2023-12-04 CSD99 School Board Meeting - LIVE EVENT

001okay 6:30 Julie will you call the role please K Casten here Ken Dawson here Mr Espinosa here chir Fuller here Jenny hagstrom here Terry pavich here Don Runner here Gian huni here and N M here thank you okay having a quorum let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance 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 liberty and justice for all so don't make that I'll turn this over to you for student perspectives all right and I'll invite Courtney easy good evening everyone it's nice to see all of you and I really really excited um to have student perspectives tonight so um one of the things that I'm really proud of is how in the many many different ways

002that our students build our climate and culture and so tonight um we're going to hear from two students from our AAP IU and I'm GNA let them explain what that means to you um so I'm gonna call up Nila and Henry to come on up and talk to you about our aapu um group at North High School come on up [Applause] guys okay um hi everyone I'm Henry um and I'm Leela I'm a junior at down North oh and I'm a senior and we are representing the AAP ISU which stands for Asian-American Pacific Islander Student Union whenever you want in advance just tell me um so pretty much our goal as a club is to just sort of unify the Asian-American population and be able to give a chance for all of us to sort

003of come together and have conversations with one another and also kind of build the opportunity for others who are not a part of our culture to learn more about it and kind of just familiarize them familiarize themselves with something that they don't really know about um so as you can see on the slide um we just share and learn many different topics um for example we did certain presentations on like specific cultures such as like Filipino Heritage because it was recently Filipino Heritage Month um we had a Dali meeting which Lea H um and we pretty much just want to build a community for aapi people at dgn and be able to celebrate it and that's something that we've had a great success doing so far at dgn some of our different ideas for this

004year and things we want to accomplish include Club spirit wear and different culture shares where kids will be able to um explain to the rest of the club something specific or unique about their culture we're planning on different community service projects and decorating a display case which we have done we're also planning on movie days at the end of the year of different movies that showcase aapi people and different arts and crafts as well as some different uh shared meetings with BSU LS and LSU and other student unions at dgn um we also have some fundraisers that we're planning and a few that were we did last year that we're planning on repeating again as far as things we've done already this year these are just some of the things we want to share pictures

005that you can see on the left are of our potluck that we hosted earlier this year this was something really incredible that we did we had over 30 different um food items brought and over 11 different ethnicities represented something really incredible I thought about this is that we did not have only Asian students who were bringing dishes we had kids from every continent I believe except Australia and Antarctica who actually brought food from their culture and this was really an incredible thing we had over 40 kids in attendance lots of food lots of really good food it was a lot of fun um we also participated in the no one walks alone challenge which you can see in the top right corner and as Henry mentioned earlier we had a the meeting where we ate

006lots of good food and we made little like clay lanterns called Bas and those are just some of the things that we've done already this year all right I think that's the end right y so thank you thank you for sharing one of the things that I'm super proud of that they do um they and and it might seem small to high school kids but for adults like me getting older it's really important that they run a really active social media page on Instagram and it's so positive and it promotes all of the things that our students do um and it it always sticks out to me and so it's really they do a really great job of showing off the different things um that they do during school and after school with all different

007students and it's really amazing so um I want to make sure to promot that too answer questions how many students do you have in the union currently um I believe there are I don't have an exact number um but the people that we have maybe around 80 people but the number that are able to like attend meetings is usually a little bit smaller just because of scheduling and things like that that's great 80 people wow and when was the club formed um maybe 2019 it was before both of us were part of it so I don't have it's been there forever guys question if there was one thing you had to say about the club that you or Union that you've learned or means the most to you what would it be um I would

008say as like a student leader on AP IU I feel like we've created a really close culture I think all six of us are like pretty close and like equ people um for example one of the other leaders who couldn't be here um she hosted an event where we like made egg rolls at her house for the popup the night before so that was a lot of fun um me and another leader were able to attend so I think it's just nice to know that you know I'm able to find friends through this club I'd say the same it's a really great community of people both the leaders and all the students in attendance through our meetings through um events like the potlock I think we've all got to know each other really well I

009think we've all become like a really tight-knit community so that's really nice great great great very good right well thank you you thank you thank you all right student board members who's up first this month it's me this month all right so um ders gr North is killing it at sports right now for um our cross country team just went to Nationals and I believe our boys were the seventh in the country for running which is awesome and then our girls were 16th in the country for running which is also awesome so that's really good and then our football team um we went to State I was there and it was very cold yeah and yeah we didn't win but we still got second so we are first in our hearts so um yeah so

010that was it was a really good I think experience for the school in general though to be able to Rally behind like it's kind of like how basketball was last year for us like basketball was was a very big like Community thing for us where it's like everyone went down on the fan bus like to both U ofi UIC so it kind of felt a lot similar to that so that was really fun to be able to experience that again but this time with football which I feel like is even better because it's a higher like capacity for who can watch it so there were so many people that went down to ISU it was awesome to see so yeah I like that our school was able to like rally behind that and like have

011that sense of community uh other than that it's finals it's that time between Thanksgiving and Christmas so lots of school our teachers have been doing a really good job providing support for students and not completely overloading us like I know I've been asked a lot like do you have a test on this day CU it like there are a lot of classes where it's like oh there's a lot of overlap between who's taking them so our teachers have been really good about being conscientious like that so yeah good stuff yeah so okay so we're all coming back from Thanksgiving break so it's our what second week back and I guess everybody body that was a like a well-deserving break like everyone was more relaxed coming back like seeing it people were just they were't I

012wouldn't say they were ready to take on the next weeks but they were like they were better than the week before Thanksgiving week you know so that's win and then um with that there's um a bunch of like activities happening at DJs throughout the school to keep up the positivity of our community such as we had for Access we had our student Choice days while we also had our second student versus or seniors versus staff which was the scholastic bowl and seniors did win that with the last the last question was worth 11 points and only for the seniors so we won and I was moderating that really wanted the kids to win yeah so that was a good experience like everybody a lot of the seniors did go to the auditorium to watch and

013a lot of them were answering like very very active along with it even though they weren't the ones on stage they were still there like reading these incredibly hard questions but they were still like getting the hang of it and they they like the questions and they like that kind of community building and then with that um we also we also had our Coco in the Commons starting last Friday which is every Friday during the month of December students get have the option to get a free cup of hot chocolate so that was that was cool to see because especially these freshmen they didn't know this was a thing so coming into the school and our access leaders they were handing out like peppermint candy canes too so just that first day of December was

014really like hype and happy and then the next and and then at night time we had our basketball game or one of our first home basketball games against hinsdell South and we we might not be like state level worthy but we were still winning and we still won and we still did better than our past years so that was a huge thing and a lot of and a lot of students like actually realized how entertaining basketball was so a lot of them said that they were going to continue to come to these games so overall we're having a happy December so far and everybody is everybody is not excited for finals but they're looking forward to winter break so we have that and again our exess leaders they created um they created a spirit week

015to keep the joy so we have on like Tuesday we have different spirit days and then on Tuesday we have like take pictures in an inflatable um like an inflatable snow globe and then on Friday we have pictures with Santa which is Marty the Mustang dressed up as Santa so that's a great like ending for the winter and we're just excited to see how Thanksgiving or how winter is going to be and how winter break is you guys have scholastic bowl like with your teachers yeah it was seniors versus uh staff really during access yeah we should do [Laughter] that I know somebody that will serve as a moderator if you need them to oh I'm on our team it's coming cool finally always been all right Julie do we have any visitors no sir

