001I hereby call to order this Committee of the whole meeting for Tuesday January 17 2023 the time is 801 am will the clerk please call the roll Amy paling here John's he's ready Ann Hart here Bonnie Kim here Frank panzica here Lisa Schneider faves here Aaron Stone I seek a motion to approve the minutes of the December 5th 2022 Committee of the whole and executive session meetings I moved to approve the minutes of the Monday December 5th committed the whole and executive committee meeting minutes may I have a second the motion has been made in seconded board members are there any comments errors or omissions two minutes hey uh may we chancy's ready uh yes anhart yes Bonnie Kim yes Frank panzika yes Lisa Schneider fabes yes apparently Amy paling yes motion carries so we
002do not have any facility development items today so we'll begin with school Finance Mr cesaretti thank you president Bailey I'm looking over at the person who actually knows what's going on here so um but I think we're talking about student bees and um a bunch of calendar resolution and then the bond issues that we've been talking about Charlie all right thanks all right so each year the board approves uh several different student fees today we have a couple different things we wanted to share with the board that we're looking for approval to come next Monday the first item is the keep 39 program the recommendation is to keep the the hold the fee study again for the 23-24 school year and the other item is relates to our summer programming Kristen doolish your thoughts yeah
003so last summer we used some of our Esser funds to offset the review and reinforcement tuition and had a larger participation based on that and so we would like to do that again this summer and see whether we continue to have that higher level of participation we still have Esser funds that we can utilize to offset that um we'd like to keep the enrichment fees the same not change those at this point and then I think we'd like to do a slight increase to the transportation fees because um they did not we that was the one area that really doesn't come close to breaking even any questions yeah what's it cost so we would be looking at spending about twenty seven thousand dollars to offset the fees for the review and reinforcement so those are
004the eligible students who demonstrate academic need we still have about I'm I would have to look it back through it but we hadn't it yeah yeah and how many how many so we went from about 38 to 40 attendance of those students that were recommended in previous years was kind of the average up to I think 80 last year wow so holy smokes and we're not sure whether it was the change in fees or the fact that we were sort of coming off of coven so we'd like to we'd like to do another year of it and then be able to evaluate whether it it see if we continue to have that larger number of participants spent yeah I just want to reiterate that I mean I think annually we've looked at how we can
005get those percentages up because once you identify someone that need 40 is I mean that's what they choose but that's a much smaller number than we'd like so hopefully they'll get in the pattern um some of that probably was covet if it is fees it's I think it's been worthwhile if it's that fees then we still need to keep working on that obviously but 80 it is where we'd like it to be every year right that's great thank you have you seen a difference um in the fall or is that just too difficult to assess so we we have tried to sort of evaluate that but it is you have to pull out all of the individual students in order to look at their performance from Spring to Fall um so we will continue to
006monitor that to see if we see any bump this year but it is a tremendous data set that we have to sort of cull through in order to get that information great everybody's we're good okay the second item is all right okay um so the the keep we're gonna try to keep the recommendations and make it the same um but if I recall correctly since we've gotten feedback on this um we're gonna take a deep dive at some point yeah yeah the target is for next month hopefully we'll have okay everything ready the idea would be that we would be able to share with the board what the exact costs were for all the construction for the four schools and then look at the first couple of years of operation see what the actual expenses
007were what are the actual revenues and that at least from my perspective should start to give us a feel for like where we're heading and you know at least give the board information on how long it might take to pay back excellent thank you okay I think we're done with that okay all right so the second item is just the board next Monday the board approving a resolution directing the administration to start working on the fiscal year 24 budget so included for the board members was the short resolution that the board will be asked to vote on plus just kind of a calendar very similar to the previous years where over the next several months the administrative team will start to work on developing the budget then come May in June we'll have some first
008looks at it and then at our August 20 August board meeting is when we have the board approve hold public hearing and approve the the fiscal year 24 budget so um out of a procedural thing but I just want to let the board know that we'll be asking for that vote I'm coming next Monday so there's I don't know is this the same pretty much as last year yeah very similar okay yeah there are no comments okay then the last thing is so yes we have talked about the the bond issuance that'll be needed to to fund the construction projects this coming summer one of the things that this is a bit of a procedural step for next Monday um uh the bond Council and or Bond advisor said that the board will need to
009pass a resolution of intent think of it not necessarily next Monday's vote won't cover parameters per se it's more of like letting the public know this is our intention coming forward um we're going to we you know we plan to issue bonds and then to also hold a public hearing at that same board meeting um and then come in February we'll talk more about the parameters and then at that February board meeting is when we would ask the board to approve the parameters of of the issuance and the actual issuance and then um sometimes shortly after that meeting is when when the actual Bond sale would occur so so this upcoming Monday's board meeting is merely a resolution surrounding the intent like letting people know that the board has intent to issue okay and then
010there was something in your email right there was an analysis you know they came to the board so we will um I think at the February committee meeting we'll talk about um kind of the parameters payback um issue what it looks like to issue in the spring versus like maybe in March versus waiting until June um you know additional costs versus additional interest Revenue that we might earn on the issue the proceeds um okay oh to try to get a cost benefit a longer term I think where we're at right now just kind of having seen the interest rates that we can get on our liquid savings accounts ought to be very very similar to to what the interest cost will be okay that sounds like that sounds really good Frank you had a point
