001okay now we're recording for monday september 27th 2021 um let's uh i'll join and do the pledge of allegiance under god indivisible with liberty and justice carol can we have a roll call please jim batson here sarah benjamin here john carmichael here here casey rooney here okay we note that uh lisa hessel is out um and i'm covering for tonight so uh welcome everybody uh just review the agenda real quick we have a few communications items uh the superintendent report our student uh uh report that's after the public comment we start with a comment and then a consent vote agenda items from the personnel and program program personnel committee and then items from the facilities and finance committee uh little illinois association of school boards uh anything from seed all tonight okay some notes from
002cedaw and then a future agenda items opportunity and followed by adjournment so we will get started is there anyone that wishes to speak on public comment okay is pull it down just a little bit there you go yes okay hi my name is schwartz i see her hers pronouns and i'm a senior at vernon hills high school i'm also a writer in journalism for the scratching post i'm writing an article about increased lgbtqia plus representation and pronoun transparency within vernon hills high school there's been a rise in awareness for her sexual and gender identity ever since the coven 19 pandemic hit and with the increase in this awareness conversations about pronouns have also become more normal to discuss with teacher and student relationships lgbtqia plus high schoolers at vernon hills feel provoked to talk about
003why queer representation and pronouns are so important first i want to define a few words for you non-binary means genders that don't fall into one of the male or female categories transgender means people whose gender identity is different from the gender they were assigned at birth meaning that people do not need to transition to become male or female but instead they identify as a different gender than they were assigned and cisgender is someone that identifies as the gender that they were assigned at birth alex carson a senior at burton hills high school uses he they she pronouns and identifies as gender fluid gender fluid is relating to a person who does not identify themselves as having a fixed gender alex claims that there has been an increase of lgbtqia pride within burden hills but we
004also have a lot of areas for improvement they recommended things like reading more texts with queer characters including more queer centered focus in history also in health class we can focus on education with sexualities and lgbtqia plus sexual education instead of just focusing on cis-head sex even though the lgbtqia plus inclusive curriculum bill was passed to include lgbtqia plus studies and classes i have not had any teachers discuss these topics and i admit that my experience could differ from the experience of others when teachers don't ask their students for their pronouns it causes a lot of discomfort for transgender and non-binary students but they are still grateful for the teachers that do ask for their pronouns some ways to combat this discomfort would be by asking teachers to create forms in which students can submit
005their pronouns in private the teachers could also ask the students if they feel comfortable being referred to by these pronouns in front of the class in private or both this avoids telling the whole class if the student is not comfortable to do so another area for improvement would be the locker rooms and bathrooms although a lot of progress has been made with the gender-neutral bathrooms and locker rooms they are not very accessible for transgender or non-binary students for instance the gender neutral changing rooms are far away from both the female and male locker rooms and the dance locker rooms every day for class male presenting students transgender students and non-binary students use the gender neutral locker room or the mail locker room which is located farther away from the dance gym than the female presenting
006students have to walk to again there has been a lot of progress made with providing gender-neutral changing rooms but i believe that we can still do more some recommendations to support the lgbtqia plus representation are educating teachers on what transgender and what non-binary means and simply helping them learn about gender and sexual identities educating teachers about these identities should not be the role of students coming out to their teachers but instead the role of the district to teach the faculty along with this social studies language arts language and fine arts teachers should include lgbtqia plus history and moments of injustice in the curriculum just like how d128 schools continuously talk about race and ethnicity lgbtqia plus studies should be taught as well i believe that as a district we provide sorry excuse me i believe
007that as a district that strives to be daring we can make d128 an inclusive place for students that are part of the lgbtqia plus community please let me know if you have any questions and i appreciate your time thank you anybody else which address support okay hearing none we'll move on to the president's report we have uh the student school board representatives so take it away all right can everyone hear me all right perfect uh vernon hills will be starting off today so uh we're first gonna start off with athletics so congratulations to the boys golf team for winning conference dylan josephson easily plays first place with a score of 73 and beat his second place opponent by five strokes um a couple strokes behind him though uh aj caprowski placed seventh adam brand placed
008eighth and cartoon vasudeva placed 10th um this team will be playing regionals on wednesday at white deer which is the course their home course um also congrats to the girls golf team who also plays first in conference lexi shulman placed second with a score of 79 right behind her anna lee placed fifth tiffany kang placed eighth and emily jones and irene m tied for 10th great job ladies in addition our seniors have made an effort to advertise our senior nights so um on social media and also just by word to word um a bunch of seniors are talking to each other to try to get uh people out to their events so such as boys golf that's not a sport people usually don't come out for and uh this year for senior night uh i
009think we had maybe six or seven which is still a low number but it was great to see a couple people show up for that i was one of them and i had a great time um and the ones that do have um participate uh um or large qua sorry large crowds um for senior nights they are getting bigger ones is uh for example uh student rap sorry for example um the girls volleyball team will be having their senior night on thursday and they have been advertising it for about a week now and they are expecting a pretty large crowd at our football games we've had an excellent number of students attend our home games with our senior section at full capacity plus the other classes filling up the rest of the student section our
010um in addition our turnout to away games has also been outstanding even though it was mostly juniors and seniors uh our last week's game against deerfield filled up the whole student section for the for the away like smaller section um we had our first dance of the year the kickoff dance uh and it was a huge success over 800 students attended uh attended this and even with a bit uh with a rough weather in the beginning with lightning we are still able to make it out into the field and have and have a great time um 800 is over 50 of our student body which is excellent um this is a great way to to show both the freshmen and sophomores how how dances go at vh at the dance we had five senior groups
011perform their lip syncs and the overall support was amazing each group was not there to win but they're to have fun every group cheered for each other and when when all groups were all done they all came together and congratulate each other nick heiser one of the members of cougar watch said that the kickoff dance was the best best day of his high school uh um career by a long shot um the winners of the um of the lip sync were the cougar watch and they'll be performing at the homecoming homecoming assembly on october 8th um as another month has passed students have gotten more used to masks in school for most wearing a mask for six plus hours straight has become second nature to them but others have have needed a constant reminder to