016okay then Hank will turn it over to you em five turn it over to Gina for course proposals okay so every year in December we bring forward the new course proposals I'm really excited I feel like I say that every year excited this year because we have um well they're coming from two departments first of all the first Department Department which our department chairs are going to talk about the courses but one Department's bringing forward a transition English course which is going to be great for our students and our other department while I'm excited about all the courses from that department I don't want the department shair mad at me um one it looks like we are going to get dual credit for and that will be our first course in that department with dual

017credit so I really am excited about it this year um and brought the department chair here to talk about the courses so with that I'm going to invite Dr Brony and and um and Tracy Sebastian to come forward and talk about modern rhetoric all right um as Gina just informed you modern rhetoric is the transitional English class um we already have transitional math in place and has been for a few years uh pql right um so that one's already in place so this now the state has come forward and wants to do the same thing in the realm of English so this would be we are calling it modern rhetoric um because it is based in in writing there is reading but it is based in writing um so we wanted to be around a

018rhetoric course similar to what they would hear that same type of course being called in a college um it's a yearlong class so it's only open to the 12th graders it fulfills because we have a literature and expression requirement in English or one semester of each and we other we have other yearlong courses that fulfill both so it will fulfill both of the requirements if they take this course um we have applied for the um portability but the not for full portability meaning transitional math if they they right if they pass it and they get the credit it is portable to any community college right now as we started as it says there we're going to run this as a pilot this year um so running it as a pilot with cood we've come to

019the agreement that this will only be this year if they take it then they only can get credit through cood and into cood not credit sorry they can get um accepted into cood and it's not portable to other ones yet um we've also agreed to limit the enrollment in the sections for this year then because we are piloting it so we're looking to run run one section at each school if possible um and we've identified students at this point based on as it says up there the things that cood specifically says are required to not have to take their 099 or 098 classes and it will get them into a credit bearing English class and the big thing about getting into the credit bearing English class is that it also opens up the gate for

020them to get into other credit bearing classes such as like psych 101 or history class or um some things like that that if they um unfortunately have to take an 099 class because it's considered remedial they cannot take some of those other classes so the goal is that we're going to get students into the credit bearing class by taking our class and once they're in that credit bearing class it opens them up to being able to take a lot of other classes that would be closed if they didn't have this right so the course itself obviously there's a lot up there I'll just kind of talk through it at the most macro level I think the thing to draw your attention to that for me uh as a writer and writing instructor in particular that

021is uh most appealing about this course is the nature of it just having these five units um which is you know if you were to compare that to a normal like year-long class is probably three is units fewer um and the whole point there is that cood in particular and it matches with our belief here in District 99 um really sees this as a a process based course um there are actually three of the five major units have to incorporate multiple massive uh revisions and and rewritings um which again is something we believe in um it's not always easy to get all the students to also believe in that um but that's the nice thing about this course is that it does sort of do that and uh as Tracy mentioned in in the more

022macro sense uh this course while certainly uh you know deeply aligned as an English class um it's a little bit less of what maybe students have been through in their first three years a little bit less literature involved a little bit more non-fiction uh a little bit more of this this writing and this research there's also a big required component around metacognition and reflection as they go as well um trying to build those sorts of skills that you know aren't just specific to an English course but specific to success in life uh quite frankly and so we're excited to see some of those pieces um you know not only asked of us in the design of this course but but required of us so following in line with what cood is asking so you have

023these five units they've told us what has to be incorporated them as Dr Brony said and then they actually tell you like what types of things that they would like to see as the texts that are used and that first line is important because they they don't want it to be these couple lines they don't want it to be simple text that you're just reading it's not books meant to be that way so they want to incorporate all the different types of things that students will be seeing in their real lives so like there are some they want you to have to look at podcasts they want you to have to look at short videos they want you all the different types of mediums and you use all of those and they use them in

024their assessments so not only using them as instructional tools that is part of it's not just writing so a lot of the formative assessments are also asking students to use those types of things in the class as well and then the grading it is very similar to ours um 60% of the grade has to be those five ass those five major assessments have to make up a minimum of 60% of the final grade and then overall they have to get a c in the course and if they get a c in the course A C or better hopefully they'll get better they get a c or better in the course then we are saying that they are ready for college and cood will then they will not have to in any way take the entrance

025exam and they will already be placed into a credit bearing English 101 class which then like I said opens up the door for them to other class is very important yeah so that's the basis of the class and how it's being put together um and what we have to do with it to move for forward students so I just want to reiterate a couple of things that's that are really important about this transition class we already have as Tracy said prep for quantitative literacy which is our transition math class this now would be transition English students who are successful would place at COD directly into credit bearing courses which as I believe Tracy said opens up the doors but the other thing that I want to share is that it also opens up some other

026doors and those doors being the diploma endorsement for example um students have to be considered College ready this is one way to be considered College ready you may recall for for some of you um years back talking about the state's um College and Career Readiness indicators and transition English like transition math is one of those indicators so this is huge uh for us and I really appreciate Tracy and Chris being willing to take this on because this is a huge uh Endeavor and Ryan dhy has helped to support this um so I want to acknowledge that as well as Jake and Keith but Ryan uh really worked on this and um worked with Tracy and Chris on that so I just wanted to share that very good I think it's fantastic that our high school

027students will learn how to prepare and deliver a PowerPoint presentation in high school that's that and one question who is the ideal student for this course what you said um student who we would say is just below the meeting mark on many of our standards so they would be the student that we want to make sure so like they use the indicators that they use is a certain grade point average a certain score on the um sat is the PSAT sat sat one of those um so they look for either an overall score to hit a certain Mark or within the English the evidence-based reading and writing score to be a certain Mark so we went through and say this is where Jake and Keith went through and looked for for students that did not

028meet those or just below that specific Mark so we're looking for students that would be on that border so if they had to take the placement test they might not pass it and based on those qualifiers they would not qualify for the 101 class for the credit bearing class so if they were not going to qualify for that class and they're on that cus whereare they would have to take the test and possibly not pass the test to get into that that's the ideal student for putting in this class because they're right there and this is the push to get them over the hump to be ready for the college classes right so if it's the SAT would they know their score in time to register so we can look at PSAT scores and predictor

029predict not 100% accurately what we can predict where the student would fall on the SAT and that's that's pretty much what we're looking at because the SAT scores we won't get until June we're looking at which students will be in the class you know now yeah the list we're creating now so in the event one of those predictions may not have come to fruition uh there's no harm with the student still being in the class right at the end of the day that that's that no one's going to be hurt by being in this in this course so good point remember the majority of our students are going to college page right and if they don't have to go through a whole entrance process process and can go directly into credit bearing coures for many

030students that get caught in that cycle they end up a two-year degree can sometimes take three or four years as they work their way through the remedial pathway at the college level so this is hugely important for our students that are making that transition to again it's not just about opening the English 101 credit it is I mean when we talked to Cod they were very specific about how it closes doors to many other classes that they can't take until they are in the in English 101 credit bearing class and while this pilot will be with cood for next year right uh we will apply for portability and hopefully that will be approved or we'll do whatever we need to do to get it approved and that means that if a student goes to another

