tradition that can be a symbol not just for the student athlete but for their families you might have a lot of first generation high school athletes and their families are very proud to display this letter they can put it on their jacket they can put it on their wall it's up to them what they want to do with it there's always that one kid who goes to every every practice every camp shows up on time working as hard as they can and they just don't see as much playing time or you know they just might not have that god-given talent but they are there and when that varsity letter is handed to them by their coach at the end of the season i don't know the cost of that letter that moment far

028exceeds the cost of that letter and i was at a banquet last week for my son and there are a lot of moments like that with coaches with coaching they have some tears in their eye now there was no letter given but there was a moment there and when that kid in 10 years from now looks back at that letter when he's having a rough time he might reflect back on the adversity that he had to overcome and that's a moment better than a certificate hanging on the wall i don't want to interrupt two videos you are and i want to give you time to to wrap up your comments that's fine okay i appreciate it so let's not make this a one-person decision let's make this a group decision i guarantee you more kids

029will want their varsity letters than to be taken away so i ask you read the letter that i sent you take it to heart understand if you have any questions you know where to reach me thank you thank you and thanks for your service to the village of vernon hills as a trustee okay next we have mary jane wayne floor is yours everybody thank you so much um for all you do for our school and our community my name is mary jane i'm a mary jane wang i'm a parent of three teenagers and two our current d128 students and i want to start what i'm saying by um putting out there that if you guys decide not to send a delegate to the iasb conference because of covid concerns i would totally understand that but

030if you are planning to attend please consider voting yes on resolution 15 which supports strengthening the safe gun storage law you may wonder if safe gun storage in the home is something that iasb should be weighing in on but when you look at the data on school shootings the direct link between gun storage in the home and active school shootings in our buildings becomes very obvious according to the u.s secret service 80 of active school shootings were carried out by a student from the school which is a minor usually under 18. using guns that they took from the home therefore the simple fact is this secure storage of firearms in the home has a very direct impact on the safety of all of our students in the building every day that's why according to the

031u.s secret service addressing student access to guns is a critical component of any school-based threat assessment intervention plan in other words the data shows that this has now become your lane unfortunately schools have already been pushed into this lane in so many other ways districts have had to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on hardening building security and paying for school resource officers we ask students and staff to go through annual active shooter drills but school safety must be multi-layered and must address prevention as well strengthening the secure gun storage law can actually prevent a student under 18 from having unsupervised access to the weapons they need to be able to carry out their plan in the first place thus keeping everyone in the building safer students staff and our school resource officer others

032may think that there are other educational priorities that iasb should address before this issue but the safety of our children in the building is the most important priority to all of us you might be thinking but as iasb doesn't typically get involved in what happens in people's homes and that's probably been true in the past but to that i would say that what isb has typically done or not done is irrelevant at this point because we know better now we have the data which has shown us the clear link between unsecured guns in the home and the tragedies that unfold inside school buildings with frightening regularity i'm not content to just shrug my shoulders and hope it doesn't happen to our kids i don't think any of us truly are please vote yes on resolution

03315 because this is about protecting children and nothing matters more public comment okay thank you is there anybody else that hasn't signed up that wishes to address the board before we move on from public comment lisa hassell president okay then we will roll right into the president's report before we hit the student school board representative reports um i wanted to note that i was a little late to the game watching the excellent district one listening to the excellent district 128 podcast if you have not had a chance to listen it is excellent there are three episodes the most recent being an interview with our very own dr denise herman which is excellent before that it was about a great environmental initiative here in the buildings and before that uh put a spotlight on the fine

034arts department which we are always so proud of in the district and how they handled the pandemic so um if you haven't had a chance to check it out i found it on spotify there's a lot of different venues where you can find it but please do take a listen and now we will invite the student school board reps to share their reports it's all yours okay so i'll be starting off for vhs so vhs hosted its annual right assembly for the freshman class and the experience turned out to be very positive for a lot of students wright stands for respect integrity trust and experience which is exactly what we taught the freshman class as over 80 senior volunteers led group exercises to educate their groups on these principles vhs values these morals and as

035senior leaders we wanted to show the importance of them as these students transition into a new school environment in the end a lot of seniors joke about how the right assembly is the only memorable freshman year assembly but this year that really became apparent to me teachers volunteered their time as well to be staff mentors in the small group discussions and certain students got up to tell their stories up on stage in front of their peers the freshman class showed tremendous respect integrity and trust in this experience and hopefully they can volunteer to be senior leaders in a few years to ease the transition of another freshman class red ribbon week is here and our two prevention and wellness clubs spark and vip have organized a bunch of fun spirit days for all students red

036ribbon week is the largest drug abuse prevention campaign in the u.s and vhhs loves to spread positivity onto students from it this weekend the clubs hosted a virtual 5k run to promote part of a healthy lifestyle today was hat day as we wanted to put a cap on drugs as one of our spirit days tomorrow we'll be writing positive affirmations and advice for other students to receive during their lunch periods wednesday is our big healthy lifestyle fair in which we can visit different club booths wear college shirts to focus on our future and hang out with prizes in the cafeteria on thoughtful thursday we'll reflect on how we can make each other's days better and then we'll finally wear red on friday and participate in our fun friday activities in the foyer students are excited

037to bring some spirit back weeks after homecoming our fine arts department this year is heating up as performers can finally take the stage again opening night for our fall musical james and the giant peach is this friday and all of the cast crew and pitt have been working very some very hard late nights to put it together i'm a part of the cast as i'm playing james's evil aunt and i'm very happy that i get to perform a musical on stage one last time however anybody who says sports are harder than the arts has clearly never been in a musical especially during colvin acting singing and dancing all at the same time while wearing a mask has proven to be a very hard obstacle to overcome our cast and sound crew however have worked very

038hard to find the best sounding techniques and to build up the stamina required to perform such an active show this has been one of my favorite musicals to be in and we all just can't wait for the adrenaline rush we'll get when the curtain rises on opening night i hope that i can see you all there also in our fine arts department the band directors hosted our first ever band fest with only seven great seventh graders joining the high school bands we had hawthorne families join us for the first time in two years and the end performance was held in our new gym it was a great performance and in the end mr russell spoke to the middle school families about the benefits of the high school music department he's hoping that after the low

