001e okay all jul certainly Cara Caston here Ken Dawson here CHR espanosa here pavich here Don rener here J hunie here and Al MTH here thank you very much all right having a quum let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all first order of business is uh approval of minutes I get a motion for the Board of Education approve the minutes of the February 26 2024 business meeting February 26 2024 closed meeting and the March 4th 2024 Workshop meeting in action so moved second J moves K thank you very much Terry pavich hi Pen Dawson hi S Espinosa abstain Jenny hagstrom I Cara Caston I
002and Don rener I motion car thank you alna for the foundation has asked to reschedule their presentation to another evening so we'll work with them to schedule a night for them to come back so we're going to skip that agenda item okay reception of visitors s all right Staffing pre overview uh Rob is our MC for the evening hi everybody hi uh we're ready for uh giving you our overview and our staffing recommendations for uh the upcoming school year um just a reminder as I said at the last meeting is that this is a super complicated process that starts with uh student course requests um and when you consider the number of students that we have and the number of courses you're looking at over 20,000 data points that are used uh in this process
003um so there's a lot of input that comes from the Department chairs from the counseling office uh p in it all together but tonight we're really going to highlight the two people who uh who put that giant puzzle together and for G sleep for a few months um we have Jake Giblin and Keith Pals here uh they are associate principles for curriculum instruction and they are the ones who uh take all of our competing interests and put it into a schedule and courses uh that makes sense for uh students based off of their requests so you have in your packet my chart that I prepare for you it's um just a really big overview for our sectioning FTE that's the courses that are tied to the uh what students request you can see that this
004year we have a total of of 308 uh and that's a reduction of 7.4 uh FTE so for uh things that are tied to the exact courses that students request we're down 7.4 FTE however we have increasing needs for our students so highlighted in yellow there on the chart are the areas outside of sectioning that we've added additional supports in for our students the biggest areas that we had some ads was around our El and our bilingual uh bilingual so our El coordination and our bilingual facilitation we increased those because that's a uh increasing need in our buildings we also increased uh at each building North and South uh 1.0 social worker so that was an ad that we needed to have in there the other ones are are not as big of differences um
005one note I'll say is that on my memo I indicated that for the yellow cell for instructional coaching at North I wrote that we had a reduction we actually had an increase of a 0.1 FTE uh but that's um that's an FTE that comes and goes depending on what partial uh teaching we need and the licenses that are instructional coaches have um so that's our overview uh overall when you consider the reduction in the sectioning FTE and some additions below uh in the section the non sectioning area we're down 5.1 FTE from this time last year with our chart so that's that's uh in terms of numbers we're going to send it over to Gina Gina's going to talk about some particular courses uh and then she's going to send it over to um our
006apis here who are looking forward to uh sharing their expertise with you and then Jeff will close it out for us of what that means for uh the individuals who are here so go ahead before Gina tops Pops in I just want to point out that our overall enrollment has returned to levels similar to pre-pandemic numbers we're about 135 130 students less than we were then um which can be directly correlated with changes we made in residency uh checks over the course of the pandemic even though we're down by about 130 students we're up somewhere between three and four depending on how you do your math of pre pandemic teacher FTE to now much of that support is in the area uh is is shifted from like that above the line sectioning FTE to the
007below the line student supports Social Work path coordinator you know those types of uh El psychologist those kinds of things have increased over those five years in response to student needs all right so each year I bring forward the courses that are with enrollments of less than 20 that we are recommending cancelling and those courses with enrollments of less than 20 that we would like to run um in the memo you can see that there's an increase in the number of courses recommended for cancellation due to low enrollment um we're recommending 19 for next year compared to 11 for this year we also have an increase in the number of courses with enrollments of less than 20 that we would like to run and that increases almost double with 41 for the upcoming year versus
00822 for this year I would like to point out that we and I shouldn't say we I should say Jake Giblin and Keith Pals have done um some fine work here in stacking courses and combining courses so that students get the courses that they really want so that their interests and needs are met and so you will you will note in that section uh some some stacking uh that's even more than I would say sometimes is typical um so really working hard to try and give the students the courses they need and want so with that I will turn it over to Jake and Keith okay I'm going first right Jake you are going first okay very seasoned over here um so I'm I'm I'll start with um just overall Trends the going to core
009courses and then the electives courses so just an overall trend we're seeing just um some what I would call just normal shifts in students moving moving around um in their requests for next year um we did see some what I would like to highlight really is our business courses we saw a 12% increase in our uh requests for our business courses going into this year um and so it really looks like that entrepreneurial spirit is Alive and Well in North High School um and also our music programs uh specifically our instrumental music programs have seen a 10% increase in um in the requests for next year so that's just really fantastic for both of those programs um jumping directly into the core courses so our English uh courses are are holding steady uh as they