031Community College in the state of Illinois which does happen for a variety of reasons not just a student moving but there might be a program at one school that isn't at COD or whatnot it is portable so they would go directly into credit bearing courses at that Community College so that's what we mean by portability and we have that for our transition math class and have had for a few years cool MH so it sounds like there could be a cost savings totally too for the absolutely and time absolutely for sure especially if they place all the way down and do an 09a class and they have to take that and then 099 before they get into the credit bearing class so no the completion rate of students that need to take remedial courses is

032far lower than students that place directly into credit bearing courses MH okay so how many sections will you be able to offer that first year at each they've asked us to limit it just one that's part of agreement part of the agreement because we're piloting it before only to cood so we have made that agreement with them to look to Pilot one class at each and then as we pilot it then we'll make the decision to either move fully forward with that curriculum or a different one and so then we can ask for the state for full portability and then at that point lot of steps a lot of steps um and at at at that point it would be based on how many students are eligible and interested so we're going to limit it

033for the first year as Cod has requested that we do but I also believe that is a good thing to do as we're working through this MH yeah so I support you get your feet wet yeah help us get up and running so speak yeah and figure it out fully before then we would hopefully we said open it up to any student that is eligible I would just say applaud the administration and staff for working on this and with the focus of opening up doors for our students and putting them on a stronger foot to have success you know in the next phase of their lives so thank you very much thank you right thank you thank you thank you thank you so our next set of course proposals are coming out of Fine Arts

034and Jerry is our department chair at Downer South and Gina's our new department chair well newer I guess few mons in at North and they are coming forward with quite a few Chang es so revamping the our acting sequence you may recall that we moved acting into Fine Arts a few years ago and they're revising that sequence so much that we considered them to be new course proposals so that's three courses with acting and then two other additional courses and since they're the experts I will turn it over to them sure uh so you did talk about opening doors and over the last couple of years we've really strived to find ways to increase access to our for our students to the Fine Arts with minimal to no prerequisites or background if you'll remember we

035went with the singer Studio last year um as well as revamping like um changing it to music production and all of those things that we have done so far are really just literally trying to increase access to our students and increase um their ability to take what they want and find their interests and their voices in any sort of form in our school um so we kind of took that a little bit further this year prior to this proposal moving forward our acting sequence went acting one acting two and if you you know then acting three so each of those acted as a prerequisite to the point where acting three often didn't run or had to be stacked in order to run uh or run under reduced enrollment um so working with uh Tiffany and

036Nathaniel at South we they thought of the idea of taking all the prerequisites out and instead giving students an opportunity to find the niche within acting that they like so we're looking at acting for screen now or acting for stage with a Capstone for that course uh for that course of study to be Advanced acting studio so if you take a look that's the graphic right there the left is passed like I said if you took one and you liked it and you went on the two and you like that and you went on to three now they can choose um The Proposal is that they're able to choose uh which of these they'd be interested in and then have the Capstone at the advanced acting studio and again I just feel like it's It

037just fits right into the district's mission in terms of finding ways in order to allow students to find their voice without any prerequisites so the first uh course that I'd like to outline is the acting for stage you can go into the next one one semester elective it's opened 9 through 12 all these courses except for the advanced Studio are uh open 9 through 12 um and just a basic uh description the students learn basic introductory acting techniques through the exploration of physicality stage presence stage movement vocal expression and improvisation I'll they work on character development through monologues and script analysis and learn foundational AUD audition techniques uh also called cold reads which I found out through this process I had no idea what that was but that's what they're called um and then uh

038including plays and musicals so we're really excited about this one and if students have taken acting one two or three all of them can act as prre it's just so you know into the advanced acting studio and if we were going to say which one was going to be most similar acting for stage would be the most more traditional sort of acting curriculum that students would be used to like if they were taking acting one and they weren't sure um I talked to Tiffany with then they kind of said acting for stage would be the more natural fit right away so that's acting for stage and then the second one coming up is acting for screen which is kind of self-explanatory um they'll gain practical knowledge about auditioning for camera television film and commercials they'll

039experiment with different RS to conquer cold reads again site reading auditions for actors and students develop a vocabulary for performing on sets and auditioning for the camera learning about the business of acting with yall so is like I'm so glad that they put that in there because so much of what that is is how you can Market yourself how you can really get the Savvy that it takes to be a business for yourself when you're going into something like acting it's such a Cutthroat industry so I thought that is a highlight of the of the curriculum as well and so once they either take acting for screen or acting for stage they can then go to the Capstone honors level Advanced acting studio that's a repeatable half credit code course one semester uh it's open

040only through sophomore uh sophomore through seniors because obviously they have to finish the pre that's the only the only prerequisite is having take and acting for screen or for stage um and they'll experience multi-level in-depth study of theater and acting through peer selective works a lot of student voice goes into that and then students explore Advanced acting methods and styles and we'll culminate in a final showcase or short production for public viewing um so we there were some questions about what the rationale was in terms of why we are you know giving it the honors weighted credit um all of our Fine Arts Capstone courses are offered at the honors level whether band choir orchestra uh and our U Visual Arts courses they're all at that level um the weighted grade is an additive incentive

041for the students as well to continue to push forward to that next level and engage in the process through the subject matter while developing the higher level skills the course it offers um and it's a rigorous course you know it's it's repeatable because the rigor never lets up and that every single semester is going to be a different it'll be same subject matter but a lot of different ways to approach it in in in a rigorous way as possible so I just wanted to kind of clarify as to why we you know went with proposing this as an honors level course as well and that those are the three acting courses so before we go to B beginning band did you have questions that I can clarify I was curious with the new theater itself

042World Class theater is that help boost the uh interest in acting and find overall at the school I think that this approach um along with the word of mouth along with the stage along I think that all of those things will have positive impacts on the enrollment of the course um we you know like the singer Studio it didn't run last year but the the talk that was just cuz the proposal I just gone through but now the kids are talking about I really do anticipate the fact that the word of mouth and the opportunity to be a part of that Performing Art Center is really going to be a huge impact on the course it's a great question great great and for and for students that complete it they've completed the whole series of

043classes what type of pipeline for future opportunities either while still in high school or after high school do we have for the students to question there are a lot of community opportunities a lot of the you know the smaller production companies that will hire some of the high school students um but I think that we have such resourceful theater student uh staff that they would be really great at like just being the resource for them in terms of you know the connections that they have Colombia the connections they have in Roosevelt and the connections they have I think that would be of of great benefit for all those students and it's similar to our art courses as well like those staff members are so well connected within the community that by the time our students

044get to that cap scho they not only have the skills they've got like tons of resources in terms of postgraduation so great thank you absolutely yeah right all right uh the next two courses are music classes and they're both classes that I've t in the past in my previous District that uh were well received and that I wanted to bring here so the first one is beginning band which is exactly what it sounds like um it's it's fifth grade band except for high schoolers and I can tell you as somebody who's currently the parent of a fifth grade band student it goes much better at the high school level uh it is a year-long course so it earns one credit it's open to anybody and there's really three Target audiences for this class and again

