001[Music] educational presentation the president's report will be taking action on Superintendent Lee's contract not on the agenda that we want to add is the update from our student school rests that was the omission by mistake the superintendent updates from program and personnel and facilities and Finance and then collecting CS 120 / - C - and we do the board waits for a number of the audience to approach plane has 450 450 fairmont road Libertyville Illinois here to address the superintendent's contract this morning when I checked to try to review the materials there was nothing posted on the D 128 website I checked again this evening on my way over here and all of a sudden all the files are there so if something I say is reflected in the files they just weren't there for
002me to review this morning it's an interesting issue the superintendence contract as you know the Chicago Tribune found it unusual what the board is proposing to do we were here last month and a lot of public comment you've had benefit of the Chicago Tribune article I expected there to be an update analysis from the board answering a lot of those questions to my knowledge there's no analysis so as I stand here today I've got the same issues I had last month why five years now I know the board has backed itself into a corner it has to extend the superintendent's contract now but one year would be a good compromise what about the cost last month I identified that you cannot and have not identified how much this contract costs there's all kinds of sub
003payments in the contract for which there's no dollar amount it's still no cost I find it mind-boggling that you can vote on a contract when you don't know how much it costs what is the justification for some of the contract revisions that not present in the private sectors such as to retirement plans again no analysis there's a procedural issue I didn't talk about last month because I hope the board would address it itself but apparently is not going to there are two board members who by all rights should be abstaining from voting on this contract given the pending legal proceedings that are inexorably tied to the superintendent's office there is a solution here this evening you can vote on a one-year contract you can strip out a lot of the extras that aren't present in
004the private sector then you can start now to do a full analysis for next year again my comments are all processed driven they are not about the person none of my comments have addressed whether this is the right superintendent of the wrong superintendent it's purely process and if I understood the agenda right you're gonna vote on this on consent without even a public discussion not the way to do it okay so let me just clarify it is not being done under the consent vote agenda okay so you know once again I found myself having to correct the facts all right so let's be clear it's under the president's report it's duly noted it is not part of the consent agenda this morning I was on the train trying to prepare for this I wouldn't have
005said that but I have a screenshot from this morning that there was one thing and one thing only posted on the D 1:28 Board of Education website and that was the notice of the meeting so I can't be held accountable for things you don't post I looked out there today oh it's Elizabeth one Tim Anderson 821 Bartlett Terrace I also had that problem last Friday when only the agenda she had nothing into the notice the medium ones this morning later on much after the probably around 10:30 I was able to find all the other documents but that's not the issue the issue isn't again it's the process you're voting on a contract for the superintendent and it is going to be presented by the president who knows he was able to win the election because
006according to a grand jury he was placed on the ballot through a criminal act and the secretary is going to vote and she was placed on the ballot according to the grand jury for a criminal act both the president's secretary should abstain from voting until this is resolved it is just unethical in writing freedom ethics I bring up district 70 when the public brings an ethical problem to district 70 they did the proper thing they for an ethics committee and investigated as we know this boards policy is to have no ethics committee there is nothing and the students should know that so the question really should be is it is improper I believe to even have a vote and have the two members who are involved who gained their position on the board through criminal
007acts the Secretary was able to gain access to the board like yours we heard you the first time if you want to if you have anything new to say I'm speaking I know you don't interrupt no I do and you know the policies is well if not better than I do and you know that I can stop you when you are repeating something that you have already brought to the attention of this board please move on if you have anything at this note if you criticize them for actions they want to interrupt you you have a right to do that we've got it unless you've got a Marshall take me away from this phone no I'm gonna use my three minutes already thank you sorry I lose my voice there but a little bit irritating
008when you want to correct people so I'm going back to the point out a lack of ethics and integrity of asking for the super Dennis contract to be voted tonight each board member should during the when you make the motion Pat if you're going to make the motion someone's going to say then there should be discussion each board member should go around before they vote and give their views of why they're gonna vote or why they're not gonna vote but the public should know not just by a voice vote each member should state why they are voting or not voting on that contract and I believe the proper thing to do is just don't make the motion I intend to make it I you have lips and so does your secretary do anything no matter
009what criminal indictments got you on the board in the first place Thank You Pat even indicted I have not helped dare you question my time I will question your integrity this you've got on the board by having the superintendent's assistant do whatever you choose to do go right in all right so let's be very clear no Pat has not been indicted you may incite my who has been indicted may vary more like it was well let's be clear how are you very clear about that he is profiting from the criminal act like we very clear about that you're benefiting from a criminal act of being on the board in the case of the secretary she committed the perjury to get herself on the board you're on the board benefited from a criminal act by the
010superintendent's assistant that would be judicata yes you're innocent proven guilty but a grand jury has reviewed the evidence this board doesn't even have the ethics or the integrity to review the evidence to make a decision thank you anyone else hi my name is Lisa roadie I live at 12:12 victory Drive my question is why if it is a five-year contract and you do approve that what happens what are the events that would lead to a payout in full of the five years if he retires if he quits if he whatever I just don't want the taxpayers to be stuck with having to pay out the full five years if it's not carried out I mean I'm not even going to argue about the dollar amount the dollar amount is obscene the school is a great
011school but compared to the private sector I looked up statistics on the the website Department of Labor and the average is for a CEO the mean annual wage is one hundred ninety four thousand dollars a year I am not begrudging anyone their salary but the for-profit industry needs to make their own money to stay in business leave the taxpayers fund these salaries there's going to be a big change in the pension shift down to the local states with the school budget taxpayers already got hit on the income tax increase I personally am losing $2,000 every year with the income tax hike how much more can we afford no question Liberty Bell is an amazing school but at what cost [Applause] more a 10 20 Ashley Lane I've got a couple things I'd like to address
012you all about tonight the first thing I want to dress you about is you're on the Liberty Bell parents I'm familiar that's gold most we have this great energy going on right now around our parent organization and that's gotten a lot of us think about a lot of different things I see student representatives here which i think is super super important they're valuable voice what I don't see here is parent representation I know several of you are parents but you're not here as parents you're here as superintendent and as board members I urge you to reach out to the parent cat organizations a little a little further Hills calls their sorry's kids but both parent organizations and ask give them a seat at this table they should be here they should be you should their
013valuable voices that you should hear am I correct and identifying them we've got three parents in the district on the board Scott Kevin and Prentiss is anybody else okay great the and I think that's super important and the other thing that used to happen is I've had a child with district since 2009 you guys used to come to our meetings at the local that those big parent cats organization and those bridges need to happen they're important I I questioned a five-year contract I'm uncomfortable with it I've done some calling around and see what the standards are it's three them five years I've also caught done some calling right and see what those salaries are and Stevenson is the cheapest one and I'd like to also know they're reflected as the sixth best high school in
014Illinois by US News and World Report at two hundred and four thousand dollars on base salary Deerfield Island Park is two hundred and five thousand Lake Forest which is ranked 19th is two hundred thirty eight thousand and we are paying two hundred and ninety are going to pay two hundred ninety three thousand to be ranked 14th and I think the US needs a world where it's a pretty reliable ranking system we're fifty percent higher than the other school districts I understand teacher contracts and people have been here a certain amount of time the only ones higher than us I could find his nutrient they're painted god-awful three hundred thirteen thousand so I would ask you board members to think about that in the market are we paying the right amount for this position it's not
015a reflection of apprentices skills he may well be worth that can we afford that that's a lot of money for the superintendent the other thing I wanted to show you the board this whole thing with the indictments time it's it's icky we'll all find out this fall what's what about that I'm sorry it's happening in my community I fiber sitting on the board would be very uncomfortable though being for an extension person you're voting on secretary is currently under felony indictment I'm not saying she did anything I don't know I'm not in the middle of that but I would caution you guys and McKenzie I must speak to you directly I think you have an eye on a career in politics this vote today follow all of you I want you to think about that
016when you cast it and then the last thing I know there's some uncomfortable things that are said from this microphone some of them are probably accurate some are probably not I probably have been in that category I'm gonna caution you guys I've been a lot of civic meetings both here and in Texas I think getting in a TV well getting in a match with the people behind this microphone is it's a bad idea Gallatin City Council having straight-up crazy like he goes to every single time he talks about the merchants and blah blah blah and the mayor of that city treats her with so much respect she gets a three minutes the buzzer goes off and she's done I would urge you to let people use their three minutes how they need to thank you
017for listening a member of the audience walks to the podium to address the board you know the real push and drive was to decrease their taxes and you know I'm now paying with the five and a half percent pay and on excess of twenty thousand dollars in personal property tax and I don't like it continues to go up and up and up we get we gotta put a hold on this thing I look at the contract early I can't see all the contract by the way so if I'm saying some things wrong please tell me but the $219,000 annual salary is actually at sixteen thousand to that because there's a crack to say you came $16,000 to do what he wants to do to invest I think that's part of the contract in addition to
018that when he walks away you pay them 30% in addition to that in the five-year contract you'd pay him one and a half the first year six six and then two and a half the last year this is that correct okay but it's a very healthy contract and you know I am said consistently across the board you got a good product and we appreciate that but by god I mean we're shooting nails at each other and we're forgetting the focus that we need to concentrate it and that's the decrease of taxes and that's the green crease the cost let's get back to something like that you know I think your contract is if you deserve it and I got a little I got assume that's people in this room know that the correct criteria in
019evaluating you and if they say good things if you deserve it so be yet it will probably happen tonight but if not that's a it's a sin it's a symptom taxpayers so let's get back to decreasing costs associated with running our business and it is a business whether you like to like it or not a member of the audience stands to address the board you know look at press if you look at all the community discussions the community discussions have started to move away from the great schools we have and they started to move into areas that I personally don't like and the optics of this contract are horrible people have outlined why and we need to start shifting this conversation away from the controversial things that are going on we don't need more ink
020out there about controversial issues how we're spending money and how we've got will off the stream in other words were off the chart in a way of bad publicity and this board has the responsibility and the power to change that and I would encourage you to think about that because the world has a way of monitoring things that get off the track and will beginning to get there and I don't want people to look back two years from now say let that happen so you have a way to stop this right now and I encourage you to do that [Applause] the board waits for a number of the audience to approach violent things that need to be weather uncomfortable or improving to say them never cooking at a board meeting before I've attended many of
021them but I'm choosing to do so tonight it was my decision to move to this community to provide the education to my daughter that high schools in our district offer and I've lived in other Lake County communities and paid more taxes proportionally to what I'm gonna paying here in in Libertyville but I chose to pay those taxes because of the education offered here I think it's important tonight to say that someone who has worked in another district for 22 years and came to work in this district primarily because of its reputation because of the strong leadership that is present here the effective teams that have been hired over the years to provide an excellent education to our students I chose to leave a district that I was very comfortable in to come and work with
