001All right, it's 6:30. Uh, Julie, would you mind calling the role, please? >> Certainly. Cara Castton >> here. >> Katie Courtourtney >> here. >> Chris Espinosa >> here. >> April Fein here. >> Don Rener >> here. >> Michael Riskey >> here. >> Ryan Enright >> here. >> And Romina Papa Gonzalez here. I think we have one other joint >> and Ken Dawson >> here. >> Thank you. >> Having a quorum, let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right, Hank, I'm going to turn it over to you for some student recognition. All right, we have some student recognitions and North High is
002up first. >> All right. Good evening everyone. It is nice to see all of you and as always it is really really wonderful to start out our evening with a number of recognitions tonight and I'm going to start out with our allstate theater recognitions. Um so if I could actually call up Tess Lorett and Rain Heler. Please come on up. Mr. Moses uh is the theater sponsor or one of the theater sponsors and he could not be here tonight so he sent a few words that I would like to share about um both of these wonderful students. So Tess is a junior at North and has been involved in production since her freshman year as well. Currently Tess is the assistant stage manager for our musical Joseph and just concluded a soldout run of The
003Giver as assistant producer. Besides uh for production for management duties, Tess is a regular at set construction days, often serving as the assistant technical director or a master carpenter on every production at North. Tess is an inducted honor thespian and an auditorium technician. For Newsies, in which she was uh chosen for the Allstate Theater production, Tess was a part of the build crew and focused more on rigging and flown scenery and was a part of the flight crew. Maybe she can talk to us about that. Outside of her work on the state show, Tess is a black belt in karate and also loves penguins. So, wanted to share that. Um, Rain, uh, who is a senior at North has been a DGN theater regular on many productions. At North, Rain focuses on lighting design and
004is the primary lighting designer for The Giver and for upcoming musical, Joseph. Uh, Rain has been a part of the lighting crew in some capacity on every single production since their freshman year. Rain is also an auditorium technician as well as an honor thesbian. Rain will will graduate as a national honor thesbian in May. And for newsies, Rain was on the lighting crew and served as a spotlight operator for the production in addition to designing the lighting for multiple moments in the show. Rain has been dancing ballet since the age of two and is heavily involved in the local robotics club. So, congratulations to both Rain and Tess. It is really an amazing thing to be nominated and chosen for this show. Um, and to be able to show your talents to the whole state.
005So, congratulations to the two of you. >> Okay. >> They like to stage. >> Uh, next up, I'm gonna call up our fine arts department chair, Gina Wick, and she is going to talk about our students who were our all-state musicians for ILMA this year. Gina. >> Okay. The North uh All State Music students, could you come up here? I will call your names as part of my little spiel. >> Right. This past fall, 23,000 students from across Illinois competed in virtual auditions for a spot in one of the Illinois Music Education Association District level honors ensembles. Downer's Grove is a part of District 1. There's nine districts across Illinois and district 1 is one of the most competitive districts in the state. It's a huge accomplishment that over 80 of our students from north
006and south were selected to the district level honor band orchestra and choir. But then of those students uh the very very top in each section on each instrument or each voice part are selected to participate at the all-state level. Additionally, student composers who write their own music are invited to submit their own original compositions for the all-state music composition contest from DGN. The following students were honored at the state level. Andre Chang, who is a 10th grader on violin, all state orchestra. Ryan Perry, trombone, he is an 11th grader for all state orchestra. Paxton Raman, tener one for the all-state choir. And Bryley Steface for all state composition in the singer songwriter category for her song US9. These students had the opportunity to travel to Peoria in January and spend three days rehearsing with top
007conductors, exploring a college fair made up of schools very interested in recruiting them to their music programs and performing a culminating concert on the ice, as we say, because it is on a hockey rink that they cover and turn into a stage uh at the Poria Civic Center. We are extremely proud of these students who have represented their school and community very well. Thank you. No stop right now. >> Thank you guys. >> Thank you. >> Good evening everyone. Um, I'm excited tonight to introduce uh Joy Belt Resib and Shane Nelson who are going to introduce our ILMA state musicians from South. And I'm going to start with Mr. Shane Nelson. Uh, hello everybody. Uh, my name is Shane Nelson and I am the assistant band director between both uh, South and North. Uh, and
008this is my first year here. Um, and I've already gotten to witness, as we can see, the amazing musicians that we've have uh across the district. And uh I'll be talking a little bit about the South students. So, can we have our South uh instrumentalist students come up? I don't think everybody's here, but we have a few of them. Yeah, come on up. Uh so, we have Giovani Cruz Romero on Euphonium. Uh and then we also have uh Eli Deoles uh playing viola. Uh one of Miss West students in the orchestra. Give her another round of applause. Um kind of echoing what Miss Wick said, this is a huge accomplishment uh not only to go through the district levels as uh Miss Wick said as the state is broken up into district um ensembles, they
009then surpassed that and made it to the state level. Uh and you are in this room. you are seeing not only the best musicians that district 9 99 has to offer but also the state of Illinois. Um and this is again as Miss Wick said a huge accomplishment uh and they have really made all the music teachers uh at South very proud. Uh and it has been super great to see them excel and represent district 99 at a state level. So yeah, >> CONGRATULATIONS Good evening. I'm Joy Belt Rose and I'm the coral director at Downer South. This is my 26th year here at District 99 and I would like to invite our choir students to come on up from South. Come on up. So this year, oh we had 11 students make All State
010from South. Um and again echoing the sentiments of Mick Wick, Miss Wick. Um it's just an accomp a huge accomplishment um for these students to make the all state. So I will just say their names. You can wave if I call your name. Um Elto one, Taylor Tucci, Elto 2, Sadie Novacell base one, Jack Mey. Where's Jack? Are you waving? Okay. I have to tell a story about Jack. um the first year. So it was four years ago when IMEA decided to allow freshmen to enter all state. As a freshman, Jack made it. Jack has made it all four years. And I think this is the first time ever in District 99 that there has been an Allstater for four years. I think that deserves a round of applause. Amari Thomas, Bass 2, Soprano 1,
011Yrat Davies, and Christina Mariano. Okay. Now, um, another story about Christina Mariano. Um, coming up, I'm so excited. Sorry. Coming up on Thursday, March 12th. Um, Christina has now the honor of singing the national anthem at the basketball game at the stadium at the University of Illinois. So, it's going to be the finals game, right? So, it's she's going to sing two. I think it's the first round at 9:30 and the second at like 2 o'clock. Um and she got this honor because she was first in her room through the district level um at all state and then she had to audition at districts then she went down to all state had to audition again for six more people. So she had to go through this um major situation to be able to to get
012that. So congratulations to Christina. So, Soprano 2, Olivia Dulick, um Amelia Galdon and Abby Hein, and Tener 2, Maya Peterson and Jonathan Robinson. Give it up for these beautiful students. >> No ac cappella performance. >> Starting board meetings, national anthem. >> Just students that are here um on behalf of me and Dr. Dement, congratulations to all of you. just as your principles, we know this is your state and as celebratory as anyone that goes to state and we're so proud of you. So, congratulations. Um, our students are now uh welcome to head on out and get some pictures in the hallway uh with Mrs. Brownie. you're welcome to come back in for the remainder of the meeting, but I'm sure you have homework and other things to do. So, thank you for coming tonight and
013for all of your hard work. >> Thank you. >> Isn't the thing you sit in your lap? It's a baby. Yeah, >> I'm Man, >> I'm very familiar with this. Yes. >> And I have to say like in the years that I've been finally got home Friday, you like the sections are huge. >> That seems like a tough in the hospital. Oh my god. scholarship instrument. >> You play well, right? >> Way better. >> See, I've always >> Yeah, I'm going to move on to item number four. >> That's when my son was born. >> Um, approval of minutes. Can I get a motion for the board of education to approve the minutes of the January 26, 2026 monthly business meeting, the January 26, 2026 close meeting, the February 9th, 2026 workshop meeting, and the