045from experience having taught it um I really do see all three in the class one would be students without any prior instrumental experience because really you don't know when you're 10 years old what you're signing up for or not uh and what that's going to become in high school so there's a lot of high school students who who have friends in band or just see the band out on the field and kind of wish they had had done that but there's there's not that access point after fifth grade really um so this class is that access point um also uh obviously students who Maybe started in fifth grade and quit along the way for a variety of reasons and again kind of regretting that choice um second audience would be students who are maybe coming

046into 9th grade but aren't at a nth grade skill level for again a variety of reasons um that's something I actually talked about that with our counselors at um our round taes last week the week before whenever whenever that was um about you know sometimes I'll have students come to them and say you know I am in ban but you know maybe I didn't do it last year or just just don't feel very confident and that would be a counselor discussion for maybe beginning band is the right place for them maybe they just need to learn those fundamentals again um and a lot of times those students want to pick a different instrument too um and sometimes a different instrument really is just a better fit so this would be an opportunity for that um

047and then thirdly it would be students interested in music education which we do have some of those students right now taking our CTE class intro to teaching which is awesome um this is a little bit different than that there are some teaching opportunities in there just because high school students who are experienced in band teaching a beginning band class is not super far-fetched you know there's certainly opport ities within that class um but also in my experience those students I had were often Coral music Ed Majors students who were vocalists who realize that in college our certification I'm a music teacher our certification is music k12 and you might be better at at band or choir than something else but your certification covers everything so those students might realize that in college they're going to

048have to get some band experience and this is an opportunity for them to learn an instrument and just get a little bit of a head start on that and make College a little bit easier uh in that regard so again just an access point to the dgn and dgs band programs once a student has completed this year in beginning band they would qualify for our normal curricular Band program so they could go into it North it would be symphonic band at South what would be the next also SYM wi Symphony okay uh the next class and again as a sophomore as a junior or even a senior then they're a part of that program and can access marching band and jazz band and all the other parts um of our band programs um assessment in

049the class highly individual Iz you know it's just like any music class honestly there's a constant feedback cycle of formative assessment but there would also be playing assessments writing assessments um and the students would have the opportunity to perform as well I always had my beginning band class do a December concert they're generally at about a sixth grade level Honestly by December and then by the end of the year seventh maybe even eighth grade level just because again bigger brains bigger hands can reach the end of the trombone slide like I said it goes a little bit better uh so students would select an instrument to in the first week of school uh rental opportunities are available I always kind of suggested students if possible rent an instrument from we have a contract with quintland

050and Fabish for our rental instruments you just know you're getting a good quality instrument and there's a warranty for repairs when you do it that way but uh for students without maybe the financial means to do that we do at both buildings have a stock of instruments that students would be able uh to access for that um and as I said with they'd finish the class being able to enroll in symphonic band um yeah that's actually kind of all duplicate of stuff I've already said so I think that might be the last slide for beginning band yeah any questions on that one since this is a totally different direction and Gina and I had a conversation about this both being music people that what the research and what Gina's experience has been and my experience

051has been is a kid that starts in fourth grade come senior year there's lots of kids that can start ninth grade and be on par or even ahead of those students that start you know it's just different kids at different times you know this isn't like a student's going to have to progress through all the years like no yeah it could be in one year they're in your top band truly truly one of my favorite success stories is a student who took beginning band as a sophomore literally for no other reason other than he saw it in the course book and was like me um and signed up learn trumpet um the next year was in regular band as a junior his senior year he was a marching section leader in the marching band still

052wasn't the best trumpet player but he was a good marger um and then got accepted to U ofi for engineering and decided to audition for the marching line I then made it and and that completely came back inste of completely changed the whole trajectory of you know his high school and college experience by by having that entry point so it's important all right on the complete opposite end of the Spectrum in some ways uh is our introduction to American music class um this is a semester long class that earns half a credit it's open to grades 10 through 12 and we've had I think very successful discussions I think you agree um with cood about offering this class for dual credit um I did start this same course um at Manuka in my last District

053um it was the first that we are aware of dual credit music class offered um in the area and this class music 1104 at cood is the same reference number so it's the same class um UK I was dual credit with jolet Junior College it's the same class it literally uses the same textbook um I reviewed the cood syllabi it's the exact same class so I've taught this class actually for the past 10 years um the target audience for this class certainly would be interest interesting to students who are currently involved in music um but also interested interesting to students who are history Buffs or just kind of interested in this specific topic um but really one of the the big draws of this class is the Dual credit nature so um as I'm sure

054you're all aware when you go to a four-year liberal arts college there's some sort of Fine Arts requirement just like in high school you have requirements for English and math and Fine Arts and Etc um so you know while students who may be interested in majoring in music would certainly benefit from this just for the music history experience I didn't have an American music history class in college I don't know if you so it's actually a really unique offering for music Majors too um but non-m music Majors you know your business majors and Engineering majors and English majors are still going to need that Fine Arts Credit so this is a class that could knock out the Fine Arts Credit for high school students but also at the college level so when they attend cood

055certainly it's on their transcript there but um I had checked when I started the class again 10 years ago uh we called ISU U ofi eastern northern southern western milikan Wesleyan and asked if this class would fulfill their Fine Arts Credit at their University and they all said yes um and I've had many positive experiences of students being able to transfer this class as their Fine Arts Credit at the college level so um that's really I think a good opportunity for students to knock out that Fine Arts Credit that you know not to say their University won't offer wonderful fine arts classes but if that's not their major let's be real that's it's less enticing once you're in college so there's a little bit of instruction here in the elements of Music um however this

056is not a how-to Hands-On type music class you know for the student without Music Experience who wants that sort of thing that would be more singer Studio that' be more music production this is a lecture Style music history class um that there's a little bit of discussion of the elements of music just to give them a common vocabulary as we go through their curriculum um so they'll be able to identify and describe genres Styles trends um actually starts with music of Native Americans and goes through Colonial music and then through really all the eras that you learn about in American history just through the lens of Music it goes through the Revolutionary War and you know the world wars and Jazz and Blues and uh usually ends up with uh protest Rock of the 1960s

057which is a fun ending around this time of year um but really it allows them to understand music but also honestly understand history and and just culture and human nature better through the lens of music and it's kind of an interesting it's just kind of an interesting Twist on students who are already pretty quite familiar with American history just kind of through a new lens that might be is that the last one last SL all right questions on that some of these I'd like to sign up for I've got that response a lot for this class I love this class my students would make fun of me every chapter we got kind of like you were saying every year you're like this is so fun every chapter we get to like guys this is the

058best chapter but it really is fascinating because you you know you get to protest Rock of the 1960s and we started with literally Native American music and you never feel like you jump It's never like well now we're putting that away and talking about this it truly is connected and it kind of and then students end the the class with presentations about current artists with the task of connecting them to what we've talked about earlier in the semester and it's it's really I think it's super fun I'm biased but I think it's super fun I are all these programs across the district so the acting that you presented is that okay yep so just let me know where to sign up absolutely we'll do a summer class just saying the final could be like if

