001e e e all right it's 6:30 uh let's call the meeting in order Julie can you call the RO please certainly car Caston here Ken Dawson here Chris espanosa here Charro Fuller here Jenny hagstrom here Terry pavich here Don Runner here ran Hashim here and Jason Treo here thank you very much all right having a quorum let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge Al 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 all right Hank I'll turn it over for you to item number three for recognition of the dgn boys and girls cross country teams invite courton hello good evening everyone um it is absolutely my pleasure to begin our meeting this evening with
002some recognitions of our cross country teams at North High School um first of all I want to thank the students and the coaches for being here tonight I know it is an incredibly busy time and there's lots of studying happening there's lots of projects going on um last minute things that our teachers are doing so I just want to say thank you so much I know it's another night out um but I really appreciate you being here because we're really really excited to recognize these truly amazing accomplishments and I'm so incredibly lucky and honored that I got to witness this and so um I'm actually going to call up first where're uh our boys team is up first I believe for our state champion recognition um which is really really amazing um such a fun
003race to watch I'm going to call up John Sipple um who's who is our head coach and going to introduce the team and I would also like to recognize John because he was named the Illinois track and cross country coaches association Coach of the Year this year so congratulations to John as well all right if you don't mind I'll just do this uh so here we go hi I'm John Sipple uh I'm so honored to be here tonight with you guys uh and uh recognize these these guys here who uh represent our 70 guys on our on our Squad here and then awesome job this year uh we got John Courtney Grant Schroeder Owen Kelly will Sarat Phil supul uh Jack Loftus and Brady Travers uh these guys uh had an outstanding meet they set
004a uh a record uh in terms of the lowest uh cumulative time for five runners in state of Illinois history uh on that day was extraordinarily fast they beat uh an old record from like 1992 by about 8 seconds and stuff which is pretty amazing uh we ended up with three all sters uh will shat Phil supal and grant schroer grant was the runnerup uh in the state meet this year second place so impressive Philip was fourth uh and Will was 14th uh right yes 12th 12th start blending together you know I mean things just happen this way um but uh you know outstanding effort by these guys uh they they had fantastic season after that too and uh won the Midwest Regional for Nike and went out to uh Portland to race at the
005Nike National meet uh I would argue that is uh probably the only true National Championship uh for High School athletics because you have to qualify uh for this and uh they ended up sixth in the nation uh super incredible um and Philip just actually got back from uh competing in another race uh as well he qualified for the Foot Locker National Championship which has been around for a long time only 40 athletes in the nation qualifi for that uh and Philip finished 10th in that race this past weekend super incredible uh am so proud of these guys and all the effort and work uh that they put in I'm super thankful for our coaching staff uh and all the efforts that they put in and our parents holy cow what a group you know so
006uh thank you so much for the for the recognition and super proud of these guys uh backto back state championships yeah wow pretty awesome stuff so thank you one second don't walk away yet uh as state champs uh our two local communities would like to recognize your team as well so first the village of Woodridge recognizes uh the Downers Grove North boys cross country team for their success this year and for the second year in a row uh recognize all of our Runners our coaches uh highlighting the commitment spirit and pride of the entire Woodridge Community by representing uh Us in all of your success and uh mayor Cunningham has declared today as Downers Grove North boys cross country team day so congratulations on that and the village of Downer's Grove also uh recognizes you
007for your state championship run in Poria uh recognizes how fast you ran your your team ran this year recognizes all of the athletes and all of the coaches and based on demonstrating exceptional leadership teamwork and dedication to the sport and bringing Pride to our village and and school Community mayor Robert Barnett has declared this entire week Downers Grove North boys cross country all right [Applause] congratulations y yeah so boys you want to come on up and coaches come on up um we'll take a quick picture want to be all right try try to try to see my camera right here all right one two three say boys Cross Country Day boys cross country week it's the week chill [Applause] conat it is um doubly special that we also get to recognize our girls team tonight
008um and in one of the closest races I've ever seen um before in Cross Country um it was a really really awesome day and I'm so incredibly proud of this girls team as well and um before I turn it over to our head coach Tim McDonald I just got word from our athletic director who's in the back there that Tim has been named the ihsa administrative staff coach of the year so Tim congratulations so many accolades for these wonderful teams and again we're so incredibly proud of the the team culture that you have both created um but now I'd like to call up Tim to talk about the girls team and their third place finish at State this year so Tim thanks for having us uh thanks for recognizing both the boys and the girls
009teams uh so I'm Tim McDonald uh and want to uh recognize I'll start by introducing the girls uh so I'm going to go with our youngest to our oldest member this is a very veteran team so uh we have uh one sophomore that made up our top seven that would be Sophia Scher one one Junior uh that would be Lily Edington and then we have five seniors that made up this team so I'll just go in order there uh Audrey Casten Kenzie Willard Ava Gilly Elena todam and Hannah rener couple highlights from their season uh probably the first one that stands out to me uh is this were they were able to win the conference uh on the girl side this was the first time since 1997 uh the girls had won the conference uh
010title and that was certainly a highlight for us uh they were able to be back toback with won the regional won the sectional uh and as uh Dr DeMent said we were on the wrong side of a super close score uh and that's just the way it goes uh sometimes uh we we were fortunate we had three girls uh finish all State uh I'll just Lily Edington Audrey Caston and Elena todam uh all finished all state this year uh and we just had a a wonderful season uh it was a lot of fun uh we we were able to do some things uh that you know were just exciting all along uh and you know everybody here came back the next week after kind of being disappointed uh and uh there were people here that
011ran uh won the uh sophomore or Frost soft level and the uh Championship level at the nxr Midwest uh and so they rebounded uh at such a high level uh and it was it was great to see uh so it was an outstanding season for the girls and we really enjoyed it as coaches so uh it was a great journey so thank you for recognizing we're going to take pictures with the girls in a second but uh any comments questions anything from board members while we I've got a question for both the boys and the girls Team all of you have an outstanding commitment to Excellence self-discipline persever experience and having fun as you enjoy the journey can I have any of you share your experiences and what you have learned the most that you'll
012carry forward after you graduate move on from your experience as being part of these teams go ahead yeah step up I think it's mostly just about like let me this I think it's most just about like consistency just like our Co our coaches say just just one day at a time and just they don't look too far ahead in the future and just if you just put like one foot in front of the other then it just all comes along just as long as you put in the work each day then the results come after that and it's just a matter of just just caring enough but not too much where you just start to obsess over it there's like a fine line which you caring too much I feel it's just a matter of
013just I don't know it's how good like your training goes and that type of stuff great all right we have what five senior ladies over there could one of you please uh represent the team and let us know what you think all right talking okay I'm Hannah rener and oh here I'll take this out um and just a little bit about our team I think what makes us so great is The Sisterhood on our team and I think just working together and um knowing that as a team we have each other you know not every race we're going to have our best race but that's what um our team makes that's what makes our team so great is our depth and our um love for each other as well and so I think just growing