014February 9th, 2026 closed meeting. >> So moved. Second. >> Car moves. I'll say Ken. >> Thank you very much. >> Cara Castton. >> I >> Ken Dawson. >> Hi. >> Mr. Espinosa. >> Hi. >> April Fein. >> Hi. >> Michael Riskey. >> Hi. >> Katie Courtourtney. >> Hi. and Don Runner. >> I motion carries. >> Thank you. >> Um for our first reception of visitors, Julie, do we have any slips? >> No, sir. >> Thank you. >> Hank, I'll turn it over to you. Item number six. >> Sure. Um good evening, board. Uh during uh reception of visitors, uh it can be protocol that one of the bargaining units requests some time of the board to be received and hear about an issue or a topic of interest. Uh this is follows the same rules
015as any reception of visitors. So it's our job to kind of listen. This isn't a a dialogue or Q&A portion of time. Um the SSA has uh requested to have a few folks come forward, introduce themselves, maybe share a little bit about their job responsibilities. It is a large group and very diverse in role. So um we thought we'd just take a little bit of opportunity tonight for them to say hello and and share a little bit about what they do. So, I will turn it over. I think Maria's going to get the party started. >> Get the party started. I hope you can hear me. Sorry if you can't. I'll do the best I can. Uh, good evening, members of the board of education and administration. My name is Maria Giorgio. I am the
016support staff association president and I have worked in district 99 for 28 years in the same role as English department admin assistant at North. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. Several of my colleagues are here with me tonight to introduce themselves and share a bit about their roles across our district. The term support staff encompasses a wide variety of roles. We bring a collective value to the operation of District 99. We are often the first to arrive and the last to leave. We answer questions, troubleshoot technology, respond to health needs, support students one-on-one, organize information, and coordinate communication. Tonight, I want to acknowledge the District 99 support staff for their professionalism, dedication, and unwavering commitment to their roles in our district. Thank you. And we'll just start with whoever wants to go
017next. Good evening board. My name is Joshua Margus. I am the fourth member of my family to graduate from district 99 behind my two cousins and my stepmother. Uh the third member of my family to be a support staff uh employee at district 99 uh behind uh Doris Margolus and Shasta Hut. Uh and I am a very modest Bears fan. I uh I work as security over at Downs Grove South. It is my fifth year. Um, as a student going through the district district, I made sure that I was very involved. Um, football, stage crew, track and field, just to name a few things. Uh, and I continued that tradition once I entered uh, District 99 as an employee. Um, as security, I have a very unique view of the building as a whole. uh
018starting from the front door all the way out to our back delivery dock and all the way out to the parking lot that's surrounding us right now. Um I think I bring a good amount of observation um not only for the current uh state of things in the district but also just how we have evolved and developed through the past um going all the way back to my aunts and my stepmother. Um and I thank you guys for your time. >> Thank you. Hello, I'm Christine Christensen and I am the administrative assistant for science and math at Downer's Grove North. I've been here for five years. Yeah. Um it doesn't seem it doesn't seem that long. It's weird because of the school years and it's different. So, um I'm also the uh support staff treasurer.
019I am on our bargaining team and um I I'm also a community member. I live uh one and a half miles from South maybe. And what else? Um I'm also the venue coordinator at Hinsdale Humane Society, which is kind of cool. So, but that's like very very part-time. And that's about all I have. >> Thank you. Thank you. Oh my speeders. Hello, I am Kathleen Conquest and I have been working for the district since September of 2023. But I am not new to the district as I am a 2013 alum. I am currently the executive administrative assistant at DRO South High School, specifically in the data processing role. What is a data processor, you may ask? Uh it's a mix mash of a lot of things but primarily I assist with the master schedule placing
020teachers in rooms students in classes and making sure that unique schedules get handled. I track the students completion of driver education making sure that they have completed the classroom component necessary for graduation. I also helped take part in helping with unique scheduling from the counseling and student support services offices with student aids, late arrivals, early dismissals, as well as varsity athletic releases to just name a few. Additionally, I am responsible for handling data requests for my building such as GPA runs, students on free and reduced lunch program, plus many historical projects requested by administration team. When not at work, I am also the secretary for the support staff association and I'm currently on the negotiations team for the next contract. I am also a firm mother and enjoy going on Pokémon Go dates with my
021husband. Lastly, you may be wondering about the t-shirts and why we're all wearing the one job shirt. Well, that is because the association believes one job should be enough. However, that is not the case for many of our members when multiple when they have multiple jobs and when over 80% of our members don't make a livable wage when comparing the to the state of Illinois average. This data was collected through the compensation committee that was convened last year. I'd like to thank the board for their time, consideration, and continued support during the support staff association's negotiations. Thank you. >> Thank you. I'm a little short. I don't know if I can reach this. >> Good. It'll it'll pick you up. >> Okay. I'm Mary Row and I've worked at Downers Grove South for the last
02218 and a half years in PE health and driver ed in the morning and in the afternoon in career and technical education. I've worked in two departments. I assist our driver ed department with their pip nights, having the information packets assembled, Chromebooks ready to loan out, and then I assist giving the students their permits, making sure they're signed in black ink because otherwise it's a that's a no no. I also interact with members of our community for our wellness day, which we do every other year. We average 35 to 45 community members ranging from fitness instructors, physical therapists, law enforcement, firemen, state police to name a few that come to our school and interact with our students. I set up our hospitality room. I make sure our guests feel welcome and appreciated. This is why
023South still has wellness day. North does not. I assist with career fair for CTE and the various career opportunities that our local community affords our students now and in the future. I play an active role in the Young Hearts for Life EKG screenings every other year and assist associate principal Omar Davis with the hospitality room. I order the food for the volunteers. I solicit volunteers through the colleges um various real estate offices throughout the districts, things like that. I coordinate with the Young Hearts for Life office on the formalities. I manage the procedures leading up to the day. Many of our volunteers have done this throughout the years. They come back because they see say they feel appreciated that their district makes them feel appreciated. As you can tell, I am a team player. I'm
024also on our orange frog committee. Fun fact, both of my daughters work at the school. As a matter of fact, one of them just took the girls bowling team to state. First year as head coach, she stepped up to be the head coach. Otherwise, Downer's Grove South would not have been represented. They would not have had a bowling team. This is how we are. We will step up and help out. So, as you can see, we all play an active role in the district and making this district what it is. We're all stakeholders in the district. We appreciate the board and we thank you so much for your time and support. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> I'm Kelly Row. I am in the bookstore and bookkeeping at Donner's Grove South. This is my fifth
025year. I'm also an alum as well. And as she stated, I am I was girls head coach this year, took one down to state. She as a freshman, she made it very far and I have to applaud her for that. She missed it by two pins to make it to the next qualification, but we've got three more years of this. So, so, but thank you again for your time today. We appreciate everything you guys do. >> Thank you. Hi y'all. I am Ruby Montano. I am the exact admin assistant for health services at North. So I handle every sniffle, every band-aid, every hopefully not too often major incident. Um, but one of the key things I'm also responsible for is I accumulate all the data for our health services for state compliance reports, all the
026immunization reports, hearing and vision reports for the state, dental, BMI, you name it. If it's pound paper, it's up to me. So, um, aside from that, I also serve as the VP at North for our association as well as the regional rep for IIA and at the IA IIA level, I also serve as the ethnic minority rep for the state. So, um, I'm kind of got my fingers in everything even though I'm not from Donner's Grove. Um, I've been here for eight and a half years now and I love the community. I love hanging out and um I look forward to doing great things with this board. So um I'm looking to hang out. So I hope you make that possible for us. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hi, my name is Stacy Britwish