012wear their mask properly hopefully of them as the months keep passing by uh students will continue to wear their masks correctly this month seniors have been training for the right assembly the right assembly is is on one of our half days october 13th where freshmen come in and get into small groups do some icebreakers and listen to some motivational speakers as seniors we welcome the freshmen and try to create a safe safe space for them to talk about talk about anything they would like our final training is tomorrow to finalize who is in what group uh what teachers are in what group and uh what the groups are going to be doing for their activities now to tiffany thank you kevin so tonight we have our first orchestra concert which you probably noticed when you
013were walking in and this is our first live concert of the year and our first one since the pandemic began the students have been working hard since the first day of school and they are beyond excited to show off all their hard work this brings assignment to the whole school because many students are excited to go and watch them because this is the first fine arts performance in a long time the parents of david dang a senior who plays violin says we can't wait to see the performance after all those days practicing after school our jsa club has kicked off the school year with some amazing debates being able to discuss with one another in person and not over zoom has brought a lot of excitement and new faces to jsa some of the debate
014topics so far have been troops in afghanistan heartbeat bills the second amendment covered vaccines and abortion rights these have allowed students to hear different perspectives and learn more about the opposite point of view we had open house on thursday september 2nd and vernon hill's parents walked their students schedules and got to meet all of their teachers despite masks and common concerns teachers said that their classrooms were full of eager parents students in nhs volunteered at this event to point parents in the right direction in the hallways and help them find classrooms dr gilliam and the administration administration team met with freshman parents to address the top 10 questions that all new parents have which helped reassure them with any concerns that they may have had two weeks ago we had our yellow ribbon week to
015raise awareness for mental health and suicide prevention the spark exec board wrote messages of encouragement with chalk in front of the school to brighten people's day as they walked in throughout the week we had different activities for each day for example we had staff welcoming students with socially distant high fives and smiles before school started we all wore yellow one day we signed posters as a pledge we had informational booths in the foyer and we had so much more student wrap with the transition going back to normal school many teachers have continued their generosity from last year and are allowing students to retake many if not all of their quizzes and tests while this has been a great opportunity for us students to show that we know the material and also to help boost our
016grades it has been a struggle to get this done the testing center in the arc has been overcrowded basically every day before and after school even though it's open during all periods during the day many students need and want to take it before or after school because they have limited time for lunch and they want to use this time to eat and so this has resulted in delays for test retakes because the room only allows for about 20 students since it's pretty small and it's first come first served so after it gets filled unfortunately they have to start kicking people out and telling them to come another day but a lot all of our teachers have been very flexible and understanding with this allowed for extensions but it has been frustrating for both students and
017teachers student wrap an update on our new stem capstone class many of us have now figured out what experiment that we want to research and conduct such as if food dye has an effect on organisms if aloe vera can help people with cancer and how stress hormones can affect cancer cells as you can see there's a big variety of what we can research which is amazing because we get a lot of freedom to explore whatever we are interested in especially with the help of mentors for example i wanted my project to be something with neuroscience because i know this is something i'm interested in i struggled with where i wanted to go with this so last week i was able to have a call with a mentor who specializes in neuroscience who helped me brainstorm
018some ideas and lead me to where i want my project to go also many of us need materials that are not standard in an ordinary science class like mice or cancer cells so mr pro size has been helping us to see what materials are in the budget what will be allowed in the lab and now on to sophia the vhs vh2o club has started a new zero waste initiative in the cafeteria to teach students about sustainability and environmental health the idea originally started back in 2019 but because of kovid they had to put it aside until now the cafeteria is using several trash bin stations with national honor society members volunteering their lunch periods to help sort trash into the appropriate bins the trash gets sent to a company who later turns it into compost
019and as of now more than 20 pounds of compost have been produced just from the vhs cafeteria mr greenwald and mr wolfe are the staff leaders for this initiative and after talking to mr greenwald i learned that the club plans to roll out a more educational perspective of the initiative to show students what the impact of environmental sustainability is students are cooperating with the initiative at the moment and more support is being added to it as it starts to expand from the cafeteria the staff and administration at vhs has been focusing on encouraging inclusion and diversity as the year moves forward two weeks ago various affinity groups like jewish student union latin american student organization sexuality and gender acceptance organization asian student union black student union and many more met during class periods during class
020day periods as fun friday activities each club invited students who either identify with these affinity groups or wanted to be allies to come in and get to know each other the experience created a safe and welcoming environment for new students as well as a space for them to share similar experiences and build trust the turnout for all of these groups was great and more students were reported to have joined these clubs after the fun friday activity to add to this increase in inclusion at vhs lgbtq plus students have reported feeling a sense of inclusion from teachers in their classes at the beginning of the year more teachers ask students for pronouns in their get to know your activities additionally some teachers have put up pride flags in their classrooms as well as lgbtq plus safe
021space labels all over the school this shift in sensitivity has benefited to our school's lgbtq plus community but many will agree that there's still some progress to be made as many of you have heard vhhs has a new dance gym the facility is incredible and many of us including miss jaffe are very thankful for having a space to practice however senior student jayden schwartz couldn't help but point out to me that the changing rooms for these dance classes are only accessible to female identifying students any students not fitting that description need to run across the school to the normal locker rooms to change for class and then risk being late to their next class by having to follow this routine every day although dance is a mostly female dominated class non-female students shouldn't have to