014up together over these past four years is what made this team really special great thank thank you you guys are all awesome obviously we don't have much to cheer about with our Chicago Bears so we truly truly appreciate your Champions thank you um I would just like to uh point out that um you know I I I think these teams have the success that they do uh obviously because of the commitment of the kids but um you know coach Sipple and Coach McDonald I think deserve a um high level of respect from everyone in this room they've created a a a culture in these teams of success and acceptance and obviously allowed these kids to buy into a vision um that has garnered the success that we've seen from these team teams over the last
015couple of years without their leadership um you know I just don't think that our teams would have reached the heights that they have so coach SLE and Coach McDonald thank you so much and thank you for the leadership you have for these young people it's so important so thank you so much all right I'll invite the girls to come forward for a picture with the board get in the back that's smart strategic all right you got one Courtney yep I'm good yes Y and again thank you to everyone um for our families uh for being here tonight and thank you to the board for letting us recognize these amazing kids so thank you all for coming I really appreciate it thanks all right all right students I know you don't have much going on this
016week so you're welcome to stick around for the entire meeting but if you'd like to take the rest of the evening to yourselves you may so thank you thank you thank you for coming you you know that's one thing that I just done huh second reception second re yeah I agree you know I know something about flag football I went on a a trip to Europe with one of those guys and he was still training while we were there okay that's dedication did you play soccer while you were there oh I mean I did with some German kids but that was just casually but this guy was running every day 600 a.m. waking up like it's rough you know we're walking all day we're on our feet every day got in their 10,000 foration it
017really shows wow do you have a favorite or are you just waiting to see what your options are okay congrat that is really awesome you know which want huh I I I want to go local but all of the schools I apply to are like in the midwest yeah so that's like where ready to go all right we're going to continue on with student perspective all right who's up first I go first all right so um basically as we're moving on and students are getting busier um we know it's a very busy time and ever since Miss lip came into our school and became uh principal there's been a tradition we've been having and we built hot cocoa in the Commons every Friday on December and I think it's just such an amazing tradition that
018we have our bands play music in the Commons and the atmosphere it has and the adrenaline that Cy pumping ready to take those finals especially on the last week it's just a great way to start the morning second of all um we moved ahead from haara and we moved on to bloxy and earlier on in the semester um some teachers were having like a little bit of trouble navigating the system and essentially if you don't know what bloxy is it's just a form of monitoring computers or like putting closed sessions on documents but I think that as we move along more teachers are getting familiar with it and using the system so I think that it's super great that they've been able to like troubleshoot those systems lastly going back to November uh we had
019the Thanksgiving giveaways I've never seen teachers so excited to have a disruption at the beginning of class uh they gave away turkeys pies cookies and Dunkin gift cards every uh period at the start the teachers and students and overall the excitement that it was and the smiles on everyone's faces going to the activities office was unmatched and the culture it brought to dgs was amazing lastly so we've been building on the problem of trash in the Commons and it's been going um we've seen an increase in encouragement from janitors and security guards or Deans just walking around just encouraging us to throw our trash away and there are still some groups that like um aren't throwing it away and are still just uh being stubborn but we're working on problems in the principal student advisory
020Council and with different leadership groups around the school to just encourage people to throw away their trash and just build a clean and safe environment in the school all right so um it's been a while since I've seen you all um so happy happy holidays everyone um but uh currently stress levels are at alltime high purs suage naturally because of um finals week lots of tests and grades that are deciding um so during resource periods we had emotional support dogs walk around uh the commons as a mechanism to help students through the exams and I've gotten a lot of really positive feedback on that from the students so I hope that we can continue that in the future um we also had the Jazz uh band performed this this morning and we have the rock
021band that will perform tomorrow before school and we'll we'll be serving hot chocolate just like he said um in the in the Commons before school so then again like you know all these activities coming together to help the students kind of navigate this um kind of stress during the finals week I think is really important um so on Thursday we'll also have a solo performer in the morning and in addition we have a spirit day on Thursday to show off your ugliest Christmas sweater which I'm personally excited for um the gingerbread contest also takes place this week so there's a lot of you know again of activities to support the students as I said um in mid November uh DJ has its annual snowball event during the weekend of November 15th and it's an event
022that helps students build valuable relationships and gives them resources to deal with you know mental health issues that they might have um so the feedback from the students were very overwhelming and they were very positive um everyone see everyone seemed to have a wonderful time um we had the fall play on the 21st through 23rd uh a Harry Potter spin-off and the students did a wonderful job displaying their skill and theatrics um the student Advisory Board also met and we talked about ways to encourage students to get off their phones and kind of incentivize that um in ways of you know education versus whether it's reading or kind of like prizes or stuff like that um and then we also had potential ideas for off-campus lunch um overall the discussion seemed to spark ideas and
023solutions to both issues um more recently again as we just saw our uh boys C country and girls cross country team both play Sixth and 11th respectively um so hopefully we have a bit more success in the next in the near future and then uh the rest of the week is pretty quiet with the holidays but the seniors are still anxious to finish their applications and colleges have started giving out decisions so again good luck to them as well so yeah that's all I have thank you thank you all right slip but it's oh I'm sorry yeah it's okay uh item yes item number five uh approval of minutes can I get a motion from the Board of Education to approve the minutes of the November 18th 2024 business meeting so moved second Terry moves
024Ken seconds thank you k papich i Ken Dawson I Mr Espinosa I charl fuller I Jenny hagstrom I car Caston I and Don rener I motion carries uh item number six do we have any slips Julie one for the second reception sir second reception okay uh item number seven um can I get a report from Ken on iasb uh we obviously we had our joint conference in November and which was fantastic and was attended by all of us board members uh excellent networking opportunity excellent sessions at excellent classes and a a big push for the vision 23 which we're going to discuss further tonight which is a very exciting initiative as we move education forward to make sure that all of our students are well equipped up for our changing world thank you and thank
025you to all the board members that they all attended and I know it's a good uh couple days of professional learning and uh growing as board members so thank you all for your time uh taking some time out and going to that all right I as mentioned by Ken uh at the conference ill uh Illinois Vision 2030 was was uh presented uh this was put together as an advocacy framework for the different professional uh organizations across Illinois and really kind of these three tiers of future focused learning shared accountability and predictable funding are going to be threads that you see go through this um today we'll just talk about those things and the request uh to the board to take action you can see the different uh organizations that really came together to put together
026this kind of advocacy and policy paper um and this Builds on the work of vision 2020 uh which was an earlier piece of advocacy that really the key trademark that came out of that work was evidence-based funding in Illinois a stable funding model uh I know some of our more veteran board members uh remember the times of pration and us not knowing if we would have the same amount from the state of Illinois on a year-to-year basis and this was corrected through this advocacy uh through vision 2020 so we're back at it trying to figure out you know what the future of Education in Illinois is and uh just like Vision 2020 where 90% of the boards in Illinois uh came together to pass a resolution to advocate for these changes you were going to