010did last year we had a little dip last year about 3% in request but it's holding steady this year um we are looking to add a section of radio for next year and also creative writing for our seniors so that they can explore their passions in that area in mathematics um we've got some exciting changes coming for next year that are going to support students so we're of course continuing to support our English language Learners with a foundations for math one a math one course and an uh math 2 sections that are El supported um we um also would love to share right now that our math team has started translating the ENT insance um assessment for uh for um words escaping my my for the incoming for our incoming students into uh whatever their
011language preferred language is so no matter where you're coming from in the world uh we will translate that we'll do the uh language English language proficiency but also the math is in your native language um so uh the team math team also U dove into some data uh this year and is going to Pilot a math 3 lab next year this will be happening during fourth fifth and sixth period during lunch so it'll be specifically for students taking math 3 uh if they're struggling or they want a little bit extra support they'll be able to go in there and that'll be totally teacher directed so the teacher will work with the student if they need a little help and they'll be able to go there that's happening on both um sides of town in science
012um we're keeping an close eye on requests as um the board knows we added Earth and space science as a for students last year and that uh at the time we saw a shift to a lot of students taking Earth and space science we're seeing a shift back to some other areas um we saw some fewer requests for chemistry but I do want to note that biology honors is growing um and I really want to watch that Trend over the course of the next couple of years because I um we are wondering if that Earth and space science and students taking honors Earth and space science is giving students the um just the confidence um to take an honors biology to take another honors course so that's that's pretty exciting to watch um social studies
013of course continues to lead the way in their e programming um next year we are going to be um uh starting something new in a rotating model for our El students we're going to offer US history but we're going to offer it at two different language levels for our El students um so that's pretty exciting and that that idea comes straight out of the department and Mr rler who is the department chair uh along with his team um in CTE I mentioned of um the um the sorry um I mentioned oh the business classes yes that are are growing um I do want to highlight that both before I get from CTE into Fine Arts that um Gina mentioned the stacking of courses and uh both our department chairs and our teachers have done such
014a fantastic job of looking at how to offer honors and upper level options for our students who are really in specific programs um whether it's architectural drawing which is stacked so that students who are really interested in that can continue to follow that passion or a painting and drawing class so that they can continue along the way as well all the way to the AP level so um teachers work really hard to make sure that those options are there for our students and just to clarify stacked means you have multiple levels of the same kind of course area Blended together in the same class period and that that allows us to take class that doesn't have a lot of students signing up and combine them in a way that you you get close to that
01520 number or over that 20 number where it becomes economically feasible to run those courses in those student interest areas um Fine Arts I mentioned um the celebration in the music program um for the instrumental music program to be specific um I would also point out we have a slight reduction in our Visual Arts re Quest this year um but that's by no means um something that we should be worried about because the program is packed so I'm speaking specifically for our Ceramics room is used all day long our jewelry and metal uh work classroom is used all day long both of those are extremely popular programs um and although there's a slight reduction in the requests um that those both of those rooms are used the whole time the same thing goes for our
016culinary program as well those spaces are used all day long and in fact we have to have an overflow room for our our kitchen um and our teachers work together so that they can best use that space to accommodate all the students so um just awesome there um in our world languages Department um we are bringing back the Heritage Spanish class next year to help with our um students who speak Spanish and are working to um for the co bi literacy but are also looking to um really work on their academic language they may speak Spanish at home fluently with their families but this is to focus on that academic piece um and also we're uh I was talking with the department shair and we're really looking at our both our French and German programs
017and how we can work with our feeder schools to try and boost uh enrollment in those two programs as well so that's uh on our radar looking forward to next year and finally I would I would mention to go with that stacking and pulling things together in PE next year we're offering the sports officiating class um in in combination at the same point in time when students are taking team sports so students that are going to be able to really in the while they're learning how to be Sports officials they're going to be able to practice that in class in real time and get the confidence so that they can go out um and they can help the parks department during the summer by by working in those program so oh Jake take over thank