039number of students in music this year there can be a greater turnout next year and now i'll be passing it on to kevin everyone um all full sports are going to the playoffs our football team ended the regular season with a record of 7-2 and will play prairie ridge this friday for the regional semifinals boys soccer has already started their playoffs and last friday won the regional championship against lake forest with a score of 4-3 in overtime they will play grace lake central at home for the sectional semifinals tomorrow great job boys and keep it up both the girl uh both the girls and boys cross country team made it past the regionals and will run next weekend in sectionals lastly congrats to the girls cross country coach coach curry she was named the ihsa

040coach of the year student rap homecoming week was a great success almost everyone participated in our theme days but we had an incredible turnout for our most anticipated day of the week the color competition freshmen dressed in red sophomores in green juniors in yellow and seniors in tie-dye on friday everyone dressed in blue and attended our homecoming assembly where students watched performances from the varsity cheer and dance team as well as the winning lip sync group cougar students also participated in a tug of war competition against each class and the homecoming court was introduced that night we had our homecoming football game the student turnout was absolutely insane almost almost almost all the home side stands were filled to the max with students and parents school spirit was very strong and everyone from freshman to

041seniors were cheering for our team in addition the home the homecoming dance was done outside due to cover this year we had our largest turnout in vern hills homecoming history with a total of 1 200 students and that is 50 over the uh the previous record the dj was amazing and we and they were having all the kids singing and dancing to the music overall homecoming week was amazing for vernon hills kobit cover prevention has been going along smoothly our staff has been doing a great job creating seating charts so it's easier to contact trace students who have been have been contracting covent when students are positive they are still allowed to attend class via zoom teachers go along with their classes for the most part and try to include and are trying to include

042the students at home sometimes this will work sometimes this doesn't but teachers are learning and trying to adjust for the next student uh going into the holiday season governor jb pritzker is planning on removing the mass mandate uh with a decrease in covert cases hopefully we can reach normalcy soon and now tiffany thanks kevin um a few weeks ago nhs partnered with vh2o to help clean lake charles this provided the students the opportunity to help the community and clean an area that is needed by and help an area that is needed by cleaning up contaminants in the lake's ecosystem this is the second beach cleanup of the year and nhs hopes to organize many more in the future to bring awareness and help to the issue of pollution as the november 1st deadline is approaching

043many seniors have been stressed but working hard to meet these deadlines but the school has helped many seniors feel confident in their applications and ease away the stress the day of the right assembly since the seniors had the day off the english teachers were in the uc from 8 to 12 to help seniors write and revise their essays i went in for help and i was able to shorten my 750 word essay down to under 650 so that i could be under the word limit the crc college rep visits have also been very helpful because we're able to have our questions about the application campus or anything else answered all the seniors are very appreciative of these opportunities as they have made the application process much easier and this month we had our first in

044person google class act award ceremony since before the pandemic these 18 students are nominated by teachers who believe they represent our daring mission values and our school by being kind positive and encouraging peers congratulations to chris asher brooke bedell stephen bogojevic valeria bikova ishoo chicody gianna faulk giselle gomez emmy herman eric herrera hannah krisch daria orlando alas sandoval joel smith arielle smith mia steiner paul villalucis and brendan winkler and now on to libertyville student rap over the last month libertyville has continued uh its start to the busy school year uh i feel like every week has an important theme or message that the school is trying to look at um there's always something to look forward to in every week which is kind of a positive there's something to do last meeting we discussed our

045plan for homecoming and quite frankly it went perfectly excitement was clearly evident from the spirit week to the electric assembly to the massive parade to the dance every student i feel like was there and participated or at least the vast majority of them and talking to my peers they were very appreciative that we were able to put it on this year it did get moved to the gym but that didn't hamper our fun and excitement because everyone was there having a great time and no one that i talked to said a bad thing about it student councils would put that on and everyone's very grateful for all the hard work they put in and their advisors and now they're moving on to more of the serve season which is like serving our community we have

046a food drive planned in the near future and looking to plan more uh serving events for the upcoming months two weeks ago underclassmate participated in a daring day while juniors took the psat and seniors got the day off to work on college applications their day consists of listening to a panel of high school seniors that who reiterated our school's belief in green dot as our culture mental health and the importance of reaching out if you have problems in a preview of our red ribbon red ribbon week very similar to how vern hills has been doing it after that they split out into groups some students listen to a speaker who talked about the importance of a clean body and mind just talking to a few underclassmen um they all said that his message was very

047important and it came off genuine which is i think is extremely important to getting the message across and actually having it resonate with uh the students so i think it went swimmingly uh for the second part they explored what daring really means and kind of got into the minutia of it and explored future career opportunities for um them as they continue to think about their future this week is uh red women red ribbon week much of much i like the vernon hills class or fernand hill school we have kind of the same activities and day themes i think they're very similar along those lines um wildcats rise club held a 5k saturday at independence grove in order to kick start the week it was also available to do virtually um activities will take place throughout

048the week to encourage students to maintain a healthy lifestyle culminating in a health fair that will be hosted by the library at the end of the week it is open to all students during their free periods and link crew leaders will take their freshmen to it there will be tables that will educate students on a variety of things relating to their physical and mental health and finally a little quick update on our new grading policy that is being implemented by many teacher teachers the students that i've talked to are still split down the middle about it just a little reminder it's more about hitting learning targets instead of doing homework for completion half love that they don't have to do homework if they don't need it and the other half like the structure of being

049assigned homework to reinforce their learning as well as receiving points for it again it's usefulness varies between classes kids are much more inclined to take advantage of it in a math class compared to a literature class so it'll be interesting to see how it develops throughout the rest of the school year so i'll pass it to ryan now student rap um fall sports are winding down with many of our teams advancing into the postseason in the playoffs with a last minute win against stevenson friday night the football team now has a 6-3 record and secured their spots in the playoff also soccer last week in their postseason regional game beat waukegan and they ended their season saturday with a loss against barrington um cross-country regionals were hosted at adler last saturday and the boys and

