001Mike Davenport here Christopher Espinoza here Jenny hagstrom here Gary pavasich here join a Vasquez Drexler here Nancy kupka here Luca palauskas here and Caitlin Vincent here okay thank you let's have aquarium stand for the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay I'm not the last one is that a student perspectives um all right uh who's first this month I can go first all right okay okay so starting off second semester we've made um some changes to access in different parts of our schedule from the survey that we did last semester so some of those changes are only really giving seniors autonomy days to kind of make that just because you
002know we're adults and we kind of have those time management skills um done well as like the underclassmen need a little bit more support and structure so we've changed that to kind of just giving seniors those opportunities and then we also have made sure that teachers and students have the same schedule when it comes to student support with a past day so that help is more easily accessible and that they can get it when they need it a different change is that we shut down the West events in New Wing like seating um arrangements for the school day just so just so that like individual classes can take more advantage of that space and it kind of like limits student stitching class to hang out in those areas so we've made those areas more accessible
003for classes to use rather than English students good um and some fun things that are coming up is we we've had a lot of senior nights in our Sports we just had our girls basketball senior night I'm pretty sure there's been a girls bowling senior night so a lot of celebrations going on the sports level we also just had our g99 Hoops packed the place which was super fun and really gathers the community around our d99 athletes and then the girls basketball program just had our way back Pat night which is a fundraiser for an Alzheimer's awareness and I'm pretty sure we raised around seven thousand dollars wow so with the community support and donations we were able to donate to that awesome Foundation and then we also are having our freshman orientation night which
004is super exciting for the incoming freshmen just to give them a taste of what they'll be expecting at South High next year and then we next month is Black History Month and because of that we're having a lot more activities and games going on our resources to just get the students involved and we're kicking off the month of February with our school spirit assembly which is always super fun with different competitions that students can engage in in fighting for the spirit jug that as a senior I'll finally be able to win because it's always biased but I'm super excited to finally win school job and just have that school spirit um so like Caitlyn said we're all starting to get back in after the long break which we all much needed just to refresh and
005um get back in the groove of things and by starting off I know last time I talked about how we were thinking about doing some like cleanup stations um in our cafeteria areas and our areas where people are able to sit during their free periods and so we've started doing that and I I personally have seen a lot more um help from the students cleaning up their areas anything they leave behind obviously there's stuff that we can still work on but I know I see that at the beginning of the day there's towels and different paper napkins and now if you go at the end of the day most of them are used up and people are actually engaging in helping their school Community stay cleaner throughout many sports have started off and we're off
006to a great start for the new season I know track and field has also started and everyone is just getting into being a part of a team and working together and getting their sched schedules back to normal I know that there are a few big accomplishments that we've gone through such as the jazz band has a performance on January 31st featuring The Northern Illinois University Jazz and Jazz groups from Downers Grove South our girls basketball game we have one on January 27th which is featuring coaches versus cancer which is a fundraiser we do and most of the proceeds are going to go to an American Cancer Society also our Varsity Boys Basketball team is off to an amazing start we are going to have a matchup against the 16th ranked Lions Township and Chicago Sun
007Time says it's one of the needed watch up matches to see in Illinois also we have JV and varsity cheer teams that placed first and second at wsx conference comp and varsity Athena dance team finished sixth at sectionals and overall with engaging in the school Community we have had a whole week for World languages we had 22 different countries being represented and 22 different staff members a part of our school that shared any places that they visited throughout this the year and then also we had a great amount of people we had 12 North students who got the ilmea All-State honors and which we find that to be a great accomplishment thank you any questions of our students all right okay hearing none we'll move on to the approval of minutes I need a motion
008for the Board of Education to approve the minutes of the December 12 2022 business meeting so moved go ahead think it was Joanna and Terry thank you very much Joanna Vasquez Drexler yes I Terry favorsage aye Mike Davenport aye Mr Espinoza hi I'm sorry I didn't hear it it's real Fuller hi I'm Nancy cupka hi the minutes are adopted okay we'll move to our first reception of visitors do we have anybody for the first group yes okay the meeting agenda includes two opportunities for comments from the audience the first reception of visitors is intended for audience members to address the board about any agenda item on which the board will vote the second reception of visitors is intended for audience members to address the board on any topic pertaining to Community High School District 99.
