001I hereby call to order this Committee of the whole meeting for Monday March 10th 2025 the time is 801 a will the clerk please call the role Aon Aaron Stone here Bonnie Kim here Alison pffas here Amy paling here Lisa Schneider faves John Caesar ready here an har here okay I seek a motion to approve the minutes of the February 10th 2025 Committee of the whole meeting I move to approve the minutes of the February 10th 2025 Committee of the whole meeting May I have a second second the motion has been made and seconded board members are there any comments errors or omissions to the minutes all members in favor of approving the minutes say yay motion carries we are starting off with facility development committee Mrs Kim thank you the loan summer 2026 project
002is the wjhs Lindo replacement project Mr boltim and Pat hosler director of operations and maintenance had an initial meeting with the construction team Cory will share information learn from that meeting with the board a summary of the alternate bids for this base bid will be discussed with the board including some alternate bids beyond what was discussed at the February meeting I think's gonna jump in there and Sh thank you you're welcome okay all right so last month when we talked about uh this project I shared that you know the cost estimating similar to to all the prior years have been done by Nicholas uh you know that's without any design work it's purly conceptual at that point um typically those estimates tend to be you know on the higher end is Nicholas is trying to
003provide us a number that you know once we get into the design work it's not going to go up if anything it should go down as they refine the design process um so shortly after we the board granted design um Pat and I met with memb of the construction team kind of walked through things uh laid out you know some of the alternates one of the things that I guess one of the first things I'd want to share is I know it's easy to draw a comparison to the Ramona project that we did just a few years ago but one of the things that they shared during that meeting was while both are windows the Windows system that was in place at Ramona was much simpler than what is in place at the Junior right
004um meaning that it's not as simple as you know if if Rona costx it's add you know x% for more classrooms at Junior High um then that's what the price will be it's it there's more things to consider um particularly in the areas where there's two stories um the window system runs from the top of the second floor all the way down to the bottom of the first floor um so there's just a little bit more involved we're actually doing some investigative work over over spring break to see exactly what that might entail but so that's like one thing to keep in mind as it relates to the basement then as you look through this whole sheet and you see the overall pricing you'll notice that is definitely higher than what we talked about in
005February but one of the things as as I walk through here and keep in mind is um but the thing the alternates that we're interested in finding out like firm pricing on are related except for the last one are related to the window replacement project if we're going to do this work now is the time we're going to have that we're going to have the appropriate trades on site we're already committing to do you know something three million plus um we should get some some quality bidding um I would expect these to come back one thing I do feel comfortable in saying is should we go through our entire process of you know reviewing at different design levels and budget checks if we were to get to the end and the total was say 6
006million or over I have a hard time seeing myself saying yeah let's do everything come September October when we know what those for members are but as we were talking internally each of these items um we feel are worth pursuing to find out what that bid is and in some of cases we feel like those numbers have a great to come down so I'll walk through the base bit as we talked about last month we placed the windows all throughout the only thing that we windows that would stay in place um would be the science Wing which is just a little over a decade old um there would also be in certain cases uh exterior doors and when I mean Windows like all through the front of the the main entrance to the Junior High
007where the curve front that would all get re replaced um nearly all the windows and door doors that are in place right now original to the building um so that that's been given us some significant challenges alternate 1A okay so the estimated cost is a million and a half this is one where when we sit down and think about what we're looking to accomplish with this with interior Renovations replacing interior Corridor doors and some aluminum storefront systems um I have I really struggle to get to the milliona and half this is where I want to see the design process play out um there's some things that we think are really valuable within this piece of work um and so this is one where while the initial price T is high I would like to go
008through the process to see what the final amounts are um then alternate 1B that is Renovations primarily in the lobby um mostly it's in the ceiling and Lighting area we have done similar sized um things at other schools similar square footage that were not anywhere near that cost estimate um you know maybe a fifth or sixth of that price um so this is another one where like if someone were to come back and say for this piece of work it was going to be 240,000 I would really I think I would struggle with with that amount um but I do want to go through the process to to find a firm number alternate two uh we'll talk more about in close session but it's some window enhancements to to a portion of the windows um
009the estimated cost is is 350,000 um that one probably is more in line with what what we would expect to see um alternate three so the junior high compared to some of the other buildings we have a lighter colored brick which can look a little faded one of the things that we learned doing the Ramona project is sometimes the window system overlaps just the window area and when they pull that off um it can make the existing brick area look pretty rough um and so we had actually done some power cleaning there the estimate that Nicholas gave us is $2 a square foot to do the entire exterior of the Junior High um there's working on what the total square footage of brick is it's not a number that we ever think about or talk