011about interest and length of the bond but yeah I think this address would that be at the next meeting then yeah that'll be something we'll have we'll have lots of information updated it actually communicated with Liz Hennessey last week and she said leading into that I think it's on February 13th we'll have all new information so that's still you know a few weeks away but yeah we'll have all that for the board to consider in February and earlier he thought that may even be advisable to do something in January but I assume that that that's not necessary and the timing of these other meetings yeah as we work through like January is just too soon yeah so that's fine okay okay the next Committee of the whole museum thank you that was quick we're done
012all right terrific thank you we'll move to strategy Mrs Schneider fabes okay so I'm gonna turn it over to Dr karamascoli for goals three and four updates absolutely thank you uh we saved a lot of time so that we could talk about our strategic plan today um as the board knows we're giving updates each Committee of the whole meeting on various action steps and so today we will focus some time on goal three and then also on go 4 specific to the fourth to fifth grade transition so I will first ask Dr glowacki to take over and provide a presentation on behalf of our team for goal three oops good morning everybody goal three is our professional community um goal three professional Community our goal is to foster a professional community that value supports develops
013and retains highly effective staff so we have worked on our action steps that we set forth earlier this fall and this is just a brief summary on where we're at to date Katie Lee and I are the gold champions for this area and she could not be here today so I'm not trying do it justice without her we've had a couple of our dsat we have dsat meetings scheduled this year it's year two of our dsat we met in early September September 8th to kind of review where we were at with our action steps before bringing them fully to the board we will meet again February 16th and again twice in June to kind of wrap up and see where we're at regard to our action steps and planning for future action steps as we
014move forward here's a just a brief reminder of who is on the dsat committee this year many are staff and community members and parents that have been with us since year one and so they're staying on which was our hope so that we could gain some momentum in the process planning and evaluating our work the first action step that we want to talk about was to look for ways that our staff could come together so not just within a school but among schools and so here are a few pictures of things that we've been able to organize and plan for with the help of many administrators and staff members again I'm just the the reporter today this is not all my work by any means August Institute day we all had our common Unity shirt
015this year the message was I belong and we're continuing to work on that theme and that message but a way to to bring us all together in this visual on the left so it just captures that we had a Institute day on September 23rd and those are the days where we look to try and bring staff together because we have everybody available to us at the same time and so we had an opportunity during lunch to have dueling pianists come and they took requests from the staff and we were all outside was actually kind of a chilly day we thought you know it had been super hot up until that point but of course that was the first day of cool weather it still worked you can see from the pictures of zapper out there
016it was a nice way to just kind of relax together but still have we are looking at the February Institute day which is coming up right after President's Day weekend and there's going to be a trivia event happening during lunch on that day where our schools will be competing against each other as teams to see who is this at least in terms of trivia the one thing that there isn't a picture of that I just want to mention grades five through eight have really been creative and trying to find ways to bring the schools together you might recall from previous conversations having different schedules makes it difficult for the staff at those two schools to come together meaning Junior High starts pretty early High Crest is the latest start time although we've done a really
017great job of trying to get those closer and closer there's still a difference of a good half hour there and so having them come together for meetings or anything on a typical school day is very challenging and so at the start of this this school year we identified two days in which we would set aside Wednesday after school meetings where High Crest staff and Junior High staff would come together and the first one took place in December and the topic of conversation was writing and how it um impacts every content area and how different disciplines might use the writing elements that are La classes in their domains or their content areas and so it was the first hopefully of several more conversations there's another one planned for May I believe this year and then we'll
018talk about implementation in years ahead but we're continuing to look for those opportunities aside from we in December of 2021 we started taking purposeful interest in those staff members that are leaving us and again you've heard us talk about those exit interviews or Google forms we've given employees who are leaving two different ways essentially to give us feedback the first would be you know through could be an anonymous survey quite honestly or an in-person exit interview with itself just really to elicit some feedback about you know what could we have done differently perhaps essentially is where we were going to to um maybe have changed the the outcome for that staff member and so we have had about 38 staff members since December of 21 fill out the Google form we've had about five people
019request exit interviews in person we ask the same questions essentially in both formats it's just up to the Comfort level of the person leaving us and so here is where we're at at this point there's a Liker at scale uh for some kind of basic very basic questions do you enjoy working in District 39 or being yes love it absolutely the best with one being not so much so the average is about 3.53 did you have the correct or the needed initial training and induction as you started here 2.68 were you equipped with the tools resources and support to effectively do your job 3.34 what is um the culture how would you describe the culture of District 39 through and did the evaluation that you received so all of our staff are evaluated did that
020evaluation feedback helped you to improve in the work that you do points so again we're aiming for that four this is where we're at at this point um there was some open-ended questions as well because Point scales can't tell us everything and so one of the the questions that we asked is what has been most satisfying or enjoyable in your work in District 39 and some of the highlights and themes were relationships with colleagues and students that the relationship piece came through over and over again irrespective of position or why people were leaving clearly the relationships not only with students but also with colleagues really kind of is the selling feature for District 39 . there's significant opportunities for professional growth and that is more than just PD that includes continuing education through college tuition
