001it's called order and take a roll call Mike Davenport here Christopher Espinoza here Jenny hagstrom here Gary pavasich here Joanna Vasquez Drexler here Nancy cup here and Caitlin Vincent here thank you for the pledge foreign good evening everybody it's nice to see all of you I am really really happy to introduce to you a few of our members from our theater program and they're going to talk to you tonight about their show that was chosen to perform at the Illinois High School theater Festival um just a couple of weeks ago and so I'm going to introduce them and I'm going to do last names too I can do this so um so if you guys want to stand and you can come over here um and these five young people are very highly involved in
002theater I think that I see them in every show every dance every event that happens in the auditorium they are so involved and it's so amazing I'm pretty sure that Robbie could like run lights for every single thing with his hands tied behind his back and his eyes closed so all of these guys are really really involved in our fine arts program and so we have Zoe Petro Robbie Boucher Sydney Miller Matt Sirota and Natasha Fugate and they're going to talk to you tonight about how their show got chosen and just as a side note I do believe it is the first show that has been chosen from North High School um to perform at the Illinois High School theater Festival so I'm going to turn it over to you guys and I will be
003your clicker so just tell me when to go okay from previously theater Fest and then so we first started way back in May if you would believe it so uh I am the assistant director stage manager we have the lighting designer and then we have two of our lead actors throughout the whole show and then Natasha was a lead through the original bominy and then had to step away to go do the Allstate show and so we started out with like this it's a it's a melding uh of both kind of groups Yeah so basically this show starts in May and it's our Varsity show which means it's like the best the best we cast the year before and then we open um in August so our original production is the varsity play the actors
004you see all those awesome pictures that's in our Studio Theater 248s um and that was at Davenport High School um and this was like before we went to the theater Festival so we started here um it was a really new play to do that we haven't done before it was wrapped and it was in the studio Theater which like microphones itself which is not a typical show we usually do we don't do a lot of raps and a lot of crude humor usually in theaters really weird so that was like the big seller for the show and it went off with a success if you guys so something that makes the varsity show different than it will show is that it is very very important to create relationships between the cast and the crew just
005creating a strong company altogether so that means that some crew members took on acting roles on stage and then actors such as ourselves would take on roles and crew like building the sets that you see up there and just um building the things that we would be performing on and performing with like props and wearing like costumes which was really cool um and it was especially fun because we have such a great um basis of like student leadership in our theater program 99 of the stuff that we made for this show was all led by students we had a student design the lighting our props were headed by students um the actors were able to dive in a lot with their work but um sound also has a big part we all are able to
006help design and help create um and be part of the behind the scenes process which I think is especially fun especially with a varsity play because you have a smaller group of kids that can really just like pull apart a play and like make it something that they're really proud of so that was especially exciting in the next slide I believe and then so to get if you don't know what this is so Illinois High School theater Festival is run by the Illinois theater Association and so the way that you get a show to go to state is you have to have somebody from this Association come and adjudicate is what they call it your show and so uh we got so that we were like the first show to be adjudicated because usually they
007aren't done that early and so a guy came in and he watched her show and then afterwards he would give us feedback he gave us responses he asked the designers about their process and the actors about what had been going on and we got a chance to like get like real uh like good information about like what we had just done and then we didn't actually find out we were going to theater Fest until the until Thanksgiving we found out yeah we found out right after we actually concluded our 1X production and we found out our closing night right after all of like the everything had been taken care of and we had to rebuild the whole show from the ground up with all new materials and like a few weeks like two weeks yeah
008two three weeks or breaks and we weren't working we were celebrating and it was like oh Christmas time great and then Natasha and Robbie do you guys want to talk about like the kind of like adjudication process yeah so like um the dude here came in and we just had a conversation with him about you know the design process and whatnot it was not it was not like a you did this wrong this is this is bad I don't like this it was like a why did you choose this like it was an open conversation without the theater artist which was really good for like uh students like us to learn and like just get honest feedback from like professionals like this guy like does costumes for like I don't even know but he he
009was pulling down he knew what he was talking about yeah so um pretty much what he did was he just asked for like specific groups he's like choose one of your actors to like speak on your behalf and then just talk about their process a little bit he did the same thing for designers like he was like choose a costume designer to speak choose like a senior very designer a Scenic designer to speak and then it there was like three speakers I think um roughly and then we just told him our process and then afterwards he gave us he gave us feedback as as was mentioned so yeah and then so in the next slide so the next slide is when we had to start redesigning everything because we were put in a really big
010concert hall at U of I because it's this massive massive area and we went from if you know where 248 is in Downers Grove North that's a it's a real small area where we went from I think it was about like a 30 foot wide stage to a 64 foot wide stage and with the head no lighting and was on hardwood floors so it was a like a major difference and then hmm Yeah so basically we kind of just had to like go like dig in our rooms and like crack open the script from August and like we we just kind of ran back into it we all we um picked up the plans from um back in August to start rebuilding the set and start creating everything and we were lucky enough to hold
011new auditions for this new show because we had to fill spots for Natasha for example who was committed to Allstate who couldn't be in our production and other roles and we just wanted to make it like bigger and better so we were able to have understudies come in and fill up all of those roles because we were not going to take any chances on anything going around with wrong with this production um and so we were basically just able to get back into it and teach these new um people joining our show what the whole story is about and everything we've created and all the the creative juices and energy that went into all of it so it was really exciting to talk to my understudy and like help him figure out this crazy rap
012show and teach all of the different beats and flows and it was it was really exciting it was really fun to dive back into it and also at the same time start frantically building this set and learn how to put it up and put it down like we would need to at U of I yeah we had loading groups because everything we had this massive three building set that had to go up in 90 minutes so uh both of them did like a really like amazing job doing loading especially considering you guys hadn't done a whole lot of crew work prior to it and you just you jumped in and it like you guys had like some like the hardest like you had like I in my opinion the hardest part to build yeah so
013my loading experience was um we had an hour and a half from the time that the doors open for us to get into the space until the time that the doors open for our audience to come into the auditorium um the concert hall that we were in so my job specifically was to bring in some set pieces from the truck which was a very long walk um and then I was building that house structure that Zoe was talking about and it really took up until the doors open for me to step out of my crew shoes into my um the rolls of the shoes of my role as an actor and that process was probably five to ten minutes where I had to be in full costume full hair full makeup get my mic on
014do a very very quick mic check and be ready on stage for the audience to see our show okay I mean it was it was crazy I mean you think 90 minutes like okay they put up the set no it's like it's a two-story set you gotta put these lights you put the sound you guys have everything that would usually take like months in 90 minutes so we like rehearsed loading it in loading it out multiple times just so that we could head down to a signs this goes here in the truck this goes here this comes out first this needs to move here so that when we had those 90 minutes we were done and the the people that were like at ice not ISU Illinois sorry um they were kind of wild because
015we came in there with such preparation the the union guys were like okay we're just not gonna do anything because you guys is me in our hotel room that that was a little before show programming session you know just to make sure all the cues were good but that's uh me and hotel is kind of a funny picture this year our director Mr Moses literally had everything down to four minute increments for our whole load-in process to make sure that everything for each team was meticulous we rehearsed it yeah it was for her we took it up at least like five times up and down yeah and then we were like we're throwing curveball with the uh the bombs around that team so that it was a it was kind of stressful because they were
016like everything shut down and then we were like what so it was like not even as minus some because we couldn't get in uh we didn't know if our first show would even have it yeah we were one of the art and that's because we had seven people go in on the early bus but like literally the early bus got there as the alarm was put on so we all had to sit in the Krannert Center for a lot for a pretty long time and it was me and another girl who had like an inner College interview we had to get to and it was absolute chaos because they weren't telling anybody what was going on and so like it wasn't even it wasn't on our side of the campus but obviously they all they
017had to lock everything down and take the threat seriously and so it was like like the craziest I think it was like an hour an hour two hours of like our lives because and then we opened we were the first show to open that morning it was kind of insane because they wanted us to be right there so that everyone would have something to do right away you can go you guys want to talk about your um sure so all of this craziness that we've talked about finally like came to uh came to a head and we were able to perform on time for a great audience it was so it was so cool because obviously this was theater Fest so you're performing for a bunch of theater kids so they're gonna they're gonna like