010about it's like it's just not embedded in our floor plans but as they're doing their due diligence over the next month um I expect them to firm up roughly what what that is and then the last one alternate four is an estimate to of 500 to 550 is to rethink our our kind of half circle here in front of the Junior High um you know something that we've talked internally um if if we feel like now we're already doing you know we've done a series of projects the Junior High um we're at the end of our five the sixe capital project list um you know we' like to have the design team take a look and see what they could do possibly extending that um um you know make that a longer bus lane get
011more cars off of Locust Avenue um and then there there certainly is some Safety and Security thoughts that we'll share at close session um you know the initial high level number 500,000 um you know I don't you know I'd love to see just what that what a firm design would look like and and what a price would it go down would it go up I you know sure we'll find out along the way but I think it's we felt like it was something worth exploring um so this is rely where we're at right now um that's what we'd like to pursue or at least give direction to design team to to try and draw up and and work our way through the the design and budget process um guess I'm happy to answer any questions
012or if the board I guess the main thing is before I after this meeting give more detailed direction to the design team I guess if there was anything that the board didn't want me to to pass along I want to know that now otherwise the way we've structured this you know thing that we've talked about for years was that base bid work replacing all the windows then everything else the five alternates um you know there's some valuable stuff in there plus it gives the board a lot of flexibility come say September board members any comments questions Mr Cesar you had a hand raised I have two questions um so are are we going to replace kind of light with light is it going to look like it does now or is like the windows yeah
013sorry the windows be more contemporary looking that's a great question so I'll explain what happened at Ramona so you know we gave them design Authority at Ramona and um they went and investigated looked at the structure and then they looked at like what type of windows were available um and they pre presented us after they had done their due diligence three or four different options um there's definitely different looks and feels based upon um you know the way the length of each classroom and how you want it to look um what you put up I think at I think at Ramona up top we put um do you know what that stuff goes up top yeah like oaklx supposedly the like it's it's maybe only like two feet but it's real long and narrow it
014catches light and then redistributes it better than just regular um um so like there's a lot of options and we sat internally similar to other projects and had to choose which which one some people F always feel more strongly about things and others are like we just get new you know so as far as like how that looks compared to what it is now um I'm sure it'll look different for sure yeah I mean once we narrow it down I I think last time they even they can usually provide some rendering like architectural rending so we can see what it might my second question yeah how many windows are there we have not ask for an individual account but it's yeah I would imagine I would imagine it's hundreds because usually for each class room
015um there are there's probably minimum three maybe up to like six different depending upon how many different sections in the framing they decide to go with any other questions just that really um I would think hope that maybe there will be some efficiencies in the new with the new windows as well with heating yeah so at the end of last week we sh shared like what we were working on with um our like shared sustainability just to let her know that like hey this is what we're looking at if you have any suggestions please let us know but one thing I will say even going back to the Ramona is like at least internally we knew that besides Ramona and Junior High's Windows giving the maintenance team problems and like staff within some of those
016classrooms is that we were going to gain like Heating and Cooling efficiencies the one thing I have never gotten an answer from is like is it 2% is it five or 10 nobody people seem to be hesitant to kind of go on the record with that but I do think like if you were to go up to like some of the ones that give us the biggest problem they are incredibly thin and now that we're Heating and Cooling at the junior high like there is going to be some Ben to um I had just had one question about um alternate 2 that says window enhancement security my understanding was that the Bas bit included security features when we first heard about it what was that a separate higher level of security right so what I
017like when I talked last week or last month the number I had shared in total was about 4.3 3.6 was the base bid and then in that I had in my there's roughly two alternat things that I was thinking about for an extra 700,000 alternate two was was one of those items okay thank you yes I wasn't here in the February comme the whole meeting but um I just wanted to say I think your plan of seeing how much we can get if it's competitive bidding prices go lower and we're doing it all at once seems like a good plan and it sounds like put breaks on it if it seems to high and so I just think it's a really good plan so I thank you I don't know how other people feel I
018think we're sounds like we're on board with going ahead with that okay thank you anything else Mrs Right thank you this would be the time I would turn it over to Mr Caesar ready for school Finance but I believe we don't have any so and Mr Schneider FES is not here today um so we're going to be talking about the English language arts curriculum Review Committee update under strategy am I right that I'm turning it over to Katie Lee sharing screen yes one of um the many curriculum committees that we are running this year is the English language art um I wanted to demonstrate to you by just this first slide uh the complexities of under this subject matter um not only do all of the content areas have content and skills that we address
