001e e e well okay I got 6:30 Julie would you call the rooll please certainly Cara Caston CHR ESP here Terry pavich here Don Runner here rean Hashim hereas thank you very much than jie having AUM stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right HK first order of business be student recog turn it over the I don't know who from North High is coming up comece okay all right all right good evening everyone um it is my wonderful pleasure to begin our meeting tonight with a student recognition and we are really really happy and excited to introduce to you Nathan Cisco who got fifth place
002in state in boys bowling a few for athletics uh Mr Dave Rose and he's going to talk about Nathan because you also might be wondering how we have a state bowler with no boys bowling team yet so hey all right good evening everyone um tonight I have a great privilege of recognizing an athlete who has not only excelled uh in his sport but in doing so has paved the way for future Bowlers at Downers Grove North uh for the past four years Nathan Cisco uh has represented dgn as an individual bowler qualifying for sectionals both his freshman and junior year this year senior year Nathan's goal was to qualify for the state tournament and he did just that Nathan entered the state tournament with confidence he said he was not focusing on the pressure but
003rather on enjoying the moment and competing at the highest level after Friday's qualifying rounds Nathan was ranked 24th in the state averaging an impressive 25.7 pins Nathan made a few adjustments and took that same confidence into the finals on Saturday finishing an incredible fifth in state with an average of [Applause] 222.jpg North we are so incredibly proud of your achievements your hard work leadership and love for the game will leave a lasting impact on dgn and we cannot wait to see all you you accomplish in your academic and bowling career at Grand Valley State University Nathan [Applause] congratulations all right uh any questions from for Nathan from the board I'm impressed with uh his bowling score that's for sure it's not an easy task I know have you bold a 300 I have yes I
004had two of them two very good very good very good so you play at Grand Valley is there uh or compete at Grand Val I'm going this Thursday to practice with the team and officially sign with their team wow oh fabulous fabulations so are you a Kingpin or a big leowski fan kingpin's a great movie definitely say that but kind of Go My Own Way oh good luck to you that's awesome yes very good very good all right as we do with all state finishers we invite you forward to get a picture with the board not be just a to be up in the front here and we'll all kind of stand around you it's important that you got to be in the [Laughter] middle students we go come on don't be sh be in
005the second row all right one two three say strike open work congratulations we're so proud of you yes you see never enough space it seems like okay um next item of business is the approval of minutes can I get a motion from the Board of Education to approve the January 27 2025 business meeting minutes the January 27 2025 Clos meeting minutes the February 3rd 2025 Workshop meeting with action item minutes and the February 3rd 2025 closed meeting minutes minutes so moved second moves K seconds thank you very much Christoph Espinosa hi Ken Dawson I cherelle fuller hi Jenny hagstrom hi Terry pavich I'm abstaining I didn't come to the third Eric Caston I don rener motion carries thank you all right item five Julie do we have any visitors next reception second reception okay and
006I'll turn it over to you Hank item number six get there all right I will turn this over to Gina uh and Scott who will be leading along with some of our other members of the administrative team on two of the indicators and measures within the Strategic plan uh grades and interventions all right so I'm going to go ahead and start tonight as Hank said um Scott and I worked with our team of associate principles on two of our indicators uh one indicator relates to grades and the other to interventions so we thought it made sense to present on both um at the same time and so we will be looking at grades first with that I'm going to turn it over to our associate principles for curriculum instruction Keith Pals from Downers North and
007Jake Giblin from Downers South and then when we transition to looking at interventions um we I will turn over with Sarah coring to from South and Aaron Ludwick from North who are associate principles for student Support Services I have the clicker so they could just give me a sign of when they want me to progress to the next slide okay good good even good evening everybody my name is Keith Pals I'm the associate principal for curriculum instruction at North High nice to be with you again um so before I talk about uh the report on grades for the first semester at North High just just uh highlight some interven that our wonderful teachers Implement on a daily basis I'd like to we have two that are highlighted up there that are new this year um
008Jake um really helped out with putting this together so as the apis for cni we do send specific um targeted email blasts to students who are struggling in their parents at certain point points in the year um that email uh with Jake's support and putting that together also indicates where they might their teacher would have office hour and what other supports are around the building for that particular course um that they may have a struggle in so it's a very targeted email uh aligned with those supports the other intervention that we've started this year and we're hoping to continue to next year uh is we're sectioning right now is math 3 lab this is an opportunity for students who may be struggling in math 3 um and may have not um had the success that
009they wanted or their teacher was hoping to support them on on on an assessment and then what they do is they go and um they go to a math 3 lab during for half of their lunch um and it's really targeted on supporting them for that for that time on those um maybe a deficit or something they're struggling with in math 3 and that's been very successful this year so we hoping to continue that as well but both of those are new for this year um Gina and then um we listed some other academic interventions that of course are um going on as well uh throughout the course of the year so there two slides on those interventions um so for grades a report out on grades for the first semester should I say beep
010that's kind of my thing right um so for uh sorry um so for this first semester at North High these are um all grades um earned C or better so um 95.24% of all grades at North High are AC or better um that's kind of trending along as has been for the last couple of years our next slide is on uh individual students who may have a d ORF so 16% 16 and a half% of students at North High right now um for that seme last semester we just finished will have a d or F and those again are individual students so whereas the last slide was uh all encompassing grades um and that is uh has been trended down and kind of leveled off in the last year MH and the next slide ARD
011for South High I'm Jake Giblin I'm the South High API um similar idea this is for all grades uh given uh 91% of those grades are C or better at South High when we look at individual students on the next slide um 29% of our students at South High um have at least one drf so as we get ready for the next slide what I want to point out is when we connect this to the goal the goal is for all students to have a c or better or to be individually intervened with so of the slides that have been shown we're going to be talking about the 29% of students at South and the 16% of students at North in regards to they didn't make the Seer better for every class so we're trying