022worry about having a place to comfortably change for classes additionally non-binary and transgender students from all gym classes have to go through the process of changing in other rooms even further down by the basement after noticing this we reached out to several non-binary students about the situation and they expressed their experience as being more of an uncomfortable and time-consuming hassle than using the male female changing rooms and that in the near future the space in these rooms might run out while we are appreciative that the board as well as the school administration have made progress on these issues before students like jaden and myself hope that the board can take this into consideration and come up with a way to improve further upon these issues the ronald mcdonald care mobile also visited our school this
023past month it is a portable nurse program that allows some of our students to get their physicals done who may have otherwise not had the opportunity to do so it's an important equity initiative as it meets the needs of those who don't have access to resources that many others do and lastly congratulations to honorud adiraju ella baum laura dollar joel kim jackie lou devon mulchrone and andrew tikanov on becoming dhhs's 2021 national merit semifinalists these students scored at the top point five percent of their class nationally on the psat and have achieved a very high honor status from doing so way to go guys and now on to libertyville student rap all right so the energy and excitement from the start of the school year has carried out through the first month at libertyville high
024school uh first i just want to talk a little bit about how students are feeling like being back at school um just a general consensus from the students that they're really glad to be back and excited to be back at school and enjoying going to classes every day school spirit and school culture is an all-time high at libertyville high school like to just shout out the administration our faculty and upperclassmen they've been a really big they've been doing a really good job aiding the underclassmen and you know contributing to this um culture that we have that is so fantastic classes are seeing a big shake up this year there's lots of different policies being implemented through them teachers are retire are required to have a retake policy overwhelming overwhelmingly students are enjoying this retake policy
025and taking teachers up on this opportunity teachers enjoy having this retake policy but they have said that a small minority of their students are not using their time correctly and taking advantage of this policy some english teachers have explained or expressed some difficulty with the retake policy in terms of writing they don't think it's really the best to have kids continually revising essays and whatnot they'd rather that they take what they learned and focus it forward but the overwhelming majority of people are enjoying these and really taking good use of them also student or teachers have been a lot of teachers have been implementing what is called an equitable grading scale i think it's at a school board level like the whole grading policy so essentially students try are supposed to hit learning targets and
026homework doesn't really count for points it's to supplement your education and uh tests are like out of a certain number so kids don't have such a dramatic drop from 50 to zero which is failing a class they have more of an opportunity and they can keep reaching it and that comes into the retake like attaining it uh teachers have been doing their best to explain it but kids have said there's not as much transparency as they'd like is kind of thrown on them this year and it will take a little more time for them to get used to it school programs have been taken off have taken off this in the early part of the year one in particular in early september we had our self-care week followed by this is what they had the
027yellow ribbon week uh dr nelson our prevention and wellness coordinator put that on for us during self-care week students were encouraged to think about themselves and their current state of their mental and physical health after coming back from not being at school for such a long time students were really grateful for having this reminder to be more cognizant of their mental health and physical health i know just talking with students they love being back but it's it's a big it's a big difference from being at home all year and well you know you had the little part at the end of the year but there's a lot more on their plate there's a lot more stressors sports are back and there's just a lot more they need to handle so it was very great that
028dr nelson was able to put that on that was followed by our yellow ribbon week which they talked a little bit about it's about suicide prevention and like overall mental wellness throughout the week the friday before students and faculty were encouraged to come tie-dye yellow shirts to be worn during the week to support solidarity with the program students decorated the halls and were given stickers and pins with nice little sayings on them to kind of encourage kids to always be aware and have a great day throughout the week during their lunch periods they had activities and discussions about being open with your mental health and making sure that they know all the resources both student and faculty run that you can go to at at the high school um i heard from students that they
029appreciated knowing that there was a place for them to go if they ever had any trouble because lots are having trouble with all the stress that comes with being back at school and i was a part of one discussion and learning more about your classmates is a really great thing and it helps you put put yourself more in their shoes and to be able to understand everything about them and it's it's really important that we have more open discussions like this in a place where kids can come teachers have made a point about or made a point of emphasis about checking in with their classes more because they know about all the added stress that has come with this year even with all the great things that have happened just a little switch up uh
030the juniors are taking the psat i believe october 13th and the underclassmen will have a kind of assembly where through dr nelson our prevention and wellness coordinator seniors and other students or mostly senior students will be taking the test we'll have an open discussion about these resources because they didn't they knew about it through yellow ribbon week but they weren't as aware as you know upperclassmen because they've been through this so they'll just discuss that in our green dot program which is i think i mentioned last time are by like our anti-bullying and culture of the high school so that will happen uh about masks seniors are not seniors but um the entire school i believe is doing a pretty good job the faculty is making sure that they keep hammering that point that everyone
031needs to be wearing their mask and wearing them correctly so they have a use uh some students you know there's always going to be a few that leave it down but other students also encourage that they put their masks up and be healthy and be safe clubs have seen a rapid increase in participation this year from prior years uh i know leaf club which i'm in is has an all-time high and just a little bit about that all this um we created a natural prairie in our courtyard and many classes are taking advantage of that and going outside and learning uh in the nature and i've heard from many students that it is great when the teacher has on the door head out to the prairie classroom we're gonna go have class there uh dr
032colentes and dr hermann were actually in an ap environmental science class trying to hear a little bit more about what their efforts are and how the class is kind of run so i was actually in that class we ran a simulation and they weren't with my group but i think they got to know a little bit more about how the classes run and where we're trying to head with classes like that in the future of the school and i just want to kind of bring it back to the point of this high school during the summer dr k stressed the importance of restoration renewal of libertyville culture and the entire class is doing a fantastic job with that school spirit has an all-time high when i was a freshman or sophomore i don't remember a
