001to think about all right Julie if you could call roll H Dawson here Charelle Fuller here Jenny hagstrom here T pavage here Don Renner here J huni here and Al Mo here thank you okay we have a quorum let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance iedge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all uh saying that tonight just means a little bit more yes it does uh Hank student perspectives yep I'll invite our good evening is it is it on you're good okay um good evening I'm really excited tonight um to showcase our dgs summer trip to France it qu classifies as a student tour um that the board approves and Miss Gina zardi
002helps us with so not only did it bring so much joy to the students into to South Community it was really fun um for me to follow them on social media and via email but I also thought it would be nice for the board to hear about the actual experience since ultimately the board approves the chores um so we have tonight our sponsor is Sophia Ron um she is here to answer questions and support the students but really this is about the students so I'm going to invite our four students up and they're going to tell you about their summer trip to France um okay okay hi um so this is um our slideshow about our friendship trip um U my name is Ava Arthur I a senior and I'm in French five this year
003um I'm Kim Torres I'm a junior and I am in AP French this year I'm van bogdanovich and I am a senior and I am in French 3 honors my name is Sydney Stapleton and I'm a junior here at Downers Grove South and I'm in French AP this year um so our planning for our trip started a couple years ago during the 2021 and 2022 school year um to begin we just started with surveying a bunch of students in the uh French Classes seeing who would be interested in taking the trip how many days and what activities we'd be interested in seeing and um different price points and how families would feel about um committing that money to the trips um as we went on to get a little bit more involved we started with
004two parent meetings um and this was for families to get to know about the information that would be um about safety um finances and just general itinerary of the trip um we had one of these at the end of the 2021 and 2022 school year um with uh greater amount of uh just Logistics and an idea of what this trip might be looking like and then we had another one two weeks before our departure at the end of the 2022 23 school year where we uh went over stuff like um packing and um just getting really into the details of what this trip is going to look like specifically flights and really going over the rules and what's going to be expected of the students um to prepare for this trip we had two fundraising
005opportunities one we did in the fall which was a brilliant laundry detergent fundraiser where students could sell laundry detergent and other supplies like that and we had another one which was giving bean coffee where we could sell coffees and teas um and those were great ways for students to help raise funds for their trip because a lot of these trips were student funded and came from the pockets of students themselves okay so over the course of our trip um we got to visit a lot of different iconic French landmarks and just a whole bunch of different experiences so on the first day of the trip we started in Paris um we met with our Explorer guide Andrea um unfortunately we didn't have our entire group with us because half of our group got stuck in
006Germany U because they missed their flight but um half of us still got to experience the first day which ex which was um visiting the Lou we got to visit the L Latin quarter and we got to walk along the sin um on day two we finally had our whole group together and on this day we got to take um a bus tour around France where we got to see the Eiffel Tower The Arc the Triumph and um the luxure Obelisk um after that we got to visit the Palace of Versa where um we took a guide we took a guided tour inside the palace and we also got to visit the gardens around it um and day three and 4 we got to visit a bunch of chat or castles um and we learned
007a lot about the historical and Architectural value of each um castle and we also got to explore the surrounding towns and we ended our the first half of the trip by um taking a 6-h hour long bus ride down to mon piler okay hold on okay I guess I'm going to lean um okay so I'm covering the second half of the trip um so as van said um we our mid point was Mont peler and our tour guide kind of just added that into our itinerary but but it was super cool um after that we traveled to ARL um and there was the amphitheater so those pictures are in the middle um two of them and we also went to pondu yard which is the aqueduct all the way on the left in the middle
008um some of us got I hiked up all the way to the top some of us got to swim over there um cool and then the next day we were in Casi for a boat ride and there's a picture of the top um it was absolutely gorgeous we were on the Mediterranean and cliffs we saw people cliff jumping it was beautiful um there's no other way to describe it and then um our last two days we spent in nie in Monaco um I loved Monaco I'm a big Formula 1 fan so I was kind of geeking out and then um n also gorgeous um there's a picture of some of us on the beach and then they we also went to a parfumery um so we got to buy our own perfumes and yeah and
009then last day we had to leave which was kind of sad but it was really fun so yeah all right so what New Perspectives did students gain from this trip um students who wenton on this trip were given firsthand experience as to what French culture is like in deepening their understanding of French culture students are more able to appreciate not only French culture but be more open to new experiences as a whole students who gain this willingness to embrace new things will also become more active Learners upon their return to school from personal experience I know that going to new country can be scary perhaps not due to knowing the food Transportation um or culture but because I had such a good experience on this trip I was really able to overcome this fear and
010be more open to new things as a whole I also know from personal experience that having the opportunity to try the new things that come along with the new culture can uh encourage students to want to learn another language um as right now I I felt inspired by that trip to learn Russian um for for many this trip also served as a financial goal to work save and fundraise for which teaches students about the value in saving money and working towards a goal I can also say that this trip uh really built friendships and relationships as I wouldn't have known um any of these people or any of the people on the trip as well as I do now if I hadn't gone and I think a want about yeah your experience too yeah I
011just want to add like two more things um besides what Sydney said I mean the trip personally for me um kind of solidified the fact that um I really wanted to be fluent in French so this kind of just made it like I was there and after the trip I was like oh my gosh like this is something that I feel that I kind of need to do um and I'm a senior so I'm applying to college now and my hope is to be a French minor because of this so I'm very excited about it um the just the new opportunities that this has opened up for me oh sorry I didn't mean to go that one oh but if you guys have any questions we're take we'll take any questions too so yeah was
012this uh your first time out of the country uh for some of you or um for me no for me it was mhm um no for me it was not and does this give you some thought about potentially studying abroad in uh College definitely yeah 100% cool and uh how often were you able to use French on the on the trip really all the time constantly okay with your tour guide and with each other or with just members of the community I think like with each other a lot of the time with members of the community um so that was really helpful it was helpful to hear how like um someone who like grew up speaking French might like say things to you or like I guess building that listening compation um so that was
013really helpful too kind of like experience that also and in addition to that um the students who were on this trip were from all levels of French um like my sister went on the trip with me and she had only completed French one whereas like Ava has done she's in her fifth year of French now um so getting to interact with each other and kind of help each other learn more of the language was a really transformative experience that isn't really present in the classroom because you have to be in that environment to interact with it um also adding on to that um our tour guide he was amazing his name was Andrea I miss him so much um he was the best um he was he spoke like a lot of different languages but
014he he told us like one of our first days he was like listen if you guys want to practice your French with me like I'll have a conversation with you so we also had that resource which is awesome but like we got to utilize French the whole yeah the whole way so as the week went on did it become more comfortable cuz I can imagine initially feeling um nervous because you're actually interacting with the French did you feel by the end of the time at end of the week you did the Comfort level change or was it there from the beginning no I think that it was um very like when we started we started in Paris so we were like immersed in like a very touristy area so people there did speak some like
015there was more English present in that City where if we needed a little bit more assistance people could kind of help us out but as we got more down towards the south of France where um maybe they don't have as much English knowledge we really kind of had to lean into it and I think um that really helped kind of knowing that the more we got immersed into it the more we had to rely on it but it also built our comfort and knowing that like the more we did the better we got and the better the conversations got as well while you guys were over there you have a chance to interact or meet any french students that live in Paris or surrounding area that are your age um I think a little bit
016yeah I think definitely like we were given um most days we were given like a little lock of time where we could go out into the city like on our own um and I think everyone had different experiences regarding that so it was like there were definitely opportunities to like meet other like French people our own age I think like kind of within that so cool awesome wow all right thank you congrats [Applause] very good all right student board members I can't remember who went first last time H it's her turn to go first all right with d all right hello board members so the first month of school has gone by already well I guess I guess so right yeah and through that we've had many different experiences and for example I'm going to
017start with curriculum night where parents got to come into the school and got to see classes and all that uh there was a few volunteers there helping parents guide them throughout their classes cuz there was I was one of the helpers and they were confused in the beginning like the first four periods they were confused and then after that they kind of got the hang of the the building and my mom also went and she got to see the cafe and everything and she said that the lines were out the door like they were super long so the the parents just got to experience how students were right and they got to see how long these lines can be and then right after curriculum night was our Mustang Fury which was like the next day
018so here all clubs got to just showcase their club and Recruit new people and all throughout you could see how energetic everybody was everyone was so ready to just include other people into their club and get as many members as they could and there was also a few like people who would just go out there and they would sign their name on every single sheet just to join a different club right just to see how it how it's going to be and then last week or the last two weeks with our access sessions I know the the ninth graders they they got to see what access actually is and I know a few leaders went to their classrooms and just updated them on rules that they should know about the school year and more about
019like how they should go and reach out for help for teachers and just different areas just to help them through the next four and we also got to they also got to play like a cahoot for candy too so then there's that incentive base there and they can actually be engaged through the sessions and then our sophomores and juniors they also had focused presentations on about productivity and how to be productive the first four weeks and they said that some of the lessons did help them and they will try to use those and utilize them through the four the through the next semester and then our seniors had our senior Focus presentation so here we just had we were updated and had a few like facts about how to start the college application process and