022apprentice Lee who as superintendent provide the necessary supports that we as a district need in order to function as well as we have over recent years so I just felt it was important that all of the comments previously have been in regards to the process and not the person but I think it's also important to say that the person in this district matters to the people who come to work in this district the people who move here to educate their students in this district and the suitability of that leadership over the years is what has resulted in the excellence that we see in district 128 thank you okay the board waits for a member of the audience to approach a member of the audience stands to address the board respect and appreciate all the opinions
023shared tonight about the tax base and the process by which this is being discussed I just want to share my own perspective so the board has multiple perspectives to consider as you know I left a great School District one of the top school districts in Illinois and a great community to come to district 128 in Libertyville High School and I don't enter many of you don't know me but I don't answer any of these types of decisions lightly and I'm very analytical and do a lot of homework and my research said that in district 128 there are great kids great schools an outstanding community and an absolutely extraordinary superintendent and having come here I have not been disappointed in any of those four and I do just have to say to the board that had
024been in education for nearly 25 years and having my entire family and friends be in public education the purp the person who sits in the superintendent's seat is extraordinarily critical to the health of the district and if that is not the right person things can go bad very very quickly so thank you the board waits for a number of the audience to approach one child in the district two graduated one on the way in 2010 and made the conscious decision to move from early tonight's a great suburb in its own right with great schools in its own right to move my children and my family to this community for one reason and it is the schools and I know many of you should be behind me and in front of me made the same move
025Jerry earlier asked one simple question and that's the only thing that I want to address and that question is is that man worth the dollar on the contract and I suppose in the end I can't say what dollar amount he's worth but I have worked with and for him for well over a decade and I can tell you that his support and his leadership is priceless in this district and you would have a hard time finding anyone in the district who would say something else I respect everyone's opinion relative to process and so forth but the question was asked Jerry asked it until I want to answer that question mr. hassle returns to address the board just as a point of clarification you've heard what appear to be three voices and support all apparently employees
026of the district none of them talked about the process I have to reiterate all of the comments you've heard from me we're about the process not the person so if you've got something to support the process I'd like to hear it and I'm really looking forward to the public discussion that's going to happen before the vote the board waits for a number of the audience to approach Rita Fischer assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction walks to the podium to address the board between powerful educator learning in district 128 and its impact on student learning in our district as a district we support and our superintendent supports the structures that are necessary to provide teachers the time the space and the resources to continuously improve their professional practice and to translate that learning into immediate action
027in the classroom for strategy to develop strategies that engage students in the kind of learning that they need in a changing world whether it is through attendance at professional conferences through the late start Wednesday's when teachers collaborate in their professional learning Unity's the professional learning centers at each school the led of Libertyville in the hotspot at Vernon Hills District 1:28 University classes that we develop and teach internally some are curriculum projects that we support our teachers are continuously learning and collaborating to improve student learning and that can only happen in the district where we have supportive structures to allow that to happen so tonight you're going to meet three educators and learn from two others who are not with us tonight about the impact of their learning on student learning you're going to hear about
028students engaging in project-based learning and inquiry learning in strategies that allow them to collaborate communicate use their critical thinking skills and creativity all the skills that are demanded in a changing world you know in a world that we are preparing students to engage in work that we can't even can't even imagine today right you guys are going to be creating your own work in the future because we don't know what you're going to be doing and you're going to be successful because you'll be doing that I actually know Lola one of our new board reps brothers the recent graduate who spent his summer designing an app with friends who he met together here in our community so we need to engage students in the kind of learning necessary to prepare them for the work that
029they'll be doing that we can't even imagine and the educators you'll meet tonight are going to share their project senses learning design that have students doing just that so we'll start with Emily Turner she's a Spanish teacher at Liberty the high school and she's going to share a project that she designed as a result of a professional learning experience Emily Turner walks to the podium to address the board this past summer I had the opportunity to attend a conference on project-based learning PBL is a vehicle for delivering content with authenticity and purpose the hallmarks being a challenging problem or question that sustained in theory authenticity student voice and choice reflection critique and revision and a public product with the help and direction of national leaders in education and the collaboration with support of and feedback
030from my colleagues at D 128 and beyond I came up with a project idea that I would like to share with you today the origin of my project comes from a concept and literature called windows and mirrors it suggests that we consider the variety of narratives that each of our students brings into the classroom and provide them with texts that both reflect who they are but also give them insight into other experiences as well I learned about this concept and the diversity course offered by the district last year and have been inspired to effect the change that I want to see through my own classroom one issue is the importance of providing children of color access to mirror texts because quote when children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read or when the
031images they see are distorted and negative or laughable they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devalued in the Society of which they are apart and my curriculum students are frequently asked to write and speak in Spanish but often without a real audience my project aims to authenticate this experience for my students but also serve as a tool for social justice my students will be paired one-on-one with spanish-speaking elementary school children they will be tasked with interviewing them in the language about their heritage culture family and community life as well as their hopes and dreams for the future then my students will create a personalized storybook in Spanish that celebrates the diversity of the child is a true reflection of his or her identity and experience and depicts the story of that child achieving
032his or her dreams in the future each of the components of the storybook is related to my existing curriculum which includes the themes of communities heroes professions and expressing hopes and desires about the future the culmination of this project will be another face-to-face meeting with the children where my students will read their published hardcover storybook to their child and give it to them as a gift to share with their families for the children these stories may serve as the first mirror text that empowers them to see their potential by honoring and valuing who they are and where they come from for many of my students these texts will serve as windows where they may meet people who are not like themselves and who offer alternative worldviews viewing literature through a lens of windows and mirrors
033helps us understand that in addition to text being stories to be enjoyed they also carry a very powerful message and in the end I hope that by involving an authentic audience and incorporating a relevant purpose I will encourage my students to be fully engaged and take great pride in their learning outcomes finally I want to thank each of you personally for supporting this district and its teachers the time that I spent at the con among like-minded professionals from across the country in the district inspired me to create this project your recognition of the value of collaboration and innovation is paramount in transforming our educational system and successfully bridging the gap between the classroom and the world outside these doors for our students thank you after audience applause the next teacher steps to the podium to
034address the board this class is a senior elective and the driving question for my project is how can we give visibility to groups who have been systemically invisible so the goal for the students is to think about what are the marginalized groups in our society and how have they been erased repeatedly and what can we do to bring those groups into visibility and one of the things that stood out to me from this conference that I was able to attend with Emily was the idea of having an authentic audience and how powerful that is for students and so that's one thing that is going to be the driving force of this project so the students will ultimately produce a product or they'll they will have researched a group that has been erased overlooked and misrepresented
035in our society and then make that invisible group visible to their audience and they will actually choose both their audience and the product so it's really centered in student choice and student voice and as seniors who are going out into whatever they're after high school folks are and they'll be responsible for choosing some sort of product that's going to be meaningful in our society which for a class like social justice literature I think is really important if we're going to be talking social justice there has to be some sort of action involved and so that's what this project will do for our students in addition to the product that they choose they will also have to craft the defense of the product that will include research of the marginalized group it will include theory that
036backs up the research that they've done for example students could potentially research the literature found in American literature textbook to find the amount of literature written by LGBTQ authors and if they find that there is no representation or very little representation from those authors they could propose a textbook supplement to include the voice of those authors that they would pitch to a representative from mcgraw-hill to try and get their supplement included in this textbook so that would be one example of something that students could do that the opportunities for this project are really endless I'm really excited to see what the students put together who would they want to be their audience and the group at the end of researching thank you after audience applause the next teacher steps to the podium to address the
037board thank you for the opportunity to come in and speak with you today I'm going to share with you a project that I did with my summer school class I taught Algebra one this summer high school and what I've been wrestling with in my brain for a couple years now is how can I document the journey that my kids go on every year and as a teacher as teachers we get to see the growth of the kids and as parents we see our kids grow but sometimes the students themselves who are in the here-and-now don't recognize how much they have grown throughout the year so what I was able to do this summer is do a lot of journaling with the kids and then also have them keep a portfolio of the yeah that they
038have produced in summer school I used a website called seesaw to do these portfolios and an example of something that gets put into the portfolio would be a problem like this I give the problem to the kids let that wrestle with a little bit let them figure out how they want to solve it we talk about common solutions and how we can relate the solutions that the kids came up with and then they talk about what they they reflect on how they initially thought about the problem and then after hearing other people's solutions and having discussions what they actually learned from the problem so this would get put into their portfolio and then over the over the course of in this case the course of three and a half weeks they had a collection of
039work now at the end of the at the end of the semester I posed this question to the kids how can we convince someone that we know something what would that look like is that the form of a paper and pencil test is it a final exam or is it something different and what we ended up brainstorming together was that the kids were going to create what we have titled the showcase of knowledge and they had the they had the choice to to figure out how are they going to communicate what they have learned in algebra one for these three and a half weeks when that student choice came a lot of feedback from each other so as they develop these ideas they would run these ideas past each other one another and and give
040feedback on that what was good what wasn't so good what they could change they got feedback from me but I was not the main force behind this it was it was the students themselves we talked about this thing called the authentic audience which we we did learn about at this conference and I pose that to the kids who are we going to be presenting this to I already know what you know I've seen but what you can do mathematically I don't need exam to tell me that I don't need a test to tell me that I know what you know so to pitch your projects to me probably wouldn't be a very good idea who can we pitch them to so we decided to create an invitation we invited members of the community we invited
041members of the school we invited the parents of the kids to come in and experience the showcase with us the kids have a lot of prep time to rehearse there to rehearse their their projects run them by each other and then we actually did it and this was this is a couple clips we did it right here in our one of our computer labs we had kids presenting at each station we did two or three rounds of presentations and people got to cycle through different presentations I think one of the coolest parts for me as a parent of four kids three of which are teenagers who have now graduated and one in high school I would love to be able to walk into that school and see what my kids are doing academically I can
042see them on the athletic field I can see them in the musical but what are they doing in the classrooms and the parents have a chance to come in and see their kids in action as their kids were presenting what they learned in algebra 1 some kids did it with a Google slide show you can see a gentleman in the background doing it up on the board he decided it would be easier for him to write and show stuff and then finally some kids used a combination of both showing some work on a whiteboard then also presenting it was it was a really neat experience for me in closing I want to thank all of you in this room for not only supporting innovation but really embracing innovation and allowing me as a teacher to