027and I am a job coach here at Downer's Grove South. And many of you probably don't know what a job coach does because until about three years ago, I had no idea what a job coach was myself. Um, so a job coach is someone that works with the multi-needs department. I'm in charge with one other person and one person higher than me as the vote coordinator. We take students in and out of the community all day long. So our day consists of being out driving one of the mini buses or minivans, taking students to places in the community that we do volunteer work for. And then um in return the kids are learning like basically what they're going to do later on in life, what jobs they might be able to hold, what they might
028be interested in doing. So we take them, most students, juniors and seniors go out twice a week. Uh sophomores go out, I'm sorry, sophomores stay in the school and do in school jobs and we don't work with freshmen because they're still getting acclimated with Downer South and with the high school. Um I have loved what I have done. This has been something that has been um very rewarding for me. The students are super appreciative. Um, as well as the staff and parents are always super welcoming and we're always looking for other people in the community area. If anybody knows of anyone willing to take us on for a couple of shifts sometime during the week, we'd be we'd love to do that. We just acquired the Dairy Queen on 75th and Woodward. So, we go
029there. Most of the time when we go out, we're in places when people are like opening businesses prior to them actually opening. We do low dose restaurant and we do all the salsa and preparation for them to open. Um, but I would love to continue to work here and I'm hoping that we can make something work out this year as well. I appreciate all of you and taking all the time that you guys do every month, every day, all of that. So, thank you guys. >> Thank you. Hello, good evening to everybody. Hello. >> Um, my name is Mariel Tolayo and I work as a EL pearl professional at Donald uh Grove North. Um, that being said, I actually have many roles I guess I can say. um because I am the only EL parah
030professional at Downer Scroll North and I go above and beyond every day that I come in to work and I am very um grateful for everybody giving me the opportunity to speak. Also, I've been very uh grateful having all my co-workers that I've worked with, including Maria, um Christine, they have also helped me help get what I need to help my students. Um, a lot of the things that I do is I do one-on-one um I go with the students um through the day in all seven periods. Meaning, uh right now, like for example, I go into their biology class. I sit with them. If they're struggling with translation or need any extra additional help, I sit there. Not only do I sit with them, but I personally look at the teachers um instructional um
031uh criteria to learn myself because if I don't learn with them, I cannot help them as well. Um I also translate some of their homework. I help the teachers. I answer phone calls when parents are um calling me about their academics or anything like that. um translating in parent teacher conferences. Um I've also been in the BPAC um committee. Um I volunteer for a lot of the stuff that goes around in our community to help these multilingual multilanguage uh culture um uh students. Um, I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to us and I am very um happy to be here and I hope I can stay here for a bit of a time. Um, I've only been here for a year and 3 months. It seems very long but hopefully
032it will be very long. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hello. Um, I'm Julie Whit Vanorney. I am the college and career count uh college and career center um administrative assistant. I live in the area. Um, I actually have two seniors at Downers Grove South who will be graduating this year. I help students in their college um and career and trade schools. My office is packed every single day with students coming in asking questions. I love it. Um I am very proud to be part of an administrative assistant um team with Katie. We lead monthly meetings with administrative assistants in Downers Grove South and we train them on anything from technology and ways to improve our jobs. And um Friday we have countywide and I was um very honored. I'm going to be hosting uh
033a like a little training for anybody for administrative assistance at Downer's Grove South. So, South and North can come over and get some training. So, I'm honored to be a part of that and thank you once again for all of you um and being part of our community. >> Thank you. >> All right, I think we got everybody right. Thank you all for coming out this evening. Once again, you're welcome to stick around for the whole meeting or uh for whatever amount of time you would like. >> So, moving uh on Julie, any other slips come in while >> No, sir. >> Okay. >> All right. We have uh just a couple of items for the board this evening. Uh first one is health life safety improvements. Uh Travis has this one. I just chopped
034up your mouth and threw it in there. >> That's great. Yeah, that sounds good. So, um, a couple weeks ago, actually on February 9th, we had our bid opening. So, if you remember, uh, going back to, um, actually two summers ago, coming up on two summers ago, when White did their started with their survey, were required every 10 years to go through a, um, an inspection, if you will, by by an architect, and they go through and they identify areas that we need to address, and you have 10 years to get those done. Um so we've gone through and we've talked about a lot of these um already. Actually we've talked about all of them uh all of the needed work that is uh available here. So um we had the bid openings out of
035the 11 bid packages uh nine uh we received bids for nine out of the 11. So the two that we didn't excuse me were steel and demolition. So, uh, because we didn't get those, White is working on getting three, uh, bids for each of those, and then we'll we'll bring that back uh, hopefully at our next meeting that we can have, uh, approval for those two areas. But for the nine other total, um, you can see that the total amount is just under $3.8 million. Um, if you remember, we, uh, have a bond for $4.5 million to to cover the cost of this. Um, and I also want to remind the board of a couple different things. If you remember, last spring, um, we approved amendments at both schools to have energy conservation and paving
036work done. Um, happy to report that that work looks like we're going to be about $69,000 under budget uh, for those projects. So that means that that's an additional $69,000 that's in fund 90 that we can use for other health life safety projects that that need to be done. Um that as well as if you remember when we sent that work last spring we tried to get solar approved for the ASC and for T99 which that did not get approved and that total was around $500,000. So we have about $550ish,000 in fund 90 that we don't have, if you will, like accounted for projects uh that we have built into uh this work is what we're planning on on doing. So we have more more than that $4.5 million that we had the bond for
037to get all of this all of this work done. So it's great that this came in at 3.8. Um we do have the initial or the additional steel and uh demolition bids to come in. Um we believe with those uh two things added as well as if you remember we had a 10% contingency that was approved by ISBY. Um as well as 10% for our architecture and engineering fees. um we believe when we consider all of those things that we are going to come in right at or under budget for all of that work uh to be done. So when we look at the steel work um this was additional work that we that the um architects did not identify when they did their inspections. Uh so as they were going through and I and
038working further they identified we have some uh additional welding that needs to be done. Why that matters is because that is where our rooftop units are. So as they were further investigating that, they determined we needed some additional structural work as well as some of the codes changed where we have additional anytime you touch anything, right? You have to bring it up to code and so there's additional structure that is needed for uh roof for the roof load for snow. Um which is interesting because we seem to get less snow now, but they increase the the snow load uh requirements there. So we are uh White has already submitted in uh to the state an amendment for that work to be done. That amount what they have in the amendment is about $270,000 uh to
039get all of the the structural work completed. Um, so at our next meeting, I'm going to talk further about that, what that's going to look like, and then we'll come back to uh ask the board to approve that amendment uh so that we can actually have that work done as well that will come out of our health life safety funds. So, if you remember there, this is a unique thing where each school has their own amendment and so you have to you have a budget, if you will, for each school. The great thing is North came in under budget because the pool work, the repairs did not come in as high as what we thought. The work doesn't have to be as extensive as we thought. South came in higher than what we thought. So,