020different methods to we can use for After High School so those were very helpful for us and through that we also got our homecoming theme which is Barbie so we'll it'll be really pink but it'll be a great theme it'll be pink yeah so I guess we're we're still deciding on the uh dress up days and all so so I guess that will be a fun update to see how Barbie works out in our homecoming theme how you de that the theme of the homecoming that a student decision right um so there was a Google form sent out to all the students the first week of school and there was there was a few cool themes on there but uh Barbie was the winner and that's cool yeah and um yeah so everyone yeah a
021lot of people are excited to see how it is and then other people are like oh Barbie but I guess I guess at the end of the day everybody just has to suck it up and do it right in a nice way in a nice way and then along with that our sports teams we've had um we've had a few cross town like matches like for tennis and football and unfortunately down Grove South did lose both of them but it's okay it's okay it was it was a close for ten it was a close match and then football it was football and through and through we've had a successful first month of school and we're all excited for the events happening for the next month or so just like the music bowl or like the
022string festival happening and all of that will be fun to see and hopefully everybody can come out to that just to enjoy the things right thank you thanks do I just click no you just talk just talk hi oh there we go hello um so coming at that from the north perspective curriculum night was also a success for us our my parents came home and they were like wow that's a lot and I was like yeah um my mom really didn't know how to find my second period class but that's okay she figured it out um I kind of like that like my parents at least had my schedule like printed out and ready to go and I have a younger sister who's also a din Grove North too and so they like divided and
023conquered they like went to all the classes so that was super fun for them our activities fair was this past week and I that went off that was very good there was a lot of really good engagement there I had to run three tables and bless Mr mirandola because he put all three tables next to each other so thank you but that was really good there was a lot of Engagement there between all of the students and it was really great to see people be interested in stuff that they normally wouldn't be interested in like I had people who are seniors that came up to my tables and they were who had never done these clubs before that were like oh this looks really interesting I should try this it was just like a great
024way to really display everything that our school had to offer and I thought that that was really valuable our homecoming theme was also just released it's Neverland it's like the Peter Pan thing so um Monday is ding D no drive-in movie D in movie drive-in movie and that's also Barbie versus Ken Spirit day Tuesday is dress half your age day Wednesday is that's Peter Pan versus Tinkerbell right I'm looking at it right now and then yeah and then Thursday is Pirates versus fairies and Friday is purple yes so yeah all in all the first month went off really the first month in general was really good our access classes um I was talking to my sister about her access classes a lot of sophomore focused classes just how to stay on track and the senior
025classes have been really really good about this is how how you request a transcript this is how you submit your test scores because unfortunately we have to apply to school this year um so it's been a really really valuable to have like my counselor come in and be like this is how you like apply to college and use the comment app and this is how you like submit your AP scores that's a really big one that a lot of people don't know how to do so I think definitely more stuff like that would definitely be very valuable to us so yeah we're doing good well I like to say I'm happy to hear the return of Barbie because I was and then Peter Pan there's also something I'm familiar with so it's not um things
026the latest Tik Tock star which I would have no clue about our driving our driving movies Bary oh so I'm I'm excited about both because they're both both are familiar with both so yeah you can support it too so absolutely oh and um our little plug our dgn football team is 3 and 0 which is really good so we're doing good yeah all right any other questions for our student board members all right moving on to uh the content for this evening I'm going to turn it over to Ryan and Lisa who are joining us tonight for the first presentation hello everybody um side note glad to hear that access has start off good um so um this is probably the shortest presentation you'll get from me all year so I will here we go
027um summer school um went well um we had more students participate in summer school this year than in years past mostly because we increased our driver's ed numbers I was able to hire um two additional driver ed teachers this summer so instead of serving 50 students we served 80 students um I've already had another driver's head teacher show interest for next year so I'm Hopey hopefully we'll get up to 95 um and then we to out of cars I think so I don't know if we go any higher than that um we also had Stu uh 67 students uh sign up for credit recovery um so for credit recovery we had 67 students register um earning about 34 and a half credits and a graduated 11 students we were hopeful that it was going to
028be a 12th um but that student still has one class to make up so you can see the breakdown there at the bottom uh 55 students enrolled in one course and they completed 34 courses so we do have students who initially register for summer school um but um part of you know doing summer school is that personal drive and responsibility that they may not have finished um those courses and so you can also see that the more courses you sign up for in the summer the harder it is for some students to stay organized and finish um so um you know that's why we try to you know make sure that we're keeping kids on track during the year um rather than relying on online courses over the summer this is a grade distribution it's
029pretty even from throughout the school year for example during the school year um 40% of overall grades were A's and in the summer it was also 40% where you start to see a little discrepancy from during the school year is the B's C's and D's because online classes you can only earn a pass or an incomplete or um or a failing grade um so we did have some students that didn't finish by the end of summer and some of them are Contin some of them dropped then that course and re-enrolled in the fall um but otherwise the grade distribution is pretty equal throughout the school year um this year I added a couple of categories um uh last year when I presented for summer school um the other category was like 20% um and I
030believe a board member asked me a question about like what why is there so many other um and so I broke it down a little bit and so instead of just asking for categories I asked six um and so whether or not they're repeating for credit recovery 41% of the students did but you can see I added the the repeat for an improved grade so 133% students that took summer school passed originally they may have gotten a d a c or a b and they were retaking it in order to earn a higher grade um so that was 13% of our students 20% of the overall students who participate in summer school were for driver's education um and then 14% were enrichment whether that's AP Kem prep or um the the reading strategies class um
031and then uh 5% of them took it for flexibility so something like consumer education right um they wanted to get that credit out of the way um we had one class of 30 students um for drivers or for um consumer ad I still got a 7% other um which I was surprised by uh so um it's a little bit of like I meant to choose drivers said or um I I'm not sure if my student passed or not so I'm going to choose other they just my counselor said I had to sign up for summer school um or if they didn't see consumer Ed as a flexibility that they chose other so um I'm not sure if I'm going to refine that question any further but at least it gives you a better bit breakdown
032um on who took summer school and why hi everybody um my name is Lisa Balo I'm the director of special services for the district and um I just put up sort of a little bit of a definition um for what we call extended school year esy which is the sort of special education equivalent for a summer school which is why Ryan and I put this um together um so typically the student population that qualifies for esy every year is largely our population of students at North and South who are in our multi- needs programs um as well as our students who are at t99 and so through Federal law it really is just indicating students in that group are eligible and we are required to provide an extended school year um opportunity for those students
033um and so you can see down um in the purple section where it talks about the historical perspective prior to 2020 we used to as a district utilize SD exclusively for providing that esy opportunity um and then um as 2020 hit with coid um obviously SD among other places were not able to provide those opportunities during esy um for obvious reasons and so we saw that as our opportunity to really Punt and create our own program um and we did that on the fly with a virtual opportunity that summer um and so um I'll go through some of the numbers on the next slide but that really then sort of spearheaded us to say okay we were able to put that together really quickly and do a nice job even virtually so let's um go
034the next step and the following year provide um an opportunity in person for our students um and do it ourselves in District 99 rather than go through SD so that shows you sort of the um yearly breakdown there and this will show you some of those enrollment numbers so if you look in the top left corner box the blue box again historically we use scid um and so the last year that they Pro we provided um inperson esy Services through through sasid we had only a total of 27 families um access that opportunity and a lot of times the feedback we would receive from families were you know it's only usually about a five six week program my students don't really know the staff at SD so therefore it doesn't really make sense for my
035student to go other families just really like the opportunity for their students to continue with that structure um so there were 27 students within our multi- needs programs and transition only that were um really accessing that esy opportunity 2020 the virtual um we were able to do better than that even through virtual with the 35 total students then we provided a breakdown by building just so you can see um bottom left uh Corner then that shows numbers between 2021 and last summer that we went from 61 students to a total of 82 students this past summer um and we have always just sort of housed it at Downers Grove South simply because we're kind of like all in one hallway and it was just nice and easy for the students to really identify that hallway
036as their summer hallway um and it W South was very good to us um during those several years and then next year now that we have had the um uh build out over at the transition Center and because of that population of students is eventually going to mat matriculate to transition anyway when they're done with North and South our plan is to have um our esy program located at the transition Center this next summer I also like to always just kind of give a cost breakdown because I think um people would kind of think like oh wow back in 2019 we only we only serviced 27 students and now we're 82 like oh my goodness how much does this cost like just to see the comparison um and I think that's pretty astounding um and
037I think that we attribute that this last year these 82 students um you know we're not renting facilities we're able to really hire our own staff and be very meticulous in who we're hiring and how many people we're hiring um and how we can control our transportation costs and material costs and all of those pieces which as you can see um you know it it's definitely more than half and we're providing 82 fames Ames that experience an opportunity as compared to that 27 so we're doing it better and cheaper so uh we're looking forward to next year um and being over transition Center not only because of the great facilities and our students will get an opportunity to see eventually where they will be but because of really the location it gives us a lot