012to see and assess whether or not they've been intervened with individually so the way we attempted to do that was we took a look at echool and if there was any type of Cs so counseling uh social work whatever intervention that was in the system and any intervention and I'll be careful with that in Tac related to a DF parent contact we counted those and if those were there we credited as that student had an individual intervention through this process so if we go to the next um page one of the things that we'll talk about when we get to the actual numbers is that of all of these Tac interventions that are there the one that's highlighted is the one we pulled okay that's the one we asked teachers to use what you're going
013to here for me is that they didn't all use that as the one that they registered so when we take a look at some of those numbers I just want to put that in context there are many other places where they could have put some sort of intervention including caregiver Conta any of those things that you see up there but we were looking specifically at DF report okay so when we look at I think we it's all right South High will be after we'll go over both it'll be great um so for South High based on those two metrics all students who finish with at least one d uh 72.5% of them had one of those interventions in either Tac or echool at least one that showed that they had been contacted so that means
01427.5% of the that fractional 29% that's out there um still we just didn't have something in our system that said that they were intervened with this shows for FS it was 90.8% of those students had at least one of those types of contacts therefore just over 9% did not so if our goal is to get to 100% this is our Baseline data couple things we know we need to look at potentially some other areas where Tech is um tracing these for instance just caregiver contact is something that teachers might use there are also some teachers who might not have logged it but these are things we're going to continue to work in as we go forward you'll see similar numbers for North High um so Baseline data was uh similar 25.9% for D's 12.4% for
015FS still looking for something in those categories that did not show up so before we go any further are there any questions about any of that that we've presented so far I have a question so is did you focus on the contact home for DF report because that's like the protocol like why didn't you look at the other yeah or just that was too too big of an exercise to undertake no I I wouldn't call it too big it's just when we initially had all of the the conversations and we were asking people to track these correct we were trying to do it and we're just going to have to broaden it now some of that will be helped when we move to uh Infinite Campus which has easier reporting abilities and it's a little
016less cumbersome for teachers for those who just didn't enter one maybe necessarily but um some of that will be us also thinking of different ways to try to capture all of that as well so give you an example of that what we know about um from using echool the the report that I shared that Jake helped us build which has the office hours piece like all those things that are connected to that one course that a student may be struggling with um we had to go through a whole bunch of mail merges and everything to make to make that happen in Infinite Campus it's one of the reports that we can we can send out so it will make this a lot easier and on the other side for teachers to put things into the
017system it should be a lot easier right now as Jak mentioned and that's not track here either like that while every student who fell into that category received one of those from both of our schools mhm that's not what we were tracking here we were trying to track individual teacher or counselor work with a student right so just to be clear Jake and Keith we likely reached out to those families almost every unless it was like a last minute because of a final exam or whatever likely every student with the drf we made some kind of contact with both the student and the parents about their progress but under this metrics that we've developed in the standards and expectations we've developed here this is where we're not meeting that criteria that we established as part
018of the Strategic plan metric and goal yes yes am I stepping ahead by asking this but do we have uh data on how well that intervention um increase their grade or their um question ability to you know uh raise their grade uh because that to me is what's really important is is that we help them achieve a goal you know I there is some individual data we have on the south side that I have to analyze cuz we we pulled some targeted data about students who had only one drf and were coming to school regularly so we were trying to siphon out chronically absent or students with multiple Ds and Fs and give teachers like a a focused Target area one of the things I will be doing I be honest I have not had
019a chance to analyze it is kids on that initial report how many were on there at the end and you know seeing you know if teachers were able to intervene to change um the the the direct correlation more globally I don't I don't think we have necessarily pull anything that would give us I just would like to see our our students succeed and and if this intervention is succeeding then that's a really good thing and we should we should be well really the intention of the goal the way the goal is written is to just ensure that nobody falls through the cracks right that's step one all right is to make make sure that we're communicating well that everybody knows the opportunities and those kinds of that's why the goal's written the way it is
020okay you know and then it's the work that we do within the buildings led by Keith and Jake as to how effective that is and how we can do that better but step one and which is the board's goal is like nobody falls through the cracks right and that's what we're measuring right now for the board okay because I think they're yeah this is there steps that that inter intertwine you know correct and you you'll hear more about those interventions in a second but you know I'm sorry I didn't mean to go ahead okay but and obviously we're not reporting out on every little you know everything that we do right these are Big overarching goals and indicators Step One is recognizing that the kids have challenges make sure that they know make sure that
021their families know and make sure that we're reaching out in the ways that we've set expectations for to make sure that that's communicated and is 25.9% realistic or we instead of that we've missed them or is that I I think it's likely that it's it's far lower than that I think part of it is in the reporting some of it's in the the gaps of what we didn't pull from tac um so I think it's that is the highest level possible is what I would call it I I think it's the worst case scenario yes okay all right I'm sorry I'm just trying to get a handle jump in real quick if you go to the slides that talk about um it's a little earlier where we look at those percentages of like South was
022at 29% of the students and then North was at 16 that would be the the metrics to look at over time every semester every year are we seeing that number go up or down and then that helps to re-evaluate the programming that we're doing one of the pieces that we I I think we all believed in was that parent communication was kind of a critical piece and so we that's why honestly we did Target the parent uh contact piece and like Jake and Keith were saying and I know Aaron and Sarah have said to me too that um you know when you look at um there's so many anomalies out there like for example Hank reference Gan and I when we were looking at the data we saw students that all of a at the
023very end ended up with a D in a class well I mean that's hard to then intervene right if you're ending up with a D in December um and you were doing a c work all the way um so to what we're trying to build is we have IPR which is our weekly grades and so we're going to start building pieces to try to look at that because that was a piece that we talked about as well U you know but think of the anomaly of how this works I mean students could end up with a D in their sixth week of school but then end up being fine the rest of the way um you know and those are hard pieces to track over 4,000 you know some kids of how that all works