059you could name all of the people in we out the world video how many of them are still alive thank you for bringing another dual credit opport yeah absolutely exting I'll also point out i' I have been in the district eight years and every year I have been here Gina and the curricular team of Department chairs have found one or more dual credit courses to bring to our catalog so that's that's a pretty impressive track record yeah that's great that's awesome so where are we at at that do we have like 15 16 or most of them are in CTE but remember last year we rolled out speech and we did end up running it we had students sign up in both buildings um so we're definitely getting into some other areas so very excited

060and for this to be the first one in Fine Arts yeah that's really cool and so we have dual credit and I think Fine Arts is unusual to dual credit um but for example we have dual credit and PE as well which a lot of schools in dup page do not so um so I'm really excited about that and well with the with the new requirement of this report card related to Fine Arts down the road won't this help absolutely yes I'm glad you were paying attention you passed the quiz yes remember in two years Fine Arts will count towards our our report card and having options like this definitely increases you know between beginning band and and our acting courses and and having a dual credit course creates opportunities for students to meet that

061yeah very good thank you very much thank you thank you thank you come back uh next month month for approval or next meeting two weeks I thought Indiana was a fabulous the best public school the country yeah our next topic yeah I mean it's and it's a beautiful Camp all right would you like for me to click for you or would you like the clicker you click all right I got that'll keep me more engaged okay so I'm going to start us off we are the three College and Career Specialists across on both sides of town my name is leavon Robinson I've been in the district for eight years before that I did some things with the wi Soxs and in nonprofit management so thanks for having us hi good evening thanks for having us

062I'm Terry manderino I've been in the district since the fall of 2012 um College and Career specialist and counselor thanks for having us and and I'm Adrian Nolan I'm the other college and career counselor at South um this is my sixth year and prior to that I was in CPS at aect school so thank you for having us we're excited to talk to you guys kind of about what we do some data that we have and then kind of looking forward some Trends we're seeing in like what we're going to do about it so I am going to talk about our current programming and events that we have so both schools run a multitude of college and career programming and events um to help kids explore postsecondary paths um there's a lot of them listed

063here I was told we only have like 10 minutes so I'm not I'm not going to go through all of them um but I will highlight a couple um so the first three we run together as a district both high schools um combine and we Market this together we do a faston financial aid night both in English and in Spanish um for all district families we run a conquering College cost night which kind of supplements that it talks about um we partner with someone who does it um but it he talks about other ways to help college and then we do a College and Career exploration night um which I think we used to do separate as two buildings and then we combine and so now we do it together um and it's a really

064good kickoff way for junior families and parents to explore different post-secondary paths they can take uh take After High School um a lot of the other events listed there are Partnerships we have with College of DW page Illinois student assistant Commission um we visit a lot of avid classrooms our newest partnership is with Green Halo Scholars which is a local nonprofit that helps um under represented students uh get mentors and help for college applications and then we did want to highlight what we do during our access lessons um both high schools run a comp uh a comprehensive counseling curriculum um that highlights a lot of postsecondary planning um um that includes going into classrooms 9 through 12 pushing into access lessons and running a full curriculum so we do small group lessons for each grade

065level at North the curriculum is called discover you at South the curriculum is called Focus um it's pretty much a parallel curriculum that we create and tailor every year to make sure we're meeting the needs of our students for postsecondary planning um and then with the Advent of access we've also been able to create new lessons um again touching on the financial a so we have a how to read a war letter lesson that all seniors take that started last year and financial aid overview lessons for juniors and seniors just because they're such heavy content topics and we're not always able to get that into the Discover un Focus cul okay I'll speak to um some of the unique things that we do at north um separate from what South does um so the first

066one process sessions in the fall uh we do a lot of specific sessions helping students with requesting transcripts recommendation letters um we also across the lunch periods throughout the whole month of October offer post High School planning workshops where we'll help students with anything related to that planning we do start to focus in in that last week of October to help students meet that uh the early action deadlines and so we do focus on college applications that last week we offer a lot of um essay writing support through those workshops but also through uh we usually have a guest speaker from a College uh College representative who comes um and then I work with some various teachers um in their classrooms also um and then I also work with teachers on uh more career um

067exploration through classrooms we offer a senior panel in the fall for our current Juniors and seniors are really just talking with Juniors about their experience going through that application process um and then in the summer I do um kind of various things but this past summer I did a uh building your college list which was a virtual session and then uh we did two common application workshops for students so they could get a head start before school started as well and then at South we just wanted to highlight the unique events that we do as well um next week or actually this Friday we're polling students who have high GPA who haven't requested any college applications yet so we call it a zero app Workshop to kind of Target those students and see if they

068need extra help or what's going on um we do a panel um like of graduates that North does um we have a parent who's a downers grow South parent um has like extensive work history and Advising at like Williams and University Chicago and Michigan um and she now is an independent education consultant for college wise but she comes and just volunteers her time with us um and it's been a nice partnership I feel like sometimes that's um in our profession um can be dicey but like it's been an awesome partnership this is the second year she's been coming in on Fridays to help students build lists and help with essays um so we're continuing that um we also have social media interns at South um which has been fun that's in alignment with the internship

069class the new internship class so two of the kids in the class just come to the college career center and they are our social media interns um so you can follow us everyone at DJs col we do career stuff too but it just it wasn't long enough um we just did a teacher appreciation breakfast on Friday to thank our teach teachers for writing letters of recommendation um and then we run a special circumstances Group which is postsecondary support for our inocent students okay so this next session um section of the presentation I'll get started on so there's two types of data that we're using and I'll try to cue you what which one each is as we go through but there self-reported student data and then there's Clearing House data which is National Data that's

070more of coming from the colleges and it is probably the most accurate data that we have so this first um slide gives you an image of um how the class of 2016 from Downers North uh progressed through college so you see we had about 90% of our students enroll in the first year and then about 67% of our students graduate um in six years or less and then the next one um and I'm sorry didn't say on the last slide that is um National Clearing House data and then the second slide for this section is self-reported um from our students so our students take a survey in the fall or in the spring towards the end of the school year around May um and let us know what their plan is After High School and

071so we had a large percentage of students say four year and two-year college and then we had smaller numbers choosing other U paths outside of that so if you'll go on to the next next slide then that um shows you the top 10 colleges that North students attended over the last three graduating classes there you go 43 and then I'm going to talk about South the exact same three slides but for the South data so our um we have 70 of the class of 2016 again the the data the most recent updated data we have from the clearing house is that um 76% enrolled in college in the first year and then our sixe graduation rate is 51% and then our self-reported data so from the last three graduating classes is that a little under

072half of our students uh said they wanted to or were going to go to a four-year college and then about 37% said they were planning on going to two-year college and then our numbers are a little higher um for those other options I will I just did want to not too though because it is self-reported Data it's obviously not 100% accurate and I know that we have more students that have been listed in the military because we kept better numbers of that last year um and it's just because this is the way we run the report Nan it's just not reflecting it there being selfreported the best we have for now and then last those are our numbers okay the college zo page number is super high and it's not exactly accurate um but what

073we do at South is if students haven't requested any transcript at the end of the year we just go ahead and send it to College of due page preemptively just in case they were to like show up in July or August and say they wanted to enroll um and so the way the status pulled it's it it's where your transcript has been sent so that's why our number looks so high so again but those are our top 10 colleges for the last three graduating classes uh all right so I'm going to dive deep into some data and talk about what we're going to do about this in the future so as we look at our class of 2023 similar to what adun said we know about 50% of our class wants to get a fouryear