038of really direct access to community um opportunities that are just really close and walking distance over there as well good staing at summer school is why works is is it our our staff that then I don't know North and South I thought maybe it alternates each summer like how does Staffing work and is it a challenge to people St um yeah you know I would say so uh we do alternate for um General summer school so we were um at North this year we'll be at South again next year and um the STA it's open to any staff member and also external staff members um I would say though it typically is the same group that that applies um I do interview every internal candidate that applies um and then if we need to go
039outside we do so we had um like an two external driver ed teachers One external math teacher um but most of the teachers we have they come back every year Scott Parker's back every year Megan Mars is back every year uh John weight's back every year so um we do have a sort of a core group um I would say the toughest subject for me to hire is science and math so for sure yeah and I would say for special services um we really stuck it out at dgs simply for the consistency of the student population um going back and forth between each building for you know we have incoming 9th graders that come and you know it just was um going to be consistent for the students if they really had to learn one
040building for summer rather than go between um two which is why we stayed at South um and as far as hiring St staff it's a lot it's a lot of work um 82 students require a lot of Staff um and so I'm very happy to be able to say that I think the grand majority of staff are our staff which is why I think our parents choose to send their students to our esy program if I had to um hire a bunch of outside staff who didn't know the special needs of our very specific students I'm I'm imagining that that number might look a little different um we do have to hire agency Folks at some point to be assistants um because that's a very large group of people that um we even have to
041do during the regular school year but I would say the Lion Share of staff are our district 99 staff how many students do we have at t99 this year 70 so we're going to have more in the summer yes wow yes um and that total number that 82 also includes um um I the exact number I want to say maybe it's about 15 of those 82 are students who are also competitively employed um in the um in in the community so they're not at esy the entire time sometime of that time they are working so there's a little bit more of a flex um we don't have 82 students in you know classrooms at the exact same time for this full period of time um but that is absolutely something that um we would be
042able to use now that we have two mult multi-purpose rooms as well to be able to use that Flex although we do have eight classrooms so I think we're going to be in good shape at t99 um to be able to house you know our students for our summer school programs thanks for sharing the cost breakdown that was definitely one of my questions so I appreciate it I will say it surprised me um it it it's always been less it's always been less but when it came in um quite substantially less I was surprised by that simply because as the administrator who runs it and I see how many people we have to hire um I'm like oh boy this is a lot of people um but even so um because we're able to control
043a lot of the other costs we keep the the the total cost down MH all right thank you thank you and Ryan are allowed to run [Laughter] away all right I'm going to turn this next one over to Gina okay so I'm going to take some time tonight to talk about three areas um that are related um advanced placement courses are dual credit courses and Capstone courses so thinking about the way that they're related the these are our highest level courses for our students the first one we'll talk about is AP courses advanced placement courses and um just so that everyone's clear on what some of the differences are as we go through it these are considered to be college level courses that are meant to be like the first level freshman year in most
044cases freshman year um College introductory course the curricul is mandated through the college board so to teach an AP course you have to pretty much follow the curriculum there is some flexibility within it so when I taught apus history I was able to be flexible in many ways but there was certain um core aspects that you have to follow students have the opportunity if they wish to take the AP exam which is always given the first two full weeks of May so we pretty much can predict very much in advance um the College Board did change it several years ago um such that they changed the time frame where students have to sign up so that's been a little bit different in in recent years and the test measures student mastery of the content so
045in order for a student to earn college credit and it really depends on the school that they go to and the major that they decide to pursue so some schools will accept AP School course but if you're in that major in some cases they may not so it's very specific to the school the College Board has a nice um interactive calculator where you can go in and look at different schools and you can put in if you're in this score on this test but it doesn't always account for what your major is so for example you may have a school where you're majoring in science or some area of science may not accept your AP biology score so I just certainly I'm not going to read through these but certainly just wanted to give you
046a sense of some of the courses that we have that are AP courses the majority of these courses are uh open to grades 11 12 with some open to sophomores as well so for example um AP Computer Science is open to sophomores through seniors some of the art classes uh particularly second semester could be open to uh sophomores but the majority of the courses are open to Juniors and seniors Gina can I ask a question real quick on this sure uh I know when I served on the board previously we there was a lot of talk about expanding the number of AP courses can you touch on that a little bit and then could you also talk about how we compare to other districts in DuPage County as far as the number of AP courses
047that we offer so it it varies by school um and I would say that's true of both a AP and um dual credit on how many I would say we are comparable to most schools um we have some differences and some nuances here I would say for example um we have um just and I didn't put speech on there because the data I'm going to show you does not include speech because remember speech is the first year of this year so speech was approved last year by the board and it's a course that's running at both campuses this year but that's one that is fair unusual for schools in the area to offer so we have some courses like that that I would say are a little bit different and then we have um some
048courses um that I would say are pretty common in most of the high schools in this area one difference I would say and one question I often get from colleagues is about for example AP Computer Science because the approach that we've taken there is both dual credit and AP at the same time that is also true of macro and microeconomics at South High School so we've taken the approach that a course does not have to just be AP or just be dual credit that's relatively new although computer science isn't I should say only for macro and micro that they can be both the advantage have a question well there's mro micro at North too there is but they're not uh they're the they're not dual credit courses they're AP courses okay so that's some of
049the differences okay when you say they can be both you're saying if they take it they can get credit for either AP or duel so a student to get credit for an AP course has to take the AP exam m in May that's right right so some students many students will take the exam and they may depending on the score depending on the University that they choose to go to depending on the major may or may not earn credit they may not earn even Credit in the area so it could be a science course but they might earn like an elector credit right so that's dependent on the score that they get on the test dual credit is dependent on their grade in the course so the test reflects one day one test whereas the
050Dual credit reflects the semester or the year depending on if it's a semester course or a yearlong course um most of RP are year-long courses so a student has the opportunity to do it for both they can still take the AP computer science exam for example or they can transfer the credit from College of dup page and get credit that way for dual credit so the advantage let me so to give you an example um one that is close to my heart is that um at Purdue if you're a science major they're not going to accept an AP you have to take their introductory science courses but if it was dual credit it could transfer in so there's a difference how how are we educating the students on this and or or even educating the
051counselors because I don't know how how I mean it's very important for them to know but I don't know how curious I would be about this knowing what it could what it could do for me long term you know not knowing to be this curious now knowing what it means to me long term are we making sure that the and I don't know who would deliver this message the teachers or the counselors or educating the kids on these kind of things because the you know there is a very positive long-term effect if they're looking to go to college and I know that was some of the reason we were reasoning a lot of us on the board were very concerned about you know having these type of opportunities for our students um so are we
052ensuring it's here but are we ensuring that we're giving the education behind the importance of it to our students so that they know how to leverage this the best way they can for their future so we've done it over the years several different ways so we used to have sometimes night programs like our AP openhouse last year um which was really impressive I I appreciated the way they did it they did it through resource so students were already in the building um and they were able to um basically go around to the different content areas to find out about AP offerings as well as information was shared about the advantages of taking an AP or a dual credit course we have fewer you'll see in a minute but we have fewer dual credit courses um
053students seem to have a most students somewhat of an understanding of AP but to really kind of dig in to see what courses are in each um Department was I think really valuable for students and to be able to speak to teachers and to be able in some cases um speak to other students who've taken the the course as well they also do that um talking about their so they lay out a four-year plan so freshman work on what's called a four-year plan and they lay out what courses and what opportunities students have in various Pathways and that includes the AP courses of course counselors meet with which we know right meet with students every year to schedule classes and teachers also do recommendations so for example if you're teaching US History which is a
054sophomore course I the US history teachers make recommendations for all of their students and they meet with their students and sometimes it's briefly and sometimes it's more extensive depending on the questions and whatnot to kind of share what the opportunities are with those recommendations which includes AP courses okay on the prior slide it was saying that the macroeconomics and micro is only offered itself that's for dual credit but and AP credit oh okay at North it is offered for AP credit but not for dual credit why is that so dual credit so governing AP is the College Board governing um dual credit is several different bodies right there's state law there's iccb which is the College Board the or the Community College Board excuse me and the community college and in order to be qualified
055you have to work with your local Community College which in our this is obviously cood and teachers must meet certain criteria so it's teacher dependent so for example I could teach and I did AP US History I would not be able to teach with my degrees I would not be able to teach dual credit I don't have the college credits graduate hours Beyond a master's degree or master's degree in the content area to be able to teach that and so it is challenging to get to du credit because it's based on what degrees and what coursework the teachers have that is why um You Might Recall we um with our current contract so back in 2020 the contract allows for what is called tuition assistance teachers have to apply there's a whole process for this
056but one of the areas it has to be an area of high need one of the areas that we identified as an area of high need is coursework or master's degree that would make a teacher eligible to teach dual credit so that's where it's different okay so we don't have teachers at North that are able to teach macro and micro with dual credit yes correct but like for example in speech which this is our first year we have one teacher districtwide qualified to teach speech which is incredible because most degrees students need to take speech so this is a huge win for District 99 that teacher travels meaning teaches it at North travels across and teaches it at South as well to campuses and we wouldn't let students from North come over to South to
