001I hereby call to order the regular meeting for the board of education for wilmet Public Schools District 39 this Monday February 24th 2025 will the clerk please call the role Aon Stone here JN Cesar ready Ann Hart here Bonnie Kim here Alison pffas here Amy baing Lisa Schneider fa we are all very excited that principal Becky Litman is here with some Central foxes to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance good evening we're honored to be here tonight as you're aware all of our schools are working with our foundation teams to strengthen the and enhance the culture and climate within our school communities at Central we've developed four guiding principles of success to help Foster an environment where students are encouraged to be safe kind responsible and respectful we want to build a strong Central
002Community our teachers have been incredibly creative and engaging in how they bring these values to life and celebrate them with students tonight we're excited to have our PE teachers Mr Kevin awesome and Mr Patrick Mack here to share some of the wonderful ways these principles are incorporated into PE classes we've also brought some of our fourth grade leaders along to showcase how they're leading by example thank you Mrs lman we're happy to be here today we've been working on incorporating our principles of success in our PE class by working on being kind safe respectful and responsible on Fridays each week we like to recognize three to four students at each grade level to take the fox shot if the students get to attempt the fox shot they have a certificate that Mr Mack is holding
003and if they make the fox shot they receive another certificate along with getting to sign their name on our Fox shot board and their picture outside our gymnasium bulon board we're very honored to be here and are happy to share some of our success successes hi my name is Audrey thank you for inviting us here tonight we are excited to be here hi my name is WTH we work hard to be kind safe responsible and respectful foxes every day hi my name is Mick we do our best to be kind by using nice words hi my name is Harrison some nice words we like to use our good game that was awesome please and thank you hi my name is Kennedy we are always safe in our actions while playing games hi my name is
004Henrik we are saved by following the rules and thinking before we act hi my name is Annie we are responsible for our learning in class by being present each day hi my name is Aiden we are present by trying our best listening and helping others have fun hi my name is Maggie we are respectful to our environment every day hi my name is Graham We show Respect by following directions picking up after ourselves and taking care of our equipment hi my name is James and being kind safe responsible and respectful is not just for foxes but legends too hi my name is Bobby we are excited to invite Dr kisy and any interested board member to come and try the fox shot the shot anybody come on up you oh this is exciting look at
005the turnout we have here we have stickers we that was fabulous all right Miss Stone oh you got a tab nice fantastic oh we're getting a lot of board members tapping the fox shot but not quite going in oh so close that was such great effort thank you all right Dr cremascoli a lot of these people are on the okay here we go not close oh so close so close thank you all for your effort and for participating we appreciate it foxes let's show a round of applause to everyone who participated uh thank you for participating with us now please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for
006all let's give our foxes another round of [Applause] applause thank you so much for coming to our meeting and explaining all the things you're trying to do to make your school a better environment and I'm really excited about the fox shot I feel like I need to make one and put it in my basement and just you know practice up practice up but um so you're the best part of our meeting it's all downhill from here so thank you for being here and then if you can meet Mr Krauss in the hallway he has little parting gifts for you some some merchandise so thank you so much for than you for coming out so much great thank you I would like to direct our attention oh wait just a second I think I would like
007to direct your attention to the lovely artwork behind me Jamie burnard's Central Elementary School artists work is displayed this month first graders crafted expressive pump depicting different facial expressions and beautiful printed leaves using rubber stamps second graders created collages using their fine motor skills and Illustrated their favorite spots in wilmet the students also learned about the Paris Paralympics and the incredible athletes and how to use lines to represent movement and action third graders designed pumpkins inspired by kyoi kazum cusa and painted Chicago City stap Chicago cityscapes focusing on the cloudgate AKA The Bean sculpture by Anish kapor fourth graders created mixed media collages inspired by wilets Victorian architecture and custom-designed candy themed shoes I seek a motion to approve the minutes of the January 27th 2025 Board of Education regular and executive session meetings I
008move to approve the minutes of the January 27th 2025 minutes of the Board of Education regular and executive session meetings may I have a second second board members the motion has been made and seconded are there any comments errors or omissions to the minutes okay seeing none will the clerk please call the role an Hart yes Bonnie Kim yes Alison pffas yes Lisa Schneider fabes yes Aaron Stone yes motion carries by roll call vote this is an opportunity for the public to address the board on any topic are there any audience members who would like to speak at this time okay seeing none we will move on to our board reports we're first going to hear our committee reports facility development Mrs Kim thank you the facility development committee met on February 10th 2025 as
009part of the committee of the whole during the meeting Mr baltim provided the board with an update on planning for summer 2026 construction projects d39 saw some success in the summer 2025 work bidding um process by starting the design phase in March last year for the summer 2026 work the district is hoping to start that process one month earlier to capitalize on the favorable bidding environment the focus of this work is to replace nearly all of the windows at wjhs plus some doors a combination of interior and exterior the current highlevel estimate for the summer 2025 project is 4.3 million which includes the base bid plus two alternate alternates one of the alternates would provide for potential security enhancements the benefit of structuring the bidding process to include alternates is that it provides the board
010with the most flexibility come project approval time alternates can be rejected without impacting the approval of the base bid the board gave authority to begin encour ing architectural design costs for the summer 2026 project thank you we're moving on to school Finance Mr Caesar ready could not be here tonight so Dr kmas SC is gonna give his report instead you I'm happy to do so and um I think we'll be hearing a little bit about this later on this evening um but the school finance committee also met on February 10th 20125 as part of the committee of the whole during this meeting Mr boltim provided a review of the will at School District 39 FIS fiscal year 2024 audit reports um Baker Tilly is scheduled to be here this evening to present those results um
011so I will simply highlight that uh d39 completed the FY 2024 audit and ended with a 52.7 fund balance in the operating funds which compares to 50.9% in the prior year and um we will be reviewing doing that just a little bit later this evening but also um at the school finance committee um was presented for review the wixie FY 2024 audit reports noting no issues during the audit so um we're really proud of the work that's been accomplished there and we'll hear a little bit more about that in just a bit all right thank you moving on to strategy committee Mrs Schneider fabes uh the strategy committee also met on February 10th as part of during this meeting the board received an exciting update on the development and planning for day the report included