018you very much um I'm going to start with career in tech and and I do appreciate G uh um uh talking about us being able to put a puzzle together and put stacks of classes as Hank described and as keth did but we both want to emphasize we could stack them any way we wanted but if the teachers didn't teach those classes in the way they do it would not be effective uh I had a conversation with the fine arts department the other day and uh I said if someone told me that I was going to teach math one math 2 and math 3 all in the same class I would have thought my head was going to explode and they do some of that on a regular basis in CTE and Fine Arts and
019as a testament to their professionalism their willingness to try to put kids in the best positions possible um and and try to give them the experiences they're Desiring at the high school at this time um within our CTE Department we're seeing very similar growth as what Keith's describing at North we've had an increase in sections of our intro to business one each year we're at 7 this year um over the last two years um our intro to engineering and design program grew by 62% from 42 students to 68 our Advanced culinary arts went up 45% um and again they continue to work and build these um intricate programs that layer multiple levels so that kids can take AP and what we call Studio experiences at the upper levels that they wouldn't otherwise be able to
020um in Fine Arts Ceramics is popular um but the the class that actually grew the most in the building was digital photography it had a 79% increase uh went from 80 students to 143 um this year so they they are doing a great job of bringing students into that program um in English what we're seeing is a growth in our AP English language and English Lit um 29% and 22% uh respectively um is how much they grew um and at South we're able to uh pilot a program this year called modern rhetoric it uh is in conjunction with College of dup page uh it is a transition English course that will allow students that maybe are on the borderline of some of the testing and grade metrics that College of DuPage would require a student
021to have in order to automatically place into a credit bearing program at COD and by taking this class if they earn a SE or higher they will be able to do that regardless of those testing or grade metrics that they have um and so we're we're excited to be able to Pilot that this year um at South in math um L status quo the one thing we're very excited about is math 3 honors um grew significantly it jumped 35% what we're what we're excited about is that at math 3 honors that's where we lead to the pre-cal honors and then maybe your Cal ABS your AP stats um and apbc calculus um the more of those obviously we can get in sophomore in junior year the better chances we have at the AP levels at
022that point um the other thing and you'll hear this a couple of times from me um our El section uh has grown tremendously um we we have traditionally only had one section of el um foundations and one section of el math 1s this year we started with two and we had 12 students to begin that program we're well over that we're about 30 now um and so we're those El programs are exploding and we have many teachers who have the El certification in our math area to be able to help support them at the level of where they're at which is great for us um in science we saw a significant growth in our AP biology and chemistry AP biology um grew by 68% from 25 to 42 students in our chem grew by 40%
023from 47 to 66 and even our physics honors uh grew by 32% so we're very excited at the higher level seeing that growth and students wanting to expand out we're also excited because that means they're feeling like they've got some support from the teachers in the classroom and be able to take those risks and take classes that are a little bit harder and stretch themselves um where you're going to see a lot of growth in uh AP again is also in social studies our AP Psychology and AP Government grew by 51% each they both grew um by uh 56 and 66 students respectively um and then their El programming is strong in there as well and it all grew um by 24% in our e Global and we have an El Civics economics and uh
024Society course it it grew by 57% and we have an elus history that doubled we went from 9 to 19 students in that in that program as well lastly with all those World languages does encompass a lot of the El students obviously um we're trying something new this year that we actually began this semester we're we're adding what are called newcomer programs for our uh El students and those typically are for students who are on the lower range of not only language but also maybe academic skill as we test them and bring them in um and we were able to add those at the semester this year um and we're going to continue those next year as well um but aside from the El programs we we had a really nice growth in uh French
025this year um we're going to have two full-time French teachers which we haven't had for a while um AP French grew by 33% French three honors grew by 30% and um as Keith spoke to earlier we do have Spanish for Heritage speakers and that doubled went from 16 to 33 students uh so we're able to meet them at those levels as well so thank you very good thank you guys and uh good evening everybody as you've listened to all these various pieces of this puzzle obviously when we're trying to meet these of all our students there's some things that shake down so I fortunately get to be the person has both good news and then for some folks some not so good news but uh I'll start off just talking about on the uh Personnel
