Wilmette Public Schools District 39 Board of Education Meeting June 14, 2021

001[Music] i hereby call to order this regular meeting of the board of education for wilmette public schools district 39 this monday june 14 2021. will the first please call the roll amy paley here john c is ready ann hart here bonnie kim here frank and zika yeah these are schneider babes yeah aaron stone here i'd like to start this meeting by expressing the board's immense appreciation to everyone within the district for all you have done to help us arrive at this point our final board meeting of the school year the challenges you have faced over the past 15 months seemed insurmountable and just when you thought we had figured things out the landscape or the guidance changed you encountered intensely competing opinions from every angle you listened openly you researched you determined your priorities and

002made the best decisions possible at each juncture always keeping health and safety and the best interests of children at the forefront we are overwhelmed with gratitude and in awe at the leadership perseverance and teamwork we witnessed it's important to pause and mark this moment to express our appreciation and our most sincere wish that you all take significant time this summer to believe and recover thank you each and every one of you for your dedication and determination [Applause] so we will turn to the pledge of allegiance i believe a principal dana nasiakos is here to introduce mckenzie's students i think we have some special visitors our administrative team is here yeah so in lieu of mckenzie students it will be the administrative team during our final pledge of the school year foreign standing principles [Music] i

003seek a motion to approve the minutes of the may 24th 2021 board of education meeting and executive session meetings i move to approve the minutes of the may 24 2021 board of education meeting and executive session meetings second the motion has been made and seconded board members are there any comments errors or omissions [Music] please indicate your approval by saying yay yes lisa schneider vapes aaron stone yes amy payne yes the motion series uh before we move on we have we have kind of started a tradition of honoring a few of our students or other members of our community as we start meeting and i believe this evening is no different tony do we have a video that we wanted to share wonderful i'll give just a brief introduction our students weren't able to be

004here this evening however we have a video that we'd like to share the following video features students from harper elementary school who were some of uh the end of the year writing contest finalists there was an optional end-of-year writing contest for students to describe a highlight or a takeaway of their school year in either paragraph or poem the students you will be hearing from today in order are second grader audrey korinsky third grader victoria igor rova excuse me and fourth grader will mcdermott grace mclaughlin and charlie cutler and the last student is jackson ruff whose poem is extremely special as he put his own twist on this assignment by talking about kindness and no rubric we are very proud of all of our students and of all of our writers and congratulations to these finalists

005hello i am here to introduce some of our students that will be sharing some of their end of the year writing with you as we know this school year was unique and challenging but it still provided so many amazing moments highlights and takeaways therefore we had an optional end of the year writing contest where students could write a poem or a paragraph describing one of their highlights or some takeaways from this school year as you can imagine their responses were awesome and have truly affirmed what we know that through all the adversity it's still been an amazing school year therefore we are excited to share a few of our students paragraphs and poems with you these students truly did an amazing job capturing a highlight of the school year so without a further ado students

006please share your writing and everyone enjoy think about the people in your class what school do they go to well the people in my class go to harper and ramona that stands out to me because normally the people in your class go to the school you go to it also stands out to me because when i'm in middle school i will not only know people that went to harper but i will know kids so much for a moment too that is why having ramona kids in my class stands out to me as something special from this year mask sanitizes social distancing horrible year everyone says but if you ask harper students and teachers they will remember different things colorful masks tie-dye trends and saliva tests and listening lessons with funny backgrounds virtual hugging antiques and

007high-fiving learning and studying 2021 helping others through the year all the school is learning running in p.e personalities all over the school everyone is so nice remember in all the fun classes doing all the work over the year working in class learning so much math putting heads together and working having so much connections with each other in covid we still learned nothing is better than harper's school so much working on valentine's day string was cut and a hard balloon drifted off to the ceiling and for months we watched that balloon stay strong and stay up as i watched the balloon it got me thinking about this year and how we've had to stay strong too we've had to go to school every day and put on masks and we've all had to stay six feet

008and stay strong i will always remember the balloon and us staying stronger this year we have had to work through this together and we would have never been able to do it alone this is the last year for me at harvard but it wasn't all bad and i enjoyed the year i remember on the first day of school this year i remember how excited i was to be in fourth grade and i've come this far with my class we've come this far together i know that we will always have each other's backs at harvard when one of us falls down others help close up we are in this together but i'm moving to california and then no one will have my back this is what i thought until my friend told me that he'd never

009forgive me he said that he would always have my back so now i realize that harper does care more than anyone we really are into this together always thank you harvard thank you we don't bully in our school everyone is kind no matter what you look like we don't mind everybody everybody's different and that's what makes us great but we all agree on one thing there is no room for hate we try to help each other and everything we do and value thoughts and feelings no matter what the deal there's no place here for boys just friends both old and new with short simple message i'll be there for you thank you to those incredibly talented writers and thank you for sharing that with us it's a really powerful way to start so i believe

010we'll move to public comments which will be accepted in person and remotely via zoom are there any community members present that wish to speak great please come to the podium and state your community of residence and you have three minutes hi my name is vanessa foley and i am from lumet as a special education family i have a child with special needs we got the golden ticket this year with our remote lbs and general education teacher with them i was able to form an amazing team and will be forever grateful for them and it has not been an easy road remote only special education families have felt acknowled ignored and tossed aside by the schools in the district it took my family six weeks to get a para assigned and another three weeks for the

011pair to be supplied with the textbooks in order to access the curriculum to help my child many times i was unable to get her the modified curriculum so what ended up happening is i ended up doing it with my child instead of having the para assists i was not equipped to be a paraprofessional i am not qualified to be a paraprofessional and yet that's what i became all year for my childhood and many special and needs families became paraprofessionals for their children because that's what we do we step up because that is how we function this year i have spent you know a large portion dealing with helping my child and social situations are very difficult for my child and yet she was sent emails from in-person students making fun of her for being remote

012and she didn't understand it she didn't understand why they were doing that to her and she was given one-to-one social work minutes but she still feels like she did something wrong like it's her fault that shouldn't be there was no written apology that was sent to my child there was none of that so she still feels terrified and actually it actually made the situation worse we moved to wilmette because we were impressed with the fact that special education parents were valued as an iep team member and listened to by the district something that i did not see when we were in chicago public schools as a special education advocate for the past seven years and as a parent this year's iep meeting given the importance of how difficult it was and my unique role i

013felt dismissed as a team member on my daughter's iep i was seeing tactics that i would see in cps iep meetings i have real concerns in the direction sorry we have to limit our comments for three minutes okay i'm closing right now okay and there's another opportunity to follow up with one minute i have real concerns in the direction that special education in wilmette is moving towards we'll met should be the example for other districts i hope that this summer is a time for deep reflection of what didn't work and what can be better for our special education students is there anybody else who would like to address the board mr de monty are there any uh community members who would like to speak by zoom no they are not okay thank you so at

014this point we will move to board reports and we will start with facility development with mr pandita thank you on june 7th the facilities development committee met at the mac as part of the committee of the whole we had an update on the summer construction projects due to the dry weather the projects are ahead of schedule and now mostly under roof so it should remain on-scene due to locking in material contracts we also have shipments arriving on time ramona and mckenzie extensions for keep on thus unscheduled for the beginning of a more normal fall the air conditioning for the second floor of wjhs is also unscheduled to meet the opening of the school year we then discuss the projects under consideration for next year the timeline for these is approving initial investigation this summer then

015reviewing estimates and alternatives this fall and finally approving projects this winter to begin work next summer three projects at ramona were moved forward for detailed design required roof and boiler replacement and renovation of four very outdated bathrooms as we continue to make these required improvements it was brought up that we should understand the life expectancy of our buildings in a future meeting we'll have an update if one or two of our buildings may need extensive work we then discussed opportunities to be explored in more detail at the next meeting ramona will need new windows in the near future while on the schedule we have asked the administration to see if this project could be pulled in one year mackenzie is in line for air conditioning for the large gym as part of our effort to

016update large spaces with air conditioning in a past upgrade to the building the infrastructure to support ac for all the classrooms was built in we are evaluating the opportunity to take this option instead of updating the ac and the tim to update the connections for all the classrooms preliminary work indicates roughly a 10 additional cost to do all of these classrooms this estimate is being reviewed and possible district-wide uses of the south korea upgrade at this time there is nothing urgent that requires a meeting before august you can move uh at this point i believe to school finance for sisters already do your um the fy 22 district 39 tentative budget the um the same budget for the woman community special ed agreement the special ed transportation contract extension and annual resolutions and so the