012a review of the committee project list the recommended day kindergarten curul and the kindergarten report day kindergarten committee used foundation for lifelong learning and outlining the platform2 all right thank you we're moving on to Liaison reports the community Review Committee or CRC Mrs Kim thank you I had um the pleasure of representing the board this month at the CRC meeting um and along with uh Dr kis scy gave an update on um the board's um highlights and um was able to be a bit of a fly on the wall and watch as they were um as the group uh were um working on um the uh the uh project for this year and seems like they're moving a pace so it's really great a great evening thank you and then the wilmet village intergovernmental working
013group Mrs Kim and Mrs Schneider faes am I correct in understanding that you're scheduled to meet later this week on Thursday so the no new report okay thank you and then we have our datat or District strategic advisory team Mrs pathless yep uh the the district uh strategic advisory team met last Thursday morning on February 20th purpose of the meeting was to provide um number preview of theid report including an update on action sets and progress boards ppis that report will be today that's all okay all right we're gonna kick it right back to you for iasb right um I just wanted to notify everybody that I just handed out this the I Constitution statement so you can take a look at that um in addition the north Vision meeting is set for March 4th
0146 o' [Music] I was looking at the website today and uh there are a number of online webinars and there is one on March 6 at noon called School Finance for board members and this one on how schools generate manage Revenue all right thank you for that and we'll complete the hatrick with um your legislative update um so the legislative update on February 19th um governor deliver his combined budget and State of the State address to a joint session of the House and Senate um the governor proposed a balance budget for the seven in the budget address he reinforces commitment to public education in Illinois um he also highlighted this was interesting to me he highlighted Illinois's continued academic progress um saying that eth grade reading scores ranked second in the nation and math for
015ranked fifth um and in addition that high school graduation rates in Illinois have reached 14 High um also in his speech uh Governor pritsker introduced an initiative aimed at Banning cell phones during classroom instructions in P 12 school he cited concerns over distractions learning disruptions and a rise in cyber as reasons for the proposal as expected were light because of the budget us week so that's the entire update right thank you we are moving on to information items Dr kmma scy thank you just a few um under written communication the board did not receive any written Communications to report this month um but in terms of our administrative announcements uh our our d39 faculty and staff participated in the township wide Institute day on Friday February 14th it was a wonderful day of learning and
016collaboration for many several people mentioned that it was nice to have the opportunity to collaborate with other staff across the township at Institute day and to have such a wide variety of sessions from which to choose I want to thank and acknowledge the many individuals who gave of their time and talents to help make this day possible uh we're especially grateful to the planning committee which consisted of representatives from each of our Township districts and was led by Katherine wing of Glenco School District and our very own Katie Lee from our school district here um and thank you also to the teachers and staff and administrators from District 39 who volunteered to present at a session or serve on a panel and conferences are coming up our elementary conferences um Elementary Spring parent teacher conferences
017these are for prek through fourth grade families are approaching these conferences are held Thursday March 20th and Friday March 21st immediately preceding spring break registration for the Elementary Spring conferences was uh shared with families last week and we are encouraging families to sign up soon to secure the most convenient appointments available for their schedule um as always parent teacher conferences are a wonderful opportunity to connect and nurture that parent teacher partnership and support of our students we're really grateful for all of the extra time that our teachers put in to ensure that these conferences are productive and meaningful as well as parents for aside time to to join us at those conferences uh in terms of Freedom of Information Act request the district did not have any Foya requests to process this month all right
018and I think we're ready now for our strategic plan updates so I am proud to present this report and invite our gold champions to um join in this presentation on behalf of our entire um district and administrative team um the board will remember that um in September we submitted our action steps for this school year and the board approved those um we've been working on those throughout the year and this report represents the midyear update so at this time we're excited to share some progress some of this will be reminders because we've been updating the board on the progress we've made throughout especially during commit the whole meetings um but this kind of brings everything together and gives a an update in the middle of the year um of the progress we've made and some
019of the kpi updates as well we did as um Allison shared we um reviewed this with our district strategic advisory team um just last week and they provided us with some valuable feedback as well um and with that I will introduce Katie Lee thank you um this the gold Champions are happy to present this information and this progress update on behalf of all of the administrators all the principles assistant principles including um the world champions so we'll get started here um the Strategic plan we just always like to um give a notd to our one pager so that everyone understands that this is available for everyone in our community to access um that identifies the goals and the strategies we always like to extend the thanks um to the district strategic advisory team who um
020really do spend time looking at the presentation as a whole and give us the feedback um that's important for us whether it's to adjust the information that we uh present or even the way we present um the information to the community so thank you very much and to start we will start with Goal one student achievement and growth ensuring a differentiated education that provides a strong Foundation of rigorous academic learning um you'll see on the left the outcome indicators those are the um key performance indicators that we will um share with you how we're doing as far as progress in the middle of the Year and that we are going to continue to work on towards the end of the year um and then on the right side you will see strategy indicators that we
021will also provide some updates because we monitor those as well um in general if you notice these are the high priority action steps for this year um for this goal and um you will see that all of them are either completed or ongoing um as we continue the work throughout the okay so the first slide is looking at our early literacy this is a representation of the subtest for assessments that we use with our kindergarten and first graders in order to assess and evaluate how they're progressing throughout the year this information is used by the school-based teams and classroom teachers in order to make determinations about what students might need a little extra help what concepts might need some additional teaching or instruction and what students might need some enrichment and this is sort of
022is the the foundational information that our teachers use in order to plan their instruction and the next slide shows the the overall summary of that information and goes into our kpi or key performance indicator for early literacy and our our key performance indicator is by the end of the school year that 80% of our kindergarten first graders will be scoring average or above on those assessments and as you can see we started in the fall this year with 77% of our students were scoring at that average or above so and at this point 84% are so we are in really good shape this is exciting um we've really making nice progress we've changed some of our curriculum and some of the ways that we're assessing and intervening with students and we're really seeing great payoffs