026report which is part of your consent agenda for this evening are all of our recommendations for renewal for our non-tenure teachers um and so those are all broken down by where they are current their status in terms of years of service with the district so that's as I mentioned probably s j that's the good news these are the people who I'll be meeting with later this week with their new contracts for them to sign um after they have signed denied and approved by you of course um then the other couple of pieces that are from my office that you'll be reviewing as well are our resolutions first is for honorable smiell honorable smiell are for uh also for many uh they're all non- 10year teachers uh these are teachers who going into next year uh
027the reason why it's honorable dismissals the only reason we are dismissing them right now is because we don't have FTE for them to occupy next year so it's nothing that they've done wrong it's just a situation where we have unfortunately don't have the FTE to keep you on for next year so those folks are all being honorably dismissed I believe there are 10 of those on on that uh report for you uh the other ones are the non-renewals now that's a little bit different non-renewal doesn't sound as nice as honly dismissed um those two there's two individuals on that resolution for you those are both people who took leaves of absences so the reason why we are not renewing them isn't because of anything do with our ft it's because that people have come back
028and their positions um and so then we don't have any place for them for next year but they both did a great job uh helping us out with some of our staff who were out for portions of the school year this year um so those are the two main pieces uh that you'll have to look at uh for that and again that'll be uh based on your approval and everything so those are the renewals The Honorable dismissals and the non-renewals any questions so am I understand that the primary source of the reduction in FTE is just the number of students is going down so sectioning is going down that's the biggest driver yes okay and then the way it plays off with these course selections that everyone's mentioned it just kind of kind of trickles
029down and distills into where we've arrived now okay no way to Salve a JP music theory with nine students it's a course that we probably we've been discussing uh there's several like this that we we believe we should start offering like on odd and even years so the students are making their four-year course plans that then we could kind of stack two classes together in that year and if students start to anticipate like okay this one is offered in odd years and this one's offered in evens they can start counting on us running it and then we get to the spot where we're offering it every other year and we're telling kids we're going to offer it that year then if we do have an under 20 we'll feel more obliged or inclined that we
030told kids plan on it being run this year and now we should run it if that's the case we're starting to look we have a few courses that are always seemed to fall right on the bubble like that AP music theories one we have a few others we think that might be a long-term solution for us any other questions all right anything else all right uh the rest of those flow through a variety of the items the rest of the evening thank you thank you Keith for all all this thank you gentlemen all right next uh agenda item is capital Pro projects this is also an action item this evening and also Life Safety work turn this over to Travis uh these are really bids that have coming good evening uh if you remember back
031in November uh Jim and I uh talked with you about different capital projects that we were working on uh and these projects required in line with our board policy 460 with purchasing um that we go for out to bid for these so we had sealed bids they were placed in the paper uh there are requirements on timing we met all of those right and we had our our bid openings here at the ASC and these are the results of those uh bid openings so the first is uh asphalt replacement and I'll tell you we uh we did this uh bid writing everything um inhouse all all d99 it's in line with some asphalt work that we've done in the past as well um so we had uh eight different sealed bids uh that we had
032an opening actually last week um on and the low bidder had the amount of $152,600 lot that's involved with this uh we worked with white on we needed to actually get a design uh put in place from uh the Electrical uh side so we've done that um we again went out to bid um we did receive one bid we were hoping to get more than that but I will tell you that that is uh when white looked at uh the project and what they gave us an estimate it is in line with the estimate that they provided uh so we when we opened it we weren't surprised by the amount uh but we were hoping for more so that we had more of a competitive there but same process where it was in the paper
033publicly all of that information um so that is coming in at $548,500 and again that's for both North and South both indoor and outdoor all of the scoreboards and the fiber that will run to that um the the final one actually involves both the classroom improvements in Renovations and the galvanized pipe replacement it was one bid opening that we had for for that and why we put those two together um even though they'll be coming from different uh sources of funds uh that we'll be paying for is economy of scale so we we worked with white uh to get both of those this was all at one bid opening um and we did receive uh a total of uh 32 sealed bids for all of the different areas uh that are required for this um
034so you can see uh there's several moving pieces that are uh noted in the in the memo that I've I've shared with you several different uh entities that will be uh working with to to get all of the the work done so the classroom improvements and Renovations came in at 70,5 and then the galvanized pipe replacement uh came in at 778848834 reminder that also includes uh locker room Renovations uh both girls and boys as part of that that project as well so any questions about any of those uh bids or any of the the projects themselves summer projects all this summer yes and do you feel the scoreboards are on on Pace to be done y before next school year yes excellent we're we're working on the timing of everything so we're having monthly meetings