057take those dual credit we would but it's unlikely it students typically don't like to do that yeah and it eats up time in their schedule right because they're traveling so we have done it there was several years ago um where we were able to offer AP Computer Science at South I believe and we had one I think one or two students that traveled um that traveled but it's rare yeah I it's rare and and and part of it is a lot of our students in general not just students who are taking AP classes right we'll take seven classes yeah right so their their day is full and so to take that time to travel that that beats up part of their schedule so that's part of it no that's a great that's a great question
058thank you um okay so AP because I know I've been trying to explain the difference so going back to AP um this slide here just talks a little bit about enrollment I'm not going to read everything to you but what I tried to outl outline here is the total number of enrollments so that's not students that's students in AP courses you might have a student who takes three AP courses you might have a student who takes one AP course um the percent of our overall enrollment which you can see ranges between has ranged for The Last 5 Years between between 26 and 28% then I pulled the unique number so those are single students who are enrolled in one or more AP classes and as you think about that too some of the AP courses
059like AP Lang or AP Lit apus history those are year-long courses some courses are semester courses like psychology or macr micro economics for example um so this chart is showing um how many unique students and then of those students how many are taking a test so just trying to show kind of how the enrollment but also bringing in the test data a little bit there the next slide so it's been fairly consistent over the last five years and how bless you expand our offerings it hasn't MH it has been I mean when you look at the percent of all enrollment I think that's where it's key um because our enrollment is going down a little bit um we've seen that how does the uh enrollment for AP classes vary between the two high schools so
060the enrollment in AP courses is fairly similar at both schools we offer the same courses at both schools um we tend to have a little bit slightly higher typically and I'd have to go through data to give you exact numbers but typically a little bit higher unique student enrollment percentage wise cuz remember North smaller campus smaller number of students at north than we do at South um but in many cases uh the data is fairly similar so for example and this was huge I don't even know if I told you this yet Hank but it this is huge um so last year on both ends of town right 100% of our students who took the AP Spanish test received a 3 four five so we see some of the same kinds of results at both
061schools but typically if you're talking about unique students and looking at percentage based on overall enrollment in our high schools course tends to be a little bit higher okay that make sense yeah yeah totally thank so make sure I explain that um so this is about this slide is obviously about test scores um giving you the percentage now that's the percentage of students ATT tested of course right um so that AR a three four or five again some schools will take the credit for three some you might have to have a four or five some may not take credit and often times that's challenging for students because they may not necessarily know what school they're going to attend um obviously the second one there is the number of tests that were taken and then the
062number of students uh that tested we we did have some great results um this year I was really impressed by I already shared about the AP Spanish obviously but chemistry District was districtwide was at 97% and if I remember correctly that's up by about over 20% um from the previous year so we had some uh some great situations where we saw definite increase over the years interesting too I was looking at micro macro since that was something that we just added um in terms of the Dual credit and our scores uh were better on AP when you engage in dual credit sometimes you have to add things or well with ap we can't take out of the curriculum but you have to add things to the curriculum and we did not have to add much
063at all but I was kind of interested in that and seeing if there would be an impact and our students did better so that was that was great so about very so about 1,200 unique AP students and then about 900 test that's not all students test um and there's a variety of reasons why they may not and in some cases I'm not saying every case but where we do have that Crossover with dual credit some students may not test because they're earning the Dual credit so that's something that's other than AP Computer Science which has been a long time that way that's something that um that we've looked at as well do you know whether colleges just thinking about the whole thing about colleges looking you know that you challenge yourself as much as you
064could throughout High School do colleges care if you took the test or not or I mean you get what we've heard over the years from colleges is that they care more about the caliber of the courses the level of the courses they care more about students challenging themselves right with the most rigorous coursework than necessarily about the test okay so in that sense it's obviously great for students who may not even take the test I will take this opportunity to point point out that last year there was a lot of questioning around the schedule change and how that would impact the success of AP test scores and some that believe that we would see a significant drop in overall performance in our scores I'll take this opportunity to point out that we did not see
065that happen actually an increase from the previous I would say too there's a parental Financial incentive to having them take the test oh absolutely yeah oh yeah you you know you feel like you didn't come this far to come this far like you if you went through the course take the test I think it very from from my personal experience it varies a little bit of course by the subject but also how the teacher you know some really build in the test and I know some kids to your point it's the first semester and you take the test the second semester or so think right but maybe the the test could be a limiting factor for kids even going that room but despite theit you say parental Financial I I'm just saying like if if
066the schools do accept it it's pay I just wanted you to say that exactly say what was the purpose of even us wanting know initial board members prior to wanting this to be U something that we concentrate on with the cost of college continually continuously increasing exactly I say another student been a from a student I know graduated a few years ago took a lot of AP courses and was sort of went to a journalism program and was absolutely thrilled at a freshman year was all journal and poetry what enjoy yeah so was like she did all that work and was able to really focus on what you want do or you'll see students that are able to complete in three years and get a jump on a master's degree there's a lot of that's
067what I'm doing with mine or a double master doing um a double major and a masters in 4 years because I graduate with 40 credits just from AP classes awesome it's it's like amazing that's great congratulations awesome it yeah those are the kind of stories I think we need to and I'm sure it's happening sh everything's happening share within the schools because that's very important and I I always concentrate on the cost of it and I don't ever want that if we can plan to be a hindrance for kids who really want that opportunity yeah absolutely and while I always say the disclaimer that it depends on the school because I don't want people to think it's an automatic many schools will accept AP credit absolutely and we obviously think that's very important um but
068I just don't want students going in to think it's automatic and it's every school and it's every major yeah that's I don't want them to be disappointed if yeah that's why I was saying the education of it and absolutely is extremely important so we the right message is given around this correct message I guess would be the way to say it so this is scores of four and five because remember I said some schools will only accept a four or five so same idea but just focusing on the students who are in a four or five obviously that percentage is going to be lower than the three four and five but it's still greater that's kind of high and it's substantially higher and only get a three the next so this slide is one that
069when I present about AP I usually don't present about grades I apted to do it this time because we're talking in this presentation about dual credit as well and remember when I said we evaluate AP typically by the exam we evaluate dual credit by the grade and I was thinking well it might be interesting for you to see the grade distribution for AP as well also when I talk about the Capstone courses we'll talk about grades so that's why I'm sharing this information um so I thought you might find this interesting one thing I do want to point out um and I did focus on the last um obviously five years um when it says 23 for example there it means the 22 23 school year when it says 22 means a 21 22 um
070you'll note when you look at grades of f grades that there are some 0% that doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't a single student right it's just that there's so many grades that and we round up if it's 0.5 or higher um so for example one year for one of the 1% It was 27 F grades but out of 4,413 right so but for me to put it just gets too busy I've tried it it's just would be overwhelming and I wanted to give the fiveyear because we typically look at things in five years M um so as you look at this you can see obviously our students grades also are doing very very well um in in the AP courses so I thought you might just find that interesting since we'll talk about grades with
071the other two areas so moving to dual credit I talked a little bit about this when I was talking about AP so I won't focus too much on it but they're also college level courses that are here uh in the high school taught by the high school teacher same as AP um introductory level coursework they may also be AP courses and we have a few that are um and they can also be it's a just different Pathway to college credit there's for the courses that we offer that are truly dual credit our dual credit is with cood and there is no cost associated with that we do have a couple of courses that we offer um that are dual enrollment which is different like our calculus 3 and um some years we've offered astronomy we
072even offered one year a literature course those courses are through four-year universities and there is a cost associated with that but dual credit courses is through they through cood there's no charge so just somebody like myself who doesn't know much about dual credit um when you say it's through cood and my child goes to the University of Illinois what do you what does that mean and so and how does that dual credit work and maybe even for schools outside the state of no oh absolutely so the student would take the course with us and whatever grade they get with with us so let's say the student gets a b is the grade that they get from cood as well when the student is finished with the Dual credit course or it could be several we
073have students who take obviously many of them they would need to request a transcript just like if you took a course at you know Benedict and or wherever to be sent to the school that they ultimately go to so it would be transfer credit okay in CTE courses it can get a little bit um fuzzy in terms of whether or not they will accept dual credit so some of the CTE ones they may or may not accept but when we're getting into content area courses um they're typically going to be accepted at most schools even outside of Illinois okay you're actually I'm getting a grade from cood even though I'm and it's a student here at d99 right and it's the same grade and most of and you're saying most of those are going to
074be acceptable accepted by Major institutions across the country again the disclaimer is it's not 100% but many of them are going to be and it reflects the work that the student did for 18 weeks versus how the student performed and an a test would you say I it seems to me that dual Credit in some ways is more powerful than AP much more so but the the hurdle is getting the certification from the teachers for dual credit got it that is the main hurdle there are some other hurdles but that is indeed the main hurdle yes so I say there are some other hurdles one of the other hurdles is the time it takes to get a course approved and a teacher approved so for example AP macro and microeconomics I think I worked on