018pick out things that you're doing that they know are super special and super cool so it was just it was so fun to be able to present our art and be like this is this is our crazy show and it was weird compared to compared to the other shows that went to theater Fest we were definitely an oddball because it's it's you know Shakespeare rap whatever so it was definitely um it was strange and it was a new environment and it was all this craziness but it was it was just so special I think might be like my favorite theater experience I guess at North I I just don't know what could compare to this because it was I mean this coming May would be a year since our original audition so it's been a
019long process between the original show and the new show so it it was a great final performance for all of us and I think it was it was really special yeah they were like cheering and all so just hearing those laughs and hearing the cheers for all every single line even some of the lines that we didn't even think would get a reaction got a reaction and so amazing I was beaming on stage it's crazy I think my favorite thing was like I was in like the lunch line the next day because we were like gonna leave in a few hours and we were getting food before we saw our next show and these people in front of us were talking about how like it was life-changing like it is so cool to hear because
020how often do you hear that like the show that you put on in high school was like it made someone look at life differently they were like it made them excited to learn about Shakespeare the Shakespeare is usually like oh my God I have here this year but like they were like this makes me so excited due to Shakespeare next year this makes me so excited to like do the show that my director picked out and that's like it's just really heartwarfing to hear that like it actually had an impact and like it made a difference between and like I think every single person all around said that they had some kind of experience like that oh yeah yeah so once all of our performances were done I think we can oh perfect um so
021we basically take down the set one last time in uh the cranner hall and then we get it into our trucks and we get it all home after our whole um Shenanigans of theater fest going to see other shows and stuff and then we brought it all back to the dgn auditorium and we kind of took it apart piece by piece you know because in the truck it's kind of just like walls and bigger portions and then we finally got to just kind of um take everything apart at strike and it was definitely it's definitely a lot of work always we always do strikes for shows and it's always um very strenuous but by the end of it because this has been such a crazy experience it was very um it was just so rewarding
022to finally be able to like finish this big show um do you want to talk about yeah and then after this strike we have we have been starting some new post-strike post show Traditions with our new director and the one for this show was that we had the full company sitting in a circle and we would we just gave positive memos and just goodbyes to everyone we actually used a ball of yarn would throw it around a compliment web of course um and I just used this experience I used this moment to look around the circle see the new cast the new crew and then just also reflect on the original company who brought this show to where it was now and just think about those new people that I met the show that I
023fell in love with it really helped me fall in love with theater I started doing more shows after that because I it's just one of my favorite shows and it was it's just crazy and I loved it so much it's crazy to say goodbye so we all as like a dgn theater we all had like this really life-changing experience going to theater Fest it was probably like the most immersive experience for ever gonna have as high schoolers but then Natasha went off to Allstate uh to with his Allstate a little blurbed like they virtually everyone you everyone in the states allowed to interview to be in Allstate and then they choose who they like the most and then they put on a show so that the whole state it's the best of the state putting
024on this amazing show uh in the largest uh Performing Arts Center at uh Allstate and they it's it's like supposed to it is like the best of the best it's it was amazing yeah so um if you flip the slide we're gonna move on to the Allstate show which this year was Shrek um so as we touched on we had um interviews back in June I think of this year to establish who would be in the company so um I I was selected to be a part of the Allstate company and it was an incredible experience so you can put this live okay so we're gonna talk fast so um what has so All State okay hold on let me re-evaluate so I was um my title for Allstate I was a part of this
025props and special effects crew and I do um a lot of prep work at North so this was um a huge honor to me to be like considered like best in state for props and like these are just some of the stuff that I made um along and I like collaborated with a lot of people I did a lot of things I thought I'd never do I exploded a bird on stage um so these were just some of the projects that I had the most fun doing and um you can flip the slide again and one of the things that I loved so much about Allstate is I got to meet so many new people that had the same passions I did and like had that weren't just like the people that I've known for
026four years um and as much as I love that all the kids at dgn who I work with it was so like refreshing to like meet new people and to like be like oh here's my pre-show Traditions what's yours and we would do each other's pre-show Traditions before shows and like just learning from everybody around me who shares who has the same interests as me and then you can decide again um and then another thing that you might not think about as much for um a team is all the adults that were in charge they were chosen a lot like us they had they had interviews they were chosen and they were first like their most volunteers they're volunteers at heart and um our director for vomiti Ariel Moses is going to be technical directing
027next year's Allstate which is she kills monsters and and safe designing so but the adult team that I had for Allstate they were they made the show so much fun it was so stressful but they they were light-hearted they were like crack jokes as they walked past you in the hall it was incredible and they also know so much and then you can flip the slide again um and then I also want to just touch on the challenges of state so we had to build an entire show and I think it was like 18 days it came to we had a performance at Downers Grove South um on December 18th so we did not have that weekend to build we had to be done that weekend and ready to perform so and then right after
028we did that performance we packed it all up and we went to U of I where we had some stuff to finish so then we had to learn a whole new stage a whole new space because we had been a two like a tone to uh dgs's stage and now we have this whole we have this bigger space with new scene changes and like everything with like new Transitions and we were trying to put on the show I think all together we put together five performances for our time at um U of I and then the Allstate company went down a week early so we could practice those transitions finish up anything that needed to be finished and it came together and then next slide so overall I'd say that um doing the Allstate production
029was like top five best experiences in my entire life I met so many amazing people that I hope to keep in my life for years to come and I've learned so much from them and I have just memories that will last forever think I made it well thank you guys um yeah thank you so much thank you any questions yeah yeah I got one quick now have you been I'm sorry did your son oh have you have there been other adjudication I'm so do they interrogate all of our Inlet so essentially what it is is the process of going to state is you have to submit your show to the theater board and the reason why we've never done it before is because if I'm sure everyone remember like Mr Papa George and Mrs Velazquez
030they were both on the committee that shows and so if you're on a committee that chooses the show you're not your school's not allowed to submit and then additionally next year we're not allowed to submit again because Moses is the technical director and Scenic designer which means he's way too involved there and so it's there are like qualifications and they choose it based on like what's like the best show and like what's going to give the students at theater Fest like the most rounded experience there were musicals there were like more like traditional Shakespeare there were more like plays there's like a play that goes wrong it was it was a very wide selection of shows we were definitely still the Oddball but like yeah that's necessarily A Bad Thing to be the album yeah
031great seems like so much fun yeah we could ask for an emperor to uh it's it's a lot of work but but it's fun for for you to meet everyone and and see what it's really like to have the pressure I mean can you imagine what people are like that are on Broadway and stuff trying to get their shows produced and and that so watching them load the truck and it was really really stressful for us and we weren't doing anything yeah what if they drop something yeah oh yeah that was that cold weekend yeah yeah there were so many people there and like I think the audience really made it worth it yeah like I think everyone for us I'm sure also would save them with Shrek like the way that the audience received
032the show made all of like like the 10 p.m nights like the like The Sweat The Tears all of that worth it just to like hear them love the show I think overall we've performed vomiti I think six or seven times so just well we closed it in the very best way possible with the very best people with truly our family so just such a goodbye was this recorded one I think the theater Fest one was reported the original one was on the show from the original space into We performed in our own Auditorium as a benefit show for all of like the friends and family who wanted to go see it and then we have a recording of it actually at U of I okay is it is it is it available I'm not
033certain it's um but we're allowed to have recordings for educational purposes we have them for all of our shows just for educational archive thing so we have the recording and we just don't have yeah we'll get it sometimes excellent we want the bootleg cotton this is being recorded congratulations good answer good answer piracy is a crime yes well thank you guys all for coming thank you congratulations [Applause] next up is Caitlin so this week at South is our spirit week so we kicked off the Monday with PJ day so it was super nice you know Monday is not always the best day of the week but we got to wear our PJs to school which made a little bit better um and then we'll have different dress-up days each day of the week as well
034as different activities like an access I know when I was during my PE class I had to help my teacher with beaded necklaces that everyone in Access will get and then there'll be a school-wide like rock paper scissors challenge so little fun activities during the day and then last week um we had two clubs at our school that were selling blue Mustang cups kind of like the red Starbucks cup in the winter time we were selling blue cups to raise money for a shelter in Westmont for um people who need help they can go there to get resources so all the proceeds to that went to the shelter in Westmont and as a like incentive to buy the cup they were giving discounts for root beer floats so during uh your lunch period today you
