2021-06-21 CSD99 School Board Meeting - LIVE EVENT

001so you just remember like one really strong good evening we're gonna call to order let's start with roll call okay mike darrenport here mr espinoza chris christopher espinoza here thank you cheryl fuller here jenny hagstrom here terry pappasich here joanna vazquez drexler and nancy kubica here we have cornless stand for the pledge thank of the you states of america and to the republic which stands for one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay good evening we're going to do our um just so you know we're going to have our agenda a little out of order today because we have some time we need to set aside for a prolonged closed session so we're going to have after the approval of the minutes we're going to have our first reception of visitors

002which is uh opportunities to talk about anything on which the board will vote and then we're going to follow up with the second reception of visitors where the person where you can talk about anything both are limited to 30 minutes um each person is limited first to three and we're going to ask you to please abide by that let's start out with um oh and then the other thing i just wanted to mention is that our next meeting which is july 12th 12th thank you july 12th is going to be entirely closed session uh just so people are aware we will although we will open an open session and close no we won't we'll go we're going to go directly because we'll take actions because we're going to be working on some personnel matters so

003it's going to be entirely uh closed session okay that said sorry i'm just slow uh we need a motion to approve the minutes from the may 17 2021 business meeting the june 2nd 2021 workshop meeting and the june 2nd 2021 closed meeting so moved terry and joanna thank you trey pavich aye george vasquez drexler mike davenport aye christopher espinosa aye shirelle fuller aye jenny hegstrom aye and nancy kufka aye the minutes are approved okay we're going to move on to the first reception of visitors this meeting agenda includes two opportunities for comments from the audience this first reception of visitors is intended for audience members to address the board about any agenda item on which we are going to vote the second reception of visitors is intended for audience members to address the board on

004any topic pertaining to community high school district 99 comments are going to be limited to three minutes and we're going to ask you to stay to three minutes to provide all visitors an equal opportunity to address the board if you need more time you can address uh submit your thoughts in writing to the board secretary mrs nydek we're asking when you address the board you need to come up to the microphone state your full name proceedings are being taped recorded for the purpose of producing accurate meeting minutes and they are being sent out live and then eyes president reserve the right to modify these protocols if circumstances warrant we appreciate your observation of these protocols so who would like to address the board on anything we're voting on tonight hi my name is carrie swenson

005um and i'm speaking right now specifically on your 21 22 district return to in-person instruction plan that was listed in the agenda and i noticed a few things i'm not one to write out a whole speech and read from a piece of paper i like to speak to each one of you and look at you while i'm saying it there are two items that need to be looked at more as a board and as an admin in that return to learn plan one is it specifically states that vaccinated and unvaccinated children will be treated differently in some sort of words like that um we already have enough problems with bullying with so many other behaviors in a high school situation we don't need to add more there should be no separate discrimination or segregation from

006vaccinated or unvaccinated kids i have a vaccinated kid i have an unvaccinated kid i would not expect them to be treated any differently in a public school setting at all in turn in in light of that there's also a 14 day or 10 day quarantine if you're a close contact of somebody that's positive only for unvaccinated kids not kids that had it already not kids that may show immunity whatever with no remote instruction available so basically in your return to learn plan you're going to send kids home for a two-week period due to possible close contact i would like to see the data from last semester how many of the close contacts actually ended up positive after that disruption in learning for two weeks with no classroom instruction with no remote learning with no access

007to anything last year when we when students wanted to stay home because they were fearful and they didn't want to come to school you provided a whole new curriculum for them now you're saying this year the kids that weren't vaccinated whether a medical reason a personal reason whatever reason they had it already are going to be held to where they just sit there and read a book in their room smoke pot all day there's no plan for those kids to be sent home if they're unvaccinated for education they have lost enough i've been up here enough almost every other meeting and now they're going to be penalized so i'm not exactly i don't want to hear it comes from idph because we're seeing schools all over the state realizing that it's just a mandate or

008it's not it's just a guideline it's not a mandate you all need to be responsible for these kids learning the next thing we're going to do is put the gold star on their head and create divisiveness do you know in middle school eighth grade you want to know the conversations about this what it's regarding you're a trumpster because you don't want to get your thing you're just a sheep your parents are stupid that's what's happening to the incoming freshmen about vaccines this type of segregation based off of vaccine status is going to be divisive cruel and it's not okay and i have kids on both sides of the fence with this it is not okay to have that in your plan for the fall to specifically state they're going to be treated differently and sent

009home as a close contact last point what if the person that's a close contact is a vaccinator student i would think that you know how you're going to handle that because a vaccinated student's a positive so we all think that the vaccine is a pathway to normalcy if a vaccinated person is positive is an unvaccinated person still going to have to stay home for two weeks i would think at least when you're out of time okay and i will note for anybody else in the audience this is not an action item so you got rolling so it's a report from the superintendent but it's not an action it says recommendations too so maybe that should have been clarified the action items are listed up here on the screen so you can see that from there

010yeah i know i i just you got going so i looked back up and the next one let me come back oh the next one you've already exhausted your 33 minutes on this top thank you anybody else wishing to address the board and anything we're voting on tonight hello my name is don declan resident of downers grove i came to talk about the critical race theory being possibly being taught in our schools sir that's not an action item on tonight's agenda you need to wait for the next reason you need to wait for the next reception of visitors regarding topics not on okay all right thank you is there anybody else who wants to is there anybody else who wants don't don't sit down sir is there anybody else who wants to speak to the

011board about anything being voted on tonight tonight the items being action that is being taken on are on the screen right now so that includes personnel reports financial pages the school calendar property liability insurance renewals employer contributions to 457 b's 403 b retirement plan adoption resolution of nomination of membership to the downers grove plan commission approval to of the isb consolidated district plan approval of request qualifications for the strategic plan approval of food service program of the of bid for bulk purchasing of cmg supplies award of bid for copy paper approval to hold the july 12 2021 board meeting entirely in closed session and action on a uniform grievance complaint so this first reception of visitors would be for any comments regarding those topics then we will move into the next reception of visitors which

012is limited to 30 minutes for any topic pertaining to the board so right now anybody who would like to address any of those items can come forward hi i'm a resident of downers grove my name is chick breiner i just as you went through that said you're going to hold all your meetings for 2021 in closed door no for july 12 2021. oh just the one meeting okay i misunderstood you i thought it's a fair question no you can't have them all in close session just july 12. okay i'm sorry for the record could you state your name again we missed it chick breiner thank you okay is there anybody else who would like to address the board on anything being voted on tonight okay hearing none we're going to close our first reception of

013visitors we're going to open our second reception of visitors which is on anything pertaining to district 99 again we're going to ask you to limit it to three minutes and i believe that gentleman was first i'm sorry laura okay in this reception of business thank you 7 10 p.m my name is uh declan don d clean downers grove resident you know we just opened our meeting saying the pledge of allegiance and some of that wording was one nation under god indivisible and critical race theory is nothing but divisible it separates it makes white children think that they are privileged it makes black and brown students think that they are victims it makes america look bad and i think it is just an awful thing that is creeping into our schools and i hope it doesn't