074degree and a third wants to get an associates degree than like a small smidget of students doing other things or they're undecided one of the things that we do in May of senior year we ask every senior so you made your decision why did you make this decision and for the mo majority of students they're choosing based on cost and this is a trend for the past 10 years so later I'm going to talk about why that's important and what we're doing about it and also a lot of students are choosing colleges based on the major I'm going to talk about why that's important and what we're going to do about it so okay so a lot of data on this slot for dgs these are our top 20 schools for the class of 2023

075and I uh highlighted a few things because it kind of speaks to how we guide our students so the schools in yellowish are highly selected schools if you look at um Northwestern and University of Michigan our acceptance rate is like dismally like it's low it's highly selected school so we know we need to support students that want to go down that path if you look at the schools in red loola and Marquette two private schools we're getting a lot of students that are admitted but very few students yield and we think that's because they don't give a lot of financial aid so we know cost is a big thing what are we going to do about it which we're going to talk about and then the schools in green those are public instate and out

076ofate schools where we are yielding a lot of students because we are finding that they're affordable for our students which I think comes up on the next slide yes so we know based on family income a lot of our students are choosing to stay in the state of Illinois because orbana champagne an now has a program where if families make under 671 they getting free tuition uh Southern carandale just upped that number to 103,000 those families are getting free tuition so we're really pushing this option to our middle inome and low-income families and then out ofate Trends if you look at the bottom uh Illinois state is about 28 grand we're educating our students that there are options out of state and these are just a couple in Milwaukee Missouri and Western Michigan that are

077pretty comparable so depending on your family your circumstances you don't have to stay in state and going out of state may be comparable or even cheaper okay and some similar data and a little bit of different data uh from North on these next couple slides so this one reflects the top reason that they made the choice as well and you notice cost um on the North side again self-reported by students is that 28% of students say it's their top factor and then 39% of students say that major or career pathway is their top factor and then this is over the last five years I thought it'd be interesting for you to see this data um from 2019 to 2023 each of the senior classes so if you notice we have 35 to 50% of our

078students going to public schools out of state right at the top and then the middle lines kind of follow each other for public instate and private out of state varying around 20% and then the final one um is the private instate students and those um students are choosing those schools at about 15 10 to 15% of our students are choosing those schools so again I mean we could we could guess that some of the reason that yellow line is where it is is because of some of those attractive merit scholarship packages that are offered uh by schools just outside of Illinois yeah uh so what are we going to do about this on the financial aid lens we have the access lessons and I know a lot of our conversations one of the things we

079first talk about is cost what's the pl what's the plan look like have you talked to your parents we provide a lot of fasts of support to students and to parents for our highly selective um students who want to those go to those schools we have the volunteer come in who can give a little bit more support than we can give uh I think that our internship course is really great for students who are looking at the fouryear school because it provides them real world experience and it gives them something that makes them stand out in the applications that not many other students in high school are doing and we've been bringing back uh Alam and seniors to talk about their experiences about what works like on the mission side what helps with like um

080just not feeling comfortable how they navigate the space and then from a career exploration lens we're partnering with our CTE speakers we do a career speaker series where we bring in people from the community to talk about their career path you will all be getting invites to do that as well and then we partner with um the chamber 360 for the attainable future programs and then we also with access to our focus and discover you lessons thank you what questions do you guys have for the uh career speaker series what do we have planned for this year so far so the program will happen in February we always have a doctor lawyer nurse we have a musician come from La we have um Architects um uh we have a wide variety of people who planning

081coming in good great alumni uh just anyone in the Community during the pandemic it started off with a lot of my friends because it was a chance for me to hang out with them and learn about their job and since it's grown to more people in a wider variety of careers we have an electrician coming and like so it's a it's a variety one of the pushes that we're trying to do is bring in more people that don't have college degrees to Showcase that to our students who choose not to go to college do you guys ask the students who they like to see come in do you interest to for them to understand what they would like to see casually as we do some classroom lessons we do ask them what they're looking for

082and then we do we try to get those people to come in but it's difficult just with our place in the country and the people who can take off of work to come talk to our students with regards to trends for admissions obviously you know being a Midwestern School most of our students go on to Midwestern schools for college how much exposure are they getting to the schools both on the east coast and the West Coast as far as Representatives coming to our school uh Etc I so we have colleges from all around the country come visit us but as they like a Boston University as it come to the Midwest they're naturally going to go to the schools where they get the most applications so they don't always visit us and sometimes we know

083our students are going to stay in the midwest so if I'm going to promote schools to our families I may not always say go out east go out west especially if cost is a big factor so there's definitely College fairs um the hensdale Lions Township North Central where they can get that exposure but a lot of the schools that visit us are uh from the Midwest cool too so um Chicago is a pretty heavily recruited Market students so there are a lot of Chicago land Chicago Land Based Representatives that are working for University that are far away so in that in those cases we get a lot of visits from those schools some of them that don't have regionals they might be looking based on the number of applications or the yield they get from

084our schools yeah we just had actually we just had Yale come to ours too we have like University of Tennessee like and there's always like the list posted of like all the different schools that are coming and it's a pretty good variety like all over the country we do like Wisconsin specifically doesn't they were coming like every other year before the pandemic and now I think we've only seen them for one virtual so it just kind of depends on the school and how they're handling recruiting right in the different areas so I wanted to put in kind of a plug for Tech and I don't know where this Falls if it falls under the tree but because of AI and everything that's going to be happening that's in my opin our mix internet you know

085big is the internet there's a a lot of um need going to be a lot of Need for cyber security and there are there are certifications out there where you don't have to take the bath of a fouryear university maybe not even a twoe so I just wanted to kind of mention that if H some if you haven't get some um and I don't know if that falls on the train I'm not sure it definitely does um it's something that under College du page because their certificate programs are phenomenal and it's something we've put a big focus in pushing our students to do is like um students sometimes will say and this is an anecdote but like I'm going to C but they don't really know why or like what their specific goal is and

086so we really try and push that like you can get an associates degree yes and it's great but you can also go and get a certificate and cyber security is one of those and they have that new Homeland Security building to which is awesome um so like we p that we try to well we're actually a part of our College and Career exploration event this year cood is coming and we've asked them to talk about their programs that are certificate based rather than you know their General message is about the whole um university and the associates programs or the whole college and the associates programs but we've asked them to focus in on programs like that that in two years or less you can be finished with school and R earning and in the job

087you're looking for yeah there are actually openings in those fields correct well manufacturing right is just a huge area so lots of the trades are really um big right now too yeah at Down's Grove North how successful was the um common application workshops over the summer yeah um so I don't I didn't bring numbers but I would say we had full rooms for both of them so um we one of them we did in the Commons but that was like a classroom full of students and another one we had to move out of the commment because it was so distracting and there are people coming through but they were good turnout and we got all the way through the goal was to get through the Comon out tab so I don't know if any of