050girls teams have both qualified for sectionals um the boys took fourth and the girls won their regional so congratulations to both of them um girls bree pawnchak and sheila tucker placed 7th and 8th and jack hamilton and alifayas placed 7th and 10th the girls swimming the girls swim team has their conference this weekend and sectionals the following week members of the team have been really successful these past few weeks with the 200 medley relay and the 400 and the 200 free relay um breaking the lhs pool records um at the girls tennis sectional meet hadley warren and alexander burns qualified for state as a doubles team and maggie forkner and lena dogodowsky qualified individually for state at their state tournament maggie ferkner played an amazing five matches and 10 straight sets without a single loss

051and placed six in the singles tournament so congratulations to them um over the past couple months the lhs wildcats will group has been meeting on friday mornings led by our athletic director mr woods this group focuses on peak performance and leadership for student athletes talking to a member of the group he says that it's super helpful for thinking about the mental side of the sports rather than just the physical side he also said that it was really good having a group of team leaders there each friday um so that they could kind of take the information that doc that mr woods gave them and um spread it to each of their teams um and he said it really helped um you know give him mindset skills when he's practicing and playing and it helps to

052improve his and his team's performance um the month of october is breast cancer awareness month and libertyville has been supporting the cause through sports and fundraising the volleyball team hosted a pink out match against vernon hills which is dedicated to breast cancer research this year they raised over 4 300 for metastatic breast cancer and throughout the years they've raised over 90 thousand dollars the dance team also hosted a clinic for first through fifth graders teaching them a short dance and performing at a jv football game they raised over a thousand five hundred dollars for the northwestern lake forest hospital breast cancer breast care center the cheer team also donated a portion of their profits from the 50 50 raffle to the same cause also winter sport tryouts are occurring this and next week for dance

053palms and basketball moving on to the academic side libertyville's classes have been engaging in some hands-on learning experiences these past couple weeks in the halloween spirit the human anatomy classes carve school pumpkins which are on display in the courtyard to learn about the location and function of bones in the skull members these classes thought it was a super fun way to implement their learning and it was really helpful to be able to create a 3d model of the skull similarly psychology classes were able to dissect a sheep's brain last friday i participated in this and dr k gave our group a little bit of help um and i thought it was a super great experience um it was a really great opportunity to be able to actually see the things that we were talking about

054in class rather than just looking at it on a diagram i'll pass it to faith student rap [Music] hi everyone hope everyone's monday wasn't as crazy as mine um so d128 sports and culture are so important in what makes libertyville and vernon hills the special schools that they are but what also not to forget is arts and academics with arts the fall concert choir on october 7th was an absolute hit the concert featured lots of folk songs that gave parents that have not seen their child sing in 18 months so much joy choir will be having an iomia concert festival on november 6th for students who auditioned out and were accepted to be a part in the ilma this year the state level of national association for music education and then switching to choir to

055orchestra the orchestra had a successful fright night concert as well on october 14th students showed all different kinds of amazing skills and instrumentals with a fun halloween twist the harvest band concert will be coming up on november 18th for the band to have its turn to show their skills and all the hard work they've been putting in for their music the big fall festival sorry the big fall musical matilda is coming up very rapidly and students are preparing excited for the show that they get to show the school um saying it's going to be the best one yet matilda shows on friday the 29th saturday the 30th and sunday the 31st for all the fine arts events at lhs like mrs hessel mentioned students of parents have not been able to experience these somewhat normal

056events for 18 months so when you get to see that mom or dad kind of crying in the corner for their kid it kind of shows how really important it is for our community and how special it is for our school the feeder art show will be occurring on november 16th and this art show includes work from grades k through 8 from middle schools that are feeding into lhs this show displays the talent and creativity of students that will become future wildcats soon enough shifting over to lhs academics on october 2nd ella just had a tentative sat for students still wanting to get their test scores in for college applications and speaking of applications it feels like that's literally everything that everyone is talking about everyone's mentioning how it's really stressful but they're getting in

057their applications and the crc has been so much help to get a quick little essay you know look in before fourth period so um like john mentioned the juniors also had an optional psat on october 13th and while sophomore and freshmen had a daring day teaching them what lhs culture is really like seniors got the day off to go through all their college applications and work on anything they wanted to do and juniors obviously were taking the test um if you think about it seniors are the only real class that had a full year of high school so i think it was really um efficient to have the sophomores and freshmen have that experience so then they can really see you know what it's like being in high school and the kind of culture that

058they get set into when they enter in the building student wrap speaking of deadlines progress report number three will be coming up on november 12th so students can get a halfway point on where their grades are in the semester so far and also for college applications early action is on november 1st so i know i am on common app probably every single day looking at all my colleges so yeah also there's a question about a new update to the grading system so the problem that lots of students and even teachers have been noticing that is for our normal grading scale it's been around for years and it can be very flawed in determining the success of a student let's say a student is very hard working and it's the start of the semester where not

059many grades are in the grade book and the student has done one or two assignments and gotten 100 on both of them but then they're sick one day or they have a dentist appointment or something like that and they're not in class and um they miss an assignment so most teachers will you know wait for the student to get back in class before they put it in as a zero because it affects our grade but let's just say this teacher were to put it in as a zero that wouldn't accurately represent the success of that student because they're trying they just weren't there for that day and that zero got put in for um the grading scale my ap calc teacher um shout out miss josten does a 2.5 to 5 grading skill deploying that

060if you truly did not do the assignment you will still get a failing grade but it will not be a straight zero and um the number determines your grade will i mean as this great sorry as the grading scale goes up it determines um how well your understanding of the topic is looking at the grading scale fifty percent of the grading skill is failing seventy percent is not passing and that means a student has a thirty percent chance of passing a class i feel like um when determining the success of a student is really important that we show they have a good chance of understanding a topic and really um being able to display it instead of learn it and spit it on a paper and instead actually absorbing the information so then they can