024so this is our metric and this is what we chose to do and I will admit like when we looked at the data in terms of like that caregiver like Jake mentioned we did not count that but that would credit to lower those numbers but we felt like we needed to start somewhere so for example even in C S we saw a lot of scenarios where our CA staff used like an academic contact instead of the parent contact we have like our our note types that designate that totally fine but we wanted to just pull data that we could kind of be consistent with if we choose to which I don't think we will but if we choose to expand that to the caregiver and others I mean we could do that but we're trying
025to keep the data for our first run like kind of tight of what we felt would be a good way to show you and I really think the slides and I know Arwin and Courtney had spoke a lot about we talk a lot about the student dies and Fs and what we're going to do to intervene like that 16% and that 29% but I think that's the measure that will tell us um over time you know how we're doing with all our programming okay all right if that Mak sense thank you sorry remember this year is your like Baseline reading right it's from this year that we establish what work we should be doing what is our priority goal you know and what is our biggest Focus coming into next year and then we'll come
026back and indicate how that may or may not have changed in terms of the contact do you are you counting like are is it an email or an acknowledgement by the parent or whoever you sent it to that it's it's when so it it could be an email phone call it we just have a what we call our note type but the note types are like our interventions and so when we have just parent contact that means it's either an email could be an in-person meeting it could be a phone call um any of those would be parent contact um just like in the the um tax system for the teachers it's the dnf contact and it says parent contact so it could be an email it could be a phone call might be an
027in-person meeting um you know and that's what we're looking at is when we're running this Conta so it's I mean I'm just saying like you didn't just send an email cuzz it and call it like done like you've actually gotten an acknowledgement from the parent or the recipient yeah honestly many times that the emails go out and sometimes it's a preferred method of parents are like please email me and then that you'll see the follow-up emails all that so more questions sorry substantial enough that a teacher took the time to record that they made that Outreach right so this isn't like the normal just like email blast of the whole blast thing yeah and this is truly the first time we put together data like this not that we weren't looking at data but to
028actually kind of structure it and put it together and we know um I think Erin said it best in one of our meetings she's like you know it's like kind of what we learned from our process and looking at um you know how we did put this together um and and again I think it's really good to in just my opinion like our parent communication you know is vital and essential and and that and so we we know these numbers are not exactly perfect right now because of the anomalies um and as we move through this we'll refine it and see that oh you know C plus will use the parent contact or we'll find ways to look at the other pieces to say okay behind the scenes we'll put it in there and say
029that that's an intervention um so we'll we'll be working through that process and that kind of leads to Sarah and Aon to talk with you about the intervention through CS tag team thank you and thanks Keith and Jake yeah thank you welcome to act two I'm Sarah Corrington I'm the associate principal for student services at South and I'm Aaron lewick I'm the associate principal for student support services at North and we have an opportunity tonight to talk to you about the second part of this school which is how our interventions look in student support services and how those interventions duvail with everything that Jake and Keith just shared next slide please all right so here's the good news we do many many interventions in many different ways in CS and um you can see from
030this infographic that's the many different ways that's not all of them but that those are many of the ways that we work to support students um the world of intervention the best way to describe it is really wraparound service it's not clean it's not that one thing happens and then another and a straight line we work at supporting students from all different levels in all different ways so often if a student initially presents with maybe an academic concern or a grade concern what we find out that is that we have to actually support them in um other ways communicate with other members of the team both in the building and outside of the building and this is a good representation of what that looks like in our world I think in the time that Aaron
031and I have been in this role what we have seen is um we're continuing to look at more ways to support students and College and Career that bubble is growing as is 504 and Alpha and assist we're getting better at making sure we meet students students where they're at all right so if you remember when Sarah and I came to visit you first semester uh we talked about some tier one and tier two interventions so when we talk about interventions we talk about tiered interventions which means we have some that are available to all those are aspects like our counseling curriculum that's um our tutoring centers so things that are available to all students they can freely access um and then when when we find that students need a little bit more um we move
032into tier 2 some examples of that would be our guided study initial placements um so maybe you're not visiting the tutoring center on your own so we need to add a level of intervention that may attaches an attendance code to that which then communicates to your parents naturally and has another adult your responsible with so that's just a little bit extra a little more love um there and then another example would be our student support with past structure I do think that falls into tier two because while a student can say to a teacher can I get a pass for access the teacher can also determine like hey our after school or after class quick conversations aren't enough so let me give you a pass so we can talk more individually um and then what
033we're going to talk about today are the tier three plans and so at the the intervention triangle that's at the top of the triangle those are the fewest number of students who require that individual problem solvings and plans but they do require that from us and so that's what we're going to share a little bit about today um so one aspect and honestly it was a key aspect as to why I took the job in d99 was that there were wellestablished Alpha teams um so you'll hear at any presentation you come to when Sarah and I are able to get a microphone and talk about what we're proud of um we'll talk about the alpha teams um because what that is it's a team of professionals that team around a case load of kits it's
034called Alpha Team because most often that's determined by the alphabet it's by um you know your last name um and then you have a team of professionals that all work with that group of students on the slide you'll see who it consists of underneath the number to it's our counselors our social workers our Deans our saps we miss putting the nurse and the psychology just on there um and Student Success coordinator um so that is the team so the first step and task of the team in CS is to identify who needs interventions so we do have a report that runs called the Alpha Team dashboard that's a safety net um you'll see on some data slides later we're catching students far outside of that safety net because we're identifying that they need a good