023so it's really exciting I can't wait to see what happens in the spring the next one is the early numeracy and in this in the early numeracy we look again at how our students are doing on those individual subtests and that is used to help inform our instruction as well as the students that need either enrichment or intervention and then slide after that is our key performance indicator you can see how much progress the students have made this year between fall in which 77% of our students were scoring for this one it's 85 we want we're looking for 85% of our students to be scoring average or above in the fall it was 77% right now we're at 88% so again we have a new math curriculum we're we're using this year um we're really
024using the data that we're collecting and it's it's really exciting and paying off for our students um I want to Echo everything that uh Kristen just mentioned about these assessments as being an indicator we also value what is happening in the classroom so those are other indicators of success for our students and growth um this this um slide that you see here shares with you the 2024 2025 reading achievement data for this past winter um and so I thought I would take a moment to explain the colors that you see in the act graph because we haven't done that in a while um the blue uh is 80 first percentile to 99th percentile the green 61st percentile to 80th percentile yellow means that um it's 41st percentile to 60th percentile and the Orange is 21
025percentile to the 40th percentile and the red being one through the 20th per the reason I wanted to point that out is as we were working on our key pering indicators um we set a rigorous goal uh we wanted to see high achievement you know High average achievement divide into quintiles rather than four tiles and so that was something um that we thought was very important and as you notice on the right side where it's framed in red is our current data for winter as we monitor our progress toward the spring and we have in the blue um um is the percent of students who achieve at the 81st to 99 percentile nationally and so if you were to look at um just the numbers that are listed there 48% 48% and so on that's
026a good number of our students falling in the top 20 20 percentile range um so when we say we're High achieving this is what our notd is towards um when you look at the green with the high average and that is taking into consideration 61st to 99th percentile nationally um we're looking at a range of all the grades from 71 to 78% of our students falling within that range for reading and then also 71 to about 82% falling in that range for math our students are doing very well um as far as their achievement is concerned um and then when we look at this aggregate which is what our key performance indicator is based on we'll take all of the students and what you notice and what we share is the years over time 2021
027was the year that our um fiveyear strategic plan was created um and implemented therefore those are baselines and then we show you every year of the Strategic plan after that so if I can draw your attention to the the last um um stacked column for each one so for reading achievement um our reading kpi our progress update right now is that our goal is 4% or less in the low which is that red range um and currently it is at 4% and the goal is 50% or more in the high which is that blue and currently it's in our 45% uh for math the Chie again the most right um stacked graph will tell you where we are as far as winter 2025 progress update the goal is 4% or less in low and the
028current is 2% and the goal is 55% or more in high and our current is 52% it's also significant to note that these are all represented of different students every single year a collection of them but when we look at this across time you can look for patterns and trends for any uh significant dips or l for the next um slide this is the same but we are talking about growth so when we talk about um you know based on our fall achievement to Winter how have our students grown over time again we look for fall the spring but this slide represents um the growth so as you recall in the previous slides we mentioned how many of our students help um are in the high achievement range um and then based on what their
029growth Target would be for the winter this is the distribution for high high average average low average and low growth in the very same way that I explained to you for the achievement and so um you'll see across the grades for 2425 in reading and then below that is now um this is the aggregate slide similar to the achievement um again drawing your attention to the last stacked column for each one our reading kpi winter progress update is that our goal is 15% or less in the low and currently it's at 23% our goal is um 25% or more in high and our current is 24% for math growth um again that right stack the most right stacked graph um the goal is 15% % or less in low and the current is 21% and
030the goal is 30% or more in high and our current is 25% again this is a way for us to check in to see what our progress will be and what we can do until spring I'm going to pause here because the next slide is an additional view of what we do on the level that Kristen was talking about where our teams will look try to see where our students fall Within These these ranges and so um achievement we're doing great uh really for our students we are focused on how are they growing how can we help how can we differentiate our instruction in order to um to promote that and what we wonder um during this time is well look at the 20 you know for the reading growth if you look at the
03124th 24% and the 23% respectively um for the blue and the red we wonder what is uh what profile of a student falls in those ranges and so when you look at the reading growth and the math growth I'm going to start with reading um I am taking the Stacked graph that you see the 2425 and offering you a view of it here on this slide so only for this year 24% you can see there's an arrow off to a table and then you'll see the 23% off to the table what we're wondering when we um dig deeper so this is an example of how you can dig deeper we're wondering which levels of achievement have that high growth that 81 to 99 percentile high growth and what we're hoping for and it's and it's
032what we see that we see a distribution of all different achievement levels what we want is to see that we want to see high achieving students the high average average low average low to be growing at that High um percentile range and so we see that we also see the same distribution um for the low the 23% what are the different achievement levels in the reading grow and so a few stands out I think one point of pride is that we have very few in our lowest achievement who are achieving at the lowest growth and I think that's something to be really proud of um in all the efforts that we've been working on um I think when we look at second and third and fourth grade please know that we have four elementary schools
033so that number is a distribution um but there are some grade levels that we could see and look at um you know how are our students achieving at the different uh levels of achievement how how well are they growing and then to intervene next in that data so we wanted to give you a glimpse into how we dig into this data we don't just share it with you and then leave it alone we will look and see um you know who are these students how can we help what decisions do we need to make okay and this is the same information but for Math and so I won't go through the whole long explanation um but again the same observations that I shared with you about reading Ro I would also say for a question
034about the growth are you comparing the growth from Winter from to fall or from Winter to Winter oh fall to winter right so fall of the beginning of this year to Winter okay then at the end of the year then it's comparing winter to spring or fall to spring fall to Spring okay yeah we use the winter that's a great question um we use winter as our check-in Point um and then we'll notice what the fall to Spring growth is um and that's what our kpis are based on I just one question bis um so when you say fall is that the first day of school or is it Midway through the fall yes so um our we have assessment windows we call them window spans of time about a couple of weeks um but