061use it later on in life if necessary and with this grading scale it's really hard to do that because you feel like you have so much chance of failing but not as much to um actually feel like you accomplish something so that's the only point i have to make and um thinking about academics and arts like we were saying kovid was um very harsh on the participation in those two fields so when we got to come back to school and actually have a really normal sense of what we had back in sophomore year it's um really refreshing and exciting and i really think every family in the community really appreciates that and all the work that you guys do to make that happen so in conclusion lhs continues to improve more and more every day

062and always has a new plan to make our district even better thank you lisa hassell president all right thank you everybody dr denise hermann superintendent dr herman we'll turn it over to you thank you i have the pleasure of sharing additional good news from across the district this year's d128 senior recipients of daughters of the american revolution good citizens award are ella bafiko from lhs and shayna weinstein from bhhs the dar good citizens program and scholarship contest encourage and reward the qualities of good citizenship the students selected as the school's dar good citizen must have the qualities of dependability service leadership and patriotism next the following d128 students were selected to participate in the illinois 10th congressional district steem scholars program lhs was nicholas igneo and fatima elimshawi and for vhs anaya katavakar and sarthak

063aguala the steam scholars program launched by congressman brad schneider in 2018 aims to connect highly motivated students interested in science technology engineering art and mathematics with hands-on learning experiences throughout the district next lhs world language teacher heidi lechner was selected as one of the 2021 recipients of the american association of teachers of german gupta institute certificate of merit for outstanding achievement in furthering the teaching of german in schools in the united states she was nominated for the honor by the executive committee of the northern illinois chapter of aatg and gupta institute in chicago last may frau lechner will be honored during a virtual awards presentation on november 20th the study of german abroad and encouraged international culture exchange frau lechner was also nominated as a finalist in this year's illinois council of teacher of foreign

064language paul griffith teacher of the year award a lot more to celebrate district 128 foundation for learning is proud to announce this year's recipients of the eighth annual alumni achievement awards frank fitzgerald libertyville high school class of 1987 and kate lee vernon hills high school class of 2012. frank is an art teacher in the gurney school district 56 where he has taught elementary students for 25 years at spaulding school he was named the 2017 district 56 teacher of the year frank is also a founding member of an artist's cooperative dandelion gallery in waukegan kate is the director of choirs at maine east high school in parkridge she was named the illinois state board of education's 2021 outstanding early career educator of the year and is teach plus illinois ill-stoy policy fellow frank and kate will

065be celebrated along with the 2020 award recipients tom morello and jessica lauden at the upcoming big event on november 6th and speaking of the big event which is virtual this year's event will include a live trivia competition silent auction a raffle paddle race for students in need and more event tickets and raffle tickets are available at d128foundation.org all proceeds benefit programs for lhs and vhhs students and finally in tonight's good news i would like to recognize vhhs principal john giami and lhh principal tom calentes for all that they do to make our schools amazing places to learn this week is principal um principles week but this month is also principal's month and um it's observed and it culminates this friday which is principal's day please join me in a round of applause for our dedicated

066d128 daring school principals dr denise herman superintendent next up i just wanted to share with the board that we have an exciting day next tuesday it is an all-day event for staff members who volunteered to serve on the strategic planning committee we will be analyzing student demographic data student achievement data and doing an audit of our programs and processes so the staff is going to take a deep dive into that and the product of that will then be shared with the community stakeholder groups and then priorities set from that analyzed data but we're very excited um it'll be in person we had a meeting earlier that was zoom um but everything's moving forward then bryant is here with our covid19 update thank you um you know as kevin alluded to our student board rip talked

067about some of our d128 prevention strategies in regards to you know covid and what the schools are doing i'll just review what our prevention strategies are and they give you an update on our metrics so some of the strategies that we laid out at the beginning of august that were shared with us from illinois department of public health and illinois state board of education number one is promote vaccinations number two is consistent and correct mask use the other one is physical distancing screening and testing of covid ventilation in the schools to promote hand washing hand-washing respiratory etiquette um staying home when sick and contact racing with isolation and quarantine and using that properly in conjunction with recommendations from idph and lake county and then cleaning and disaffecting um so a couple of things i just

068want to you know touch about you know staying home and sick and i know we sent a couple of communications to our parents a couple times and to our students on just updates when we get updates and working with our nurses and communicating with that and i just like to you know thank our community thank our parents for i think working with our nurses and communicating as much as possible um that has helped and as the students alluded to you know students that are staying home because they have coveted or quarantining because maybe they have symptoms and they're able to still zoom into their classes but even if somebody is home for a day or two that just helps um assure that make sure that they're not bringing you know covet you know back into

069the school so um you know those are all the strategies that we've been doing um and so and it kind of then reflects in the numbers that i'm going to share with you um you know looking at our vaccinations lake county so these were as of i do these every two weeks so as of last week lake county um was at 58.7 percent previously they were at 57.7 so that's all of lake county and that's for those that are eligible for the vaccine so again they throw out the you know the younger kids that aren't eligible our d128 staff is holding the same at 91.8 percent we were 91.7 before so you know we moved point one percent um our students at vernon hills moved up a couple percentage points to 78.7 percent and libertyville

070high school 84.8 from 83.9 so those again if you compare to what the whole county is you could see that we have very high vaccination numbers and again we've been promoting vaccinations and i think those high numbers are helping in our numbers you know we are still doing shield testing and so our unvaccinated athletes unvaccinated students in some of our extracurricular activities are required to uh weekly tests and we have two days that they can test they can con test on monday or thursday and that's their weekly test and we're doing that through shield and shield um you know provides um you know all the testing and it's sent out to the lab and this this is all funded with the state and passport health has been working with us and that also our unvaccinated

071staff are also testing and we do have staff to voluntarily test um you know weekly also and that's been going uh really well and again that helps although we you know it's not an instant test and you get the results um you know 24 hours later we still go back and contact trace and remove somebody from the school as quickly as possible um some of our positivity data so the last week the positivity data for lake county was at 1.82 percent um with 71 cases um out of a hundred thousand for the seven day rolling average libertyville uh was at one point seven six percent positivity with a hundred and eleven point nine per hundred thousand vernon hills is at point six seven percent with 41 out of a hundred thousand uh cases so you