019and learning standards that um are associated with it uh for English language arts we have the early literacy foundational skills that you've all heard about and I'm putting this into the presentation just so that it would be a consistent um view of the work that we've done over the past couple of years and the work that we plan to do for the next couple of years uh but when it comes to reading and writing and language and speaking and listening um there are many components that uh fit into this particular subject matter so to start as a review um uh curriculum reviews we base it on whether we have new learning standards that Illinois state board of education has adopted um any new mandates that are brought down um or guidance and uh whether there
020are some new approaches for instruction or research around that and then our particular District 39 data um these are the components of our curriculum review and as you've seen this before um but as you see the committee members are an integral part of this process um so at every turn there's either some professional learning that occurs or there's some asks of them to try materials react have students engage with the materials and so on before we uh proceed with the decision okay and again as a review this is the K2 English language arts the kindergarten through second grade has this additional strand what we call the early literacy skills and the foundational skills and and again you've seen this before uh what our priorities were so um one of the pieces data that helped us
021to determine this was our kindergarten first grade and second grade data around those early literacy skills and so we made some priorities to make sure that we have materials that the teachers need and also how to address the foundational skills with instruction and as you heard last time there's been progress in that area and our students are really responding to the resources and the teaching um that our that our teachers are engaging our students in and so this again is uh what was guiding our process at that time and these are the wonderful kind through second grade ELA curriculum Review Committee members that helped us with those particular priorities and this was our timeline so we are currently in the implementation of the foundational schools in the early ly skills and as I shared with
022you before in the red section at the bottom that this year we would have AKA English language arts frequently red that is what I'm now um so for a curriculum review cycle a new review typically initiates every six years so we we follow this pattern of a cycle and the last implementation year was 201617 just to give you a little context prior to that um the Illinois learning standards changed uh release of new standards happened we had had some districtwide professional development and then on top of that um our teachers had to learn about the standards what it meant what the shifts were then a curriculum review um commenced and it was actually a three-year review because of how much learning that needed um to happen at that time and once the committee was done
023the next school year which is the 201617 is when those resources and the new Lear learning standards were implemented um and so why 201617 are we starting an Ela appr this year which is the six year if you keep um in mind that we paused a lot of this work actually all of this work um during 2019 2020 2020 and 2021 um not only did the co pandemic happen but then the following years we were transitioning back uh you know the capacity of our staff to be part of this review process access was limited and we wanted to acknowledge that so we are actually without those two years um we've initiated at the six-year Mark like we typically do and again the guidance resources are the same um the Illinois comprehensive literacy plan was released
024our new literacy research that primarily focused on our early literacy foundational skills were there but there's also implications for our upper grades and so we wanted to make sure that we were fully respectful of that and then we also followed um the reading Le organization that they're the leaders of um some of this research that they've been behind so our committee priorities um of what we anticipate is this year we're looking at four curriculum materials and resources uh what that means is what materials will all of our students at each of the grade levels experience so that's our tier one or in the classroom for curriculum materials there are also supplemental materials because we often find as you saw in that list that that one resource will hit all of those topics well or in
025depth or to the level that our teachers and our students need and so there are some supplemental pieces um I can tell you that um there are many more vendors or or educational publishing companies that fall into this area this content area so there's many more um resources out there and we want to do our due diligence in making sure that we review all of them and consider them um and then what we anticipate 25 26 would be is preparation for implementation uh that would require professional learning uh for our teachers after we make a decision um and then um engaging them in again you know professional learning um we may also uh be allowed depending on how our process goes uh to find something maybe it's one of the supplemental sub areas to implement
026right away and so I'm happy to share that with you at the end of this year um but we're giving you an update okay and then again anticipation would be the 26 27 would be full implementation that means everything that we've adopted everything you know uh been prepared for a training and we consider that to be the first year that will guide when the next uh review may happen um so so as you can see we're trying to really maximize our time and be efficient and and finish this process in two years here are um our wonderful Army of of committee members I just can't um express enough uh overall the years and also this one in particular um how much our teachers are so willing to give their time and engage with us um
