001e e e to order Ken Dawson here Jan Hashim here Jason Trio here thank you right now let's say the Pres uh the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all all right thank you we have some important stuff to do right now we're going to recognize our students and staff and I'm going to turn that over to Dr KY and uh he will all right we've got a lot to get through and a lot of fun stuff tonight so we're going to start with gymnastics I think both principles are coming up for this y yes good evening everyone so it isn't too often that we get get to
002present on the same thing when we're celebrating um but we are so lucky tonight to celebrate our tros stings which as I think everyone knows is our state championship gymnastics team that represents both Downers Grove South and Downers Grove North I'll let Courtney say a few words and then we're going to introduce coach Campos awesome Yes um we don't often get to celebrate these things at the same time and so tonight we are very lucky to present our tro stings and I just have to say um it has been so wonderful watching these young women um just absolutely shine and I could not I cannot tell excuse me tell you how proud I am of them um they were just so beautiful when they performed and we are so lucky to be able to say
003that they are state champions so Kristen if you wouldn't mind coming on up and introducing your team sure hi um first I just want to kind of acknowledge a few accomplishments that this group has had Beyond being state champions this year uh they went completely undefeated in every dual meet Invitational you name it not one person could beat them this year they were completely dominant uh in their performance including at State this was the largest winning margin in over 25 years of the state meet history so it was really something to celebrate what they were able to do um as a group so tonight we have seven of the eight with us um so if you could just stand real quick when I call your name uh Edie Condon Ally palansky Ken Landry hold on
004who is also a state finalist on bars earning fifth in the state and then uh Emily kta Jen haran are all around and balance beam champion and second on VA aroline Phillip she was a vault finalist also Lauren DC and then I have to acknowledge my assistant coaches uh Kylie Basco and Bill Norris it is truly a group effort um and I'm gonna introduce kayn and jevie to say a couple words go ahead hi I'm Kaylin Landry um I would like to start off by thanking our coaches Campos Kylie and Bill for leading us to be our best and leading this record-breaking season the title of state champion signifies so much more to this team than what is LED on it simply adds a cherry on top to the real depth of Downers Grove Gymnastics
005state champs means to us the family we have created with our bonds with our special bonds and relationships that I will always have close in my heart the title shows our support and accountability we have for one another we lift each other up and all strive to be our best with every competition every practice and each turn from our bus rides blasting music our talks feasting over cookies the conditioning we push through together every 9.0 or better beam routine from our tough competitions our tears the go take a walk and eatting Oreo practices so that feeling of cheering during every routine keeping our feet up on bales having a party on floor getting our handstands and hitting five for five on beam or really any event and the love we feel for each other when
006we get to stand up on the podium and hold the trophy that tells us that it is all worth it and hard work truly pays off so being crowned state champs to the tro stangs doesn't just mean winning it means our ups and downs we have been there together for our love for our love for gymnast ICS that we share and most importantly the love we have in this family oh hi I'm Jen and a question I always get asked is how did I do that or how do I make gymnastics look so easy but the truth is it's not just me but it's the people around me that got me to this point from my parents who have driven me to every practice and have come to every meet to my coaches who have
007helped me to find my happiness in the sport again and to my teammates for being my biggest cheerleaders in support I wouldn't be where I am today without each and every one of you my team is a family and I'm so unbelievably proud of each and every person seeing our hard work pay off at the state meet was something so special to see and to be a part of this season was record-breaking literally and everyone worked hard to achieve our goals together we really put in the work the season and spent countless hours in the gym I always had my teammates to give me pep talks and to do all my assignments with I'm really GNA miss everyone from our bus rides Oreo eating obstacles obstacle course making and more it's truly been an honor
008to be a part of this team for the past 3 years I dedicate my success to my coaches and teammates they've been with me every step of the way and didn't just make me a better gymnast but a better person I thank my coaches for pushing me to be the best person I can and for giving me an unforgettable High School gymnastics experience I thank my teammates for constantly picking me up and being my best friends lastly I thank all the supporters who have followed us and been there to support us along the way this was a fantastic season and I wouldn't have wanted my senior year to end any other way thank [Applause] you who's more okay on behalf of District 99 congratulations it was fun to come watch you all on the last
009day of competition and it was incredible to see everything that you had to offer so great work on a wonderful season it it was just great to see your talent out there um the I know you guys have been on the podium a lot so you're probably familiar but uh when we have state champions uh our both our Villages of Downers Grove and Woodridge uh get in on the celebrations as well so uh we have a couple from the village of Downers Grove uh recognitions and some some Hardware to hand out as well but some of the highlights in the stack that I have here for gymnastics include uh that from the village of down Grove uh their whole staff and including uh Bob Barnett the mayor uh are celebrating with you today and has