088you are parents and have seen this beast but the Common App tab it gives you an amazing start because then after that you have to look to the schools you're that you've chosen to apply to and what are their additional questions they have so it was pretty successful yeah we were happy with it he common application is such a great tool to save the students money and you know applying to multiple schools it's really excellent as a parent going through this process the first time with my oldest who's a junior um do you offer any presentations specifically geared to parents as far as you know how to navigate this process what is early action what's early decision what are the strategies do you do you do anything of that nature and when do you offer

089those go well we do the the so the event the College and Career explor exploration night in March that's like our big Junior parent event okay um so that'll be in the spring becoming it in March okay um which will be virtual I believe this year just to make it more accessible to all parents um and then we do a lot of communication via email um in different forms to push out like we have a guy that's out that like has what action what is um I think one challenge we have is not everyone is there like when we deliver it and so like if we have it in writing as a guide then people can access it like when they need to find that information um but yeah the the big one for both

090sides of town is the college and C exploration and on the North side since I know you're a North Side parent um we have a college andc website that has that information as well okay yeah as a parent of a graduate I think your resources are excellent I mean I mean even if if we ourselves went to college it's so different now you know I went to the flsa you know seminar and how to fill out the form which was hugely helpful and I really appreciate I mean you're coming about the listings of the schools that you send I mean you know my daughter's on it too but it's like it helps when I see a school that she may I mean it just tons of information it's all new world like I said even

091for people that went to college themselves so I think you've done a really nice job of helping the parents navigate to support the students I know there's tons of resource for the students but I've seen it um it works really well Incas I would also say familiarize yourself with navian like go go in it with them um because it's yeah it's getting better it's getting better links is so now have sunting schol links is well whatever the program is at the time I think the more that you are in it with your with your child and seeing the numbers and seeing the trends I think and I I truly believe School links is a huge upgrade for and I will speak I'll put my parent hat on now I have a son that is hypercritical

092for I don't know what reasons he's hypercritical of what happens in schools and uh the the first time he ever came home excited like my school did something right not our school he goes to a different school was uh was school school links and he he loves that application loves that tool he's like this is really good you know he was super positive about it so I'm excited that you know I think our kids will have that same experience with that tool I've actually onboarded as a parent in another District as well um and have gotten to see our middle child um kind of navigate it so yeah it's amazing yeah it's also been really interesting too like with the Common App like the amount of schools that you're able to apply to because of

093the Common App I applied to 15 schools and like that may seem like a high number that may seem like a lot of work and it was but it wasn't as much work as it could have been if I applied to 15 schools individ individually completely by themselves and another great thing about um the center is that on the website they have like all the stats that you could ever need to fill out the application too so they have like our class size and then they have like like I I the month of October I lived on the college and career website just because it is just like a hub for like everything that you could ever need for college so yes good job glad you're looking at it two things um one I appreciate

094the effort that you've all made to make these resources available to students um I can speak for myself when I applied as a student at Downers Grove North uh I had but neither of my parents went to college and so neither of them had any uh they they were of of no help in navigating uh Financial aidid or uh the common application or any of those things that I made a bunch of mistakes when applying to college and suffered for it the past few years um the second part of that is how have you been able to address those types of situations with students who maybe have absent parents for whatever reasons um and is there any way that you hope to improve that for the future I think uh one of our goals is

095to Target students earlier we have a ton of data where we started looking at students in after the fourth semester so into the junior year and we started to see who are our highest achieving students that got good test scores that whose parents didn't go to college and then we started to Target them for special interventions uh like we had the alumni panel come a few weeks ago we send students that come from marized communities or our Christian like special invites and certain things and similar at north um we actually run a group that we um what we call the junior one next four I think is what we call it so we target students um from some of those areas and then have them in a weekly group where we sort of go through

096the junior year we go through the different processes that they're going to need and help them with the research um yeah so tons of things like that we're actually trying to Target uh that population specifically and provide supports where we can so I I was just going to to piggy back off that's super important to me as far as a lot of times you know your access to information and La thereof will determine exactly what Chris said what happens you know how the rest of that path could look um so I I actually sat down with Anita when my daughter was going off to college and I thought this is super helpful it even overwhelming for me as a college graduate degrees do was overwhelming and I appreciate everything you guys are doing so what

097I'm getting at I don't know how you can leverage the community to help because that's this is a heavy lift and there are so many students that you are you know would have to touch and meet and that's a lot of work so I'm just thinking through is there a way to even leverage community that would like I'd be willing to come in and help with students that don't have the resources because it's it's super important I mean those little things turn sometimes turn into big rocks to keep on the rooll later on so well thank you for pointing that out um and yeah thank you we we'll talk about that um but we also do like speaking of just community and leveraging the community this year North and last year starting last year South

098we partnered with a CBO called Green Halo Scholars which targets those specific types of students who's like are first generation college students or possibly lwi income or have some some sort of barrier to going to college um and then we get to nominate about like four to five students for each starting junior year to be assigned a mentor and like have that one-on-one support uh and then I actually also just thought of how and I I glossed over this in my slides but we partner with our Avid classrooms too because that like Avid does find those students and then like helps them through those four years so between the three of us we're constantly up in Avid um again although the students in Avid might not be our students we they typically endend up coming

099to us anyway and getting that support um so those are some other ways when we how we reach those kids well another thing we do too is with our career speakers that's a standard question like who are you in high school right and what did you study how did you get to where you are right um and one of the things that happens in attainable Futures too I think for all of our kids that last networking session kids always come away from that event saying no one did what they said set out yes that's true they learned a whole lot on the way right and so we so often have this ABC plan right this is going to happen and this is going to happen and so it's nice for them to see our speakers

100um talk about those things and how life took a left turn when you were hoping for a right so yeah uh I want to echo down like everything you're saying is valid we have case loads there are mental health concerns we every year we re evaluate our programs try to figure out we can only see so many people in our offices but how can we partner with our College Representatives how can we get more students connected with CBL how can we start more Partnerships with nonprofits in the area to make sure that every student is getting the support that they need if it's one meeting or if it's 10 meetings with their parents well and especially over the last couple of years the counseling team revamping all of their curriculum to fit into the access

101class periods in ensures that every one of our students will get that Baseline set of material and nobody's going to get missed right and that's a that was a huge lift to get ready for the new schedule and to put that in but and it'll just keep getting better year after year but that is where kind of just starts for everybody and nobody gets missed by putting it into that that space in our our school year and our schedule between the three of you any of you guys have a great uh human interest story of one of our students that came through our programs that has probably reached back to you and let you know how much of a difference you made in their life or anything of that nature uh we um had a

102student maybe three years ago um she was an English language learner um went throughout the community um her parents didn't speak English she was the one who went to the doctor's appointments took the hardest lastes we offer got all A's we recommended she do our program um with Northwestern early decision to get in she didn't get in initially we kind of coach her through the process and now she is at Northwestern full right scholarship and I think they give her like a two or $3,000 stien to cover all her books and she's come back to speak with students about um navigating College from a first generation standpoint and just some of the things that has worked for her that's fantastic very good very very good thank you there's lots of those stories I feel like

103there's so I mean I've heard the ones that thanks for making me stay in you know an AP lay class because you know I improved my ACT score was at the time and um college level English is so much easier for me than it is for my roommates right there's those we had a student several years ago that started out in our strategies for academic success u a bit of a struggling learner um super hard work though so this was amazing because then she transitioned out of that and into Avid and then ended up um I think she she was on the track team at Miami University and has since graduated and I've run into her a couple times so yeah it's just exciting to hear those stories and see where people start and then