017first thing on the district 39 budget at the um committee of the whole meeting mr baltimore reviewed the district 39 fy22 draft tentative budget the numbers have not changed since the last review the board is required to approve the tentative budget that is at this meeting and the final budget in august the account summary estimates estimates revenue at 67.4 million and expenditures at 65.9 at this point the tentative budget includes kobit 19 placeholders we also reviewed the um what we call the wixie tentative budget um the district 39 serves as the fiscal agent on behalf of the special education cooperative that includes district 39 avoca school district 37. the illinois state board of education requires let's see to keep separate accounting records and to follow the same illinois state budget guidelines required of all illinois

018school districts the wixie budget is a flow-through entity which with revenues and expenditures being the same the public hearing will be held in august for final approved approval of that budget we also discussed the special ed transportation contract extension the district is in the final year of their three-year contract with north shore transit illinois state code allows two-year contract extension the extension the extension contract allows a proposed 3.3 percent increase from fy 22 and fy23 the contract includes the key clause of school closures due to pandemic or natural disasters with some flexibility provided we also discussed annual resolutions and renewals mr baltimore reviewed the annual budget resolutions which included interfund transfers to and from the o m fund to the capital projects fund and from the educational fund to the o m fund these transfers

019permit timely payment of construction related expenses the district receives tax levy receipts twice a year in july august and february march due to the timing of cash flow short-term loans may be necessary to maintain adequate fund balances in the o m fund a public hearing will be held in august to consider the interfund transfer from the education fund to the o m fund the board will be obligated to make payments of various recurring bills and previously approved construction related services and materials during the month of july since there is no board meeting scheduled for july this payment resolution enables the treasurer to fulfill the payment of necessary financial obligations between june and august 14th so that's the report thank you very much and we'll move on to strategy with mrs spiderman thank you um the

020planning team for the strategic plan is currently in the process of setting direction and future focus priorities um once drafting work is completed in late june um the team will seek community review and feedback to assist in refining the plans um before presenting a final strategic plan um the board of education um in september the team needs um some suspicion time to review community review and engagement opportunities um before bringing it to the board for final review much and we have a few liaison reports uh we'll start with the crc report from mrs harp prc held their final meeting of the school year on june 1st the committee reviewed participation results of the online survey and the focus groups and they discussed ways to further engage stakeholders throughout the process executive officer elections were held

021for the 21.2 school year and this new team will look to the new strategic plan to help guide a research topic for the upcoming year uh and i believe we have an iasb update from mrs kim thanks i don't have much to report except to say that registration for the 2021 joint annual conference in november is open for registration so if you'd like to join me this exciting conference please sign up thank you right and we have a wixy update back to you mrs hart the wixie advisory board met earlier today to approve the tentative budget the fiscal year to date activity and establish meeting dates for the 2021-2022 school year great thank you and back to mrs kim for the legislation update you could have reorganized that in order um thanks i um this

022is going to be a little bit longer um there was a flurry of activity in springfield at the end of may as the general assembly's session closed a number of bills were passed by both houses and have been sent to the governor for approval i'm going to go through some of the ones that affect schools i think there were over 100 bills that touched on schools and so i'm giving you a very abbreviated rundown um first and foremost is the budget thanks to better than expected tax revenues and a funding infusion from the general up from the federal government illinois has a spending plan for fiscal year 2022 that adds 350 million dollars to evidence-based funding several new directives for schools were added addressing ethnic and religious accommodations learning and policy adoptions for school students

023including a bill requiring team uniform modifications for cultural values religion or modesty preferences a bill requiring schools to excuse students from pe while participating in religious fasting a bill requiring a unit of instruction on asian american history and a bill prohibiting school districts having policies that apply to hairstyles associated with race ethnicity or hair texture in addition to a bill recognizing the november 8 election day as a school holiday other school holiday bills passed one establishing june 19th of each year as a state and school holiday celebrating juneteenth national freedom day i'm proud that district 39 has already declared june 19th a school holiday another bill adds january 17th muhammad ali's birthday to the school code commemorative holidays and adds a curricular mandate to the history curriculum to include contributions made to society by americans

024of different faith practices since 2019 stakeholders and lawmakers have been working to address the issues uncovered in a tribune expose report on physical restraint and seclusion in special education practices in addition to illinois state board of education guidance and rulemaking a bill uh just passed limits time out and restraint and prohibits use of certain restraints after the 21 2021-2022 school year the bill also creates a grant program for schools to implement school-wide behavioral interventions and then i'm just going to list a couple of other bills that were passed really quickly one requiring school board members to be trained on trauma-informed practices for students and staff which i mentioned last month one allowing student excused absences for mental or behavioral health one requiring the state's children's mental health plan to recommend that all youth receive mental

025health education and care in school a bill setting a specific number of minutes the children must have play time one requiring k-12 comprehensive sex and health education one requiring support for students who are victims of violence and one requiring school districts to supply all 4th through 12th grade bathrooms with menstrual hygiene products also sb 508 passed if you recall that was the property tax bill that provides that a taxing district's aggregate extension base should be adjusted whenever an assessment increase or decrease due to the decision of a tax appeal board affects it and that's it thank you okay thank you very much for that important update my zoom seems to be down but i'll pass it over to dr kremescoli for our information thank you so much um so we have several informational items to

026report to the board and share with the community first of all written communications the board received two communications from kristin neukran's alcala regarding the recent updated outdoor mask mandate the board also received communication from mary rita kraft resident and district 39 employee regarding air conditioner considerations for the hot temperatures in ramona second floor classrooms under the administrative announcements from myself and our staff first of all we celebrated graduation and the end of the year with our students and with most of our teachers and staff members as well who have left for a well-deserved summer break we celebrated students and the completion of the school year with two very special outdoor graduations for our eighth graders thank you to everyone who came out and celebrated with us in person and for those who joined us online

027as well it really was a wonderful evening we also hosted a special transition day for our sixth graders um and a promotion celebration for our fourth graders um at each of our schools so each of our schools has hosted several end of the year celebrations of students and of staff schools and ptas were incredibly creative this year as they navigated restrictions yet ensured that our students and staff received a wonderful send-off to the summer so thank you to everyone who had a hand in those celebrations we are looking forward to summer school currently over 450 students have enrolled for summer school across the three different programs we have academic camp excuse me review and reinforcement and the extended school year program we are continuing to work on hiring staff this has been somewhat challenging this

028year as so many teachers and staff are looking forward to and deserving of a summer break and a way to recharge after this challenging school year um so we do still have a few positions open i believe in talking with our uh summer school coordinator today uh she mentioned there are still three positions that we are trying to fill program does begin in july so if anyone is interested please consider applying otherwise we are excited so many of our students chose to join us for the summer in terms of planning for the upcoming school year as we celebrate the end of this most unusual school year with a bit of pride and a sense of accomplishment we also are very much looking forward to the upcoming school year with eagerness and with hope with the

029start of the new school year next fall we are planning for a full return to in-person instruction and return to typical school hours if there is any family who believes their child may require special exception to full in-person instruction such as those through homebound services due to unique medical conditions and they have not already communicated that need to be asked that they please reach out to dr swanson at the earliest convenience we did send out a survey there really at this time we've been notified only of a handful of students who may need special exception and again much of that does depend on whether the vaccine continues to be expanded the access to the vaccine continues to be expanded over the summer we hope that it will but the district 39 school year calendar for

030the upcoming year is posted online has been sent out to families and staff as well um and as i mentioned we do expect the school hours to be a return to those pre-pandemic hours that's especially noteworthy at the elementary schools where we did have to reschedule a lot of our specials in order to accommodate smaller class sizes and the schedule with our bubbled classrooms so we're excited about that as we return to full in-person instruction we do expect mitigation measures will still be in place and we'll continue to follow those as directed by the health department as well as by the illinois state board of education over this summer we'll continue to keep staff and families apprised of information as it becomes available we do expect ongoing updates throughout the summer so families if you're

031interested we will we plan to send out two emails a month on the 14th and the 28th from the district unless there's a more imminent need to send something sooner um just to keep everyone updated without overwhelming everyone again we do expect a full return to in-person instruction but there will be some mitigation measures in place although we've said farewell to our students and the majority of teachers and staff our administrative team continues to work throughout the summer planning for the upcoming school year so we will be hosting our all day administrative council meeting tomorrow this is time set aside to reflect on this year and to plan for next year we will do some goal setting and some important work to ensure that we are capturing the learnings from this year as we plan