035we set them a little bit into the school year so that our students can adjust so we're talking September and then winter is around January and then fall uh sorry spring would be around May yes agree anything else um as you may recall I noted or I noted um some strategy indicators and goal setting has been a strategy indicator for helping our students set goals confer with um teachers and so we collect data this is our semester one data for this current year our um classroom teachers of kindergarten through fourth grade we survey them um but then for the grades fifth through eth students we survey the students so it's really interesting the difference between you know um the What We Gather from our teachers and how the five through eight students perceive their you
036know activity and goal setting so we were hoping for more responses from the students for the total responses um but the academic goal types have been 87% identified by them and then for our elementary we've also increased in our academic um goal types there the students are doing a really great job and the teachers have really helped a lot with this um so now that we're into four years of our strategic plan I also thought this view might be helpful to you um we first started collecting this information winter of 23 24 and so you will see spring 23 24 and then winter of 2425 which is current so percentage setting goals the percentage increasing for academic and then also um conferring about their goals for both K4 and 5ate um another strategy indicator is
037how well we do in meeting the needs of our staff as far as professional learning and so I offer you a breakdown of the different types of learning um environments that we provide and then there's an overview so this one is Institute days so that's when we gather everyone together um this past winter as um Dr KY mentioned was our Township and so we don't have that data specifically broken down yet um but we do have the beginning of the year and then a all and so on average we have a 4.1 rating and we're trying to get at least 4.5 again a rigorous goal um what we do also is break down by the group so that we know which to Target and to improve um one thing we know for sure is anytime
038um we District 39 designs and delivers or brings very um specific uh PD for specific audiences we do very well um and so it is very targeted and it's for a specific reason so for example you've heard a lot about the foundations teams um our new staff orientation is really targeted and differentiated for them and our administrators and instructional coaches and coordinators had a two-day event over the summer and so our average rating so far has been a 4.7 which has meant that at least 4 .5 um rating this slide I won't go over but it's just the data over time um again we started collecting this in 22 23 and so next year will be the final year to see if we can need it at every level of um of professional learning and
039training and the great um moving on to goal two this is our supportive Community goal um that focuses on social emot um it's just like U with Goal one you'll see on the left hand side there there are outcome indicators and I'll be giving you overview of some of these things we' reviewed them earlier this year but reminding you those as well as some updates on our strategy um these are the high priority action steps that are taking place this year um uh the majority of them are focused on uh seal committee work and they are ongoing um we look forward to updating um some of those later in the year and hopefully they will be completed by that time a couple of ones of note that are really essentially completed are the social emotional
040learning curriculum implementation we have implemented that 58 the ongoing implementation people are still reviewing checking in M year and then the last bullet point there the tier two Ander for buildings that's been shared by our mtss te yeah so um we are also foundations is continuing with our multi-year process um and in agreement and working on developing our behavioral interventions identifying increasing climate um identifying um disciplinary responses and helping students understand the rules across the buildings this is our last year of formal work with safe and civil schools so our teams are continuing at this point we've got three more sessions or two more sessions planned this year with them um I'm just going to take you briefly through um a review of our fall strength based assessment we look at the Baseline data that
041We Gather in the fall and then we do another assessment um in the spring around the same time as um our map assessment so around May um and that students the either cell web or thees um as a reminder um for our cell web e that's a kindergarten third grade and we're looking at the second two columns um increasing average and above average which are the two lighter colors in green um in Emotion recognition and social perspective taking they're currently at 84 um for the Le again the second two colums is what we're looking at um the understanding others and social problem solving so we are currently at 93% for understanding others and 94% for social problem solvings for a slight increase based on our targeted SEO or seal lesson um over the course of
042the year in those areas um this is just uh the mesh competencies uh the percentages favorable for um those areas um but and then uh the next slide just has sixth through eth grade um again those were presented in the fall after our first um our Baseline data Gathering um what we really focus on is on the next slide we have the support areas and um our kpi is looking to increase the percentage uh favorable on uh s of beling so right now it's at 72% favorable feeling a positive sense of belonging we want to um by 3% and then in six through eth grade in the same area we're looking to increase from 67% we'll also be taking a look at that school that with our um csci well which is on the next
043slide um so as you might recall we moved uh last year to the comprehensive School climate inventory for students staff and families um if you are a parent of the district you may have gotten an email about that recently um as we are currently in our um survey window but we are we looked at the five Essentials data that we were collecting and transferred that to the student data and so looking at increasing our student reported scores in the areas now measured by the csci so um as we look at that um you can see how those correlate with the csci we'll be looking at improving that for this right column um after this year's Administration so things like peer relationships Online safety social emotional learning respect for diversity we are already in the positive
044column for all of those but we want to continue to improve this is how it looks on the dashboard so you can see all of those individual um individual areas and where the scores are reported that's accessible to everybody in the community so um if you're taking the the survey now um you can see how we use that information to then Target different areas in the schools uh such as um rules and norms and the work that our foundation team is doing slide you'll see um some other items like sense of social emotional security um and that plays into a lot of the work that we've been doing around upstander lessons targeted upstander opportunities for students the last slide respect for diversity right in there you can think about our themes our monthly themes that
045we celebrate across the district that we this year so a lot of the things that we've been doing have been direct results of this information that we have and again we're in our assessment window that closes um actually during Spring Break um so we have a lot of our staff has taken it or are planning to take it in the next full days um and then um our students are taking it starting this week through March 21st depending on and I shared a little bit already about foundations but just so you know the the steps that we're working on right now are looking at um Behavior interventions bullying or some of the modules that they're working through as well as developing sustainability practices so that's one of the most important things is that as we