104know that everyone can finish ahead right it's funny I ran into a student about two weeks ago and that I graduated from and asked her about her experience um she shared I wasn't the best student but I want to talk about how prepared I am how prepared that joh South you know has she was like kind of you know gy about it so those are the things that make me excited I actually Shar that those are the reasons I you know I'm excited to stay on the board so to all well I will also just point out that one of the board's requests this year was to receive kind of this post secondary kind of data I appreciate that you guys doing my job for me and bringing that data and thank you for your

105time this evening thank [Applause] you all right uh we had a uh ad last week because of an opportunity I'm going to turn this over to us to kind of talk about what we're thinking about here so uh we've been having transportation issues are all across the state of Illinois right and so um we we have issues with getting our students to activities events on time uh due to a lack of ability uh for our our companies that we work with to even have staff to be able to to drive right so this has been an ongoing uh need for our district um and one of the areas we had a a meeting at the beginning of September we were talking about what are our current issues and future needs and clearly having additional activity

106buses is a need for us uh so we've been looking at all different options we've been looking at new buses we've been scouring for use buses um while the supply is getting better and the turnaround is getting better for new buses it is still out quite a bit if we were to order a new bus right now uh on a state contract we would not get it until December of 24 really so when you think about the new bus turnaround right there's there's a long weight still in production and getting all of the different uh factors that are at play and not to mention that in that time even if the price changes you still are you still have to pay uh the difference if you will if you were to even order a new

107bus right now because that is something they don't know what the the final cost is going to be for the chassis for the engine all of the different components that are there right so um our our staff has been digging and trying to find uh used bus opportunities and so we came across um some uh different opportunities um and we actually uh sent Luke our our mechanic to go and drive those uh different buses and to look at the different uh options that we found and there are four that uh we think will be a good fit for us and and definitely meet a need uh that we have so uh we are able to um uh purchase these for used buses which will help tremendously with our extracurricular and co-curricular uh needs to get

108our students uh to places that they need to be to be able to engage and have those those life experiences as we've been talking about um so they range in looking at that uh they are low mileage when you think think about it you know just over 13,000 miles to to just over 30,000 miles um and for a bus that's not very many miles right so we're excited about this opportunity um so wanted to present this uh to you and glad to uh answer any questions that you might have why would they sell them so different uh in Illinois it's interesting right so you you have a 5-year depreciation uh so you can claim um and get reimbursements for different mileage for different trips uh based off the the the time that you first purchase

109a vehicle so you notice that these are 2017s right so likely that that's what's happened where a district has gone and utilize that the life of that time and then they're they've traded it in uh to either purchase another uh either new or a used bus oh so cuz you know when you you look at 13,000 mil or 15,000 miles I mean that's nothing in comparison to a bus I mean although a run could only be two miles maybe correct right it all depends upon the the region and where that bus was was run out of and right right so you know getting rid of something that's still has quite a bit of mileage left on it y seems it's a win for us win for us yeah it is but I mean you wonder

110if there was a problem that's why we sent our mechanic over to look at them and drive them and make sure that they were in and they will all have to pass the Safety Lane they were not in an accident or anything got the Carfax no yes they will all have to go through and be safety Lanes before we um and and that's part of the process right they will go through um anything that's addressed in when they try to pass a bus through the Safety Lane that is on them to fix and that would be taken care of so when we get our when we get those um they would be ready to go okay maybe buses is it are we having production issues production so we haven't fully caught up from the whole

111chip thing right and so it's um it's been a domino effect and so it's it always takes longer for it to rebound on the on the end and and so we're starting to see that because they they were about two years out um then they got to about 18 months and now we're about a year out so hopefully that will continue to decrease um while the prices aren't decreasing right um right they're going up but um it's it's really tough pill to swallow when you have to pay more and then wait longer right so um yeah and we routinely have situations where we want to take students somewhere and we can't and we have to come with an alternative or like need some examples of things so any a lot of the spring is our

112busiest season right so when you think about our our Sports and different activities that run um we oftentimes have to wait until um I think I if I remember correctly sometimes our students aren't getting to places or even able to get on the bus until like 4:00 to get to an event you have to wait for the normal run to finish because to drop all the kids off at home and then come back to pick them up to go so our our um our bus companies that we uh that we contract with don't have enough drivers they have enough vehicles but they don't have enough drivers in order to run their regular route and run those extra routes so and again that's a that's an issue across the state of illo it's not unique to

113us it's not unique to us it's it's a it's a growing issue that I I think will continue these are the smaller buses right so these are like you want to be a bus driver to drive these bus need to drive dri so coaches are driving right coaches advisers and how long like what would you anticipate the use of like would we get five years out of these buses hopefully much longer than five much longer than five so that's that's why Luke is a great mechanic right and so that's he's looking at that when he looked at them through that lens of what is that look like is it going to be a long-term investment it will be and just to give you an idea of the impact on our Fleet we currently have six

114buses at South and three at North so we would add three of the four at North and bring them up to six and add one additional at South and put them at seven they have a slightly larger souit population and that would you know help close some of these gaps North High really felt the pressure uh last spring I mean both sides did but it really impacted North because they had such limited access to activ buses over now are we still looking for more yes oh yes yeah and what are we anticipating another four or five I don't know we'll see what we're able to find and what prices they're able to come in at and we'll also see how this impacts our needs the other thing this is an unbudgeted expense this isn't in

115the budget we're going to use fund balance uh to offset the cost of this however this is kind of you know it is an investment because every time one of our coaches is driving we're not paying for uh you know the bus company to to drive our students so there is a slow but steady payback on this kind of savings yeah yeah okay all right and we can afford it JY J says yes all right all right you know I I don't want to put us put us behind this is kind of as J says this is core to our business so this is the kind of thing where if you have that opportunity you take it and really there's no no relief coming in the idea of additional bus drivers that there's just nothing

116on the horizon uh the opportunity to purchase new buses is at least a year out right so and you're looking at a price tag of $85,000 and up for a new vehicle so there's a significant savings here uh in this purchase so because of that it's our recommendation that the board take action tonight we typically would have talked about this right multiple times but this is a if we don't buy them somebody else is going to so we wanted to get this in front of you tonight and it's our recommendation that the board take action to authorize us to purchase these vehicles okay any other questions okay then uh I would like to ask for a motion for the Board of Education to purchase four 14 passenger 2017 Chevrolet Starcraft activity buses at a cost

117not to exceed [Music] $9,746 to go into Clos session for a the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park recreational or educational setting or specific volunteers of the district or legal council for the district including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee a specific individual who serves as an independent contractor in a park recreational or educational setting or a volunteer of the district or against legal counsel for the district to to determine its validity and B Collective negotiating matters between the district and its employees or their representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees so moved Terry moves Charelle seconds you Terry pavich hi charell Fuller hi jny hagstrom hi Cara Caston hi Ken Dawson

118hi Chris Espinosa I and d rder i motion carries for the members of the public and those in the meeting uh the board will not be taking any further action other than to adjourn after we come out of Clos session have a nice evening all right short break and we're back in here yeah no