027be asked to do do the same this evening really it looks at these next couple of things future focused learning uh really reshaping our classrooms and redefining to respond to just the changing World in front of us uh really uh the key pieces here resources for safe buildings we know that uh a lot of our buildings after tax caps uh across the state uh went into place in the mid90s uh started falling behind in our community we were blessed enough to pass a referendum to help us catch up but not every Community has the resources that ours do so uh that's an Ask keeping up with emerging career Fields uh mandate reductions uh the the school code manual that I have on my shelf in the last 10 years has more than doubled um so
028and that has a real cost as well to us uh and then obviously maintaining our excellent education staff and attracting people to the field uh for each of these pieces there's a piece of policy that goes with them uh and this is outlined in the whole uh set of materials that's out there um but you can see for all of these then the state organizations would be working uh to try to get these policies moved forward that go along with them uh then shared accountability is the next one really looking for how we measure success in the state of Illinois uh looking Beyond standardized tests and considering growth we know especially in the high school one there's this one test that's given junior year and it really doesn't factor in where students started it just
029takes a look at where they were on that one day in their junior year so kind of looking more at growth and proficiency you know where do our students start and then where do they end up trying to get in some real-time data not where it takes months to get results back but these are all online assessments which should take days if not hours to get the results back making sure that the assessments are meaningful and make sure that our school ratings are more in line with what actual student achievement is once again with each of these there's a set of policy statements that goes along to support these initiatives and then the the third pillar predictable funding uh really goes along with making sure that there is long-term predictable and sustainable funding in the
030state of Illinois continuing to fund evidence-based funding uh at that minimum $350 million level uh starting to look at how life safety projects work and the idea that safety has to do with both your physical environment but also uh the mental health support that we have that goes along with that and the staff that we have to go and support that uh so the idea of a facility sales tax this is in place in about half of the counties in the state but uh the larger counties the process to try to get that uh tax option in place is unwieldy so trying to make that uh more attainable we know that the tier 2 ion system is a major challenge for attracting and retaining Educators in the state of Illinois uh so looking at uh
031that as well once again policy statements listed that go along with each of those changes uh a lot around funding of these different reforms and then uh your organ my organizations your organizations the organization across the state are asking that this evening that you take action on the resolution to support Vision 2030 really these are the kind of the core ideas inside of here keeping students stay safe keeping high quality Educators in place enhancing postsecondary success and improving uh the measurement of what works in the state of Illinois so once again uh this resolution would direct those State organizations uh to work uh collectively as state organizations around future focused learning shared accountability and predictable funding uh so once again that resolution is on the agenda tonight for approval uh are there any questions from
032board members I know you saw this presented at the conference but this was just kind of the review yeah it's very well aligned with our strategic plan it actually is yes lot of same terminology yes it is very much so all right that's up for Action uh this evening and should the board approve that I will pass it on to the state organizations that uh District 99 is in support uh Vision 2030 all right with that being said I'm going to invite the principals forward uh to talk about uh you know January 6th in school terms is only 5 days away um so so in five school days yeah thanks for that great school days Courtney are going to share what we're going to be a we're I didn't think of it like that but
033all right that's great thank you um no we actually we really excited about let's see make sure I'm doing this the right way yeah here we go okay um we're actually really excited about this activity that we're going to just give you a really brief overview tonight because the the real fun about this um what we're doing called relationship mapping comes when we get the data back so but we wanted to share with you just a couple of quick uh pieces of information tonight about what relationship mapping is and what you can expect um in the coming months as we collect this data so um relationship mapping is you know one of the Hallmarks of being an educator is having those connections with students and as teachers and as Educators as principes as support staff
034as our security staff we all can can name students that we connect with right um what relationship mapping does is actually create an actual data set that shows us that connection between staff and students in our building there are a couple of different ways that you can go about doing relationship mapping which we'll talk about um here tonight how we're going to we're going to do this first in our buildings but essentially relationship mapping helps to ensure that every student in our building has at least one personal connection to at least one adult in their building um both South t99 and North will be completing this activity on um January 6th on our Institute day and again it's h as you know is one of our primary goals for our um for our strategic plan
035um this is also a really uh critical tool for our equity and inclusion work and again when we get the data sets back it will really help our equity and inclusion teams at our buildings to inform them of what are some of our next steps might be um we're really interested to see what the data shows and maybe what trends um we identify that maybe we didn't consider before and so our equity and inclusion teams are really a big part of this work espe especially again as we get those data sets back and tell that tell us um perhaps what students um don't have that connection that we assumed that they did um so they're going to be a big part of again that data collection piece in the spring um we have outlined a
036little bit of the process that we're going to go through here and um essentially our wonderful tech team has created an internal tool um that is really really easy to use and basically every staff member in our building um teachers parapros security our clerical staff every single adult in the building will be completing this activity we know again especially as we walk through the Halls every single day it's not just teachers making connections with kids we were really intentional about making sure that every adult had an opportunity to participate in this process because we know again especially when you go through our lunches we see our kids connecting with our security staff our Deans and they're not necessarily in the class room but they have that connection with with an adult that's really really critical
037to their success in our buildings so I'm going to turn it over to Arwin and she's going to talk a little bit about the process thank you Courtney um so you can see here um when we're talking about trusting relationship this is a quantifiable process and so we are giving staff some prompts to use when they complete this to help keep the data consistent so we're asking staff to identify trusting relationships and you can see it's as a staff member it's kind of trusting your gut and your relationship with the students do you think the student would come to you if they had a personal problem could be death in the family sick family members struggling with grief or would you expect them to come to you if you have anal concern they're really really
038nervous about a test or a college application just do you believe you're a trusted adult to this student um we will say students the staff will go through I'll just come back here um like Courtney said there's a Tech Tool staff will go through every every student in the building they can sort that by Alpha they can sort it by grade and they're just going through very methodically um they're going through that process once we have all the data which our Tech team has tested it and assures us um similarly to What Hank was talking about um with the act now being digital the data is instantly gathered and instantly correlated so we won't really have a delay with getting the data back which is wonderful um so once we gather it our first step