046end our formal work with the F with safe and civil schools that we continue to have teams that have ways to onboard new staff members it's a lot of work for them so the goal is to have staff members be on it for about two years and then rotate off but we want to make sure that we have really strong teams that can continue the work over time and they're also again always addressing School climate and working on that so it's exciting work too really and finally just an update on our extracurriculars we always like to celebrate these um but some really exciting things we have at high Crest we've increased our average attendance at Club so we have 31 offerings from first semester we've added to that second semester um and our average attendance
047is students for Club so we we're getting a lot of kids on a daily basis um in a lot of these different areas and at the Junior High um 27 Club offerings is a huge increase from last year so 13 13 Club offerings at seventh grade and 14 at 8 grade so we're really excited to see that as well just lots of opportunities schol all right moving on to goal three this is our professional Learning Community the adults in schools much of the data in goal three is often presented in the fall so some of this will be review and I'll try to move through it pretty quickly there's our our outcome indicators and our strategy indicators LED there those not changed one of our kpi outcome indicators looks at teacher retention so you'll recall
048that we look at the end of September each year to determine who is still on staff um one question that came up during our strategy meeting last week was is it every employee or do they need to be in the same position and we went back and looked and um while very few of our employees actually move positions we do look at at it within a category so if we have a pair of professional working as a par professional last year are they still in that same role so that is um that was one question that came out of our conversation last week you then look continue to look at through our exit interviews or our Google form which essentially asks the same questions why are our staff leaving us when they choose to leave
049so these are typically the categories we look at again one of the questions that came up in our conversation last week was where would retirement fall and generally that under the other category and that does vary quite a bit from year to year this re last this talks a little bit about what Kelly shared regarding five essential information and our shift to csci this information was shared with the for at a committee of a whole meeting earlier this fall you can see in the next slide sort of that cross walk between what is um what was measured on the five Essentials and what are we looking at in terms of the cfci that's our initial Baseline data from Spring of 2021 St where we land on the dash in terms of our performance we're obviously
050looking to see an increase or Improvement in these specific areas the difference between what Kelly shared and what we're sharing here is that this is what our staff will report to us and we'll look to see another meure we've been looking at over the course of the Strategic plan is how often we're pulling our pair of professionals from the work that they're hired to do to be substitutes within our scores this came out and how to sta the absences you can see some nice Improvement not only have we built up um or have built up our substitute pool we've had to we've been able to fill our professional so we had to pull less from that you can see we're off to a good start so next kpi talks about staff absences and this you've
051heard us talk about over the course of the Strategic plan continues to be an area we're looking at specifically both should say for license staff as well as our non-li staff so our support staff employees as well as teaching and LIC we're holding pretty steady with our license staff we see it's a bit of an increase trending a little bit in the wrong direction but not significantly so whereas with our support non-licensed or support staff change upward so what we've been doing is starting to try and dig in to look at specific trends for staff members perhaps who are continuing to have High absence rates we have been collecting data relative to race and ethnicity and conversations related to that over the course of several years now we started in the fall of 22 and
052continu to measure each spring and if you look at the first and last column in each of those assessment periods you'll see a nice trend more conversations happening among staff members and feeling confid in being able to have conversations with each other asked an open-ended question about you how can we promote more cultural competency and culturally responsive teaching these were some suggestions offered by our staff members continue to look in at opportunities able to likely you'll recall from our deib task force the last couple years we had pretty action step forward as a result of studying work that we've done and what I can share with you is that we've had some important conversations with our administrative team and work looking at the rubrics the questions that we're asking sure that it's communicating the information
053that is important to us but also seing that information so we spent a lot of time reviewing the questions that we ask our entire process making sure the steps of the process align with the work and information that is important to us as an organization and so we spent several meetings through the course of early winter and even we're not quite done we have work to do but it's been good conversations relative to changes that we're seeking and questions we're asking of employes we'll also system managing job advertisement and job applications and that offers a lot of ability to customize the information for family Partnerships so our high priority action steps for this year first one being to increase academic assessment reports allow online attendant submission provide historical report card access and power score par
054portal so this is on going only because we just didn't get a chance to review the report card template that was created with uh cni but it has been created so the new uh format is is done we just need approval so that way at the end of the school year it can be used in error portal which then going forward will allow for historical access right now we just display a web based report card but these reports will stay in there for parents to go back and download it View and download at their convenience so that would be going forward at the end of this year and then we need to have a discussion of the digital sign off piece which is embedded in that report Creator um so the current thought is that
055we would have some type of sign off just so we have some data to know how many parents received it and then maybe we need to touch base with uh to make sure that they back receive the work um the online uh attendance submission was completed so in the parent uh portal uh you can go in and click on attendance Monitor and submit uh your child's attendance right from the parent portal which uh we've heard anecdotally is is very convenient uh because right now either people are our parents are either emailing the office or they're calling and leaving the voicemail uh for our school offices but uh they can log into the portal and knock it out without any deep conversations with anyone which I believe is what people like about it it's just it's
056just what it is it's the dates the reason and maybe a little bit of description in case our School nurses need to follow up with those par the second bullet point here organize and categorize videos on the district YouTube channel so as you know we've gotten to a point where we have a lot of content and this has been completed so uh not now but when you get a chance go to the district's uh YouTube channel it's there's a link on the website and you'll see it looks a lot more cleaned up uh refresh and uh the equivalent to like a folder that you put files in YouTube calls and playlists so we organized and created some playlists so board meetings now are uh in a playlist for each school year so if I wanted