040we can't just say, "Oh, we'll just go through and and add them up together and we're still under budget." You have to go through and uh each school with the amendment has to be at or under that budget. So that's why really we're looking at doing that additional amendment for the steel work so that we can get everything in line uh so that the project can be approved and we can utilize the our fund 90 uh for those things. >> Wait, so is the steel work at both schools or >> steel work is just at at South? Okay. Uh with what was identified? Yeah. So we have um 21 total rooftop units across the district. Uh there are seven at North and 14 at South. Um, so we did have two alternates uh for bid
041packages nine and 10. Uh, we're recommending that we accept both of those and that does ensure that we're able to do all 21 rooftops uh throughout this time. We structured it that way because we didn't know how they were going to come in, whether we were in fact going to be able to do all of the work. Um, but happy to report that that we can with some of this additional work that we need to do, but then we're not uh we're not looking down the road because we have to have all of them uh replaced in that 10-year time span. But we know it's not going to get any cheaper uh to replace those and we have more of a economy of scale, if you will, because of our total number of rooftop units.
042even if we were to just bid out the additional six that we have in the alternate, it would it would come in at a higher uh cost. The the final thing is uh for bid package 8, which was for our masonry, um after White met with all of our low bidders, uh they're recommending that we award the contract to Able Masonry because the original low bidder did not come in. Um >> bless you. >> God bless you. uh they were non-responsive due to material deviations that we had in the in the bid packages. So they're they're aware of that. Um but that's where uh they're recommending that we approve Ablemasonry for that. So any questions? Uh that's a lot of information. Um White's been great to work with. We had a good bid turnout. Um
043and we're happy where the where the numbers came in. So to to recap, so the funding for all of this is between the bond and and fund 90. We're kind of lumping the two. >> The bond is in fund 90 like those funds are in there, but we had additional funds in there from previous projects. >> Okay. >> So if you're um two summers ago when we did the galvanized piping at at North, that came in well under uh budget. So that's why we did the stuff last spring >> to try to utilize some of that that funding and we were able to get a lot of stuff done uh with lighting and with paving. Uh but there are additional funds that are in there uh plus budget with some of those things. >> Okay.
044>> Right. Any other questions for Travis? >> It's an action item to approve those later on this evening. >> Thanks Travis. >> You're welcome. Wait, sorry, one last question. So, we're approving everything later this evening or are we approving we're approving the things that you're still waiting on the >> So, we're we're approving the the nine out of those 11 uh >> so like the steel work and stuff that you're still and the >> steel work and and demolition >> demolition. Oh, later. Okay. So, tonight we're just voting on >> as well as the amendment, right? Because we we had the amendment uh about last Thursday late in the day. We didn't have enough time to get that turned around. >> Okay. >> Uh so we'll have the amendment uh as well for uh for
045South to be submitted to Iowa. Got it. Thanks. >> And we already checked with Isby on is there anything additional? We don't have to have any uh public hearings. We don't have to have anything because the money is already in in the fund. So we're not asking for additional revenue stream. >> We're just really asking permission to spend money the money that's there. >> Okay. Thanks. >> All right. Any other questions? All right. Uh, the next item for the night is up as a proposed action item. After we go through the discussion, the board can determine whether they want to take action tonight or move it to March. Administratively, we're comfortable with either way. Um, so, uh, we received two, uh, sets of feedback, one from staff, one from families. Uh I've provided the board
046and I've put in the public agenda an overview, a more in-depth overview than what I'm presenting uh tonight. Uh but when we look at the staff overview, we had 109 respondents and really supportive of the change. Most of the concerns that are in there are operational like how are we going to do this or what time will this happen or will where will that happen? Uh, and a lot of these things, as I mentioned to the board before, are things that the committee that's working on this have already talked through, but we haven't spent a lot of time like formalizing those operational things because I'm not going to take people's time to work on it if this is a no-go to move forward, right? So, we have a whole list of questions. Uh, we have
047a bunch of questions that came out of this that we've already isolated and are prepared to work on responding to. Um but this was just the the litmus test to see is there major opposition to this concept. And in this was a qualitative feedback. It was not quantitative. But in going through all of those responses, there's not a lot of opposition to the the structure here. Inside of there, I have here for you some of the key things of strength that came through that qualitative analysis and then the considerations that we have on the other side. These are all things that we would work to address in the next step uh should the board find this proposal uh to be suitable to move forward. Um many of these we already have solutions for. Uh we
048just didn't spell out those details in that overarching proposal. >> Is there anything in there that any board members would like to pull out at this point? So, the one thing that was pulled out in the more detailed notes, right, was some conflict with a 58. >> I'll get to that one with the later. Okay. Okay. Because I was going to say I would assume there >> that we do we cover. Okay. 58. All right. >> Coming soon. Okay. Just the scheduling logistics and workload. >> Yeah. Concern. Can you touch upon that >> briefly? Um the the current concern generally sits with uh staff members that have uh really a lot of AP uh type of students where um there's a lot of highly involved students and parents in what's going on and that has
049always been a challenge of scheduling that. Uh we think that this many of them want to come in for conferences. It's actually a frustration point for a lot of teachers because they're doing great, right? And uh there's there when we talk to families, they feel like it is a responsibility to come in at that point. So this is really about leveling that as to who needs to come in, why of course you know and you're going to see this in the family thing. If a parent if a if a family member wants to meet with a teacher, they can do that at any point, right? It doesn't have to happen on that one night, right? And as you saw from our interventions last at our last meeting, our teachers are frequently reaching out uh with
050progress and feedback and and how things are going. So I think some of this is just trying to see how it works through. There are concerns of that, you know, that that uh November conference that's really now tailored to transitions is a smaller window of time because we're doing more outside of that night. Uh teachers are concerned that it'll be the same people signing up and filling up those smaller window of time even faster, right? So, it's going to be a lot of our communicating to families how this should work, who should be looking to sign up, that it's okay if you're not coming, it's okay if you reached out at a different time, you know, if you feel like you have all the information you need, you don't, you know, don't look to sign
051up with all seven teachers, right? Um, so it's really just resetting those expectations. Did the staff talk about an idea? I know um with like rolling out windows of opportunity for parents that they want or feel the need to see more and then opening up windows later for parents that to your point we know they're doing well but they like to have that face-to-face contact. Have we talked about like rolling it out so that the the parents that we want to get into the school have more of an opportunity to get into the school in front of the teachers? >> Tried that historically. The challenge is is that students are scattered across multiple courses so that when you do release it that way, there's no way to just like release it so that they can
052sign up for one teacher and not all the teachers. So it kind of fills up anyway because a student is generally if they're struggling struggling with a single course. So what ends up happening is yes they sign up for the actually we have found that when we do offer early sign up people don't take advantage of it. They tend to wait for the last minute no matter what. Um but when we have done that early sign up and they do come in and sign up. They will sign up with the teacher if they sign up with the teacher they're struggling with. They get in there, but then they get in all of the other classes where they're being successful. So, the overall perception to teachers is I'm just seeing the kids that are doing well.