043come into the classroom and and be creative it really is a nice thing so thank you after audience applause Rita Fisher returns to the podium I was very grateful to be invited to showcase of knowledge and enjoyed it thoroughly and on the way Mary Todd Erick was with me as well and she took some pictures and posted them on social media that you might have seen the summer but as we were walking out a parent asked us to step aside and listen to her story of how Jim had changed her daughter's life as a result of this class and this project she is someone who formerly did not care from math did not believe that she could succeed in math and she found herself racing home from Jim's class to perfect her project to make
044sure that she understood everything that was happening in class and was ready for the next day with Jim and with the students in her algebra summer school class so I will also share that I'm going to talk about this project here because these teachers can't be here you're going to see some student videos at the end and you may also see me in the background of one of these videos now this was on a different occasion I was invited to come see the project that Shannon and Margaret designed and as I was as students were filming their videos in the hallways see me in the background and he seen me walking away and that was to talk to Mary Childers who was working as a monitor in the hallway at Vernon Hills High School and
045she pulled me over because I mentioned the story about Jim on opening day as well she pulled me over to say you know I really just have to thank you for sharing that story about Jim and his algebra class on opening day because I have a 30 year old daughter and the same is true of Jim for my daughter and I just really wanted you to know that that he changed her life too so you know this is the power of the educators in this district where we developed teacher expertise when we rely on their expertise to influence their colleagues like you're going to see in this project that I'll share now powerful things happen in D 128 Jim is one the many excellent educators we have that change lives every day I can't wait
046to see Emily project and Tara's project implemented so we can see the same results from their students this project designed by Shannon at Meyer and Margaret Nicholson over the summer Shannon is from Brennan fills a science teacher and Maggie is the Liberty Bell science teacher they met through the innovation team they met at a conference and they collaborated this summer to design a project to introduce chemistry to their students it called it the chemistry the elements alter-ego project and in the very first days of school students were learning not just chemistry but they were also learning about themselves and the other students in the room and developing very personal relationships that they will carry through the rest of their year together as a chemistry family in each of their classes so these two educators went
047to one conference they designed one project together and they came home and shared it with their colleagues and they shared it in the very first days of school one colleague who implemented this heard about it at the opening day ceremony so had very little time to kind of come together and decide to plan it but when they heard about it they thought it was so powerful that they decided they would do it in their classrooms too so as a result of this collaboration of two teachers 400 students at Vernon Hills High School and at Liberty Bell High School experienced this really cool project so some of the common threads that you heard through the earlier projects is that students are collaborating they're presenting their work authentically they're learning their content through the development of critical
048thinking skills creativity skills skills and collaboration and communication and that's with exactly what happened in these classrooms students learned how to write science reports through this Kamath this element alter-ego projects actually some of them called it their element spirit animal as well right so they were finding themselves in a chemical element and making connections they had to write a claim to establish connections between their personality and the chemical element they chose some of them thought that they might choose one element and as they learned about the characteristics of it they thought it sounded cool like gold or you know who wouldn't want to be gold right but then they discovered that well that's not really Who I am so I have to choose another element so they learn to write their skills report seizing their
049claim about the element and the connection evidence to support that claim based on the characteristics of the element and their reasoning their rationale for making that connection between the element and themselves and what they did with those those connections was to create a mask that showed the characteristics of the element as well as their personal interests skills connections with their family and they displayed those masks to their classmates through the form of gallery wops where they need each other's math and give feedback to each other through the form of producing a one-minute video that they will share with parents at open house and you're seeing some of the examples of some of the student reactions I also have and I guess I would like show you the actual examples of the map that students created
050teachers help redo it by passing out examples of the masks to members of the school board family families grouping of elements and they understand and we're using these chemical terms before they ever opened a syllabus or a chemistry textbook and when they described the importance of connecting which with each other in the classroom and connecting with the chemical element they describe kind of lasting relationships that would form with their classmate and with the elements that they chose I just want to share with you a couple of the student clips about their elements I enjoy even water especially the ocean and this was another one that is stable to water area of their temperatures the crystal structure of business is organized in a stair-step structure which matches my organized personality I always come on Cohen and
051waynebow bindings including school supplies I also like to take things step by step this bethesdad magnetic wouldn't need to 10-speaker magnetized in it and interaction [Music] have a few more but I know a video is started on the screen a student is holding [Music] Sarita Fisher returns to the podium and when they are given the structure and the time and support to develop their professional learning really positive things happens for students in our classroom from day one so we look forward to continually supporting our teachers there their professional growth and the impact that that has on the students in D 1:28 on a scale that we're seeing in ways that we've never thought possible through these collaborations it's not easy for teachers to find time to connect together and to share what they've learned and
052developed and by doing things that make it possible then for them to find this time we're seeing amazing results and what happens for kids in our district questions for our teachers [Applause] okay moving on to the president's report I did want to make comments on a few things that were said first of all right I couldn't agree with you more the level to which some of these conversations have gone and I will say especially with regard to the attacks on integrity of both board members and employees of this district to me is extremely disappointing the second thing that I'll say this question hasn't I'll pay out in the length of this contract if Prentiss retires there's no it prints quits there's no pal if Prentiss were to be discharged or costs okay as with most
053cases when that happens that would be negotiations that would take place I really couldn't begin to predict where that is but just because we're about to approve a five-year contract doesn't mean that the trends of retires next year we're gonna have to buy out with respect to the process we've had at least two closed session meetings on this topic so rest assured this is not something that we have ran through this is not something that we haven't discussed in great detail at the board level as a general rule we do not negotiate contracts in public and that is a carve out so to speak in the Open Meetings Act for the state statutes so I just want to reassure everybody we have talked about it expensively it's actually a four-year extension to his existing contract
054okay Prentiss is currently under contract as a contract that currently expires at the end of this school year okay and I do want to just make a couple attacks are really clear if Pratt has kept his current contract which expires at the end of this school year he would make more money than the new contract that we are gonna put up for approval okay so the first thing we did was when we renegotiated or when we negotiated this extension this four-year extension we negotiated that the first year of salary would be lower than the contract that he already had I think that's what business people like to do when they take a business mindset Scott yes okay so those who don't think that we have such a mindset trust me there are a number of
055us here they deal with large budgets and shall I say rather thorough budget negotiations and so we're quite familiar with the process the second thing well the second thing one dress is why why five years again it's a four-year extension to his current contract we want to get that done and I'll just become I know buddy half you guys can do your thing when we put the motion out because this is the person that we love to be superintendent for as long as he wants to be super happy okay that's how I see it again I'll open it up to others who want to comment on it but to me it's that simple okay as long as Prentiss wants to stay here we want him to stay here I think our record speaks for itself
056I've heard nothing to the contrary and I think there are a lot of questions that were raised with respect to the value and and I don't want to say this I'm going to get in trouble that that's fine you know trust me I treat every dollar we spend of the taxpayers dollars if it was my own okay I do okay now let me put in perspective I actually went out to dinner with my wife on Saturday and we went to a nice little restaurant I think we spent ninety five bucks for dinner and I think I left a $22 okay decent service so when we just put this in perspective a little bit someone mentioned the retirement incentive and there is and it is about a third of his current salary okay and you guys
057can all check my math did you calculate yourself all right my math and your view and I pay about the same amount of passes okay which I don't know whether that's on the higher end of the middle end but certainly not on the Lord okay that retirement incentive after what will be 15 to 17 years of service which I honestly believe will be distinguished service very valuable service is going to require me to give about me - $10 - okay so that's my perspective again I treated every dollar in the district and did this my own I wouldn't spend any money in this district foolishly but if you were to ask me if Prentiss was worth at $10 a tip after 17 years of service I Got News for you I'm not gonna hesitate yes
058okay so you can say amount that's in the current contract well that's in the contract yeah so he would be or if you retired you or again let's take this out if you take fifty thousand dollars off the salary and say I'm not happy with that number by the way if you check the numbers in reboot nowhere no I'm not I'm trying to help under I'm trying to help everybody that's why I said I'm get in trouble but it's important I think to put it in perspective and try to you know make sure that they understand what the facts are okay not making a mockery of it at all that's why you have to take me on face value spending $100,000 in district money not something that I think like Dan okay okay so you
059know I mean I think that's that's really just a perspective dive this year okay you know a highly you know we had budget came in the other day both of ours well we could go today last Monday right I think nobody showed up okay so there was a good chance we had we were prepared to discuss the budget in great detail we were prepared to answer any questions on the budget in great detail we've spent countless hours going through the budget and on that night we had no additional okay I don't know what that means I stand up here month after month and I argue that our taxes are too high and then we need to continue to do any and everything we can to keep them as well as possible okay I think our
060record again speaks for ourselves in the last four years we've abated almost twenty million dollars okay and and again it's it's appalling to me that we still have not been able to succeed in getting people to appreciate how seriously we take that aspect of our business but as we said I respect your opinion it is what it is I just I don't know what else did you okay having said that we'll keep trying we will continue to work with Dan and do everything we can to make sure we are good stewards of the taxpayers money okay okay so with that I would ask for a motion to approve this contract I move to approve the okay all right I'd like to say things as I've been thinking about this and just thinking about the working
061with Princess and under his leadership over these years I am now starting my 91 Ford and when I can purchase was relatively new as pretendin he was being charged by the board many of them were leaving to move forward encouraging him to continue to strike they recognize excellence in them and they were really asking them to move forward and meet certain criteria that they have the confidence in them they put the trust in him because they saw something special and that has only just fully exceeded anything that I think anybody could have hoped for and I think I think is really neat is I see Prentiss doing that with his staff and I see him looking for talent and trying to cultivate that talent to move it forward there are many reasons why I think
062it's really important for us to do this for your extension now I think we're at a time when we really need really extraordinary leadership in our district and we have just hired some amazing new talent for a district and they will benefit greatly from the strength of apprentices moving forward if we can have him we can exchange project for former years it's only going to benefit triathlon all the way down so I think it's essential that we do it now I'm actually very anxious to do this extension now so that she doesn't he's talking about the public sector where somebody that's an extraordinary talent you know this area offers community places we're building new beginning a giant building project that really is essential if you have this type of leadership to move forward with that
063and there'll be other things that follow that's that's another reason why I think it's essential that we have this contract extension happening now the teacher contract is about to be again to be negotiated and it's Pat is mentioned in other meetings I also believe it's essential for there to be the vote of confidence and assurance in the faculty that they know that this strong leader is going to be here throughout this time that they're extending as many of you know that you don't know our state is in financial turmoil is to do with the state funding Prentiss is amazing at understanding bringing us information advocating on behalf of our district as well as the districts the students throughout the state and just again just incredible knowledge and I think the thing that that really strikes