009comments will be limited to three minutes to provide all visitors an equal opportunity to address the board individuals needing more time should submit their thoughts in writing to the board's secretary Mrs neidek visitors addressing the board need to submit a comment slip to the board secretary and 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 and it is being live streamed I the board I the boards provide presiding officer reserve the right to modify these protocols if circumstances warrant audience observation of these protocols is appreciated uh we have one for the first reception of visitors uh Julia Kennedy Beckman evening I'm sorry I have to stand on my toes good evening it's
010so good to see all of you I'm here representing that thank you very much here representing the District 99 Foundation I had come I was going to come simply to observe the board because I haven't been here for a while but I noticed on your agenda you are accepting a wonderful donation that we just made to Downers Grove South for the new Esports program and they're very excited there we're always so glad to support these wonderful creative programs that our teachers apply for and we noted that the ihsa is already recognizing this as a sport which is I got to get with the program myself anyway thank you very much for accepting it and we uh as I said or I started to say I believe that Downers Grove North is going to try to
011do the same thing A little competition going there but thank you again and again the foundation is always so happy that the the district supports our efforts thank you thank you all right okay we'll move on to the public hearing the next agenda item for the board of education is the public hearing to receive public comments on the proposal to sell Bonds in the amount of three million dollars for the purpose of conforming conforming its existing facilities that house students to the building code promulgated by the State Board of Education of the state of Illinois by altering reconstructing and repairing sub-facilities and having equipment purchased and installed therein the life safety bonds all persons Desiring to be heard will have to will have an opportunity to Present written or World testimony with respect there too
012jury Etheridge our chief School business official will explain the reasons for the proposed issuance of the life safety bath to read well the original galvanized water piping through the oldest parts of North High School is causing water discoloration rust buildup in the pipes and low water pressure the galvanized piping needs to be removed and replaced with copper piping this project is being moved up by two years to meet the emerging needs it is expected to cost just under three million dollars the district does not have sufficient available resources on hand to fund this project and therefore will need to issue bonds this project does qualify to be funded by fire prevention and life safety bonds could be the opportunity for anybody to address the board or for the board we've talked about this uh already
013in previous meetings so November yes the other comments from the hearing none from the audience oh okay I said nothing for me okay and there was no written testimony and none received to this point if any come in after this we of course will forward it onto the board and no one from the audience okay are we permitted to ask questions your you can provide testimony to the board but this isn't an opportunity for dialogue I just like to make a it's like a reception of visitors around specifically the bonds that I would pose to the board is whether there are any funds that were originally intended for covid that could be applied to this expense there are no funds from Esser covet release relief funds that would qualify for for this type of work
014so interesting that came up from from the public hearing um that that's not what those funds are intended for we wouldn't be allowed to use them that's not what what the Esser funds were intended for all persons Desiring to be heard have been an opportunity to present oral Unwritten testimony with respect to the proposed issuance of the life safety bonds I need a motion for the hearing to be adjourned I move that we adjourn the hearing second Mike and Terry thank you very much any additional discussion uh Mrs Knight please take the role for the vote on the motion Mike Davenport aye Terry pavisich aye to one of us coach Drexler aye Christopher Spinoza aye Cheryl Fuller aye Jenny hagstrom aye and Nancy cupka aye the motion is carried in the hearing is adjourned we
015will move on then to the recommendations and reports of the superintendent all right uh the first one is a quarterly financial report injury we'll be presenting this and fund balances um so the operating fund balances as of December 31st as you can see we're right around 55 million dollars and they're right on target it's been our revenues so we are Midway through the year and we've received about 90 percent of our revenues through December we have received state aid payments on a timely basis which in the past few years it's been on delayed schedule so that has helped out there's nothing really other to remark on that other than maybe we are seeing a little higher collection rate on registration fees any questions on any of the revenues it looks like food service is also
016going up a little bit we've got 100 at the beginning of the year for last year and then we have some new vending machines okay that are that we were not expecting to have this much in revenues on the vending machine all right is that more drinks or is that no it's that snacks it's actually do you want to share what you think about the vending machines um so personally I did it when first going getting into the school and seeing the new vending machines um I thought it was only like you know the basic granola bars fruit snacks different chips and drinks and I know often to the corner there's um there's I think too many machines that actually have like you can get a yogurt parfait their sandwiches that you can get and