032for the upcoming school year um we also need to do some scheduling right now with a full return um we will be building out a few different plans in anticipation of what we think the health department will be telling us but again there probably will be plan a and plan b as we anticipate what we think might occur we did just receive an update and got some confirmation from the health department today this is really exciting news um four adult staff members who are fully vaccinated working in our building here over the summer working in our schools where students are not present we have been notified that we can remove our masks as fully vaccinated adults those who are not yet fully vaccinated should continue to wear a mask and maintain distancing and anytime we're

033in the presence of students we are asked again to continue to wear our masks whether indoors or outdoors and to pay attention of course to distancing but this is really exciting news for those of us who work all summer in this building the opportunity if you're fully vaccinated to remove your mask even in the presence of another individual has been supported by the health department so with the board support of that we will communicate that out to our staff tomorrow we would ask that everyone continue to maintain a mask in their presence because if the student were to walk in or um or a circumstance kind of necessitated masking we want to make sure that we're prepared to adhere to that as well but this is really really good news and again evidence of continued

034progress for our community so thank you to the health department for that for that clarification i should say um and otherwise we are planning for our staffing for next year as well our administrative team has been busy busy busy in the hiring process we're in that process of hiring for the upcoming school year and have a really good start to filling all of our positions we have been able to recall in place many of our teachers and also have hired several outstanding teachers and staff in preparation for the upcoming school year we expect several additional positions will be filled by the end of this week thanks to the hard work of our administrative team also being recommended to the board of education this evening is the appointment of taylor harvey as our assistant director for

035student services um taylor will follow miss angela demay there's taylor she's in the back here thanks taylor um angela is has accepted a position and so we wish to congratulate angela who it's accepted a director position in another district meanwhile taylor has completed a very extensive and thorough recruiting and interview process here in our district for this position some of you may remember that mrs harvey has served as our assistant principal at central elementary school for this past year prior to that she was a coordinator in our student services department and an outstanding special education teacher we are very fortunate to have for serving in our district and to continue in this really really important role so this evening recommended to the board is taylor harvey as our assistant director for special education thank you

036taylor for being here [Applause] uh with the board's approval then this evening the assistant principal position at central elementary school will be posted tomorrow as well to get started on that position as well in terms of property taxes we do have a property tax appeal to report this evening district 39 has received notice of one ptab appeal for the 2020 tax year information regarding this appeal and the potential financial impact of the appeal has been included within the board packet and another moment of celebration in terms of freedom of information act request there are no foia requests to report this month so we're moving on to strategic planning please i can give an introduction and then certainly you can jump in if you'd like the 2021 spring assessment report is our first report that we'd

037like to share with the board in the community this evening um district 39 aligned with nutria township schools by adopting nwea map several years ago map growth is a computer adaptive assessment that is used to monitor student achievement and growth over time the board will recall we have increased our frequency of reporting to the board to three times a year at this point and so we continue to monitor the growth and achievement of our students we know with this highly unusual year that the students have experience really over the last year and a half that there has been an impact on their their growth but katie lee and and also kelly jackson are here to give a summary to the board on the achievement that we continue to recognize as well as the growth that

038we have evaluated kitty thank you carrie um i will begin with math and kelly jackson will share the seo first a little bit of background nwa has conducted a norm study using pre-covered pre-pandemic assessment data from 2015 to 2018 and nwa has implemented the new norms academic year and the 2020 norms were applied for fall winter and spring replacing the 2015 ones and we strongly advised educators to use the 2020 growth norms especially when reviewing data longitudinal because these norms provide the most current and accurate reference for that growth scores so as historical and longitudinal data is presented to the board of education from today and moving forward it's important to know that there may be slight differences in national norms information compared to what district 39 shared previously in previous years and just to

039highlight there again uh the norms are updated but they still are updated using data from pandemics just just a note of clarification there it's hard to kind of wrap your head around the 2020 norms actually are from data cluster prior to the 2015 to 2018. and the growth um comparison period that you are hearing of today is from fall to spring and previously you've had reports that have different growth companies okay well what a year we've had um throughout the year the question on everyone's mind has been how are students doing or in other words they're currently enrolled district 39 students achieve and grow as much as expected so far this year another question however we need to consider is what impact has this school year had on district 39 students achieving was there an

040impact yes there was definitively in some grades there were declines in achievement and our growth compared to two academic years results if you would remember there was no spring 2020 assessment of math and in some grades however the achievement and growth and or growth did not decline so we've had some interesting data that we've been digging into and that we'll further learn more about so let's begin um with a focus on achievement so while overall student achievement remains high the pandemic did appear to have an impact on the overall average achievement levels demonstrated on the map assessment in spring 2021 when compared to spring 20 volunteers so while these differences do not appear to be statistically significant the effect of the pandemic on overall achievement will continue to be closely evaluated and addressed for reading

041when comparing spring 2019 to spring 2021 the average rid score for each grade level is declined by one to two points except for seventh grade where the average would be constant and in mathematics when comparing spring 2019 to spring 2021 the average rich score for each grade level declined one to four points except for second six and seven where the average rate remained constant or increased so following this summary what i'd like to do is share with you some charts so this chart i thought would be important especially for this year where did we begin with our average risk score in the fall and then where did we end this one so as far as our scores we have increased in every grade in both in context areas except for one so this these are

042graphs that you may be familiar with throughout the year we've presented this type of graph um these are the spring and then mean writ scores over time and as a reminder each bar represents different cohorts of second graders average rate scores in spring of their respective years reading is on the left and math design and this is for second grade fourth grade if you're noticing the uh separation in bars that's the reflection that we do not have spring okay this is next we will review student growth overall the pandemic had an impact on the growth levels demonstrated on math assessment spring 2021 when compared to spring 2019. the effect of the pandemic and growth will continue to be closely evaluated and addressed in the same way so using nwa's growth targets those that were established

043by nwa based upon the normative studies of typical growth accomplished by students nwa studies observed that approximately 50 to 60 percent of the students meet or exceed their growth so using that as a benchmark for reading the percentage of district 39 students meeting or exceeding projected growth targets from fall 2020 to spring 2021 falls within or beyond 50 to 60 percent benchmark range in some grades but not all groups in grades three four and eight the percentage of students who met or exceeded all the spring growth targets did not reach expectations when comparing spring 2019 to spring the percentage of students who met and exceeded follow the spring reading growth targets declined in all grades except for mathematics the percentage of district 39 students meeting or exceeding projected growth markets falls within or beyond 50

044to 60 percent benchmark range in all grades in all grades the percentage of students who met and exceeded fall to spring all the spring growth targets reached the expectations in math but when comparing spring 2019 to spring the percentage of students who never exceeded fallout spring math both targets grew in grades four six and seven but declined in grades two three five moves i will continue with the same information but now represented graphically for you so as you can see the greatest impact of both for our second grade students break free again we would say that our work would be so so here to summarize um achievement and growth based on the data that i just shared with you both numerically and anecdotally and also graphically for achievement overall district 39 students maintained achievement levels

045that were consistent through prior non-pandemic years in both reading and math however some students demonstrated higher achievement and non-fundamental fears while other students demonstrated lower achievement than so therefore statistics of central tendency may not adequately reveal the individual successes and struggles of our students for growth our observation is that growth and reading was impacted more than growth and math reading growth will require additional attention in the fall especially for rising third and fourth graders growth in math falls within or beyond the 50 to 60 benchmark range in all grades however comparing 2019 to 2021 the percentage of students meeting or exceeding growth roles grew in grades 467 but declined in grades to think by the mean so now that we've reviewed achievement and growth separately viewing them together will provide an added perspective and i

046believe you've become very familiar with these stacked bar graphs as mentioned in the summary slide growth in reading was impacted most and will require special attention especially for our rising third and fourth graders this may have been impacted by the limitations placed on small group instruction a key component to the district 39 program the visual goal for these stacked graphs would be to have majority blue and green which represent high growth for either higher low achieving students and less yellow and red so visually as i flip through these slides for the different grade levels and is what we're hoping for so here's second grade reading their grade reading rereading quite right now fifth grade reading good grade now seventh grade reading so so in addition to the summary statements that you saw in the previous

047slide what we would add here in looking at this data is that approximately eight to eighty-five percent of our students fell in the high achievement range even this year um however their growth overall as you saw you may have noticed some of the blue areas shifting up and down so there's celebrations when it shifts up with the high achievement and high growth however there has been also dips that you want i'm sure now one question uh to dig a little further would be the remote students the remote learners and the in-person members oops sorry i'm going to spend a little bit more time on this life that you could read the data um so the average spring rate score of remote learners were higher than then in-person learners and the percentage of in-person learners who