064me will in addition to all these other things is the way that Prentiss has a style of leadership that builds others up and I think that travels permeates breath certainly before but even more importantly through the entire district from the next top administrator down to every employee every student he has such a heart for every student and to bring them as he talks about it we might have bring other student from we don't just raise the top kids so great effective leadership yeah I have a comment and maybe it's more than just a comment and I think I'd like to kind of share perspectives and it's a personal perspective I've just finished my second year on the board and it's overall it's been a terrific experience on several fronts it's been extremely interesting in some
065cases it's been Iowa but I can also tell you as being a member of the sport for two years I've had my personal reputation and my integrity threatened and I've had a threat based on how I think and how I might vote that not only affects me that affects my wife my kids my friends I'm sorry but I deserve the right to defend that you know I've worked very hard to listen and contemplate all points of view on issues and especially those that I have a really hard time understanding or that I might disagree with now this Saturday was a perfect example of how you hear things on two ends of the spectrum and I just give this as an example I wake up Saturday morning and I got a district email I open up
066that email and I see a subject line subject line of that email reads as follows and I quote another LHS failure end of quote which insinuates there's a lot of bad stuff going on under Liberty Bell High School now that was from a parent who's stressed concerned in frustration over Liberty Bell High School's website and that website for those who have gotten the emails agreed we're having to adapt our website to the American and Disabilities Act and I believe correct me if I'm wrong on this we are one of the first districts to do so every school district in the state will have to follow and not only do you have to get that district or to get your website 88 compliance but any link to an activity group an athletic association a parent's group
067also has to be 88 compliant and I think topical entus dr. clintus would say has it been perfect and easy and going heck no there's a lot of frustration there's lessons it's how do we get better at that how do we learn from this can we pass this on other districts and schools so they can learn from what we went through you know that's the end that's one end of the spectrum the other end of the spectrum was filled this Saturday I go out to dinner with my wife and I and our good friends they live in Libertyville Illinois they have four kids three of their kids the oldest once went to Carmel High School they made a huge family decision trust me this great Catholic family this was a big deal for them they
068made the decision to send their fourth and final child with Liberty Bell high school of course in the conversation asked how's that going they are thrilled they cannot believe the reception that they have received their child has received from teachers administrators coaches he plays football and he had the conversation they're like and by the way these two individuals also went to Carmel High School they're like I can't believe it we're drinking the kool-aid and we're bleeding orange and black and I'll leave it at that you know so you have these things go online and so what's the proper perspective to have as a board member as a community member how do you look at the world is it that there's failures all over the place or some things good and I try to put this
069in the department perspective so I've worked for Baxter for over eight years and I was with Abbott for a long time we often have people in the our company that moved to Northern Illinois either outside the country or other parts of the US over the last five years the vast proportion and majority of those people are moving to the following communities Vernon Hills Green Oaks meadow odd Liberty he asked why white white a bigger proportion why are you going to these these first simple the answer it's the school's okay I'd also have a lot of families in my neighborhood and a lot of them aren't coming from out of state they're coming from surrounding communities and a lot of these people are even downsizing their houses from where they work why because houses are more
070expensive and yeah Jerry perhaps their taxes are more expensive why would you do this why are you making this decision simple answer it's the schools and by the way conversely and I'm sure there's somebody out there but I'm not aware of anyone who's like living here and electing to move outside in that neighboring communities and leaving these schools now here's another aspect of it I grew up in Libertyville Illinois my parents grew up in the reeve Illinois my grandparents grew up in and what these outsiders say when they come to our subdivisions and they look at these things they're like you know over amazed by the number of people who grew up here moved away got married had kids now they're moving back to the communities in which they grew up I'm one of those
071individuals the guy here sitting to the right of me is one of those individuals Jerry your son Tim also decided to move back why because we want to have the same experience for our kids that we add in these schools is this a bad thing you know this is what's going on and I can tell you this what's changed since I went to school in the schools now the schools are a heck of a lot better today than they were when we went to school okay this is a reflected we go through this a lot of the many metrics that we you know basically compare ourselves to other districts around this area they include increases in a CT scores they in Crewe increases in the number of students taking AP classes and passing those and
072getting higher scores they include emphasis and increase in phasis and providing terrific services for students with learning learning disabilities and what does this all lead to well last week you publish that in each in the rankings and I know there's different rankings but our school district is second in the state and one of the top of the nations this has happened over the last 13 years okay now the question is how does this happen our schools thrive in fine arts they thrive and compete for state championships and athletics and most importantly they thrive academically and some might like to think this just happens by chance or luck I'm telling you that's not the case it starts with terrific parents and Families all of which you are all representing here in this room here today it
073also begins with teachers and it begins with building administrators who keep the wheels of the Train on the tracks and it starts with a vision a strategy and culture we're hiring the right leaders to make sure this happens and as I look at Dan I look at mark I look at Brian dr. Fischer dr. clientís and doctor Gilliam these have been pretty darn good hires and they've come from this manner okay now having said all that oh I believe there's room for improvement things aren't perfect they never are I work for Corporation we're doing pretty well right now there's a lot of room for improvement but I really believe that this district has a culture continuous improvement and we fightin and trust me we as board members I speak for myself but we challenge the
074administration we don't green stamp it we challenge it we discuss it and for those who were at the budget meetings over past month and a half would have seen because we push like hell to balance this budget take costs down and do the right thing for the taxpayer those were tough decisions and this group has never shied away from that so when I think about the schools I'm sorry I can't think of them in terms of quote another school failure but I think about the tens of thousands of student success stories that have happened over the 13 years that dr. Lee has been the leader in this district and about what needs to be done to build on that success I also choose to think about the real issues that we face as a district
075in a community these are real issues now we have a new teacher contract coming up at the end of the year this is important that we get this right and he's a big piece of that and that was already common enough we have a new pool that's beginning at LHS we got to make sure that goes as scheduled furthermore we have more planned housing developments that are happening in Vernon Hills and by the way the implications on this building could be huge we have to face that challenge furthermore speaks to the schools we have outside subdivisions outside of our community that are working like hell to annex themselves within this district why it's back to my simple answer it's the schools they wanted and last but not least and ready to talk about it and
076it's hot off the president's happening as we speak we continue to have state budget and financing challenges we got real big issues we got to take on that needs to be our focus these are real amount and I believe dr. Lee's contract extension is a key step to ensure this district continues to thrive well under the future given this current environment thank you yeah I don't really think I had to add more on top of these two because they've already alluded to Prentiss as the quality man he is and what he's done for our community I feel compelled to add that Prentiss was my superintendent and he created an environment from the top down that allows every students who succeed was I an A student no far from it yet he created a environment and
077setting where all young people strive as hard as they can to better themselves and I strongly believe that that system is why I sit on this board here and I also want to address the process that people's maybe we bring up a lot and it's frankly it's quite upsetting to me as a person to hear people say things like we rubber stamp some of these issues because as a new member on the board I've heard that coming in and frankly in these past few months it couldn't be anything more opposite than that the due diligence the conversations we've had together as a boards about some of these very important financial decisions have frankly been extremely thorough and I will not be associated with rhetoric that we are not transparent or that we rubber-stamping things because
078that is far from the truth so coming in today this evening's meeting in Prince knows us because he not had a conversation I told him I was going to vote no on his contract extension now I made it very clear I want to make it clear to everybody this is not about the individual because if you talk to people in Springfield he's one of the most highly respected superintendents and Illinois he's the man that needs to go into ship during the Springfield craziness and that's what it is but it is about the contract and I have a certain bias that we all have when we join an organization or join a board and one of those biases is I've never read ago she a contract all is still existence and I have to learn to
079get over that and that's my weakness and I will another bias I share with the press five years seems to be long to me never heard of five your contracts but again I think and I pointed out that those sometimes are ignored especially in this environment and again I'm not from this environment the press so I don't know how I'm going to vote but again let's be very clear the individual the individual manifested in everybody he's hired I know people from Highland Park that when Tom was hired my email and crazy crazy that this guy is a superstar Prentiss can tell you I think he got an email media for me saying amazing job Dan though knows many people from Dan's old stomping grounds I do know dealing with day over the last three months
080it seems like forever its Cosby the way especially questions I ask them superstar what else do we want in a leader other than the ability to hire superstars I think all of us Pat Scott everybody who's led Helens at school the number one thing we have to do is hire great people and if we do that everything else is successful so again this is a guy that deserves the respect and there's a lot of you know discussions about the compensation and things like that in fact I think I stood up there in January of last year and I was one of the leaders of saying we need to make sure we get all costs and I can tell you I on this boarding I want make sure we control costs I'm not so sure this
081is one of the areas where we want to penalize Popples okay with that being said I've told prentice-hall you may vote I may not vote that's a beauty about democracy and change our bundles but I want to thank him for the the job has done the service that he's exhibited and that's a thank you yes yes yes yes yeah could I say one thing first of all thank you for your confidence and a very nice comments and I also want to take a moment and acknowledge all the folks that came here tonight to express their opinions on the contract or other issues I think the beautiful thing about our democracy is we have an opportunity to do that and more of us need to take advantage to do that really at a grassroots level like
082a school board or a library district fire protection district you know etc our local village governments but I do respect that you've taken your time to come out and many of you have made comments like several if you did not tonight which is fine they're here and thank you for that in just oh I respect you and there may be times that we disagreed on something but we're going to continue to work to ensure that every student that walks in the door of these two schools grows and achieves at higher levels and is safe and healthy and doing that and that has been my focus for 38 years as an educator 12 years as a principal and now my thirteenth year here I think this is my my math is correct their 25th or 26th
083year moving forward in upper level administration and that has always been my focus and the folks that we are fortunate enough to work with here our administrators at the building or you know phenomenal teachers our support staff and we always talk about in this district whatever role people play in this district they have a role in the ultimate success of all of these young people that are sitting here tonight and all of their kind of links it takes every single one of us with a great set of parents with a very supportive community to make it all work and it also takes a excellent school work that's willing to work as a partner can share in that vision and that can also be that due diligence deep I told one of the board members you
084know today or a few days ago the my appreciation of working with this board and this is the sixth or seventh configuration of school boards that I've worked with lots of different faces going back to handling a craft to uniformity Sugarman and which they'll apology you know we can just name all the great board members that we've had here but the thing I have always appreciated most is the depth of discussion that we have on complex issues and with Mack and Kevin joining the board they've added context and perspective to those conversations they have made us better in terms of doing that but I will assure you that in order for us to be successful all of those pieces need to be lined up in that conversation including the school board is a critical piece