039will be to look at a list of students who either had zero to one named connections once we have that list it will be confidentially shared with staff as a way to encourage all staff member to strive to to make authentic connections with that student so they're just the students who for whatever reason staff members didn't identify but we know that those students are in at least six classes with six adults we know they're in the Commons perhaps they're on a sports team or in a club and those teachers can then lean in or staff members can lean in in um a little bit extra to ensure that that connection is there the other piece that happens with the data and this slide's a little more robust is we're not only looking for the list
040of individual students that's kind of would be our um like our tier three at the individual level but we're also looking for patterns and Trends so is there a group of students demographically that has the most relationships and we want to celebrate what are we doing with that and then there will be a group of students demographically that have the least relationships and we can really talk as a team about what we need to be doing for a group of students in addition to the to that individual um and so we'll be looking at it based on age race gender disability socioeconomic standards patterns um one prediction that we have and we'll see if it comes out to be true but one prediction that we have is that seniors will have more identified trusting relationships
041than our freshman will because they've been here longer and have had the opportunity to get to know more people so that's just one prediction that we have having the data um data will then be shared with a variety of our leadership teams um Courtney already talked about that we've really partnered with our equity and inclusion Council we have an equity facilitator on our staff and when we were talking to her about this and connecting that group to the Strategic plan she her quote sticks out with me and she just said relationships are the heart of equity work and so anything we're going to do around equity and inclusion needs to always start with a relationship and so that her quote sticks with me because like like I said this is a way to quantify that
042um Jason mentioned um at South our principal teacher advisory Council that's a really powerful group while we certainly won't be sharing individual names um with that group that group will have the capacity to kind of dive in and look at some of those bigger Trends and talk as a group of student leaders about about what we want to do um and then because this is part of our strategic plan we'll be giving you high level updates here as well um I wanted to end before we open up to questions with just a few FAQ news um that we've heard from a lot of our staff as we've got this so we thought maybe you would have some of those questions too um one of the first questions is why aren't we asking students to identify
043staff members right now we're asking adults to identify students and there's a few reasons for that um the process is actually recommended by Larry's Children's Hospital Center for childhood resilience and they recommend starting with adults because it is an adult generated exercise and it is the adults that we're asking to lean in and make those connections so we are starting by asking adults and then once this process becomes part of our culture part of what we do um everyone trusts it everyone sees that it's moving forward then we can have a conversation of a team of whether we want to ask students to identify adults by name one of the things that organizations worry about if you're collecting names of Staff members there can just be some fear in the beginning of if you're a
044staff member and let's say you have the most identified relationships is that good is that bad if you're a staff member and you have none what does that mean who's going to look at it so just navigating some of those things um and any organization from a Personnel perspective it's highly recommended that you start by building trust by asking adults first so we're taking the advice um from lur center from childhood resilience and starting that way um another question that we've gotten U mostly from teachers who are going to sit down and go through the logistical process at donor's growth house that is names um so some teachers have asked can we just only see the students on our class list um and the answer again recommended from L is no because you have been
045teaching you've been teaching multiple years you're going to have students over multiple grade levels you've got pair professionals connected to multiple classrooms who aren't necessarily on the roster and then we have security Deans coaches who wouldn't see rosters so we have different tips that we're giving teachers for how to go through and filter and kind of keep keep their minds fresh um the other organization I wanted to reference in addition to our consultation with L's Center for childhood resilience um the organization safe and sound schools they actually exist primarily to keep schools safe physically um kind of an anti-school shooting organization and one of the things strongest things they recommend that schools do is make sure that every child has a trusting relationship in the building so in addition to all of the physical safety
046that we do and our alist drills um safe and sound School says number one Focus from schools needs to be on building a place where students feel valued and belonged in addition to those physical safety things so those are two of the resources that we're using to do this um and then just back to kind of just to close in the beginning um we've intentionally just showed some slides um that really show adults and students building those trusting relationships together these slides are all kind of fun outside of the classroom things um but a lot of those relationships happen right within the walls of our classrooms and we're really proud of it and we're excited to lean in um and make those connections even stronger across our whole District okay um so just wondering if
047you guys have thought about so some people are just I would say adults I I'll use the word stickier right they're going to be kids just gravitate to certain people um and and that happens um have you thought about um how you would manage that if you got a a staff member that has 30 kids that they have identified or when or when you start to the kids start to identify those folks have you thought about how that will work right if I understand your question cor correctly right now in this first go around we're not tracking like if I'm the staff member filling it out and I say I have 150 students that I think would come to me and another staff member has 400 that's not a data point we're tracking this first
048go around we're just looking at students who had the 0o to one relationships relationships identified okay and you mentioned that um 200 I think it said 2695 259 yeah students and how many uh staff members do you have in the school uh it's actually just under 400 when we're when we're all when we're all in with um support staff and certified staff we're just a little bit lower than that so we have time set aside specifically on Institute day all at the same time for every staff member to complete this we have about an hour um just over an hour for everyone to sit down at a workstation or with their computer to go through the list and click through the students okay I I mean I I like the I I guess love the
049idea of this I'm just thinking too are there any thoughts around when you if there isn't um some matches how are you going to create organic relationships because relationships are hard to create trust is hard to create right so have you thought about how you'll make that happen because you you definitely wanted to be organic and not a force thing um one of the one of the things that the one of the very first steps after we collect that information is um our CS team is ready to kind of hone in on on those particular students who maybe have zero or just one trusted adult um because in theory every student in our school has a counselor and should have that connection or at least something um and so that's where we're going to start
050with that team um and they're ready to kind of dig into who those students are and really take a look at um their profile in the building and there could be a number of different reasons why that's the case um but we will we our plan is to go through every individual student again who has zero to one um trusted adults listed um and start there with our c s team I just had a suggestion so having just come from the Illinois Illinois asso School Board conference um of the sessions that I went to the two best were one was called The Power of belonging and the other was called the trust Edge and they we went to the trust one I mean part of it the speakers were just incredibly Dynamic and knowledgeable and
051the sessions were so the trust one was about the eight pillars of trust and how you build trust and how to your point you know trust can lead to quantifiable results in your organization and then the power of belonging was a person who had led a school for many years so he was an administrator and now he's a PhD in Psychology and just how kind of important um belonging is and how it can reduce risks and open your mind up for learning so my thought was I wondered you know they were they were sessions if we could get those recordings I mean for your teachers to see not only just because it was a lot of information but a lot of strategies so I I didn't know if though any of those sessions are I