017it's when you have a free period and you you want something like healthier or say something heavier than just a few chips and you can get a different option um I know personally I have first period off and I don't get to eat lunch because I have a zero period too and um so I get something like a sandwich or a yogurt parfait for breakfast and it's nice because sometimes it's not open during those periods in the middle and it's nice and fresh yes oh yes it is it's good by Chartwell oh okay so so our people and the vending machines except credit card oh okay even better so so that yeah yeah [Laughter] and under expenditures well our total expenditures are in line with expectations except we do have some areas that are slightly
018higher than what we expected but then we have some areas that are slightly lower so they balanced it out we monitor these areas that are showing some variances in case we need any future adjustments uh to help offset any budget overages but at this point we believe that our expenditures should stay in line with what our expectations are so you're not expecting too much more in the capital outlay yeah because that's at 105. right and a a good portion of that is due to the real estate purchase for t99. we didn't actually put that in the budget and then we made that decision to make the purchase okay and the majority of our other capital projects are done they're done over the summer so that's where I see just you know the previous year we
019were at 60 percent so yeah we got 40 more to go right now we yeah okay property purchase makes up the great majority of that but there's not another 40 of things sitting out there no okay we made those adjustments knowing okay okay so at this point in the year we do believe that our total revenues and total expenditures will align with our budgeted figures very good yeah any more questions thanks Terry all right tax compliance uh this one comes back to the board every year about uh what's called Arbitrage I'll turn this over to jury as well so I thought it might be helpful just to give you a little bit of background on what this is uh so state and local government issuers of tax exempt bonds must comply with federal tax rules
020both at the time the bonds are issued and then during the entire period the bonds are outstanding in order for the bonds to maintain their tax exempt status the post-issuance compliance which is what we're talking about tonight it consists of providing bondholders with the district's financial data on an annual basis we use our bond Underwriters to report all the required information to our bondholders through Emma which is an electronic system our bond Underwriters completed this annual post-compliance requirement in December for the year 2022. this report is simply to inform the board that the district has completed the reporting requirements and that the bonds are in compliance with federal tax rules good questions and as as dree noted this isn't an action item it's just a report that we must provide the board each year okay
021all right uh the next one is a action item up uh later on this evening uh this comes to the board every year about this time of the year uh this is the recommendation for uh what we would increase the teacher stipend for summer school over the year generally we follow CPI as the board is well aware CPI this year is far greater than what our cap is so our recommendation to the board is that the increase reflects the r capped five percent uh increase in that rate this is an action item this evening I will also note generally we bring you also the salary for the coordinator but that is rolled into Ryan's job so so we don't have a coordinator salary to bring you any questions from the board on this all right
022the next item is the proposed summer calendar this follows the traditional calendar we've been following for quite a while here a couple of new wrinkles uh well one old wrinkle and one new wrinkle this is the first year in which Juneteenth which is an Illinois and federal holiday falls during the summer school calendar so there's an adjustment that week for that and then this year the Independence Day holiday falls at the beginning of the week so we'll take the beginning days off in the beginning of that week and then shift to picking up school at the end of that week so our students that traditionally have four day summer school weeks we'll have three days but it'll be at the end of the week rather than the beginning of the week otherwise it's pretty standard
023the way it's been over the last several years questions on that one that's an action item this evening as well all right for the next presentation you get Ryan live in person this time thanks for dealing with the tech with me last time and it's much shorter this uh this time so uh with the survey um the survey that we gave in October we're in 2 337 students completed the survey because the last time we gave the athletic and activities survey had such a low response rate we had about 287 kids fill out the survey and so I rolled it into the survey where I knew they were in school going to take it and so I presented the questions um at in that survey so we have a much greater response rate I don't
024know if yeah okay um I'll be your clicker thank you uh so uh we asked the same questions uh each time except I added a new one and I'll I'll mention it when I get to it um so we ask students if they're interested in participating specifically in school sponsored Sports you can see that with freshmen it starts around 70 right they're eager to get involved um that they don't have a job yet um that uh they're still trying things out um to see who they're becoming um and so but gradually it drops off and so um seeing the survey results over the last couple of years and seeing that drop off it's pretty consistent about a 20 drop off from freshman year to senior year and so I added a third question asking if
025you are saying that you can't or are not participating why is that and so we'll see that um in a couple of slides I just wanted to point out too that there's there's more opportunity for the freshman and sophomores because you have the JV opportunities that don't exist in some of the sports by the time you get to senior Year yes absolutely right um and so um if you go to the next one I broke it down by school um they're pretty consistent right there's a slightly higher participation rate in athletics at north than at South but it's you know a pretty consistent number and even the no I'm not able to participate is a pretty consistent number 10 about 10.5 to 10.8 percent at both schools and then so that prompted me to ask