014happen here when uh when how how does this happen do you vote on this i know there is a possibly a bill in the uh that the governor has not signed making it a law what if he does make it a law how do we stop it sir the reception of visitors is an opportunity for you to address the board there's no dialogue or interaction okay that's all i had to say thank you i'm sorry laura you were next or were you no my name is donald rath i've lived in downers grove for over 50 years so i'm a pretty long residence and i have three generations my family been through the school systems here in downers grove it's a lot of students i would like to read a draft of a letter i'm sending

015to the district 99 board and right now it's just a draft and after our meeting i'll finish it up and mail it to all the board people and so i'm going to kind of read what i've got here it's addressed to the superintendent and at the subject is critical race theory acronym crt i've been following this controversy and discussions in critical race theory of the national news media state legislatures and local school boards for the last several months and it seems to have created a very strong pushback at school board meetings across the country by parents of school-aged children critical race theory crt refers to an idea that emerged about 40 years ago in academia particularly a harvard law professor the ideas originators argued that race uses virtually every aspect of america's social reality the

016idea was debatable then and i think it's debatable today it appears to follow a marxist ideology that separates and divides people into separate classes for example the oppressors white supremacists versus the oppressed victims it's a divisive theory that divides people according to the color of their skin let's remember and i do mkl's dream one day we will live in a nation where we will not be judged by the color of our skin by the content of our character pretty profound statement currently six states are enacting or planning restrictions on teaching crt florida has already passed a law banning crt in their schools parents and children in public schools across the country have discovered many administrations have changed the school's curriculum to give priority to racial issues schools are imposing crt views and eliminating a lot

017of traditional historical accounts the focus of many progressives today are litigate relitigating the horrors of and record of slavery which is divisive and it's hard to understand for me in light of the progress we've made to overcome racial discrimination in this country we need to celebrate to me our progress and also our victories on eliminating discrimination thank you sir your time has expired if you would like to send your comments to me my email address is up there on the on on the board or you can just drop it off or mail it to the district one my last sentence the imposition of controversial ideas such as crt on k-12 students in the curricula should first be run through the democratic process with the elected school board we have to ask you we need to

018move on everybody is granted three minutes yep okay very good good evening i'm laura hoist i'm i head up the wake up 99 we have the best most generous country in the world we're one nation under god i will fight to protect our freedoms i believe there are two genders male and female separate bathrooms and locker rooms must be provided there is no systemic racism in our community we respect each other we support our police i've asked you about critical race theory and sex education specifically referring to senate bill which is not yet law but is passed through the house and senate being held by the house and could at any moment when governor pritzker finds us busy enjoying our holiday pushing it through that's what we've seen in illinois of late so we are

019extremely concerned about the mandates in the sex ed bill known as sb 818. no one has yet answered my questions about critical race theory so let me pose one of them are curriculums being redesigned to introduce students to critical race theory if not now when how can we obtain a copy of each curriculum i'd like to remind you hank that while you said that there can be no interchange at these meetings under state law under the school code members of the public shall be afforded time to comment or ask questions of the board that means we can ask questions and we can obtain answers because we can't get these answers through foias and you have a responsibility to answer our questions all of them and so i would ask if this is not the forum

020that you'd like to answer the questions in please let me know i'm available to meet with you let me know in the next week or two at the latest how we can get all those answers to our questions when you were elected you took an oath solemnly swearing to discharge in your duties of office as school board members to do so in accordance with the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of illinois both require equal protection that is all persons all constituents all students must be treated equally under the law your actions as a school board member are supposed to comply with the u.s and illinois constitutions yet critical race theory may be okay with you we're concerned we don't have answers to our questions we hear silence the illinois

021board state board of education teachers unions and the state require district 99 to begin crt training beginning very soon as early as this fall and to be enforced by the year 2025 to divide students by the color of their skin treat them differently the oppressed and the oppressors guilty and enticing plan to use that innocent sounding word equity to justify blatant and unequal treatment of our kids equity is the opposite of equality miss hoist you're out of time and distribute them according to race shirelle seconds all of a sudden you have a duty to represent this community where 74 of the students are white we are and they don't need to come to school and feel guilty we are now in recess [Applause] oh geez again okay we're going to resume we're out of recess

022now to be clear the reception of visitors is for three minutes per statement for the record miss hoist your questions were answered and were asked and answered in writing we're going to ask people to remain calm we're interested in hearing your views but we are not going to entertain grandstanding nor are we going to continue to have shouting and carrying on if we anybody goes beyond three minutes again i will end the i will end the reception of visitors who would like to speak sorry oh i picked next pardon would it be possible to get like a 30-second warning or absolutely i'll wait thank you very much i'm not good at math hi my name is mario dowd i'm a resident crt may be okay with you the isbe teachers unions state required d99 to

023begin crt training beginning this fall enforced by to divide students by the color of their skin treat differently oppressors feel guilty or oppressed entitled plan to use that innocent sounding word equity to justify the blatant unequal treatment of our kids equity the opposite of equality is rejected by critical race theorists as supporting white supremacy end goal to suspend personal and private property rights seize land and wealth and redistribute along racial lines crt is racist it is discriminatory it is evil it is wrong it will damage our children we reject it you have a duty to represent this community 74 white students by standing up to those who are pushing crt and foster excellence knowledge citizenship and personal development for each and every one of our students regardless of skin color reject crt the imposition of

024ideas such as crt on k-12 students in the curricula must first be run through the democratic process with the elected school board an open public forum of discussions and debate on the content and merit of introducing crt must be allowed so the parents of district 99 students can approve its introduction into the curriculum thank you excuse me can i ask a clarifying question certainly three people have given me have have stated dates when this is going into effect what is your source for that since they're not aware of we're not aware of standards state mandate to implement critical race theory in our schools from any sometimes sometimes i think your partner sometimes it's not called crt but the um the basis there the the the system equity diverse diversity inclusion uh that type of language

025is is seeping in to many aspects of our students lives and their curricula so it um it might not be called crt but we feel strongly that it is present and a danger thank you for clarifying but what is the source for when all this is going into effect because i i have not seen anything you know i don't have my notes right now but and it may not be the exact date but certainly it's already gone through some part of legislation if someone or anybody in the audience that references this i am not at all aware of any law pending regarding critical race theory and i'd be interested in seeing that that source so please forward me that that source culturally responsible that that is not critical race theory ma'am that is culturally responsible

026teaching standards so if i okay enough no i i would just like i just invite anybody from the audience if critical race theory that is i've heard multiple times tonight that there are laws sitting to be passed please forward those to me so i can be aware of those because i'm not aware of any any law that's pending that would force the implementation of anything related to critical race theory for the beginning of this school year that's all i'm requesting okay just to quote an old dead white guy what's in a name but that's all right thank you come on hello everyone my name is reid hoyce i go to downers grove north i'm a senior and a small business owner i know it's not the subject of focus for tonight but i would like