052think may have the resources posted so we could find out um but just they were great resources and for both of them they have one has a book out and one has a book coming out that are on my Christmas list but I'd be happy to share that but they were very Dynamic lots of information and just stuff I know the power belonging trusting relationships I mean I found that really interesting that was the word used on how you identify the relationship so just very relevant resources yeah please share the names of the speakers I know um kind of to chelle's point too our um equity and inclusion teams are working on kind of a um a guide for staff members like something along the lines of if a student's in your class that didn't
053come on the list here are some different strategies you can build to help connect those relationships honestly the vast majority if not all of our teachers are very skilled at this relationship building already so we would be giving them just reinforcement tips or different ways of looking at it but it really is a strength of our of our organization already this is just a way to take something that's strong and make it even stronger right yeah yeah it was um so the trust Edge one was like one of my favorite speakers since I've been going to the me um conferences and he did give us even eight pillars for trust and there are things that I as I'm guessing I'm like oh you know that's that's true and that's key so yeah I I agree
054if we can if they can get the uh can look and see if they on their online resources have them I can look too and I can them if I can find them yeah they were yeah really great very cool um I'd just like to say I'd commend both of you for taking on this project um we talk a lot about and we um include in our policies and our strategic plan about inclusion and making certain that every student feels like they belong here at District 99 this is a proactive step that you guys are taking um it's easy to just Pat ourselves on the back and say hey we're doing a really nice job but this is a step where we're trying to proactively take in order to make certain that no student is
055is just falling through the cracks in our district and I think that's super important along with our five Labs technology I'm really like super impressed with this as well I really like to see you guys come back and report about the success of this we're excited about that yeah and and tell us about how it's working and how those interactions with those students who have minimal connections with staff how those relationships are building so thank you so much and then we are we're also adding you know each year we've been doing this spring survey Ryan is just run that and brought the data one of the questions that this team is adding to that set of spring survey data for our students is just a quick check-in do you feel like you have a trusted
056relationship now we won't know the exact student or whatever but it'll start giving us a a student lens on that as we immediately here this spring to start to pair with that that data as well so we're asking families a question too so students do you have at least one adult you have a trusting relationship and then families will be do you believe your child has at least one adult they connect with and and to Hank's point we won't be correlating that that's Anonymous but it is a really nice data point that we'll have of does it match are are the are the percent are the numbers similar of people who say yes versus are they not on the list of zero to one so it'll be able to start let us start putting that
057data together to find those patterns after after the Institute day what type of time frame do you have in mind as far as turning around this information so we can start reaching out to the students who have zero to one um pretty quickly um we're we're hoping by the end of January if not like that's actually kind of our um softer goal we expect it to be sooner than that we have a meeting with our Equity inclusion councils um are meeting with our Tech Team the week after we do this they'll have preliminary data already put together for us we already have templates um created of how the information is going to go out to staff um um we'll be able to like I said kind of disaggregate the data and start looking at patterns
058almost immediately within the week and then next steps will be all of these teams that you see kind of diving in and talking about where are the successes where are the areas where we need to continue really leading in to build those relationships yeah this is fantastic what you guys are doing it really is very meaningful yeah and I think it's so relevant for uh to be Innovative with so much going on to day period That's affecting us and um the students as well I think the one other thing cuz I never and none of us ever forget about the staff right or the teachers I would love to see uh and this probably won't fall on your shoulders but something like this too for um staff at some point because I know that is
059you know there's a lot happening for them too in the school and then sure nor normally I'm sure people kind of Buddy up in schools and and create their own relationships but I love to see how this looks too from a uh the staff having that support and maybe even having someone in um leadership that they feel comfortable with and they can have those conversations with as well because it's truly going to be important for everybody right it is absolutely we talk about all being all one community and that's absolutely a good point Thank You MH yeah I really appreciate the proactive approach both of you are taking on this um but when it comes to building relationships there are pockets of students that don't have a trusted adult in their personal life and their
060home life and making sure that they feel comfortable in the schools is incredibly important for their success so I I really appreciate the the the active work to try and make sure that the kids have a better opportunity thank you all right thank you both thank you thank you thank you all right I'll invite Gina forward for course changes how many Waters do you want I know I one would work actually thank you so each December we bring forward any course changes and new courses this is an unusual year and all the years that I'm aware of I think this is my 20th I don't know of year we that we did not have a new course proposal so this is the first time at least that I'm aware of that that is the case
061um and they're not necessarily uh huge changes to the courses um but we'll go through each one so the first recommended change is a course title change we currently have a course that is titled pre-engineering in our CTE Department our Career and Technical education department and we would like to change the name to architecture construction and Engineering there are several reasons um and really it's truth in packaging in this course they are not just doing engineering but they also work on different construction projects and experiences as well as architecture and so we feel that the new title architecture construction engineering better represents the the actual content the curriculum of the course also we have theine engineering series for pltw Project Lead the Way um which includes architecture and engineering and this course title is consistent
062with that and it also aligns to different career Pathways so we feel like the pre-engineering title is just too restrictive and does not clearly identify the content of the course we think it will be easier for students and their families to make choices with the new title the second change we're bringing forward is AP Psychology we are recommending that we change this course such that it goes from being a semester course to a year-long course when we adopted this course we had a lot of discussion about whether or not it should be a semester course or a year-long course we obviously opted for the semester for a variety of different reasons knowing even at that time that it would be a challenging course it would be difficult to teach the entire content of the College
063Board the content is dictated by the College Board in a semester but we were able to do so at that time and we have for many years however there was a major revision which by the way we did not find out about until all of our students last year registered for classes the College Board does not give a lot of leway or time in advance to let you know of this change based upon the new skills units and content of the course we do not believe we can teach this course such that students can be fully successful in a semester in fact the College Board recommends 115 class periods and that does not count any assessments that's just for Content so you can see where our semester which is typically a little under 90 days
064could be problematic um we did some research and the vast majority of schools in the area teach the course in a year for many of them this change is not Monumental yes they have to make curricular changes of course but if they're already teaching it in a year they have time to make those changes we do not we have been working very hard this year our teachers have obviously um to really bring in as much of the new content as they can and provide students with resources for outside of class study in preparation for the exams um which are held in May but we do do not feel that that is a long-term solution and would like to move to offering the course as a year-long course it's also consistent with we have psychology as