026the question uh why aren't you participating which is the next slide um and we broke it down by grade level so you can see that inverse right I work after school seven percent of our freshmen but 41 percent of our seniors at least of seniors who responded to the survey right um and taking care of a family member and club sports is interesting that most of our freshmen and sophomores that are saying that they're not participating are still participating in club sports right whether or not that's you know volleyball or dance or anything like that and then other is about 14 for our freshmen through nine percent for our seniors and those ranged from I've been at school all day I don't want to stay um my friends don't participate in that sport so I
027no longer participate in that Sport and so but otherwise most of it revolved around working taking care of a family member or participating in activities or Athletics outside of school sorry go ahead do we have any meaningful percentage of kids who just couldn't afford it um so with fee waivers if a student you know is wants to participate and they're on a fee waiver that they're I haven't asked the question of do you not participate due to finances usually um if we know that a student is struggling financially that they'll usually connect with their counselor and then we'll figure out a way in order to help that student participate right but I'm just wondering if we do anything to make sure students know that we offer that I could check with C Triple S on
028how we do that um like proactively because we've offered it for many many years that's a great question so I don't know how they know if the question had been asked and there was a higher number than there than expected then that would lead you to believe that that information isn't getting communicated like you like we like it to be communicated right so yeah I certainly can ask it the next time we give it sure thank you I had a question as well would it the uh one two the sixth one this question does not apply to me since I am involved in a school sponsor it's border activity which question in particular are they referring to um the question of the reasons that I'm not participating in an after school activity or Athletics that
029they that they it's a required choice and so they said no no like this I am participating so you ask me why I'm not participating does not matter to me so that's nice got it doesn't matter okay it's almost felt like yeah I was starting to read a double negative yeah that question would um uh go with uh you know like speech team and stuff like that they're participating in that but not a sport so they're so activities are going to be next I have the next three slides are on activities these are these are just Athletics yeah so I'm sorry so when you the other percentages like I participate in clubs or activities outside of school have you taken that 48 percent the question is not apply to me is that out of the
030denominator or is that in the denominator for the rest of it that's where I was yeah so this the number of students who chose that in this question is across the district and remember the kids could skip um skip the question um but some kids chose to answer the question okay um so uh I don't know if that represents every student like you it's not going to say well I didn't ask my question right okay and you calculated out the other percentages yes that includes that does that include that include things so that like so there's if there's you know 3 000 students that answered that 46 they had 1500 students is in there okay question thank you yeah it's just to give every student a spot to land as they take the survey but
031the other questions aren't mutually exclusive right you could have more than one answer you could have more than one answer yeah uh so the next one is participation activities um interestingly enough um there's not as much of a drop off in activities right um that as I have been walking the cafeterias talking with kids and getting their feedback um I have asked like you know what is it about the Athletics versus activities um a lot of it is you know commitment to being on a rostered Varsity Sport is much higher than it is to be participate um you can choose your level of participation and activity and so that response is some of the drop-off and also activities sometimes you can go to a meeting and then if you have to work you can miss
032and then you can go back whereas in an Athletics you can't so on the next slide again I break it down by school I have a question yeah sure was this these activities that other than Sports and it's in an in school and after school or just so these are all extracurricular activities um so uh once again there's a slight difference between the two schools at 70 versus 66 which was about five percent with Athletics as well and then you can see at the very bottom the eight percent versus the nine percent again it's a pretty consistent across both schools and then the last side I asked the question again because some students only respond or only participate in activities and non-athletics some participate in both and so the again the data is pretty consistent
033with why am I not participating it's either um you know I want to go home and hang out with my friends but work comes up taking care of family members comes up quite a bit and then again if you see that percentage of this doesn't apply to me because I'm participate I participate it's almost the same number so again it's the percentages are based on the kids who to um responded to the survey so there was a 770 freshmen so they're we had a higher response rate and our freshmen also was a longer survey and so this question received fewer responses because of the length of the survey and so but funnily enough the the Persona just came out almost identical even though the response rate went lower on this last question and then the