027to comment on the face mask policies that are in place or will be in place without taking sides it seems that i'm being told by people much older than me in much worse physical condition than me and my peers that i should get a vaccine or wear a mask to protect myself more than 60 percent of illinoisians are already vaccinated uh there have been 314 cova deaths of people ages 0 to 17 in america most with underlying conditions source stat stuff this doesn't concern me personally a country a country that hasn't cared for our health in 300 years is telling us to be protected by a cloth mask we already go into grocery stores with my mass so why aren't we going into school without them finally i believe they strip away emotion i don't

028know who is who i don't even care to talk to people anymore and my peach fuzz itches um my friends and i and probably many others chose to go remote because we didn't want to be told to wear a mask and a and face shield and follow safety guidelines none of us care about we want to go to school and be told and not be told what to do stick to teaching not controlling as for crt i believe i have already been taught about race for 12 years every history and english class has a lesson about race in it at some point in fourth grade we were taught about slaves being whipped which is understandably a part of history which is understandably a part of history that will be taught but it seems teaching kids

029about race is pushed too early i'm not fully educated on everything crt contains however i think we should be taught any history or culture in a positive way not a negative or victimizing way i'm opposed to nses thank you for your time thank you next good evening as i spoke before my name is chick breiner i'm a resident of downers grove for a long time i'm opposed to teaching critical race theory art diversity equity training all the same thing it might have a variety of names but i'm opposed to it and i'm going to start with a maxim you've probably heard it two wrongs do not make a right did your mom tell you that ever moms say it often and moms are always right you cannot correct a past injustice with a new injustice

030we cannot teach our children that some people based on the color of their skin are oppressors or some are oppressed this will only divide this generation and create tension we need to be teaching unity and equality not equity dividing us into groups will end up destroying us crt is the new segregation it's the new jim crow i'll finish with this thought i have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character let's carry on with martin luther king's [Applause] idea hi my name is janet novotny i've been a resident since 1998 i've got two kids through the school now i got to try to get one more through and i've never

031came to one of these meetings before i do not like to public speak so i'm going to just get to the to the chase here i'm a parent i should be able to do let my parent decide if i my child needs a vaccination or does doesn't need a vaccination not the school district if this is a medical choice of freedom i don't believe the schools have a right to tell us what we can and can't do i don't believe that our kids should be having to wear masks all day it's there's so many results of why they should not be wearing masks again it's a guidance of the isbe i'm not for the crt or whatever the heck they keep talking about and i'm generation x i was just taught to love one another

032we didn't care about race and all this other crap so i don't understand why this is an issue like now i don't think my kids personally have just care about that kind of stuff and i know they don't i know i'm running over i'm running on um anyway so i just want to let you guys know i'm just a parent who is like really concerned about what's going on and whether i'm going to keep her in school to finish her three years or just based on what you guys are going to decide for her fate or if i'm going to have to pull her out because there's no way in hell i'm going to put her in through all the stuff that is being suggested right now thank you sir i think there was somebody

033else coming up for before you there was somebody behind the screen that was coming up a moment ago and then you'll be next thank you hello my name's christy i'm from downers grove i've lived here over 25 years and um school performance in illinois is based partly on absenteeism and surveys that ask students personal questions about drugs alcohol sex family political affiliation religion and family income rather than questions on merit and academic achievement why is the state requiring kids to answer these questions these children belong to their parents your kids belong to you not to the government your job is to provide a quality education to the kids in donors growth also there's theories going around that require teachers to teach our children that america is bad and divisively categorize children to make them feel

034guilty or privileged oppressed or entitled based solely on the color of their skin are you good with this are you good with this is it okay with you if not help us stop it opt out thank you sir you were next the gentleman in the thank you good evening uh thank you for your time my name is ed brainer i've been a resident of donors grove since 1952 gone through the entire educational system here and so of our children a little history uh critical race theory began as critical theory a school philosophy in frankfurt germany in the 20s and 30s the university of frankfurt institute of social research one of the first western marxist schools the school scholars fled germany to columbia university in new york city they were careful to erase marxism from their

035research so as not to attack attract attention in america crt is an activist ideology from the start it was an attack on western institutions and norms in order to tear them down in the 70s and 80s crt expanded on the theory that america is systemically oppressive and racist when followed to its conclusion crt is destructive it rejects the fundamental ideas of our constitution and our republic applying crt philosophy violates many american civil rights law treating people differently according to their race crt therefore should not be in american school rooms thank you good evening my name is cynthia hopkins i'm a resident of dallas grove township i may be out of the school district but i believe every child's education matters the latest push of critical race theory and the comprehensive sex ed curriculum unfortunately solidifies

036the future of our public schools under illinois democratic extremists vision it becomes a political indoctrination camp that favors a divisive left-wing ideology i speak up today because the public needs to understand the danger of these policies coming from china 20 years ago i can attest how policies like this can destroy many generations and eventually a nation see the most common the most important common denominator among all the extreme left-wing agendas is division divide americans by skin color by country of ancestry by gender and that list just goes on and on for those who don't know china's public policy aims to produce chronic hatred via division it is exactly why the authoritative authoritarian government presents no hope of democracy after four decades of reform so when the citizens are busy with fighting over the differences and

037cancelling over deferred views only the government wins america has sadly entered that state at least we don't have to conspire let the kids be kids they're all the same the modern day virtual segregation through critical race theory has no place in our classroom on the second end while we are debating whether our children need to know there are zealand positions of sexual intercourse our rivalry the chinese government mandates teaching of a real math the real math and science and life lessons of team work and disciplines in a system of academic meritocracy so imagine the generations of americans 20 years from now can they still complete can they still compete globally can they defend our country with valor and the strength will america still be the most powerful nation that leads with freedom and the liberty

038and most important question to you all which writing power will benefit the most from a broken america frankly like in many asian conservatives it is very intimidating to speak to speak up in public for my value ironically i never feared because of my gender or my race or i am so to speak victim of a white supremacy i'm sorry you're out of time intimidation came from the very group of people are preaching my kids to be tolerant we're going to culturally respond even more same left-wing experience our crafting okay i'm going to end the public comments and we're going to move on [Applause] ma'am we have ended i am ending i i told you all we're going to end the reception of visitors we are anxious to hear what you have to say you can

039submit your thoughts in writing moving on to the recommendations and reports of the superintendent dr feely the end of the year report all right we uh try to do this yes we do [Music] ma'am ma'am we have closing we have close reception of visitors dr silly the end of the year report yeah uh the board of education has been provided the end of the year report over the last month we've gone back and forth with drafts this evening it is posted in the public record for public review it'll go up on the website as our official administrative review of this year's work are there any questions from board members on on the year-end report nope also at this time of the year along with the year-end report we bring the board the draft of the