075for three years mhm before we got approved speech actually went much much faster um and that took maybe a year our um PE courses which that's an area where we are fairly unique there's not too many schools in DuPage County that offer any dual credit PE courses we have two um it's personal trainer and personal safety um that took uh over a year so it takes a while the CT courses which are the courses that are on the left right those um some of those take a long time too or took a long time or can take a long time um but they they tend to go a little bit faster and they don't adhere necessarily to the same requirements that are required for the content area so like the social St courses the English
076that kind of thing is the time because all the bodies that have to approve or is there it's all the bodies the meetings it's talking about textbooks it's talking about the layout of the course it's there's so many things that um are considered that it can take it just takes a long time and sometimes things go quicker like speech did um even though that's a newer course and not offered by a lot of schools isn't there no like programs at other there had been communication with our teacher and cood prior to even working on that degree um that enabled him to be certified so uh it was because of our teacher who is fantastic um and able to bring that opportunity to us um so that that's really you know sped things up for us
077um the biggest limiting factor is always staff and getting the staff approved thank you for the work you're doing on it I mean I just think this is very important so thank you for how many years have we've been offering dual credit we have had dual credit for intro to teaching since it's Inception yeah s 18 I would have to check I'm sorry I I want to say decades yes um some of these are newer right so personal trainer personal safety maybe five years ago speech this is our first year in the AP macro and micro itself keyboarding is new keyboarding is new um AP Computer Science has been at least a decade uh intro to teaching has been uh I mhm forever yeah forever interior design is three maybe four years incubators knew it's
078a nework course for us so it would have to be Financial Accounting was one we went back and forth for for a long time um and that one is in year two or three and the architectures are probably seven seven or eight years ago so we've had some for a long while and some we're still working on so one of the goals when I came in a superintendent that Gina and I worked on and brought to the board was expanding this and Gina has almost every year since I've been here added a course or two to the list so it's all Gina's work getting us getting us to where we're at and it's it keeps growing and we keep working with legislators too to try to make it so that it gets uh sometimes it
079is more many times more difficult for us to get our staff approved than it is for the University to approve their own staff and I I do appreciate you saying that Hank about um working on it but it's our teachers they they are the ones that deserve the credit that me when you're looking at dual credit do you pay attention to like basic entrylevel course requirements at colleges and trying to Target some of those classes so that we can test out our kids as a as a enter as freshman you know I look at the Dual credit and there's there's not a lot of math and science in there so is that just not an option for dual credit cour work or is it just a lot more requirements and a lot more requirements so
080we have struggled for years particularly in science to try and get dual credit I had pushed um uh probably I don't know 8 10 years ago to try and get anatomy and physiology which if I don't know if any of your students have taken it but it is a fantastic course we have fantastic teachers teaching it um it is um it is definitely in my opinion like an introductory College course um and I tried to get some of our teachers I tried to get our teachers approved and was told basically we needed a medical doctor so a doctor to come in and teach the courses and while that would be great don't get me wrong um we don't typically have Physicians applying to teach our courses so that didn't work um I do have however
081I do have a teacher at South that is working on a degree that we may be able to get approved not for anatomy and physiology though for a different course and um I know we have a couple other teachers that are interested and what's helped with that has been the tuition assistance because now people are actually looking for oh I want to take courses in that you know will make me El teach credit because you know the district will um support that they don't even have medical doctors peing that correct college so I'm thoroughly conf that's what Hank is referring to well I should no you are you don't need we've both been speaking around this to be quite blunt it is the faculty at the college that has the power to approve whether or
082not one of our teachers can teach at that college and there is some past belief of self-interest that that those professors would like to keep those courses taught by their faculty not ours and that is why we've had to continue to work collaboratively with colleu page and uh Dr Caputo the president of cood has been fabulous in helping support us move this forward and to make sure that cood is more support they're more supportive than they ever have been but it's still long way to go to get it so that we can meet the needs of our students and that's why we have also worked very diligently legislatively to try to make sure that uh barriers get reduced so that our faculty that many of these universities or work at other universities uh are sometimes
083not approved by college to page uh to be a professor there so um it's just Hoops that we've had to jump through for years and uh this has been a challenge we've faced uh with this we we we hope that it continues to get better uh I know that there's other legislation and Rule making going on with the higher learning commission that hopefully makes this easier for us but that has been a point of frustration through all of this no matter what um dual credit is always a challenge to keep a curriculum going because it is so tied to the staff that you have you know it's you get a staff approve staff member approved you get them there teaching it but then to keep that sustained in moving forward is really difficult because it
084is so tied to your staff one key staff member leaves takes a promotion like all of a sudden your whole curriculum comes down where with ap that that isn't the case so anyways I'll get off that Soap Box one of the other challenges that could impact dual credit enrollment moving forward which is new uh new to us is that some of the courses uh that we have dual credit specific Ally uh with the macro and microeconomics and speech starting this year we were notified I believe on July 11th that's a date that sticks with me obviously uh that our students had to meet a particular reading requirement and while I can certainly understand that um our students sign up for classes in January sometimes into the first week of February and so not knowing that
085at the time was a challenge and so um many of our students did meet that requirement don't misunderstand me many of our students did but not all students have and then there's an alternate pathway and so we're working through and our our teachers have been fabulous with that in terms of working with individual students and parents to try and make sure they can still take the course but the one of the other challenges and I'm this is the reason I'm pointing it out is that sometimes there are things put into place from my perspective to later than our students are aware of when they're signing up for the course that can can be a struggle we also have some courses like interior design that some students in the class will take it for dual credit
086and some will take it for just just High School Credit so we we've been even looking at models like that I I gu my last thought on this is regarding college enrollment I think at some point we say it was down period yes I guess the argument could be you're getting the opportunity to get a student to come to college that may not this could be the difference of them coming for two years or three years or no years no all the research Shel definitively points to students that take AP or especially dual credit at high school go on to take more college courses are more successful in them and stay in college longer as a result of it there is absolutely all the evidence points to that colleges that partner with high schools to
087offer a larger breath of dual credit end up winning in the end because they going to get more kids to take more courses but it's getting some of the faculty to understand that that's the reality when you know some people are just afraid of keeping their jobs which you get too you know um but when we're looking at it through the lens of what's best for kids uh that's a spot where sometimes we Clash so I know I I spoke of most of this so I'm not going to read it to you um but these are just some of the differences to try and understand the difference between AP and dual credit although in Gianna's case I met your since you're working on multiple degrees that it's it is saving you still College tuition um
088for sure around 77 Grand yeah saving you a lot of money um but it in some cases it might just open up opportunities for students to take a minor or double major those kinds of things um but and I talk about the regulated eligibility as well so dual credit enrollment just wanted to share some information um with you again total enrollments unique students um and then the percentage um and you can see where we're Landing in terms of uh the 5-year average as well since as I said earlier dual credit success is evaluated by grades um wanted to share the grades with you so that you could see how well our students are doing um you know obviously uh when we look at the well it's really all of the grades but particularly the fs
089you'll see like a 0% we did have you know a few students who did fail but it wasn't enough to push us to 1% um but you'll see that our students in terms of asmbs are doing fantastic and a lot of these courses particularly uh are of Interest interest of the students they're interested in the cours workk so they're taking courses they're interested in um so um that makes sense and again most of the courses for dual credit not all but most of them are also like the AP at more at the Junior and senior level wanted to talk a little bit about Capstone courses which are different than the other two Capstone courses are the highest level of course in a particular pathway it's focused in a particular content area area so like the
090highest courses in um could be an AP course it could be if it's in C it could be incubator or accelerator it could be a dual credit course it doesn't necessarily have to be but it could be so you're going to see a lot of overlap um between those um as you can see we have a lot of them and these are defined by us so when I talk about Capstone right AP we're talking College boards basically has a curriculum requirements that kind of a thing dual credit we're working with cood they have requirements our teachers have Capstone is what we determine are the highest level pathway courses that we offer here in District 99 okay now what can you do with these I'm sorry this is just showing you the the number of students
091that make it to that highest level of a pathway um so again just same layout as before to enrollment unique students and um percent of students uh enrolled in a Capstone course so these are students who've again gone through multiple courses in a pathway um and then um grades and you'll see very obviously very similar layout to what we just saw with dual credit um where students are obviously being successful in these courses when we look at um you know the grades through a through C we're looking at about 95 depends on the year obviously but we're looking at students being successful in these highest level courses questions probably asked enough yeah think we did it appreciate all the work you put into that that's fantastic I'm proud of our students yes and our teachers
092yeah I'm proud of the admin istrative staff and specifically Gina who puts in the amount of work that this has a real impact on our students and parents and their financial portfolio so thank you so much absolutely we have a real live example we do that is fantastic honestly I am so glad that you shared that with us appreciate so share with us what your plan is so I would do a double major I want to go to American University because it's the only school that has both of these Majors actually so the first one is called d data science and Justice law and criminology so it looks at crime from a more statistical standpoint and it can pinpoint like what's working and what's not using like statistics which I think is super cool um