035could have gotten a root beer float which is a fun way to celebrate spirit week and then at the end of the week we'll have our big Spirit assembly with all the sports teams kind of sharing about their season and a bunch of games like tug of war as a senior I'm really excited to win the spirit jug this year and then another big thing is the conference win for the girls basketball team I am a little biased as I am on the team but it was a big thing since it was the first time we've won since 2001. so it's been like 20 years since we won conference so it was a big deal to us and we're looking forward to our regional game next week which is actually against Sounders North so a
036little match up again but uh we're looking forward to that and then a new thing that we're bringing back since covid is our turnabout Winter Dance we had it I went to It For the First Time freshman year and we haven't had it since so bringing that back will be fun just giving students another thing to do during the winter and again just building Community Building off of our spirit week so exciting week ahead for us yay very good thank you yes and good luck yeah thank you I know Downers Grove will win yes guaranteed we will cheer for both sides okay do we have anybody I have no comments no comments for the stuff for visitors so we'll move on to the board Workshop review of State accountability measures all right uh as we're
037heading into uh the time of year that is assessment season everybody's taking standardized tests uh we're bringing back some of the information we shared back in the fall September and November around that time uh and then in response to some information that um we've seen circulated or shared in a variety of settings we just want to make sure that we are clear in the messaging of how this information is interpreted and used there is a wealth of information in the Illinois state report card but a lot of it is numbers without background so without knowing some of the history or how the the tests are structured or those kinds of things it's easy to to misinterpret some of the information that's there so just as we head into this next season of accountability we just
038want to take an opportunity to share a couple of things so as the board has seen a lot of this before this is going to be a pretty high overview of some of this but if you have questions Jump On It just to review that we receive a designation where both schools are commendable that has calculated 75 percent off the academic indicators and 25 off the Student Success set indicators these indicators are based on Research as to what are the the things that predict post-secondary success so obviously graduating from high school is the goal the primary goal of high school right and is the greatest predictor of post-secondary success so that's where you where you end up with these different weights that are in there you know so things like um sat English and math
039are weighted much lower they themselves are not great predictors of post-secondary success in combination with other things like GPA and activities at school and those you know building that whole portfolio of students is what really predicts post-secondary success and that's why you you're seeing colleges move to test optional settings or you know those types of things and they want to see the full breadth of a student's experience to better predict if they're going to be successful After High School same thing if you're going directly from high school into the world of work they're not looking at your test scores right they want to know what you have done what your skills are what you're prepared to do we talked more in detail about this in November I want to dive into all of these pieces
040but that's the big overview of how our score is determined you go on the website you'll see a variety of different pieces of performance snapshot graduation rate is at 94 percent from last year where it where we were pre-pandemic and a reminder for the board that currently any student that continues in special education is a reduction in that graduation rate so students that are continuing at t99 or in the special education program with us count against that graduation rate and we're currently working with the Lend mandate committee and policy committee Dr Prentiss from Hinsdale and I have been working on legislation that will be introduced in this legislative session to correct that so that our t99 students and students continuing in special education don't count against our graduation rate as it does there do we
041know what it is two or three percent higher yeah is that what it is okay I mean we could calculate that's that's really a yeah a bad number because well and I'm going to illustrate a couple of these tonight where Illinois does it different than other states and it actually makes schools in Illinois look worse than schools in other states because of the decisions we've made in in just how we calculate the numbers like this right um so uh graduation rate remains strong comparatively uh ninth grade on track remember that's you know what we're looking at that first year of high school and how are they getting enough credits to graduate at the end uh and we're we've spent a lot of time last year and then again this year uh making sure that we're
042getting as many students on track as possible and then if a student isn't on track we're really focusing on that next year to make sure we catch them up so that they're on track to graduate uh chronic absentee rate was at 23.3 percent I will tell you that number is higher this year absenteeism at school actually in work and across the country is uh a thing that is much higher than it has been in the past we're still uh lower than other schools in DuPage County and across the state however this is a number that's ticked up this year in the first semester and we're working really hard at both schools to try to drive that number back down do we have an idea of why it seems to be this guy I mean is
043it kids work from home for for two years right so there's a there is definitely a perception of I can work from home and I'll be okay the other thing is we've worked really hard to make sure that we're supporting kids when they're out of school so before it would really negatively penalize a lot of students if they were out and we've done a lot of things to support students when they're out so the impact of being out consequences is not as as tough plus we're encouraging everybody if you're sick stay home right we went through multiple years of a pandemic and we've told everybody if you don't feel well stay home and then there's a big push around mental health right with mental health days and those kinds of things where we're saying if
044you're so stressed if you need a day to catch up if uh you know you need to go see somebody take that time and do that so all of those things are those days don't count right so are we working uh with with the state maybe to change the way that is reported also yeah we're trying but because you know if if you're if we're encouraging kids to stay home if they're not feeling well or if they're having you know uh stress issues and things you know should that really be counted against us that is a great question that we are working on at the state level but okay all right yeah but those things have changed since these accountability measures were well I think covet has changed a lot of things in our lives
045and uh some for the better and some for not the better but um you know holding us accountable for some things is not always well and the answer either it used to be we were talking about this in our leadership team the other day chronic absenteeism used to be a predictor that you were likely to fail that is no longer the case anymore we have students that are meet that threshold of chronic absenteeism that are getting straight A's they're getting their work done they're coming and meeting with our student with their teachers during access and resource during office hours they're being productive and they're proving that they've that they're learning is what we expect that their performance is what we expect so it's not as much of a predictor as it was back when they
046were writing these accountability measures so things are different now we just need to you know eventually respond to those changes in the world yeah and I'd be curious to see if those students um you know like in college or or in the workforce if that is is carrying on and what their success rate is that would be very interesting we'll have to see how the world changes moving forward they say that's always been the piece that we've been missing though Terry just about everything you know we don't know I mean we don't get to our our partner districts get all the feedback from us so it's much easier for say District 58 or 68 to look at how their students are matriculating and how they perform here and where they where they have some difficulty
047and then focus on those things we don't get there isn't a Next Level that that sends information back to us don't we have questionnaires that have gone out to ourselves sure we have that but but it's not they're not always reliable information right you get a very low response rate yeah yeah people moved on from high school at that point yeah so you know but the all those things that we were looking at before are all things that are pretty well proven that these are the these are the these are the uh experiences and talents and and knowledge approach that you need to be successful After High School no matter what it is that you're going to do right it's a pro it's predicting success absenteeism is full day right and you need to be
048it's it's very complex you need to be in school for 300 minutes to be counted to be there for a full day so anytime you're here for less than 300 minutes you're absent in terms of the stats in terms of the yeah the calculation that goes to the state it may not appear that you're like if you're looking at pieces of a day so it's stupid okay but it's calculating each half day and it goes on the number of days of school that school year or for that student so even a student who comes later in September is not going to have the same number of school days as a student is with us from the start of school but it's 10 of the school year okay very complicated here yeah all right uh SAT
049scores so we've looked at these a variety of ways over the years and have I as I've explained uh to the board repeatedly right that really the best way to look at a standardized test score is in the series of tests where you could test a student the same student year over year and measure their growth over time but a combination of switching test scores the pandemic all of those pieces is made it so that has not been possible for us the next best thing is to compare a group of students to the students taking that test that year because they've all come up at the same time through similar conditions and when you go to apply for a university if they are using those scores you're in that cohort that's all being compared to
050one another so what I've done here for the board to kind of give you an idea of that over time is I've taken our district and I've con converted that score for that year is if our district was a student in the country right so you could see how we would compare to all the other students across the country if District 99 was a kid that makes sense and that's what the percentile shows us is where we would fall uh year to year you can see this is why it gets difficult comparing groups of kids to groups of kids right um you really need to compare them to themselves it's really hard for us to know did we fail our kids in math in 2018 or was that just a group of students that like