065a course and then AP Psychology so that's two levels of the course um that we think this will work well for our students economics is another course that we are recommending we currently have a course called personal economics it is through the social studies Department it has been a course here for many many years and we would like to change the title of the course to economics there are many reasons why one of the reasons is the current content of the course aligns to the Illinois social study standards for economics so the course is an economics course um it will clarify that on student transcripts we've run into several situations just recently which was has not been the case until just recently where University questioning the content of that course and while we explain that
066it is aligned to the economic standards we feel economics better describes again sort of that truth and packaging for that course it's also consistent with other naming structures in the department um so for example this course would be economics we also have AP macroeconomics and AP microeconomics and again I don't know of any schools quite frankly that call it person economics the vast majority of schools call it economics and then anatomy and physiology anatomy and physiology is a science course that has been taught here for many many years it is a very popular course and it is a course that is very challenging for students the level of rigor in the course is consistent with other honors courses quite frankly with some AP courses and even dual credit courses the complexity of the skills are
067at the same level as those honors courses um in fact the course content aligns and we've had several meetings this year with the College of DuPage about their Anatomy courses and this course actually aligns to the entry level Anatomy courses not just the first entry level course but the entry level courses at the College of DuPage in fact the textbook that we are using is of extremely high rigor and that was acknowledged by cood so we believe the content of the course is such that students should be granted what we call weighted credit which is true of like our honors our AP not all but some of our dual credit courses we are also looking into and we're in the process I didn't put it up there because it is not confirmed yet it's not
068fully approved yet but offering the course for dual credit at South High School we have a teacher who is working on that with the college know of dup page and part of the reasons why we've had so many meetings this year to determine where our curriculum aligns what needs to be added and what uh we might want to continue to teach within that course is this so I remember there was a course that align with that uh personal training certificate at one point that's so that's through um our P Department okay but you're right we have a course um that brings in a lot of anatomy into the course but it's not an anatomy course this is an actual anatomy and physiology course taught through science got um so this is a course that students
069quite frankly over the years have questioned why it did not award honors credit um and it really was eye openening at least for me personally as we engaged in those conversations with the College of DuPage do you go back and give students honors credit who have completed that course or is this just going forward it's always going forward okay same with like the ti regardless of you know which change it is the title change those are all moving forward and they're on their transcript it might read one way if they took it last year or something and then it would yeah it wouldn't show that it was weighted or the name would be the old name so the students who are in pre-engineering for example right now it on their transcript it'll say pre-eng engineering
070the students who sign up for what we're calling Ace but we have to in education do an acronym for everything um it will say the new name okay next year same with um personal economics uh but we have with personal economics because it was being questioned um we have communicated back and forth with the universities um so to alleviate that for our current students because that is a concern if it's impacting our students in a negative way or even questioning what the content of the course is sounds a little bit like home economics outdated yeah Antiquated name that's how I feel about personal economics that's Antiquated and I like that the fact that we have different levels so it's clear you have different levels like at a an AP level and a non-ap level so
071that was it psychology you were saying a year long is is the so we have P version of psychology a year already mhm so are um just regular psychology course not AP is a semester course students can take that and then take now moving forward assuming that it is approved tonight by the board would be able to still take and and even now they could take the semester AP Psychology course they don't have to take it's not a prerequisite some students will directly take AP Psychology some students might want to see if they're interested the content kind of feel their way first and can take psychology first it's up to the student any questions how many students enroll in that se AP site right now we have multiple sections and we do anti and now
072it's a semester course right so we have three teachers districtwide that teach it um they two of the teachers teach other courses and sometimes all three do depending on just how many sections we have of each we do anticipate that the number of students taking the course may go down because it's a semester course it fills up a greater space right in your schedule um we understand that and and quite frankly that was one of the reasons why we decided gosh more than a decade ago to offer it in a semester but with this change we just do not believe that it is doable and we do not believe it's fair to our students okay my daughter is in the course anecdotally and she's studies quite a bit too much sometimes especially this year yeah
073and she she complains that it's it's too much it's a lot it's a lot and again we didn't even find out and in fact we started the school year um in August with not all of the information being released even from the college board so we were many schools that offered in a semester were in the same predicament but the schools that offer in a year were in much better place no I appreciate there a lot of work it's a challenging course sorry Chris no I appreciate these changes I also took AP psych and and anatomy and physiology and both were difficult classes um but the the anatomy and physiology um having it be an honors credited course is is fantastic I know even when I took it at that point uh there were a
074lot of students who felt that it should have gotten some sort of extra credit for cuz it's it's tough there's a lot of memorization and such so this is I think a very benefit special move for students you we get many students that come back that say their college anatomy and physiology class was easier mhm wow yeah we we do it's a very and and part of it's our teachers right we just have excellent teachers who uh challenge our students which is good you learn a lot more with a challenged teacher than you absolutely and ours are are really really great all right thank you Gina thank you TR out okay I'll hand it off take take the one that's all right I'll give yeah we have a lot now for the exciting items on
075the agenda working cash fund everybody these are the exciting items they are yes they are well if you remember back in the spring we issued $5 million in working cash bonds for the specific purpose of replacing and improving our athletic facilities um we have all uh projects completed except for the field houses so now is the time to go ahead and transfer the $5 million from the working cash fund where it's been sitting into the capital projects fund just to repay that fund so it's just formal uh mechanics that we use in fund accounting and it requires board approval does anybody have any questions no okay since we've done it we've got to pay for it that's right it's just been sitting in one fund and it's going to be moved into another one all
076right the other item is the tax levy for 2024 last month we we brought our estimated tax levy to you there's been no change we've received no other additional information so at this time we are there we go uh we are asking the board to approve the tax levy the actual Levy that we submit to the county is million but we just put the The Debt Service on top of it so you can see the full amount of 112 million excuse me do you have any questions on that no pretty standard yeah pretty self-explanatory and then we'll bring this back to you in April once we finally know the figures all right thank you jury that's it thank you thank you invite Travis for to talk about repairs to Pavement at North and South well