010declared uh tomorrow Tuesday March 4th as Downers Grove Gymnastics Team day in the Don Grove uh and has declared Wednesday March 5th in name of Genevie uh and she has her own day [Applause] uh I met today with the the with uh the staff from Woodridge and from Gina Cunningham the mayor we met with uh them today and they shared some celebrations with us as well and said to pass on their best and they have declared today as uh Community High School District 99 gymnastics team day and has declared today as well Genevie haran day did we get the team up here for a photo with the board coaches too come on guys move sides a little window so I can see your right come on take a all right parents if you want to
011come up and take photos you're welcome to I think we need Oreos to celebrate I know right I keep hearing about congratulations again up I I think with as many times as Oreo was said tonight oros needs to uh sponsor the team so put that down as a person to contact that's right that's right we'll send them the video yeah all right our H celebration um from South High continue so gymnastics is definitely a legacy at Downers Grove South in District 99 and so is our speech team and I just think it's so fun um that they tend to be in the same weekend so we have our two big Powerhouse programs who go and compete same weekend sometime same time um and it's just it is such a joy from my from from my
012end to be a part of it so our South speech team was stay runner up so Second and State very very close uh multiple uh first place we have two first place and a second place um and I'm just so so so proud of them love being a part of your season um with that I'm going to introduce coach Justin movich and he's going to talk about their successes from the season [Applause] hi everyone um so I I had this weird moment at the beginning of this season realizing that this was my 20th year being a part of dgs speech this a long time to be involved with anything specifically speech and I think the one thing that always kind of stands out to me is the the team aspect of it you know gymnastics
013speech team track sometimes we don't look at those as being like a team sport because there's so many individual accomplishments but it truly is something that is brought together with a team and I think our team this year um competitive success aside they were always there supporting each other and being there for each other at all aspects of competition helping each other out when they've had bad days supporting each other and propping each other up when they've had good days and being proud of each other so I am incredibly proud of what this team did this year um so let's say hi to all our teammates so um we have Madison beum we have Joe cone we have Abby Hein then we have Charlotte Clinton Jack mey Zoya sadiki then we have Julian Myers Jan
014was also fourth place in the state in extemporaneous speak then we have Juliana Kaner she was our state runner up in oratory in fourth place in impromptu um yeah yeah and then we have Sebastian Blanco he was our state champion in radio speaking and Carly blue Carly and Sebastian were our state champions in dramatic duet acting as well and of course the season isn't done we're getting ready for Nationals now and then we'll probably take a break till about June so we'll get about two months off of speech but it is a long season um could I please have um our seniors Sebastian and Juliana come up here to have a couple of words about our team okay okay hi um I'm Juliana so one thing that I've heard throughout all four years on the
015speech team is that speech dayss with you and when I was a freshman I kind of thought well this is just something I'm going to do in high school and then I'm going to go to college and I'm going to move on but that's not how it works you soon figure out speech really does stay with you um not only because of all the skills you learn in public speaking and writing but also in the relationships that you form and the bonds that you make those those are some of the most formidable moments in my high school career my relationships with my coaches my teammates and students from other teams I'm never going to forget uh competing alongside all of them and just learning from each and every one of them and they inspire me
016every single day to be better not only as a speech kid but as a person and it's just something that's so special and so it's I think it's the best part of this activity so um I hope that as we leave and move on to the next stage in our in our lives that will continue as the legacy of the Downers Grove South speech team just continues to grow uh yeah ditto um this team has been probably the biggest part of my life for the last four years um and it's going to be really sad leaving but um I mean I've spent hours every week with all of these people and um just just some of the best days of my life and I like she said I'll I'll stay with some of these people
017for the rest of my life and um I mean Mr movich has been probably the most influential figure in my life um so thank him and thank everyone for allowing us to do what we do J so I you know I I went to uh the ihsa website and saw how well gymnastics had done been on the podium all three of the past years and that was impressive and then I was like I think speech has been there a lot too so I went to the ihsa website and I I actually looked it up and it took a while to count it out and I had to double check but in the past 40 years the South High speech team has won first or second place 29 times wow that's what we call dominant folks
018all right uh also the village of Downer's Grove and Village of Woodridge would like to recognize our speech uh honor our speech team and individual uh finishers so I have here in this stack here some proclamations from the village of Downers Grove once again uh from mayor Barnett that recognize Thursday March 6th as Sebastian Blanco day in the build and has named Friday March 7th as a co- day for Sebastian Blanco and Carly blue the village of Woodridge is named today the following in the in the honor of the following as Sebastian Blanco day as Carly blue day is Juliana Kane day and the Downers Grove speech team day so congratulations coach we have the team Con on up and get some pictures please all right if any parents want to come up and take