033time where kids of all grades were showing up to every sporting event it's not the football games anymore it's the volleyball games it's the soccer games i saw a few at the cross country meet like every everyone's going and it's it's the seniors leading by example and freshmen are coming on sophomore and it's just so good for like our camaraderie and our spirit um i just thought i'd like to mention that i thought i know many people from other schools and i never hear kids through the majority of kids say they really enjoy going to school and they enjoy everything the school has to offer and they appreciate going there so i just want to wrap it up with that so i'll pass over to ryan for some sports updates okay um so our fall
034sports seasons are well underway with cross-country golf football boys soccer hockey girls swimming and diving girls tennis girls volleyball palms and cheer practicing and competing members of these teams have said that their experiences have felt almost normal compared to last year with the exception of masking for indoor practices they also also feel overwhelming support from the school and their peers with turnout for all sporting events being super high also members have said that they feel closer bonds with their teammates with longer seasons more contests and generally closer contact than what we experienced last year there's also been a lot of student enthusiasm for football games this year on game day as the marching band drum line plays in the hallways before school lhs plays the school song between classes and overall there's an excited feeling
035among students our team has had a few big wins one notably being 76 to 6 against waukegan setting the school record for most points in a game this record was previously set in 1923. congratulations to our football team our first home game was against lake zurich it was really well attended and students said it felt normal and they were really excited to be back in the stands cheering on our team our second game against joaquin was a little bit less attended especially in the second half however many senior students stayed in support of our team um the marching band pom's team and cheer team all performed at these games and we're really excited to perform for such a large audience and compared to last year where it mainly was parents we also have had a
036great turnout to our away games including underclassmen who usually don't show up to those kind of events but a lot of them are showing up and in addition to the upperclassmen who usually fill the stance libertyville's principles advisory board held their first meeting last week this group is made up of students of all grades who provide a voice for the rest of the school and any student issues or opinions or like current events at the school these students then provide their input to dr k to create initiatives or ideas to continuously improve lhs we are excited to see what these students will do in the coming months libertyville also has a very busy week ahead of us it's our spirit week to get ready for the homecoming dance saturday with this year's theme being rock
037the ville and this is all organized by our amazing student council um today was tropical day which had a great turnout i saw a lot of tropical shirts sunglasses and lays from all of our students the upperclassmen definitely led the way in spirit with the most people dressing up but the freshman and sophomores are catching on to our libertyville pride and i think they're getting a little bit more like bold like in being able to dress up um student wrap oh monday and tuesday we have float building to design and build floats for the homecoming parade saturday we also have an annual girls powderpuff flag football game this wednesday for senior students seniors form teams complete with coaches and cheerleaders and some teams have held practices outside of school these past few weeks seniors are
038very excited about this because it's a return to another one of our classic homecoming traditions we've also created a new libertyville tradition by switching our homecoming court around a little bit this year 20 senior students who represent every aspect of libertyville's culture has been voted on by teachers and peers and will be honored at our assembly friday and parade saturday congrats to our 2021 homecoming court friday we have our homecoming assembly to celebrate our wildcat spirit watch performances by our band cheer and ponds teams and find out which grade will win the spirit cup for our first year back the spirit cup is upper grabs and it's going to be a very intense competition seeing if the seniors will win it this year um friday we not only have our football game against lake forest
039but also a soccer game against carmel um these events are at 4 30 and 7 30 and enthusiasm and spirit have been building up all week for the cats to win finally saturday we have the homecoming parade and dance that evening the dance is slightly different than it would be in a normal year beginning at 6 30 p.m and it's being held outdoors typically at this time of year link crew leaders at lhs talk to their freshman groups and just talk them through the whole homecoming process including buying tickets getting dinner reservations and just how the dance works um this is really helpful for many freshmen because the dance is such a new concept for them in addition to that this year a few link crew leaders held special sessions for members of the sophomore
040class who also haven't gotten an opportunity to participate in a high school dance either i'm talking to some underclassmen most are excited but a little bit nervous for their first homecoming some are a bit sad that it isn't in the gym as always but overall the students are thankful that we are returning to an almost normal dance i can feel a lot of energy and excitement in the hallways this week and i'm sure it will continue to grow in anticipation of the weekend finally over the past few weeks lhs has been hosting representatives from many major colleges to talk to our senior and junior students around 75 percent of the representatives are in person and 25 or virtual which actually has worked really well with few technical issues i'm hearing from senior students and also
041from my experience the visits are super helpful in you know making decisions asking questions to those representatives and also just learning information about college or college options um and the most of the people that have been there have been seniors however there are a few juniors that have chosen to attend as well and i'm gonna pass it off to faith i don't know if my mic is on just because the green light you want me to pass you mine you can use that student wrap [Music] thank you hi good evening everybody so i just want to start off to say a huge part of libertyville's community and what makes it so special is the excellence of academics we have at lhs the performing arts as well is not only shows the intelligence of lhs but
042also carries over the overall creativity that we have at our school as well i work at towny square restaurant in downtown libertyville and get to firsthand experience the positive words i hear about lhs from the community and how excited parents aunts uncles cousins and everyone is to see their students so involved in our community whether that's window painting or doing extra credit choir shows at the local church or old folks home seeing lhs athletes pictures in the windows of your favorite local shops it's all just so exciting for our community and for the parents of our students student wrap this is what lhs and the people are and what makes it so special at lhs we recently had a performing arts fall band concert on september 23rd where students got to display their amazing amazing