04020-21-22 district goals there's also uh since this serves as the direction for the administration for the next year it's also the public's opportunity to review those for the next month and then i'll ask the board to approve those next month board members that have questions comments suggestions about those as they are in draft form right now please reach out to me with those and we can discuss those with you do you have an end date for the public if they want to respond that you'd like to see them by we meet on the 19th so i would need some time in advance of that uh that's a great question dr kupka probably uh july 12th would be the so could we maybe put that on that would be one week before we put that on

041the website to say please comment by thank you any other all right uh the next i oh i'm sorry was there any other questions on district one all right um the return to in-person plan uh gina's going to help me present on this one yes dr kupka ended the reception of visitors yes no ma'am we gave everybody three minutes and after the first episode of when i recessed the board because people were not willing to continue out the protocol i explained that if we did not follow protocol i would end the reception of visitors so i did now we're moving on to the business meeting comments can be emailed to me or to the board directly the board president is allowed the right to change the rules of reception visitors as she deems fit under

042board policy continuing with the return to in-person plan i believe it's in my purview to do so and if we're willing and and let me just be clear from any moving any meetings going forward people are given three minutes to speak up to 30 minutes on any subject the total speaking this total amount of time left to speak if people are not going to follow the protocols of the board we're not going to sit here and listen to people for hours and hours who are just going on and not being respective of our time and the people and the the other people in the community's time so we are in the business we are in the business meeting and we are going to continue dr thiele continuing with [Music] what is this is not a

043debate with the public we are going on with the business meeting now you can remain and listen to the business meeting and say and submit your thoughts in writing prior to the next meeting or attend the next meeting and stay with the three-minute time limit or you can continue to disrupt this meeting and we will move to close because we have plenty of business enclosed dr daly continue please so the return to in-person plan for fall we don't have a lot of details yet from the illinois state board of education which is very frustrating to us as administrators at this point however we contin because we have a lack of guidance from the state we continue to plan as though we are going to return to pre-pandemic as much as possible so we are planning

044as though we're returning without quarantining contact tracing masks any of those things like we're going back to before covid as all of our students have had the opportunity to be vaccinated up to this point or have chosen not to but families have made their choices to this point isbe has issued a resolution for return to in-person learning encouraging that all districts return to in-person learning however provided no guidance as to how that is to occur yet which is the core of our frustration as administrators we are pla as i said we're planning as though no restructuring uh restrictions exist however preliminary there's preliminary talk and in the meetings and webinars we have with isb they keep mentioning or indeed that there could be differences uh between vaccinated and unvaccinated students so you know we're waiting

045to find out if that will truly be the fact when things occur or not um however you know this is really difficult to hold this meeting i i i'm going to recommend that that either the audience participate by watching this meeting or we again move to recess and we'll ask for security to clear the room do we need to have security can people listen to the meeting without interrupting a board meeting is a meeting in public not a meeting with the public if you would like to reach out my email has been been posted you can arrange to meet with me okay we are listening to you but we have protocols we are listening to you and let me just interrupt you for a moment and say while you do represent an important segment of

046our community you do not represent our entire community we would love to hear what you have to say but you have to stay within the protocols we're trying to ma'am we're trying to give each of you three minutes so no okay we are i'm asking for a motion to go into closed session no do we have a motion to go to a closed session i move that we go into closed session the reasons for close session are the appointment employment i'm sorry compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park recreational or educational setting or specific volunteers of the district or legal counsel for the district including hearing testimony and a complaint lodged against an employee a specific individual who serves as an independent contractor in

047a park recreational or educational setting or volunteer of the district or against legal counsel for the district and to determine its validity and litigation when an action against affecting or on behalf of the district has been filed and is pending before a court or administrative tribunal or when the district finds that an action is probable or imminent in which case the basis for the finding shall be recorded and entered into the minutes of the closed meeting so i moved i need a second second cherry seconds thank you very much mike davenport hi terry pavisic aye joanna vazquez drexler aye is mr espinoza with us mr espinosa hi thank you shirelle fuller aye jenny hagstrom hi and nancy kupka hi we are in closed session thank you chris we'll call you from closed hi all right

048we are back sorry about the disruption um dr thiele did you want to continue with the yes i think we were on the district goals or the 99 oh no the 99 return to person yeah we're going to restart the district 99 return to in-person plan because i'm not sure how much the board was able to hear right what i was saying before so um the goal of our plan for the fall is to return to as close to pre-pandemic as possible so if we were making the rules based on the fact that we have multiple vaccination clinics going on families have had the opportunity to either vaccinate their children or have chosen not to and accept what risks come either way with either option that our recommendation to the board would be to return

049to school as normal no masks if you're sick stay home just as we always ask everybody to do and that it would look as close to pre-pandemic as possible however we don't have all the control or say over that and we don't know what that guidance will when it will come from the state if there'll be limitations on us executing that plan and when we'll hear those things so we know that isb passed a resolution about a month ago saying that they are encouraging us to return to in-person learning that's what we're planning for however they didn't release any of the changes and guidelines that would allow for that to happen so you know we're kind of in this nebulous zone right now of yeah you want us to return to pre-pandemic but you still

050have rules in place that say we can't so it sounds so familiar yes so we're we're kind of stuck right now so uh no guidelines have yet been released on that we are planning as though no restrictions will exist so every time a question comes up with me and the administrative team about what are we going to do the first thing we all respond is well what did we do before the pandemic right and then we kind of put those actions in place and start working towards that um however you know even though we're saying that we've been told that return to business as usual that's the goal we still keep getting memos or guidance and webinars from the state that keep referencing well though there's these differences between people that are vaccinated and unvaccinated

051and some of those are in effect for now for like summer sports or those kinds we don't know if those things still continue or will fall away or those kinds of things so um you know those aren't the decisions that we are making those are the decisions that isb is making i i just want the public to understand the board to understand that there might be guidance that comes from idpa illinois department of public health or illinois state board of education or dupage county health department all that have some differing authority over us that might put different restrictions conditions things like quarantine or social distancing or masks or any of those things based on whether somebody is vaccinated or unvaccinated we are not pushing for that kind of guidance right that is very difficult to

052administer maintain you know enforce do any of those kinds of things around it however for families that do want to get their children vaccinated we had the vaccination clinic in may and then the second dose was last week we're going to run another one in the middle of july and they'll come back before school starts for their second dose and to be fully vaccinated by the time school starts and then we're going to run another one in august so that you know if anybody by that time has decided to change their mind they could come back for our vaccination clinics we're using different pharmacies because we know some people are more comfortable with other pharmacies so the first one is joel oscar the next one is koto care the one after that is walgreens so

053you know we're just trying to provide options to our families nobody's saying that anybody has to do anything with vaccinations but we're just we're trying to meet the needs of our students and their families what are we looking at in percentage-wise i'm sorry i have no idea we we've we had parents reach out to us that wanted us to be in possession of vaccination records just in case rules come and also the fact that at the end of the school year if you were vaccinated you had different quarantine and close contact rules so some parents chose to send that in others didn't you know there's no mandate or requirement that we as of this time that we record any of those vaccination records so osco total care and walgreens will not tell you your student