093and then the other one is called kle so it's Communications legal institutions economics and government so I'd be doing a double major in those two and a master's in data and Justice and law and then maybe I'll get and then um my PL to get my PhD from American too so that'll be good so yeah that's good back and teach them dual credit class yeah ex I'll have all the credits ready to go but no I think that's really a good plan to get all of the things at the same University exactly because I noticed when my daughter uh transferred from one University to another it was a little hazy because they wanted their share oh yeah and am pay you 5400 a month to be a pH student there so it's like yeah he
094does what now pays me 5,400 a month to be a PhD student there no yeah so uh so that's a really good thing so uh current plan sh awesome that's all right uh the next one uh is my planned leadership events for the school year uh just to get it out there for the board especially because as uh one of the areas that the board highlighted that they'd like for me to focus on is being uh an advocate for educational Innovation both locally and nationally so there's a blend of local leadership and National leadership opportunities in there that I'll be proposing to participate in uh many of the events uh I'm attending at no cost because I'm either helping to plan them lead them or present at them um um and uh I I think
095this is a pretty good portfolio of experiences uh for me to represent District 99 at uh this year a lot of those look really cool yeah so I glad like to hear when you go and come back I'll report back as I come back just just just because they look like some really cool opportunities yeah yeah and it's really nice to get our name associated with with some of those events so thank you co-presenting with Google in the in the spring so that's kind of nice to be with a bigname company like that so well you've been associated with Google for a while now so yes I brought Google into K12 schools so I have a long term connection with that so that's good that's really nice when we when we hired Hank as superintendent
096uh it really came down to two candidates and I I remember wishes he would have hired the other one I remember being a strong advocate for Hank because I viewed him as a superintendent that could push innovation in d99 and I think um some of those opportunities that Hank otherwise would have had had we had regular and routine uh administration of a school district um kind of got lost over the last several years and I was really happy to see when we set our goals for the superintendent and the administrative staff this year that we really talked about pushing Hank in bringing new ideas to d99 and I think it's important that we support him as he brings these opportunities uh to travel to engage to have conversations with other leaders not just here locally
097but across the country and bring those ideas back and try and Implement those ideas here at d99 so I think we want to give him license and those opportunities to try and really expand educational opportunities at d99 uh so when Hank and I were talking about this um uh we we brought it to the board because we wanted to get all of your input as far as cost associated with travel and lodging and registration at some of these events just want to make certain that the board is behind expending those type of expenses to support Hank's Endeavors in expanding his knowledge base so I'm I'm a big advocate for that because I think that's why we hired him and I think you know I I'm really strong supporter and proponent of getting him out there
098uh and getting him those opportunities I'm I'm a with it I like the idea of not just uh threatening if that's the right what is with locally I like the U opportunity to see Han go and you know to superintendant Across the the country exactly now the one in there that is the most expensive is uh the Suburban superintendent conference um that one it returning board members know that that is a pretty exclusive organization it's 125 of the top Suburban superintendents in the country uh you only are in that if you're nominated by two current members so it is it's a pretty high bar to get in and then by being in there to remain part of that group you need to attend two out of every three conferences so this one's a little pricier
099you know it is in California um I I don't pick where they're at it's obviously where the organization picks where they're at um but uh it is one where I learn the most from over that it's all schools with similar def demographics to ours that are all just pushing the envelope and are really leading the way um I I learned more in those three or four days you know professionally than probably the other events maybe combined um just because there's so many like-minded school districts there um but that one is it it's an expensive one this year uh it's as much as the other ones I think put together it's one that I went back and forth with Don on and in the end we decided to bring it forward to the board as a
100request and recommendation to go to that one but I don't want anybody to be surprised by by the cost of that one I've tried to offset it by selecting into with some that are no cost or reduced cost because I'm like I said presenting or leading so I've tried to be responsible in that that way that's very good very good I think too just from a corporate perspective this is not unlike corporations that have not done training or travel for the last few years saying even times a lot of Industries here right now that we got to invest in our people we got to keep our organization looking forward so I think you know given your role as a head of our organization it's it is important so to apply that people for um one
101of the things and one of the reports that we do at work says that people will leave in corporate if they don't feel like they're getting the Learning and Development exactly right they need so of course that applies to you know industry all Industries I think people have the same mind not that you're going anywhere but I hope not no yeah yeah we've invested too much all all right that's it for that one unless there's any other questions all right I'm going to turn it over to Travis for the next one so for the 13 of you that were at the opening day Institute I apologize because this is going to be a lot of the same information but it's really important uh information um and and as a side note uh talking about AP
102and dual credit and I love there's so many layers to all of that right and dual credit has been a real challenge for schools about 15 years ago is when they made really the change that you have to have your master's degree in the content area or 18 credits if you have a master's degree in that area and that has it's handcuffed a lot of schools you're seeing though I think a lot of the community colleges where they're looking at it and saying man these other schools are doing it we better start being more uh working with our area schools so that's it's a good it's a great opportunity for for our students um so talking specifically about uh safety this is a this is a all Hands-On deck type of a of an approach
103that that we have really worked on in this District um long before I I came uh two months ago um and but it is something that is really a top priority for our district and something that that I am uh looking at all of the different pieces that we're doing related to safety so another thing that we've been really trying to do is focusing on our values so really this hits on that we care we prepare and we evolve so those are the the main lenses if you will as we're looking at our safety plans as we're looking at the different things that we're doing with our our students and our staff that we're really uh focused on um over this summer I read a it's called a pen test it was done in May
104of 2022 and what that did was it tested both our phys physical security and our our virtual security so we had a third party uh come in and test and see how secure both physically and virtually is our district so you're going to hear me reference some things and uh of that we've specifically put in place as a result of of hearing the feedback from that that test um and that is something it gives us if you will kind of the best practices uh that we should be we should be looking at so one of the things that we've been really focused on is evacuation and reunification uh especially at the beginning of this school year so it's important that we understand the difference because sometimes they get um confused a little bit so when
105you think about evacuation you're leaving right so the evacuation component is what you're typically used to where you're leaving you're leaving a premise okay it doesn't mean that you leave the grounds but it does mean that you leave if you will an area maybe the the building um that is an important distinction as compared to reunification when you think about reunification that's where you're reunifying individuals right so when we talk about that we're reunifying families uh with their their loved ones okay and it's it's important that we do both really well and that we understand those different components so when you think about evacuation that's Alice we are an ALICE District uh all of our staff I'm going to talk about that here in a minute but that's what we do for um a severe
106incident a vertical incident and then I love you guys Foundation um has been implemented countywide so all of DuPage County all of the schools in Dage County are implementing I love you guys which gives you a standard protocol for reunification which is huge with our First Responders because they understand and and they they know what it is that we're that we're doing with that so throughout all of this uh different lenses if you will when we talk about fysal security uh when we look at our reunification with I love you guys it gives us all of the protocols it gives us all of the documents that need to be filled out all of those things we need to look at it through the lens of how do we make that work here at at District
10799 so one of the things um that we have been doing a lot related to this is working with our first responders so I can tell you um Bill buds with our our Police Department he has been phenomenal he's come to almost every safety meeting that we've had Tom Frank is uh a deputy chief with our fire department he's been great in coming and they their insight has been invaluable to say to give us that perspective right from our first responder lens and so it's been really good I want you to know that we're working not just internally we're looking and saying okay what are Best Practices that you're seeing what water areas that we need to focus on um and that is a a really really important thing uh as we as we look
108at what we do one of the things that we are focused on as well this year is our tabletop exercises so if you want to think about a a a tabletop we just actually had our first of eight tabletops that we have planned this year we're planning on doing four at each building so we had our first tabletop at South and we're we present scenarios we stress test if you will our plan uh the individuals that that are around the table how would we respond to this here's a new part of the scenario now with this information what would we we do next um and our representatives from our Police Department as well as our fire department were there and they've been invited to all of them again they're observing they're giving feedback uh we
109we did at the end it's called a hot wash where we go through and say okay what does that look like how did how did we do what are areas that we need to improve on what are things that we need to further uh develop in our in our plan so we have again four of those planned at each of the buildings uh which is um again you want to talk about some unique things I don't know of many districts that are that are focusing and putting the resources and the time to having those specific events so that's I'm I'm really proud uh that that we're doing that so I want to talk about virtual safety some best practices um a recent study that was that was released recently is that 80% of schools have
110suffered some type of ransomware attack 80% of schools so that's a lot so we need to do our due diligence here um and so these next two best practices arose from that that pen test that I uh mentioned just a little bit ago and that is um when you leave your computer so again all of this is is really good for our personal use as well not just you know as you're going through uh if you're working in a in a place of business but um hitting the window and L key at the same time locks the locks the computer so if you're ever leaving your computer you shouldn't just leave it open and walk away right because then people have access to that so getting in the habit of of Simply hitting those two