053Well, they signed up. They did they came, they may have come in and met with the one teacher that they're not doing well with, which is one of seven teachers, right? But the other six teachers that they see, they're doing doing fine in, right? So when you stack that up over a teacher's perception over a night of teacher conferences, the majority of the students that they see are doing well because the majority of our students are doing well. And what we also find is that the teacher in a in a class where a student is not performing well, those teachers are reaching out early, often frequently. So when the parent is given the opportunity to come in, they're not picking that teacher to come talk to because they've already talked to that teacher. They know
054how things are going, it's probably not going well. And if you're going to prioritize your time that night, that's not the teacher you're necessarily going to choose to go talk to face to face because you you've been dialoguing for weeks with that teacher. So, um, and if a student is failing multiple classes, you're already intervening with the counselor, and that's not a great night for a parent to sign up for. If your student's having a lot of struggles and is failing multiple classes, it's not a fun night for an adult to come in and hear over and over again that things aren't going well. Um, those families usually reach out to us in different ways. So, I don't know if that answers your question. It does. But I just Yeah. Just the idea that we're
055just making sure parents are able to get in when they need to. And we talked about that in the last meeting as well. >> Yeah. There's going to be a lot of outreach on our part of of helping parents understand, and you you'll see this in the family feedback is there's not a clear understanding that our teachers are standing by. Like if if you would like to reach out and have a conversation with the teacher, reach out. And our teachers contractually are required to make that connection and talk, but they love to talk to to parents about how things are going in their classroom. They they don't avoid it. I often hear the other way like a teacher's been reaching out to a family member multiple times and can't get a call back or response
056to a call or those kinds of things. So um it's just I think this is an opportunity to kind of reset that dialogue, communication, outreach norms and expectations of how things work and kind of move into a new era of how this will work to be more functional than performative. >> And can I add two two things related to that? So, we talked about this at our in our uh meeting when we talked about parent teacher conferences and we kind of debriefed on that and we did include at the IPR1 when we sent out the >> that's the progress reports um that in the messaging look if your kids are doing okay it's okay not to attend the the parent teacher conferences. Um, we had 37% of students that had an F, uh, the families
057attended a conference, which was higher than than what we've typically seen, and 26% of those that had a D, um, attended conferences. So, again, that's a that's a good better than what we thought number, right? But that is something we're still continuing to to work on for sure. >> But that I think that is going to be just we have to acknowledge that's going to be a hard behavior. And we're going to have to >> be at the ready to if it doesn't go as intended, how does it not become I know we're giving it a couple years, but how it doesn't out of the gate become >> blow up the whole model, right? Because >> it's going to be a lot of communication. >> Yeah. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Anything else on that list?
058>> All right. So, overall take takeaways from staff. You can see here's some of the themes and the questions that we'll be addressing in uh kind of a follow-up FAQ to staff as well as some of the logistical pieces that administratively we will turn around and work on. Well, not just I say administratively, but that's not just administrators. It's that teacher conference committee that's made up of administration and teachers. Um so we've pulled those out, but you can see the take takeaway at the bottom there, right? there's no fatal flaw or reason to pause. Um strong alignment with it. Uh they expect that we need some planning to do this and it should move forward. All right. So key takeaway from staff is move forward but we we still need you to spell out some
059details. Right? Which we knew, you know, we needed to do this before we did that, right? Then when we move to families, you can see we asked some uh qualitative and quantitative of families. We had 407 family respondents. 131 left left comments. And we'll dig into those comments in a second. But you can see here uh both the average rating in those top three boxes and the percentage that rated it a four or a five, they had an option of one to five. So pick those top two on the rating scale. Um so you can see the group that's neutral or negative in the changes is very low in comparison you know considering they had three options to choose from in that and two for the higher one. So, um, that's where we sit for
060that. And then if you dig into the open, uh, response to those 131 comments, you can see in here the things that they find strong. Um, you can see, you know, things around having more time to be in the class. uh those early conferences, it's just for some classes too early to get into that data and feedback. Remember with the teacher initiated, this creates a window where as teachers find information that they want to reach out about, good or bad, they'll do that in real time as it develops. And it changing this mindset for families like don't wait for that night that's on the calendar. like if you have concerns, reach out and we'll interact with you. Uh you can see the Thanksgiving week alignment. Um and then just like the limits of the current
061structure and the idea that this is a more modernized kind of way of going about communication with all the other communication tools we have now like online grades and video chats and all of these things to make it there. You can see over some of the concerns, right? Uh there's some people that don't want a virtual only for format. Um we talked about that the last time. Um a misunderstanding in I think in how it was presented that the only people that will be only time we'll be reaching out is when things are bad. Uh I don't think that will be the case. Uh I mean we have many classrooms where everything's good. So, in order for teachers to hit their requirement, they're going to have to be reaching out to students that are doing
062really well, right? To their families that are doing really well. Uh, curriculum night, there was uh like some parents that uh voice that they like watch walking their student schedule, but that's still something a parent could come in and do and walk through the building and follow their students schedule and see what it's like to walk the building. The whole building will be open to walk around. um instructional time near finals. Just that I I think this is also a misunderstanding of the idea that the only time they're going to hear from teachers would be Thanksgiving and that's not enough time to make an adjustment. Um obviously there will be outreach for the entire uh semester. Uh and then the idea of scheduling flexibility, we still heard from a few families that said, "Yes, great.