035conversation earlier than that um but the first step is to identify the students who tier one and tier two is not working in the building um then those Alpha teams meet most often they eat meet weekly bi-weekly um throughout the school year they build an agenda they put the names of students on those agendas we are tasked with any student who's on that actual five Labs list goes on the agenda but then service providers can put other students on that agenda for problem solving um when I used to sit in Alpha teams as the department chair um there was a variety of reasons that students would come to team some it's just they know hey I'm working with a student and I'm at a blockade can you help me spitball some ideas um sometimes it's
036I'm starting to see that early emergence of their social emotional needs maybe better met with a social worker can we talk about that can you meet them can can we consult after that um and then sometimes we're bringing students there because we can't get a handle on what the actual need is and you just need as many people as possible brainstorming or you're thinking that maybe they would be better served by a tier three plan and you just have to look at as a comprehensive team that's when our psychologists would come in and do file reviews um and would do look at data to see what do we know historically about the students um so we have that meeting and at that meeting we determine intervention what are the next steps and those are individualized
037interventions for the last few years every team has an agenda with a name student what we tried and then the day we followed up um which takes us to the number three part which is really important and when we were talking about Tac notes and and putting things in systems right um is we want to make sure we close the case um and so we've had a pretty good Cadence over the last few years using the alpha notes that we have that you came to an alpha team and that we monitored it and that we've closed the case and so I can run those notes to make sure that someone who has an alpha team also has an Al a team monitoring and then we have access to those agendas as well if we ever
038need to look back the great part about the monitoring to kind of get to your question is how do we know the interventions work um at this level because we're not talking whole groups of students like Keith and Jake were just talking about we're talking about targeted groups we are able to link in and see after four weeks or six weeks is that intervention working did that meeting that we have stick and is it getting better or is it not we're coming back to make sure that we've put the right thing in place um and sometimes it takes a couple rounds and sometimes it does you know alleviate the concern we see you know changes in the attendance they're no longer coming up on the monitoring form anymore um so those are the the three
039key I guess the Cadence of work that I would want to highlight with the Alpha Team interventions eron yeah just to tie it back to the dnf students are are you suggesting that all D all students have a One D or one f are being no that Al I can not falling into the tier three no so um C has a dnf response so they get that dnf list too just like teachers do um and if the student has an F for multiple weeks they check in with those students but actually on the slide this will kind of speak to what you just asked um so the threshold in our Alpha report on when you would flag would be that you're failing two courses okay and so but to flag you have to flag in
040all three of these Char these categories which is why when you look at the chart you'll see for example 2024 we had 17 students at North who flagged in all three categories which would mean they would come up with a red flag and they'd automatically go on the list but we actually intervened with 189 students because a student failing two classes that the counselor has met with multiple times we've tried to get them to to go to tutoring we've tried to contact home that's not working that would be a student that would be appropriate to come to an alpha team because then we would be talking about so what do you think team do you think guided study is appropriate or are they more of a student who needs a seminar course which is different
041because then we're looking at an elective so no just failing 1 F would not put you on an alpha team okay thanks yeah and and then that kind of takes us into the data so one of the things that we wanted to show was the alpha threshold is indicated up there in purple for North those would be students who met all three of those indicators and we do have students occasionally who do because being at high risk for truancy impacts grades which then gets you referrals for treny and so you do see that happened but we only had 17 last year and we intervened and discussed 189 individual stud students on the list um so what I think that demonstrates to me as someone who's over that is we are bringing students to team proactively
042so they're not getting on that threshold list um and and you can see the trend has always always been that way I did giggle when we saw 2021 and we had one student who met that threshold but I was like oh I tried to forget 2021 and whoever that one student was he was really meant on being there but or they were so but I I get gold when I saw that on the slides and you'll see here very similar patterns at South as well um while there were 102 students that tripped those markers for us over 400 students we talked through at Alpha and I think that just goes to show how many different ways information reaches our Alpha Team you know it's not only through the classroom it's also through outside providers it's
043also through families really any way the information comes to us we make sure that we bring students to team and and we process them appropriately and make sure they're connected with the right supports I would also highlight because you said something it made me remember we do have a teacher referral form for Alpha teams as well um often that the first blush of that referral form is with the counselors to make sure that we're having the right level of intervention conversations but teachers do have an active way to make sure students are on the list if they think they need creative problem solving so can I just ask so is the alpha threshold is that number in the alpha intervention bar as well are those totally so Andrew like the relationship between 102 and 401
044the 102 is in is part of 401 and then all the other people that you've found some other way okay if I can you know add a little more and give credit to Aaron and Sarah um there was a time that we had this Alpha threshold that we did not engage you know because we were just getting new to like looking at data and how do we identify students and I give them credit because they made the commitment you know with their team and we have an excellent team that you know to support it um to ensure that we're engaging with all those students and you can see obviously now over time that we are engaging in the students that truly need it um the other thing I would share too is that our team
045even um so you know with their input they wanted the threshold list but they also wanted the threshold list broken down so that it doesn't just flag kids that are meeting all three but it gives like the the information about all students because we might have a student that like I think eron was speaking to that might be failing some courses but their their attendance is fine and their discipline is fine um and so our teams wanted to run data to look at that as well so I give them credit for really looking at the whole scope and that's where you see these numbers in the gray being much larger than the blue or the purple so I give the team a lot of credit for that right that brings us to the end of