111buttons and walking away now when you come back you have to log back in but most of the time computers time out anyway so you'd have to log uh back in but that is a uh an easy thing that um Can detract a lot of potential issues second thing um is make sure your passwords are secure um having Post-it notes of of passwords is not a good uh way of going about especially if you put your username and your password in the same location right um I I've had conversations with my parents they have a a notebook right that has all of their username and passwords in it and if someone just gets a hold of that they have everything right so it's really important keeping that secure um and so we talked with the
112staff about um not having Post-it notes if you need to write it down we have locked filing cabinets and drawers make sure and put it in there and it's locked and secure and and put away so I would I would recommend that um as well the third best practice is to um make an annual p password change so that's what we're going to be doing tonight at the end of our board meeting is helping is assisting you in making an a password change um one of the criteria that we have in our district is that it's 12 characters long there's no special characters there's nothing along those lines but it needs to be at least 12 characters long um it it is an important part of uh what we should be doing and but I
113think why so many people write them down is because they make it so hard and then they can't remember was that a capital D followed by a dash right so it can still be complicated and you can go through that but phrases is a really good thing to use um as a as a password I know I use first letters of a phrase often that will have something that that goes through I'm not going to say what they are but it would use the first initial someone so that if someone were to look at your password go what in the world is that right it makes sense to me because as I'm typing the letters or numbers I'm saying it in my mind and then I remember it as I go through that that process
114so that's uh a really important thing so we we already sent uh staff actually on the on the day of the first Institute in directions on how to change their password right so that they could um they could engage in that best practice um lastly is to be diligent with what you click on with emails right so you've all heard of individuals that were scammed and they went through uh different aspects and this applies uh to you as well as you have a a District 99 account it's the number one way that ransomware gets in so if you notice in your email uh bar there's a a fish hook that is up in that upper leftand corner um and if you click on that then that will send a message uh to our Tech Team
115saying heyy this looks fish okay so then our Tech team will look at it and if it's something that's bigger they can address that with everyone on staff um but that is something that you can do you can always delete the email as well right so don't if you're going I'm not sure about this my my stance is if it's important enough they're going to email me back right if it doesn't seem right I'll I'll delete it if it comes back again I might hit the fish hook as I go through if it still just doesn't seem uh right also related to our our virtual safety we are uh we have a cyber event tabletop that we have planned on October 6th um and we have our entire executive Council that's going to be engaged
116in a 4-Hour tabletop related to cyber a cyber event right so we're going to go through that and test our our systems that we have in place uh to make sure that that we have the appropriate things uh put in place to handle such an event talking about physical you'll notice right we have the the lanyards on um and this is a way to distinguish staff members so we have uh we handed all of these out at the at the beginning of the year and all of our staff members are are wearing uh the common lyard there's a reason for that just like a a change word a password change uh refreshing that this gives us an easy way to identify staff we haven't had this before and as you notice it has the core
117values around it so that is one way that we can easily identify if someone is a staff member we also have visitor passes right but if we notice someone doesn't have on this lanyard we've talked to staff about going up and just saying hey can I help you right don't assume that because someone's in the building that they should be there so as we go through give them a reason hey can I help you right don't assume that they're someone bad and going through but it gives us a great opportunity to engage uh with someone and and be able to help in that in that way I'm going to move on to physical uh safety best practices um so there are five that that we shared with staff the next three again are related to
118the the 2022 pent test uh the first is something that was put in place last year and that's just the continuation of locking uh classroom doors when instruction is going on during the school day it's a best practice uh that that we are making sure that we we follow um also make sure that uh exterior doors are closed that Al times um the main thing here is don't prop our exterior doors right so that is something that we um we talked with staff and and reinforced and the third is to keep your keys your ID and your access card um secure at all times so if I were to leave this in my office hanging up you might look and say Ah that's not a big deal it has an access card on it if
119someone has access to that they can get into the buildings right so it's important that you keep that with you um and we talked with the staff about not giving your keys to kids for any reason um and because of that conversation we've had some different ways that we're approaching different things such as PE classes um as we're going through so I'm proud of our staff for thinking okay what does that look like then if that's not a best practice how can we work in other other ways uh for that uh another thing is to keep the windows um to classrooms free and clear so that individuals can can see into those uh it's another safety measure and finally um don't let others into the building as uh you're entering or leaving so there's tailgating
120uh so we talked with the staff about if you're going into a location and someone is behind you and they don't have a lanyard they don't have that direct them to where the visitor's entrance is right don't let someone in that doesn't have the correct credentials into it it can be awkward it can be tough right where you're going I'm sorry but you can't come in this way but let me show you where you can right so that's the that's the key to that not just saying or just smiling as you close the door right it's helping them as you as you can go through that but that's a that's an important thing and likewise as you're leaving making sure that the door is shut uh before you leave that area because someone else could
121could sneak in uh with that so the final thing I'm going to talk with you about is just our our threat assessment and the processes that we have in place so we have our our building level teams meet once a week uh to talk about um any types of uh concerns with students so if we're looking at a a anything that comes up we think that the student either uh might have some self harm issues might be uh might harm others anything along those lines there's teams in each of our buildings that meet on a regular basis and discuss those we have a a threat assessment team that has protocols in place um legislation in the last couple years you have to have a threat assessment process uh in place and we have that um
122and that is really to make sure that that we intervene in case there's a a potential issue with a with a student um and we also have at our ASC we have monthly meetings that we go through um we actually just had our first meeting uh is it yesterday last week yeah last week last week so yesterday would not we didn't get together I wasn't there yet no no weren't there so that is something that um it's important you understand as well there are there are teams of individuals that care about kids that we're talking about them more than just the academic component right we're looking and saying how how are they doing what are there other supports that we need to put into place uh for them uh one of the big things with
123uh threat assessments is um if you see something say something so you've heard this probably the news right if you see something don't assume someone else is going to say something make sure um and do that so on our website again giving you another visual this is on the top of all of all of our websites you see the the bubble over there to the left um when you click on that it takes you to our district 99 crisis reporting and resources site so it has different things in there about if you're worried about this here's what you can do um one of the things safe to help Illinois it's a whole Illinois initiative um that is shared on this website um it is also on the back of all of our student IDs again
124that is a legislative uh change that came down um last year so all of that is on the back side of there that is available to anyone right it's not just in schools anything along those lines it's available across the entire State um and that is uh an important resource if there's ever any concerns um so all that being said still the number one thing that research says that is important is relationships so we're really focusing on being intentional with relationships um I'm I'm a huge believer in knowing others and being known right so if you're in community you're more likely to care about those that you're in community with right so we want that for every student every staff member so we talked with the staff about that as well we have all of
125these things in place the best thing we can do still though is have good solid relationships where people know that they're cared for um and I have I have definitely seen that in my time here and I'm I'm proud of of all the work uh that that we're working on but specifically on the relationship side so I just covered a lot of information related to a lot of different things you guys have any questions one thing you talked about best practice itic is where do medical metal detectors being installed at the entrance of each building come in line and is that a best practice in your idea what your thought I'll speak to that so what is your thought about that I know it's become a big issue especially like in Highland Park and different
126Suburban districts where where do we stand on that yeah it's uh I mean it seems like when people look at like shootings in schools or whatever that's a natural thing to react and go to but the actual carrying out and Staffing that and managing that is uh really an intense use of resources not just the the equipment to put there that's the small part it's having multiple people there at all times to go through that and when you have a rush of students you know we we have 2,000 students or more that arrive within a 20-minute period of time each day uh now you take all of those students and stack them outside of the building waiting in cues to get in while you scan everybody to come in at the same time if you
127look at the incidents that we've seen out there in the world very few of them are coming through a secured entrance and gaining access that somebody lets them in or they force their way into a location or they're sitting outside of a building waiting for somebody in those cases metal detectors wouldn't uh be a prevention or deterrent in any of those things we think it's far more important to secure in the ways in which Travis outlined uh rely on relationships rely on supporting students that have demonstrated that there's concerns there and that's where our resources are best best spent I agree wholeheartedly you lose something in your in again my personal opinion you lose something in that culture of relationships as well right um so I think it's important we focus on all those things
128we do those things well I don't think that is a it's a need I think it would be really great if society and government would step up and take some of the responsibility for this so that schools wouldn't have to have all of it and that shouldn't be a controversial thing to say I I think the one of the most important things is if you see see something say something I think that really gets down to the Crux of the matter is you know it it can head off a lot of problems so I think those are great steps but for example a gun in a kid's backpack he's coming into school with a gun in his backpack how is that going to be alleviated you know what are we going to do to alleviate
129that as a threat to all the students that are in the class with them or can we I think so that's that student that I I think there's other students that maybe have related with that student and know that there's a a situation and it comes back to the if you see something or hear something you you tell someone about that situation because that student uh maybe has a lot of other situations that are happening in his life so or her life so that's and Terry you're right that's what it comes down to is when we've had those situations and we learn about them it it is from other students that are bringing it forward and I think that's truly the important thing that students understand it's it's okay to talk to other people about