021reimbursement there's you know many avenues for continuing to gain skills and progress professionally and many plentiful resources I would say are the themes we also asked about challenging like what is hard about working here what's frustrating what have you encountered um and some of the the elements that came through is needing more support with challenging student Behavior and and skills and strategies to interact with parents and Advocates who might be disrespectful or interact in a way that isn't as professional and that's not something new we've heard that in other reports but having those strategies to be able to to active in those situations sometimes there's isolation if you're in a role that is a Singleton role you don't always have another colleague that you feel that you can um commiserate with for lack of a
022better word um and I will note that the pay prepare professionals came up multiple times but I'm gonna put a caveat on that some of this information was collected over the summer in early fall when we were in active negotiations so I'd be curious to see if that is a theme that continues but I in full disclosure reporting that out um what could we have done to retain you some part-time options might have been helpful as well as again better pay for paraprofessionals so those that's what we're learning so far in contrast to that information Dr kramascoli and I have started our pre-tenure focus groups that we had talked about conducting and so we're just in the beginning phase of that we met with high Crest last week and we're continuing on with the other
023five schools all the way through early February and it's an optional opportunity either before school or during lunch we make it available you either of those times and we have kind of a set of questions that align with the themes here to to dig a little bit deeper again really trying to get at what might we be able to do better or differently to help you feel successful and want to stay in District 39. so more to come in that but that's that's the status of depression so this was awesome um what are your takeaways in terms of what you think you need to do in response to this feedback so I want to find out more information in these focus groups so compare what people are saying who are leaving us to those that
024are newer in their career with us are the same themes coming through because if they are we have work to do we may have work to do regardless but I really want to hone in on where that um ties might be between these two not having that information yet I think I really want to look at kind of that that initial training that induction and also not just at the start of the year but when we hire staff mid-year or at a different point when we're not doing all of our initial training how are we supporting them as they come on board I think um even if I didn't have this data I think that would tell me that we we have some work to do in that area especially I think we do a
025good job new teacher week there's a whole lot of training going on but we hire staff more and more outside of that week and what are we doing to support them as they come on mm-hmm I'll run that one not just two um other quick ones okay um I know you can break this down in lots of different ways and eventually becomes meaningless but um the two I was thinking of was like longer term employees that leave versus shorter term like you know someone's been here 20 years they may have a different attitude good or bad versus someone that puts here you know three or five years even I'd reached tenure but still was young in their career um I don't know if you've been able to break that out um and then the other
026was the grade schools versus the Collective schools um if there's you know the the poor grade schools versus I don't know what the right word is for them so and I think um I think those are two really great ways to break it out um another may be looking at Specialists versus classroom teachers so that may be another way to look at it right now our n is relatively small because we just started this work but I like those ideas and maybe as We Gather a bit more information though we hope we're not gonna lose too many people as we cycle through this school year um as as our and as our group size gets a little bit bigger breaking that down makes a lot of sense and we may learn some things from that
027yeah 38 is kind of like the right in between it's like it's big number but it's not so big that you couldn't do a little bit of trend so it's great to collect this kind of information I mean this is really important feedback well and I think too then we'll be like from December of 2021 all the way till current but maybe we break it out by school year different things happen every school year so the point is we have this information so as we start looking at I will make a note to make sure we have the different demographics that you notice so that we can start yeah the collection I have a couple demographics yeah you can go back later then if you want or have the time any other thoughts related to
028this action step so this next action step was really uh for us to be meaningful in our way that we're looking at how we're getting all of our voices and expertise represented represented in our decision-making structures and so we took this opportunity to look to see you know what what committees exist what opportunities opportunities exist for staff to make their needs and wants and desires known especially as decisions are being made so here's a list of all of the district committees and opportunities that are currently at Play I'm not going to read them all to you there are several I will say that mtss has been a significant element in the work that we've done this year as well as the facilitated IEP process and training and we've heard from staff that that has definitely
029been opportunities for them to um share in their thoughts and ideas about how to best proceed we will be starting up the diversity equity and inclusion belonging task force in the next couple of weeks and so that will be getting underway and that'll be another opportunity to share input and ideas about moving forward at the school level there's again building mtss but also the foundation's behavior team and we've received a lot of positive feedback from staff about the training that they've received and they're kind of on the cusp of being able to bring it into the schools and so that is an exciting point in the training but it is a time commitment when they go through the training it's two days every couple of months and it's significant but empowering is what I've heard
030from staff so that has been a positive outcome as well so there's a lot happening we've heard the Strategic plan has about a lot of initiatives and a lot of things that are new and up and running and it's if time's a bit tiring and when we put the list together we understood it a bit better there's a lot going on this next action step was about kind of addressing immediate short-term needs of staff and trying to help them feel that their needs are being met as as quickly as possible and so when we were creating this on the dsat some of the thoughts were like a little suggestion box literally old school with paper pencil um cart and an opportunity to offer ideas and suggestions to the building Administration that did not quite get