035with our uh digital scoreboards to make sure that because we have the the turf the track um resurfacing so uh we have a sequential order that we need to follow and we're working with everyone and making sure that that gets done great we'll be starting right after graduation so so you're G to shoe us off and start right away yes we're we're getting we're getting going on these things that is for sure it's hard to believe you get 32 for one group and then you only get one for another group does that happen I mean is that it does but remember those those 32 sealed bids were for 10 different breakout areas okay okay so it's not like we got 32 for one thing one thing right we got 32 for 10 different areas and
036we had one area um you'll see in the memo where it says a $10,000 allowance we didn't get uh something for the bid uh package number seven um so that is something though that is is allotted for and we feel like that that $10,000 uh is in line uh with and that's the fire safety we we work with other uh entities with that and and we can get that work done so not a concern so it's a little bit misleading right so when you hear 32 there's there were 10 breakdowns if you will so we averaged on three but there was one that we didn't get any so we did range from 1 to four I think was the most that we got for one whereas the the scoreboard power and the um fiber really
037was one project and White's estimate is based on for you know having schools that have undertaken similar work that's kind of what they spent on it okay in in the scope so they design the work right so they understand the intricacies that are involved with what's needed to to get the work done good okay and that's what we built the budget around right all yeah and it all seems to fit into it it all fits into into the budget yeah and we need to do the asphalt sou there's some there's some nice potholes over there yeah and this is remember that we had two different alternate bids so that total amount is including those two alternate bids as well uh which is taking care of some additional things so that's that's great and and for
038us to still come in under budget these are up as action items later on this even any other last questions for Travis on these I would just note in the in the action item we did break out the classroom improvements and Renovations and the galvanized pipe right because there are two different sources of funds that we'll be using so we wanted to make that clear and clean cut thank you uh the next one is textbook recommendations from Travis yeah so we have um two recommendations that we have uh coming forward um and kind of in line with what J was saying uh we have our El math 1s uh that we are uh looking at doing a a pilot with um so we're uh exploring uh that as a another resource for our our students
039um I I'm was really happy I I'm a former high school math teacher so when I saw Big Ideas Math um in my previous District we went through the process of looking at resources and this is the one that that we landed on it's really well done it is um the the authors were uh Math teachers and it is written in Friendly language that provides a lot of really great resources uh for our teachers uh to implement and to use in their in their teaching so we have that one which is the integrated math one um again as a pilot that could be expanded to other math one classes it'll be a great opportunity for us to to see what uh resources and and what learning opportunities that that uh avails and then also we
040have integrated mathematics 2 um for our all of our math 2 uh level courses that are that are listed there so those are the two um our math departments did a lot of uh work uh to get to this stage and we feel really confident that um these will provide great resources for us uh moving forward all right any questions for Travis on textbooks the next item up this evening is uh property tax abatement for the rexnord uh facility uh this began in 2016 as a a project this is also an action item later this evening in your uh board packet it outlines that agreement that we entered into in 2016 believe this is year eight of that agreement um we're kind of one year away from the last time the way that this was
041structured was we abated 100% of their new taxes in year one every year that has been reduced so uh over a 10-year period for it to to go and if you drive by that facility you'll see it was totally worth it for the the taxes and jobs that's brought our community so uh this is although we have to take action on it each year the board has already entered in an agreement to do this so this just formalizes this year's but it's really we have to do it formality yes it's a formality so uh any questions on that one for tonight and then um Don had requested that the beginning of the year I brought you a list of leadership events that the board approved my attendance ad over the course of the year I
042wrote up a short reflection for the board uh and it's included in your board packet on those I attended and kind of my key takeaways from um each of those I think you'll see in those there's some key things that tie back to board goals and directives into the work that we're doing within the district opportunities for me to really shine a spotlight on uh the district as a whole uh either you know through some some opportunities that I had to present or lead uh in a variety of different ways uh and it's really especially uh the work I would say the most recent huge growth was going to the National superintendent conference in that I attended a lot of sessions about indicators and measures of success and a lot of that has influenced the
043work that we're working through with our leadership team and eventually we be our whole staff on on that work and allowed me to connect with a lot of superintendents that have led that work already um and kind of figure out what worked for us and what doesn't so uh you know that was the most recent one that I went to and is really influencing our work heading into to the next school year so I appreciate the board uh in supporting my growth and my ability to show off the district in a variety of ways uh and you can read through uh each of those opportunities and kind of what happened there uh any questions from from board members on those I just say would I think it's money well spent because um you know we're