019don't run away yet no no no so whenever we're outside social congratulations again get a lot of weird looks sorry sorry about that oh sorry oh yeah they were all right um the next portion of our celebration um we're going to be um celebrating some individual athletes who excelled in their sport um but first for girls tennis um we are recognizing tonight um Coach Josh Force who as you can see is ihsca coach of the year and I wanted to read an email um celebrating coach Forest um so that will say I get lots of emails as a principal and they're all wonderful uh but this one um this one is just some of those really really special emails that I get so it is actually written to coach Force but I was copied and
020it says coach Force let me be the first to congratulate you on your selection as an Illinois High School tennis coaches association girls 2A Regional coach of the year your efforts to better your student athletes and provide an environment to grow the sport of tennis in the state of Illinois has been recognized by your fellow coaches and the ihsca the ihsca will be recognizing you at a winter Workshop they gave me the date we celebrate um and I just wanted today to publicly thanks thanks coach Force for all the work you do so you can come join me here and as part of the celebration um worth girls tennis um we also are celebrating allate athlete Gabby David today and I'm going to have Coach Forest uh talk about Gabby a little bit and then
021Gabby will say a few words too didn't know um hi guys so um first of all this is 100% about Gabby um she has been such an amazing um leader and captain of our team for the last three years um I could give you a million different stats for and I will in a sec but I think the most important thing for Gabby is she is truly a student leader in our district um between tennis and everything outside of tennis that she does um she is always the first person to step up and and take on any committee or anything in our school um and then obviously she is one of those athletes where as a coach one of the things you look for is you hope for the opportunities to coach athletes that truly
022give everything to the sport um and that's Gabby um in her three years she's been a state qualifier all three years um she's been an all Allstate tennis player twice um in that time um she has nearly already eclipsed 100 wins in her three seasons um we haven't even had an athlete in Four Seasons it 100 wins in the past 10 years she almost did it in three and she did that while playing in the top singles position in arguably one of the most competitive areas of tennis that we have um she puts everything into the sport um and I think that that's been a huge part of our success as a program both obviously with her as a competitor and how she sets the tone for everyone else on the team um so I'm
023I'm incredibly proud of her um and I'm really ecstatic that we're doing something to honor these different athletes and um just so proud so yeah all right so I had nothing prepared today but you know I love this sport so it's kind of easy to talk about it um this team has been meant so much to me over these years honestly like High School tennis I was really contemplating even playing it because it's kind of an interesting Dynamic going from like individual USA like very competitive my whole life to like High School season which is definitely more laidback but it honestly has meant the world to me and taught me so many lessons in leadership and making me a better athlete and honestly as he said we're in one of the most competitive divisions so
024I'm not going to get any easy matches it's not going to be an easy season ever but I'm just so honored to be under such an incredible program and have such an incredible coach obviously he's won this award for a reason he is always my biggest supporter and always like making me so much more positive cuz I'll be honest I'm not the most positive person ont but he definitely helps out with that so I'm extremely grateful so thank you do a picture with every we'll just rotate we'll get everybody up and do pictures in a second tun let's just recognize everybody first all right next up I'd like to invite um head cheer coach Shannon Ley to come join me um we are celebrating um two um two All State athletes today as part of
025our cheer team Ivy and Jada and I'm going to let Shannon talk about them and celebrate them on behalf of the team yes fig out not hi I am thrilled um to be here talking about Ivy and Jada I honestly could not think of two better athletes um to represent the dgs cheer program they have been recognized for all of their amazing accomplishments and contributions um to the sport of cheerleading um in order to be nominated they needed to demonstrate a a variety of skills at the highest level of difficulty according to our ihsh year rubric um and they did that and so much more um and it is their talent and character that landed them two out of the 20 spots um to represent the large Varsity division on the All State team um
026and they did that out of 100 plus um nominations um so we could not be prouder of our two athletes and we are just thrilled um that we get them for another year on dgs cheerleading so congratulations [Applause] girls okay we were conferring that um our athletes just wanted to give a shout out to their coach instead of coming up to the mic um next up I'm going to ask Chris Hernandez headboy soccer coach to come join me we are celebrating Daniel um who is also an Allstate athlete um for for the coaches association come on up hello everybody um I had the pleasure of coaching Danny now for three years um in the boys program and uh we often talk about leadership in many different formats but there is something to be said about
027the silent leader silent leader that's the first one in the gym for offseason workouts the one that's pulling your teammates up if they're having a bad day the one that is taking the role of a captain and no matter hard times good times being the backbone of that team and that's Danny and uh like I said I've had the pleasure of working with him um over these three years you see a lot of growth growth in terms of maturity growth in terms of ability and growth in terms of being human being and with Danny this year kind of all came together and he was elected as one of the top five um all state players for our section in the State uh Danny has had a fantastic year ranking now in career points 10th all