031legs as I talked more and more with the building principles but they have been very purposeful in the restructuring of some of the existing things such as the principal advisory committee has been something that has been in place for years in our schools but they've retooled it and restructured it in some of the schools so that it is more immediate in terms of a response you don't have to wait the entire month for the committee or the team to come back together you can email directly the PAC representatives to the building principal and get some decisions and outcomes made more effectively um the thing that I really want to emphasize is that I all of our building principles have taken this need and adapted it in in a way that makes sense for their school
032and their staff and they've talked to their staff about it about this desire to meet their needs more immediately so that so that it can be resolved and not people aren't waiting seemingly forever and all of the principles have come up with a unique or different way to address that within their schools so we'll be curious to see if if in fact it has felt the staff feel that their needs have met been met more effectively this next one is about meeting Norms we started this through our dsap process it has evolved a bit and each school I think might have a little bit of a different version of these meeting Norms we have it on all of our meeting agendas we review them whether it's a district committee an administrative committee a staff meeting
033this has become the norm to have Team Norms listed it seems again perhaps a rudimentary but it isn't something that had been part of our practice and it has become an important part as we've moved forward next action step is to talk about how do staff and administrators have the opportunity to identify what they want to learn about what their professional learning needs are and so um some things to note is that the district grade level or department meetings have a running agenda those meetings are led by teacher leaders and they have an opportunity they being anybody in that meeting to identify what their needs are moving forward so we meet by at least five times throughout the year and that's an opportunity to track and record any upcoming needs for professional development or training
034our school-based grade level meetings have been redesigned this year so we took the advantage of the contractual Wednesday meetings if you will and retool them we structured them with a different purpose depending on where they fell on the calendar so that hopefully we could be looking at data when data's new fresh and available and we could be looking at transitions when we were talking about upcoming transitions either for students or um like at the quarter if students were transitioning to different teachers it's an opportunity for us to take the time that we had but repo focus it for the ideas the the concepts the needs at the moment and that isn't something that we had done previously again it seems kind of maybe um yeah of course you should do that but we we hadn't
035done that and we were it took a lot of energy and thought to to redesign those so I'll be we'll be curious to see how um it's received by staff and if it accomplished what we had set out to do which is to be as useful as possible for everyone involved our paraprofessionals meet with the building administrators fairly regularly whether it's at the quarter or on regular Fridays for at the elementary level but to really check in with them to see what their training needs maybe you'll recall from our negotiations that our professionals will participate in our Wednesday meetings next school year not all of them but many of them and so as we design our Wednesday meetings for next school year we will want to identify which ones those are and set training and
036professional development needs appropriately for everybody including paraprofessionals who will be attending that as of now we only have like the first day before school starts we have conference days we have very few opportunities to connect with the paraprofessionals so that will be another opportunity to be consistent in our approach throughout the course of the year foreign and then our last action step is to begin the process of focusing on culturally responsive teaching and cultural competencies for all instructional staff and this is going to happen at the February Institute day we have a speaker Katie left me notes uh Dr Rachel Batum who will be um she's an equity consultant and a teacher trainer and the CEO of equity teacher leader and so she will be offering some initial training for all of our staff and
037then we'll be able to make decisions about where to go with that concept and support for our staff going forward so that's goal three in a nutshell at least to date it will probably evolve as we continue through the course of the school year questions um well first of all this is just such important work it's like our most important resource and so I appreciate all of these efforts I think it's really exciting um the through line I hear is really respecting and maximizing people's time so I'm sure that's appreciated all of our staff's time is stretched so thin so I think that'll make a big impact I just for my own education you may have explained this before and I have forgotten but the foundations behavior training and the teams that sounds so important
038because I know teachers are have expressed struggling with behavior in the schools so can you just remind me like how many people at a school level that is because it sounds like an intensive training and so then how do we like how many people roughly is that and then how do we plan to make sure there continue to be people trained year after year question so each school has developed has identified a foundation's building team and it's about five or six members at the Elementary's and more like seven or eight nine at the five eight campuses because they are larger there's an administrator sometimes two on the Committees that are attending the trainings or sort of going back and forth between it we have definitely looked at how we're making sure that we can support
039our buildings during our training times in terms of Subs we've been trying to plan well in advance trying to secure Subs so that we we can this I know that it is it's sometimes a stretch on the buildings but I think that our teams and our teachers have been feeling like this is extremely valuable and is really going to have a long-term impact on our our students and our and our and our buildings and so they're willing to sort of figure this out as we go through it um it's great so it's the leadership team that is receiving this training for the leadership team from each school that's been identified as the leaders in their school in this regard and I will say it is really challenging to be out of your school your your
040work assignment for two days um and and we hear from staff if the training is not valuable they start to um kind of resist that being out of their building and in this case we have had incredibly um just really positive attendance people going above and beyond to make sure that they can attend the trainings and that the schools are covered in their absence because again substitutes are can also be challenging the board Might Recall this is one of those time one of these sessions we needed to um up the rate for our subs to make sure that we're covering the buildings and everyone felt like that was really a beneficial action to take in support of these teams so you're right that behavior and the social emotional needs of our students has come up