044never at any stage of our career Beyond improving ourselves and growing in our our profession and Hank that's there's no exception with Hank and so we want him to continue to grow and to continue to to um research and be exposed to different ideas and bring those ideas back to District 99 and help improve our district here and I'm really excited about the the metrics and um what your team's working on right now and uh you know I understand you we'll be you'll be presenting to that to the board later on this school year and into the summer y um so I'm I'm really looking forward to that I think there's a great opportunity for growth and great opportunity for catching students and providing safety nets through the metrics that that we're we can utilize
045so it's a great way to better and improve our district absolutely more to come on that yep all right um that's the list of the events all right uh freedom information requests uh we have received them have either filled them or in the process of doing so all of them are listed on our website could be can be found by just searching for Foya on our website okay item number seven I'd like to open up a public hearing on the honorable dismissal of our non-tenure teachers is there anyone in the audience who wishes to address the board on this subject matter all right hearing none um can I get a motion to close the public hearing so moved second second Terry moves and Ken seconds very much Terry pavich I Ken Dawson hi Christopher Spinosa
046I Jenny hagstrom I Cara Caston I and Don rener I motion carries public hearing is closed item eight consent agenda before the board votes on the cons consent agenda is there any agenda item a board member would like to pull out of the consent agenda for further discussion hearing none I need a motion for the Board of Education to approve the consent agenda as presented which includes a Personnel report 24 2025 5ifth year full-time renewals 2024 2025 4th year full-time renewals 2024 25 third year full-time renewals 2024 25 non 10year full-time renewals 2024 25 non- tenure part-time renewals and appointment classified B Personnel report retirement Administration resignation certified resignation classified C February treasurers report and February Financial Pages d student trips e 2025 26 proposed calendar F acceptance of donation District 99 Education Foundation and
047G Illinois High School Association membership july1 2024 through June 30th of 2025 so moved second Terry moves and Chris seconds thank you tyry pavich I CHR janosa I Jenny hagstrom hi caric haston hi Ken Dawson hi and Don rener hi motion carries thank you to the foundation for nearly $55,000 in Grants for projects in the schools yes no doubt okay item nine recommendations for Action uh in item a can I get a motion for the Board of Education to adopt the resolution authorizing notice of honorable dismissal of non-tenure teachers other than final year probationary teachers and that the president and secretary be authorized to sign the S moved moves second 10 seconds thank you Jerry pavich I Ken Dawson I chosa I Jenny hagstrom I Cara Caston I and Don rener I motion carries for
048Item B may I get a motion for the Board of Education to adopt the resolution authorizing notice of non-renewal to non-tenure teachers other than final year probationary teachers and that the president and secretary be authorized to sign the S so moved second any moves Chris suck thank you Jenny hagstrom hi Chris R Spinosa hi Terry pavich hi Cara Caston hi and Ken Dawson I and Don Renner I motion carries item C can I get a motion uh for the Board of Education to approve the recommended text books for 20242 as presented so moved second moves Ken seconds thank you Chris Espinosa hi Ken Dawson hi Jenny hagstrom hi ter pavich I carck Caston I and Don Runner I motion carries uh item D may have a motion for the Board of Education to award the
049North and South High School scoreboard power projects to Richmond electric company Woodridge Illinois for a base bid in the amount of $548,500 so moved second Terry moves Ken seconds thank you Terry pavich I Ken Dawson I CHR Spinosa I Jenny hagstrom i k haston hi and Don Runner I motion carries item eight may I have a motion for the Board of Education to award the base bid alternate a bid and Alternate B bid for the West events and Mustang way asphalt Replacements project to Advantage Paving Solutions Inc in the amount of $152,600 motion carries item F may have a motion for the Board of Education to approve contracts for classroom improvements and Renovations at North and South High in the aggregate amount of $71,500 for Life Safety work at North High in the aggregate amount
050of $778,000 tax year so moved second and moves Terry second thank you Ken Dawson hi ter pavich hi Cara Caston I CHR sposa I Denny Hegstrom I and Don rener I motion carries item number 10 any old business the second reading and approval of policies second reading reading and approval of policies these all came to the board last month they're in your packet again this month um there's one change that came from uh recommendation from the administrative team in policy 6.27 uh it used to just the first reading it res it referred to the counseling department we updated that name to be more specific to District 99 in counseling and student Support Services C uh just to make sure that it was clear that it pertained to that entire department uh not just a counselors
051other than that they're all exactly the way you saw them last month with no concerns uh coming from anywhere and we'll vote to approve on those no so we need a motion to approve the policies as presented um may I get a motion from the Board of Education to approve um the policies as presented so moved second Chris moves Ken seconds thank you Chris just sposa I Ken Dawson hi Denny hagum I har pavich I Cara Caston I and Don Runner I motion carries any new business no new business and Julie any uh visitors um Jenny can I get a report reception uh item number 13 Jenny can I get a report on Len please I wasn't there on nor was I but Gina attended so she has a report for so at Friday's Len