048met and exceeded reading growth goals were higher than remote winners the percent of in-person learners who met or exceeded the macro goals were higher than malt numbers in all grades so this is especially interesting since it highlights the variance we see in achievement and growth among our students while looking only at the achievement rit scored appears that our remote students did better overall you might think that however when examining the actual learning or the growth that was accomplished throughout the year you can see that a greater percentage of our in-person students matter exceeded their expected shared results of the social emotional learning data thanks tony uh this school year district 39 has continued its focus on building a positive and cohesive school community this has been affirmed by the commitment of all staff to support

049the health and well-being of students and staff as a part of the return to learning plan a focus on social emotional instruction and community building has been embedded throughout lessons at all grade levels for the entire school year as has been our practice over the past few years social emotional screeners were given to all students in the fall and this spring the deborah student strengths assessment or desa was administered to students in pre-k through grade two and the mindsets essential skills and habits mesh survey was administered to students in grades three through eight the scores in the fall are used to set the baseline uh for work during the school year and scores in the spring are examined to determine areas of focus for the coming school year the desa was administered to students in

050pre-k through grade two it's an assessment where it's like a survey that teachers fill out reflect on and assess each individual's unique patterns of strengths or areas of need these that reflect are spring scores where 38 of students fell in the strength strength category 58 of students fell in the typical category and four percent of students fell in the needs instruction category it's roughly similar to our fall scores where we had 38 percent again in the spring we had 59 in typical so it went down a little bit and 3 percent and needs instruction so that went up a little bit by 1 the mesh is a student is a survey where students self-assess and that was given to students in grades three through eight um this fall and spring the mesh assessment has two

051components social and emotional competencies which aligns with this competencies embedded in sel lessons and is reflected in categories excuse me such as social awareness and self-management at the other category or the other component is school environment and that's reflected in areas like sense of belonging or school climate uh through the spring spring results for grades three through five for students all areas of social and emotional competencies continued at or above the 90th percentile nationally the areas of self-efficacy and social awareness showed growth since fall with self-efficacy showing the most growth and you can kind of see on the right hand of those charts where there's a little green indication where it moved up a little bit for students in grades three through five the results for the the school environment indicate all areas are strengths

052with composite scores placing willmet at or above the 90th percentile nationally with the exception being school climate at the 70th percentile nationally school safety however is of no falling near the 99th percentile when compared to national scores all area on this school environment portion of the mesh however scored lower in the spring than in the fall so this will be an area for further investigation and specifically the area of school climate where it fell about six points since the fall so there's questions where we can dig in more deeply and look at where the responses fell for more examination uh for students in grades six through eight again you'll see on the top are the results from the social and emotional competencies component and on the bottom they are from the school environment component for

053students in grades six through eight students collective responses indicated that social emotional skills were well developed all domains again were at the 90th percentile or greater and two areas of strength to note are self-management and classroom effort both of which fell in around the 99th percentile seeing the most improvement since fall is social perspective taking which moved from the 80th percentile nationally to the 90th percentile nationally with an increase over its false score and the highest percentage of favorable answers actually in the last three years for students in grades six through eight teacher and students relationships and school safety were strengths with comprehensive scores falling at the 90th percentile respectively and that is on the school environment component school climate and sense of belonging ranked between the 40th and 50th percentile nationally this is a

054trend we've seen over the last few years as well all areas on this portion of the mesh scored lower than in the fall so again for students in grades six through eight school environment will be an area for further investigation and planning based on the overall results from the spring administration of the mesh at grades three through eight again school environment specifically school climate and sense of belonging have been identified as areas of focus for next school year that being said the district-wide sel committee is in the process of developing lessons and curricular support for students across all grades to support the development of the sel competencies and also address school climate and sense of belonging the sel competencies involve relationship skills social awareness self-awareness self-management and responsible decision-making and our sel committee has also

055added a six competency area in the area of diversity equity and inclusion the summer committee work will entail the identification of specific lessons at grade levels to support all students and will also entail lessons to use for students needing interventions in these areas additionally more in-depth use of the data from the fall survey is planned so teachers are able to discuss grade level and classroom data and identify interventions for specific students and groups of students in these areas are there any questions i just want to start by saying that there's so much information and we recognize how much work it takes to compile this very detailed report so thank you for presenting that to us uh board members there are questions thank you and i i don't think it was a surprise to anyone if

056girls scores would be impacted um just a quick question on math do what happens when the teachers get the scores do they look through them or do you pretty much wait and look at them collectively so um this this spring typically we will review data with teachers so it's it comes from a bigger level from our department to the principals and then to the staff and then the teachers review their own at the classroom level this spring um it empty our window ended so late um that we did not have an opportunity to discuss these spring results with our teachers but that will be the first thing in the fall um that that will be reviewed so teachers will get the spring scores for the students in their class yes but they also do have

057the opportunity to look at them right after if they care too and i know again i want to echo the the work that it takes to put something a report like this together extensive um maybe the penalty of that is it gives me lots of opportunities to ask questions um but but i do recognize it takes a lot of work and there's a lot of detail and i was particularly interested in the the new data that hopefully we'll never have to do again which was the difference between remote and in-person um so it's a very interesting breakout and understanding that that you got because you could look at it in one way and reach a different conclusion i mean we're looking at sample sizes that are self-selected not necessarily so thank you for that one

058other background thing and it's it used to be interesting to have longitudinal studies it seems like over the last four or five years every time there's been an opportunity to break the longitudinal data we've done i'm not we i mean it's been done for us um so you know one day we'll actually be able to fill in these tables um but you know it's like we change tests because we have to save this test because it's appropriate we have covid which hopefully we'll never do again but you know eventually we'll get to the point where we have uh full longitudinal data and it'll be a little easier to at surface level at least identify tracks yes we agree there's um there's four years of fall and four years of winter and we have three years

059of spring so looking at locally and specifically how our students have done we could use the four years to create that but we would like maybe one more under our belt um okay so one of the um one of the reasons we went to map was that it gave us an opportunity to compare ourselves to other school districts do we have some of that data when would we see some of that data i mean this report was extensive on how our students did but there isn't really any comparison to other school districts um there there is a way to get some big what they call similar schools reports um but i think um mr panzika i believe that you know our township is really mary of interest and so what we would need to explore

060is conversations with our township and asking them to release unlike the state assessments that's something that they do not have to share with us and so um what we could do is start that conversation um not identifying our township schools but at least sharing each other's data so we can learn from one another i can promise you that we have those articulation conversations i can assure you that of the three uh job alike um colleagues that i've spoken to they've also identified and it was a little surprised about reading um they have the same conclusions about math within their district as well but short of revealing to us what their date is i accept their anecdotal summaries of what they're seeing and i'll add that the superintendents have also um shared and articulated about the

061same everyone is on a slightly different time frame in terms of when they're reporting out and how they report their math data but we have we have shared and discussed those those results those who have in fact done the spring assessment we've done some some discussing and articulating there as well and so um there are some there are some trends that we need to explore more deeply but i know it's a sensitive topic maybe school districts just don't want to share that information or historically haven't but that is one of the points of the map would it maybe a rhetorical question but would there be any advantage to the boards of the different schools talking about sharing that information i know the superintendents are but would it be helpful to uh to have another level

062i don't know that that would specifically be helpful um but i don't want to discourage you from having discussions either i think what's maybe more important for us at this point is to dig more deeply into the growth scores those who are growing and what's happening for them and those who are not growing within our own district that to me seems like the most fruitful um the um i had a definitional question i don't know if it's because of the way the material is or it's it was something chosen um but the the definition of high achieving is it's again for our school district it's 85 plus or minus a little bit that that lumps a lot of different skill sets into one category and it compares this against the state average which in almost

063nothing else that we do finances or any other criteria we look at state averages because good or bad we like to think of ourselves as being significantly better than the state average um it would seem to me that there'd be an advantage to saying high achieving was the top 50 percent of our students slow achieving was the bottom 50 of our students and then we could get a maybe a little bit closer feel for how growth at that spread um [Music] is that locked in this way or it is it is at the 50th percent so for achievement when we say high achievement it would be a percentile and higher is what we categorize students and then for for growth it would be 50th percentile and higher so previously i think you'll remember we have