041time and time again especially since the pandemic and this is one coordinated way in which we're trying to make sure that our schools are prepared to support that right thank you whatever that I think it's great work so a very good report I um wanted to talk about one thing that the Committees it looks like there's lots of opportunities for for um employees to get involved one thing that occurred to me is that some committees well some career Paths of teachers are you know someday I may want to be an Administration some or in some cases they're just informally kind of a building go-to person and it looks like there's enough committees here that there might be some Advantage for those type of people to steer them to a committee that might be more useful
042for that you know there are going to be kind of an informal building go-to person there might be some committees that are all these committees are good but there might be some that that would help them grow in that way and if they want to be an administrator that some committees it might also grow in that way and since there's so many committees here a little bit of informal steering sometimes hmm absolutely other questions are coming I'll do one this is awesome um what I love about this is it feels to me like you're really valuing the voice of staff and giving them all kinds of Avenues just kind of freeing up two-way communication which is beautiful and I bet you in two years your your exit surveys are going to be different as a
043result of that this is just a real small micro question just because I'm curious so what is coming bubbling up to the surface from these principal advisory committees like what's an example of recommendations or things staff want to see they take that everything talk about all sorts of things um really we meet with our tag teams about once a month and we have a an agenda that's open to everybody on staff just to put things on there but our pack is made up of Representatives in at high Crest at least um one from each house or one from each department so depending on what it is um so they may go to their house meeting and have a conversation about the bathrooms and bathroom check-in checkout and can we improve that or it might be
044recess or it might be bringing things to a ninth period creative arts class there are too many kids are you know bringing too many things and or leaving early so it's a lot of the logistical operational things that go on in the school but we also try to develop some things that are culturally based too so my pack team work together to support a hawk stay on our return from winter break so it was something that we had done last year but we worked and talked to our teams and is this something that we want to do and what do we want our Focus to be and how do we want to get to kids for that day so um and it was really SEL based and um a good beneficial thing to do so
045we work together to have that so it runs the gamut from operational to culture School climate and culture based awesome thank you uh the other thing I want to say is the school I just feel like I feel like a lot of work for you guys but like this is like Epiphany after Epiphany I I just wish it started these years ago when I was born thank you all right so I know we have to go to Gulf War but I'm excited to hear about that too uh Kelly Jackson will lead us through the review of Gulf War in the fourth fifth grade transition updates where we've been putting in a lot of work and seeing some good outcomes as well yes so um mine should be a little bit shorter I think um it's
046just uh based on our action step four um fourth to fifth grade transition and it falls under our family Partnerships goal of which Tony and I um are the gold Champions um the specific action step that I'll be talking about today is evaluate changes made to the fourth to fifth grade transition process and adjust based on feedback from parents teachers and students you'll recall last year as we developed this goal our action step was to survey our fourth well then current fifth grade parents um about the transition process we were coming off of the pandemic there were a lot of opportunities for us to kind of change things with orientation with getting to know the school and what have you so we use that and we put in several different um new things this year
047and so at the beginning of this uh school year we then did another survey to families uh based on those changes and so now we have some idea of where we can continue to adjust for the future um just to snippet of our kpis for this goal it's really at 90 for almost everything um so highly successful transition um 90 of students will participate in at least one activity 90 of parents and families will view the videos and then staff will report measurable improvements and practices and communication as evidenced by a percentage uh Improvement and also comments so as we take a look at our survey from this year and um keep in mind as we gave our survey um we kind of are struggling with parent responses to the survey so we had about
04865-70 responses not a whole lot out of about 380 kids so these are kind of colored with that amount and then our students of course altered the survey and then it looked like there were some parents that may have taken the student survey rather than the parent survey so um we are that's one thing that we need to do a different job of um kind of collecting that information but for this year at least 54 percent of parents attended at least one webinar or watched the videos we had a lot of comments in there that were like well my older child went through so I know kind of what to expect 80 percent of families attended at least one high Crest hangout which is a pretty good number for that new structure that we put
049into place and then 79 of parents indicated a positive overall experience or a highly successful experience with students 60 of students said that they watched their video the videos with their parents um sixty percent of students said that they attended at least one high Crest hangout which is different from that 80 parent number so that's we need to dig into that a little bit uh and 79 of students also that's right in line with the parents indicated a positive overall experience and that little graph at the top is um the fours and fives is the 79 percent um so as we dug into the feedback so we had feedback um open-ended feedback for each of the different structures and the structures included the videos the webinars um the high Crest Hangouts which we had three
050of over the summer and then um orientation which happened the Friday before the first day of school this year and we had already changed the orientation structure to include teachers in that structure it was about a half hour of time kids came in they got to see where their homeroom was they got to meet their teacher um and they got locks to practice before over the weekend before they came in on their first day they also learned where their locker was they dropped off school supplies um so that was a whole new structure for us but the feedback that we had had before was about having more of a structure and having teachers there was key so we wanted to make sure that happened we had a lot of positive feedback around that orientation um