052meeting we were very fortunate to have state superintendent Dr Tony standers attend and that was timely in light of some things that are going on that he couldn't talk much about um but he did share uh some news that was released several days before that that the state had put out an RFP for the accountability our state accountability measure which is currently the SAT the current contract with the College Board ends June 30th of this year so there requesting proposals obviously for the federal and that's required by federal law that we have state accountability that has been the SAT you may recall prior to that it was actually the psae and the Act was a component or the the one day of it and while he couldn't talk much about it because they're still in
053the procurement process it was released before this meeting that um the ACT had the lowest Bid And of course you could imagine what has been going on in my email and probably the email of most assistant soups and superintendents across the state and while he didn't speak much about it he did say obviously it's a competitive process they have to follow the procurement procedures as we would expect and the one question that was on all of our minds was whether or not there would be the suite in other words with the College Board we have the PSAT 89 which freshmen take the psat1 that sophomores take and then the sat that Juniors take and it's called The Suite of Assessments and so we had questions regarding that whether the RFP actually called for those what
054I've referred to oftentimes is like leadin tests they kind of like practice tests to get you there or to help students get to taking that final assessment and he did say that the RFP was for those uh SED of course it's the ACT there's a preac for grades 8 n so that would be obviously for freshmen there's one for grade 10 and then the act for uh grade 11 but other than that he didn't talk much about it of course um there were some questions asked and he continued to talk about the procurement process there is an appeal process or I should call it a protest I think it's called a protest process which act by the way and I do recall this when it was happening protested last time and the College Board did
055get the contract cuz they were the lowest bidder um so I he did not say that the College Board was protesting but that's very possible um it's in that protest period so point of that will be and while he didn't say this I am saying this um that would be for the tests that are given next year because the contract expires or ends in June okay so what does that do to like National Merit we would we would still offer the nmsqt we offered that even when we had PSA long before the College Board had gotten the state contract um however students wouldn't be taking the PS t89 or 10 which presumably helped prepare them for the nmsqt the ACT is and I I've done some reading since then because you know we've lived in
056college board world for a while now um is aligned to standards and they talk a lot about how it prepare students for um college and so on and so forth so but is not a lead in test for the nmsqt so he talked a little bit about that but did not say much other than what I've shared I actually shared a little bit more just from what I looked at online but he did say that that will be wrapped up soon because the contract expires in a in a few months you will not question for as an assessment tool what are the main differences between the SAT and the act so there are several differences the one difference that I would say is part of the reason why many people including myself are concerned is
057that we went from the paper pencil sat for years right last year included MH to this year we will be giving the digital of both the PSAT PSATs so the 89 the 10 and the SAT which is a digital online test that is adaptive so BAS basically scales up down for students based on how they're performing the ACT is online as well so it's also a digital test but from what I understand and we have not had many students taking the act in recent years because Illinois went to the SAT it is not adaptive in that way so that is one of the concerns is that our students this year so in three years three different experiences paper pencil static no changing you know I mean the tests are different for each student of course
058there's several forms but it doesn't change based on how you answer questions and then secondly the digital online so our staff is learning a whole dashboard a whole new dashboard for this test and then if this goes through and it's still an if then a completely different test with a completely different dashboard for all of us to learn so those were some of the concerns that were um I know shared in my group not necessarily in the meeting because he couldn't talk much about it but he did share that it is still in the procurement process that there is a protest option and when it exactly expires and that it would impact us next year the other key factor in this that I did share with Dr Sanders is we're finally reaching the point where
059we have longitudinal data for our students right where we can start to look at what their progress has been over their time with us that all goes resets right it all resets again so we had the ACT went to the SAT so we reset when that happened then we got to the point where we were starting to get longitudinal data and then pandemic happened now we're to the point where we're starting to get longitudinal data again and we could potentially switch Data Systems right so uh that really helps us or doesn't help us in demonstrating growth over time at all uh it won't be for another three or four years that we able to show you longitudinal data that holds hands like that so do they have to take the lowest bid I don't know