072can see that's actually been trending down all this data is on our d128 website under coven 19 reporting and you can click there and it tracks it all the way from august 10th so any questions wonderful and thank you for keeping the website so updated all right next up we have capital projects update with mr poopman thank you um at vernon hills uh we have most of our punchless items completed uh we have one major item um in the um serving area for the cafeteria where there was a change in wall dimensions and countertop for the coffee space so that has been finalized so it should be completed here shortly moving on to libertyville um with our field house uh great news today um this afternoon at 3 30 our athletics groups were in to

073use the field house for the first time uh we're still ongoing with with items we still have uh uh divider curtains um banning cages uh other things that have to go up so we're working during the day um and then um using one of the courts for the equipment so we're allowing you know so two spaces um for the student athletes after school um when we're we're working on putting our punch list together we have mechanicals um already completed and plumbing um we're doing the architectural um our exterior roofing uh punch lists and those those items uh work is still going on on the exterior um they're making the metal uh for the gutters and the flashings roof is water tight um and they're putting the uh together the screens that go around all the

074hvac hvac equipment that is part of code um so and i will actually be walking on wednesday with the architect and we'll be doing architect will be doing his punch list and chris stanson and i will be doing our punch list uh putting it all together for the project so fantastic so the winter sports teams will have use of the field house they are using it right now uh during the day pe um uh talked with the administration they had a plan all the way through december so they're allowing us to get in and get all this work done so we can turn it over to them as quickly as possible um for pe during the day but um but athletics is using that after 3 30 every day now fantastic i am so impressed

075with how you have steered the turnaround for this project thank you for your efforts it really has been uh challenging especially with supply chain issues but you have been on top of it and keeping us updated and just doing an excellent job thank you it's been a team effort it's not just me it's the whole team together we've been uh with our consultants and with gilbane we've been working on issues like the roof and all those other things and the delays and all that so um we're happy that uh we're able to open it up today so and it looks fantastic uh i spoke with the foreman uh their supervisor for gilbane he just happened to be there when um the athletic director brought first set of kids in through the doors and he said

076the comments and the smiles on you know the the comments from the kids and you couldn't see the smiles because they had a mask on but you could tell if they were smiling he said they were so happy and amazed and they couldn't believe uh how it actually turned out and it might it might be good maybe consider going to take that take a look at that space again so maybe at our november fnf committee you could go take a look it'll look pretty different from what you saw even just a month or two ago whatever that was yeah we're always happy to take adjustment thank you okay so okay well uh we'll continue um to work through and get our punchless done and then um work towards completion of the project thank you and

077then on the on the finance side you've got reports in there really just to highlight is you know we're working through the finances of this project still so those are things going on actively so it'll still be several months before we get to a point of close out but so we're still working through there and the pool financially is running really well i actually got more change orders that i processed and so right now we're actually sitting on a net at a total credit of change orders because of a number of changes and things that happen even changing the roof design so right now we're sitting at like a negative 22 000 even since last thursday so that's positive so financially that project is going extremely well right great thank you dan and mark and

078next up we have school report cards and we're going to get a update from rita thank you so tonight uh we'll be very brief in just describing the process of releasing the illinois school report card which is different this year than it's been in the past and we'll dive deeper into the data on the report cards when the data is actually released so this school year if we'll advance to the next slide for the 2021 school report card generally the entire report card is released at the end of october prior to that time any information is embargoed so you will see a public release of the illinois school report card phase 1 on october 29 2021 we will discuss it in depth at the pnp meeting in november what will be included in that first

079release are any of the report card metrics that do not rely on assessment data schools across the state participated at different times in the sat and other state assessments and so there will be a gradual release of that data district 128 was able to test all of our students in the spring of 2021 and so that data will be released on december 2nd and then we'll do a deep dive into the new data that's been released at that december pnp meeting the final phase of the release will include the additional assessments which we also were able to administer in the spring as a district including access the dlm dynamic learning maps and the illinois science assessment so this is just an announcement that you're going to see some data in the news but we will

080be going over it at the november pnp uh we'll continue to add to the slides of information if we'll just advance to the next slide as the new data is released the what will not be released this year is a summative designation for any school in the state if you'll recall in 2019 when the summative designations were first released both of our schools were exemplary schools because of covid and the we did not administer assessments in spring of 2020 the state decided to carry over those 2019 designations until 2020. this year the decision was to not offer any designations at all so um we will not be exemplary but we won't be any of the other designations either so as i said we'll continue to dive into the report cards as they are released publicly

081do you anticipate that those designations will return in 22 i don't see why they will not be because we have been we are on schedule to administer all of our assessments according to schedules should anything change uh the state the state really has been operating from year to year in making these decisions and not announcing them too far in advance but the plan would be to continue the designations dr denise hermann superintendent and next i would like to acknowledge two donations that we received for the district first paraskevi alexander donated a 2005 vw jetta to the vernon hills automotive department and so the students will have the opportunity to take that apart and put that back together and second robert and betsy weiss made a donation of several physical therapy equipment items so thank you

082to both uh families and finally we have four for your request that came in this month um the first was from angel tormus who requested copies of all active leases and licenses for cell towers roofs and other um installations it was followed up by john herron and it took one hour to complete next we had a request from katie smyre nbc universal who requested all unclaimed funds under the control of cusd it's going to be chsd 128 which have not been reported or transferred to the treasurer so again an audit that we have to do on any unclaimed checks that was processed in the business department and the time spent was five hours next robert dodson requested all administrator and teacher training materials resources support documents that were used in the 2020 to 2021 school