130situations that could be and if they're uncomfortable that's why the tools like safe to help or there that allow them to bring it forward without you know fear of something happening to them I'm sorry Hank I didn't that's all right Cherry it's the right answer you you know the answer uh any other questions for Travis I think this is you you know every year in the spring or in the in the fall here we bring some of these updates to the board uh obviously we can't disclose to the public all of our safety plans because then it's easier to get around those safety procedures yeah um but I also think this is a good opportunity for the board and the public to see the importance of Travis's role in somebody that's overseeing the facilities our
131technology and our security as those things become more and more intertwined uh moving forward that you know as this board and this District continue to innovate having somebody that's has oversight of all of those things helps make us safer um just because you know Travis has his eye on all of those things at one time and with an instructional background understanding how those things connect back into teaching and learning so um you'll hear a lot more about the stuff that we're doing but we're really leading the way here uh in in these things Julie do we have any reception visitors no sir we do not okay then uh then can I get a motion to adjourn so moved passwords we need to reset passwords and then we can adjourn we have to do that in
132Open Session okay oh uh can we get a motion to a journ I like my password yes I guess you could adjourn but then uh good luck getting your help with your'll be back next next week yeah yeah because we can't get in exactly within a year I've changed within a year uh but now we have to set up two Factor authentication two Factor authentication Chang so we're going to do that then once we're done everybody set with passwords we'll take a motion to adjourn okay so we're done with the business of meting I'm sure nobody wants to sit around and watch board members change passwords that's why I brought all my devices they do we've brought in Matt our team expert that's going to help you with are we goingon to just go in
133a mass oh I wanted to ask you Courtney can I oh okay I know I need help either way they did Terry Terry they did it in like January or February at North last year like a wien radar no I don't even know my password help us everyone chocolate your characters do two at a time an American 72 I would like to go there yeah well no I mean everything helps no yeah all good I will make sure you Emil have some cookie before you leave happy [Music] birthday it's about like trying to get fancy with okay now what do I need to do bu you what's up she wants to write down your password tell me how to2 process I will turn on my device homecoming parade will you be participating IE riding in
134a car waving and throwing candy that we provide you already l no for either both of those yeah unfortunately not this year okay I'll plan for it next year and then the open house for North High changed October 21st from 9 to 12 a. so I didn't know if that made you available to do it cuz it also changed to 9 to 12 12 this they're both on Saturday right no one is on Sunday South is on Sunday from noon to 3 and North is now on Saturday from 9 to 12 oh wow what South okay let me see to do it so we're do North is I'm sorry open houses right here cuz you had said you could do Sunday one but then I wasn't sure because North completely changed fine I'm perfect I'm
135good I'm both so you can do both now you were working so I just wanted to make no I got it definitely so it's kind of like a double check since yeah impressive thank you I was down there watching both them and my son run put my name the Finish had like standing out of this tree area and then you saw like three downers purple all together like in the top were they in Poria last week yeah okay and then literally yeah they do a they do a weird I mean there was definitely a lot of I'm just following him are you going to Poria this week can choose which one um but man it was so crazy like they had they had six Runners it's unreal I don't even know where that is and
136they're amazing I didn't either I saw two weekends ago our girls this weekend on our phone student no but yeah I would I would say the girls were out at LT invb weekend we got see [Music] them bring all your deves to make sure everything yeah it was impressive yeah it was definitely impressive know that I'm I don't know how to sign out I don't even know how to sign I mean I got my password and stuff I don't use it except when like I on my iPad every once in a while it KS me out then I have to go around and find it and that's the only time I ever deal with that's why I don't log in here because real fast yeah because I'm pay attention just and if anything like with
137so prefer Scott are you going to F this weekend I was there last weekend oh cuz I'm going this weekend oh are you cuz it's the Morton Pumpkin Festival problem you know because that's the pumpkin Capital oh is it Illinois really all of the libes uh you know can Illinois yeah you can go and watch them put the pumpkins into the oh my God I got to remember this so it's is it always the like um it's always second weekend prob yeah and it's a huge festival with a parade and liby is it right in puia like right down no it's in Morton is Morton right outside of Poria yeah it's on4 you get to I don't know how to sign out you go down you staying down there yeah my daughter lives in Morton
138and I and I grew up how far is Morton from Washington you know oh they're just right next door we stayed in this amazing hotel we down and it's right downtown on the little circle oh yeah and oh my gosh it was like a probably like maybe 12 rooms maybe yeah but not expensive well I mean it wasn't too expensive but I mean the room we had was like a I mean it was sweet probably it was like rers already got hurton rers and we were there for a soccer yeah yeah took some pictures of his bner up there thank wait did you make cookies yes happy birthday delicious yeah okay so now's several different kinds there Julie how do you turn it you got to tell me what to do I you know nothing
139I know nothing col and then hit manager account love it I loved Hogan's Heroes honestly it was one of the best shows but I haven't made one yet always wanted to see the na definitely doing a tutorial right now we scattered you guys through the go any yeah but you know what I did I erased my own broke we broke everybody got it oh do they want me to put in the one you gave me the reset yeah once we get to three it becomes a board meeting is it in the it's in the cafeteria just resync everything so here yeah so the one you just did was good and then we have one more thing to do one more step Matt what's the group name isn't it B okay I'll be surprised if we
140have so they are how many yes you do saiding at some point and 11 said that they'll be do did you keep my shirts in your car if you lose your pH backup option asking for uh I forgot all about it sitting at home if you wanted to add something else if you wanted to add another one you could add another one and you can just hit I guess I'll run by whenever or I'll bring them by I just it's going to be your CSD one so it should be CD guess I need you're in the perfect spot where do I and then that's good just I see that on my phone but I don't see it on what now if you go back it's already there ohow you have to sign in first oh
141with my current password yeah okay did you change it changed I I know nothing you sounds let let me get the instru should be see where I need to start you're creating your own and what did you suggest characters just make it a phrase whatever phras okay oh you got both of your tablets with you yes excellent so um I think Trav is ready to start with you yep Trav ready to start with you all right this it actually I have nothing okay yeah I'm fine you ever watched the hard KNX yeah well I didn't watch been really good this it actually it made me like him oh really I hated him and now I'm like oh he's actually a pretty good guy okay so all right so open up here no that's just [Music]
142signed at the to mhm it's okay got it there we go R bottom oh to the okay my my original one how many you say 12 oh I was going to say I can put in my old one changed it you snuck in there and changed it and I didn't that's why I didn't even know it okay all right and then we're going to no sir oh we still need to adjourn so I'm waiting for all I'm waiting for all these people to get their passwords Chang hurry up people I'm trying I just started put in your new one and then my new one my new one you already or just the number just number left meeting you know this gu at 8:30 all right next y get started but I won't turn on did
143I do turn on now you got to your regular password in right now we need so Terry's covering for me tomorrow night for Community session yes can you send me what date she was otherwise scheduled so that I can switch and cover for her is go over here right yeah all right phone numberone number your phone awesome thank you my real phone it wasn't that bad right they didn't match this side of the room is doing their job over here we're working we're working we're working oh cuz I can't we're going to do is we're turn on doation so you can do um I don't expect yeah it will you want to explain the the multiactor so what it what it does is it it's not to do it every time says okay is this
144really so it's called a twep verification so click on get started so go ahead and enter in your password doesn't watch he used to make sure you get you know watch that's more of a cultural not me Terry for her birthday good birthday know I like I know what no I I I left something out down so you want to get ITA text message text message you so last Monday was Labor Day enter thate wow oh damn to catch No No it should be in your text it be and that goes right there we have one other stuff to do and we done have to do it on three other things all you have to do is log in she's at the University of florid probably PR very good was that was that I didn't
145remember we talk about that like yeah I mean it was she was really what do I hit my Gmail account couldn't have done it without you bro it's prompted us to do it so we follow instru follow all right she's done she's just done so well called me like I didn't realiz fing W warm wedding on the 23rd so she will come back I and then after that we will see her and weekend and then Thanksgiving and then Christmas like it's like three weeks now will it remember it oh yeah now she does she's okay a junior but amazing we do one more stop so yeah I mean once this is the longest then honestly after that it's now we don't need to let's see if it does it shouldn't be linked you could go
146try it 39 the same so one more thing to do we have to do two factors for you now am I going to have to do this every time I go to you have to sign in whenever you sign in not every time CR start doing really well well I have to do it once we change the passwords on the other ones probably verify and I was tell scota on this guy Prospect rank number 10 in the country and York was like 25 and we just beat both of them this weekend Oh No Country not move us forward on this guy York is a perennial they perennial cross country actually beat theity R but like I me the first I remember that's a six digigit versus four digigit so how all right you guys are
147just trying to drive I already am she's your new password that you just created okay you know they're a team and team total solid performance and they they're so good about cheering each other Audrey's one of the top I would say top four rers on our cross country team what see I don't know she she's been pretty consistent for two years's add I have let's make sure we add we can do two different things okay so it's a good it is Bally a number that it's going to give you next so we have put in your cell phone number do one free state meat in pure which is fun I think for all the schools wow it I I don't quite understand who comes to what meat but it's it's a big one I think
148yeah that's perfect yeah I went last year now after two years I send you the numbers that it gives you in that here it is done how it all works so fire those guys you don't need the G we just need the digits awesome yeah we have to be back in a routine at least it's how are you Trad Joe's well well I have a one of our down okay now then will I have to have my phone with me all the time depending on where you're signing in if I'm signing in if you're here on this Chromebook it's I have to bring my phone you definitely need to bring your phone cuz sometimes I forget it this is not my entire life I hate to tell you that what who says this I am
149not I am not so now this is done so now what do I do with this should we yes we can move to adjournment okay yes a motion so moved so mov second Jenny second uh all in favor all favor of adjourning i i i i i motion carries we are adjourned thank you everybody we're back next week