051also around the hangout but some of the feedback said um you know could we have um better structure of the Hangouts could there be it was kind of loosey-goosey the way that we had the people come and then we said hey come on in if you want a tour of the school and some of the tours were different so um we're looking at improving that structure a little bit more a little bit more notification for orientation this year we were trying to decide what to do so um the date was not chosen until kind of mid-summer so we actually have that date where we will hopefully when the calendar is approved so then we will be able to give that date right away um and then we had a lot of feedback that said more
052information about extracurricular activities band Orchestra choir um and in the schedule and so we have looked at our webinars um and in our videos and some of the information that we're giving during the the high Crest Hangouts to include more of that um one interesting thing that came up from a few people was the student buddy system and mentors so having some sort of student involvement with fifth graders and fourth graders and so we also we had something prior to the pandemic that kind of fell away and so we're reigniting that this year um from the kids again they had similar feedback about extracurriculars um band Orchestra and choir um and more information on the building layout a lot of them just said hey can we get maps on the first day of school sure
053that's easy that's an easy fix um and and of course kids you know said hey you know let everybody know that it's okay if we get to class late in those first days of school and that's absolutely true but maybe we don't express that enough so some better communication with that both parents and students said hey these binders that we're using which we implemented several years ago for executive functioning purposes but they're really big binders and some of them don't even fit in the lockers so they said hey can we can we look at the use of the viters and we've already taken a look at that with our fifth grade teachers and said we can do the same thing but with smaller binders so that's on on the docket for next year um and
054then from staff we really focused on the orientation with staff and first week activities and they said you know they were really really appreciative of having that kind of first touch with their fifth graders prior to the school year starting they said that was a really great setup so we are looking to mirror that for um this year with a few little logistical changes better communication outside when they come and meet their classes so kids have a better idea where to go some maps that we can send out to parents so everybody's a little bit more organized going in and then again they we also talked to them about the organization with the folders so the binders um so I've talked a little bit about these but um in uh specifically um we are including
055an overview of our input forms um if you have had a parent go through high Crest or the junior high you know we send out an input form to families prior to the school year just to gather feedback from parents um so we're including that in uh our webinar on the structure of the school and the house and team structure because we get a lot of feedback from parents about specific kids um without understanding kind of How High Crest is made up and so we are going to include that as a part of our overview so people know how to um complete those forms so that it helps us and it also helps them we are including more information about extracurriculars and instrumental music something that happened this year leading into the school year was
056We restructured how clubs are done you'll remember with our SEL goals we were trying to bring a lot of those clubs in-house and now that we have a better idea of how that's working we're able to better communicate that out to the kids and to the families as well the buddy system we're looking at partnering fourth grade classrooms current fourth grade classrooms with current fifth grade classrooms and having kids fifth graders develop a kind of a slideshow with some important information based on what they wanted to know and then share that with the fourth grade classes and do some question and answers we'll be talking to our fifth grade teachers about the structure of that at our upcoming grade level meeting um some placement changes that we are looking at too is we got a
057lot of feedback as we do every year on um you know we have four elementary schools and is it evenly dispersed and we try to do our best with the disbursement of that but looking at some things to try for the next year do we um group just by do we narrow that down are there two elementary schools that we look at placing on a house or in a unique way so that there's more opportunity for kids to see familiar faces in that fifth grade year before it gets more mixed up in sixth grade seventh grade and so on um and and that goes right in line with some of our the goal 2 SEL goal is what is best for kids in that transition um cycle with with keeping some familiar faces keeping some
058groups of kids together for that purpose of homeroom and what you um special education and I didn't go into a lot of detail here but some things to note and and first of all I have to say that it's been a real game changer this year for high Crest and I think the junior high too of having one dedicated coordinator um at our school to really partner with the administrative team and really partner with the elementary schools on this transition process Hannah deutsches are our coordinator and she's been working really closely with Linda morage and the elementary teams on this transition piece and so there's been a lot of improved communication and further communication planned specific targeted emails for parents of students with IEPs invites to drop-ins last year we did this drop-in structure where
059parents could drop in and just ask any questions that were personal questions about their own child or about programming and those are more targeted now so that parents actually know that they're coming up right after their annual review date Hannah re did the the video that was shown to parents and is really encouraging parents at the elementary level to watch it working with coordinators to make sure that the questions are addressed in that video that parents have and that they're being referred to that as these questions arise and then we're doing some work to increase observations between fourth grade teachers and fifth grade great teachers specifically with academic strategies classes I think as we've gone over time we've made some changes at highcrest that our elementary people may not be as aware of so as
060how those classes operate What's Done in those classes so we really want to help everybody in involved in that transition process understand kind of what the programming looks like and what can go on for those fifth graders um and then as we I talked about binders and then our hangout structure as we look to do that kind of Buddy system with fourth and fifth grade we want to have a student transition team at fifth grade who then will be invited to come to our Hangouts and partner with our tour guides who will be adults because it will be kind of a scripted tour but we want to have the kids there to answer questions for anybody some next steps we are working on another action step which is our sixth to seventh grade transition planning