051math wasn't their thing it's hard hard to know that so 2019 we were at 61 61st percentile across the country so if you lined us up with all the other kids we'd be at that 61st spot right the next year we dropped down to 40. that seems concerning if that Trend continues with the percentile scores but then the next year we're back up to 61 right so if you look at it over time with all of our scores this is what you see right if you would look at the just raw scores it would appear as though our scores were plummeting over time but if you take a look at a comparison to the nation you'll see we reside this is kind of where we sit in District 99 for the past five years now
052in 2020 there's no score because of the pandemic but you'll see we kind of sit in that band For Better or Worse that's where we're at and test scores when you look at them in comparison to all of the kids taking them year to year we're kind of sitting in the same spot well actually I think that that's kind of promising in a way I you know I think back to when my oldest first was taking the act at the time because that was the series we were in and we had him take that test four times and we got him some tutoring right to help him with that because it was a rather high-stakes test right now here we are where many if not most colleges are looking at s-a-t-acts test optional and are
053looking at many other metrics to determine I mean there were schools even I remember back you know around 15 16 when I was looking at colleges that had already moved past the sat on their own because they had already determined for their own students looking at the previous 10 years that how a student did on the act or SAT test was a very very poor predictor of how successful they're going to be at their school at Kalamazoo College was once caused so um and now just everybody's pretty much looking at it that way and so when you have um a situation where parents aren't doing that extra bit but I we're not seeing a huge falloff in how our students are performing I I think that that's kind of that's kind of good news um
054knowing it's not it's it's not the high stakes test so much but but to see that the students are still performing and um yeah and that's why what your the changes that you're talking about across the country with the importance of test scores and looking at College Pathways they're the the lack of students investing as much time and money in test prep leading up to it is a lot of the reasons why if you go out and look at the the Articles and the the thinking out there of what's going on as you see this fall in overall scores you know you can see we're matching that with the rest of the country you could still have districts too that are putting a little bit more emphasis on that um you know just traditionally because
055that's what their Community wants um and that so that also I mean how do all these variables correct really hard to compare districts right next to each other across the state across the country I think this is the most I think the Apples to Apples you're just comparing us to all the other test takers right that year do you have any data on how many times kids take it or you know is it for us it's that just it's that one test that's given in April yeah yeah that's the one that counts for us like we can get some of the other data but the one that shows up on our school report card and the official one for us is that April one that's given whether that's their first one or their fifth one
056you know that that's the one that counts for us sure yeah if a student took another test outside of that right Gina it doesn't count for us or against us we're administering it so late though we're administering it in April yeah and you're you know you're like so I think back to my son by the time he was taking that April test he had already taken the test a few times whereas my daughter Mary who graduated a year and a half ago you know we she took it we had her take it one time as a as just a practice and then she took the test to school and we didn't we didn't get her any extra you know tutoring for it or anything and I I'm sure she might have done even better had
057we put you know as parents if we'd put a little bit more in into it as we did with my son but we just didn't see we didn't see the value in that and I don't think that we're too different than a lot of others and and that's so I know that there's got to be less going on now than there was before I know it's anecdotal my experience but I think it's pretty typical yes that's a graduation request that the state uses that as they have to do it to graduate yeah yeah all right so uh there's some like I said there's interesting nuances when you look at the state level inside of here and you really get the full picture you have to kind of understand how this works so um this is
058shows up on our school report card is meets and exceeds data right so if you're above the line you meet or exceed if you're below the line you don't but what's important is where Illinois sets that line so sat College Board would say you are meeting or exceeding if your score is above 480 on that but Illinois has chosen a higher bar a much higher bar of 540. so students that are scoring above that line aren't in the top half of test takers in the country they're in the top third of test takers in the country right this is something that we as schools have had concerns about because then when you compare Illinois students performance in meets and exceeds to what happens in other states where they've picked the 480 Bar or a lower
059bar in a not it's up to the state to pick where that line Falls so if you compare us to one of the other 17 I think 17 states that use the SAT you'll see that it looks like we're not performing as well on it and meets and exceeds data because we've picked a higher threshold so you know if you hopped on this and I've seen this reported in some sources that everybody below that line has failed right that is not at all the case everybody below that line is not in the top third of test takers and then it works similarly for I'm sorry go ahead no no but just so I'm reading this correctly But but so that that 480 is that the excess line no that's just it's just for reference okay
060okay it's not indicated on the graph and then for math we stay at 5 40 but College Board would put that at 5 30. so uh district 214 has done a lot of work and advocacy around this and this is who has provided us kind of the analysis but uh the top third of so as I said that line is the top third of all students nationally uh it's at the 65th percentile for meets and exceeds so in that case 41 of our students in English 48 of our test takers in math are in the top third of all test takers in the country so back when No Child Left Behind was left behind and we went to Essa every state had to come up with a set of accountability measures and a standardized test
061we needed a standardized test in English and math uh we did we start with act or did we start with us we started with sat um the every state in the nation was required to have an English a math and a science test I'll talk about our science test in a second uh and then they were required to set their thresholds as to what would be meet or exceeds so it's entirely determined by the state the state of Illinois took great pride in the the time that it was setting higher standards for students in Illinois which that's great you know that we have high standards in Illinois it's not so great when you try to compare apples to apples across States well I think I think it's good that we've set higher standards um I
062think the challenge is just in the messaging then right and that's why we're taking so much time at multiple board meetings to try to yeah I know the board has heard some of this several times but you know and Jill has prepared right now which is I'll do a quick transition this little one-pager that we're starting to put out in the district office around the schools just to help the public better understand some of the nuances inside of these scores so we're just trying to make the information more accessible as well this is one that Gina shared in November and I think this does a great job of illustrating though that now not with just raw scores but the meat and exceeds percentiles this shows us in blue uh all the dis all the DuPage
063County high schools in aggregate in Orange and the state of Illinois in red and remember these go back to those cut scores not percentile scores so remember those scores are falling Across the Nation so that's why you see that downward Trend however what's important to look at at this is that District 99 is keeping the distance between our peers right so once again comparing us to those other schools in English you'll see a similar set of Trends in math shows you that like there isn't a massive drop-off when you compare kind of apples to apples all right Illinois Science assessment this is a fun one so Illinois didn't really have a true Science assessment when Esso was put in place uh so they had to quickly write a test for the first several years of
064that test it was up to the school district to determine which students would take that test so some like I think life science it had to be a life science test the students so of us our life science classes by by our freshman primarily took it the first few years okay there's two or three and then in 2019 it became Juniors right across the state all right so if you go even on the Illinois school report card it's very difficult to find any scores before 2021 because the tests continued to change from when it showed up until just the last couple of years it is not a norm test it is not like a high profile test like the SAT or act it's just written around Life Sciences in Illinois and it is really written
065to meet that mandate it doesn't count for anything for College admission or any of those pieces because of that many Juniors and their families opt out of this test so and because it's not a norm test the state only measures participation in your score so they'll give you this graph in the bottom right hand corner of performance level but really what goes into our scores participation rate and for last year we did not have we had 93.5 percent of Juniors take the test you're below the threshold of 95 percent so we did not meet that criteria for next year regardless of like the student performance you can see was pretty strong on that and we were pretty strong in comparison to others in the in the state on that test but we did not meet
066for our accountability metric because the number of of students that chose not to take it um because of the fact that it really means nothing to students a lot of families decide like it's not not an experience I want to engage in one of the key things on the school report card that matches up with many of the board goals over the last five to seven years is encouraging students to engage in high-level academic programs so they do have this screen that has advanced academic programs that looks at things like early college courses which are AP for us it's AP and dual credit uh what you'll see there everything in yellow every number in yellow is an increase from last year it is a board goal that we increase those things year over year over
067year and we have done that Gina's done a great job of working with our curricular teams and teachers across the district to create more and interesting course offerings and our students are taking advantage of those things we know that when we talk about predictors of post-secondary success one of the greatest things is taking an AP or a dual credit course that predicts success at the next level not even scoring high on the exam just interacting with the content and the rigor of that course is a great predictor of post-secondary what are the ninth grade offerings we have we don't have any AP that's what I thought other than we will occasionally have like some students in AP Computer Science we do have some dual credit that occurs more so at the ninth grade level once