046our slides questions for us no no thank you thank you you we appreciate your support thanks for letting us come talk about it we're both excited to do it absolutely okay than team uh I don't I don't have a question for um eron but I do have a question for Scott um Scott um going back to the first part of the presentation um we talked about the software change may have an impact on this reporting next year so we might see sort of like a false increase in essence yeah we're definitely going to we'll monitor that and see what we're see might have a false decrease this year yeah and next year you might have a more accurate reporting just because correct we have a more intuitive tool for our teachers and counselors St and
047then are we addressing like training our teachers as to how to like track this because we are now actually tracking this and the board wants to see these contacts so are we you know indicating this to our teachers to tell them that it's it's important that you document this when you actually do this because we are tracking this data and we're we're focused on yeah and I know the buildings are working on that I know at insute they introduced you know the the topic of the TAC note types and we redesigned them so some of the other thing is is just like when you think of like act and sat keep flip-flopping you know we we've kind of built the system and then redefined like our Tac note types that we can finally start capturing
048um the one thing that I think Aon and Sarah were alluding to is that um currently like our echool system teachers can put in the tech uh interventions through their system through um echool but then what happens is our CS can't actually see that and so it goes into five labs and that's where it all but next year Infinite Campus will show it all so we're really excited about that um because we believe and I know that Aon and Sarah and Keith and Jay have said the more that the teachers can you know really see what other teachers are doing for interventions and what might be working you know to to support a student that they can learn from each other too um so I just look at this as kind of like this is
049our first pass at really putting it all together we know the the we we anticipate that the numbers will actually drop in terms of like getting closer to like our 100% or increase right to get to our 100% um and no fault to anyone I mean it's we're just this a new indicator measure um we even decided that we wanted to look at semester one and we'll report out to semester two more through preliminary notes because we kind of felt like as we see the semester one each year we can do more like real-time interventions um you know and then semester 2 is really well this is just what the data was um but we're looking at semester one as our critical piece so is it fair to say that right now due to the
050I guess uh the way the limitations on the reporting that we may not know if a student is really actually falling through the cracks at this point well I mean like so for example like if the when we ran so like if we just ran the data and gave it to you which is what we did but we looked at it but if we just gave you the data the way it is when we if we didn't look at what was behind the scenes then we would just say well this is what the parent contacts were but what we discovered is like we mentioned earlier that like if if staff are using like that t caregiver which there was a lot of those or if they were if our our C sta was using an
051academic contact or a different kind of note type than the parent contact note type then there was interventions happening we just didn't capture it here because we were focused in on those like just literally two not types if that kind of makes sense and we just felt like we would do it that way just to try to get a a baseline of what we're um kind of reporting out to to the board that so Scott can I chime in and just share some additional so one of the things that that I think is a barrier with the current system is that it's very cumbersome for teachers to enter all of them you can't multic click you met with six kids on a student support with past day and you can't load all six notes at
052one time um but we were really clear at the beginning that we were monitoring it and so I think that that had an impact on the numbers that we see but then at both buildings we've also talked to our department chairs to follow up with the data that we have from first semester too um and most often I'm getting contacts back that the teacher wants to know if they can go back and reenter the note because they didn't do it um but I think that that followup will lead to more accurate data in reporting at the end of this semester because there was a circle back to say like hey we didn't see this when we expected to see it and I think that that will naturally it still is going to be much better
053with Infinite Campus because it's just easier to put it in and for people to see it our Tech team has been great already having those conversations around contact logs and stuff like that and we will do training um but I think just the followup and the fact that we're sharing this with you tonight will probably help that be more accurate it's going to take a keep few years to isolate variables right in how this works so and it's also important to note that this is the very narrow definition like I was saying earlier of what we indicated in this indicator there is Outreach in all kinds of different ways you know whether it just be the the email blast by teachers or the ones that came from Jake and Keith there's that doesn't mean that
054a a family was absolutely in the dark that you know things weren't going the right way but it what it does mean is the thing that we told the board that we would make sure we did for every kid that was getting a d or an F wasn't done in the way that we said it was going to be be done for every kid right so now there's multiple approaches that we're going to take this isn't like a blind study that we do we just throw everything we believe will make a difference at it over the the this semester and over the summer and going into next year and then we better see an improvement in those numbers when we come back and sit down I won't be able to tell you like this was
055the direct cause for that but the goal for us on the board is to say we we improved on on this Baseline right so and I think we appreciate you taking sort of the most accurate which is frankly a a you know more difficult number for the community right so I appreciate that and I think we also have to balance was very helpful for you to explain the reality of teachers or css on how they I mean the last thing we want to do is burden you know teachers with additional go in six times and and do it for one student so I think we have to balance like getting good data giving an accurate measure and also like what is realistic in terms of capturing it on the teacher end so thank you for
056that perspective one question um when we're looking at the longitudinal semester one grades between north and south and at the um Baseline intervention data nor the difference between north and south is is like twice as much there's there's a there's a significant difference in the um percentage of the student body in the Baseline data between South and North and then in the uh first semester grades um dnfs right the north has the 16% in 2025 and South has almost double with 29.4% what and granted they're different sides of town different groups of kids um is there any additional resources that we should be focusing on uh to meet the needs of those kids you know I mean like gr South is always at a a different level than North uh it's across the past couple
057of years that we've been paying attention to this data um what more can we do to even that out a little bit because there seems to be a clear discrepancy where uh you know one side of town is doing a little better than the other well it's a different group of students as you acknowledged remember South is a title one targeted student it had a group of students students with different socio economic backgrounds and you know just different situation than the North side of town has with just resources walking through the door right and we know that that will show up in all of our data in some shape or format uh because it is a title one targeted school it gets some different interventions just through those resources that come from the federal level