083year and those that have been developed for use in the 2021-22 school year including but not limited to readings packet powerpoint presentations on the topics of equity cultural relevant teaching and pedagogy bias anti-bias cultural inclusion critical race theory anti-racism and restorative justice this was followed up on by curriculum and instruction and the time spent was five hours finally a request from bernadette soto for the executed contracts and any other documents disclosing or identifying general contractors and subcontractors it was followed up by the business department and took the time of 20 minutes lisa hassell president okay great thank you everybody we are going to move on to our consent vote agenda these are items that have already been discussed in committee um do i have a motion to approve the consent agenda no moved thank you

084second great any discussion roll call please batson hi benjamin aye carmichael hi drumkey hi hustle hi carney hi rooney hi okay thank you motion passes i will turn it over to chairperson batson for the pnp committee thank you very much uh first on the agenda here is the 2223 school calendar recommendation so rita thank you jim i would like to thank the members of the calendar committee who convened to review uh drafts for the 22-23 school year and the 23-24 school year just as a refresher our committee considers several things when drafting a calendar they include school code uh the the um which uh stipulates the number of student attendance days institute days and other requirements for the school calendar we also consider our teacher contract and the number of teacher days that are required

085by contract as well as the regional office of education recommended school calendar all of those considerations are also placed with a local context our desire to balance the number of first semester and second semester days and manipulating the calendar in ways that we do have control over that aren't covered by law and so we present to you two calendars that we believe maximize our student attendance days and and uninterrupted student learning to the degree that we can and provide a well-placed time for teacher professional learning as well the first day of student attendance on the 22-23 school calendar is august 11th and the last day is may 24th we generally end our calendars on or before the student graduation day which is the thursday before memorial day and a similar approach was taken to the

086draft of the 23-24 school year calendar starting on august 10th and ending on may 22nd we do in our process when we go out two years convene the calendar committee again next fall where we'll take a look again at the 23-24 calendar to check any changes in circumstances or situations so that's the overview and we're asking that you uh adopt these two calendars okay thank you um we'll start with the uh 2022-2023 school calendar recommendation can i have a motion for you so moved second okay any comments or questions i just want to make a comment that this is a rather momentous occasion for rita she's done this for how many years and i haven't participated in the process for many years as a parent and as a board member it runs amazingly smoothly because

087of her guidance and her knowledge and her direction and i thank you for all of your years of doing this i don't think that the community as a whole knows how much goes into designing the school calendar so that it works for students for athletes for fine arts for everybody um and we thank you for that and your guidance thank you for your service as well in helping us to make these decisions yes thank you for your representation in that process okay any other comments or questions okay roll call please lisa hassell president benjamin benjamin aye carmichael aye drum key hi hustle hi carney i rooney hi batson hi ocean passes and now onto the 2023-24 school calendar recommendation can we have a motion please who to approve the 22 or excuse me the 2023-24

088school calendar is proposed second okay any questions or comments on this okay i guess the same comment holds true for this reader as well so uh okay uh can we have a roll call please our michael aye drum key hi hustle hi cole carney hi rooney hi batson hi benjamin hi okay moving on that uh motion passes uh we have two educational tour requests uh the first one is for the special olympics athletes uh team illinois training camp at illinois state university and the second one is the lhs vhhs special olympics athletes send off dinner and usa games in rosemont in orlando florida in june of 2022 so if we can have a motion for to approve these two tour requests hello second any comments or questions on this on these two is there any

089stipulation for what happens if there's a difficulty like we we haven't had the discussion the discussion is the next item so should we will this have the discussion then come back to it or can we do that during the discussion now i think we should just as a point of order as it is on the agenda we should let this motion unless i'm you know please correct me if i'm wrong this motion is specifically for this tour request correct so let's discuss this tour request and then if anybody has any questions or concerns or wants to discuss these particular trips and then we can uh move on since we won't be voting in the next item we could just have a discussion of other types of chores it's possible that the same concerns for these

090right the same concerns we've talked about so we might as well go ahead and this one doesn't have a cost per student though this is not they're not we're not outlaying airline tickets or you know hotel people are not outlining that kind of money here pretty much i'm not even sure we'd have any money on the line because all we would do would not use the bus to get them there and if it were to be canceled it would probably be canceled under a state regulation that the state wasn't allowing that to happen that would be true for the the first one and the part of the second one but the second part is orlando florida so that would be likely i would imagine they would okay i thought we were just talking about the

091first one first but that's okay i would have no problem approving either of these uh with the exception that we're not sending somebody to a hot spot right so as long as travel is permitted i have no difficulty with these jim batson vp yeah and i think the orlando piece you know these are we're talking next june you know hopefully things will be in better condition by then but again i think given that the the difficulty we had early in this process early in the pandemic with trip cancellations and whatnot and concerned parents and concerned students and and you know and we as district [Music] participating in the leadership of this district had concerns as well i think we need to make sure that we're we go into it with our eyes open that if

092for some crazy reason there's still some health concerns with the travel at that point in time that you know we can make that decision when needed uh without repercussion but i don't know what that means in terms of who's viable for the trip costs and those kinds of things cara drumkey board member isn't this managed by the special olympics special olympics system this one is this one this one is yes and we have no liability on on this one regardless just a little bit of background on these two recommendations as well we'll get into details uh in the next segment about the recommendations that the administration made to the board at the september 13th p p committee meeting and that was that both of these trips kind of fall within those recommendations that organized travel

093to events within the state of illinois for the 2122 school year is the first trip the second trip um is slightly different from the earlier recommendation in that domestic travel within the united states was something we were going to consider as part of the 22-23 school year and so this second trip in june would be taking us beyond what we said initially we would bring to you the board did not take action on those recommendations but it was the administration's statement that we would bring you trips like this for the 22-23 school year and so because this is in june the 21-22 school year has ended but the 22-23 school year has not yet begun so that's more of the discussion that we would like to have in the next segment but this trip the

094administration is bringing to you because we believed it fell within the spirit of those guidelines and i had already discussed i misunderstood and i think i wasn't the only one that when it was presented to us for a recommendation that it was calendar year 2022 so i assumed to that spring break you know that we were going to be beginning this starting in calendar year 2022. so and we have some additional recommendations that we can discuss in the next part portion of the agenda but i just wanted to clarify with these two trips that we're presenting to you tonight that they do fall in generally within those set of guidelines that we had discussed with you in september that was not a formal action on the port of part of the board but it was