068you get to 10th grade you'll see more in computer science and U.S history and then it yeah 11 12 just explodes even in all right other measures of success these are these don't all show up on the school report card but these are indicators that the board has requested of the administration over the last several years through our goal setting process and our strategic planning so many of these have been reported the board in a variety of reports throughout the year but this kind of pulls it all together into one one spot so AP enrollment's up dual credits off Capstone course is up co-curriculars extracurricular activities up those are all predictors of post-secondary success tcd enrollment right higher than we've ever had it I mean and we're on Pace to shatter that number for next
069year as well fabulous and we also have other emerging opportunities that the board has heard about College and Career endorsements a couple years ago we set the we were leading the state in that the state's catching up which is great but we continue to to expand the number of endorsements that we offer for that and then our internship course that the board approved a couple of years ago that is got started during the pandemic but is is continuing to grow yeah the tcd and finally on that sheet was of our scores is the five essential survey this is just based on completion rate so it's it's not a rating of how we score on it it's just do we get enough people to submit so it's really important that our students and families and staff
070complete that survey it helps with our scores just based on completion so we continue to encourage all of those audiences to complete that survey all right uh any questions from the board it's just striking you know just hopefully you know the public is paying attention right because there's there's so many there's so many factors to to look at when we talk about how well our schools are doing right now and if all you're looking at is SAT score and comparing that to the last few years you know you could you could have some concern and legitimately so if you're seeing a falling number and yeah and it's it's not to say that that isn't something that maybe we you know we need to we may need to pay some attention to depending on what happens
071you know going forward um you know you don't want that Trend to keep going down forever right but like SAT scores have for 40 years that's the curve for 40 years true yeah um very true so uh but there are so many other things that were look we're looking at here and and we're required to look at and I think it's good that we look at all these things so I mean I look at that tcd number I'm like you know yeah it's I mean what about that what do you have to say to that I mean that's that's like that's huge that's huge and and yeah and because we know that all of our students are not going on to college most are not going to get afforded not be the right pathway that's
072right yeah some will do both yeah yes so uh there's dual credit classes we're having the number the amount of participation we're having in more you know it's nice to talk about more in AP right we want more but the reason we want that is we want our students to challenge themselves and they're doing that and and so this is huge success it's not perfect there are things we'd like to be better that's why we do what we do right and so we're never satisfied but all in all a good report so thank you any other questions or comments All Right Moving On student fees this is an easy one you know I like this the administration is not recommending any increase for next year anyone knows my history here I'll put on my mark
073Stalin hat and remind the board that during times of high inflation no increase is actually a decrease a good thing yeah yeah how do they do mark pretty good [Laughter] all right yeah the transition between your jury I'm known for that Mark is there anything you wanted or jury anything you wanted to highlight on the actual returning fees they are as indicated the same as they were last year I think I'll give one comparison the top score the the top item registration textbook we pay for our students textbooks some schools sell them and they say they don't charge the fee but they sell them the books and that comes into a much higher than 300.50 fee and then they try to kind of college they try and read yeah at the end of the year
074if they aren't eating you know so that's all I would just say it first well because it's hard to have people pay fees and no well I appreciate this and this is something I think um you know Mark you've always responded you know positively my comments about this over the years and and um you know my goal I guess you know now that I'm getting close to the end of my uh service here you know one of my goals when I first joined uh nearly 12 years ago was was to create less of a Reliance I'd like to see less of a Reliance on these fees because they are not regulated in any way we can charge as much as we want to charge um but yet um you know really I don't you know
075there's this there's this idea that while my kids are in school you know it's okay for me to pay a lot more and and I've never looked at it that way I mean I don't have any students here anymore and I you know I'm happy and proud you know to be paying into this system and and I'm going to be paying for this school improvements many years uh well without you know directly reaping a benefit from that right but I do because I think those students we saw tonight you know there are students they're they're they're part of our community and so you know this is something that can be a burden on people um on families and it's really great that we're able to keep it level because it is in fact you know
076reducing our Reliance on it and it's it's a good thing so thank you I appreciate it sure I have a question yeah like we talked to some kids at South um last semester just in the government classes and they were wondering what do you do with the parking fees or how do you set them and yeah I mean I didn't know the answer yeah the cost is to help offset the maintenance of those lots so snow removal salting you know repaving all of those things that's why they were established Rovers and then there's a high cost of security patrolling those spaces over the course of the school year so it's all it's offset for all of those costs and truly it's not something that when we talk about what what your school is required to
077provide to the community you know providing parking spaces for students to park there is it really it's not required not really right so there's right so what I'm just saying so we've we do a pretty good job with it I think and and uh and so it makes sense that you might have to pay a little bit for it in the village of Downers Grove has done a nice job of partnering with us to provide as much street parking as they feel that they can as well yeah they've been good partners with us over the years so I would just add lived experience of one I work with three people who have teenage children in high school in nearby but not in DuPage County and they were talking about registration fees and they were talking
078about driver's ed and some of them because we were I was talking about how my kids went to Michael's or whatever it was and it was about the same as our driver's ed which I think I probably is more now outside of here driver's Ed's a weird one because it isn't it regulated by the state as to how much we can charge for that one but they were all they were all talking about what they were paying and they were paying substantially more more yeah this is the best our driver's ed is the best deal in town registration yeah overall yeah yeah all right any questions on that one all right I'm assuming from this conversation this is not something that the Lord would like to debate at a future meeting that the board's comfortable
079with the administration's recommendation I am not raising fees yes yeah okay yeah then there's no reason to bring it back for approval because those are our current fees all right hybrid block schedule uh Ryan's been busy uh he's back in person again you know you know I've been here a lot when they've given me my own sign yes yes so you're a fixture now yeah yeah so uh since I've seen you um I am continuing to get feedback from students and staff so just to connect to the Strategic plan um you know I've been going to kids and staff in person rather than sending out by email so um kids have seen me around uh the cafeterias um if I'm subbing for Access sometimes at South and then also walking through the spaces um for
080uh where teachers are just to get their opinions on how things are going and on just to revisit the reason for moving to the schedule in the first place was for students to have an opportunity to get some help from teachers during the day to have some Flex time with our teachers for their professional development by making sure that we've seen all the research about starting later in schools and you know how that helps kids so that consistently start birthday and then also offering opportunities for some deeper learning or enrichment on those longer periods and so since you have seen me so October November and on part of December is what I had been up to and then I came here and made some recommendations following those recommendations I went back out to the schools
081and talked with students about um you know their opinions about that any tweaks that I needed to make before we made some changes for second semester access I think actually Caitlyn mentioned some of those at a board meeting or two ago about some of those changes and then we also started looking at student choice that one of the things that came across with student feedback and parent feedback was giving students more of an opportunity to have some choice in what they're doing during access and then also some of the the concerns that people had with the schedule either about having free time in the middle of the day or things like that and so I started started developing some you know plans and running them by kids whether or not it was a principal student
082advisory or literally just walking table to table in the Commons a student in class today said wait a minute aren't you the voice of access I heard you I'm like yes I am the voice of access uh that yeah that was uh unanticipated when I went into a classroom to check in with a teacher he recognized my voice so get him a name badge that says feedback yes it is a recognizable voice um so uh since then um there's been three things that I've been working on right uh and I think the last time I spoke with you when I was on Zoom we talked about uh some concerns that I'd be working on starting second semester one students being concerned that they were not able to always hear the announcements to the time the
083timing of C lunch and three having too much free time blocked into the middle of the day so um for announcements for students um right now at the end of the first block of the day there's an extra five minutes on Wednesdays and Thursdays for announcements after talking with the kids whether or not they're in the locker room they don't have a first period class they're in a study hall in the Commons something like that that they haven't been able to always connect with those announcements and so we're proposing just taking those five minutes moving them into access all students would then be able to be in a classroom setting if there's a video announcement they'd all be able to see it and so also if there's something happening in resource or an update for