028time with 74 points he's had 29 goals and 16 assists in his career both are top 10 stats for a program which has had some great success over the years collectively this season I know he doesn't like me talking about it but Danny this is the one time to kind of talk it up on the season he uh finished up with 14 go and 13 assists making him one of the most dynamic attacking players in Dage County recognized by teams throughout the entire State and obviously from the Illinois high school soccer coaches association where he was ranked as one of the top 20 attackers in the state so as a player as a human being as a teammate I'm incredibly proud of how Danny has culminated his high school career as a senior congratulations hello
029my name is Daniel I also didn't have anything prepared today I've been playing soccer ever since I could remember like it's honestly brought some of the most amazing memories and I could say without a doubt that these last four years have been some of the most special times of my life and I could honestly say that it wouldn't be possible without our amazing coaches and our staffs that have uh helped us throughout the our journey and pushed us along our [Applause] way all right um and finally girls volleyball and Coach um Madison bavage we have two ivca All State players um this was a phenomen Al phenomenal season um to be a part of all of us loved cheering with you and being there um every step of the way so I'm going to introduce
030coach bavage and she's gonna talk about Alex and Sylvia okay B hi everyone um so Alex and Sylvia have been our team captains Sylvia has been on Varsity for the last three years and Alex has been on Varsity all four years this was our first winning season record-wise in a while um in the 4 years I have been here they came in with me I like to call it the same class um and it's truly because of these two and the other two seniors that kind of bought into the culture change that I'm trying to bring to this program um we went into playoffs this year as the third seed um and we took down cross town Downers Grove North I like it but it feels good to say they were one seed and we
031beat them in a awesome thre set Victory which the girls and I will remember forever we were one game short to make it down to State um but finishing in the top eight everyone all the newspapers and people that interviewed me after games were just like how are they doing this how are you doing this you you weren't supposed to do this and we got hot in the end and these girls bought in um the entire team and with these two like I said buying into the understanding of we're trying to get back um to Our Roots with girls volleyball itself um definitely these two kind of put the team on their back and them and made the underclassman on the team um really truly believe in the process and the determination of what we're
032trying to do on the court and in the community just in volleyball the award that both of these girls received um there was a lot into it that they had a meet um their GPA for one so student athlete and then it goes down to how many kills they hold overall for all of girls volleyball in the state how many aces serving wise how many digs how many set assis um so there's a lot of individual records there's a lot of volleyball in the state of Illinois um a lot of teams have anywhere from 12 to 20 girls on the roster um so to have our school get to is also very rare for the award to happen um so they should be super proud so like I said congratulations if I could keep you
033and pay you some money for year in college I would don't say that in public but I can't just kidding yeah just kidding um but congratulations and like I said you guys should be proud and I hope it was a memorable season for you guys cuz I'll never forget [Applause] it all right hi I'm Alex I'm syvia and we weren't really told we had to make a speech so s with us um so yeah I've been on this team for the past three years and honestly having babage as my coach there's been a lot of good but also not the best because but it's honestly the best though because babage was the first person to actually push me past my limits and force me to see failure which I feel like I've never had a
034coach do that to me before making her one of the most influential like people in my life and also this program has shaped me so much into becoming a leader and becoming confident in myself and I really want to thank you and like all the players and all the people that have supported me including like my parents and every single coach that I've had in the past to leading me to where I am today and yeah that it's just something I'm very thankful to experience you have anything um so when we like started this season like if you told us we got like top eight in state I would have never believed you and I feel like I would have like kind of laughed but like we've like grown like a lot since like the
035start to like the end and I feel like we've bonded really well as a team and it's never been like that in previous years I feel like me and my the girls on the team have always we've never connected as much as we have this year and that definitely drove us to success and me and the coaches have always had a special bond like I'll never forget them um I can always rely on them for anything even if it's like outside of volleyball they'll always be there to help me and I'm very glad I was part of the season and I'm very proud of [Applause] us um I think that uh concludes our celebration we do want everyone um who is recogniz in tennis cheers soccer and volleyball to come up for a picture um
036and just on behalf of our whole school Community congratulations again to everyone I know [Music] [Applause] win a prize all right all right this is a public meeting you're all welcome to stay here for the rest of the evening but you know I understand if you have homework and stuff to do the excitement is yet to come while they're doing that North can get ready for yeah guys if you want to come in they're in the Throne of the crowd being pushed back we'll take a break here as they come in guys come on in perfect guys right up here ready yeah y okay wonderful um well thank you tonight um we are really excited to present student perspectives from North High Shannon made a comment that um I am dressed in South colors tonight
037but I didn't do that on purpose I did that to match our lovely Deca students as you can see um they came prepared tonight and I'm so excited for them to present about Deca um I often I can never remember what Deca stands for we talked about it before the meeting um it's distributive education clubs of America and so they're going to talk a little bit about um what they do and they compete and we're having a sendoff for them this week which is really exciting because they're going to state so I'm gonna call up Josh Kate Joey Russ and Nolan um to come on up and talk about Deca all right do you guys want the clicker or you want to just like say beep and I Advance it which one would you prefer