058but also just both schools we're trying to do the best we can for the students that are in both settings um Gina what am I so for I'll give you some just more concrete examples so as a title one school um at South we're able to have U math Specialists so that actually go in and work individually with students obviously on math but also assist teachers in the classroom um with struggling math students so that's just one example another way in which we use the federal funding through Title One to benefit ourselves students would be for example we have Avid tutors outside external tutors in addition to some teachers that tutor we have um at North as well some teachers who do but we also bring in additional external tutors um every year as we
059work on the Consolidated District plan and we look at data not necessarily just grade data a lot of different data we look for what other interventions we may want to put in place either at the district level so both schools um a and also targeted title one for South so we'll be doing that again in another month or two we do that annually um and really that's that's really been huge because we get the input of teachers and so we've seen some really great interventions come in uh from that for example we have had what the last two or three years have to look back um language line which is a way we're able to um communicate better with families in I language line has over aund different Lang I mean it's an incredible number
060of languages so every year we kind of look at it and see what other supports we can put in place okay Arwin anything else you'd like to add to you did a really nice job I think um I think Sarah touch on this really working to connect our students and our families with the resources that we have we do feel will well resourc and very we have like our teachers and Department chairs and our entire leadership team putting our heads around this trying to figure out what are the most effective ways to connect our students to our intervention you feel like we really good path to keep improving I'm also say to keep decreasing the number of students who have these and we kind of our building wide Mission and goal to work on that
061really is hands done that working together good I I appreciate that it's just um you know it's interesting it's it's concerning to see the you know because there are different socioeconomic backgrounds from each sides of town that um to make sure that we're not putting those kids at a at a disadvantage because of the background that they have um so yeah if there's any more that we can do to uh you know provide additional resources to those kids I think that's really important but thank you both for uh the work that you've done and Gina I think the biggest thing you're seeing in with the board's commitment to actually looking at this data is no nobody's leaving any of this to chance right and there are ways in which data could be presented to you
062that would make it look really good right and we're not we're just giving you the raw data the way we told you we were going to give you the data we're showing you those Trends over time and what the biggest thing you should see is longitudinal improvement improvement year over-ear in the direction us be able to tell you the stories of how that the interventions are making a difference for kids I mean they are two schools with two different sets of backgrounds and and that's the reality of it in in all data you're going to see students with more resources with better academic outcomes as a holistic group right when you get down to the individual kid those Trends don't always hold but when we're looking at large groups of students those with more resources
063at home are going to outper perform students especially if it's been over a long period of time right um you're just going to see those data and trends play through right and we'll do everything we can to try to push back on those Trends and make sure that those Trends aren't predictors of a student outcome but we are working with societal factors within the community that we have yeah any other questions I are we looking strictly at semester grades I mean I think that's what is it helpful you know when you said like someone could be going along fine and then all of a sudden we're looking at grades all the time all the time but what we're reporting out to you is that final transcripted grade okay right so but yeah we're looking all
064the time yeah it's a Non-Stop yeah and so are our teachers right they're the ones that are putting it in and they're they're looking at how students are performing and they're using the wide variety of interventions that are there and you know and some of this especially on high schoolers you know we do have teachers that are constantly reaching out to both students and parents but there are choices that students are making as well you know that factor into it right so um that's why you see these goals of continual Improvement the idea that there will be a school year where there is not a single student that receives an F uh or earns an F uh is an unlikely goal right the goal is continual Improvement and it's making sure that if a student
065ends up with a d andf they knew how how they got there and we know how they got there right and that we took specific measures to try to prevent that from occurring right but could lead that horse to the student has a very large impact on what that overall grade is in the end all right thank you thank you thank you thank to all of our assistant associate principles for presenting with us tonight all right uh next one uh this one comes around to every year uh we have the p parent teacher advisory committee that meeting date has been selected for April 28th 2025 we're always looking for one to two board members to serve on this committee I'll let Scott give an overview of what happens at this Committee just so that every
066Everybody remembers what happens and then Don you can decide how you want to about uh getting uh one to two board members yeah so the parent teacher advisory uh committee meeting um we hold every year like Hank said um we bring together our our mission is to bring together as many parents as we can um and and that typically is a range from sometimes we've had 10 parents there to 70 parents there um and we're reporting out on um many discipline related um issues or points or data pieces um we've t talked about the cell phone uh um concerns at the parent teacher advisor and received parent input on that um it's been a for me it's been a journey of really good feedback from our parents that have led to a lot of initiatives
067that we that the parents in those meetings kind of processed supported um in terms of like our path increase in our social workers um and so um obviously uh is you know discussions are on our cell phone um you know plan and procedures so um it's a great event um we kind of rotate I think we're going to be at South this year uh in the library and we typically have yeah two board members that join us and um Ken you were there last year I don't um and Chris you were there I think with us weren't you so I don't know if you have anything to add to it um I think it's a great event and the parents contribute a lot of good information uh back to us I think it was a
068great event and to uh get the direct feed back from the parents is very special it's a great opportunity yeah and that invite does go out to our entire uh Community for parents so and and staff and staff yeah so we have a and it's just one meeting date is that correct it's just the yeah it's the April 28th okay if any board member has interest in uh joining um parent teacher advisory committee just uh please email me before the next board meeting so that we can can um I can advise Hank as to who's going to cover that okay thank you all right uh the next one's coming back from a prior uh meeting you guys have known this is coming uh Travis uh received bids on pavers and Paving and I'll let him