084Access that day that we can give it while they're all there largely students and staff have supported that staff mostly so it separates a little bit from the class and the announcement part that you know the access and the announcements seem to be a better fit and for students it's making sure that sometimes when I've asked them they've said like oh I we really want more career opportunities and resource I'm like oh my gosh we've offered several career opportunities and resources I'm like yeah but I didn't hear that announcement um so this will be able to help close some of those gaps for our kids um the second one was about timing of sea launch this was a Hot Topic um that almost every student to um the student especially students who have C Lunch
085starting at 117 is not something they're fans of um so I've walked the cafeteria a lot on this one students and staff have just said that by the time that they've gotten to see launch at 117 they've either snacked so much during the day that Chartwells I believe is reported that there's actually fewer kids who go through the line during C C Lunch second that they're just exhausted by the time they get to lunch and they're like you know I did have a student say I'm so tired I don't even want to eat um and so we propose flipping uh periods four and two on Thursdays and that would move uh sea lunch up in about an hour and 20 minutes the downfall of that is that ailart starts at 10 25 and so I
086walked this get I walked the cafeteria quite a bit about this um I talked to about 200 students in the cafeteria at South and about 200 at north um I did it during all different periods a lunch C Lunch fourth period resource you name it I've walked through it um and all of them have said that they support the change that while 1025 seems early that fourth period lunch right now starts at 10 56 so students with fourth period lunch they're not going to experience that much of a change other students have said that not everyone has a lunch both and that if they have a fifth or sixth period lunch their resource then lets them out of school for classes at about two o'clock and so and then some students said that I don't
087eat breakfast and so knowing that I'd have that dedicated time another piece of feedback that I didn't anticipate was that by having that period lunch in a different period that there'd be more seats for kids there's fewer kids in study hall and during two and three than there are in seven and eight and so kids said that you know when I come down for lunch there's actually going to be more free seats because kids who are in study hall that are also in the Commons won't be there for a long period because they're not gonna they sort of stake out a table and then that's not available for kids who are at lunch the third consideration was just about three periods in the middle of the day it's the same shift right by flipping period
088four to the beginning of the day and two after access students who wouldn't uh who wanted that same sort of Freedom um so like Caitlyn what period do you have lunch oh yeah fifth all right so um other students would say Caitlyn's a little bit luckier than they are if they have fourth period lunch right her senior counterparts with fourth period launch say like well wait a minute I have 8th period release for sports I have fourth period lunch so I have this big chunk of time right in the middle of the day I would love the same opportunity that Caitlyn has by you being able to come late if I'm a junior a senior in good standing um as the kids that have a fifth and sixth period lunch staff have said the same
089thing that there's staff that have the flexibility of five six that you don't have that same flexibility um of four also students said pretty openly that by having fourth period at the beginning of the day they're more likely to use it as a study hall than they are after they've already had a class and access simply because there's more kids that are rolling through some students have said I have all of the intentions to study at the beginning of fourth period and then I start talking with my friends I get on my phone I stop at the coffee bar and then the eighth period lunch kids start to roll through um and so then suddenly two hours have gone by and haven't used that time so by moving it to the beginning of the day
090when all of their classes are ahead of them that they're going to be able to use that plus there aren't going to be the lunch kids that are also rolling through because we have very few kids that have a second period study hall because the day is just starting out they'll either be a late arrival or an early dismissal so on the next slide um this is what that draft looks like Monday Tuesday remain the same Friday Also Remains the Same and so by flipping periods four and two we are able to move launch into that 2-3 block so one it creates more seats because we won't have kids in study hall two because fourth period was a lunch period we weren't able to run it during this block so by moving it out of
091that space we actually can um and uh moving access our announcements into access so overall I walked the cafeteria with the schedule again with several hundred kids and also with the workspaces for some a lot of the staff especially staff that we're considering part-time making sure that they had an opportunity to see the schedule before their deadline of putting in for part-time and they've a lot of the staff and a lot of the students have said like yes especially fourth period being at the start of the day that while 10 10 25 seems a little bit early for some of them they're like I will take it if I get fourth at the beginning of the day and a lot of the staff said things similar one of the other things I've attached a video
092so I don't know if you got a chance to see the video I'm not going to play the video now this is uh so the student that said oh you're the voice of access this is a video that they just saw um talking about student choice and access so as we were talking with students in December many of them said sometimes I want to go see my teacher but I can't get a seat they've already given out their passes other teachers have said I've given out my passes but I know that you said only give out three on those days for each of us but I give out six because I have more kids who want to meet with me my partner who also teaches in the same room gave out six and we still
093had 20 kids who didn't leave without a pass so now we have all these kids in the room um and so students have said like you know parents and students have said that sometimes on Black Days it feels long and if I don't have PE that day I want to move other kids said like I just need a quiet place to study so we've built in a student Choice model where students will have about 50 options with a set number of seats and once those seats are gone they won't be able to choose that anymore so there's open gym is available at South the library is like Puzzles games and things like that at North the library it shows quiet study we have collaborative study available and then a wide variety of meet with my
094teacher for help they can meet with their counselor they can meet with one of the social workers or psyches if they want and so students on if you click to the next slide so as I talked with students this is one of the slides I used in the screencast to hopefully that they've started to feel some of the changes that we've made in Access right we've simplified the access schedule we have streamlined some of the lessons seniors are maybe sometimes having a lesson that only they see and then sometimes they have an autonomy day when the underclassmen are watching or experiencing a lesson we've also made all of the student pass days on Wednesdays so it makes it easier for teachers and students to have that same time but it was that providing student choice
095to meet their needs that's that's the part of this pilot that we're going to do on February 15th with our Juniors and seniors that we're going to address so on the next slide I have a timeline of what that looks like and just for Simplicity stake I I keep calling this open table for our students right this is the opportunity well Ryan's talking about the student choice is the opportunity for every student to kind of Reserve their seat and what they need for that day so student support with the past is the teacher reaches out and invites the student into their space this flips that the opposite direction where the student then reserves the space that they feel that they need so on February 2nd that video that I have linked in there that's what
096the students watched and they were also given access in their Google classrooms to look at the list of things that would be available to them so that on the 9th so next or this coming Thursday when they get to access the Juniors and seniors there'll be an announcement with some reminders for example open gym you know please leave your backpacks in your blocker the we won't be able to use the locker rooms wear proper shoes things like that um then um about five minutes into access I'll open the form and um all 1340 Juniors and seniors at South and 1042 at North they will make their choice on their form and I will be sitting there making sure that the technology doesn't go Haywire so I'm I won't sleep I'd probably Wednesday night um and
097then um teachers will get a list of the kids who chose them so that on the 15th they instead of reporting to their access they report to the room that they chose and then on the 16th they will get a survey asking me um me asking them did you find a choice that met your needs um overall did you feel like you had a successful experience and then do you have any suggestions um before we run the next pilot which will be with freshman and sophomores mid-march and then we'd like to do another pilot with all four grade levels my goal is that we can run a couple of these student Choice Pilots between the SAT and AP testing so that students that want to try to have a larger group sort of meeting with
098some of their AP teachers would be able to have that opportunity through this format also that as we're looking through these Pilots there are plenty of flexible scheduling companies out there and as the staff and students show that yes this is absolutely a direction we want to continue in that we will start exploring using those so that we we come back in the fall that everyone has experienced it and so it's not something new I would love that that as we try these Pilots that this is something where students and teachers can count on oh yes this isn't something new this is something that we've done before and so they're starting the year feeling comfortable about making those choices and how the system works and that is it I got a couple questions so first
099of all I want to commend you because I think you know you presented at our last meeting and the results of the survey which had several thousand respondents yeah and the fact you know when you say I talk to students you're not you're not pulling two or three people aside and saying hey give me your opinion you're literally talking to hundreds and hundreds of students and I think that's important and I I commend you for that if a student has a specific concern or a teacher has a specific concern what's the mechanism that they can uh usually they just email me and say hey can you stop by um and so I am at North and South quite a bit um so students if especially if I'm subbing their access at South because you know