038we we take clicker you guys are experienced with clickers okay so my name is Russ I'm a senior at Downers Grove North I've been doing Deca all four years and this year I competed in a finance team event with my partner Nolan and then I'm also doing a written event at State my name is Nolan herder um I'm a senior as well I competed with Russ in a finance event and I also competed in a startup business plan with Russ and my name is Joey Sebert I'm a senior here at dgn as well I've been in Deca all four years and I compete in a marketing event with my partner montis pinus but he's not here my name is Kate Peterson and I'm a senior as well and I've been in Deca all four years
039and then as you heard before I compete in a entrepreneurship event with Russell and Nolan but I also compete in a single event in marketing he everyone my name is Yash gar I'm a junior uh I compete in the business finance series event now for a little bit about what Deca is um basically we do field trips throughout the year so we start off by doing a fall leadership event this is the first thing that we do in October with everyone in the club as long as they sign up we go out to lunch for at Portillos and then we also learn a lot about networking with other people and how to be professional then we have our competitions which start in January with a sectional event at sectional everyone's able to go they compete
040for a chance to make it to State and then there's also State and Nationals which Nationals we're hoping to all go there this year uh we'll see coming up here very soon as we have State this weekend so and displayed on the board are the different clusters in Deca so there's business management Finance Hospitality entrepreneurship and marketing and so what I mean by cluster is like it's basically an area of study or Focus for students in deca so like for me I'm focused on marketing my specific event is the sports and entertainment marketing team decision making basically there's like 10 15 specific events under each cluster and then you compete based on those clusters and I'll pass it off to Nolan to talk about competing so then once you select your cluster and your event
041that's when you go and do your actual role playay so these role plays are competed on at sectionals and state like Russ mentioned earlier so for these you to assume the role of a business person so for example if I'm in a marketing event then I might be the chief marketing officer of my business but long story short you're given a problem in every situation so this problem could be you have to make a new product for the business you might have to make a new marketing strategy but whatever it is whether you're by yourself or with a partner you are trying to solve that problem and the whole idea is you're pitching that to a judge who might be the executive at your company and the judge is judging you based off of number
042of things first of all is obviously your confidence and your energy I think that's the most important thing that Deca has taught me is if you have the best ID in the world but you just don't know how to say it it really doesn't mean anything um but along with that they also have a checklist of indicators that they're looking for so this could be as simple as did you mention your target market and other things like that that they're checking off to give you a final score so once they have this final score made together that is then combined with your multiple choice exam score so the the multiple choice test is worth 40% your actual role play is worth 60% and that's your final score that is given to compete with other students
043yeah so there's three main competitions that Russ talked about earlier so first is sectionals it's open to all members in our club and at sectionals it's usually in January the top 10 in each event qualify onto State at State as we mentioned earlier it's this Thursday Friday and Saturday so at State there's um lots of activities to do it's not just all competition there's um there's a going to be a hypnotist there's going to be um scavenger hunts and these two will be participating in a bags tournament which obviously they're going to win um so in order to qualify for Nationals we need to get top four in our event and uh Nationals this year is in Orlando Florida which is really cool because we get to go to Disney World and who doesn't love
044Disney and I'll pass it on to Kate who will talk to us about our members all right so just to hit on like a few of our accomplishments this year our biggest accomplishment in my opinion was a 134% increase a member increase this year from 2023 so last year to this year uh when I first started in Deca my freshman year I was actually the only freshman girl and now we have many there was also about only 30 kids in the club and now we have over 200 we're one of the biggest in the state actually which is very cool which puts me on to my next topic which is I connect which is basically kind of a networking um competition just with like Representatives so I was the representative for dgn this year um
045and there's many tasks you get a spreadsheet and there's a ton of tasks on it whether that's one of the tasks is like a membership increase but then it can also be a charity event a membership event a camp like any type of campaign there is I think like 200 things that you're able to do um and you get points for each of those which like obviously and then you get Awards based on how well you do this year was our first year ever in DJ and DEA history hitting gold um which was really cool and last year we hit silver for the first time in DJ and DEA history too so it's just up up and onward so gold is actually the highest which if you're wondering about the perks right cuz there's got