060all of the I believe so but then there's this this process this protest process that almost always whoever loses the bid especially one this large I mean it's how many $26 million $24 million I don't remember the exact am it's substantial yeah it's substantial that that's a usual process that happens and one of my concerns is that our teachers have aligned some curriculum to the standards of the SAT which are changing too because it's going digital with the Adaptive testing we've done professional development Ryan dhy our director of student experiences has done a lot of PD particularly with our English Department to um prepare our teachers and our student you know for our students who are going to be taking it uh we also had this year the SAT prep class which was totally focused
061on the digital ESS and on the SAT obviously but more so on this digital so that those are other concerns that we have which many of us have expressed to the state so going back to lend I know we took a little bit of a detour I apologize for that I'll get off the Soap Box um so he also talked about um Statewide systems of support and his vision for how that could go in the future the idea that um that all schools while we're already doing this should be supported in moving forward with school Improvement um he also um talked a little bit about um you know just his work at the State Board and how um he looks at different factors in making decisions he as you may remember was a sitting superintendent
062for many years and he you know shared some ideas he had around um some of the support that's out there and state accountability and then the meeting wrapped up there was literally about 5 minutes left in the meeting um with a series of bills and just a brief update none of them that were discussed in any great depth um but just mentioned a few of them and where they were at in the process that was pretty much the meeting and can we provide a report on sass uh yes uh my schedule got a lot more open over the next couple of months I was on the bargaining committee and it sounds like we may have a TA to just extend the current deal for a couple of years so that's in progress right now that
063might get resolved over the next uh couple of weeks and uh that will at least allow the new executive director to come in under uh a contract we won't have to bargain you know anything through the next couple of months or into the summer so that that's the big news I have a meeting on Wednesday uh of this week Terry any report on the foundation uh we're meeting Wednesday so it it's the same as what it was last month okay sorry can any update from iasb I'm going turn that over to Terry was able to attend the dinner give us an update on how that went you know what I'm I'm going to get on my Soap Box a little bit I think it's important that we all make an effort to go to the
064division dinners because there's usually a very good program and uh this one was on social emotional learning and it was a very very good program and um um I think it's something that uh um we as board members can can uh learn a lot from and um um I'm on the uh the committee to um work on the um program for next fall and so if anyone has any suggestions on what they would really like to see as a presentation please uh let me know I'm going to be meeting uh in June and so that'll give you plenty of time to think about it but uh um Hank had suggested maybe a little bit more into um um oh um ai ai yeah was trying to think of the com the initials too many initials
065in my life um but uh uh that's an interesting aspect of Education that uh we could all learn from so please uh when you see the date come up I don't know when it is exactly um please try to make an effort to to come because it's not only a presentation but you also get to talk to other board members that are um at districts that are very similar to ours and it's also where you can also um talk to our sender districts and uh those folks and the superintendents there so it's nice to know who your who your um your kids are going to be coming from and so um that's my little commercial for for the um for next year should be released in the next month so as soon as they come
066out I'll share them with everybody yeah yes so you can put it on your calendars yeah so so like I said if you have any suggestions for um programming let me know okay item number 14 upcoming board meetings on April 1st the day after Spring Break um we'll be having a workshop meeting at 6:30 p.m. hopefully we'll all have Tans and uh be refreshed um on April 15th uh regular business meeting at 6:30 at North High School not the ASC please note that one we're catching up on our recognitions of students so the South High students that we didn't get to recognize so far this year will be here on April 1st uh for those set of recognitions uh we have some larger teams we need to recognize at the April 15th one that's why
067we'll start in the North High Auditorium we'll do the student recognition we'll take a recess move to the community room for the rest of our our the boring part of our business meeting no our exciting part of our meeting and then before we adjourn I would just like to um uh celebrate uh the accomplishment of all the students at uh dgn who were part of the uh little Maid Little Mermaid um play over the weekend I was able to attend with my family and it was just a fantastic performance the the quality of the production and the talent that was exhibited by the students that evening was just off the charts I was really moved emotionally and um just want to uh mention that that was just fantastic and also uh have a very safe
068and uh enjoyable spring break that is coming up yes so before our meeting for those of you that weren't able to attend the South High uh art our theater Department well dance group orchus I had a a wonderful performance this weekend as well so the Arts were shining this weekend it's great all right can I get a motion to adjourn so moved a second all in favor I I I motion carries we are adjourned thank you everybody have a good evening we've got you out of here and maybe there's