069tell you what happened there yeah so exciting news um I I remember back sometime this fall jery came in after she was at a meeting with other Chief business officials and said hey I think there's a way that we could potentially use our fund 90 our life safety funds in a way that we haven't used them we have a balance so we got to work started investigating we submitted all of that paperwork uh to ISB and I'm happy to report that we have uh received approval uh for this Paving work to be paid with our funds out of that so both of these projects total over $275,000 that's not coming out of our fiscal year 26 budget um the other thing are LED lighting projects so when we look at our field houses um at
070both schools when we look at our pool at North and we look at our Stadium lighting while we have some things to finalize there uh that's about $380,000 that was also approved for us to utilize that that balance um we were not approved for the uh solar projects here and at t99 because they were new um and there wasn't a modification uh I went to bat for and but we're modifying the roofs uh can't you help us out here they did not buy that so um so we're going to continue looking for funds to tackle those those projects but um really exciting that that we have those approvals so I'm bringing to you tonight uh two uh recommendations for uh bid work all of the bid uh process followed state law followed our our board
071policy 460 um it went out for bid advertising in the D Daily Herald on January 17th we had a a public bid opening uh all these are sealed bids because they were over the $35,000 Mark um we had that on January 31st so I want to talk just briefly about Norse project um the way that we bid that was our base bid was to reuse our existing papers um and Alternate bid was to use brand new papers for replacement um seeing that this came in uh to use new papers at uh $144,000 less than what we had anticipated um that is the recommendation that we would go ahead and replace with with new um and just to go to show you why we go out to bid for these types of things uh the bid
072the low bid uh of $162,600 is what I'm bringing to you as a recommendation and that's with LPS pavement company um the high bid on that was over $380,000 right so quite a dispar we did receive three sealed bids for that project while we were hoping for more we knew that was more of a niche uh type of of work uh that goes with that then when we shift over to the other side of town uh for South um this came in a little bit more than 5,000 almost $6,000 less than what we had anticipated um and that bid range came in what we're recommending at $14,200 uh with M&J asphalt pavment company that also includes the seal coating of the visitor parking lot um and that range the high range was over $225,000 right
073so uh we received 15 sealed bids for for that project um so we were very happy with the results seeing that in total we're about $20,000 less than what we had brought to you initially and the fact that we're able to use our fund 90 uh for these projects um we did a double check made sure hey are we good on do you understand the scope of work we know you submitted a bid but we had those followup conversations um they are all good um and uh we're looking forward to getting both of those projects done uh this summer we're still working on the LED uh components uh but that'll be coming at a at a future board meeting but we're working on getting that work done as well very good this is an action
074item tonight uh questions for Travis always like to see under budget always a good thing always nice and creative payments yeah that's great ex all right uh Freedom of Information requests any that we have received have been filled according to our requirements and are posted on our website for the public to review okay before the board votes on the consent agenda is there any agenda item a board member would like to pull out of the consent agenda for further discussion hearing none uh can I get a motion from the Board of Education to approve the consent agenda as presented which includes a personal report leave of absence certified transfer of position administrative to certified appointment certified B Personnel report retirement certified resignation certified retirement classified resignation classified C January Financial pages and D student trips
075so moved second Terry moves Chris Su thank you very much Terry pavich I Chris Espinosa I charal fuller I Jenny hagstrom I Cara Caston I Ken Dawson I and Don rener I motion carries C item eight recommendations for actions can I get a a motion from the Board of Education to approve the contract for the alternate a bid with LPS pavement company for the North High inside and outside paper replacement project at a total cost of $162,600 so moved so moves Ken seconds you Terry pavich I Ken Dawson I Chris fanosa I Shaw Fuller hi Jenny hagstrom hi Carrick Caston hi and Don Runner I motion carries uh second can I get a motion from the Board of Education approve the base bid and Alternate a bid with m& M&J Asphalt Paving Company Inc for
076the South High bus visitor and staff lot asphalt replacement project at a total cost of $14,200 so moved second K moves Charelle seconds thank you Ken Dawson hi Fuller hi Jenny hagstrom hi Terry pavisic I Carrie Caston I Chris Spinosa I and Don Renner I motion carries Hank old business uh yep we have a second reading and approval of policies coming forward this month after first review by the board last month uh all of these were provided to you in final format uh I have not received any questions or comments uh following up from our last presentation uh I don't know if Chris Don anything on your okay so our recommendation tonight is that the board approved these policies as presented does that require a motion yes motion and action okay um can I get
077a motion from the Board of Education to approve the policies as presented so moved second okay Terry moved and Cara second thank you always a shocker ter Terry pavich hi Cara Caston hi Ken Dawson hi Chris Espinosa hi Cheryl Fuller hi Jenny hagstrom hi and Don rener hi motion carries thank you any new business Hank no new business Julie do we have any visitors in the second reception of visit we do sir all right um do you want to give the guidelines for reception visitors um I will if I have those that's fine are they in item 11 they should be yes um this is the second reception of visitors which is intended for audience members to address the board on any topic pertaining to Community High School District 99 comments will be limited to
0783 minutes to provide all visitors an equal opportunity to address the board individuals needing more time should submit their thoughts and writing to the board secretary visitors addressing the board need to submit a comment slip to the board secretary and will be invited to the microphone prior to addressing the board audience members should State their full name proceedings may be tape recorded for the purpose of producing accurate meeting minutes the board's pres presiding officer reserves the right to modify these protocols if circumstances warrant audience observation of these protocols is greatly appreciated all right good evening uh our first uh visitor is Tammy wor worak wor worak thank you I'm sorry Tammy always enjoy listening to people trying to say it yeah I did my best um for the rules Tammy worak a parent of a
079donor's Grove North High School student um thank you for providing time in tonight's agenda for comments it was kind of interesting hearing about the students who are failing I'd like to raise awareness about uh teacher training for students with invisible disabilities like dyslexia the services and accommodations needed for students with visible disabilities may be obvious but students who struggle with learning disabilities often struggle in silence without help I'd like to share my family's experience with your teachers and team my daughter's a freshman at doners gr North High School and is an incredibly smart competitive and hardworking student she it's evident by the number of honors classes she's in and she does have a very good GPA but she's a student who was diagnosed with dyslexia and anxiety and came to high school with a 504