085of that so having you know an excellent school board is part and personal and us being able to maximize the potential of this district so again I respect all the comments that were made tonight I appreciate all the nice comments that were made you know by board members and you know several the administrators here in the district and I look forward to working with you in the future and they leave you with this comment their business and education the nature of the beast is I am a higher earner because I'm 38 years in the business and I have a Doctorate degree they the highest earning people in our district and I'm a teacher scale are people that have the highest degree level the most education and they've been here in the most years we have
086three administrators retire who have been replaced as Kevin mentioned earlier been replaced by you know three rockstars okay you can come because this is only child sport here on replacing elements where each one of those administrators were veteran administrators and their salaries were higher and so if you're going to see if you say for the budget overview today you're going to see that we've recouped several hundred thousand dollars in salaries because people that have been in the business for 37 38 years okay finish their careers here which was wonderful for us and retired were replaced by the next generation we went through that same process with teachers in this district we have hired about 70% of the teachers in this district in the last 10 years and that means that group of teachers before we're
087all veteran teachers so we have the you know opportunity to look at the big picture and several years from now I'm going to retire and you're going to hire a new superintendent and you're gonna hire a superintendent there's probably some place on that perspective so that's just in our business that is a function of Education in time serve that really drives your salary to work at the end of your career so again I appreciate the support your confidence in continuing to move forward with because this Scott has said we have some real challenges in front of us and navigate together and we will continue to as Regents talk about we will continue to enemy in this district to make sure that we are on the leading edge of educating and preparing kids in the future
088and I appreciate appreciate the opportunity to continue to work you know with the administrators and the parent groups and looking at heat Mitchell out there Steve and I did some heavy duty lifting about I don't know 9 or 10 years ago just rebuilding cats aquatics after a really bad kind of breakup and look now what that organization has become through the work we all did together and I was a great experience and great for the district so I look forward to continue doing that kind of work and ultimately for kids to be more successful because that's what we're all about at the innovating and we're all about that so we'll continue to work on that so thank you very much just comment last month we just want to make sure everybody's clear following that we
089had that contract museum expensively by our thirties and came to agreement with very minor changes that contract was something we were comfortable with earlier this month we took that very expensive by our attorneys who for the record were very experienced in construction law and okay so welcome this is your main appearance all right I will tell you most of the time we don't call this one tell you that if you have a pressing need after your session tonight you are free to go all right you can also stay so I guess let's go down ask you do your report just say who you are what school you want what school you're from all right and maybe throw them in one little personal tidbit about something that you're really interested okay already sure okay so my
090name is Lola okay so my name is Lola he'll a day I go to Louisville high school and I'm a senior this year one thing that I did was I went on the French exchange this past summer which was a really cool experience I love French great alright and then my name is mp4 I'm also a senior legal high school um and then just also at Livio I'm involved in a club called best buddies which is just really a cool opportunity for our students to connect with students elorrio with intellectual and physical disabilities my name is Madison Kerber do you remember ugly daily unfortunately she had a waist did you see the hockey ring word of the miracle I saw yeah go on it that's that's a place I want to go yeah so we're
091gonna start off by giving a quick overview of what I like just students have been doing this past summer so as I said a group of students from French floor and French three spent three weeks in France and I personally went on the French exchange and at the time of my life spent two weeks in a city in western France called on Jay with a host family and one week in Paris so culturally it was a great experience and I think my French improved greatly it was such an amazing experience and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go on this trip this past summer in addition to summer group of 40 OHS students when I'm service trip to Cambodia with I just sponsor the club caring for Cambodia while there I'll adjust students
092returned for the second year to help improve the education system they help by building schools organizing classrooms and developing relationships with students they're Latin club also spent two weeks in Greece in Italy over the summer the group of fifteen students toured the countries between visiting cities including a century know the Vatican City in Athens and lastly Photo Club went to Peru over the summer while visiting sites like Machu Picchu the group captured many photos that really depicted the device the diverse culture of people living in Peru this summer that already mention was Lake Placid and the purpose of the trip was it was the eight students that are part of life of a wildcat which is like a new where prevention and wellness program we have started LHS performance and then we also saw different
093schools present how they're kind of like glacial welfare programs at their school the successes they had and the challenges they had and how to overcome them and I guess our school which will imagine some leader that we're working on link who leaders also had their freshman orientation on this night it was a great experience in as a leak leader I think the freshmen are acclimating very well to the new high school environment also on August 13th students from various activities that I just went to the north north suburban conflicts that trust the importance of acceptance I went to the conference had found it to be very impactful and I hope link 74 students audition this past Tuesday for the fall musical at Liberty Bell and after Thursday's callbacks a large group of students forecasted the
094performance for this year's the King and I will be November 2nd 3rd and 4th I'm an addition marching band camp occurred from August 1st to the 4th the camp was extremely successful successful as well with their ability to fundraise thirty five hundred dollars towards a children's charity called working together my for Wildcat they're having a kickoff for Yellow Ribbon Week on Friday and no Bourbon we just like mental health awareness and suicide prevention so basically at about we're going to decorate this pool so people know what this week is about and just like get together as a good positive Friday night and then also other clubs including best buddies interact FCA advocat all a lot of clubs are starting up this week and then also even new club I just called TED talks which you
095guys find what that is but basically to help students kind of craft that too which is really cool so there's a new salad bar at LHS and DHHS and it is a huge success students and faculty have given lots of positive feedback about the new addition there's also a new program being implemented at HS that allows students to order a healthier lunch for after school in a brown paper bag and this program was organized through a club called life of the world how's the uptake on there are people like actually doing it it's really geared for kids who have to stay late for school and rather than just eat out of the vending machines want to get a healthier meal before an athletic contest or a late night I know my something is the early
096lunch and they call it the brunch yeah he plays football after school but the problem is he's not that hungry at 10:30 right I found out oh I'm eating a snack against what the snack was of course it's pretzels yeah it's like okay this isn't gonna cut it right there we go awesome so large but I mean it's that's a nice it's a nice alternative yeah well that was part of our food service provider tear welding day in our cafeteria in their Park how was that it was emotional the kids at liberty bill adopted me and said I'm a wildcat now we got our first one the kids at HP were pretty gentle with me and then in the student section there's this big dr. Tom : his head varsity soccer when there are first
097two games are just good but I will have a last week and it was very successful as in cheer they had a carwash fundraiser that was successful and then also this year our it started last spring but their sports affiliates so a life of a white cat and I'll hear from a sport we meet on Mondays and kind of talk about the highs and lows of our sports and how we can help each other to improve our sports and something that's really cool that we're working on is getting other teams to support each other so for example I'm in country and we're going to attend let's say like a match and like the whole team is going to go so it's a team bonding for your team as well as you're supporting another team so
098that's a pretty cool thing there's some additional things I just got a new turf this past summer as well as adding a new welcome sign to the front of the building and then tomorrow night we will host their open house and budding parents just to come and meet with their students teachers and they're able to walk their kids schedule and just kind of experience what their students days are like and then last week students at little high school successfully viewed these short clips during a school organized fire drill with school provided short clips classes and then lastly I'll just parking and morning traffic manage are very successful after the first day of school most parents and students have adjusted easily to make the flow traffic make the flow of traffic efficient in the mornings hi
099I'm Kelsey Carrillo and I'm a senior at Vernon Hills and one cool thing about me is I had the opportunity to travel to Uganda with dr. G this past summer to visit our sisters we'll talk more about it I was in your high school the presidents want to say thank you for this opportunity to be here I'm glad to be here so first thing christening is the last spring we kicked off the new student team called us to the diversity Council led by doctor Gilliam and mr. young which I'm also part of it's made up of students from every background race religion and orientation and if there's possibilities include being a sounding board for school leadership about programs and initiatives reckon with staff diversity teams to develop professional development for teachers implementing educational events for
100current students and for example in October will prevent the freshmen transition program finding ways to celebrate our schools rich diversity through new marketing campaigns and school-wide initiatives collecting analyzing and acting on data for example let's bring the staff diversity team surveyed all the students regarding diversity perceptions and this summer our first meeting was a small team immersed whatever a big council analyzed Anita and they created a report that was presented to all the staff at the start of the year and in the reports they shared areas of growth and strength and the student LED panel discussed how the data point out in the daily lives of the students I provided context to the numbers and gave teachers ideas about how they can deal with sensitive to her screen errors and overall improve our city culture
101in addition our vhj of school life campaign to promote a positive positive promoted respect of this Friday we did an activity about respect and we had a meeting last Friday where the beam was respecting their peers and their staff so lastly due to our growing class we have our largest freshman class this year so our resource areas got crowded so we created the upper comments for juniors and seniors which is a new research area and when we expanded a testing center and our okay so backing up to kind of something some highlights student pauses while another student comments to the board kids from our school went and there were probably twelve thousand kids prahasta country there and we had two teams placed in the top ten we had approached the other as you guys remember
102Ashley Deshpande Cavani ponferrada and they placed eighth in emerging business issues and Michael kookiness Derrick sang and Oliver Lyon placed second in marketing and they both got some cash prize which was really cool we spent two weeks there we actually had a layover and be by there and back which was really cool this st. jerome call which is the sister school that dr. doctor started back in 2009 and while we were there we gave them many gifts such as school supplies we fill their library books gave them candy because they love that and we gave them clothes as well some of the different campaigns that we've had were dressed a girl around the world which is what the clothing here at burning Hills they made dresses for all the little girls out of pillowcases so
103each of them have got their own and they have pockets in them and they're all personalized so they love that and then we also one of the other girls that attended the trip her dad donated soccer jerseys from anyway so the organization that he works with that's all the boys were able to get soccer jerseys we taught them in their classes and we had a teacher Institute day where we invited a bunch of other teachers from the surrounding area to come and to improve in their classroom to improve the education for all their children in their schools we also organized a field day and just in summary I took a lot of things a lot of lessons from that trip and I think that one of the most important ones that I wanted was to
104be grateful for what I have and to be grateful for the opportunities I am presented with in my everyday life here we're so privileged and so lucky with what we have and to see the kids there just to be so happy and content with having nothing I think is something really special and definitely an experience that I will carry with me the rest of my life so yeah order you're free to go I know your stencils tend to be quite packed so you're also free to go it's like a coin it's 8:45 then you may have one month ago so it's okay time you have to sit back down because if you read Jonathan's okay we can't be having that you have two different words for winter and spring of 2017 the IHSA annually recognizes
105teams that earn a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher during their respective seasons VHS of word winners are girls basketball girls bowling competitive dance growth gymnastics boys swimming and dining badminton baseball girls soccer softball boys tennis girls track and field boy strap and field boys volleyball and girls water polo the LHS Award winners are girls Manthan boys baseball boys gymnastics girls soccer girls softball boys tennis boys track and field girls track and field boys volleyball boys water polo girls swimming and diving girls water polo girls basketball boys basketball girls bowling boys bowling competitive cheerleading competitive dance girls gymnastics boys swimming and dining and boys wrestling great seasons academically and competitively for all those athletic teams at LHS and be HHS and then Sam rusting 2007 P HHS graduate and clarinetist performed pictures and an exhibition