043musical abilities sorry to families friends and more without the lhs band football games would not be the same the excitement and passion they bring to their skill and our student body is so impressive and so memorable going to lhs theater the mute school musical matilda will be happening on october 28th 29th and 30th for parents and adults to see for anyone who's interested not only the cast but the crew and directors put so much work and effort into what they present to the community and practice every day after school for several hours they put so much effort into this musical and it's seriously so important for our student body to go and participate in watching this because i have a few friends in theater and it's crazy the amount of passion they put into these
044musicals student rap choir as well will be having a concert coming up very soon but the date is not decided yet as a student that has been in choir all four years and done other groups such as a cabela's and as an exec member of the choir board i can easily tell you choir has helped me so much find something that can boost my mood if i'm having a difficult day choir and band will be going to richardson farms for a field trip on october 12th which is something we haven't been able to do since 2019 which was my sophomore year so being able to go there again and have these memorable um things with your friends and being able to take pictures is something that's really crazy to think about community ed began september
0458th and i've heard many good things from people in the community and even though some regulars at the diner involved in them september 8th was also the start of yellow ribbon week which were both easily big successes as john mentioned personally yellow ribbon week hits very close and is a very important topic i believe our school needs to bring awareness to for our students going into academics lhs is cruising very smoothly and i have heard very normal jargon from students about their classes partially yes complaining about homework and texts and quizzes but you know that's never going to stop it's always going to be a regular thing but also actually being in front of their teachers instead of over a screen has been so so great for all of our students me as well um
046i struggled with zoom and you know having to learn math oh my gosh of all things um over a screen and being able to like in person come and see my teachers and get that help and really experience that learning uh face to face has been so so important to me um the psat as john melch or john mentioned is being held on october 13th and lhs is wishing all students taking it good luck and to make sure to get a good breakfast before and plenty of sleep beforehand the national a.c.t was held on september 11th and from some friends i know that took it also went fairly smoothly as much as lhs takes extracurriculars and the student voice seriously they also want every student to have academic success in their education thank you for
047listening and make sure to go to the hoco football game to see our athletes performing arts and powder puff well i will be participating on the field thank you well done well done yeah i always it's so exciting to hear all the things that are going on in our schools it's uh it's it's really nice that you can uh come share that with us and uh uh each uh each month so we appreciate it um so moving on we have the superintendent's report yes thank you and i have a little bit of additional good news the students covered most of it so thank you very very much um i will start off by adding the lhs students who are recognized as the 2021-22 national merit semi-finalist that is luke anderson owen haywood george huber ryan
048mcgregory emma moscato molly moscato milam patel and andrew sorensen and thank you you already read the vernon hills so thank you to our all of the students for performing so well we wish you luck in the next level of competition for the national merit also at libertyville high school they are proud to announce that the first class of inductees will be into the athletic hall of fame they'll be introduced and celebrated during homecoming activities the week of october 1st the lhs athletic hall of fame was recognized was organized to recognize and honor those wildcat athletes teams and coaches who excel in their respective sports or coaching roles and who help bring honor recognition distinction and excellence to lhs and uh because this is their inaugural um year we'll go ahead and read the people who
049will be recognized uh jim mcmillan class of 1920 dan holm class of 1971 brett butler of pam miller from 76 alison marquette of 91 becky coleman kelly carl eric van gogham kevin walter and then on to the coaches coach max sanders class of 59 coach jim panther coach chris turzna thank you um coach randy kuczeski coach andy bidda and the 1991 girls soccer team also a really important announcement the d128 foundation for learning will have its annual fundraiser the big event on saturday november 6th it will take place from 7 to 9 p.m and it will be virtual it will include a live trivia competition silent auction a raffle and paddle raise for students in need a registration will start on october 1st with all the details being available on the website all proceeds benefit
050programs for lhs and vhhs students and then finally the illinois association of school board leaders recognize school board members for the individual time and talent they've devoted to learning and leadership activities provided by the association at the fall division meeting two d-128 board members received recognition jim batson received a certificate for maintaining his master board member status and don carmichael received a lapel pin for earning master board member level one status please join me in recognizing our board members dr denise hermann superintendent and that's all of my good news for tonight next up i wanted to share briefly with the board in the community that we continue to move forward with our strategic planning process i want to complement people on the data team for pulling together um gosh it seems like hundreds and hundreds
051of sets of data we reviewed some of it this afternoon to answer the question where are we now our next session will take place on november 2nd and that will be an all-day session and it will be in person so again we're continuing to move through that process um at our meeting in august we talked about having a special board session rather than having it be on the evening however i think i realize that there's a conflict for two board members so i will be working with lisa and jim and others to make sure it's essential to me that all seven board members can be there to participate so look for another opportunity there um and then i'm going to turn it over to bryant for a covid19 update thank you let me see if
052i can share my screen here brian kelly associate superintendent try to make the print as big as possible so you guys can see but i i will just go through the slides here um so just uh just kind of an update because it has been a while since we've had a board meeting since august so i just wanted to give an update um we have shared the district 128 culture of care response plan um the response plan has been updated a couple of times since we've met and that's to align with the is being idph guidance um along with a response plan we have also been communicating with our staff parents guarding guardians on some of the school health guidelines so i think we've you know pat last week we sent another update um we
053sent one a couple weeks ago just on some of the guidance that we've received um you know from isb illinois state board of education and then illinois department of public health we've also then you know posted that information on the district website um under d128 next um and the d128x has links to our culture of care response plan it also has links to our covid 19 reporting that i'll get into in a little bit um also on our lhs and vernon hills websites the main websites the information that has been sent to parents regarding the symptoms and how to talk to the school nurses about the symptoms and the follow-up and testing that's required to return to school is all right there on both websites as a quick link so that everybody can see it