046to be perks we get um we all get different like stickers and ribbons at state but we also get Premier seating and then of course recognition um I'll end up getting an award for it so it's just overall great and cool and yeah all right um and then one way that we like to keep our members engaged after the regional sectional competition because obviously not everyone qualifies for state which is not the most fun for everyone but one way that we keep our members coming back is through guest speakers we have different business owners and maybe alum I from our area that come in and speak to us they talk a little bit about their career maybe they talk about how Deca has helped them um we had a guest speaker Vic meta in the
047other day he does real estate in our area and so he came to talk about he actually judged uh the sectional competition in a certain event and so he talked to us about tips for the state competition how to best prepare ourselves and also how to improve in the future wow okay so now we're going to talk about just how Deca has affected us um especally me Russ Nolan and Joey since we're seniors going into college soon and all of us are studying in the field of business um as for me it's definitely helped just like boost my resume period um it's great to say that I'm a vice president of this club and also my speaking and the way I talk to people the way I write even has helped me and I think
048in within Deca since dgn had so much room to grow I and my f my co- um presidents and vice presidents like we were able to build on DJ Anda which is great because now I get to say that I was a part of that and that is definitely something that I was able to put on when applying for college or just applying for a job um as for me I'm going to be studying business at the University of Illinois uh next year um when I was younger I always wanted to play basketball in college like whether that was at division 3 but whenever when I first joined Deca I figured that that was what I really wanted to do and business was something that I wanted to pursue so for me it's just given
049me like a a clear view of where I wanted to go with my life and what I wanted to study so it's been super helpful in that sense and then Deca for me it's really helped me meet new people like I joined the club freshman year didn't know anyone in it but then I met like these guys over here who were in it all since freshman year that got me to meet new people but then also even at the state competition I see people who are interested in business all over the state and it's really fun to meet them and network with them and it also helped me choose business to pursue in my future I was between engineering and business like the last year but then doing Deca really made me choose business to
050pursue um I'd say a couple things that it did for me one is that it gave me a mentor uh Mr Baka our adviser really helpful to me uh he showed me a lot of different options that I could go forward with with my career and different things to keep in mind and I would also say that it's always a conversation start uh DEC is an international Club so a lot of people know about it I actually just went on a college visit to Clemson and I was in their business school talking to one of their students and he was in Deca at Massachusetts uh he was the president of their state so it's just a quick connection with him connect with him on LinkedIn after and it's just it's easy to build connections through
051our club because of how widespread it is across the nation oh yeah so that's that thank you guys for listening we're happy to take any questions I have a question so following from your point is De just a is it high school like does it continue in college is there Deca in college so it's mainly High School uh there are Collegiate Deca clubs uh depending on the school some are starting it now more than others uh I know that Indiana has one I believe um out of the other schools I apply to Tennessee has one I'm not really sure how it works in college I don't know if it's the same thing or if it's different um but I know it's something that's at every High School okay cool no not every high school a
052lot of high schools not every high school has they have many high schools do have Deca but some have different uh forms of Business Clubs um Deca is the best probably the biggest not that you're biased not at all not at all you know you guys are so so impressive I mean just incredible and I'm sure you will all do well at college and in life have you all of you or any of you selected your schools and what are your if you haven't selected do you have top choices you're looking at yeah um I'm thinking the University of Illinois um there's a chance I go to Michigan those results come out later but all my family went to University of Illinois and I visited their business school earlier and I really liked it's so
053many good people there so I'll probably end up there great and then for me it's pretty much almost the exact same thing I'm also thinking about Illinois or Michigan if I get in as I wait on the decision but I also have a ton of family members there like cousins brothers sisters and my parents parents went there so great great mine's a little bit farther away my dream school is Tennessee the University of Tennessee and I actually find out tomorrow if I get in um and then I just got into the Kelly School of Business so that is my second choice great that's a good fall there absolutely um and then I'm thinking right now I'm leaning towards attending Clemson University next year uh visited there and really liked it so I'm excited great great
054um yeah so I'm still a junior so I got a year attending North High next year I got I got a year to think about it but um I'm definitely thinking about doing something in business particularly finance and either either if it's a major or a minor I'm I love business so best of luck to all of you thank you so much this world needs you I have u in my past life I as an activities director I was able to travel to one of these competitions at the national level it's so impressive and what you guys do is just it's so cool and you you have so many skills that you're developing um and it's just so neat to see the growth of this club and how excited these guys are and the the
055different things that they do and how impressively they dress and so it's it's really it's really really cool so um congratulations guys and thank you for being here thanks for for coming you two are also welcome to stick around to the remainder of the meeting but I understand it we don't know I know we're going to be brokenhearted I know we're the best thing in town [Music] tonight all right um student questions board members who wants to go first I can start this one off so it's been a little bit of a boring but productive month I mean obviously February I got all my thunder stolen right now um obviously speech ended up second in the state with a lot of individual success also trusting uh first in the state as Miss lip mentioned it