106with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at lavinia on July 11 that's pretty cool that's pretty cool so congratulations to see him okay next superintendents report is the approval of the FY 18 budget as pat indicated earlier we've had at least two committee meetings where we talked about the budget in depth we had two separate focused budget only focused special meetings this summer to focus in on the budget so I would say we're right around eight to ten hours on discussion on the budget in Kevin or someone said earlier maybe Mack we've had very very thorough discussions on the budget so what we'd like to do tonight is a couple of things as we ask for final approval we've gone through the budgetary process and we've had all the legal steps that we need to do like
107to take one minute and do a summary of the budget talk you know kind of our budget talking points if you will or the major points and then because we have some members of the public here tonight we have a budget presentation that we'd like to share we can move through that and then we'll get to the budget so after two dedicated board meetings on the tentative t12 a FY 18 budget included extensive review analysis and adjustments the board of administration tentatively agreed on an overall FY 18 budget that reflects the following as a basic operating principle in the absence of extenuating circumstances and/or need district 128 will not use cash reserves to fund normal operating expenses next projected revenue forecasts and the tentative budget was adjusted up to reflect additional forecast data and historical
108trends next projected expense forecast and new tentative budget was adjusted down to reflect additional forecasting to historical trends and additional expense reductions next operations the operations budget will be essentially balanced with a slight at 960 some dollar lobbying between the two but essentially will be balanced in that revenue equal expenses next the operations budget will be monitored and reviewed during the fiscal year to assess actual revenue collection and expenditures and will be adjusted as warranted to work toward a balanced actual end-of-the-year budget and finally although the operations budget will be balance the overall FY 18 budget will reflect a 12 million dollar deficit as a result of the initial allocation towards LHS pool construction however that initial 12 million dollar allocation toward the pool construction and future pool construction expenditures well as Plan B paid
109out of existing reserves and as such will not result in the collection of additional constituent property taxes to meet LH s pool construction expenditures so that's basically you know a budget summary of kind of where we were on the tentative budget and where we've come in that 10 hours of discussion on the budget so if you camera pans to Dan Stanley we just what have you hit a couple of things again just to connect the dots on that said earlier what we do here this is our ad growth and achievement chart that was updated recently we've shared this with a community that orden seen this we shared this with staff on opening day but this is kind of where you live in what we do you know and if you look at the increases the
110number of students taking AP classes numbers that the exams they've taken the numbers of students had three and four scores and the percent of students at the reinforced quarters this is really phenomenal data that all of our district community should be proud of including our Peter elementary districts the numbers speak for themselves but those are leaders I papi numbers so kudos to everyone and for our continued partnership okay damn people we're going next okay just off the niche rankings or niche rankings whatever the we can't quite figure out the appropriate pronunciation but we just wanted to point out several things that we shared with the community and the board last week niches an ancho there's a national school ranking organizations of high schools and colleges we were the notice remember one state with school district
111in Illinois number three nationally ranked as the second best district and number twenty-eight nationally last year we were number one in the state and neuter was second there's your new transfers and we are a second number two district with the best teachers in Illinois and over ten and nationally no surprise they are right within great results kinda have great teachers and I think the next one is very telling as well we were number four best places to teach in Illinois in number eight nationally looked in their screen again and they just really quickly there's the LHS and V HHS data again only just nine best public high school teachers in the nation Vernon Hills eleven LHS 11th best public school high school Illinois thirteen Vernon Hills right together as they always are sometimes changing places
112in LHS thirteen best college prep high school in Illinois and Vernon Hills number seventeen best stem High School in Illinois so again really really powerful external data and external recognition that we don't go out and seek and all of that success in those rankings are predicated by more and more of our students are being more and more successful next we that measure so the index okay so the agenda that we went down with the board that we're gonna go through pretty quickly here is it's a key school finance 101 points some basic terminology that the and we'll cover in the FY 17 budget FY 17 performance and the FY 18 tentative budget and then he will walk us through the FY 18 budget process DMI on target era okay so let us run through again
113for members of the public and folks that may watch us on tape the district is a respondent to a number of financial challenge was with some of these steps we have reduced the number of districts office staff over the last two years significantly we'll talk about that impact that the district has had indicated earlier abated 18 and a half 19 million dollars over five years it is as far as we can determine through the best of our research then in the aggregate is the largest tax abatement that any school district is done in the state we've done budget request reductions and the two buildings and district office the part of the building the budget that we control that would be beyond salaries and benefits for employees and then of course last year the word after
114some extensive research by dr. Fleming and recommendations from administration increased user fees on the revenue side for the first time you know probably in 15 years so just can you go back district office staff reductions we've reduced district office level or district level office staff like our employees are about 20 percent over the last two years select special education services previously outsourced up like district staff so we save some money doing that internally yeah this is probably our fourth or fifth summer that we did building shutdowns in the summer where we closed the district down at four o'clock Thursday we do not reopen until Monday morning depending on how radically hot the summer may be we will save in the neighborhood and I think there were thirty to forty five thousand dollars during the summer
115by just doing that simple act okay that's okay so personnel cost savings over the last two two and a half years and again these are aggregated across multiple years the district office staff reductions resulted in a savings of about three hundred twenty four thousand dollars in salaries and benefits through the staffing process which is really driven by the courses that students select we reduced 3.4 FTE or the full-time equivalent of teachers we can break that down in the general ed staff a 2.8 and special education staff between six roughly the cost of that is about three hundred forty six three hundred forty seven thousand dollars and again yes you know over a period of time retirements I alluded to this earlier in my comments after the contract vote with our retiring he asked me to
116return to Marina retiring and breeding and replacements in we have saved this year about one hundred seventy nine thousand dollars again the difference between three people at the end of their careers with terminal degrees and newer folks the district and then see all contract reductions roughly fifty five fifty six thousand dollars and so total savings are wrong you know then nine hundred five thousand dollars and some of that crosses little pointers okay then okay just you know real quickly you know we won't go through all of the detail but we work very hard on proving contracts and purchases some folks may be aware that we do a joint busted with two of our four theater districts we use state bidding and purchasing in facility space and services sharing our communities Vernon Hills in Libertyville just
117should really be proud of what the two villages and the park districts and the high school district is doing working together none of us could run our complete programs without working with the others but we share multiple spaces between all of those government bodies which really is to be loud education service cooperatives of course we're in the special education district of Lake County in the Lake County technology high school and then insurance and energy co-ops for health insurance or property and liability insurance and we're also in energy cooperatives so looking at any place that we can leverage partnerships to provide services that we need to provide by in a very cost-effective manner okay so we've already talked about the property tax abatements you know one of the points that Mason in one-on-one classes is roughly
118that abatement was eighteen point five eighteen point six million dollars for the owner of a $600,000 poem that results in a reduction in property taxes to district 128 of about thirteen hundred dollars over that five-year period okay let me make sure I understand you know understand this potential property taxes right right yes yes oh thanks that's a thank you Kevin that's a great clarification okay again so budget every budget reduction request and again this is the part of the budget that the district we control for day-to-day operations and our two building principals would work on with other buildings in 2014-15 we reduced those requests by about 1.6 million in 2015-16 and another million live in 2016-17 about seven hundred thousand dollars so add that up over that three-year period roughly a three you know million
119dollar reduction and we've continued to hold that flat and minimum part John and Maria before Tom I've done a great job at the building level working with their staffs to you know just hold their budgets tight again and that's the part of the budget and we can control every year so the impact of a five million dollar budget reduction and Pat you actually talked about this you know I think much better than I do but we actually wanted to take a calculation and see how that would affect all of us I live in the school district as well up into Oklahoma area and so I'm paying property taxes here just like everyone else so the impact of a five million dollar budget reduction on a market value I suppose thousand dollars is about $360 and
120you know it just gives you an idea so when we talk about you know five or ten or fifteen million our budget reduction then you get up into ten or fifteen percent of the budget it would be pretty catastrophic for the budgets of the programs that we offer and you can actually do kind of a value analysis on that and that's all that's there for it okay next okay chart of fees again this is pretty small to read accept stewards probably on this closer on the camera but this really outlines the fee increases that we did the word you know looked at a number of comparables and our fees were you know well within that band so you got districts at charge for example you know astronomical fees for student parking and then other charge
121like us we're charging a lot of so we tried to position herself working with the board kind of in the middle part of the afternoon moving forward but that's part of the attempt to you know share some of the other costs of the district and that we can raise some additional revenue okay so reserves this gives you a picture of reserves this is a calculation that we use this does not and if I remember correctly this does that similarly taxes correcting so this is the absence of early taxes which are used to pay expenses forward so the 2017 budget reserve would would have been 2016 81 two thousand seventeen sixty four or five and then their projections moving forward so we'll continue to you know update that that's based on the figures that are here
122going by correct and Dan will be doing an update of that over the year so we have a better handle on will be adjusted as well so we balanced a budget this year and that needs to be included right so they do not making but projection is for the members of public we are balanced we are not spending more we work tirelessly on and challenge dan and Prentiss and we did it right or what I would perhaps where our position it would say is that you know not too long ago this is what you guys were looking at as your future I think it's changed now finding you of where you've been and I think you're made positive change for the future be able to do projections and the trajectory of the pool spending is
123different so right yeah that's [Music] because there's audio with video obviously is this is a historical slide that was an analysis that showed us a path that we're on is devastated the path that we will now be on with some of the adjustments we made will look different so there's and actually we can do with America tracks we've had at some point and I think particularly and I think this slide was used in conjunction with the next level to show the contrast of the property tax freeze yeah well that was talked about so this slide kind of corresponds to the one you'll see two slides later showing with the freeze this is how it changes in Canada at the time that was a big big concern kind of going through and kind of looking in
124so that's why I think this was really tied to was seeing also we know that effect of yeah and then we'll update reserves with freeze okay we'll review the user fees will continue to flatline our control and we'll continue to look at building cost reductions all right before we move on can I have one more thing because I think we talked about this as well I think in the next 24 a month also communicate with the public what I reserve it's gonna be used for because I think one of the big unknowns is this we're sure what it is and there certainly is a plan that's been put in place by this board of why the reserve is what it is and what potentially could be used for again we've had a lot of sessions
125nothing's been finalized but I suspect easily in the next 24 months with your policy in that you know I don't have the number in front of me about a lot say the number was in the realm not including the Texas of about 80 million you have to remain I think we're gonna well just will continue dan you can continue now just being one comment because I know Pam would make that comment there are a number of district school districts in the state that have substantial reserves and none of them have chosen to give any of that money back to their public so the or should be commended for their work in terms of making that decision moving forward so Ann take us forward all right so when kind of looking at the budget so right