063You're going to change conferences. I'm still coming to all of them." So, it's still what we talked about earlier, changing that mindset of prioritize, pick the ones that you need to to talk to. Uh hopefully the the documented outreach and communication that happens up until that point in November will change some of those mindsets. And then you can see the district 58 thing that Cara mentioned earlier. It was raised in two ways. They're the only partner district that does not yet that still has a calendar that would have students in attendance the week of Thanksgiving. Um and uh there was some concerns raised about their first day of school being the same as our meet the teacher night. Um I had a conversation with Dr. Russell, the superintendent of district 58 about that. He said
064there's no events that evening in in district 58 and nothing that would overlap with our events that evening. Uh and it has happened before that their first day of school is also our curriculum night. So uh I don't know why that emerged as a concern amongst families. Um but I just want to acknowledge it was there and I did have a conversation with Dr. Russell and he doesn't see um uh a conflict because of those happening on the same day. So far as Thanksgiving goes, I have shared with him openly and often even over the development of this proposal that this could be a possibility and that he would be the one elementary school outlier. uh he understands that um there's been a longterm interest of 58.99 aligning their calendars over time and that's part
065of the reason for their referendum construction. So I can't speak on their behalf but I know that their vision long term would be to be aligned. Um >> so they are not aligned. I missed. So district 58 is not aligned. >> Never has. Never has been >> with the Thanksgiving. They >> Well, Thanksgiving has Yeah. >> So is in this plan do students in 58 are they off all of Thanksgiving? >> I can't speak for 58. >> Okay. But the other feeder ele >> The other ones are >> are all aligned be aligned with our other partner elementary districts. >> Their construction's still going on. So that could also have I mean >> oh yeah >> they their their year has been shifted for the past >> two years with beginning and ending. >> Got
066it. >> Once they're all done I know that there's a plan to look at their calendar in comparison to all of the other like us and the other 99 partners. I I can't speak to what they'll do but I know it is a priority of theirs. Can I I hate to ask you to go back but we kind of were going through the family stuff and I wanted to just maybe touch real quick back on >> with the teachers >> I had written down what kind of plan time do you have or do we have set aside for the teachers because this is a a shift and new learning and will there be time at the beginning of the school year because I know we had talked about that week is going to look different
067for when they're going to have different PD going on >> getting ready for the school year. Can you talk to that? >> Yeah. So there would be instead of three in service days at the beginning of the year, there would be two. And then we would shift some of the stuff on we do on those twos two day those three days currently uh into the first couple of weeks of the school year when our teachers have rotating uh professional learning time during the school day, right? And then we would put that third in service day into the week of Thanksgiving week. >> So as your as a plan is coming together for the different departments and what this might look like, then they will have time set aside specific to here's the agenda and what
068our expectations are so that >> we haven't built all that out yet, but yes, we acknowledge that there needs to be time for that. Okay. uh we're waiting for approval of the proposal to get to work on the actual model of what it will be. But the team and the principles have all acknowledged that uh you know the te the committee that's made of teachers and administrators and the principles are part of that committee all we all know that there needs to be time for expectations and planning and okay >> you know and modeling and whatifs for you know answering some of the like what ifs things go wrong type of thing. How do we handle that uh as we start up the next school year? But we haven't built out like the structure, the
069timing, the that kind of >> but as long as we know that there's >> it's a known that it needs to occur. >> Okay. >> Question for you, Hank. Yeah. >> Uh you know, you were saying some of the families really value walking the students schedule >> and obviously the earlier in the school year you can do that as a parent the better. So October is better than November for that perspective. Are there other opportunities earlier in the school year or beginning of the school year for parents to walk their child's schedule with >> that would be the August 27th date to meet the teacher night. Okay. So, um you know parents have walked that schedule before and you know they could still do that that evening, right? Um it's just the way we do
070it now. Everybody walks that schedule together. If that was an experience that they wanted to have to walk the building and see where their kids are going to each class and see what it's like to traverse the building, they could still choose to do that in the time that that evening and there'd still be people in the hallway to help them find their way around and and everything else. So, it' still be that August 27th night early in the school year where a family could still choose to use some of that time >> that evening. But if that isn't an experience that a family found valuable of like trying to run around and follow their kids schedule, then they could choose to structure that evening differently or, >> you know, just go to the teachers
071that they wanted to see or go meet them informally in like a large space or, you know, it's kind of a choose your own adventure as to what you as a family feel like you need out of that night rather than us determining every family needs to just follow their kids schedule. >> Got it. Cool. Can you just remind me how many staff do we have? I was just that we I see that there was 109 staff members that did this and I know this was a quick turnaround. >> So how many total staff were given the >> all of them? So you know all staff but generally teachers would be the ones commenting on this right. So about 350. >> Okay. And we had 109 responses. >> 109 responses. Now, you know, we have
07230 people on the committee itself, so I doubt that they filled out the survey, right? So, um, so it's higher number than that that are actually involved in it >> because that's only Yeah. If you'd think they'd want to be >> well, if they >> inputting their thoughts as well, >> it's wide open. So, I I can't speak to why they chose to or not to, but >> because this when did when did this survey go out? >> Couple of weeks ago, they had about 10 days, 12, almost two weeks to fill it out. >> Right. Because Yeah, we think we talked about it two weeks ago. >> Yeah. It went out the day after we talked about it and then I processed processed the data preliminarily last week and then re-updated the analysis for
073this this morning. >> Okay. Y. >> So, they were one day short of two weeks. >> Thanks. >> I have a quick question. >> Yeah. >> Um, it seems like something that's important to the families is the ability to meet teachers in person versus virtual. Um, >> can you talk about how that could work logistically? Is it a possibility that we do both virtual and in person? >> I think it is challenging to do it for that November night. We've tried a blend of that before and as I mentioned last time it didn't work well to have that blend on that night. Uh so the recommendation of the committee is to make that all virtual. If a parent wants to meet face tof face with a teacher, they could do it at any point. They
074can just request it and we schedule it and and find a time where they can meet. It doesn't have to happen on that night. uh they'll all have the opportunity to meet the teachers on meet the teacher night which is that August date and then anywhere in between there students that are struggling or outstanding and a a parent uh and a teacher reaches out at that point the parent could say I'd prefer to meet in person rather than a phone call or or a video chat and we could meet in person at that point. Um, so there there's always an opportunity. >> I think this is going to take a lot of reframing. You know, like we were saying, education to the families that we're looking at this more holistically, not just like this is