054so we're trying to share the information as many places as possible try not to inundate our families with too many emails but also try to get that information out there as um you know things are updated from the state um just to review a little bit you know some of our prevention strategies number one is to promote vaccination i'll get into our update on our vaccination rates as the students talked about consistent and correct mass use is one of our important prevention strategies physical distancing as much as possible it's a lot more difficult um in a larger school when you get everyone back into the buildings but again this is just one of the strategies and you want to use as many of these together as possible the other one is screening and testing and
055i'll give you an update on our screening and testing a little bit ventilation which you know mark and his team has been working on for a couple years um which has been great again we want to reiterate um hand washing respiratory etiquette and keep you know talking about that we can't forget about that as one of the basics but we can't you know let that go by the wayside um again staying home and sick and that's why we're communicating those and we want our families to be in contact with our school nurses and ask questions our school nurses are more than happy to take time and talk to families talk to students talk to staff and you know bear with us our schools have been doing i think a great job not only with our
056learning support team secretary is talking to families but also our nurses so you know we're there to help as much as possible you know contact tracing with isolation and quarantine again our nurses work with the lake county health department based off of guidance from illinois department of public health and that's again to keep students staff you know out of the building when they need to be quarantined so that we can you know keep everyone else in the building healthy and then again cleaning and disaffecting every day but also in other areas um you know when we need to so those are our prevention strategies just a quick overview of a reminder of them again you know one of the things too as we get into flu season in promoting vaccination the other thing is to
057talk about flu vaccines and every year we provide free flu free flu vaccines for our staff through our co-op our insurance co-op so hopefully our staff you know they get information on that but again for families to take advantage of flu vaccines in the area and you'll see them popping up now at walgreens and other places so um talking about the data that we monitor and this is what we've talked about before we look at the community transmission vaccination coverage testing and any outbreaks and so oops let me go back here i was trying to get to our website if i can there it goes so on our website this is the data that we've been monitoring monitoring and we updated every couple of weeks the last time i updated was september 17th and i'll
058update it again at the end of this week we look at lake county the positivity rate and then the number of cases per hundred thousand and you can see from august 10th to september 17th you know where that's kind of come down a little bit in lake county libertyville has you know gone up a little bit and then come back down vernon hills has risen a little bit over time i'll see what it is at the end of uh this week our vaccination coverage to give you a you know lake county is at 57 percent so it's growing but just to compare that with our d128 staff they're at 91.5 percent um our uh our d128 students ferny hills is at 75 percent liberty votes at 80 and again i'll get an update at the
059end of this week so again we talk about one of those things the high vaccination rate has helped us in a lot of areas you know keeping people healthy but also limiting the number of quarantines um i'll get in a little bit on another slide about some of the testing that you know we're doing in the updates on that and then again if you've been watching in the news at all about other schools having uh clusters or outbreaks currently we don't have any and an outbreak is defined as two cases connected at a school within the school environment so the county works with our nurses on cases um positive cases and how they were connected so if they were two positive cases but they occurred outside of a school they're not considered a school outbreak
060so it's got to be a connection within you know a school environment so that was again part of some of the uh last updates um let's go back to brian kelly associate superintendent testing update um so again we talked about you know weekly testing was required for unvaccinated students in extracurricular activities so back in august we started with unvaccinated indoor fall sport athletes and we were using the binex now test and then starting last week because we switched over to shield testing we included all unvaccinated fall sport athletes so that included indoor and outdoor and then we added in some of our extracurricular activities depending on the type of activity you know the contact some of the traveling via bus to some other activities and we'll continue to add those as we go as activities
061change and activities expand so some of the fine arts was added in there again for unvaccinated those going to homecoming dances powder puff the unvaccinated students were added into our testing so again our unvaccinated staff members they've been using binex now when we started three weeks ago and then this last week we moved over to shield testing so shields got set up last week and we work with passport health um and it's been um you know not going where everything's been going well at both schools we test two two times a week we give people uh two windows of opportunity at both schools to test so we go monday and thursday um two there's an opportunity monday um i'm trying to remember the times monday morning no i'm sorry monday afternoon at libertyville on thursday
062morning at uh libertyville and then vernon hills is during the middle of the day on monday during lunch periods in the middle day on thursday at lunch periods and so um our students again we expanded and we'll add more people in next week so that's a little bit of the testing update brian kelly associate superintendent any questions brian kelly associate superintendent great thank you brian and we'll move next to mark coopman with our update for facilities [Music] thank you dr herman um the board uh went on a tour at our last committee meeting so we've had some progress since you're we're last there um we have uh they started doing the gym equipment has been starting to be installed um they have duck socks up uh for the hvac system so they're doing transitions and
063doing the connections for that the construction trailer is gone outside and today they uh were working on grading uh spreading some uh black dirt getting ready to seed um repairing some of the roadway that was uh damaged during construction uh part of it uh pouring the outside stairs uh emergency exits and and getting finishing up outside workers sidewalks and that uh roofing is has been underway so now the driver's ed areas are totally covered and waterproof and the flashing was finished today so um we're working working our way across the roof uh approximately eight more days of roofing you know depends on whether um ultimate goal um we have the uh flooring scheduled you know painters are already painting more there's you know the walls uh had inside of a first coat orange around the
064bottom which he didn't see so it's starting uh starting to shape up it looks great mark b any questions all right we had three freedom of information requests this month one was received um it was a commercial request on the 17th of august and it was for the bid processes the second one was another commercial request and it was for our copy of our copy lease agreements the third was for infra staff information it was requested on september 20th and it is for the list of all co chsd 128's employees first names last names email addresses all were satisfied within three days of receipt in the past we've always had an indication of how long it took a staff member to put that information together but that's no longer a part of these reports not