054has been vaccinated or we don't have any of those still students have been vaccinated or correct okay we're just providing the location for those pharmacies to come in and administer the vaccines just to make it easier on families you know it's close they don't have to schedule an appointment you know um or they could schedule an appointment at their convenience you know it's just about providing a service to our community are you asking so the only way we know if a student has been vaccinated is if that student parent let us know right correct that's i i think that's kind of what you're yeah i i was just kind of also curious as to the percentage of students that were vaccinated that's one of the things that were we have been asking the state as

055if they can tell us that because there are record you know there's hipaa laws state records yeah because um but even in aggregate could they tell us you know x percentage of your students have been vaccinated we don't know if we can do we know the students that have the students and parents who have informed us do we have do we have some sense for them i i haven't asked for any data on that at this point as to the numbers or anything like that would can you get it is that some would we want to know that at some point i i think i think we would at this point no because i don't know if there's really any difference coming like if there's no difference between vaccinated on vaccine it doesn't matter when

056receivables come i see you know so until i get until i get a reason to go asking for that kind of information it just it's you know it will definitely change over time it would just kind of be a waste of staff resources at this time jenny you were trying to i just was wondering in the kind of the preliminary indications are they only looking at vaccinated and unvaccinated students or are they looking at students who have passed who have confirmed because i mean there is oh that have happened yeah yeah so i mean there's at the end of the school year yeah it was for quarantine rules if you had tested positive in the last 90 days it was the same as being vaccinated but like i said all this is i'm just hearing

057and looking in the tea leaves that you know the information that we can we continue to get right now in the summer continues to separate rules for those vaccinated versus unvaccinated for summer camps and athletic activities and those kinds of things it continues to have different rules for each of those groups so whether it'll still be that way in the fall i don't know but i think the public should know and the board should know that that's what we're seeing currently and then you know some so so for the question that was raised tonight about being divisive and we're going to treat students differently that's really not true we just may need to know in the event that we have some close contact notification center in terms of planning for next year in the event

058that we do have students who cannot come in because they are close contacts what will what will what will happen to those students will they be sent home with a book for two weeks yeah we have students that are out for extended periods of time all the time and we work through that with each individual student depending on the courses the teachers the classes and meet the needs of the students when they're out whether that be for an illness like chickenpox or it be for mental health and hospitalizations whether you know any number of reasons why a student could miss an extended period of time it's our responsibility to meet that student's needs while they're out and that's what we'll continue to do so i'm hearing that consistent with your you know our plan for

059returning as normal right because this is and we're we're thinking of covid as just you know it's one of those diseases one of those sicknesses that students could get at any time and you need to be out for a period of time and when gina gets up she'll talk a little bit here about some of the interventions that we have in place but the board knows that we've added social emotional support interventions and staff over the last five years because we've had seen increases in the amount of students being out for extended period of time especially due to things like anxiety depression those kinds of things so um this is we have programs and protocols for serving students when they're out of school so the shift though is to it's going to be more on

060an individual student basis versus we're offering like a whole list so to speak for for a subset that chooses not to be correct so it's just it's just like one because last year the state rules required us to offer that remote option to all students you know where next year it does not look like that will be a requirement and if the directive right now is get back to as close to normal as possible that's what the state has told us to do we didn't have a fully remote school before the pandemic arrived that wasn't something we were working towards nor you know our experiences with blended learning definitely demonstrated that you needed regular in-person check-ins with students for it to be comprehensively effective that if kids didn't have check-ins with adults it it fell

061behind you know so that's why we have blended models the way we have them now and not fully remote school well i i just want to say that you know a lot of what we heard tonight i just heard a lot of fear you know and and you know i think we heard it from the one student too concerned about coming into school this coming year and will i have to wear a mask or not and what will happen to me well i need a quarantine or not everyone wants answers and we've been dealing with this for the last year everybody wants to be able to predict what's going to happen in the future and you know if anything we've learned this last year you just can't and we need to be aware of the

062thing the fact that things can change so there may be guidance coming there may not be guidance coming uh i mean the three-foot rule may be the quarantining may not uh i i mean we we don't we really don't know but we've been instructed to proceed as if we're going back to normal and that's the way we're building our plan and you know god forbid that we should get to the few days before school and have to you know adjust our plan again um but that's the world we've been living in and it you know it's only june just a few months ago we were still still living in a pretty crazy world um so yeah yeah well clearly as demonstrated this evening i think did you want to say something joanna are we just

063no so just a few more variables to put on the board's radar so some major variables in illinois chicago public schools are still in session right so right now yeah okay right now so one of the the beliefs that many of us have as leaders is that we need that school year to end for this giant school district in the state so that there isn't you know confusion between next year's rules and this year's rules with chicago public schools so that that kind of makes sense also the center for disease control cdc has said that this summer they will be releasing updated school guidance very possible that idph is waiting for the cdc to release their updated guidance before they release theirs so those are two factors that are out there however we as superintendents

064believe that if you came out with a directive to open schools as closely as possible to the past you probably have some things worked out so we would like to get as much information and direction about the reopening of the school as soon as possible that they have from the from the state level we advocated from the illinois high school district association at the illinois state board of education meeting last wednesday we had representatives there speaking on my behalf and the district staff and high schools all over the state about you know it takes time to plan these things and our communities want to know what's going on and people need to make decisions about what next year offers please provide us information immediately in response to that we had a webinar today with the

065illinois state board of education that pretty much told us what we already knew to this point there was no new information provided so after that we as superintendents across the state at all levels are preparing a letter to illinois state board of education that spells out here are the key points of things that we really need to know before we bring kids back so we can plan for protocols and do we need additional furniture and do we need supplies and signage and all of the things that you would imagine we would need to plan for next year that letter is being signed by superintendents across the state over the next couple of days and in its final form will be sent to the illinois state board of education on thursday if we don't hear anything

066you know if we get guidance before that then that would cause us to reevaluate that once we send that that will be a public document we will share it with the public we will encourage people to reach out to their legislators and state government and isb and advocate on our behalf to try to get us the information that we need to plan to return so right now our plan that we are required to present to the public is this this is as based on what we know today we plan on returning as closely to pre-pandemic as possible with the caveat that as the rules change our plan will have to change and that we'll just keep up keep the board and the public informed as those things happen what the public can do right now

067is try to encourage the state to provide us the information we need to make those plans with fidelity for when we return so questions on where we're at right now is that something we could share with the public absolutely yeah yeah ask them to yeah please yeah yeah i mean they have to watch the meeting but maybe there's no address or something yeah once the uh once we finalize that that letter i will be sharing that as like this is what i sent if you would like to take any of this and contact your legislators please do so do you know when chicago public schools are done i don't know the date off the top of my head it's soon because they just take the next couple of weeks i think it's like the end