126now we're we're talking about money that we're gonna be coming in what's money that's going to be spending just kind of this year really we've talked about this before but really just just really the term so we know what we're talking about that really that term is what we're talking about is operating funds okay and what do we mean when we're talking about operating funds that were clear so essentially we take all fights we have you know several different funds that were that is fund accounting is what school accounting is really and what we do is we take away from 30 which is our debt service so if we're comparing apples to apples and the other thing that we're going to pull out is the LHS Poole right it's been up we talked about the
127updated the cash flow you know we're talking twenty twenty one twenty nine twenty one twenty two million dollars for the pool but that's kind of a one-time thing that's not an annual thing that you do so they really should be removed from trying to see how are how are addicted day operations changing and so when we're that's what the term we're gonna be using is operating funds really think about as your regular business operations so before I can really go into what or fiscal year 18 budget is I kind of need to step back for a second to talk about the fiscal year 17 budget just so you know where you were the operating budget for that year had about a three point four million dollar deficit in there again just a reminder this is
128operating so it's not going to clued the pool it's not going to include the debt service you had a bond payment that you paid off of six million or something that stuff's not counted because we're trying to compare apples to apples alright so for the fiscal year how to perform you know we're going through our audit literally right now it's been been a busy busy six days so far but the rent we're in the throes of that right now but you know unaudited actuals for the year you actually ended up with a three point call it three million dollar surplus so you're talking a fair swing there six six million dollars or so so so we've talked about essentially what that will boil down to is on the revenue side you had 103 percent revenues
129compared to budget meaning you budgeted for a certain number you got 103 percent of that number now what what happened to that really is gonna be your local sources you had 103 percent of your local sources money that comes from the community right here so let's look at your how your sources of revenue actually shake out from the district sorry though my font sizes weren't quite adjusted for this year up there for a kind of smaller Road but if you can see they're local sources represent ninety-five percent of the revenue so 95 percent of the revenue that funds this district and the people the salaries the perimeter that you do comes from this community right here in the terms of property taxes to the tune of primary taxes are promising a percent the rest of
130it comes from other other local sources could be student fees me all kinds of all kinds of things from this community state sources represent a very small amount roughly 4 percent and federal is that little slippery that's not barely 1% I couldn't even get the pie chart to show me that figure it was so small I wouldn't be with each other so that was on the revenue side so in breaking those down you know looking at the various sources so your three main sources of revenue are the local sources most of its property taxes state sources and federal sources now you know we don't have the many different sources of revenue just like any perhaps any person the the number of ways you get money in is not there's not a whole lot of sources
131of revenue Samuel sing with us we're kind of limited in our sources of revenue so local property taxes came in higher the tax receipts were higher than what was what was anticipated at the time the state coming in a little bit under was you know so no surprise there's some financial constraints in the state some late payments from the state and that federal source has had a pretty big increase you know relatively speaking they're very small part of our budget but I do get the idea share so see all our special education district of Clay County they get federal money and they give some of it to us and they keep some of them well they've changed to giving more to us than the head in the best and weekend and they keep less so
132that affected an also room and board which is the federal source of revenue that was a pretty substantial increase but that was really due to one more kid to that program so we know sometimes you can talk about one more kid even cost you easily hundred thousand dollar ease of especially in a special area depending on the services that that student really needs this is one one time that I've seen the revenue is kind of correspondent to that so all in all really when you're looking at your property taxes came higher than expected because that's most of your revenue now the expenditure side what happened is really you didn't spend your whole budget ninety five percent was spent so you know that's you know you're getting closer you know you want that to be closer
133good it's better than it's at and it's under 100 than being over so really what happened there just to give you a break out to see how how your money is spent you know 60 or 56 percent on salaries benefits are associated with that so you get it you know you could have those together 67 percent the employees who do you have here purchase services is a bit bigger chunk because in this district you have contracted for busing for facilities for food service but all of those are people to at the end of the day other people that are here and you know they're largely consider part of this community and so you're talking the vast majority of your budget is spent on the people that are here day in and day out serving the
134students that show up and so that that's very typical in school districts your service organization where is the people that would that are here that we're employing to serve or engaging with a couple or the company to employ people to serve but the other parts that you've seen supplies Cavalli and other objects other object just basically means if it doesn't fall on one of those other groups it goes with other you know that's mostly going to be probably tuition payments dues and fees stuff like that and so but it's relatively small compared to blue so what happened you know if you break it down by object by like the things that you spend money on the types of things salaries are you know going to be your biggest child but there wasn't really anything that
135stuck out they came in a bit under any point two percent budget so now benefits came in a little bit under medical insurance was under I'm raft ers those were under what positive purchase services did take over in being over budget that was due to a hero payment that was higher than anticipated even though euro technically is should be a benefit charge but that's kind of how it was at least I counted a budget budget before going forward you want there is nobody arrow anymore so that won't apply supplies that went on here we've talked several times that a lot of that is really for people if they if they really need it they buy that if they don't this is something I've seen in my other previous districts repeated over and over again which
136i think is a is a sign of you know trying to be fiscally responsible I think another thing that to reflect is the utilities this so some of the changes that you guys have made in terms of your newer lighting and the energy the children thing yeah that sorry those those types of things have resulted in spending less on less on utilities electricity gas and also the prices for those have been pretty good too now that doesn't mean that those won't go up in the future and you know you're gonna build you know 21 million dollar pool sprayer you have to keep that thing put electricity in it so that's going to impact your budget the future just not yet so those those are related supplies capital holiday is going to be your biggest area
137where those are some of the big you know the most stark numbers to say essentially those projects that just that were deferred for a variety of different reasons but really that's where you're seeing your 95 percent coming in total budget it is really in the capital projects you know that was there was a lot of planning going on for the pool and so timing of some things pool is not part of this right so but I mean during that year there was a lot of planning for that so you know greater bruises that that's no that was a low point for sure you know that's something SES repeating that we've talked about that as well so that's last year performance now trying to step in and kind of look at it at this point we're
138presenting to you is the final budget that's gone through several versions and I'll kind of show you a little bit of what that's happening all right so just to make sure we're clear what we're understanding just we're not you're not sure the world meeting a budget really is an estimate right we're we're estimating here we're guessing we try to be good at guessing and you know what we're never going to be done my goal is to try to make make sure we're guessing as good as we can and we're going to we're going to get better at guessing then we have been and even now we're going to get better better great that so the biggest thing I want I'd like for you to take away is that your operating budget is balanced I think
139that is a huge success to have because year ago that was not the situation you were facing and so I think that's great that board has looked at a lot of detail you know you guys know I don't need to tell you what you've been through the last two months at least what I've seen but there's been a lot of work so here's if you really look at your operating budget right again this is not going to clued the pool sorry that select should have been updated to 12 million you know we had originally thought the cash flow over a 21 million dollar project spread over a few fiscal years were originally thought there was gonna be about 8 million cash flow and fiscal year routine turns out really because of the same work that
140we're going to talk about in just a couple of minutes of unit getting that moving we think the range is gonna be a bit higher for this fiscal year but you know we're not adding 4 million to the cost of the project that's not at all what's happening this is just about a timing thing about when we actually end up spending the money but looking at operating your revenues and expenditures are balanced meaning you are the budget those are equal or more than your budgeted expenditures to the tune of $946 granted it's very close but it is there's a small surplus there the budget just for reference the first tentative budget that you guys saw had a three point seven billion dollar deficit the second version you saw at a 1.5 million dollar deficit and
141so now you and this was at the committee meeting so the numbers haven't really changed it is missing it is having a balanced budget correct correct and I'm not saying that's a repeatable thing don't think you're gonna prove what if I like we can do this three more times and it's just gonna get better and better there's a there's an asymptote there's a skill rather - yeah so that's that's really your upper division in a nutshell but I talked a little bit about kind of what what's going on there so the revenue right what changed just just so you know what's happened over the last few meetings we've had so we've talked about a few meetings on to my 18th August seventh and again on August 14th we've had several revisions and all of those
142have been adjusting our revenue revenue assumptions that budget up so you can see that that effect has happened to minute - mitigates the mitigate that budget deficit and then on the expenditure side I get broken up by objects so you can see again from July 18 to Argus 7 to Argus 14 these meetings that we've had public meetings that we've had that we've been going through and doing this I'm sorry 85 million 1983 7.8 83 call it a 3/5 to really get that balance in line so that's kind of what what happened between the 3.7 you go back to the revenue please really quick yes no the only guy I want to just make sure everything this does not mean we are increasing property taxes by 1.8 million magically this simply means that the data
143became a little bit more refined we looked at trends with that this movement digital analysis management ought to love it further got more comfortable with a closer assessment yeah it's more a closer reflection of what is what we expect to collect a property taxes [Music] yeah I'll have that yeah yeah not specified in the future started that on for you I'd like here so so comparing like what change right so comparing than how did it change from the budget and then how they change the actuals so that right column is really what you're talking about the percent the 0% is essentially having a flat revenue assumption from all we got last year which is a 3% increase to what the budget was last year again just showing what those what those changes have looked like
144there so you know that's exactly what we mentioned that's on the revenue side now looking at the same thing on the expenditure side is by object again those different categories the total of 4% if most of your budget is salaries and benefits that lets you to believe that your budget at the end of the day will be more reflective of what is happening the salaries at benefit so we've talked about that we talked about trends we've seen those trends and where those have been heading and so those are kind of based on the numbers that are there and so the one adjustment that you may see is the capital outlay you know we're kind of last year was it down here in that so we kind of reverting back to where we've kind of been
145with capital outlay so that that's something to note the budget is technically operating on an operating or an operating this is your budget is smaller than what it was last year but it does is it does assume that use you're going to be spending more than you did last year it really is the information that I have for you for your the final budget you know we have the report that's 30 pages on the web that's not super readable tried to boil that down into a readable portion for you just so you know the only thing that changed since the last time we talked is no total numbers have changed but essentially the annual capital that we that we do instead of it being in front sixty it moved it to fund twenty and now
146the only thing that's in front sixty is the pool it'll be much easier to track and compare on a year-to-year basis putting the big one-time projects in capital states in fund 60 and our Hannibal stuff that we do and you know the annual kind of stuff that we did over here in front 20 will help us going for next year we can very clearly say we did these projects these projects these but not this one so we say very crisp conversation next year well the other thing we committed to was an accrual basis having a because you go first quarter second quarter third instead of also oh hey at the end of here this is where we came in then you all with our guidance or whatever can go ahead and make the necessary decisions
147may make changes or change course throughout the year to maybe do something else do something differently but have a better idea of how are we tracking towards that budget and having not every every single capital project but the key ones laid out then we can kind of just see where do we stand yeah do everything we make a conscious decision it's going to break into didn't bricks well therefore we don't have to spend the money we can then make a decision that we either save the money or spending on something else but it'd be real clear with Homer okay in that Wes goes back to really cutting capital well it really goes back to the rolling capital plan that Alex work with us on you know ten or twelve years Alex fell appalling ten or