065that it matters but i kind of like to know like to take somebody a half hour or we spending three days on these don carmichael secretary can we just put that back into future ones that's what i'm asking [Music] yeah i think uh i think carol had marked that down she always asked myself for dan stanley about the amount of time and we can add that back in thank you jim batson vice president okay moving on uh thank you dr herman um we have the consent vote agenda all these items were reviewed uh earlier in the month in uh in committee and uh so we have a consent vote agenda here for um consideration uh we have a role uh not a roll call but a motion to move to approve the consent vote agenda
066second okay uh any questions or comments from the board no hearing done roll call please carol betson aye benjamin aye carmichael aye drum key hi carney hi rooney hi okay that passes uh we'll move on and i'll hand it over to myself for the program and personnel committee um uh we have a couple items here the first one is employment of employees these are uh additional um employment changes uh since our committee meeting earlier in the month so if we can have a motion please casey rooney facilities and finance chair i move to accept the employee designations hires etc as presented second okay any comments or questions from the board okay hearing done we have a roll call please carol benjamin aye carmichael aye drum key aye cool carney aye rooney hi batson hi okay
067motion passes and we have one more item here memorandum of agreement uh for the uh school year 2122 sick days any sure um give you a little bit of background so we um you know last year um we had an agreement regarding covid sick days for teachers that were sick themselves had a quarantine or had child care issues during you know during due to quarantining or covered with their children and so um but that was only a one-year agreement um the difference too with um last year is that we were remote and hybrid and so now we're looking at full in person uh this year and trying to you know look at all the different scenarios to try to obviously the one thing we want to look at is our adults have the opportunity to
068be vaccinated and being vaccinated allows you also not to have to quarantine in certain circumstances so if you read through this one of the things is there are different scenarios for staff members that are vaccinated or not vaccinated and by our high vaccination rate of 90 percent for our staff it really um i think allows you know our vaccinated staff to be able to stay in work and not have to quarantine but if there are some circumstances as we are aware there are now vaccinated um individuals that are um you know getting covered um that you know we want to be able to um you know take care of them as much as possible but also look at opportunities when somebody might be at home can they still work and can they still teach remotely
069because we do have some of the electronic um capabilities that we didn't have maybe two three years ago it's for them to be able to um you know teach at home and still have access to our students and also for our other staff so we um you know worked i think closely with our union teachers union on trying to come up with um all the different scenarios um for this and um i don't know is there any questions on any of it have we had an instance yet where a teacher was quarantined and was teaching remotely we yes we're going to be yes so we've had a couple of instances that we've been able to do that and see how it worked and then and now obviously we're going to be putting this in place
070right away that's the thing i'm wondering is yeah how did it go as far as i know i i it was great for the kids to be able to have their teacher there still teaching right now and then you just have a sub sit in the classroom and then the teacher pipes in yeah i'll confirm that from a school standpoint the the few circumstances we've had where the teacher has really chosen to teach from home um the the instruction has been able to continue short of that the construction stops hiccup uh and and you know there are some sub plans and those kinds of things but that's really not the authentic instruction so when that teacher is live even via zoom that makes all the difference they can continue the instruction and the curriculum moves
071forward and yes there's an adult in the building but that's been great and i'm i'm really excited for this to be more formalized and the thing is we're no matter what even if they were at home we'd have to pay for a sub so it's not costing us anything extra in the end so you know you'd have a sub so now we have a sub that's you know monitoring them in person but we have the teacher that sells access to our students it's terrific so brian kelly associate superintendent and and the other thing just real quickly so this would be an mo um a with our teachers union but we also want to look at um you know for our educational support personnel or you know administrators that are in this situation because they're not
072part of the union to be able to you know afford the same you know opportunities for them so and that's what we've traditionally done correct yes yeah any other questions or comments related to that so just to clarify this motion is for the memorandum as well as the expectation that it that those concepts will be applied to the esp and occur as well yep just to be clear but we would call this an adoption of a memorandum or yes okay cool okay so in that case can we have a motion please i move to adopt uh the memorandum of agreement regarding 2021 to 22 sick days a second okay thank you any further questions or comments okay here and then roll call please carolyn carmichael aye drunky i call carney hi rooney hi batson hi
073benjamin hi hey motion passes i will hand this over to chairperson rooney for the finance and facilities facilities finance committee okay i'm sure you've noticed that we have a few less items on the agenda than usual our associate superintendent for finance dan stanley is not here this evening as he is enjoying some time off with his new beautiful baby girl so we wish him congratulations on that uh the first item on the agenda is the employee compensation report this we have no action required on this this is just something that the law requires uh that it's presented to the board and then it gets posted on our website by october 1st so we saw this in committee meetings does anybody have any questions or comments about it okay and it will move on to being
074published on our thank you published on our website uh the second item uh change orders mark you wanna chat with us project grant oh the maintenance project uh second item is actually the school maintenance project grant um and this is something we're just being asked to approve the application process correct mark correct yes um mark coopman bng so dan you know dan spelled out you know what the the grants are for uh maintenance and buildings and upkeep and and things like that uh we have uh upcoming projects that we're starting with our roofs here at vernon hills because it's uh it's due so we selected um the roofs that need attention right away uh that are in worse condition and we've come up with a game plan to work around the i've been working with
075our consultants to budget and work our way around the building um so we felt that uh when dan and i discussed it um the rough areas in in the front of the building here in the center over the foyer and that was a perfect place to start uh the project and we use the grant money for that so um i think that was a just approval for put the application process in and to use those as part of the application um process used roofs in the past i think we also use tuck pointing so it's like roofing tuck pointing window replacement things along that line and um that the grant uh uh when you apply for those things they you know they look they consider those things first so i remember we did the talk