068of june yeah i think it's the fourth fourth of july yeah i'm not sure i'm not a hundred percent sure so but this will all be on the website your letter yeah we'll post it yeah absolutely we'll get them shared but i would encourage also the public to remember that a lot of jerry you know what i got to get closer to the mic i'm sorry i i forget um i would encourage the public to remember not everything that they read on the internet is true and that if they would like what is truly happening in district 99 to please read our website and to communicate with dr thiele about that and that don't read what someone says as gospel thank you thank you terry thank you all right i'm going to invite gina up

069right now um she's going to talk through how this also plays into the things that she's managing moving forward and then uh we have a link for based on what jean and i are sharing this evening for the public to provide feedback uh on what we know to this point we learned tonight too that she's on vacation this week she is on vacation and came back to spend the evening with you yeah so i just wanted to get that on the public record the dedication uh on the part of some of our staff so as hank said we are presenting as we know today we are required to post our plan and that's part of esser arp which is the third of the emergency elementary secondary emergency relief grants and we are required to post

070it on our website which we will do after after this meeting so this is the plan as of today as dr thiele said we do not have the guidance to fill out every aspect of the plan so we're planning and dr thule pretty much already said this we are planning to return to pre-covered schedule eight period day lunch built into the school day we are anticipating half periods at least to start although that will be dependent on what the guidelines are so could be half periods for part of the year could go to full periods we just have to kind of wait and see what that looks like we're not planning for a fully remote option we will continue with the cleaning and all that is required with air circulation and in terms of mass

071and quarantines and social distancing we are waiting on the guidance so that will be based on what the requirements are these interventions i believe we actually already spoke about when i talked about the consolidated district plan at the may workshop i believe it was but just a reminder and doctor they did mention the first one there that we are adding additional personnel in our counseling and student support services we're increasing our el and bilingual offerings at both high schools we added an interventionist this year to work with students who are at risk of failing students that are struggling we'll be adding additional interventionist at south high and an additional interventionist at north high as well we are continuing with paper and are very pleased with our results thus far we expanded strive which is a

072tutoring program we've had in the district for i believe the last eight to ten years it could even be longer than that we expanded it this year to include uh aspects of like executive functioning to help students to really learn to work remotely or hybrid or in person we plan to continue to expand that and hopefully fully implement our path program we're really excited to be able to do that so as dr thiele said before we will be posting uh the plan and there is a google form so people can go in and put in comments we're required to post it for 30 days we'll post it for a little over that so everyone has an opportunity so anyone who has you know concerns about the plan they can share information about the plan and

073then we'll be reviewing that information any questions all right thank you gina thank you gina thank you jesus thank you i'm still up sorry i have a quick question i have a quick question yes will that include semester exams so that is certainly something we've been talking about and and certainly teachers uh sometimes do give summative assessments but really the question is more about final exam schedules exactly which is what the issue has been and that we've been working through so we have immediately administratively right after in that first week of july where we'll be discussing that and then we'll bring a recommendation to the board in july around the final exam schedule do we carve out that schedule teachers always give exams depending on how their course team plans but whether or not we

074want to indicate that it's like expected right through a bell schedule is what will come with the recommendation in july look forward to that thank you so the next topic is the consolidated district plan i spoke about the consolidated district plan last month and shared information about the plan this is a plan we've had to do for the last couple of years we annually must submit it to illinois state board of education and i talked about a lot of the interventions that have been in place most of them for a number of years so tonight i'm just going to focus on some that are newer or brand new just to share some information so we did add one dual credit course this year we were actually able to make it so students could earn dual

075credit this year which is not typical usually when it's approved it's for the following year but we were able to get it in place for this year and that's for interior design we do have a couple of other courses we're working on with cod but we are not at the point of having those approved quite yet we also have a new dual enrollment opportunity for students as the board already knows we currently have an arrangement with benedictine where we offer astronomy as a dual enrollment course and we have an agreement with elmhurst university formerly elmhurst college for our calc iii students we now have added eastern illinois university we in fact have three students right now one of which i spoke with earlier today who are taking a whole language class so they're earning credit

076for whole language through eastern illinois university through really an immersion program so that's that's really exciting we also this year pause g9 just point out that that is a board goal yes that gina has done a very fine job of working us towards over the last several years yeah that's awesome i i do have a question shirelle i'm sorry i need [Music] and i think i've asked this before that is a difference in an ap class that's just a credit that a class that we have aligned with the university to to offer is that correct yes but if i can kind of explain the difference between ap dual credit and dual enrollment i think that might help that will help me okay ap classes um we have 27 if i remember correctly don't quote me

077on that i think that's right though i think we have 27. approximately 27. they have the rigor of college courses we have to follow curriculum basically guideline standards set by the college board and students take an exam and based on how they score how they do on that exam they may or may not earn credit depending on the school that they go to okay now there are some exceptions if you're going to public in in illinois but it's possible that they could earn credit and you have to take the test you know you have to take the test not just take the clicks and it's not dependent on your grade in the class or how well you performed in the class it's based on the exam score so that's ap dual credit is a course

078that is aligned to whatever institution is awarding credit so in most cases it's going to be college of dupage but that's of course that our teacher teaches they must meet the criteria to actually be adjunct at that school so our teachers who teach dual credit in district 99 meet the requirements to be an adjunct professor to teach the course dual credit courses they earn the college credit so cod credit but they also earn district 99 credit because it's taught by our teachers okay now there's dual enrollment courses as well important piece with that is the grade you earn is what shows up on your cod transcript as well as your so if you earn that credit you have that credit already at a college that then is transferable anywhere really that's the part i was

079trying to get so it's not just eastern illinois university you can go well it's one and as long as it's successful the university will accept it sure each university has its own criteria and sometimes they'll accept it like as an elective so it could be an education course or an astronomy course they might accept it as an elective not necessarily a science or an education course dual enrollment is just a little bit different in that the student takes the course but is taught by the university professor it's not taught by district 99 they earn college credit not high school credit yeah but it is an opportunity it's like an early college opportunity to earn college credit while in high school dual credit and dual enrollment they're actually starting their college transcript so so you i'm

080sorry just to clarify if you don't mind me interrupting so if you do have dual enrollment you could earn college credit but not earn that's correct because you could come up short on your hours to graduate from 99 that would theoretically rarely yes theoretically could happen but it probably wouldn't happen yeah i don't know of a single instance where that has happened and most of the time dual enrollment's done outside of the school day right oh okay so for example our astronomy course is an online course the eastern illinois whole child education course is in the summer and calculus 3 is an online course with some synchronous instruction that sort of occurs during the school day but is taught by an elmhurst university professor anybody in that course has already met their math far beyond

081undergraduate farm band that's like soft sophomores sophomore college i just wanted to say i i like this track and this has been important to me because if you're not an ap student i wanted to see other options for those students who are willing to do the work and and you know have a goal of college where they can have other options so i like this and i and i know some of the students that my daughter goes to school with at her university has talked about you know they had all these dual enrollment or dual class opportunities so yeah we've been a little behind this illinois has been a little behind we have been and and also i wanted to point out that you know the the getting our teachers that accreditation with with the