034last slide um is I asked for is there anything any clubs or sports that you are interested in if there were more than four responses um I included them uh so you know like if I think one student said like karate um or you know another student said like sailing um and so um there were more than four responses for these boys bowling actually is an ihsa sport um uh boys badminton is not some of them have uh like I believe a few students last year uh tried to start a debate club and they were real proponents of it at north um and then you know there lacked interest to start at the beginning of this year pickleball is huge a huge sport that's coming up um I imagine that as the you know the
035uh the stars and professional athletes that are doing it on TV with these specials playing pickleball I'm guessing that that's going to start to take off a little bit more and sign language club we always have a few students at both schools that are interested in Sign Language club and then specifically Ultimate Frisbee there's all those requests I think there are five or six that were specifically dgn so I gave all this information to Tom fryer and Denise Kavanaugh for athletics and to Mark and Jen for the our directors of activities so they could look through the data one change that we're thinking about making the next time we give it is also to collect the students email addresses that so that when we ask the question are you participating are are you interested in
036maybe participating in the future that we can start to look at those students and specifically reach out to them to get them to participate good good all right questions for Ryan um so I heard that we're providing this survey data to our athletic directors and then they're going to use this data how so um at least for athletics when we look at the students who may be interested in participating that you can start to forecast whether or not that we see dropping enrollment in athletics you know going over time or is there more kids who want to participate than are participating specifically with activities at least we are looking to strengthen the rostering of students within our student information system so we really know every student that's participating so they're looking at kids who are
037saying they're participating or are interested in participating and looking at the rosters and seeing like how close how accurate are those rosters which clubs do I need to reach out to because there's 70 kids who say they're participating in government Club but only 35 are on the roster why is that we need to check our rosters to make sure that all of our students who are participating are reflected in that and remember a part of State accountability moving forward is that College and Career Readiness indicator for a student one of the check boxes on that indicator is being involved in two or more Athletics or activities at school so this is part of Ryan's work and then ultimately it goes to our activity in athletic directors is making sure that our programming is attractive to
038students making sure that it meets their needs and making sure that we invite students that aren't involved in and to do so we need to make sure we have things that they would be interested in doing available to them so this is you know in the past this was like nice to know I think information for the board and this is becoming more of an accountability factor for schools across the state so it's hard to do benchmarking because the sample pool may change every time you send this out but do we have any idea if we're going up in participation or we're flooring and then so with uh oh yeah I know you absolutely so we oh go ahead it's hard to compare to the last couple of sets of data because the response rate
039was so low um it was given at the very end of the year it was sent to student email addresses and was sort of you know it's an optional survey so by placing it in Access this year and having all the students do it I'm likely going to include it in the fall survey again next year even though it's in every other year requirement so that I can start tracking that a little bit more um and then um but Trend even though the sample size was so small 287 versus 23 30 or 23 37. um believe it or not a lot of the percentages were pretty close um but the sample size was so small that I can't really trust that initial data set I've got a return to one to be very active or
040did it um you know kind of provocal behavior of not wanting to you know so that is done the end of the year report for the board for the last several years yeah I was going to jump in and just say that so through five Labs which um I appreciate Ryan's effort too when he mentioned you know we have to be getting the students registered and then enrolled into the e-school system which once that's accurate it pumps up to our five lab system and so our athletic direct uh direct directors and and our activities directors they have access to the activities page that we built um so that when you ask the question like what do we actually do we've added a feature where they can look at the students that are not inactivity and
041when you click on that it actually brings up all the students that are not enrolled in an activity right by grade level by demographics and so we're doing um so for example Lisa and I in special ed are doing a marketing campaign to freshmen that are chronically absent not inactivity and that's actually you know timely wise it's actually going out on Friday so we're trying to encourage them to get involved because we know the campaigns in the building about being belonging connected engaged right so five Labs will help our administrators and our staff look at that um and Ryan's obviously working with them with that so we're excited about that and then like hake mentioned we have the longitude data that are providing at the end of the year so you're seeing what Hank has
042been giving you I think it was the last two years I think it was a board kind of direction of saying we'd like to see you know what students involved and things like that so we have that data to be able to start you know really looking at are we where are we going with are we going up and down in terms of it for example we can look at low income and we can see how many students are participating or not and we can actually then Market to those students like Ryan said this is great to get the like actual reasons why people aren't participating because now we you know when I just wrote down even in my notes you know if we have 21 of our students said they're working well we can