061we send surveys out for that and we're working on involving staff and students in that transition plan our kickoff webinar is scheduled for um for fifth to Fourth to fifth grade on the second that involves our world language selection process um we will then share our fifth grade countdown which has all of our calendar of events and um we'll then direct parents to our videos and recordings of webinars and anything else important and so then we look forward to updating you at the end of the year as well questions one question this is excellent thank you very much um I was just looking at the participation with the surveys um where were they communicated with a part of weekly newsletters or yeah so for students we sent them out directly to homeroom teachers and asked
062home teachers to give them that's why we get a really good response um and and then um we had a direct communication from Linda to fifth grade parents um with the survey just only as a standalone and then reiterated in weekly newsletters I think what we want to do as we specifically with the Hangouts and the webinars is work with Tony and and the team on is there a way that we can do more counting on views and also do some like logins or sign on the sign on the sheet if you're attending our our hangout today just so then we can get a more accurate count of who's attending and if you're how many kids are there how many parents are there rather than the survey because clearly the survey may not have a
063hundred percent um yeah again uh excellent work um lots of detail here um I had one comment whatever on the extracurricular um one thing that that I always that I think about is some some families are very involved in terms of they they know what options are available for their kids what what that means for when they go to high school and potentially College some families are not um and um one thing that that could be with the extracurricular is that the student wouldn't know that by starting band in fifth grade that that opened up opportunities of someday and that being in a marching band in college and if their parents aren't involved like that they the kids no one no one can picture that far ahead um so there is a there's a gap
064I mean there's certainly lots of parents in this community that are very very involved but there are also parents that are not um and and certainly at the you know fourth grade going in the fifth grade you have no idea what what those implications are so there might be some room or some you know explaining that opportunities of joining an extracurricular now and what that'll mean you know going forward um and maybe having like a high school student that's in band come in and talk about you know by by starting in fifth grade this was how much fun I had in high school and now I'm going to be in the marching band in college like my brother or whatever um and for various extracurriculars that could bring it home more to a fourth grader
065because if the fourth grader says I want to be in band and tell their parents are in band the fourth grader says I don't want to I don't want to spend all that much time I hate piano lessons I'm not going to be a band because they no one can picture what's for it but something like that might be a good way of getting more participation and and Bridging the Gap of the families that are heavily involved in the families that aren't I thought other questions thank you so much for uh taking us on I think having been on the board for a while this was a big issue it's definitely going in the right direction it's not already there yeah thank you so much it's huge and I have to say something about Frank's
066comment because I was a highly mediocre so I got perfected out and had they had a mediocre band I definitely would have stopped talking so I don't know if that's something you guys can address no no just kids right because they're not there's you know um yeah so so you alluded to it right there are all these parents who push and and you're gonna have a band full of lots of really good kids who just magically are great you know in fourth or fifth grade and then you might have some that are terrible and you know it takes time so I think that's part of what your appointments yeah and understanding what it might be in the future I mean it's even that's hard for a fourth grader but when you have no idea you
067look at it and say I'm going to spend an hour a day doing homework that I you know practicing the thing what's the payoff um but you know high school student you know involved in band or Science Olympiad or anything that that's an extra curricular could be that excitement that gives someone more involved than they would have been otherwise any other comments or questions I do want to say the transition is seismic right going from that little comfy warm fuzzy K4 to a big school it's I think the parents and the kids of a transition so it's great that you're focused on that um in terms of strategy items we have one more the school calendar yes uh at the last meeting we presented the big breaks and our calendar committee has continued to work
068this meeting we are presenting the final draft calendar which will be recommended for approval uh at Monday's meeting so we wanted to make sure to highlight that for you and receive any feedback or questions the board may have before it's recommended for formal approval Dr goacki can speak to any specific dates that may be unique in this calendar anything in particular you want to highlight okay so I I think it looks great my initial impression was that it's pretty similar to this year's structure is that accurate yes so your committee felt like these changes that we put in place were hopeful the longer chunks of full weeks absolutely and um I just so appreciate the opportunity to have a committee around this teacher voices support staff voices admin voices it to put all of the
069sticking points out there right all of the parameters that we're managing to try and build this calendar and to have every voice at the table is huge um we haven't lived this full calendar yet to know if this year is ideal but we've lived it enough to know that we want to replicate changed for this school year and I'll add there is never a perfect calendar having been through this um for many many many years um there are always pros and cons to a calendar and so it is important for people to realize that there's a certain number of student attendance days we have the opportunity with our our staff and with parent input to design how we think those days can be best utilized and maximized but we consistently receive feedback both for and
070against any proposal that comes forward so I just kind of want to highlight that a lot of people really loved the Thanksgiving break that was provided this year on the calendar we received some feedback especially from a couple of parents who did not appreciate the way that that was scheduled and so the committee really did take into account all of that feedback and recognizes there is no perfect calendar this one seemed to work out really well for for many reasons and the educational outcomes of students I will also note that the calendar makes for a little bit shorter summer break because of Just The Way Things uh work within the calendar when we take a couple more breaks or longer breaks than it makes for a little bit short or summer this summer in particular