056perfectly powerhouses at dgs and it's just a super great time to celebrate um one thing I love about our school is that we do the send offs and I mean I think that those are really awesome getting to see all your peers cheer you on and being the peers to cheer on is just super amazing and it brings on the atmosphere also looking forward ahead um the April 13th is going to be key club's 12th annual Trot run so if you can attend please do whether you're in it or on the outsides and of course tennis cheers soccer and volleyball also having amazing success just in a celebratory mood and moving forward very good thanks Jon all right thank you hello everyone I hope you guys had a good February you know it's been again
057a little boring month but um still eventful uh we had the Scholastic art show that lasted through the first week of the month and the Evanson jazz festival that same week so both were very very successful um fast forward forwarding to the end of the month we had the spring play that was a big success from what I've heard um some things to look forward again we have the DECA State weekend coming up this weekend and so there's a lot of Buzz a lot of anticipation about that um and also this weekend is the or orchest production titled Bloom and there was a lot of work done around that and a lot of excitement around that as well um we have a spirit week coming up uh right before spring break and let's you know
058my anticipation for that is you know hoping for a sense of community to be strong because you know it's something that we discuss in the student advisory uh board committees and I hope you know it's something that we can improve on um you know how to create a tighter knit bond between students which will you know hopefully relief some general social issues that high schools normally have um other than that I hope to have more for you guys next time but yep that's all thank you anybody have any questions okay all right we'll move on um to uh Staffing progress is that uh you Dr the well it's actually Jeff's going to update you on what you're going to see our next meeting this is the preview of this big meeting where we talk about
059Staffing yeah so I think uh everybody was around last year for this meeting so um we'll be reviewing all the recommendations we have for Staffing for next year uh first section we'll be reviewing just kind of overall numbers for our FTE both uh our non-teaching uh FTE which is like social workers psychologists those types of positions that aren't directly tied to student requests uh and then our section FTE which are all the core classes and then those that are tied to student requests for various uh subjects and classes and so we'll be reviewing those numbers um then section two is on about student learning that'll be led by Gina and uh talking about the courses that maybe we've had to switch or perhaps cancel or or do some things again that's going to be driven
060by what our numbers are enrollment and also student requests and need uh then for our third section is the special education Staffing that'll be led by Scott of course and uh talk about any recommendations in terms of special education Staffing and in our CS department so aot some of those are a combination of uh the FTE as well as those uh nonsection FTE uh and then last but not least I guess for section four um I'll be presenting uh about our needs in terms of uh some of our non- teer non tenure teachers who will be uh uh you know non-renewing due to a lack of uh you know continue FTE so like we've done in the past our part-time staff we release those folks every year um some people seen reduction in FTE so
061they'll will be uh people that we honorably dismiss as well um and then also a lot of our 10 non- 10e teachers will also be retained due to uh the overall numbers and things as we're looking at how we're sectioning so yeah that'll be the general gist of everything any questions all right I do want to highlight I I did share with the board just a few things that did that came out as process of the or as part of the sectioning process which is uh enrollment at South is up slightly enrollment at North is down slightly so when you see the full Staffing picture you'll see a slight adjustment on either side of the Town um we have some increased needs at north side of town and uh psychologist support um what else did
062we add um there was another area oh uh multi- needs multi- needs yeah we had to we're expanding the multi- needs program at North as well adding an additional classroom uh which will uh provide a little bit more space but also provides the opportunity for us to bring back some students that are outplaced back to our home school so that's always something we're looking to do uh also uh South uh has seen uh an A change over the years uh mostly resulting of the hybrid block schedule in the fact that uh it used to be the majority of our nth graders took a study hall so they would take uh six academic courses in one study hall it is now 85% about 85% of our ninth graders are now taking seven academic courses so uh
063you know the support and opportuni students have during the day to get work done to go get help to do all of those things is leading far more ninth graders to take that extra academic course uh that first year which which is huge when you look at what opportunities come to them later in their High School career uh once they do that so uh that's impacting some of our uh sectioning as well so you'll see all that play out the numbers we give you over the next couple of weeks overall we're slightly up in FTE especially because of uh the multi- changes the increased enrollment at South and then the increased number of nth graders taking that extra academic course so uh more to come all right it's exciting to see more students because uh
064that's always a good thing and and I'll tell you the scope of our um academic offerings is is just incredible and you'll see that in the next presentation yeah I think we get uh students moving into the OR families moving into the district for a lot of those reasons so it's always a good thing so it keeps us on our toes because all right um our next item is um the administrative uh restructuring and I'm going to turn that back over to you Dr Fe yeah uh we have uh a recent resignation as well as we're anticipating uh Gina's retirement next year uh in order to get ready for these changes I'll bring you recommendations for some of the appointments in this at the next meeting but uh at the next meeting in order to