064those quadrants you know right the four colorful patterns and that's where the axes are at the 50th percentile our students yes of our students um that is something that we can look into very rarely do school districts adjust so for example if we wanted to move the achievement percentile to 55 instead of 50 as it's you know outlined that's something that we could do but typically all districts used when i look on the historical achievement status and growth the percentage numbers for you know pick a grade let's say eighth grade reading um the the four the four numbers add up to 100 the high achieving numbers add up to 77 and the the two low achieving numbers add up to 23 so i'm not sure the 50 percent either i'm not asking the right question

065or not understanding your answer which is clearly possible so um what those numbers show is that 80 77 i think is what you refer to of our students fall above 50th percentile so if we have the achievement being the vertical axis and itself percentile 77 percent of our students are up above that line but then they're spread out across for both which is the horizontal axis so what we're saying is of the students that are above that 58th percentile we have a portion that have low achieving so that would be on the left side and then our high achieving would be on the right side of that scale okay i'm going to have to absorb that so thank you i'm happy to send you um like that four quadrant visual i think that will help

066where you can see our students are represented by dots and so you'll see most of the dots up high above the 50th percentile but then spread out um i won't spend more time on that but 50 percentile but most of our dots are above that line is where i'm having problems so i'll ask about that death later um um i guess the and this is really more of the maybe it makes sense um for future thoughts maybe not but i'll throw it out there is something to to consider um we when looking at the historical achievement category and we'll just stay with reading for a second um the our students effectively in second grade enter um about three points above the median range um and over the years the median range actually grows at a

067slightly higher rate than our students and that's hard to tell if that's statistically significant or not in the math it's basically they stay flat during that time period i'm wondering if that is the criteria that we want to go for that our students start off really well and they stay really well or do we want that our students start off really well and they actually grow even faster than the norms so it's it's complicated and it's hard to see from just this type of chart but it's looking at it and i don't think this is the right way to look at it but one way you could look at this data is we start with strong students and we don't screw it up and they stay strong and and i know we do more than

068that but but these numbers it's hard to get that information from this um so if you could at least kind of think of that as a thought exercise when you're going through these numbers um i i always like to to think that you know we start with strong students and they accelerate even faster than the averages for strong students right yeah okay you're ready i think given how important this testing cycle is um i wonder if we should think about doing some more parent education from yeah yeah about what it means and you know i think we understand it we have a lot of high achieving kids and a bunch of them didn't grow to expectations in reading so that's the summary and uh you know what can we do to well what's that mean

069you know as parents and what can you do to you know kind of help out here so i'll take on it i think that's a great idea for those kids who may have dramatic decreases kind of the parent's response would be what happened in the video i've one set of comments and a question for katie and another set for kelly i'll start with katie um it by just a little bit of background kind of where i'm at before i ask my question um you know i think a lot about the map test i work in the school where we administer the map test um i think growth and achievement are important i personally am more interested in growth i believe this test is a snapshot of one particular measure given at one particular point in

070time and i'm a huge believer in multiple intelligences and i think our students have skills that aren't measured by these kind of assessments but i do believe it map has its place so when i was looking at this i was looking at the the idea of projected growth and you know the percentage that's meeting projected growth and as i think you mentioned and if i'm looking at page six of the report in the middle of the page under the um the subheading growth it says nwea growth targets are established by nwea based on sorry based upon the normative studies of typical growth accomplished by students nwea studies observe that approximately 50 to 60 percent of students meet or exceed their growth targets in any given district so my understanding right that the way the test

071is designed the expectation is not that everybody is going to hit this growth target the goal is the 50 to 60 okay that was my question there and then if anybody else has something i can wait before i talk to katie i mean to kelly okay so um first of all i love that um social emotional learning is part of the same report um it says to me our priorities are in the right place um so i had a question about school climate um um i'm glad that we're making that an area of priority for next year i'm wondering if there's any sense maybe you said we that you were gonna have to investigate so it may be too early to know this is there any thinking that the school climate and sense of belonging

072numbers could be lower because a lot of the learning happened this year in silos i think that could play into it and we don't have the breakdown of remote learners versus in-person learners either but that would be another interesting breakdown to pull out specifically in those areas so we could see is there something else that's affecting those lower scores i do know sense of belonging has regularly come up at the 5-8 level um for the past few years i think it part of it may just be you know kids at this age and how do we tap into that and how do we help them to feel more included i'm really excited about the work that our committee is doing because it's going to be very targeted toward those areas so i think that'll be

073good for the future thank you and thank you for the work you're planning on doing and i i think i've mentioned this in the past i think it's fun and exciting to think about finding schools that excel in that one particular area in terms of school climate and seeing i i don't know if that's accessible but i think that could provide really interesting resources for us as we look at that because they are also at that great level i wanted to say thank you to katie and kelly for your presentation this evening i know it represents a lot of work and especially at the conclusion of this year to be able to pull this together and present this evening thank you i also know that much of these topics that have been discussed are also

074being discussed by the strategic planning core team some right now at the at the relatively high level of setting direction and then the work that lies ahead will be to set um some of those goals and the measurements so that we can continue to target for our students so um it is exciting to see that so much aligns and yet um there is work to be done there's no doubt and so we're really proud of what we were able to accomplish this year and yet we know that there is work to be done so thank everyone for their contribution we're ready to move on then to even more work uh an update uh in a review of the strategic plan from this year yes thank you so on september 21st 2020 at the beginning of

075the school year that is just concluding the board of education approved the implementation of the 2020-2021 district 39 strategic plan the district initiatives were divided into three sections new strategic initiatives continuing strategic initiatives and annual business this month's executive summary report will note the status of each goal provide an update and review any applicable next steps we're doing that in tandem with the strategic planning effort so we'll give a quick overview of that i just want you to know as we always do the strategic plan is the work of the entire administrative and i am representing them as they are here supporting um this as well um so since this is not a typical year and we all know that images convey messages that words can only hope to capture um our intent is to

076present the intended goals for outcomes the status and next steps as efficiently as possible and then ask that you enjoy a video that summarizes the year at the end our administrative team or i will represent by answering any questions that you have regarding the details that are outlined here so first the new strategic initiative was a big one um the 2020 2021 will met district 39 reopening plan it is year one of implementing and it is the end of it as well yes thank you our intended outcome was that by june of this year that district 39 will have implemented the 2020 2021 reopening plan keeping students staff and community safety and wellness as a priority while ensuring that learning is targeted connected meaningful management we are going to declare that this status is the

077outcome is being met however uh district 39 has reflected unless informed and identified some peace overlandings to apply to our next year and we are excited to do that so this year has been challenging for every group our students and their families our teachers and the administrators and the members of the board among these challenges though we have found some peace of minds that have just been amplified through this year so continuing strategic initiatives the first one being designing a kindergarten enrichment program we are year three in developing and implementing and by june of 2021 the district 39 will have completed and reviewed kindergarten enrichment enhancement program 839 at central school and harper elementary school and i will go out on a limb and say that this outcome was met with very happy smiles this

078summer our cake 39 teachers will review program elements to make adjustments if needed for the 21 22 school year and we are so excited and so grateful that all of our four elementary schools will offer this optional fee based program to district 39 families at all very excited student growth through differentiation personal personalization is year three it's implementing and it is ongoing um district 39 will evaluate the impact of differentiating instruction personalized learning is measured by maintaining or increasing the percentage of students who demonstrate high growth by meeting or exceeding growth targets at 65 percent on that growth reading and mathematics assessments i have mark steen's voice in my ear saying you sure you want to go that high um when we typically go for 50 to 60 you know happily we could say even

079through this campaign there were two grades that meant that in that i think we have and know that we can do better and therefore we want to do that um district 39 will evaluate the impact of differentiating instruction and personalized learning as measured by the percentage of students and student subgroups who grow in performance online reading and mathematics assessments in addition we will continue to analyze benchmarking assessments such as nwa math baseball plus desktop mesh along with frequently based measures to inform improvement efforts and differentiating extraction for all students so while we would like to deem the status of in progress and ongoing this is something that we would never really let go of as a goal of ours and just to note for the next steps differentiation and precise personalization of teaching and learning

080have been significant areas of discussion by the district 39 strategic 2014 and continued work in this area will likely be incorporated into the draft strategic plan that will be presented to the board and followed in 2021 we will continuously monitor student achievement and growth and we strive to improve and how students needs on that both academically socially and emotionally and district and i will continue to build the capacity staff to address the needs of students and monitor student growth in those three areas the learning commons another era that has come to an end um year three implementing high crest middle school we have one project left um our intended outcome was by spring of 2021 the plan to address outdoor learning spaces which was deemed phase three a very long time ago will be finalized