027there have been moments where you know we've sent out a a calendar of meeting dates and then we need to add a couple more and they're always willing to do that um and it really is um it's really a committee work where we taken their feedback quite a bit so you can see everyone who's involved on this screen so we started our kickoff meeting in October we typically do that just to get our teachers um acclimated to the new year and their students and really focus on that uh where we reviewed the scope of the work and the purpose we engaged our um our committee in some learning about the Illinois comprehensive literacy plan the components of it anything that was changed uh November we continued that um including uh looking at the reading these
028curriculum evaluation guidelines because all three of those resources helped us create a uh criteria we always asked our members to go back and you know give updates to the rest of their colleagues at their grade level or their department and then they uh in turn gather feedback um and we revie it at the Committees um to help understand where their mind set is or mind TR is using all of that information in January we created a rubric created one for kindergarten through fifth grade and six through 8th grade because the standard shift at that age um and based on those priorities uh we reviewed many programs many many programs um and if there were any that did not align to research or um did not uh match with the Illinois comprehensive literacy plan guidance um
029that was put aside uh and then we brought forth all the ones that had alignment and components to those guidance those guidance documents and we created a rubric um and then using that rubric and time so what we've been doing in February March is really digging in deep into to all of those resources including having um the some of the resources come or some of the vendors and the publishing companies come send a representative and present um a little bit more in depth answer any and all questions that our teachers have have um so then you'll notice on the screen that April May and June haven't occurred yet and so we put in green uh what we anticipate um those months to be um so what we want to do is is if we are
030able to uh determine a Core Curriculum then we also need to then see where the gaps so if this Core Curriculum is not strong in um language meaning addressing conventions and vocabulary then we would look for supplemental resource for that so that work is happening behind the scenes with us but we haven't put it in front of the Comm members yet and then May June um we'd love to again um ask our teachers to try materials so they would you know pick the the best you know out of the resources that are kind of rising to the top they would pick a lesson they would implement the lesson they would reflect on how the students engage um with it also sometimes by doing that process you realize oh they say there's this component um or
031the assessment is really aligned in the teachers that find maybe not so much um and or wow that really hit the mark and so we really value those types of Reflections and real handson experience with the resources um and that's that's where we're at so in 25 26 uh would be year two um and I think that what we could do potentially is Implement certain portions of the program make making sure that uh training is really U planned out in advance and maybe spent first um semester doing that but then um continue some curriculum work uh some of the things that we experience with curriculum in identifying some gaps it may be based on our student needs uh we need better word study um they have the capacity for higher and more rigor in those
032areas so uh we are very open to first year of implementation uh being a reflective years and I happy to answer any questions to have board members any questions comments L's heart thank you sure um I was just curious you mentioned early in the presentation that there was some I think did the kindergarten level that was really important or several years ago several years ago um we looked at our early literacy skills so all of the AS Plus um data that we shared with you and so what we wanted to is enhance that because we felt that our students could do um much better and what is what was happening so we internally reflected maybe it's a lack of resources or our teachers uh needed more information um so when we dug in deep it
033was really the early literacy um skills and so again that new research that talked about how important phonics and F awareness and all of those um skills were in the primaries we really took a step back and said okay well how are students doing it can they do better and we determined yes that they could and so what our teachers didn't have were some of the resources that you noticed on the screen the decodable skills uh what we also um realized is we didn't have a consistent tier one practice across all of our kindergarten classrooms and therefore um identifying finding you FL as our resource um has really shown benefits as you heard at the last one any other board members I I'll just say thank you I mean it's clear this is extraordinarily thoughtful
034and thorough and intentional and it's important so thank you for letting us know all the hard work that you and your team are doing we appreciate it else okay I think that's it for strategy um we moving on this would be an opportunity for the public or anyone in the audience to address the board there anyone who wants to address the bo okay then we're moving on to Old business is there any old business is there any new business then I seek a motion to adjourn to Executive session to discuss special education individual student matters specific personnel and Collective negotiations and school building Safety and Security move to adjourn to Executive session to discuss colletive negotiating matters specific Personnel individual student matters and security procedures may I have a second second motion has been been
035made seconded will the clerk please call the role Alison P yes Amy paling yes John C ready yes an har yes B Kim yes Aon Stone yes motion carries we are nowed to Executive session and the time is 8:32 a.m.