043start to look at five Labs which I literally have open on my screen because I was looking at while we were talking like that 21 now you can start to look and be like okay that probably makes sense and how do we you might not get those students to participate because they're working right and that's a good thing I mean it's not a bad thing so we do have that data that we can like we said we shared at the end of the year and you know Ryan obviously is working with Pat closely so and I love the idea of marketing to the students to get involved because it's important yeah we're starting small right now but I mean I know the activities directors and you know Athletics sometimes to me is kind of a
044natural thing but like all the clubs we have it's great to make sure students know especially like the the sports one right the EA Sports yeah yeah I mean there's even college scholarships available for that sort of thing now yeah yeah so going forward it might it might um might be nice to be able to when you're giving the surveys in the future be able to point back to something to let the students know how the results of the survey have influenced something that's happened might encourage them to be more participatory in the survey knowing that it's we're not just collecting data for the data's sake that this is an opportunity we want to know what they have to say and we're going to use this information and here's how we used it oh yeah
045you know well I mean as I walk the cafeteria and ask kids for their feedback specifically around issues with the schedule a lot of them say like I had no idea someone was actually going to read this I will tell my friends to fill it out next time and to tell the truth Ryan understands a major part of his job is is we're moving forward you know he's the director of student experience for students to share with us what their true experience is they need to know that we're actually using that yes the influence of our Behavior as adults right so uh Ryan and I have this conversation quite often about feedback loops and how to be effective in what we're doing and a key part of that is our kids knowing that we're listening
046to them which is a board goal as well so scat's um uh comments here one minute ago got me you just got me thinking you know we have we have a good number of students who are working and are therefore don't have the time to be participating in an extracurricular activity but I mean work is isn't working extracurricular activity according to the USB accountability standard we can't use it that's too bad because I mean uh I think back to the jobs it counts for a different checkbox and if you get enough of these check boxes okay then you get there but it's not the same one as activities in athletics it's consecutive work experience so you get enough of these things you collect like enough check boxes to qualify as being College and Career ready
047so a student that's working actively it's going to be harder for them to get the activity or athletic kind of criteria met but they're going to get the work criteria met instead you collect enough of these things you're now College and Career ready now there's a lot of parents that feel that there's Great Value I'd be being one of them and having to work for somebody and be there on time and all those sorts of lessons remember a lot of our work is about students finding their own path forward and recognizing that each student's path is different right so it does lead credit credibility to that at the same time though we are having conversations we have a later start time you know maybe some of these activities are better served before school or maybe
048there's a before school chapter and an after school you know so as time moves forward um I think you're going to see some different opportunities in how we use our time and space where students schedule might play into what opportunities are available tonight thank you foreign requests and we've responded to them they're all available on our website under recently fulfilled foia requests okay okay we're gonna move on to the consent consent agenda before we if there's any member of the board who'd like to bring anything out of the consented agenda I'd just like to recognize three donations one thank you Mrs Beckman for the foundations uh very generous donation we also would have to say thank you to the wildermuth family who made a donation to the Downers Grove North I believe it was music
049department and a various generous donations from an anonymous family to our t99 yes students so thank you all was there also I have two things before we move on the agenda one is under the Personnel report for resignations retirements uh Monica shavonik is listed on there as a resignation but that agenda item was not heading was not posted as resignation certified only classified so we're going to remove that is removed now from your updated Personnel report it was on an earlier one um and that will come back next month with under the correct heading so it's just a little clerical thing and then also a recommendation from the administration tonight is to hire Dr Travis McGuire who is joining us this evening as our next assistant superintendent for learning resources is the board is well
050aware that is kind of through restructuring the replacement for Rod Rousseau who is our nationally recognized director of technology so assuming that the board approves all of the Personnel actions tonight Dr McGuire will join us as of July 1st and he'll be around after the board after the meeting if board members would like to to meet him so that's all that I have for eign very none will ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda the Personnel report appointment Administration appointment certified appointment classified leave of absence certified leave of absence classified transfer of position classified the Personnel report retirement certified resignations classified the financial Pages the approval of the annual comprehensive financial report the review of closed session minutes and verbatim recordings the Educational Tours and the acceptance of donation from The District 99