081and implemented it's in progress but only for a short period of time in the fall of 2021 um the team will assemble a team will assemble and plan for the prairie garden reforming next year and last but not least is the annual business of the district the intended outcome for building school culture and community was that during this school year district 39 will improve school culture by directly engaging conversations about diversity inclusion and fostering a sense of connectedness among all students and staff we believe that this is ongoing therefore under our annual business school culture and climate along with diversity and inclusion practices have been significant areas of discussion by the district 39 um planning 14 and we will continue the work and we likely incorporate into strategic plan district 39 will continue to positively

082impact school culture throughout the promotion of inclusion diversity school safety so throughout 2021 um school year district 39 will continue implementation of the 2018 district wide safety plan which includes facilities improvements prices can review safe practices training for students and teachers and again this would always be ongoing uh we have prioritized full safety in a variety of ways especially this year adding our mitigation protocol to that so this can this work will continue it will most likely be incorporated into the strategic plan and we will continue to engage in annual reflections on how to improve school safety and security always curriculum reviews um in particular uh by june 2021 uh department of curricular instruction will have completed the third year of the science curriculum review and so that outcome has been that but we wanted

083to note that in the next steps as the district pursues its new strategic following initiatives in the coming years it's likely that specific areas of curriculum review improvement will be populated continued work in this area will again um you know most likely show in the draft of the strategic plan for future years and we will continue to provide ongoing professional development and support for our teachers and i believe um sustainability planning and practices um by june of 2021 district renowned will continually seek to achieve energy cost reductions and promote environmental literacy among students again this is an ongoing initiative for a part of our annual business brief strategic planning update for you um this school year district 39 administration reached out to cc to restart the strategic planning process the work resumed in april 2020

084to celebrate successes as a district and identified improvement opportunities with the goal to develop a multi-year plan so the strategic planning team has completed readiness meetings an orientation meeting three data meetings three data retreats three vision retreats and two setting direction meetings so now we are here elena bedard cec consultant is preparing a draft of the strategic plan once shared the next step for the strategic planning team would be to review and refine which is the goal for the next feedback you come first we will then seek stakeholder input late in the summer or early fall to complete the cc strategic planning process district 39 invites anyone all members of the community to visit the webpage to access specific information all materials from each of the meetings such as the meeting agendas presentation slides articles

085products chat logs are posted with the hope that the community will engage in the process alongside the full team so i will exhale and say on what a year and if you would like to draw your attention to either your laptop or the screen um [Music] so [Music] no [Music] so [Music] do [Music] uh [Music] do [Music] that was a year at a glance and i thought and i hope you appreciate this performing arts department rendition of the end of the year i did it [Music] the doors [Music] yeah yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] past years i'm happy to answer any questions on behalf of the administrative team thank you so much that previous video was quite a time capsule profound and i just want to say i think it's incredible in the midst of

086a global pandemic to see this update on the strategic plan and how much else happens in addition to keeping things safe and learning i want to echo everybody else's and unfortunately i have a mundane question so i don't want to break the mood with that but but there's a positive part to it on the uh to keep 39 uh the mckenzie numbers um were really high i don't remember them the last time we looked at it being quite as high so we had a lot of just [Music] acceleration toward the goal line [Music] enrollment in the keep 39 program for the upcoming school year right yes that is that is true in fact i think there's a wait list um and we're eager to make some decisions and start communicating out next steps there so

087i think it's great that we have that level of interest um and we'll be able to start using the school as soon as we've uh we've completed the construction i i had a tactical question then it said four sections at mckenzie um i assume that means that you have to like borrow a space someplace so i know we have four kindergarten rooms and we have keep ends up using up the room for the whole day so is there another there's still some kindergarten kids that aren't the key right so students come to the academic portion of kindergarten in the morning and those who have chosen not to enroll in keep 39 would be released prior to lunch and the remaining students would engage in lunch and recess and the other activities and then enter into

088their keep 39 enrichment program in the afternoon so depending on the enrollment at each school the way the sections work is a little bit different in some schools it may be that we have a full section of academic kindergarten only students and in other schools it may be that those students engage across kindergarten academic kindergarten sections and just leave at lunchtime when um when their other students begin the kindergarten program so it's great that we have that level of participation and we have four classrooms and we're using all four so thank you for all the work of priming the pump and now we'll get a lot of positive referrals after this year we expect that to be the case yes thank you um just a couple comments and then a question one is i'm going

089to echo what lisa and amy said and when i read this report that you know the first one is about implementing the reopening plan like you could have stopped there and i would have stood up and applauded there's like 18 more pages after that of all the work you're doing so thank you so much for that um i'm thrilled to see um the diversity equity and inclusion initiatives in here and then i had a question about the science curriculum just as an aside i love that we do these curriculum reviews i think it shows an incredible um amount of foresight on our part um just thinking back to the social studies one a few years ago i thought it was good and then we changed it it was like way better so i appreciate all

090the efforts that go into these deep dives um so i think the science curriculum for this year some of the things had to be modified because they um they imagine um kids working together and they couldn't because they had to be distanced do we know yet where we are in the fall or is that sort of kind of waiting to see if um kids will be able to be working together more in groups like the curriculum imagines um i i think we're we're still waiting on some of that guidance it will depend on the vaccination levels and access for our students first and foremost um and then it will also depend on the guidance at that point we are very hopeful that um for those 12 and older we'll see a continued loosening of those

091restrictions but there's a lot of time between now and then and so we'll continue to monitor uh the the state and uh the department of public health have made ongoing adjusted adjustments to distancing and as you'll recall the difference between six feet of distancing and three feet of distancing is huge within a classroom you can engage in a whole lot of collaborative work if you can maintain only three speed versus six feet so we expect to see that continue and we're eager to get those final uh guidelines well we've learned nothing is ever final but the updated guidelines and we'll continue to plan accordingly okay thank you wonderful thank you well in the next is really the strategic planning liaison report and the upcoming feedback forums as we have mentioned and i believe uh lisa

092mentioned as well um the strategic planning core team is continuing to do its work uh they will meet again on june 21st to review and refine the uh the work that has been aggregated by our arlena the consultant through cec and at that time we will review the draft goals update those once all of that work is completed we do want to host um again more opportunities for community feedback before we get to the point of presenting to the board um unfortunately as we expected all year the timing is not ideal right now and so um we are contemplating a couple of different options one would be late june and we talked through this with the crc late june just prior to what we understand to be a time when many people travel for vacation

093in early july or looking at mid to late august right before school starts and then the third and final option would be waiting until school starts people are re-engaged and then um holding those feedback sessions our goal has been and continues to be to present the final plan to the board in september depending on when those are scheduled we do want to really honor the commitment that the board has made throughout which is community engagement and feedback and we know that right now many of our family members our students as well as our staff are less able to engage in some of that so we welcome any feedback from the board the crc said either do it before july or after people are back from uh summer vacations and in just the summer break that

094is so necessary so we're taking uh that advice into consideration but we would welcome the board's feedback as well and then i would let amy and lisa update the board on any other um summaries of the core team's work so i think we've hit all the high points in multiple places in the agenda um and i just think for additional feedback my recommendation is later is better given um the community and i do agree i think at this point a little bit of a break to reconceptualize what we're aiming for post pandemic may be may be really helpful other thoughts we'll keep uh working hard on that then i know as i mentioned before our administrative team has some work to do um between now before and after the meeting on the 21st and and

095then we will start to conceive of what those feedback sessions will look like so thank you for that um we're eager to continue that work we have some annual business let's do it okay so we have our bullying report uh dr chris kristen swanson has put this together i will let her provide a brief summary so each year our principals receive lots of reports about potential bullying and social socially inappropriate behaviors and they investigate all of those reports they then provide information for us to compile the annual bullying report for the board it is important to note that the definition of bullying for this report is defined by the state and has very specific parameters a very specific definition but all instances of inappropriate behavior are investigated by our teachers and our administrators they do

096address behavior it is our job as educators to make sure that we are providing feedback guidance and consequences to students as we are helping them to develop the appropriate social skills to function so this year in terms of the bullying that was investigated fully by our principles and assistant principles we had nine instances of these three were founded all of those involved online behavior and i will say that that was a big probably not unexpected this year but a lot of the significant issues that we investigated did involve online behavior students spent much more time on online in interacting in that way um in all situations we provide support for the victim as well as services and consequences for the aggressor again our goal is both to change that behavior to make sure that we