100they have more access rooms and so they have fewer people available to sub students will ask there was a U.S history class at South that was doing debates about the schedule and things and so students were emailing me questions and all that kind of stuff which is great I offered to come in and that was like probably one step too far Heroes also know they're students are not shy about giving you their opinion if you just sit down at their table and speak with them one-on-one that's why I haven't been doing a lot of like Google form surveys in between the last one you know my next survey will come out March 20th and you know I hope that we get even more responses especially from families as well but if you just sit down
101like how's it going this is something I'm thinking about is there something that I'm missing um that they're they're pretty good about it um and so but the student newspapers have reached out I've done you know all quite a few interviews with them about that you know we're going to a parent meeting on Wednesday at North where I was going to ask if there's I think Monday yeah okay um so and then staff we did drop it we did virtual online sessions we did drop-in sessions so we've been available to staff as well yeah for staff it's you know stopping at their supervisions into their Department offices things like that knowing where you know people hide you know I I know the staff at North far better than I do at South since I worked
102there and so um I think they're a little bit more willing to just like reach out to me and say like hey come over here um and I'm getting to know the South the staff a lot better so well my other quote um so if we have a lot of students who can't get in to see their teachers I mean we're tracking that obviously or we're just we're getting it anecdotally uh how are we gonna how are we gonna make it open that up so I mean the first the first change was this semester of putting all student support with a pass on the same day to kind of streamline that okay so we heard first semester that there were some challenges in doing that so that was our first step in that change so
103now everybody is free across the building at the same time yeah so and I think then with the student Choice model teacher or students will now be able to choose once you the after we move through the pilots the good thing about also using uh sort of a third party scheduler is that you can open it up to teachers a day before students choose and the teachers that need to see you know the I need to see these seven students like okay I have 20 seats in my room for this I'm going to choose these seven so that when it opens up to the students to make their choices those students their choices already made for them and then 13 other students can choose that that spot or the other way a kid could go
104to a teacher and say I absolutely need to be with you I can't fight for a seat like I have to yes I didn't get a seat with you last week can you please choose me this week so that I make sure that I get a seat yeah so and as part of access do we like do we how do we communicate that come out as are the announcements or um for the students to report with the pass yeah I mean how do we just communicate this because I'm not living it it just seems kind of and because it's new yeah so this is the teachers have a pass that they can invite students with um and that but if the student really needs to see the teacher there's a lot of yeah they know
105how do they know how to say Ryan you've got to put me in because I'm really struggling um I think some students said better than that than others we do try to coach kids up about doing that um that this Thursday or yeah this Thursday when Juniors and seniors are choosing um that the freshmen and sophomores are doing something with student conferencing so teachers in Access or you know just asking kids hey how you doing um do you need the teacher do you know how to reach out to that teacher so we gave a list of prompts for teachers to kind of like coach kids up that aren't as good as maybe you know asking for help I also think that teachers do are pretty good about going to their kids and saying like I
106really need to see you I want to see you during access and if a student says like I've already taken for Access that they've here are my office hours so those are also published on their syllabi yeah yeah that's a good point because it's not every teacher has two and a half hours yeah and any any student requesting help from a teacher they need to work together within 24 hours to find a mutually agreeable time to connect so and that's that's contractual that's in the contract so whether it's one of these formal things between office hours or access or it's more informal I just need to connect with you all of those things are expectations across the organization thank you I just wanted to say I agree I command you for the award you've done
107on this for talking with the students because that's important that we made this change so I think it's good we'll see what we come from I have kind of a two-parter yeah so uh one knowing that there's a maturity level difference from freshmen to senior year and we think about how students are using their time wisely when they have choice and how to spend their time you know um what more can we do to help some of those freshmen sophomore students and I don't want to pick on boys but um who rabbit play video games and really stereotyping but anyhow that seems to be a bit of an issue I think and then the other thing that I've heard is that we have instances of that age going getting to go home early not a
108freshman and sophomore that's not happening with 14 or 15. in good standings with parent permission interesting because that's I've I talked to one parent today who has well they might be signing their own kid out but that wouldn't be like a parent can always pull their out of school but that's not that's good that's good news for me because I I think that they need to they definitely need to be here so far as using the time appropriately it's it is a learning process and our teachers I've talked to a lot Ryan and I have talked to a lot of teachers about the different things that they're doing to try to set students up to be successful so like you've fallen behind in the class so during resource you should be working on these two
109missing assignments right now obviously it's up to the child during that period they're also reaching out to parents with similar things like that but it's also important to recognize not every kid is going to be successful within that and that's part of the learning process we heard so much from kids that went off and left us like that went off to college after us or wherever after us that academically they were really well prepared for whatever came next but they over and over again alumni would come back and say I just wish you would have done a better job of helping me manage my time like their days if you look at a high school kids schedule they are scheduled in from when they wake up until they go to sleep at night for a
110lot of students especially those in activities and Athletics and they're not given the opportunity to practice uh the world's a lot different than like when we were kids you know my parents would kick me out of the house and say don't come back until dinner right and you had to manage your time the world isn't that way anymore so what these blocks of time allow students to do is to practice but with the oversight of us there with them to think that every kid is going to be perfect at it no that's why they get that opportunity to practice when we look at this school year it's only been about like 23. right yeah that students have had these over the course of the year so there's been 23 opportunities to practice over a course
111of four years students will have a lot of time to practice and I expect that they will get better the schools have also put in supports for students that demonstrate repeatedly that they're not being successful in that space or if it's not playing out well in their classrooms where we're building a little more structure around students in those settings so by all means is it perfect no but will it get better with time yes the other thing that we're lacking this year that we won't be lacking in future years is older students that know how this works that set the example I forgot about that show their peers all of our kids all four grade levels all of our staff this year are figuring it all out on their own so our teachers are even
112learning is the course what prompts work with kids what what nudges work what assignments work so our staff will get better at it our counselors get better at noticing which kids aren't being successful and then kids as they come into school will see their older peers that have figured this out setting the example for how we behave during resource how we manage our time what we do and all of those things year over year resource of over resource this will improve and get better this is just this is the first year and you know it's yes it's not going to be perfect and it's not going to be as good as it's going to be but uh every every week we get better at this every year we'll get better at this hey come this
113time next year 50 of our students this will be the only high school schedule that they've ever lived right so this is a long game for the opportunities that this schedule offers and presents I'm fully supportive and I've been one of the things I've been responding to inquiries about it you know we're only we've gone through one semester you know and and uh you know it's we need to give it a chance you know we need to we need to you know we we knew rolling out something so new that there'd be some bumps and we're trying to work through those things and I think Ryan's done a great job here presenting some solutions to respond to those those issues going forward but it's been it's we've only been doing this for a very short
114amount of time so uh yeah and one of the commitments we made to the board and the public was to do what Ryan is doing yeah many school districts would roll this out and we're like this is what we're doing we're not going to evaluate the programming we've made a huge dedication this year in time and resources and time with the board in reporting out on what our experiences are and chasing after that goal within the Strategic plan of valuing student voice I think that's very apparent in Ryan's work here so um you know we'll get better at it faster because we are doing that program evaluation follow-up to my previous comments about the younger students are we having conversations with any 8th graders right now about what to expect the coming year and how
115to manage time is there something our partner districts could could do to help prepare and and get get those students ninth grade orientation like this spring we haven't but on the way in right yeah when you talk to ninth graders they're they're and you ask them like what do you think of the schedule they're like this is all I've ever known it's great you know it's better than Middle School you know so it's a different conversation than talking to a senior but it has you're giving giving some different years to compare to giving those those eighth grade parents to an opportunity to have discussions with their students about what's going to be expected and there's going to be some time in the schedule a couple days a week where they're going to be expected to
116structure their time themselves and to do it in a productive way and yeah and things like Mad Dash in our oh I know orientation sure those things even their peers will help them set that up and and like this year during Mad Dash or or ninth grade orientation over at North no upperclassmen there that was leading those sessions had ever lived the schedule before right so this year is our ninth graders come in they've all and they'll be like already sharing those tips and tricks and how to get around and how to make that work that none of our current students students could share with our ninth graders this year so you know year after year having those upper classmen to set the example will be important thank you moving on um the next item