057to go back and view a board meeting you can find that year and find the videos there or anything related to our strategic plan those videos are in that playlist and the list of playlists will continue to grow as time goes on but right now it's a it's a nice clean look and your first time visiting the YouTube channel you'll also get one of our introductory uh strap plan videos that kind of shows who we are as an organization there's not a huge amount of customization you can do with YouTube so what you see now is pretty much we're tapped out as what you can do but a lot easier to find contents now for our residents third bullet point research the concept of a spring open house for incoming Fifth and seventh grade students
058this one's ongoing um so we've started the discussions with our 58 administrative team as far as the feasibility of getting our parents and students in earlier we know there was a some positive feedback about the concept of this by our parents we can then get our families and students uh familiar with buildings and field questions a lot earlier as well so uh those discussions are being had right and the fourth item is the uh parent education events regarding the benefits of free play um as you may recall we did the let's play events uh in conjunction with the alliance for for Alliance for Early Childhood um and those went over fairly well we did each of the four elementaries as well as high highest uh and then April 9th uh our parent at event for
059the month of April is Jesse art um how to how play helps a kids brain grow so she's done a uh Ted X talk um on the benefits of play so we're lucky to have her present to our parents this will be targeted to our most youngest um families but it's again a nod to the work that that CRC did as far as the benefits of repl so really hit that hard this this all right goal five is the stewardship of resources here is our kpis U maintain our financial profile score our ranking within the referendum group and and to plan over a long period of time for our long-term capital projects and then on the right hand side we have our shf indicators all right so we have a a couple of updated kpis
060um first one is fiscal year 24 audit being complete we've ear Financial recognition 22nd year in a row um then the second one is now that we know what the fiscal year 24 operating fund balance is um we can definitively say that uh that we're at 52.2% fund balance and then the next item up on our previously planned construction projects within the Strategic plan um board approved the summer 25 uh project over at the Junior High get those last remaining dozen or so classrooms uh fitted with AC this upcoming summer and then relative to the scheduling that we've been looking at five grade in January there was an update at committee as a whole and we have made some final recommendations CH master we're happy to answer any questions if you have any more thank
061you so much board members any comments or questions um thank you so much um to all of the members of the team for um all of your work it's so exciting um and it's it's just really amazing that like how much work you know goes into this on top of you know your primary goal of like teaching our kids right is to um to look at this and to analyze and to see how you can do better so thank you other board members and I was going to say wow as well um it's it's so much work and every time we go through these updates I am just so grateful for all of the constituents that were involved in the work putting the Strategic plan together um the goals are clear and meaningful um but
062also just the framework then um you know that gives us the ability to kind of clearly reference back and monitor and assess um has been incredible and you guys have just been it's so thoroughly and well presented and there are so many winds that I was kind of circling as I went through it and it's very clear where we're continuing to work so thank you very much for all of that transparency and I just can't believe we're nearing the end of it like um that to go through 26 how did we get here but um anyway just very grateful to have it and grateful for all the work um that goes into um the updates and presentations so thanks right thank you any other board members this is pathless um I Echo both B and
063an and thanking you for all of your hard work I know it's I know it's a lot I can tell it's a lot and I I agree with an also i' love to see that you can kind of see it over time really helpful from a data perspective understand things and I just had two quick little questions um for the for the goals that the kids are are making um are they encouraged to do both academic and nonacademic goals or are do they do both or do they do one or the other or how does that work you it depends on um they have choices they have choices what we try to encourage is the academic piece for this particular kpi um you know intended for goal one student achievement and growth um but many
064of our um classroom teachers at the younger levels they might do a class goal for Behavior or uh Community you know sens commun so that wouldn't be necessarily etive but we find that those contribute to the success of the students in learning and so we just wanted to make sure that we were again transparent in that you know most of the goals will fall under the core academic areas um however we do have students or classes that choose a behavior or an goal and so we wanted to note that uh for the purpose is of what our strategy indicator was for um we are striving for those academic goals and that's why I was pointing out the increase of that yeah I like having both kind of goals so that makes sense um my second
065and I guess final question was about um The Faculty staff absences I I know that we've talked about this before and I know that sort of a broader bigger problem and I'm just wondering if it continues to be a broader bigger problem out in the big world and not just at9 and yet it is something that we are spending do and not only here in our district but in all of my collaborations that's I will say on that I I was just surprised because I it I think the initial slide showed that PA Pros were being pulled less often so I thought oh good this is going to be good news but really what I'm hearing is we've hired more PA pros and our substitute pool is maybe a little stronger so that's the reason
066not because we're seeing less absences from teachers well in the substitute pulling the paros is current to this year whereas the absence dat next year so maybe it's a positive indicator right okay across everything but it is one of the things that we're starting to really look at is that we need to continue to evaluate how we can adjust better support staff attendance but we also need to mitigate the impact of that so looking at some indicators let know how that is playing out within our schools both those are important you any other board members yeah yes so I wanted to hear from each of the goals what did you wish that you knew before you started the work back in year one um and what are you most proud of so far I can
067start I guess we use sure uh you know I'd have to say I I think the lesson learned or or point of reflection was when we looked at as a strategic you know plan team we looked at past data um none of us I think were experts in well what is a reasonable goal to try to strive for um and so I think that's something I would reflect on for next time you know how do we set a goal of 50% or 45% you know what is rigorous but yet attainable um what's reasonable all of those things and I think there's probably experts that can help with that whereas we just wanted to do better um and we thought based on past data we like Hey we're going to go for that 30% you know
068or we want to go for the 50% um but when I sit back and reflect on that's 81 to 99th percentile of our students we wanted at 50% which again we're trying and we're close you know in some areas um but I wonder if that was reasonable I guess that's my wondering um I think the proudest um moment for me throughout this whole process has been the collaborative effort and I'm speaking I'm gonna I'm obviously speaking about all of them but goal one in particular um all hands on Deb from the moment we talked about uh the strategies year-to year the development of the mtss building teams the the work that the principles are doing having these conversations at their uh School levels with not just teams of teachers but individual teachers it's just been