097provide guidance and feedback for students so that they develop more social ways to interact the consequences and services involved this year are not limited to but these are many of the things that we did in school suspensions detention oral and written apologies restorative conversations work with the social workers conferences with parents teachers and the student we also added two questions to the mesh survey which kelly jackson talked about earlier today in order to track some more information about bullying within our schools so that we have a little bit more information about what student perspectives are and perceptions and have that information in an ongoing way so that we can target interventions and make sure that we can analyze sort of what the students are telling us or does anyone have any questions comments one is

098the fact that there were identity days pie crust makes me very very happy so thank you um and then just you know the observation that you know obviously we hope for no instances of bullying but i will say that you know where there is bullying or allegations of bullying you're identifying it you're investigating it you're taking meaningful action consequences restorative practices and i really appreciate those efforts to try to provide teaching and guidance and instruction so that it doesn't happen again yeah i think our teachers and our building administrators are very on top of this and are really it's everybody's goal that our students are developing the appropriate social interactions and we do know that students they're young they're learning and so part of what we need to do is teach them as well but

099there are also behaviors that require consequences in addition to that instruction and guidance some business to attend to i will invite corey to give a quick summary of our annual business starting with a resolution authorizing july buildings okay so we have several items here each of them should be brief if anybody has any questions feel free to jump in otherwise the july author the resolution for authorizing july bill payments um this is a resolution that we've done in the past it allows the district to continue to pay our invoices timely over the summer since we do not have a july meeting since it's we would continue to pay without the meeting we would present any checks written from today through the august 23rd meeting at the august 23rd meeting so the board would see everything

100during that period the illinois school treasurer's bond renewal is a requirement of all school districts to take out a bond on the district's authorized treasurer in that case i am the district treasurer and the just for reference the copy of the invoice is included in the board packet and the total cost is a little over twelve thousand dollars per year so tonight we're asking the board to approve the district 39 tentative budget um the amounts included in this budget are the same as what we've seen the last couple of months on the first slide we have a graph that shows that over 90 90 percent of our money comes from local sources property taxes uh transportation fees launch fees 39 fees uh structural material fees so we are heavily dependent on local sources of revenue

101operating revenues um as expected a little over 80 percent of our total operating expenditures come from salaries and benefits heavy business so this is no surprise i really like this this particular five-year look at our revenues versus expenditures which you can see before the fiscal year 2021 pandemic years that revenues are exceeding expenditures on an annual basis and then the expectations that we return to that scenario of fiscal year 22. it should be worth noting that during this peter 21 without the additional coveted expenditures the district would find itself with revenues exceeding expenditures here we see five previous years of operating fund balance as a percentage of expenditures then we have the projection for fiscal year 21 and then additional five years of projections from our five-year forecast the red lines denote the upper limits

102and the lower limits of the board targets for fund balance the decline that we've seen from fiscal year 20 with 70 percent dropping down to approximately 49 and then down to potentially 42 in fiscal year 22 is primarily driven by the construction projects that the district has has undertaken um for keep and the air conditioning across the street the junior high on the second floor and some of the learning commons projects as you see going out we level off in the 40 range the operating funds total revenues for for fiscal year 22 the budget is 67.4 million dollars low expenditures of 65.9 that leak gives us a projected surplus of 1.47 million we do have some transfers out of the operating funds of a total 5.9 million 5.1 for construction projects and 0.8 for debt

103certificates a budget with these parameters would leave us with 27.8 million in front balance in june of 22 and a percentage which is a percentage of 42.13 i think it's always worth noting that within this tentative budget we have nearly two million dollars of additional coveted 19 placeholders those are incorporated in the amount that's being asked to be approved tonight and as we finalize and get some more clarity on our operational plans for the fall we will start to peel some of these amounts back if we are able to do so changes some of the changes from the tentative which is tonight's numbers to the final budget so these are some of the bigger changes that i expect us to see implemented over the over the summer um any changes within our coveted placeholder amounts

104uh anytime within the next couple of weeks we should get our final 2020 property tax extension which the key component to that is the value of new property growth that's a very important number for a district like us corporate personal property replacement taxes has been going well this year be interesting to see what the what the state is projecting um especially in light of some of the state financial numbers being a little bit better than people were anticipating settlement of w-a-w-a contract which expires this summer um the projects that we ultimately select for summer of 22 construction as a reminder the architectural engineering a lot of the planning fees related to those projects will hit fiscal year 22 and then about 15 to 20 percent of the actual heart construction cost will hit the 22

105budget uh keep enrollment um as talked about a little bit ago uh especially at mckenzie the enrollment's going well so we will incorporate whatever those enrollment numbers are come august transportation another operational decision point for the district where we're currently operating a scenario where we have one student per bench you know we're basically running a very similar amount of buses compared to a normal year with many less kids so that will be a key factor in the budget and then the transfers between funds which we have a couple of resolutions that i'll talk about and with that i will open up to any questions as it relates to the fiscal year 22 for sure 39 10 bid budget um question about the sourcing of personal property replacement tax revenues but we keep that to ourselves

106next time all right so the next topic up is the tentative budget for the womack community special education agreement for fiscal year 22 as as discussed we did have a meeting earlier today i just this will take a minute um so this this agreement's between district 39 and a boca school issue 37 uh wixie is required to have its its own financial statements and district 39 does serve as the fifth this slide just shows real briefly as was mentioned earlier everything kind of just is a pass through with wixie revenues equal expenditures every year in 21 the budget amount is 195 000. we have it at 201 000 and then at the end of each year there is no fund balance for wixie and that is it for the wixie budget there are no questions

107we will move to the special education transportation contract extension with north shore transit a couple of key provisions so we have just finished year three of a three year contract for special education transportation services with north shore state code allows the district to extend for an additional two years if both parties can come to an agreement which i believe we have uh pending board approval and a couple of key key items within that at contract extension each of the years would see 3.3 proposed increases in the fees and then as it relates to [Music] a world in which pandemics do happen there is now a clause in there that states that if the district needs to close for a pandemic or a natural disaster of more than one week then district 39 has the option

108to either pay 80 of the daily daily amount for routes normally run and then if if that happens we chose that option north shore would be required to continue to pay their driver's age and mechanics at their normal wages and benefits and they would have to prove that to us or we could elect to pay 37 percent of the daily amounts and north shore would have the ability to furlough their employees under that option and they almost certainly would do that yeah one of the other key components is outside of the pandemic and natural disaster clause there is a minimum days paid for 165 and that is it on the contract extension no questions i will move on to the budget resolutions so there are three resolutions related to the budget for the board's consideration

109tonight first resolution is a transfer from the operation maintenance fund to capital projects fund of 5.1 million this this uh transfer is something that we do again is required because we're supposed to pay our construction projects out of the capital projects fund that fund particular fund has no current funding source typically that would be come from a bond issuance so in our case we are transferring money from o m and to follow the proper procedures we have the board pass household resolution on an annual basis the next thing is an interfund loan from the pet fund to the o m fund this is something that the district has passed in the has passed in prior years the resolution says that the loan is not to exceed 2.5 million the idea behind this resolution is not

110that you're permanently loaning money but it's more of a temporary thing to so that the o m fund does not go negative and one of the reasons that that particular fund may go negative is that we receive the vast majority of o m fund revenue and two installments july and august and then not again until march february march and with the bulk of construction money the budget being spent in the late summer and early fall it does have the potential to put the o m fund at a negative balance without this loan so this loan would only be done from an accounting standpoint if we needed it um i think there's a decent chance we may in this upcoming year but it's nice to have and then the last resolution is an interfund transfer between

111the ed fund and the onm fund and as we continue to do construction projects in some years depending upon the existing fund balances and the size of the projects we're doing there may need to be an additional transfer from right now we are looking at 750 000 and what is being asked of the board and related to this resolution is that the board approved the public notice that would be published later this summer and that one has to be published between 7 and 30 days prior to the public hearing and then also to approve a public hearing at the august board meeting where the board would hear feedback and consider this particular transfer and that is policy review yes we have one policy uh recommended for first reading that is board policy seven colon two

112seven zero um and i'll just summarize that this policy has been updated to reflect current laws and align with best practice the proposed traditions are the results of legal review as well as uh suggested revisions from press which is the isb policy review service the main revision is the addition of a section regarding administering medical cannabis at school um so in keeping with our board policy to um eliminate gender pronouns from our policies as we review them i'm proposing three amendments um where those pronouns currently exist one is at the top of page two the first like full sentence under the crossouts where it says each building administrator and or his or her corresponding et cetera i'm proposing we change his or her to the administrators then at the bottom of page two under item