095what we said that we would bring to you to consider for approval so we can definitely get into the other part of that in the next segment well i guess i only bring it up because it would fall into i would approve you know i would be in support of this because it would fall into what i had considered would be the calendar year 2022. uh even though it's june cara drunky board member and we're all pretty much in consensus yeah anybody on this on these two particular trips to uh small roman numeral one and two anyone have any other comments or questions regarding these or can we go ahead and take them both can we already hand the motion yeah yeah okay okay everyone good with these and then we'll move on with the

096next item okay roll call please drum key i vessel i call carney i rooney hi batson bye benjamin hi carmichael hi okay that motion passes um [Music] so educational tours discussion and i'm you know this has to do with with any of those and i think it has to do with the recommendations that we were working under starting in september but as things change we may need to consider changes to those so rita do you have any sort of background you want to yeah thank you so um back in in september the recommendations uh that we made were based on agreements made in spring of 2020 with the board at that time that we would not bring any um educational tour recommendations to the board for consideration given the financial and other difficulties that had

097families had incurred and the district was concerned about um and so in september we initiated the conversation in the hopes that we could begin to bring recommendations for of the board to consider educational tours so at that time we asked that we would look at the approval of student travel to illinois state sponsored organized events during the 21-22 school year and point three was that we consider approval of domestic international travel experiencing commencing no earlier than the 22-23 school year was the language that we had shared in september we also said that board approved educational tours would be subject to cancellation based on review of health and safety travel advisories so what we would like to recommend tonight given the improvement in travel conditions and looking now at this june trip that we've approved is

098that we would adjust that request made in september to consider the approval of domestic travel for the 21 22 school year so we would like to adjust what was point number three in september consider approval of domestic and or international travel commencing no earlier than the 22-23 school year the administration is recommending that we um open up domestic travel for the remainder of the 2021-22 school year that you begin to consider approval of ed tours that are presented for that purpose so we're not asking you to approve anything tonight we're asking for for permission to present and tour proposals domestically for the remainder of this school year but not to change any recommendations regarding international travel that that would only be available in the 2223 school year we might bring you those proposals so that

099groups could begin to plan but they could commence no sooner than 2223 school year yeah and i think that's an important designation that we by us discussing this tonight doesn't approve any trips it just it just gives you guidance on what types of trips to bring to us right now it was only within the state which made some sense because by the way we might have a team go downstate for for finals and or sectionals or whatever and you have to be we want those kids to be able to have that experience but um i would say that and this is just my comment i'm happy to hear you know open it up to anyone else um the only thing that i would be cautious of is the language when we start talking about a

100trip that might be uh in part parent funded or in in total parent funded that we have some kind of a disclaimer agreement something to that effect that indicates that uh to to to avoid the situation we had before where we had some difficulty in uh uh getting people reimbursed for the trips that were cancelled because of the pandemic which were obvious you know we we couldn't take we were not allowed to take but yet the the the firms that were arranging those travels uh uh uh we're giving us uh some some challenge on that so i think just to make sure that we go into this with our eyes wide open for any trip that's coming up that's domestic um you know that would be my only comment so and so generally domestic trips

101like the ones that we're talking about offering for this coming school year are not organized through travel organizations sometimes they are but other times they're not and the arrangements are made you know separately rather than a package from a tour company and so that would have to be part of the consideration when these trips may be presented to you in terms of insurance being purchased for flights and cancellations you know being the responsibility of those who are making the arrangements not the district yeah well she has comments or questions on this so that would just be part of the regular documentation because we had talked about in the future needing some sort of documentation regarding people going into potentially dangerous dangerous areas right because we had groups that were going into areas that the state

102department had probably don't want to go there so yes so similarly domestic trips they would have to have some sort of a plan that continues to be part of our internal process when we are looking at when we are asking you to approve these opportunities we have internal processes and procedures to check conditions for health and safety it used to be just safety but it is now health and safety for sure um and monitoring that before a trip would proceed so it's on the organizers to prepare that and present it to us yeah jim batson vice president anybody else i will say that i really appreciate these trips for our students they're very important i've personally been i tagged along and you know we heard a lot about the uh the baseball trips to arizona

103i was fortunate enough to take along on one of those trips one year and it was a terrific experience for us and for the students as well as numerous fine arts and performing trips and you know the list goes on so i i appreciate that and understand why the parents and the students both i want to get back into doing some of those things so if we can do it safely then you know it makes sense to to move forward with that so so there's no action on that tonight so it just gives you guidance on what to bring to us in the future and should you know should uh the board in the past gave us recommendations kind of not through action but just yes we would consider this in the future so should

104that be the result of tonight's conversation we would publish that internally and open up the um educational tour proposal process that we have internally to begin to review um requests that we would then bring to you as we normally do at the pnp committee meeting and then we have the option of of approving it at that point in time so unless anyone has any objections i think that's in baseball are there other activities clubs groups that have been discussing plans for spring vernon hill softball i believe has been discussing a spring break trip um there there may be other groups that would value that kind of experience that would now given this you know given the this recommendation from the administration that we begin to look at and part of our hesitancy prior to this

105was because of most of these kinds of trips are not organized through some formal educational tour company that provides some protections that individual arrangements do not so that was our initial hesitation as well as uncertainty about travel conditions but if we're open to reviewing each trip and the relative risk that it presents i think there may be other groups that might want to propose these kinds of things as well okay okay anyone else okay let's move on we have a uh a handful of employment of employees action to take here these were uh hires or changes um made since the pmp meeting earlier in the month so um pulled these into a separate motion so can i have a motion to accept these employees as listed second okay any questions or comments okay roll call

106please essel aye cool carney hi rooney hi benson benjamin hi carmichael hi drumki hi okay motion passes and that concludes the programming personnel committee report thank you we'll turn it over to casey uh to chairperson rooney for the facilities and finance committee thank you president hessel all right number one on the agenda uh 2021 estimated tax levy update dan yep we got uh some slides to throw up on the screen for you daniel stanley business uh so here's just a brief overview of really the summary of our conversation um at our october facilities and finance committee meeting um so in a nutshell the way the system works that all of you should be familiar with now our property tax system the limits the calculations and all of those things um what we're estimating is that