069um really rewarding to see the fruit of that so you go from concept to you know implementation and you can see the growth over time um and I'm like I think that's the best the adjustments with curriculum yes you know the the reflections on instruction yes but the data you know is showing um continued success and then also some spikes of improvement and so I think ultimately all of this work that we've done the past four years has just been really exciting because of the collaborative nature I would Echo that I think that we have as a team and as the district really come together to really focus on all of the different aspects of the Strategic plan from social emotional learning Behavior academics along with staff climate I mean f schal responsibility it sort
070of touches every single area of of functioning in a school district and I think in some ways that's the most exciting and proudest part and also kind of the most daunting because we have we have addressed every single little corner um I'm also really excited about about all the things that have gone into seeing the progress that we've made there are so many things that we we couldn't possibly talk about every single one of them here but every piece and part that people have had in this has made a difference and a positive difference for our students it's been really exciting work and I feel I feel like we've done really great stuff and that as a district it's it's the par professionals it's the teachers it's the students it's our principles everybody has a
071hand in this I think um thinking about what Katie is talking about with respect to the goals I think there was a lot of kind of guesswork that went into that especially with oural and that sense of belonging measuring that um so hindsights 2020 and I think um learning more about that has been um really impactful for me and I think our teams especially at the five level um but the work that um we have joined together to do and lead and when I we like our principles too of my other colleagues back there um has been really exciting and then seeing our teachers to um engage in this work in a different way I think about this longterm plan as giving them a direction and um kind of an anchor for what they do
072every day and if I go in front of them and say oh this is strategic plan to um they they actually that is and I would challenge you that before this this strategic plan to ask teachers what was actually a princi goal here not they would be able to address that so I think it speaks to the collaborative approach and speaks to just the meaningfulness of this work for every I agree what it's been said I think we come from an back to prior to this strategic plan where we were developing essentially a different plan every year I appreciate the fiveyear Outlook and and as we started the fiveyear process there was a lot of work to do there still is a lot of work to do but as we get closer to the end
073of this the progress is evident and the tasks are much more specific at the end of is kind of where we started with this broad sort of unknown in year one it's it's kind of funnel down and we have a few more things to tackle and reconsider what our goals are for the next five years that has helped Focus I think I would and also Foster the collaboration I'm gonna point out one thing that I really liked in this process and that is the exit interview process it's not something engaged in know it's a very specific thing but I do think it's been one of the most meaningful outcomes especially for me personally but I think also for us as an organiz here I I don't want to I don't want to repeat anything that
074uh somebody else has already said but uh just in general a full-blown uh strategic planning process like this helped organize the work that we were doing like we were likely to do a lot of this work but the hyperfocused plan transparent plan that helped you guys to understand the work that was being done or constituents or parents um we would hear little pieces of what we needed to fix or attend to over here over here and this allowed for it to have a have put together in some kind of meaningful way and and the ability to do it over a multi- year phas in instead of just focusing on that one year so it'll be really interesting to see what the next strap plan will bring because we've attended to a lot of the comments
075that have been made Through The Years um in a good way so um it'll be interesting to see what that process brings but no the it's been a good process where's last um so the only thing I would have liked to have had going into this I'll never have and that is I would love to have known um like like things on the financial side like CPI or teacher contracts is it like when I'm going to at the at the beginning of this going to the board and saying hey we're going to do this or do that I would feel even more comfortable than I did but the one thing that um I think is is really good is essentially like the administration of board for all the large projects that we did in this
076cycle essentially called our shot and said we're doing this and if you were to compare that fiveyear period over probably just about any other fiveyear per period in the last probably 30 years um it's not like it was the least amount of projects that we did it was it was probably near the top or at the top so and like we were able to do all that and yet we never had to compromise any of our like benchmarks or goals financially to do it and like where we're sitting now and when we finished 20126 like we'll still be in a solid position to like jump into that next set of whatever we decide is going to come next so I think that's something I would take away from oh I love all these Reflections right
077what I hear is that it felt good it was hard work but the look back feels good um Dr what are your what did you wish you going in you were brand new for the most part pretty pretty pretty new and what are you most proud of um so I think that when we started we knew there was a lot of work ahead of us um and I think that um that I don't think we fully realized all of the organization and reporting that would be necessary it's been a lot of work in that regard but I think the good parts of that have been the celebrations that have come from being able to really acknowledge and appreciate all the work that everyone throughout the district has put in to help help us achieve the
078goals and I think um I am most proud of how much we've really been able to accomplish I think that there's so often that you set out a plan and you think well it'd be really nice if we were able to to do some of that um and I think in this plan we've not only accomplished a lot of what we set out to do but we've also strengthened our collaboration and our culture and our leadership throughout um and that I think is is prettyy impressive and I've been very proud of of what we've been able to accomplish but more importantly that we've been able to do it together with the input and guidance and support of so many throughout our district and all I love that and and I just want to say is
079the elder statesan here in terms of board uh members andology um that right this we didn't have strategic before so this is our first strateg and it's of all those pieces what you guys all described is it it went down and required everybody to shift kind of how they work and what they focus on and the reporting is like as a pain as it might have been right documents change which allows for the celebration and and I have to say as a board member um coming with the update on a routine basis means that I know more about what is happening in District 39 than I ever did and um as board members now we can't say we don't understand don't know um and that's kind of powerful and um also excited so I just
080hats off to you in a in a very large way for for getting this done and to you for leading but it requires leadership all thank you thank you any other board members thank you that was impactful um I'm wondering before we move on to our prodct reports if we could take about a minut all right so we're ready to move on okay thank you so much we are moving on with our annual business I believe we have an auditor from Baker Tilly here to give a presentation or two yeah all right so um Anna Wiis who senior manager at Baker til is gonna give a brief presentation on both the d39 and wixie audits that they recently completed that's okay everyone can hear me okay sound yes okay Cory um I understand you're gonna