076pointing one before but it's it's a it doesn't necessarily bind us to the project um we will be asked to vote on the actual bids for this work at some point this is just giving permission for the application process to proceed and to use those projects in the application process and we have two years to complete the work so do i have a motion to approve the fiscal year 2022 school maintenance project grant application so moved second i'll second it then all righty how does carol know you're all roll call please drum key hi carney i rooney i batson hi benjamin hi carmichael hi moving on to the change orders um in order or orders it looks like there's a couple different things in here mark well it's it's what what um gilbane did this
077was all with uh the company that was doing our sewer and water work so we had a bunch of change orders so they combined them all into into one large change order instead of doing eight change orders um at the end of the process so um mark koopman b and g the reason for these these change orders uh the first four were county improvements we submitted our drawings to the county for sewer and water and they wanted us to make some changes and do some upgrades um so there was additional money in that um and number five we had additional utility location costs um the company was paid to i believe it was go 15 feet deep if i remember correctly looking for the pipes for the the pool and they were actually deeper than
078that so we had the additional cost of going deeper so we when we put our pylons in we didn't rupture you know the main drain for the pool um and flood the area out so um that was the cost there and then um items six through eight uh were changes to village village made um and they're all due to you know sewer and water sewer and water work on the campus so the total dollar amount does require approval then yes um yeah the total dollar amounts forty six thousand nine hundred and twenty seven dollars there is one one change order in there that is zero dollar value so that's a good thing right yeah we like zero dollar change orders this is coming out of contingency it's not an additional amount yes this is coming
079out of contingency it's always been in the contingency budget okay all right um so can i get a motion to approve the change order in the amount of forty six thousand nine hundred and twenty seven dollars to come out of the contingency plan second second all right thank you carol local please call carney i rooney hi batson hi benjamin carmichael aye drum key all right all right motion passes that concludes facilities and finance this may actually be a record yeah we haven't heard from it's okay we have a tax level okay don't disappoint us here so pressure thank you uh facilities and finance i can only speak to that moving on item number six is the illinois association of school boards and i just wanted to draw your attention to everyone received in their board
080packet uh this last friday the uh 2021 resolutions committee report i will be representing the district in november at the joint conference and voting on these items many of them are sort of a consent agenda kind of thing but there's a few new ones in here and some that might wind up getting pulled out so my suggestion is take a look at them if there's anything that really you know is of interest to you we can discuss these either in the october or the november meeting we'll find whichever one uh the committee meetings i'm sorry uh we can discuss these in our committee meetings in either october and november which everyone has the shorter of the agendas so just to draw your attention to that so these do get some attention to the public gets
081them and sends us uh notifications or asks us if we would vote one way or another um and there's an interesting change in position this year in one of them yeah in one of them we have the the committee the delegate uh uh committee uh changed their position on one of them so um and then the only other update is there's a uh our lakes division meeting uh taking place a week from wednesday so right uh if anyone's interested in that i will be attending on our behalf and if anyone else wants to join us that's great one question uh so now kuhn kearney board members document the community report with the draft resolutions is that also posted to our school district website specifically this document yes no no not not typically no it is
082on the iasb site but it's not we typically don't do that yeah are you considering asking for that what i mean i was just wondering because don you just mentioned that there are some interesting things that we should look at as a parent i was never aware of this so i'm just wondering if if there might be other uh community members who are interested um or if not right now you know once you've discussed it maybe we can provide some notes you know don't have to look at 500 pages maybe here are some sections of interest yeah yeah they're they're um just as a reminder these are sort of position um uh items it's uh belief statements and and sort of positional uh items that the owner association school board uses to inform their work
083in springfield to discuss with our legislators down there so it's it's nothing we typically vote on or it's nothing that typically um you know impacts us directly these are more um uh opinions on whether these things are important to us uh and that's sort of in our committee meeting i'll sort of get a read for uh if anyone has strong opinions one way or the other on any of these so that i can appropriately vote and the meeting that i attend in november actually every delegate every district has one vote and as a delegate i would vote yay or nay on any of the items that are called out individually and or on sort of the consent group and that just gives them a feel for what their the delegates um you know opinion on
084these so uh it's they're they're not anything that govern us or they're not anything that we have to uh abide by or or respond to it's just these are our position papers basically for for them to work on dr denise hermann superintendent maybe after our conversation we could talk about if we do think because i mean we have the school board page on the website so i think sometimes posting information about board activities or board legislation would be helpful for parents potentially okay um i just have a brief update um so i attended uh the governing board meeting on the 25th of august and at that meeting we approved the budget for the uh fiscal year of 22 and then so we went we went through all the documents that support that budget and it
085was decided that it was up for approval uh and then we also approved uh a one-year extended bargaining agreement with the stu which stands for c doll teachers union so it's the specific teachers that all work for the uh seadoll co-op cara benjamin seadov that's it the short and the long of it yeah thank you for doing that yeah oh it's my pleasure it's it's a really lovely group of people who um just their executive board they're they're remarkable educators um but then you know so many of their educators attend these meetings and they just have a lovely um positive energy about them and the the students that they serve our students who are served are so lucky to be part of this cooperative thank you yeah my pleasure um anything on a future agenda
086items anyone wants to add or suggest dr denise herman superintendent i know that we will be bringing the tax levy information in october at both the committee meeting and then for approval um that's one of our typical october in november anything else and then we'll look at the october or november pmp for the iasb resolution so i know we did that in november of last year i was just looking at the history but we'll look at both agendas and figure out we should probably talk in november at committee also about what sessions anybody's going to that's going to the tri conference so that we can divide and conquer good idea okay also hope to bring the calendar in october and any new uh course proposals or changes to our curriculum in november exciting times yes
087it all seems so normal yeah it does oh my gosh yeah okay anything else okay uh have a motion to adjourn move to adjourn second hey roll call please carol rooney bye batson bye benjamin aye carmichael aye drum key ko carney aye get to raiders and we are finished thank you everybody