113number three um it says the student him or herself when the self administration etc i'm proposing we just eliminate the phrase him or herself and just keep it as the student when the self administration takes place and then the top of page three the second um i guess it's like a it's once no it's two sentences but um right above the sentence right above void policy that starts the district may not deny a student attendance you see that um solely because he or she requires administration i'm proposing we change he or she to the student is it this right yeah this is for the frustration yes okay great thank you lots of information items uh we are now back at another opportunity for the community to address the board so if there's anyone present who

114wishes to address the board i'd remind you to state your name and community of residence and you have three minutes if you have not addressed the board or one minute if you would like to offer a follow-up comment hello i'm diane schonzebach from wellnet i have multiple points that i'd like to make today but i'm going to stick to one and make that about reading i believe that you're drawing the wrong conclusions from the data that was presented tonight when the data when test scores are dropping as quickly as we've seen them drop and will net over the last seven years even if you don't think that the data themselves are all that meaningful that drop is telling you something and what it's telling us is that there's something going wrong and will not schools

115across the board in reading last year before covid hit i came and showed you what was happening to iar tests and statewide tests we've seen in every grade except for six large declines in ela proficiency between 2015 and 2019. 10 percentage point decline they were large and you said no no we we care more about the map scores we're going to look at growth um but you don't quite get this straight story we're doing sort of this stuff where we're comparing ourselves to national averages instead of comparing ourselves to other like scores well this is a report from before covid from fall to scrum the dots here and this is from nwea it's this official stuff they tell us what our growth should look like and the bars tell us what they are and what

116it tells us is that this was seventh and eighth grade compared to other schools ours growth is in the bottom quartile of course this year it's even worse but it's not no surprise that things were particularly bad in reading and we didn't see that in that it's a bigger culture there's something wrong in wilmette with reading everyone should be concerned about these principles the superintendent parents teachers but to the board who desperately need your attention we learned from the strategic plan data retreats that our students get less instructional time they have larger class sizes we have less spending we have very high teacher absence rates we also know that we use a curriculum in the early grades by lucy calkins that's thought by data by learning scientists to be ineffective why are we still using

117it please do not wait until it is too late we need to face this we need to use sensible data comparing ourselves to other similar schools we need to reverse this decline and give our students the schools that they deserve i will continue to inform the community about this data about the data at the website wilmette school's project thank you is there anyone else present who'd like to address people we have anybody on zoom who would like to address us okay much then we will continue uh with our agenda uh the next order of business is the consent agenda and action items are there any items that the board would like okay please proceed with emotions yes i move to approve the personnel report dated june 14th 2021 i move to approve the resolution authorizing

118payment for goods and services between now and the next board meeting scheduled for august 23 i moved to approve the renewal of the state of illinois school treasurer bond in the amount of 16 million i moved to approve the fiscal year 2022 district 39 tentative budget as contained in the report for immediate public display and further i moved to approve the publication of notice of a public hearing on the tentative budget to be held at seven o'clock p.m prior to commencing the regularly scheduled board of education meeting on monday august 23 2021 i moved to approve the wilmette community special education agreement fiscal year 22 tentative budget as contained in the report for immediate public display and further i move to approve the announcement of a public hearing on the tentative budget to be held

119at seven o'clock p.m prior to the commencing of the regularly scheduled board of education meeting on monday august 23 2021 i moved to approve the resolutions authorizing accounting transfers from the operations and maintenance fund to the capital projects fund and i move to approve the resolution authorizing an interfund loan from the educational fund to the operations and maintenance fund and i move to approve the hearing to discuss a permanent interfund transfer from the educational fund the operations and maintenance fund and further i move to approve the publication of notice of a public hearing on the permanent interfund transfer to be held at seven o'clock p.m prior to commencing the regularly scheduled board of education meeting on monday august 23 2021 i moved to approve the special education transportation contract extension with north shore transit or

120nst for two years with fee increases of 3.3 percent for the 2021 2022 school year and 3.3 percent for the 2022 2023 school year i moved to approve as first reading of board of education policy 7 colon 270 administering medicines to students as amended i move to approve the accounts payable for bills listed between may 25th 2021 through june 14th 2021 in the following amounts educational fund six hundred and twenty two thousand two hundred and sixty dollars and thirty three cents o m fund one hundred and eighty three thousand nine hundred and seventy seven dollars and sixty cents debt services sixty two thousand seven hundred and seventy one dollars and twenty five cents transportation one hundred and sixty one thousand five hundred and sixty nine dollars and seventy two cents capital projects 738 thousand 276

121dollars tort fund 12 800 for a total all funds of 1 million and eighty 781 thousand six hundred and fifty four dollars and ninety cents i moved to approve the manual checks issued between may 25th 2021 and june 14th 2021 in the following amounts educational fund three hundred and thirty two thousand nine hundred and eighty one dollars and four cents o m fund forty thousand one hundred and twenty dollars and twenty cents debt service eighty four thousand nine hundred and thirty eight dollars and seventy five cents transportation thirty one dollars and forty eight cents for a total all funds of four hundred and fifty eight thousand seventy dollars have a second a second the motion has been moved and seconded with the clerk please call the roll chances ready yes and heart yes bonnie kim

122yes frank kenzika yes lisa schneider faves aaron stone yes amy yes the a's have it motion carried so we will move on to conference items uh old business yes thank you um first of all uh just a note to the board uh discussed the august committee the whole meeting last week and we are just simply confirming that our august meeting will be held on wednesday august 18th at 8 00 a.m and then i also wanted to share if my screen will let me um there's another bit of old business our metrics uh team has stopped working uh but we could not let the final week of school go by without generating a report um just because it seemed uh unfinished if we didn't do a final report so i'm just going to quickly share here

123my screen if i'm able to do so [Music] because i think again there's some good news to be had here um you will remember a time when these blue dots were almost all the way to the left showing substantial risk in all categories we are now at a point where almost all are all the way to the right showing very minimal risk um the risk is still president we remain vigilant and yet this is just really exciting news so i did want to share that that of course is the metrics dashboard that just kind of like high level look we did generate a report which gives you a view of each of these metrics really from the beginning of the school year to the end so if someone's super interested they can they can look

124at that full school year of uh data and then we have updated our metrics graphs which all show that steady decline of community spread so and um no case is reported still from that last time quite a few days since staff or students recorded a case all good news and again just wanted to celebrate that we do not plan to continue to update these graphs over the summer but wanted to share that good news for everyone thanks to heather and her team for helping to aggregate all of that data um and everyone else our school nurses are administrators who all had a hand in helping to put together um all of that it's a beautiful thing to see any other old business new business i just wanted to commend the foundation and everyone associated with

125the silver lining project i watched the video and it was amazing um what a nice positive reflection on a brutal year and i also want to second all the thanks on the mattress reporting that was most healthy and for those who were watching early on it was even larger than um it is today and i know y'all see this last week watching that dip way into the green and if anyone's interested the silver lining book the publication is out on the coffee table so if you haven't had a chance to review that next time you're lounging before or after a meeting you might flip through that it's really just a beautiful beautiful one i would like to share miss stone and i were at the staff appreciation event last week and it was just such

126a joyful evening um to see so many people come together and just celebrate the end of a really hard year in a really lighthearted beautiful way many thanks to tony who i believe helped put that together it was so wonderful to meet families and we were lucky enough to hand out the popcorn and ice cream and candy and the kids eyes just lit i would be remiss if i did not share my new favorite thing which we were all it's it's a picture that's in that express publication that's coming out that i think you shared with us on friday um so it's a picture of two little boys that are yes that are um so excited about the ramona construction so to give you a little mental picture so these two guys both of them

127have on neon safety vests both of them have their own tool belts one of them has a helmet and the other one has what looks like a plastic um flathead screwdriver in his tool belt and i just love that these guys instead of being like you know oh what an inconvenience are schools being you know constructed it's no like how can we help let's join in we want to be a part of it and i just i loved it so much when i was reading the stuff in preparation for the meeting that um i'm looking forward to that publication there they are there they are look at those guys right and they're wearing their masks they're safe he's got a hammer too i didn't notice that before he's like ready to work look at those

128guys so may i have a motion to adjourn to executive session to discuss special education students specific personnel and negotiations i move to adjourn to executive session to discuss special education students specific personnel and negotiations i have a second second motion having been made and seconded will the clerk please call the roll chances ready ann hart bonnie kin yes frank panzika yes lisa schneider faves yes aaron stone yes yes motion carried we are now adjourned to executive sessions