051Education Foundation the acceptance of donation from the wildermuth family and the acceptance of donation from the net from an anonymous family for teenagers so moved uh Mike and Terry Mike Davenport aye Terry pavisich aye Joanna Vazquez Drexler aye Christopher Espinoza aye shirelle Fuller aye Jenny hagstrom aye Nancy cupka aye the consent agenda carries we'll now move on to recommendations for action the first is a motion for the Board of Education to approve the 2023 summer school compensation is presented so moved second okay Chris and Terry thank you Christopher Espinoza Terry pavisich aye Joanna Vasquez Drexler aye Mike Davenport aye shirelle Fuller aye Jenny hagstrom aye and Nancy cupko hi uh motion curies and then we'll need a motion for the Board of Education to approve the 2023 summer school and summer calendar as presented second
052shirelle and Joanna thank you sure I'll Fuller aye Joanna Vazquez Drexler aye Mike Davenport aye Christopher Espinoza aye Jenny hagstrom aye Terry pavasich aye and Nancy cupka aye the motion carries we'll now move to the second reception of visitors 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 in writing to the board secretary visitors addressing the board need to submit a common slip to the board secretary and 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
053purpose of producing accurate meeting minutes and are being Line Street Live streamed um the board's presiding officer reserves the right to modify these Protocols of circumstances warned audience surface excuse me audience observation of these protocols is appreciated all right our first uh slip this evening is from Eileen Briner good evening Eileen breiner at Downers Grove resident I'd like to address diversity Equity inclusion Equity means active discrimination of certain people Merit is not to be a determining Factor it is verboten Equity means everyone ends up in the same place to quote Kamal Harris do you not see the Marxism in this everyone should be at the lowest common denominator that's the only way to be fair in this ideology schools are doing well at equity scores are declining soon all will be at the lowest common
054denominator scores are still available because we still have testing testings on the chopping block though because it's considered racist so it has to go diversity achieved by Equity to produce inclusivity to a place no one wants to be is the goal please go back to promoting Excellence hard work and achievement just like in sports let's look at Dei applied to sports the fortball team would have to have equal white black Asian Latino and lgbtq players regardless of ability there'd be no rules for practice or requisites for training the dream team will be inclusive but no one on it will be happy because of the lack of discipline or the ability to perform and compete this is what's going what we're doing at d99 we need new leadership to begin to improve and stop following the
055crazy ideology of Dei it sounds good but it's destructive high scoring outcomes should be the goal and not social engineering our schools are diverse take it and treat students equally encourage and teach all students to grow and learn remember a rising tide lifts all boats regardless of size shape or color just a reminder to everyone d99 spends over twenty five thousand dollars per student that's a lot more than what private schools cost I suggest that parents be given a choice of where to take these dollars School vouchers would create freedom of choice in education and reduce costs to taxpayers but alas the teachers union will oppose this direct assault on their power base school choice would make schools competitive provide diversity of schools and put parents in control of schools not the teachers unions scores
056are low but don't despair the students will know how to have sex at least six different ways and be able to name 10 different genders wow the next slip is from Noel manly good evening my name is Noel manly and I'm resident of Darien Illinois yesterday I asked the question what is the Equity Dividend kick in this district has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars on Equity related education training and materials for students faculty and staff and what is the result of all this spending well a review of the Illinois State Board of education's report card is the best place to begin in 2019 47.9 students out of 100 in this District could read a grade level by 2022 only 40.9 could read a grade level a 15 drop ping down into these numbers we
057find even more troubling news those students who identified as white in 2019 grade level reading proficiency was at 57.4 out of 100 students by 2022 the number fell 52.2 a drop of nine percent for those students identified as Hispanic in 2019. grade level reading proficiency was 23.6 out of 100 students by 2022 this number fell to 13.8 a 42 percent drop for those students identified as Asian in 2019 grade level proficiency was 58 out of 100 students by 2022 this dropped to 51.7 and 11 drop in most alarming of all for those students who identified as African-American 2019. grade level reading proficiency was at 17.4 out of 100 students by 2022 this number fell to 6.6 students out of 100 a 62 percent drop what could be the cause of this dramatic shift of all
058demographic groups in District 99. it's interesting to note that the 2020 d99 Equity audit shows that these numbers have been in steady decline since 2015. well of course the easy answer is covid this is the go-to answer by bureaucrats and administrators to explain poor student performance over the past several years and there's some truth to that lockdowns and masking were a terrible way to treat these children during this time however what is not as discussed are the policies that have contributed to this decline these policies include replacing the F letter grade with an incomplete grade awarding any student 50 for doing absolutely nothing not grading homework allowing for optional testing or testing do-overs and the lack of discipline in class due to restorative justice policies and there's absolutely nothing teachers can do about this because