080accommodation plan in place when she registered for classes in January the year before she started at North I would have hoped conversations with teachers and different departments would have started then so the teachers would have been prepared and understand that learning disabilities identified the plans and how to accommodate them let me start by saying that some of your teachers a lot of your teachers have been really great to work with taking the time to learn and understand her needs and how best to support her learning environment we've also experienced a particular teacher and Department I might add Who has fought or tried to alter combinations through throughout this entire school year this teacher even expressed that her accommodations gave her an unfair advantage over other students and didn't understand why she needed them we are
081now 7 months into the school year and still struggling having meetings and contacting Administration for support every step forward with their counselor and accommodation team ends up with the Department pushing back and resulting in no progress and more frustration at one meeting the department chair implied it was all in her head the conflict my child now hates this class and is begging me to apply for for a waiver so she can drop the course and avoid future course requirements that she may come across past with this teacher in the department her normal positive attitude about school is now plagued with Dread thanks to one teacher no student should have to Advocate and defend themselves to a teacher day in and day out teachers need training and to be pushed to think creatively about how best
082to teach all students just because this is the way you've always taught class and how you teach should not be an acceptable answer frankly it's lazy I want to accept it from my employees at work the district has as you mentioned teacher training I would strongly encourage you to use that time to teach your staff about how to serve students with disabilities especially things like dyslexia I'm heartbroken for my daughter who's given up on something that she started the year enjoying no longer trust her teacher and has her best it thinks that her teacher does not have her best interest at heart the fact that a student can walk away from a teacher crying because they feel so unheard and for that teacher to think the situation is resolved it's just beyond comprehension I fear
083for students whose parents aren't pushy like me or don't have the resources to support their children those are the children who are truly going to get lost in the system end up on your D and F list and fail classes and Miss educational opportunities thank you thank you all right our next visitor is uh Bobby dado um who's the decision makers I would like them to see this vocab book who's on the school board is it yeah they're all on the school board You' like to circulate it you absolutely can thank you for your time um so I've sent uh many emails to the school board I appreciate all your time and feedback my name is Roberto zet Bobby zet thank you um the first thing on my agenda I have three things is no
084cell phones in class honorable Governor pritzer last week indicated to the Illinois School Board to review a mandate to review cell phone cell phones from all schools in Illinois 12 counties in Illinois ban cell phones on students persons in class let's go ahead and follow that lead that TW not 12 schools but 12 counties do students cannot learn with their phones in their pocket all day long um the second item is the request and I don't think I was clear my request is not to remove particular books it's to make a mandate to stop teachers from giving students the books with the F and the MF word last time I was here the book that's in Downers Grove South pipeline has the F and the MF word on every page one page has the FW
085four times on a page and again thank you Mr uh Espinosa about the discrepancies between South and North North didn't have that book they had a book that had uh vulgar profanities only seven times whereas South had the book 130 times students are not going to learn to read and perform well when teachers give them harmful vulgar profanities the third thing is this vocabulary book that's being passed out if we if students are able to read They're going to accelerate not only in English but also in math and at life vocabulary is so important this book is $20 at South the School receives $224,500 per student this book is $20 if you want to get the book in a digital copy it's $30 so oh I lost the book okay well you have your Chromebook
086we can teach you words are very important um so again the students should have a book to learn the English language if we want to bring up students self-esteem if we want to bring them into class we want to drop true and see it South down from 25% let's teach them how to read it'll boost their confidence and their self-esteem um again also similar to um This Woman's story my student asked the teacher if he could come in and have assistance before class well one week he said he'd be there three days each day the teacher was a no-show yes here's my classes you could be there didn't tell my son all the days he just didn't show up so the problem is teachers are being allowed to kind of do whatever they want give
087horrible curriculum not really work with the students say I'll be there to help you and then just don't show up so um yeah if we could just work on those three things I would like a a response back from the school board I've been emailing um every weeks since November thank you have a great day I really appreciate you all thank you so much for everything thank you okay moving on to item number 12 Communications and announcements um Jen I'm sorry Jenny do you have anything to report from ly no the meeting will be Friday okay there will be a lot there'll be a lot yeah yeah there's like 6,700 bills posted so there's a lot to work through okay uh Chris anything to report from sassin uh we met two weeks ago I think
088to go over strategic for the year um you know they've got a uh they sent out a uh newsletter to I think board members um with a lot of their information but um we went over the budget and um yeah the new executive director is doing I think really good job so far so I'm excited to see what she does for the rest of the Year great uh Terry anything to report on Foundation no we we didn't meet last week so we'll be meeting this week so okay um Ken stepped out uh uh shrell anything to report on the downers gr plan commission not at this time okay I I will speak on Ken's behalf even though he's not here to speak up is the dup page division meeting is upcoming uh this is the
089last call uh if you'd like to attend to go uh the presentation will be College and Career Readiness and uh I'm I'm at a different event that night but Ryan will be joining board members that are there yes please try to go yeah it'll be good but yes okay upcoming board meetings um our next board meeting is March 3rd 2025 uh here at the here at the ASC at 6:30 p.m. that'll be a workshop meeting followed later in the month for our business meeting on March 17th 2025 again here at the AFC at 6:30 p.m. uh our final item will be going into close session can I give a um motion from the Board of Education to go into close session for a collective negot ating matters between the district and its employees or their
090representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees and B the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of 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 the 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 legal council for the district to determine its validity so moved second Terry moves Chris seconds thank you Terry pavisic hi Christ Spinosa hi cherelle Fuller hi Jenny hagstrom hi Cara Caston hi and Don rener I motion carries uh for the members of the public the only action the board will be taking
091when it comes out of close session will be to J take a brief moment and then we'll uh start close session thank you thank you