082uh with the college was huge and actually there it this was something we worked hard on for several years and there was a lot of resistance um uh with the cod as i recall that we needed to work through but finally you know that so this is that we've got a conversation passed yeah since then you know you also got a new president and has been very open yeah so this is in comparison to the past terrific and i just anecdotally have to share i mean this is i don't know that people realize this is just how huge this is i have a daughter who um was able to graduate in three years because of her ap credits plus her um our calc iii uh north central college at the time so we had to

083get her transcript sent and and and incidentally too that was the first time that at her college that they had that the professors that she was talking to it that they ever recalled admitting having a student come in that had already had calc 3 which was really i think something you know a feather in our cab yeah and and then i have another daughter who just did the astronomy uh class and she so we're having her uh transcript sent and and and so it's it's it's i mean so from my standpoint my my child went to school for three years instead of four i mean that saved us a lot of money you know and yeah and our students the girls enjoyed it um it's it's great to get a little taste of uh of

084what college classes are like this is tremendous and finances is still a barrier to entry for a lot of folks you know when it comes to going to going to college so yeah can you speak a little bit as to how this these are presented to students or how they would find out about it so it really depends on the course so if we're talking about ap and dual credit that would go through when they're signing up for any registering for any courses right they're talking to their counselors they're talking to their teachers teachers are making recommendations for example with calculus 3 most the time the students that are going into calculus 3 as juniors to calculus bc okay so that would be the next logical step okay um there could be some exceptions but

085again that that's the way it is um you know our counselors know a lot about the courses the dual credit courses ap courses the teachers do so those happen in that way with dual enrollment it is a little bit different and dr thiele's right there are students who take dual enrollment classes that we wouldn't even necessarily know about for example a student could take a college course between junior and senior year in the summer at cod and on college credit they do not need to they might inform us but they don't necessarily have to inform us right there's nothing that we you know as the high school have to do for them to to be able to do this so we don't always know in terms of the new dual credit opportunity or dual enrollment

086excuse me opportunity we had with eastern i sent out emails to all students who were eligible because there were certain criteria set by eastern illinois university i held a parent night and parent and student night and i had several families attend it was on zoom and then sent the email back out again and said maybe you couldn't attend the night but if you're still interested let me know they filled out applications i held another parent night and we worked all that out and that's how we got to where we're at today typically same with astronomy seniors they're going to be seniors next year three okay so it wouldn't it wouldn't happen generally in the younger grades we have had juniors in our astronomy class through benedictine it's usually upper class would they be approached by

087their math teacher or how would they find it to your point why would they find so the astronomy courses every one of them is very different so with the astronomy course is you know i work with benedictine and this really all started about four or five years ago when i cold-called benedictine and said we'd really like to form a partnership and that's how we got where we're at we also have a pathway to credit bearing courses which was really what the goal of that was but then the astronomy and we actually had a literature course at one time as well through benedictine came to fruition and so i work with them and what the criteria is i send out mass emails people respond i send out more emails and then i meet people and they

088say you're the lady who sends all those emails but then we get kids and we had the most this this spring we had more astronomy students than we ever had i think in part because of remote learning because it's an online course and students knew they could do it now at least the students had signed up because i asked some of them you know why are we have so many students why um because there was two meetings that i asked the students to attend and the professor who we worked closely with the past four or five years also you know met with the students um but we had over 20 students and in the past i'd have maybe seven nine it varied so long answer to probably i apologize and there's a there's a cost

089though for the class they're okay so there's a cost for benedictine however what is nice about benedictine and this i feel like this is a commercial but what is nice about benedictine if that if the student is receiving free lunch the tuition is waived if the student is receiving reduced lunch they receive a reduced rate the uh regular rate if i remember correctly is 180 dollars for three credit hours which if you've ever sent it cheap wow so i just calculus 3 is a there is a small fee as well i fund calculus 3 two ways one through some of that is through parents paying but the other part of it is through title iv grant which pays part of that to bring it down for our families wow so it's not a thousand fifty

090a credit hour no familiar with that and the eastern illinois university i was able to sponsor all three students it was 1 315 per students one we were able to do through the education pathway grant the other two i was able to fund through title four wow that's awesome yeah it is awesome work yeah so if gina's gonna come in on a vacation day she might as well get pride that she deserves yeah so this summer we are also running an alex enrichment program alex is a computer program in their actual courses that we had students in their district 99 math courses we're also working on the aleks courseware with their teachers in class and outside of class since we the per it's a one-year subscription it's open over the summer so to encourage students

091we again sent out emails and telling students you know you have this opportunity letting parents know for those students in the classes and we're talking almost 3 000 students that this is available over the summer and they can go in over the summer and i have a math teacher slash department chair who goes one hour a week online so if students have any questions they can go into his zoo meeting and he does help them if the questions are obviously about the alex courseware so that's a program we did over the summer we are also we just finished this week in fact our summer world language support for german we have a french enrichment program as well this is aimed for students who feel that they need a little more to be prepared for the

092next level because world language builds you need to be proficient at one level to go on to the next so it's not just for students who maybe were failing or even getting a d we i know for sure we had a student who inquired about it that had a c just wanted that little bit extra practice we were able to get our portable transition math class which is our preparation for quant lit class approved this year so we have students who are matriculating to any community college in the state of illinois automatically going into college bearing math courses which is huge this is something that we've been working on in district 99 in dupage county for the last 12 years that i'm aware of but through the power act and other and through the work

093of our superintendents and dr caputo as well at cod we were able to see this come to fruition awesome another board goal accomplished yeah that's awesome and last but not least the illinois state board of education started a pathway endorsement program this year and based on certain criteria students can earn a pathway endorsement we had to apply and be approved we did apply and literally the week i think it was the week of graduation we were approved and the language that needed to go on the student's transcript was finally approved so we were able to get that it was i believe literally the week of graduation if i remember correctly we had 19 students who did earn that pathway endorsement that pathway endorsement is just to show schools that students met the requirement part of

094which is six hours of dual credit just since we talked about dual credit i thought i mentioned that there are many more parts of the consolidated district plan i created a document that is on board docs that you can look over certainly we'll answer any questions that you might have thank you wow thank you gina thank you yeah that was a congratulations all right uh request for qualification strategic plan uh we've been talking for several years about doing a strategic plan but waiting until our facilities were completed as that was the last major part of the last strategic plan and we'll so drastically change the environment in which students are learning in that we felt you know let's get people into this new space before we start talking about what's next so now it's time

095people are going to come back they're going to kids are going to come back be in this new space time to start working with the community to determine what are the next steps for our district so over the course of the next year we will hire a third party consultant because there's a lot of community outreach and data that needs to be gathered and processed and we also want it to be gathered and processed in an unbiased format you know we don't want people thinking that the administration is slanting things in a certain way so this is why districts go out and find a third party consultant jill and the communications team along with other administrators including me have worked to put together this request for qualifications that's in the board packet tonight and we're