148twelve years ago and really put us in an orbit you know a nearby your organizational structure to deal with capital projects on a regular basis to keep us in there's a budget cover sheet every single there's three originals please just make sure that you sign those before you go okay can I just I want to commend Dan because in two years into this this has been the easiest for me to understand I think it's going to be easier for the community to understand how to follow this you laid it out very simply I think it's going to help us better manage this but huge quick impact so thank you and that I don't have to say if it wasn't for the business office staff that you have and all in the administrative team around so
149they can deal with my millions my million of questions we want you asking the million of questions yeah I will the students alluded to party earlier and Tom can certainly come in a desperate the initial plan that was developed with some tweaks has really resulted in the students being in the building you know before the start of school wasn't really a lot being in the two drives me virtually his team along with LPP will continue to monitor that I do want to say that the first week I drove that without twice myself same Radha used to drop my daughters and four or five years and the time getting up on Liberty go-kart early 176 and in the parking lot the place was essentially the same as it was before at the same time and his
150team are out there so we'll continue to monitor that moving forward and you know they've started to do some tangible work in the front of the building started remove trees you're going to get a little bit more information today and they won't move forward so well continue much for that review they had probably a couple of tenants this year and then we will work on a parking plan is predicates to when we talk with the village the longtime family chest folks tell me that the traffic on campus is actually moving better than it ever has and that the traffic in the parking lot is actually safer because of only two routes so that's a good thing and we also I just continue to commend all the students who are riding the bus our bus ridership
151is up from last year we keep track every day of number of kids on all the buses I think the last step I saw was up about 125 to 140 students per day than where we were at this time last year and also our bike ridership is very high now obviously that may drop a little when whether it turns but right now that's conscious choices that students and families are making and we certainly appreciate that so remember writers come from day one you have everybody tried that where he's going to try that at some point so the significance of the 125 plus bus riders is that those kids because they're riding the bus are one of the half miles anywhere from school which is the kind of state criteria to be a bus rider unless
152there's a hazard along the way so those are likely all kids who would have been dropping off or driven themselves you know on past year so that's under 25 cars that kind of off the road out of out of the lot so but we'll continue to do you know periodic updates on that and I just want the board community to be aware of it Tom and his team and the Liberty Bell Police Department will make any adjustments that they think they need to make they'll make it better safer along the way when that hesitant to do that literally out there every morning afternoon every single day talking about information of what we're seeing okay great job okay okay okay LHS school project the update is really B and C so we're going to dive right
153into that given the fact that it's already 9:30 but starting it's exciting because we're starting to do work there so on e we have a big recommendation for earthwork and mark and then you're going to take us and we've got one of our colleague senator buildings construction the interest so it's just going to give a quick update as far as where the bidding is at right now so where we're at everything is out to bid currently we did start the bidding process a little bit later due to some of the city processes but the good news is bidding is on schedule the project bids that were preventing today well as if they're approved we'll keep the project on schedule so that we can get the site demolition and excavation and all the utilities relocated to
154keep the project going so with that the two bid packages that we do have are the bid package 31a for the earthwork and essentially that's the the site demolition that's the grading and the excavation for the pool and Foundation's itself so again that's the one of the first things that needs to get done to get the site ready the other bid packages 450 bid package 33 8 which is the site utilities again that needs to be relocated before we can start the excavation for the pool so the good news is the bids did come in under budget so under what our estimate was so right now we're on track the previous estimate we are as a total are about 32,000 less than what our what our estimate was so fit package 31 a for the
155earthwork project right now we're recommending Berger excavating contractors their base bid amount was 20 million and $20,000 one thing to know is that the they didn't have the low base bid amount but their basement plus key alternate and the alternate is for demoing the admin building so that was a discussion that mark and and dan and I had regarding that being something they wanted to be proceeded with so that is why Berger is being recommended as the earthwork big package and then also with big package 33 a for the site utilities Berger is also a little bit on that so they would be low on both the base bid and the basement plus the alternate so those are the two food packages were recommending as far as where we're going from here September 1st will
156be getting another round of bids and then the sex that the third round of bids will be on September 8th so we're hoping on September 11th to bring some more big packages where you guys do approve as well as on the 25th so the information starting there if it's scheduled yeah mobilization is scheduled for September 20th a couple points just to give context to some of this some of this information is not even 12 hours old yet so it's been a fun day I just want to let you know just so that we're clear if we were just doing the base bed burger was not the loss but when you include the alternate that we're looking to do that made them the lowest when you can consider both because there was a huge variance in
157the funds to pay for alternate one are not part of the pool project they did that as an alternate to try to get economies to scale because people are gonna be on site doing a bunch of digging like might as well just throwing this other thing those ones getting paid from the cap annual capital so that's different just so you know to what he said the the bids are coming in just fine technically the earthwork came in about 5% over the estimate but the so utilities came in nineteen percent under so we're trying for checking that very carefully but so far so good just to give you context we were about we got about 10 percent of our bids so far okay and things look good so far I've been in a similar situation where
158I've had times out of this and they've been like 10 50 percent over so we're much better positioned than that we still have many percent to go okay it's just to give you context or you're not you're not necessarily out of the woods yet for what bids are gonna that different but so far so far so good for sure but two weeks from now we'll know exactly where we stand and even if you were wording these bits tonight and we come to a situation two weeks from now realizing oh no the crossbeam in mantra party that we ever thought we need to rethink this whole thing we can stop essentially you'll pay some fees for the costs that have been incurred but they're gonna be relatively minor compared to you're looking right now I just
159want to give you that that context and and the officer that was something that we really wanted to do assuming the priceless okay I got more question I did my math but numbers for there [Music] all right so again a motion to accept the bid from Berger construction for the high right now what is there a motion to accept the bid from Berger construction for site utilities okay continue bring right here memorial update sent the board a picture of a holy breath so mark they started last week Graner memorial we've done the whole footings in foundation is in for the wall there's been we have masonry materials on site as of today and they will start constructing it this week thank you say and we should be done time for the hundredth anniversary celebration difference
160so that's good in fact we will be done by them when you rule with the bronze plaque is the one thing that's gonna be close okay all right thanks yeah thank you okay all right let me let me see if I can do like the one minute version of everything that's happened in the last 48 hours of Springfield because things have changed since we arrived here tonight okay we'll be into today legislators were called back and they went into caucus and they actually discussed the compromise school funding package that was worked out by the four leaders and ostensibly tentatively approved by the governor last week okay so they came out of caucus and they put that they had debate and they ultimately put that to a vote and it was voted down substantially they broke
161into caucus again they came back out and they actually made an attempt to override the governor's veto of Senate bill one okay that was not successful they had they have so many blimp boats over right so they caucused again in the making back out and they voted once again on the compromise package and the compromise package actually passed with 73 or 74 votes so we have about a 30 person swing after they get so we will be doing analysis on that but our board and I also try and work with our feeder superintendents so you know they're aware of impacts a lot in district 68 and guy Schumacher and 70 Nick Brown and 73-inch anyway check over a rundown so we've been communicating all day today but this contains it component in it for our
162property taxes so we'll have more information you know to you kind of get the lay of the land oh yeah but I'll have more information this year at the committee meeting you know when we actually do some more calculations and see how that might work out so for districts that are over 110 percent adequacy that could have a fairly substantial impact on them versus had we done a two-year property tax freeze but at the end of the day and the debate that was not an option so it wasn't okay if you don't like adequacy and what about property tax freeze there was some discussion earlier in the day that's that Danis where I was heading and legislature started to reach out to the superintendent's and accept her but that at some point was kind of
163removed from the table so the adequacy piece really deals with property taxes moving forward so we do have a school funding formula that we get to more detail and we'll be sharing out okay questions and then we had to FOIA requests the first one was on 8 117 from rich Cortes 55 Katrina Lane Sleepy Hollow Illinois 600 1 8 he requested 12 years of teacher salary schedules for 2006 7 through 2007 18 and 12 years of teacher assistants our schedules for 2006 through 2017 18 follow up responsibility was bryant's and we responded on 810 approximately one hour and the second for a request this month was from Jim Novosel and we only have a phone number an email from him the district's hiring policies for volunteer workers and number two the district's policies when volunteers
164background check comes back with arrests but no conviction Bryant again had follow-up responsibilities about two things first thing is employment of employees and these are appointments after the committee so we're looking for motion to approve is listed so okay next we have additional tour request so if there are two trips listed building promotion to approve those the one related climbing in Baraboo how's the insurance will come at just like any other thank you we have four items here first is the approval of an additional financial institution for investments this is adding third securities to our pool of banks that we use for investments any other discussion we talked about this in committee earlier okay we have a request motion for legal representation for what is to stand for the tax of via property taxes on
165your war threats and order of review issues use as legal counsel for TPT Edinburgh review second any discussion again this was repeated in committee earlier in the month thank you we have two big recommendations the gymnastics floor exercise system for a Louisville high school yes proposal I have proposed motion food board of education that the Board of Education accept base bid from athletic equipment source of st. Charles I'm lining the amount of thirty two thousand six hundred dollars for the gymnastics floor exercise system and Louisville wait about a motion move to approve has described all right correct yes and why was it one good yeah did you miss Florida we is a specialized flooring so through research of the athletic department they research on floors and we look bit specs for most quality floor those
166out and we welcome bidders to bid on the product we have a recommendation for athletic and PE towels service background on this we had to us again was this only little bit on this one as well correct we only had one bit of the American uniform career apparel which is our current provider they the results the savings from work around living so we would always like to have multiple bidders we didn't however you know we're looking at savings so how much am personally to grant old we spent about twenty nine years the towels still like sandpaper now they're nicer than me are they nice yeah they're white those nasty green things how artists used to be large and they faded pink in there were sandpaper you two probably saw a couple of those have something
167like that I just remembered aliens and telling us that we had to squeegee the water off of our body so we didn't use two towel that's why I remember important information conversation discussion questions and carries lastly we have the motion to purchase two building and groundstrokes these are coming on the state contract purchase agreement so we can do this without it's already been pretty good and everything through the state contracts so we can do this without going through the bid process ourselves one new Ford f-550 dump truck and a snow plows the dump truck will have a centralized route system that will run a rear tailgate spreader like you see on the village vehicles highway vehicles presently we have a plastic electric driven one in the so third combined price in total stupid through two
168vehicles 170 thousand eight hundred eighty dollars the pickup truck is thirty six thousand four hundred seventy four dollars and the dump truck is 71 thousand three hundred and thirty four dollars and we discussed earlier in committee that there may be some value to the old trucks apiece are replacing so we may actually get some of that passes that concludes the facilities a Finance Committee speech I have a motion to executive session again two topics first one employment with 25 ILCs 125 to be one second topic elected negotiating matters five LCS one twice last to see two series we will take action following the recession yeah five minute break good is there motion to return so I okay all right I move to have the board accept the administration's recommendation and adapt the resolution authorizing a
169notice to remedy for Michael bluestem is there a second second alright motion carries is there a motion to adjourn move to adjourn