059their hands are tied because of these absurd policies so if the goal of equity in District 99 thank you Mr Manley your time was expired Miss hoist you're up next thank you good evening I'm Laura hoyce I'm a Downers Grove resident and my topic is parents rights and education for two years we've been asking District 99 to restore and improve academic Excellence instead this board and superintendent have dutifully followed State and National orders to disregard academic Merit and promote d-e-i-s-e-l sexualization and radical Marxist activism District 99 has expanded its social programs Foster gender Pride messaging allowed boys to enter girls locker rooms and installed tampon dispensers in the boys bathrooms at Downers Grove North and South all of these woke initiatives have caused student math and reading scores to plummet certainly it's contributed to the
060fall providing safe spaces and gender clothing closets does not prepare students for the real world what are you doing and why are you doing it we have you have told us you have to comply with state and federal law your priority should and must be to improve math and reading scores and all Merit scores in this District where is your pushback against CDC guidelines and mandates your job is to educate not indoctrinate raced and sex-based agendas are harming our children first The Masks then the school closings then vaccine clinics now graduating kids kids who cannot read at grade level parents of students in District 99 must know their rights raise their voices and protect their children the first step would be to opt out of the inappropriate sexual messaging taught in sex ed Second Step
061opt out of state mandated surveys that data mine our students students for private family information third exercise parental rights to access all information for your child from the school parents have the authority to permit the release of child's a child's personally identical identifiable information acting now will ensure that your values are put in place not the schools we must not let this board interfere with the parents right to direct the upbringing of their children we can't trust the schools to handle it for us keep an eye on what's going on in your child's classroom for the upcoming April 4th election pay attention to who the school board candidates are and what they stand for look behind their messaging which may sound good but may be deceptive seek out the truth don't let the union-backed candidates
062fool you if the candidates support the status quo vote them out a quality education for all students must come first thank you all right that completes our visitor slips okay we'll move on to Communications and announcements uh do we have anything to report on lend no our meeting is Friday it's Friday and then we do have oh that the February 1st February 1st division meeting which is at South so has everybody gotten back to Julie yeah please make sure if you haven't registered yet and you let Julie know tonight that you intend on going today okay uh 99 Foundation yes we met some of us by Zoom um but uh really we were doing more housekeeping than we were much of anything else we went over the budget which took us quite a bit of
063time um uh so uh we will we will take um any donations that anyone would have because uh with the way our budget looks and and things we want to do for our students um we could use the the funds and you can go right to um District 99 and then follow it to our website and you can donate right on the website so it's we've made it very easy and it is very easy to donate yes to donate and um so that's about all for my commercial and don't forget to donate it would be a nice spring thing the foundation Education Foundation The District 99 Education Foundation we provide grants for our teachers and and faculty to do things extra not extracurricular but extra things for our students that would not be covered under
064the normal budget the normal budget yes a donation was made tonight and which we accepted yes yes and that was one of them and um we do a lot of wonderful things we do we put smart boards in our schools initially and now it's a pretty much a um a normal part of a classroom so we we try to do Innovative things and right now we're we're also doing things with the um uh incubator classes and those are very interesting where our students are entrepreneurs and so it's Carrie if somebody was went to the website they'd be able to see see all of this stuff so you can see it on the website more than having me explain it how terrible at it is not coming eventually we'll talk more yeah if you'd like to
065speak more about the foundation afterwards typically we don't dialogue during a board meeting you can catch Terry after the meeting and she'll fill you in yeah how much has the Education Foundation donated to our students over the years the idea well it it's over a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars over the last 30 years that the foundation has existed it's about three hundred thousand dollars I thought it was a few hundred yeah so we've done a lot of good good work a lot of good things there's never an end to the need though no no in our and our next uh uh group of asks let's say from our teachers uh is April 1st so um they're right now compiling things that they may be needing uh maybe not this year but for the
066fall uh for their students to do okay I think the best way that I thought that the foundation funds have been used is like seed projects like experimental something to try out see if it gets traction and if it does then the district then picks that up and that's where we came in with the smart boards yeah you know we we started out in like two or three classes 3D printers a lot of technology and Innovative programs that have yeah started from the foundation that then made their way into it a lot of times it's it's a it's a teacher's initiative right um I like to do this extra thing I think the students would find interesting and this is a way to see that and and if it works out it's something that may
067might get some traction and makes its way and we've done we we oh God sorry we're not going into that um just that uh a lot of our funds have been uh used in t99 to help our students um move on yeah yeah so okay upcoming board meetings we'll have a meeting the next meeting is the February 6th meeting which will be 6 30 here it's a workshop meeting and then the next the following meeting will be February 27th again here at the ASC at 6 30. you need a much to adjourn so moved Terry and Joanna all those in favor aye all those opposed we are adjourned thank you all for your service thank you