077that was exciting I appreciate you Paving the way for I'm going to come up here and uh show you a couple things on on Google Earth one of the things um if you remember earlier in the presentation when Hank showed the vision in 2030 one of those things was on life safety and so there's a lot of different things that you have to do in order to access those funds to do repairs such as have a public hearing which we have tonight on the agenda so th those are the types of things that uh we're looking at trying to streamline some of those things so so that we can get the needed work uh done in different areas so the saying goes a picture uh is worth more than a thousand words so I wanted
078to show you visually um using Google Earth the the spaces that uh were looking at repairing so you can see the highlighted areas um here inside of the stadium as well as outside of the stadium it is all of that that Paving work um so part of the submission that you have to have one is that you had a public hearing uh two is to show the need for the work so with each of these areas um there we took some pictures with the different uh spaces and so you can kind of see that's in that far again that's that far right one uh area one the main issue with all of these is is settling right so there are trip hazards that are across all of those internal uh spaces these are all pictures
079taken uh from that one space um and so what we're looking at doing is having those uh that area uh removed uh put in new fill um and then re repave those areas with uh with new papers these other areas there's one picture they're they're similar where there's stripping hazards on the edges of all of the of all of the different uh spaces a lawsuit waiting to happen yeah you can see just constantly throughout the whole Space we have uh we have tripping hazards and there's a lot of there's a lot of traffic that go in in and out of that area throughout when we have any type of an event uh in that space so that's inside and then outside you can see it is that whole space from the entrance uh if you
080will um to the stadium all the way down uh to um the end of the The Pavilion area and we have had issues with this for uh some time so we put up the barricades last year uh because there are some major tripping hazards as well as you can see just in generally uh in general that slopes uh down quite uh a bit in those spaces this is the entrance to the stadium again another tripping Hazard we have put Yellow Tape there to try to help a signal be careful as you're going through that uh through that space But we still have uh individuals that trip you can see that is uh that is settled uh quite a bit as well as just other again areas that are are tripping hazards so that's the general
081work at North that we're uh proposing with that any questions about okay so with these papers settling yep what are we doing proactively to prevent that from happening again when we do it they're they're going to build up the base uh Stronger so they'll they'll put down more fill than than what is there and make sure that the uh compacting uh is done appropriately so there's there's usually some settling and if you I don't know if how many people were around when this was constructed but it's there's a lot of settling in that area that's it's it's basically a log um so that that is they're making concerted efforts to make sure that they they put down additional a base layer to make sure that that that helps as well as you know if we
082need to especially around that um for the the long walkway outside of there um they're going to have to do some different grading there to to make sure that that is going to um to settle inappropriately so are there any guarantees on their work or do we have any there's as with anything there there's not a there's not going to be a guarantee there's things that we can do to make sure such as we we've done soil boring tests there um so we understand the makeup uh behind that um but I've never had anyone that does concrete work or anything along those lines give a a warranty on any of that stuff we're kind of 20 almost 20 years in on that work I think somewhere around there I was going to say that's not
083part of the master plan no that's not part of the master facility plan that's before that and uh this is also pavers because this is I believe categorized as a flood planes so we need a permeable surface it is part of our drainage solution and that's one of the reasons why they had to do pylons on the stands correct yeah to to keep it from sinking because it is such a soft surface yeah so good and is that the same reason why the parking lot which is part of the master plan right that and that's held up well right yeah yeah well yeah but that's also this is this is yeah there's a lot of in that in that General space yeah good okay let me move on to uh our project that we're looking
084at at South so you can see we're talking about the staff parking lot as well as um the bus uh parking lot area there so several different this is going to be similar to the project that we've completed the last two summers MH um where we're Milling two uh 2 in off of the top making sure that our drainage is sloped appropriately making any adjustments putting on an a a new top coat as well as striping everything back to to the way that it is so you can see see just in general um there's lots of cracking which is not uh atypical for um asphalt but you can see we have quite a bit of areas where uh we have holes as you can see in some of the different pict pictures um and it
085is causing it causes a a lot more issues when you have freezing and thawing that are are going on so we have just three pictures there in that area um our bus parking lot has quite a bit of uh spaces uh that that need attention um we have already patched some of these spaces they have uh that Patchwork has come up so we are in need of making sure that we we redo the entire thing and of all days I don't know if you remember the the Thursday before or the Wednesday before triple I conference uh when it started snowing that's the day I decided to go out and take pictures so it was an enjoyable an enjoyable day of uh getting pictures of of where we the needed work so you can see there's
086quite a bit of uh spaces and need in this parking lot I eight different pictures um that we show the the there and then we have an alternate bid um for uh to have the visitor parking lot um just resurfaced it's not we're not tearing that out or doing anything along those lines um so we'll see if that is acceptable in in the use of these funds as well when we go through that process so any questions about are you targeting for summer for these projects is that what you're thinking yes okay so we have the we have the information um as you can see kind of the the wording in the base bid and and our bids so we had that that ready to go wanted to wait make sure that we had this
087public hearing first uh get get that submitted to is and we'll get going on the uh getting the the sealed bit process that's all I have for thank you y thank you appreciate it stay safe all right there's a public hearing for this in a moment for anybody to address the board on Paving and uh as we as we do each month we update the board on Freedom of Information requests as we receive them we fill them they are posted publicly and listed on our website and you can find them by searching on our website for Foya thank you Jill okay item number eight I'm going to open up a public hearing is there anyone who wishes to address the board on the need to undertake repairs to the pavement of school bus turn rounds
088student drop off areas sidewalks and parking areas at North High and South High hearing none can I get a motion from the Board of Education to close the public hearing so moved Terry moves Charelle seconds and then we can do a roll call vote please Terry pavage I charl fuller I Jenny hagstrom hi Cara Caston hi Ken Dawson hi just Bosa hi and Don rener hi motion carries uh public hearing is closed thank you uh moving to item number nine on the consent agenda 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 no hearing none can I get a motion for the Board of Education to approve the consent agenda as presented which includes item a
089Personnel report leave of absence classified B Personnel report resignation classified C Personnel report termination classified D resolution authorizing notice of dismissal to educational support staff employee e November Financial Pages F student trip G acceptance of Grant Rotary Club of Downer's Grove H acceptance of donation Dennis sapata and I acceptance of donation Anonymous organization so moved second Terry moves Ken seconds thank you Terry pavich I Ken Dawson hi CHR Espinosa hi STW Fuller I Jenny Hager I har Caston hi and Don runers I motion carries thank you to the donors yes I just want to say thank you to all these donors they're fabulous fabulous thank you moving on to item number 10 recommendations for Action can I get a motion for the Board of Education to adopt the resolution to support Illinois Vision 2030 education
090Improvement policy so it moved second Chris moves and Cara seconds okay Christ Espinosa hi era Caston hi Ken Dawson hi Char Fuller I vny hagstrom I Tri pavich I and Don rener I motion carries um can I get a motion for the Board of Education to approve the 2025 2026 course changes as presented so moved Terry Terry I'm sorry I was reading something else I apologize no no problem thank you um Terry pavage hi Charelle Fuller hi Jenny hagstrom hi Cara Caston hi Ken Dawson hi Mr Bosa i d rener i motion carries uh for item number c in view of the current Financial condition to the district the Board of Education will consider the adoption of res of a resolution abating the working cash fund of the district can I get a motion for