081be switching the slides y okay um good evening uh it's nice to meet everyone uh my name is Anna wasw I am a senior manager uh from Baker Tilly I have been involved with the district's audit for a number of years years um working closely with Corey and the business office so the fiscal year 24 audit is is complete our audit opinions were issued on January 15 um this audit presentation won't um I won't focus as much on the numbers but mainly talk about the different reports that were issued and the opinions that were issued with those reports so the main um deliverable that we provided is the annual comprehensive financial report that's basically the district's financial statements um we have also issued a regulatory basis report the AFR two reports that relate to the
082federal funding that's this consol Consolidated year- end financial report and single audit of the district's major federal program in accordance with the uniform guidance and lastly we have also issued the report on internal control over financial reporting and other matters okay and happy to report that all of these were um UNM modified opinions clean opinions um this is the highest level of assurance that you can receive from your auditor and it states that U financial statements are free from material misstatements so no findings clean opinions um everything went well with the audit next SL so this is um extracted from the financial statements page 18 and 19 kind of a broader picture of the fund balances um modified AC acral base is uh fund balances for each fund are presented on the bottom and the
083net change in each fund is presented on the third line from the bottom overall there was a deficit of $6.3 million that mainly related to the capital projects and the spent in the capital projects fund um so just a slide from the no disclosure for talks about the transfers that took place in the um from the operations of Maintenance fund into the Deb service fund fund there were two main transfers one related to the movement of funding from the operations and maintenance fund into Deb service and then the other one was just funding for the capital projects related um funding one notable item from the AFR is the district profile score which was already mentioned the district continues to receive a score of 4.0 which is the highest level and the district is um in
084the highest category which is called recognition um so every time a district expends more than $750,000 in federal expenditures it's subject to the single audit um we tested one program for the single audit this was the idea cluster program the opinion was clean and we is should an un modified audit opinion okay and so report on internal control why while we are performing an audit of the financial statements we also look at The District's internal controls we noted no matters to report and no instances of non-compliance overall very clean audit okay and we also issued an audit of the special education agreement um also noted no findings um and no compliance matters so again very positive results from from the other audit as well do anyone have any questions thank you yeah thank you so
085much board members any questions or comments this is Schneider faes great job yeah thank you Corey and and The Bu office um good job Cory but you know great [Laughter] job anyone else yes thank you all right thank you it's good news great thank you so much yes thank you so much I think we're ready to move on to board policy review yes we have several policies up for second reading that's Dr uh there was a question at the first reading about the AED policy and what our requirements were as a district relative to the shared space when we have the park district in our buildings and so we are what I can say is that the policy language is accurate so what you're approving tonight is in fact accurate we're in discussion currently with
086board's attorney about our practices and how we might um consider changing or tweaking our practices based on than that changes were made during the first reading last month okay board members anything going through this P that you've noticed that you didn't notice before okay all right this would be an opportunity for the public to address the board seeing no public here we will move on to our action items and the consent agenda are there any items that the board would like pulled from the ENT agenda okay seeing none Mrs Hart please proceed with the Motions I move to approve the Personnel report dated February 24th 2025 I mov to accept the fiscal year 2024 annual Financial audit and comprehensive annual financial report for wilmet public schools as presented by Baker Tilly us LLP of Oakbrook
087Illinois I move to accept the fiscal year 2024 annual Financial audit for the wilmat community special education agreement as presented by Baker Tilly us LLP of Oakbrook Illinois I moveed to approve a second and final reading of Board of Education policies to 105 ethics and gift Ban two colon 110 qualifications term and duties of board officer ERS two colon 1 120 board member development 4on 30 revenue and Investments 4 col 60 purchases and contracts 4 colon 150 facility management and building programs fouron 170 safety 5 colon10 equal employment opportunity and minority recruitment fiveon 20 workplace harassment prohibited 5on 90 abused and neglected child reporting 5 colon1 120 employee ethics code of professional conduct and conflict of interest fiveon 125 acceptable use of Technology five colon 230 maintaining student discipline 6 colon 135 accelerated placement 7
088colon10 equal educational opportunities 7 colon one0 Health eye and dental examinations immunizations and exclusion of students 780 prevention of in response to bullying intimidation and harassment and 72000 suspension procedures I move to approve the accounts payable for bills listed between January 28th 2025 and February 24th 2025 in the following amounts educational fund $185,100 37 onm fund $1,437 2 Transportation $ 29,5 3949 capital projects 163,00 619 for a total all funds January 28th 2025 and February 24th 2025 in the following amounts educational fund 1,157 4543 onm fund 91,4 1966 debt Services $475 Transportation $355 188 toward $407 64 total all funds 1,289 3291 may have a second second the motion has been made and seconded would the clerk please call the role Alison pfas yes Lisa Schneider faes yes Bonnie kin yes Aaron Stone yes and
089Har yes the Y have it the motion carries we are moving on to conference items is there any old business is there any new business is there any good and Welfare I just have one quick thing I maybe it won't be that quick it'll be a medium amount of quick um you like that so I wasn't at the committee of the whole because I was um home sick and I just wanted to say a few words about how excited I am that Kelly Jackson is going to be filling Katie Lee's very big shoes in her new role and at the risk of making both of us feel a little old I was thinking about just how much you've done in the district I have friends at church who are now in their 30s who had
090you as a Spanish teacher in the district and talked about how great you were at that and I just think about all the hard work you did as or continue to do as principal and um you know all the work you do on CRC all you the work you do as a gold Champion just across the board it's just you know it's it's inspiring and it's exciting and I'm excited for your new role so congrats anybody else any more good and Welfare okay and I seek a motion to adjourn to Executive session to discuss Collective negotiations special education individual student matters and specific Personnel discussion of minut it's lawfully closed move to adjourn to Executive session to discuss individual student matters specific Personnel Collective negotiating matters and discussion of closed meeting minutes may I have
091a second second motion having been made and seconded will the clerk please call the role Ann Hart yes Bonnie King yes Alison pfas yes Lisa shider faes yes John C Aaron Stone yes motion carries we are now adjourned to Executive session and the time is 8:38 p.m.