117for consideration is the issuance of not to exceed 2 million 880 000 General obligation limited bonds to be issued by the district pursuant to section 17-2-1 2.11 of the school code for Life Safety projects related to Downers Grove North fiscal building the Board of Education will consider the adoption of a resolution providing for the issue of said bonds and the levy of a direct annual tax to pay the principal and interest thereon the resolution sets forth the parameters for the issuance of said bonds and sale thereof by designated officials of the district Mark Stalin our district controller will summarize the printed terms of these parameters including the specific parameters governing the manner of sale length of maturity rates of Interest purchase price and tax levy for said bonds Mr Stalin right so um this is
118going to be for the fire prevention and life safety work at North High School um it was known to be there to some extent but all of a sudden it just is deteriorated very quickly and become unsafe so um this is what Debt Service extension base is designed for to either use it for emergencies like this or some projects you need to move up um or for other projects that involve life safety and working cash Authority as well so this is this stream that we have is protected by the property tax cap act we don't violate the property tax cap we we just still get the same amount when the when the tax cap came in the same amount every year that we had four bonds when it took place it was like froze that
119amount and then each year you would have that much to work with in bonds and sometimes you wouldn't use it for five years and you used a big you know this is going to be um probably be the smallest one I think we've ever done it's it's only going to be for 2.8 million dollars 2.88 actually and um it's important to know that this is a parameters action that we're asking you to take tonight we don't we haven't sold the bonds in fact we and really even fully agreed on whether we're going to do a direct sale or a public sale you're trying to to do a direct sale where somebody we know or some buying other schools by other bonds sometimes and we couldn't get anybody to to bite on that because the interest
120rates are five percent on treasury notes and so they couldn't come back our cost is going to be we we believe it'll be less than 2.88 for the cost and the interest rate involved in it so instead of going with the private sale where we'd have seen maybe high for 4.8 percent we're going to get something in the 2.8 range we believe the parameters resolution here is for the president of the board and myself and the superintendent to be eligible to get to sign off on documents before the board and then bring it up bring it to the next board we're meeting we're going to do it in the market as soon as we can wait for a good day to issue the bonds and then get your approval but it this resolution is stating
121some parameters that we can't break when we when we do that public sale is has been decided two point 8 million is what we anticipate to be the total in cost with all costs of including costs of issuing the bonds which is so a real interest on the buys themselves or close to two and two and a half percent but 2.88 is the maximum that we would sell them at um average will be for six years the total won't because there's a timing on this Authority they want it to end there won't be any bonds that would be um so that would go later than December 15th of 2029 um you can't exceed a five percent interest rate we expect the actual net totaling costs as I said to be 2.82 for the taxpayer it's
122really unusual there's a lot of early interest payments it'll go on this one so that the impact is very low for the first five years and it's only a six year bond but those would be very low um somewhere like I think it's twelve dollars for the average annual cost for these and um 22 22.63 would be I'm sorry the annual total amount for these over time for an average 400 000 remote did move it up to four hundred thousand dollars I was almost going to do 100 and let you just keep adding it right now but for a 400 000 home like the first year is estimated to be 3.91 yeah three bucks so and it gets until the very last year ready to stay low the last year it gets to be forty
123dollars because that's when a lot of the principals can do it's just the way that the bonds will be be laid out into the market um tax rate impact is .0094 which is you know if our we have a larger than five billion dollar assess valuation so we're very lucky that we can pass this on and it's very little cost to the community members and the businesses and the taxpayers in our district um so that's those are the main things we need to keep an eye on when we're issuing them and we hope to do it in the next week or two any questions I just like to thank Mark for bringing this to us I know it's something that we hope to take care about at Capital over a period of time so it
124wasn't like we didn't know that we were going to needed to do something here but the urgency of what's happened is has has had to accelerate what we're doing and you know to be clear if we didn't do this it would cost it would cost us a lot more you know the potential and the risk is huge yeah no right well in every we think we're doing section through the building oh I'm sure yeah yeah no that's the old well and this is this is the same funding that we would have used a couple years ago yes it's just we're accelerating it a couple years earlier just to make sure we avoid any anyhow I'm happy to support this need a motion for the Board of Education to approve the resolution providing for the dis
125for the issue of not to exceed two million eight hundred eighty thousand dollars General obligation limited tax school bonds of Community High School District number 99 DuPage County Illinois for the purpose of altering and reconstructing a school building and purchasing and installing equipment therein for fire prevention and safety energy conservation and school security purposes providing for the levy of a direct annual tax to pay the principal and interest on said bonds and authorizing the sale of said bonds to the purchaser thereof so removed second Mike and Chris any additional discussion right I have important thank you hi Cheryl Fuller hi Jenny hagstrom aye Jerry pavasich aye Joanna Vasquez Drexler aye and Nancy kopka aye so the motion is carried and said resolution adopted Mrs knighted please record the same and the records of the Board
126of Education of Community High School District 99 DuPage County Illinois okay thank you Mark as always uh do we have any slips for the second reception okay this is the second reception of visitors which is intended for audience members to address the board on any topic pertaining to Community High School District 99 comments are limited to three minutes to provide all visitors an equal opportunity to address the board individuals needing more time should submit their thoughts and writing to the board secretary visitors addressing the board need to submit a comment slip to the board secretary will be invited to the microphone prior to addressing the board audience members should State their full name the proceedings are being tape recorded for the purpose of producing accurate meeting minutes I the board president reserved the right to
127modify these protocols if circumstances worn audience observation of these protocols is appreciated all right so uh one speaker Gary Baker backer backer oh I'm sorry Mr bocker I'll get it right next time all right Gary Bob um I wanted to address uh I guess two topics in like three minutes the state accountability metrics um Hank I don't think your background's in math I don't think um mine is I'm an actuary I deal with Statistics probabilities and I totally agree with you on the SAT scores looking at Raw scores you can't look at the trends but when you show the percentiles for the SATs as well as the performance assessments I see a downward trend Downers Grove North is a statistically large enough group where those you know maybe that one year the 40 percentile that
128is concerning but otherwise you see a downward Trend and if I were any of you I would be concerned I agree things are maybe across the country there are issues but you know your focus is right here and relative to others it looks like our numbers are coming down crazy drastically no but they are coming down that's my interpretation professional statistician person based on the numbers that you shared Hank so I would you know lots of factors and Mike I think you said there's lots of factors we can't we can't take all of them into consideration I get that but we need to take off our rose-colored glasses and look at the data and see what's happening and then think about maybe we shouldn't Pat ourselves in the back maybe we should be saying oh
129is there something here we need to do so I offer that for your consideration on the hybrid schedule um you know thank you for all your work um one thing and I I don't have perspective on this but it seemed like you're Gathering of feedback a concern I had was it seems like you're invested in the hybrid schedule which is totally get that but if you're Gathering feedback I don't know if you're the gatekeeper of it I'd make sure some of that feedback's coming through other people because you have a perspective if you came to me in the Commons at lunch and I'm a high schooler I'm not going to give you my full unfiltered view um it'd be better if got it through somebody else because you're the access guy so that's something that
130that I would offer I was also very pleased not to hear again Mike I think you said this that hey we're gonna adjust as we're going to monitor we're going to adjust hey you know we're not just going to put this out in the way it is and I would encourage you to say well what's the time that if you look at it and it's not working that you go back to it as a parent I have concerns about the extent of teaching time especially for young males in high school who maybe aren't self-sufficient it's a reality we might want to teach them but I would say reflect on that and that might be something you need to deal with and don't be afraid to go back if you ever do go back won't be
131my problem my kid will be out but anyway thank you for your time thank you okay um did you have anything else I um oh I do have one thing I just remembered my sticker so uh February 17th is Founders Day in District 99 so that will be the day that the election was actually held to split the community into two districts a hundred years ago so we're doing a little celebration in each of the school uh Jill and Lauren have led the charge with the principals and the activity directors to Mark our 100th day we have little stickers for everybody we'll have stickers for the kids that day and that officially kicks off the 100th year of the district although next year will be our 100th full school year so it's kind of weird
132how it worked in District 99. our first graduating class actually split their year between the Consolidated district and the separate District so um it's always interesting because we'll say it's our whatever year the North High has been open or the year of the district but this is officially our Founders Day is coming up so February 17th 2023 the district will have existed for 100 years um so a little celebration of that but a little commemorative sticker for the board members but all the kids and staff will be getting uh that day as we celebrate so I just wanted to bring that to your attention thank you [Laughter] we need a motion to adjust I move we adjourn second all the Mike and Terry all those in favor aye all those opposed we are attorney thank
133you have a good evening thank you