075your one night, your one chance. >> Your one night. Yeah. Yeah. And it we try to make it more in real time, like I said, less performative, more informative uh as we go through this. Right. And I yes at the beginning it may feel like we're limiting contact but I think over time as the culture and the structure changes people will actually find that it empowers people to reach out in real time as it's needed and should streamline dialogue more than limit dialogue. Right now, if you're a parent, you're just thinking, "Oh, I I missed my window. Like, I didn't get to te talk to that or I wish I would have talked about this with that teacher, and they might not understand that they could reach out at any point." And our teachers love
076to have a conversation, you know, and most of those conversations are are really quick. I mean, I'm old. I go back to the day where we didn't have email and we didn't have video chat and I had a lot of phone calls with parents and that was the how it worked. when a parent needed something, we talked on the phone and a 30 second, two-minute phone call, you could get a lot done in that that amount of time, right? And I think as a society, we've gone to email exchanges and quick text exchanges and we've kind of lost some of this. I think this breathes some life into actually dialoguing with one another back into the organization. It's not a one night performative. I run through the schedule and check I did it. It's like
077as we need to talk about a student's performance, we do that and that becomes is reintroduced as part of our culture. >> I think too we need the data to see how this is all going to play out, right? because we can make assumptions like oh it's this pool of parents that are going to I'm going to come no matter what to your point and is that the kids that are doing fine and could that be at a different time a year because it's not time sensitive it's not affecting so I think it will be I think everyone's acknowledging it's it's a risk and we have to watch it but it'll be >> um and I agree I just think even in the workplace that doing virtual and person it's a struggle I mean everywhere
078and I just think it makes it reduces the quality of everyone's experience when you try have too many. So whether we do it both ways at different times, but it's I mean it's a challenge. >> I think it's just helping families understand we're here for them. Yeah. >> And if if you want to talk, let's talk, you know, if you want to meet in person, let's meet in person, right? And uh and let's do that. I mean, if you when we look at the teachers comments, like there was a lot of them like, well, this is great because as long as we could like have a video chat from my house, I'm good, right? that we're already acknowledging like, well, if the time for me and the parent is 8:00 PM, is that okay if
079I do that from home, right? So, it's just kind of like establishing how this is going to work and how it might uh move going forward, right? So, all right. So, that's the list of the concerns from families. Here's kind of the overall themes, right? Um, so you can see in here it just district 58 and that alignment is of a concern and as I said I've had multiple conversations with Dr. Russell. He's well aware of it. Um, but district 58 would be the outlier from the district 99 larger community at this point. Um, and then that first day of school, right, which as I established has happened before and Dr. Russell doesn't anticipate any um conflict with that, right? So, uh really just in person, you know, making sure that families know how to
080get inerson access if they need it and making sure that there's clear communication. That will be the exercise next fall as we establish this as the new operating procedure should the board approve it. Uh and then we'll do another round of feedback, you know, afterwards and learn and get better. We're asking for two years of this, right? Permission to do it for two. We'll provide feedback after each round. Um, but to make sure that, okay, the first time, yeah, acknowledge it. It could be a little bumpy and we're changing some expectations and then we'll get feedback and make tweaks for the second round and then we'll come back and determine is this working or do we need to look at it differently. So, any other questions? >> Would you mind just a very high level
081just kind of summarizing what this what this conference night is going to look like? Um, and the the family initiated one. >> Yes. >> So, it'll be a 4-hour window. They'll sign up using the tools that they've used in the past, go in and select which teachers they would like to speak with. Um, then teachers will have a link that goes out for pulling uh to jump on those conference with families, which is what happens right now on the Friday of teacher conferences. So, we already do that model of virtual conferences. Currently, it's the Friday morning of conferences. So, that already happens right now. It's a shorter window of time because theoretically, we're reaching out, not theoretically, we will be our teachers will be required to be reaching out to families and talking to them
082in real time and reinforcing like, hey, we've checked in. Is everything good? Here's what I'm seeing. All of those kinds of things. I'm uh envisioning that we will be communicating to families like if you've already been dialoguing with your teacher, you probably don't need to check in at this time unless you're going to be talking about these things like the transition from first semester to second semester for your planning, post-secary planning. Those are really the reasons to be checking in at November because by then any student that's struggling we will have reached out uh as we demonstrated we did this year even without that expectation right um so we could have some legacy thoughts of teacher conferences where parents do hop on and try to sign up to see all seven teachers right especially this
083first time around but I think over time as we communicate and we reinforce we'll we'll see this level. >> And how long are the windows? Are they like >> They're six minutes. Seven minute window. >> Seven minute windows. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. >> So that's just that one Thursday night or one Thanksgiving week Monday night, right? There should >> And it's a 4 hour window. >> 4 hour window of time. >> Okay. >> Yeah. But there'll be a minimum of two-hour outreach from teachers for dialogues with f. That's the expectation here, right? So from when the first progress report goes out at end of September um through that week of Thanksgiving, every teacher is required a minimum of two hours of dialogue, phone, video chat in person with families regarding student performance, whether it be
084good or bad or the direction that a student is going in. All right. Um that's on top of the already expectations that we have around email or other outreach could be any format regarding attendance or grades. All right. Um so there's a lot of outreach that occurs from our teachers as you saw in the data from the last time we meet. This is just that dialogue. How's that occurring? And remember this adds another two hours of teacher initiated two-way dialogue second semester that has never existed in the district. Right? Once we hit in the past once we hit October and had teacher conferences there's no formal expectation other than what teachers do because it's their job of reaching out to families but there's not structured expectations like these would be for second semester that has
085never existed in the district. So you're collecting the data on this dialoguing through >> Infinite campus and that's me positive, negative, email, phone call, everything. >> Yep. Logging it. Yep. >> So there will be accountability for that to occur. All right. Any other questions? >> It's up to you, Don. Do you guys want to take action this evening or would you like to table it for March? And if we're tableabling it for March, I just like to know if you need time to think or if there's additional things you'd like for me to research and bring back. >> Is anyone not ready to to vote on this change? Does anyone need any more information before we vote on this tonight? Okay. >> All right. Thank you. And as we as we work through logistics, I'll
086keep the board updated. Uh if the board approves it tonight, obviously then as we work through the next set of FAQs and documentation of protocols and everything and we build this out further, I'll I'll update the board as we move along. >> And it's a two-year commitment on this year commitment. >> Yep. So, we get a year to run it and then adapt and change and get better and then another year to run it before we choose is this going to be our model moving forward or something something different. But at that point then if the board wanted to see us go back to more of a traditional model that would be the time to decide to do that. Helps us with calendaring and expectations and everything. All right. uh board representation on the parent