065make those appointments we need our board policies to come in line with the recommended changes I'm making so the first one will be uh Gina currently serves both as the kind of serves as the associate superintendent for student learning um but we're going to split the associate superintendent which is second in command in the district and responsible when I'm not available um to separate that from the assistant superintendent for student learning and so you'll see the assistant superintendent for student learning will be present Ed next week but will not go into effect until July 1st 2026 but that allows us to then separate out in 3.70 the associate superintendent position and succession of authority uh I'll bring you a recommendation for that on the 17th as well um then due to resignation uh we're going
066back to our traditional format uh that we had for decades in the district where uh we have an assistant superintendent for Human Resources so the person responsible for the the department is the human resources title and then we're going back to the format we had before with a director that's responsible for professional learning one of the things we're adding to that is uh compliance and complaints which currently sits with Gina with the assistant superintendent for student learning that's able to sit with Gina because she's superum but I don't anticipate the opportunity to hire another superhuman so we're going to split that off and add that with the professional development responsibilities with that director of Staff experiences so this is tonight the first reviewing for the board if there's anything in those policies you have questions
067about please reach out to me between now and the next board meeting as part of the consent agenda those will be present so that we can then take the personel actions that are associated or hopefully the board approves those personal actions that are associated with that um we'll also share with staff tomorrow that this is all in progress as well uh and we'll come to the board at the next board meeting so that there's no surprises on the staff so any questions in the policies themselves okay all right they'll be back uh in a couple of weeks okay uh the next item on the agenda is the DuPage West cook intergovernmental agreement yeah say that five times yeah fast all right so this is probably a group you've never heard of but we are part
068of uh it's been around for a very long time it's called the dup page West cook uh board and as you all know we're part of sassad which is a special ed Cooperative with other school districts in DuPage County where we form this Cooperative to efficiently and effectively offer uh special education services uh across the county uh to I think 18 member school districts um now that Cooperative is actually a member of other cooperatives that group of other cooperatives is Dage West cook so that allows us 92 member school districts so 92 individual school districts including us then share in determining like uh common rates for for services and offerings and those kinds of things uh that dwc group used to be a formal board like this but you could imagine representation for like 92
069different boards and all of the different cooperatives is rather challenging so they're changing this to like an oversight committee different cooperatives in the dwc will have like the over the control of different things like hearing impairment one of the cooperatives will be heading up that piece and different needs will come from different cooperatives every one of the 92 member districts must approve this new resolution for this change to go into place so you effectively as a board don't feel this at all we even as a school district it's a a student here or a student there that is impacted by this but overall it allows for over the Chicago land area more effective offerings and services and cost for these services so over the next couple of months all 92 school districts that are in
070dwc will be asked to pass a similar resolution which allows this structural change in how that overall board works so it's a lot of moving parts to make this work but just as we made the change last year in sassad to make that group more effective to respond to today's needs this is a similar type of change those agreements have been shared with you so you can review them and then they'll come back on the 17th for Action so if after you read that you have further questions uh I can answer them over the next couple weeks or I'll save them all up and I'll present them on the 17th for everybody any questions tonight is really just why we're doing it so any questions on the why anybody all right this will be back
071on the 17th all right do we have any reception of visitors come down all right then um we're going to need a motion to uh go into close session for it's on I've got to read this please another sheet that summarizes it for you nobody said I had to read I'm kidding I next oh oh oh we got a script for you better sorry um it's for one the collective negotiating matters between the district and its employees or their representatives or their deliberations um concerning Sal salary schedules for one or more classes of employees and B the appointment and uh appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of a specific employees specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park recreational or educational setting or specific volunteers of the district or legal council for
072the district including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee a specific individual who serves as an independent contractor in a park recreational or educational setting or a volunteer of the district or against the legal councel for the district to determine its validity the only action the board will be taking when coming out of closed session is to adjourn I get a motion to go have a motion so moved second I believe Charelle made the motion Ken second oh ken thank you chel Fuller hi Ken Dawson Hi C Espinosa hi Cara Caston hi and Terry pich I thank you all right we'll be enclosed in here after short break and to work thank you everybody thanks