091the Board of Education to adopt the resolution abating the working cash fund of Community High School District number 99 due page County Illinois well moved second Ken moves Chris seconds is there any discussion hearing none uh please call the RO for a vote upon the motion to adopt the resolution Ken Dawson I Chris Espinosa I Char Fuller hi Jenny hagstrom I Trey pavich I Carri haston I don rener I motion carries um Miss nidek please record this in the records of the Board of Education item d um can I get a motion for the Board of Education to approve the 2024 tax levy for $2,670 385 certificate of tax levy the certification of certificate of tax levy and the certificate of compliance with the truth and tax taxation law as presented so moved so moved
092moves Ken seconds you cara Caston hi K Dawson hi CHR Espinosa hi ra Fuller hi Jenny hagstrom hi excuse me Terry pavich hi and Don rener I the motion carries thank you any old business Hank no and any new business okay um second reception of visitors y I have one slip okay um I don't have a name here oh I guess I do uh Roberto dado Roberto Roberto you want to come step come on forward to the mic um you'll have three minutes to address the board okay thanks um thank you all my first question is currently the students have their cell phones with them in class can we set up that they have to turn it into a cell phone box so every time the students come in they put it into the cell
093phone box this is a requirement other schools have this um and it allows students to really focus on learning uh we've seen the scores drop 5% I watch the November meeting and I think that if we have the students turn in their cell phones we will see uh at least 1% increase in score the students will be able to focus um not be distracted by the phones cuz right now the current process is it's up to the teacher so the mean teachers make the students turn in the cell phone and the okay teacher is like okay you could just keep it with you you know just don't take it out but that's really hard for students because they're constantly distracted so I think we could get and and I think someone one of the Gentlemen
094even said it Mr Hashim said oh get off the phones so you know if the students can hey not have that burden on them the school and the teachers take it away you turn it in in the front of the classroom and then you will get it back um the second thing that I listed I have a freshman and a senior at dgs they have no books their English class they have no books their social studies class they have no books their math class they have no books I am not surprised that the scores are plummeting um if I looked at many other schools in DuPage County and their scores were much higher on uh English language for example like dgs scored 41% so reading at grade level is 100% DJs had 41% um if
095you look at glenbard South they're reading at 48% that's a huge jump you know so can we bring books back to students I know that if we bring books back to students they'll be able to read I I know Mr um rener U said his daughter was in anatomy physiology does she have a book in that class uh I said she was an AP Psychology yeah I believe there is so AP classes which I don't know what percent of the student body is AP maybe 10% something like that so they're the lucky ones with book uh with books um sorry what was the third item I had listed uh requesting a plan to improve test scor a detailed plan to improve test SC thank you oh yes who could be accountable so since we know
096the scores are plummeting could there be someone to hold uh the staff account for example uh the chair of the literature Department um I would hold that person or the social studies chair accountable hey reading is what we need to teach these students so what is your performance plan thank you so much thank you thank you thank you can I have your slip back yes appreciate you taking the time thank you thank you okay item number 14 um can we get a report from Jenny on lend please yeah uh we have not had any new meetings since our last board meeting we had the large group breakfast um at the conference Saturday morning um which I don't it wasn't a lot of they they' touched on a few items um but nothing really substantive there
097is a special meeting this Wednesday at 9:00 to discuss the tier 2 pension reform bill which I'm guessing it's going maybe a little bit faster than they thought or I'm heing mixed mixed reports on that so so there's there's aedes a special meeting Wednesday morning um a TRS expert will be there to um give an update and answer questions um and then the next meeting would be in January after that and I was part of a special Roundtable meeting on Dual credit with uh representatives from the community colleges uh high schools and uh legislators so we're hoping to to make some advancements and if you remember we had a bill that was passed uh unanimously in the house and wasn't picked up in the Senate last year that would have helped us greatly with dual
098credit uh we are hoping to bring some version of that back this year and hopefully make some some renewed progress okay can I get a report on sassad Chris uh we haven't had a meeting since uh August I think I think you guys are back in January yeah I think it's the 20 something of January we get the email update um nothing I haven't got any information then I have a just a managerial meeting this month uh nothing you know it's first year of our new executive director you know it's the first year she's learning a lot that's there and and working her way through so nothing uh nothing out of the ordinary to report at this point Terry any update from the foundation um just that uh we're looking for more ideas for the
099Mark McDonald fund um the initial idea uh was softly responded too let's just say so we're looking for a new new thing but we're also meeting when Wednesday so okay Ken I think we did we can skip you right yeah and then Charelle anything to report on the plan commission no they're actually having a meeting tonight but I will take a look at what's presented there tonight and share next time okay um upcoming board meetings uh the next board meeting will be January 13th 2025 I'm sorry we put the wrong date on the it's January 13th okay yeah um and that'll be a workshop meeting here at the ASC at 6:30 p.m. followed later that month January 27th again at the ASC that'll be our regular business meeting on January 27th um and then before
100we go into close session I just want to take a moment I wanted to read a statement about a recent event um you I wanted to take a moment to address a matter that recently occurred on one of our school buses um while coming home from school a school bus driver called a group of AF African-American students from dgs the nword um this was brought to the dgs administration's attention by DJs students and our dgs administrators responded immediately um the d99 administration immediately contacted the bus company and directed the company to remove this driver from all d99 bus routes and conveyed our expectation as a district that all drivers understand and reflect our core values going forward dgs administrators Deans counselers and teachers all reached out to the dgs students who were impacted by this
101harmful speech to assure them that they were in a safe place and that this bus driver would never be driving at d99 again yes I commend principal lip for reaching out to the families directly to comfort them and assure them that d99 is taking every step we can to ensure that this type of conduct would never happen again I also want to commend our district for having a protocol in place um to respond to this type of harmful speech and conduct our black student union and E and our equity and inclusion council members work together with the dgs administration in responding to this matter it's it's one thing to include in our mission statement that we want um all children to feel like they belong here at D9 9 uh but it's another thing to
102live and breathe that mission and to actually carry out its Pol our policies while I'm deeply um disappointed that these children at dgs had to endure this type of harmful speech I'm very encouraged by the way that our administrators our counselors and our staff responded to help these dgs students who were impacted by this contact thank you very much Arn thank you thank you um okay um we are going to go into close session so can I get a motion from the Board of Education um to go into close session for Collective negotiating matters between the district and its employees or their representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees in accordance with five ilcs 2c2 so moved so good Terry moves Ken seconds very much Terry pavich Hi H
103Dawson hi Mr Bosa hi charer Fuller hi Jenny Hegstrom hi here Caston hi and Don Ren I motion carries and for the members of the public will be coming out of Clos session we'll be taking no further action other than do aour other than to adour yes thank you I'm sure you want to go home yes I just want to say one thing yes please on a lighter note I want to congratulate the um bald eagle today it officially became the national bird after over 250 years of it being on every symbol that we have it is now the national bird so congratulations to the bald eagle thank you ter