087teacher advisory committee. This is the committee that meets uh every year in the spring. It's focused on discipline, student handbook, topics of discussion over the years have been things like attendance tardies, cell phones, those kinds of things. Scott Woozer runs that. It is an official board meeting. We have an agenda and all of those things. Julie shows up and uh takes the minutes and and everything else out of that. So we need to know uh that's the proposed date 42726 and uh we need two board members uh to serve in that capacity. >> Yeah, I'd be willing to >> so we you get to decide. It looks like you have multiple volunteers. >> I'm going to uh Ken Ken is one. Uh he reached out to me. Um so I I definitely would like Ken
088to to join in that. Who else is interested? April. April, Courtney, and Mike. >> Oh, great. Thanks. >> Um, >> you could think about it. You don't have to decide tonight. Today was to g to to gather volunteers, not >> you can't have more than two because it violates, but isn't it technically a meeting? >> Okay. All right. >> It's a like a committee meeting. >> Okay. Got it. All right. >> We can arm wrestle. >> I'll beat Mike. >> Good problem there. >> What's that? >> We can arm wrestle. I'll take out my >> I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. >> Sorry. >> While they do that, I'll just go ahead and >> concede. You can go. >> Um there there are some upcoming things that the board
089members are going to be asked to to join another committee and I had had specifically thought of potentially April and Katie serving on those. Um but Mike could also serve on that too. Um, April, April, why don't you and Ken join and you guys can do the parent teacher advisory committee and Katie and Mike, I'll uh have a conversation with you about uh future committee opportunities. >> Sounds good. >> All right. Thank you both. Or thank you. >> Thanks for the interest. That's good. That's That's good. It's It's much better than the opposite. Good news is it comes around every year, so there'll be other opportunities. Uh foyer requests, we receive them, we respond to them, we fill them, they're posted on the website, too. >> All right. Consent agenda. Okay. Um before we vote
090on the consent agenda, is there any agenda item a board member would like to pull out of the consent agenda for further discussion? >> Hearing none, can I get a motion from the board of education to approve the consent agenda as presented, which includes item A, personnel report, leave of absence certified, appointment classified, transfer of position classified, B, personnel report, retirement administration resignation certified, retirement certified, retirement classified, resignation classified. Item C, January treasures treasures report and financial pages. Item D, student trip and item E, acceptance of donation, Dominic Retta. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Ken moves. Chris seconds. >> Thank you. Ken Dawson. >> I. >> Mr. Espinosa. >> I. >> April Fein. >> I. >> Michael Riskey. >> I. >> Cara Casten. >> I. >> Katie Courtourtney. >> I. >> And Don Rener.
091>> I. Motion carries. And thank you very much for the donation. Greatly appreciate it. Okay. Um, turning to item eight, recommendations for action. Can I get a motion from the board of education to approve the contracts for life safety work at North and South High in the aggre aggregate amount of 3,779,864 with an additional contingency allowance of up to 5% of the aggregate amount if necessary. >> So move second. >> Car moves. Mike seconds. >> Thank you. Cara Casten. >> Hi. >> Michael Riskey. >> Hi. >> Katie Courtourtney. >> Hi. >> Ken Dawson. >> Hi. >> Mr. Espininoza. >> Hi. >> April Fein. >> Hi. >> And Don Rener. >> I. Motion carries. >> And may I also get a motion from the board of education to approve the proposed restructuring of teacher conferences beginning
092with the 2026 27 school year for a minimum of two years as presented. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Chris moves. Ken seconds. >> Thank you. >> Chris Espinosa. >> I. >> Ken Dawson. >> Hi. >> April Fein. I >> Michael Riskey. >> I >> Casten. >> Hi, >> Katie Courtourtney. >> Hi. >> And Don Rener. >> I motion carries. >> Thank you. >> Item nine, any old business? >> No. >> Item 10, any new business? >> No, >> Julie. Uh, second reception of visitors. Do we have any slips? >> No, sir. >> Thank you. Um, communications and announcements. Um, Cara, can we get a report on lend? >> Are we not voting on that one, too? Is that were we supposed to? >> Uh, we did that. We We did that. We did that.
093Okay. Okay. Um, our next meeting is Friday. So, um, we will have an update after Friday's meeting. >> They're busy in Springfield. >> My whole week is sitting in on >> conversations around legislation, so Okay. >> Yeah. Do you Okay, that's your update. >> There's a lot going on. Yeah, there's a lot going on. >> Okay. Um, Chris, can we get a update on Sasset, please? Uh they have begun um recruiting for their 2027 uh school year. Um setting their strategic plan. Um I'm blanking on there was something else I was supposed to remember. >> It's been a long week already. Um any uh >> working on staffing and locations for next school year leases? >> Yes. Yeah, the leases were a topic of conversation primarily. Um >> yeah. >> Uh April Katie, any report
094on the ed at Foundation? >> Uh we met last week. Um there is some changing of the guard with the board as um Julia's stepping down as president. >> Um so there will be I believe to be hearing some new names and new um positions being filled. They also have a new secretary. Um, and we just had some good conversations around fundraising and different ways to get um, support to our students and um, just kind of overall like just talked about the differences that they've seen over the past few years with where help can be given and how more help is needed going forward. So, um, it was just really good to be able to to sit and talk and and hear some ideas and try to find ways to get that foundation maybe out
095into the community more. So, I look forward to seeing what what's to come. >> Thank you. >> Uh, Ken, any update from IASB? >> Nothing uh specific since our division meeting which was very very well and um Dr. Tony Sanders was there speaking and did a Q&A open-ended Q&A which was very wellreceived. Um there's definitely a commitment on part of the governor towards investing and continuing to invest in education. So we'll be waiting to see what comes out of Springfield and what those numbers look like going forward. >> Okay. And then uh small update on the um liaison between uh the village downers grove. Um just looking for opportunities to collaborate between our respective um districts. Um I I know right now the village is looking for um commissioning art projects within our community and
096um Mike Davenport reached out to me about whether or not any D99 students might be interested in doing that. I pass it on to Hank and Hank had already had a conversation with Dave Fieldman about potentially collaborating in that regard to potentially have some of our students participate in some of those uh public art expositions. So, um just continue to look for opportunities for us to collaborate on certain projects >> and I shared that information with our art our fine arts departments as well. You know, I would like to say our fine arts department, both schools are really phenomenal and the work that our students are creating is really amazing. So, anything that gives another venue to get them out into the community is fantastic. >> Okay. Uh upcoming board meetings. Um, our next meeting
097will be March 2nd, 2026 for a workshop meeting here at the ASC at 6:30 p.m. Followed later in the month for March 16th, 2026 for our monthly business meeting at 6:30 p.m. also here at the ASC. Um, our final item for business going into close session. Can I get a motion from the board of education to go into close session for open meetings act exception number one for personnel and open meetings act exception number two for collective negotiating matters. >> So moved. Second >> Ken moves April seconds. >> Ken Dawson. >> Hi. >> April Fein. >> Hi. >> Michael Riskey. >> Hi. >> Eric Castton. >> Hi. >> Katie Courtourtney. >> Hi. >> Chris Espinosa. >> I. >> And Dan Rener. >> I. Motion carries. And for the members of the public, the only action
098the board will be taking when we come out of close session will be to adjourn. >> Let's take a short break and we'll reconvene in about five minutes for close session.