107our extension that will be eligible for under the law is just under 84 million so this represents a 1.4 percent increase which is cpi essentially you can consider that the rate of inflation uh this is not the cpi that the or the rate of inflation that you're experiencing right now it is always a year in arrears so this is really the rate of inflation from 2020 that we don't get so where schools are always kind of year behind whatever what happens in the quote-unquote real world in addition we have new property that's coming on the books a little bit higher than normally we would typically have a big reason for that is the forester um hotel that is in conway conway park area that's our taxing district and so that that's a bigger uh piece

108so that is that's inflating our new property a little bit so in total what we're estimating is it'll be a 1.96 increase so call it two percent increase uh in property tax uh extension um then now that doesn't mean necessarily that everybody's property tax will go up by two percent what that means is that on average right so think of the average of you know tens of thousands of properties that we have in the district on average your existing value um your your if your existing value is relatively flat you probably will go up 1.4 if your existing value decreases you might go up less than 1.4 it might decrease but if say you get an assessment and your assessment goes up five percent your increase in taxes will probably be more than 1.4 so

109it really depends on what your assessment your individual property assessment change relative to the whole and the whole we're estimating is roughly flat from the year before so it's not a decrease i kind of thought we would be experiencing a decrease we did not um oh i don't know that's not me thank you um so uh the 2021 estimate levy what we're recommending is to levy 84 million 423 um we've provided in the other meeting the sheets of kind of how we get to those calculations but essentially what we're requesting is what we're recommending to levy is a 2.32 percent increase um even though knowing we're probably only going to be legally allowed to get about 2 based on the calculations but this is to it this is to account for the reality that in

110the calculation there's assumptions we have to make about values that we don't know we won't know what some of these values are until the spring but we have to make a decision on what to ask for by did the end to buy the last tuesday in december there we go so we have we have to do one step before we know the full picture so we we try to take a guess there's no harm we won't get 2.3 percent i'm pretty confident we're going to get the two but we do the 2.3 just to be safe so we don't accidentally leave money on the table let's go to the next one so really the next steps are there's nothing there no action tonight this is really information for you and for the public we'll review

111this again at our november 8th fnf meeting we'll have some final resolutions for you to to view as well and then we'll look for final approval at our at our november 15th board meeting and then i will file it the next day so with that that's our process any questions the known numbers have changed since we met a couple weeks ago so all the numbers are still the same casey rooney facilities and finance chair right any questions comments oh all right thank you dan you did it and you did a very in-depth um explanation of this at our committee meeting so if anyone in the public really wanted to go dive into that those meetings are recorded and you can go watch that if you so desire uh next item on the agenda is thought

112exchange agreement approval we also discussed this at our committee meeting denise if you want to give us a little more detail as we go to vote on this yes it's a new tool that we gave a pilot run with our staff and it's used by some wonderful school districts in the area that focuses on two-way communication so in addition to some of the surveys that we do where we send specific questions with specific choices which is good for some kind of information this particular software tool is more for dynamic comment so you ask open-ended questions in which people can write responses and reason for responses and then not only leave multiple ideas but then rate the ideas of others in such a way that it shows priorities and preferences of the larger group so working

113with other school districts in the area who've used it for things like our upcoming strategic planning using it for other kind of staff engagement all the way down to classroom level uh applications so we're very excited to launch at juice great because it wasn't in the original budget this was a new process that you or a new program that you had brought on this is why it's coming before us tonight any comments or questions it might just be useful to remind the public of how many dollars are we talking about in this yeah that'll be when we ask for a motion but it's 21 hundred is the cost of the all right thank you okay uh no other comments or questions can i get a motion to approve the thought exchange agreement in the amount

114of twenty one thousand six hundred dollars effective october 1st so moved second motion carries carol call cole carney aye rooney aye batson benjamin aye carmichael aye hi drumkey hi hessel hi all right motion passes uh last item uh that we do have some action on is a disposal request of a forklift it looks like we're trading this in yeah this came in after our fnf committee uh so there's an old 1998 forklift that vernon hills would like to trade in with part of their process trading in for a newer one okay do we have a dollar amount on the newer one or they're they're not requesting to purchase that yet this is just uh they're they're working on that but they need approval to dispose of disposal okay so all right can i get a

115motion to approve the disposal request of for vernon hills high school and the department forklift so moved second carries carol rooney hi batson bye benjamin aye motion passes that concludes facilities and finance for tonight okay thank you um for iasb jim uh yeah just a couple of things um i had a great meeting last week with dr p.j caposi as the guest speaker i will just uh inform you that i was at that meeting the wake division executive committee was elected the officers for the division executive committee and i was honored to be uh elected as a director at large for the late division so i will be representing us in more than one way yeah that will be interesting and then just a reminder we have the uh joint conference coming up in november

116and a couple opportunities between now and then to further discuss that or any other things related to the resolutions or any of that type of thing so that's it for me thank you and that brings us to any future agenda items casey rooney facilities and finance chair well you have to vote on that one you already told us what our facilities and finance future agenda items but the tax levies coming up for vote in november that's november 15th so and then rita i believe we have course proposals coming in november awesome and i will also be giving a brief update on my first 100 days at the november committee meeting um i thought it was supposed to be 128 days oh you're right you're right thank you that will still be by the 28th so

117by the november 8th yes lisa hassell president okay um then uh now it will be time to ask for a motion to retire to executive session to discuss collective negotiating matters and pending litigation second thank you so we are adjourned to executive do we i'm sorry do we need a real contact we do need a roll call thank you very much roll call please bathson hi benjamin hi carmichael hi drumkey hi hi carney hi rooney hi great we're going to take a five minute bio break which takes us to 8 48 we will convene for executive session when our executive session is finished we will reconvene to open session no further action will be taken and we will adjourn so thank you everybody