071it's noteworthy because the summer is a little bit shorter by just a couple of days and we have some really significant projects thanks to the board's approval of the air conditioning projects to be accomplished this summer so our buildings will be very very busy this summer and we will be working hard to ensure that everything is is ready to go on that first day of school but I just I want to make a note of that um I think this is a really good reflection of what we think will work well for our schools in the upcoming school year I just have a quick question um Carrie um just from the um looking at the draft calendar is um November 20th um is school closed that day yes okay our students are awesome oh okay
072so there is okay it looks like looks like a different color and I thought maybe it was significant but it it's just it's for parents it's a it's a day off of school it is not a scheduled day for teachers because of the Parent-Teacher conferences that happen on Thursday and Friday it kind of um it looks a little bit different in the calendar but what's most important is to recognize it's a it's a non-attendance day for students I believe our district office is open on that day um so that's why it's coded just a little bit differently but those gray days are non-attendance days for students uh-huh yeah it looks purple to me that's why I kind of brought it up and I thought it was maybe significant in that sense I'm probably wrong does
073it not look purple to anybody else oh yeah okay I kind of a related maybe I'm looking at a different maybe not like a black and white version yeah I mean you could totally get it I just it was probably meant to be gray or something I just thought it was um significant I asked Bonnie's question yeah so did we did we each rare do I remember this we do synchronize with this year for the major breaks meaning spring break winter break um start and end dates to the extent it's possible it's not always possible because um semester start and end a little bit differently I'll also note that two of our neighboring districts will be starting after Labor Day starting school after Labor Day in the coming school year because of their significant um
074construction projects that are happening this summer and so um that super late start doesn't coincide with with what we'll be doing but we coincide those major breaks with nutria Township and across the township we're all the same in that regard it's the start and end of the school year that sometimes looks a little bit I I was referring to Thanksgiving oh we should have like a flashing red lights because I just I think New Trier is not off future is not off right they have a different fall break yeah so I was told yeah why are you here yeah yeah right so the point is it's not an exact overlap yeah yeah I gotcha okay honey did you get your um not really Doctor Who said that 20th day what is they're off the whole
075go to school the Monday for institute they don't that that is a swap day for the evening conferences it's uh what I'm sorry I'm forgetting the actual official word uh it is yeah it is in exchange for the time given for the two evening parent-teacher conferences that has been in practice for probably a decade okay great but yeah I think to her I had a similar question I give to Bonnie's um it's it's a a purple without dots which isn't in the key in the bottom so you know depending on the audience but if it's a parent audience um making it more clear that students aren't yeah we can we can do that um in terms of what is put out there publicly first for families so they understand that it is not a change
076in practice so it might be coded the way it's coded might look different this morning but the practice is continuing as it has been and families won't feel a difference in really relationship but thank you for pointing out the color coding we'll make sure to adjust that before uh Monday so that it looks more consistent the version that I see online just it all looks gray but I see what you're saying in the print version it just it's like a slightly different shade and so I see where the question is coming from so thank you dotted or gray but right now it's neither so yeah this is and this is a document we create so we can we can adjust that narrative for the families I had to follow up to John's question about nutrier
077um I know there is some discussion by new true of permanently going to a different schedule like after um uh Labor Day and having a different fall semester I mean I thought you had them brought up in here I so we coordinate with New Trier on what their calendar looks like they published their calendar usually way ahead of us and then we use their calendar to build ours out the discussion as I understand it at New Trier centers around whether or not that first semester can just remain a shortened semester which is like what they did this year their first semester is actually shorter in days than their second semester and that is to allow them to complete finals and that first semester before winter break which is something new for nutria so that's their
078discussion that they're having um that is more about how they structure their semester ends in their final schedule than the the calendar as the community feels it it's really about teaching and learning and how they organize themselves well I understand this year and and then but given that you have a committee um if new career is starting to think about changing their start date after Labor Day we should have input to that I mean whatever is our schools and our committee Community thinks is better um you could some people may like to start after Labor Day some may not but we have a committee so using that proactively with the career if they're looking at changing it to make sure that your input isn't early enough to okay I think this concludes strategy terrific so
079this is an opportunity for the public to address the board but I do not see anyone here in attendance so we will move to uh old business or any old business I have one note um the sustainability coordinator which is a village hired position coming out of the Cooperative intergovernmental committee that Bonnie and John serve they've developed the intergovernmental agreement to support that position it is currently being reviewed by various sets of attorneys the board will remember we pick up just a small portion of that liaison um it's approximately five percent for a handful of days throughout the year and some liaisonship between of the government committees so once that comes back we will be asking the board to approve that intergovernmental agreement I mention it here today because it may be that it's ready
080to go and be recommended to the board for approval on Monday if not then it will come in in the next month I add on in a related way I don't know if you all saw go green had a Go Green Schools half a day a webinar and it was from schools all across Illinois so I participated in that and took lots of notes it was incredibly well done and they had representatives from five or six different organizations sharing work that's being done in schools all around the state so it was really impressive and good ideas uh so happy to share any resources if people are interested any new business right so uh at this point I seek a motion to adjourn to Executive session I moved to adjourn to Executive session to discuss Collective
081bargaining and employment issues may I have a second second okay uh will the clerk please call the roll chances are ready yes Ann Hart yes Bonnie Kim yes Frank van zika yes Lisa Schneider Vapes yes Amy Paley yes okay motion carried we're now adjourned to Executive session