096asking for the board to approve that later on under action items and then we'll issue it and start gathering uh people that will vet and ultimately come to the board with a recommendation of a third party to work with so with these we you put out rfp for something like this too okay all right and we have names of companies that we know other schools have used that we can at least make them aware that it's out there yeah okay is there an expectation that we're going to model this somewhat on on how we built our mfp plan where we engaged different groups identified people are we going to be able to um use some of that that experience yeah i think you can see that experience in the way that jill has written the

097request for qualifications right that we learned from that experience and then yes we will definitely leverage what we did there and how we we do this but you know obviously in cooperation with that third party and if i remember correctly the last time the document was shared was from 2011 we've done this before and it was in 2011. correct 2011 was the last time typically school boards will do this about every five years but there was such a lofty goal in there in the master facility plan that we've we've waited this one's a 10-year cycle and then hopefully we'll get back to these five-year cycles okay okay food service program agreement the board i've sent you some information about this over the last month we're recommending that we opt out of the usda meal program

098and go into a one-year pilot of a more flexible program mark and jury are both here who have done a lot of the work on this we've provided the background to the board but ultimately it'll provide a lot more flexibility to our students trade-off is that we could incur as high of a 300 000 loss in federal grant funds as a result of this when we believe that perhaps maybe students taking advantage of the food service uh in our new new commons will offset uh some of those those lost revenues and make them up in other ways so that's the big over overarching uh picture i'll turn over direct questions to mark injury i i had a question so i was a little um confused about it so today the usda is i think what

099i saw they provide funding for the usda that provides the food of certain providers of the food they set up the guidelines that we have to follow through the hungry or healthy hunger free child act so if you're in the national program you have to follow those guidelines for nutrition and for the content of the meals okay portion sizes are smaller and so this is a one year pilot we're just trying to see especially with the new survey and the more space um how the kids react to a maybe a more robust meal okay something they're more used to you know there's two things we're fighting though but there's still there's shortened periods which is a problem they don't have a lot of time but we we are making a lot of changes where there's

100going to be some other places other than the main server area to get a meal so we're going to be able to get you know meals that and the free and reduced kids will get free meals it's the same same as they have in the past it'll but it'll be probably a little bit better meal than they got in the past because it's going to be a standard meal that any kid could walk up and give they give me that lunch i want the program lunch so this is just providing us an opportunity to come outside of the guidelines and and okay i was i was a little confused about if they actually tell us what vendors we have to use but this is just us opting out of the guidelines and trying something different

101okay large number of high schools around us have it you know this way already they're not in the program so we have some other things to you know give us an outline how to operate it and chart wells um has other schools that have are off the program too so that was my question actually just wondering those other schools that have tried this um have they seen a reduction in food waste and have they seen an increase in student participation i can't speak to the waste part i believe it would be because a lot of times we're serving and it goes right in the garbage because it's a piece of fruit something they don't want um but in terms of the kids going through using it in our server rather than bringing the brown bag

102in or just picking a few things we do expect it to go up i mean i think and i think other schools that's why other schools get you know more kids involved in the lunch program well i can't remember if it was a a formal goal of past boards or or not but um we had a lot of discussion years back about what can we do to increase the amount of participation um in our lunch programs and and i actually floated this idea many years ago um i think you know we're i i what are we down to now i mean in terms of the last normal year we had number of students that were actually taking like was like 20 20 22 23 i mean it was it was really jerry's shaking her head

103she runs the program that's about and that had just been and that's that's been a steady sort of downward slide despite all the efforts we've had in in in trying to you know fine-tune uh what we were doing and the kids so one little off um conversation we had the psycho sidebar conversation we still are going to have the short shorter lunch periods this coming year um it right that depends is that we're planning because we're going to pre pandemic because if guidelines come out about social distancing for lunch periods we can make lunch periods work that way if we don't have restrictions around lunches then we will look at doing the full period lunch which then would provide even more access but it this is one of those things that's teetering on state guidelines

104because i i think that this is just i mean the students are coming back to new facilities um how wonderful that they'll have can you know also see hey the food you know right and and then um more places to eat and and also more options in terms of where where to get the food and to me just logically this seems like it's i i mean i'm hoping we don't incur that 300 000 loss it's scary and you're obligated to you know say this is the risk but the potential is there to really mitigate that and the hope would be in the long term that that this becomes really popular that we we have huge student participation yeah right you know our students i think are more sophisticated eaters now than they've ever been more

105than you or i were when we were for a lot of things you know and and this makes me really excited uh to see that we have some offerings that maybe will um appeal to those kids who you know want salad bars and soup you're making a great point though that so i mean a lot of kids are on very specific diets too for whatever reason right and and there might be a better opportunity here to meet that right right and and it i mean this is just really exciting and now my only a question is uh how much is an average meal going to cost is it going to be more expensive than what uh was what was like three dollars or we have to increase ours because the funding the funding that we

106get we've actually been having meals that cost less than what the funding would get back on it because they've been so cheap and they've been requiring us to increase the lunch prices for a standard meal um for the last few years so we're thinking it would be somewhere near 450 next year for if we were in the program and chartwells is proposing five dollars so it'll be 50 cents more um to buy about we think a much better meal and just as an aside this we've done such a brand new beautiful survey here at north we're making improvements to the south one as we as well as we can too to make that just give a whole new feel and trying to keep them but this is an exciting thing you're right can you confirm

107like how many different purchase points there might be versus what there used to be because i know time was always like is there going to be three stations where they could pay i think it's going to be three you know get out now three itself can they pay off of a phone app or is it a was it a card i don't think for students we're going to go to phone app no it's not it was discussed for exit for teachers though they would be able to inhabit which do which other schools are saying is very successful they can even call out for a lunch and have it ready for them and be ready to just pick up and eat or you know that'd be a future enhancement is it cashless or is it's not

108cashless completely but it's getting there a lot of it is you know we encourage all the kids to have an account even free and reduced kids because they if they buy a la carte they do have to pay for all the card items you know we hit on a we hit on a point here too um that uh it just occurred to me you're you're bringing up uh that the fact that we were being told that we had to increase our lunch costs because we're participating in the program we're getting more money yeah so there is the potential as we go forward that um that the program is doing really well and it'll be our decision as to whether or not we choose to you know subsidize more or less and to what extent it

109won't be dictated to us and so i like that flexibility we're going to a system where it's not subsidized at all but this because the subsidy really comes from state and fed so we'll be losing that but we're not we're we're losing the federal subsidies but we're not really you know subsidizing the launch out of district dollars just just to clarify this is a one-year pilot right and is there any impact on our students who are on free or reduced lunch or are somehow no they're going to get it from get it they're going to get so they can go wherever right if they pick up just an a card item and walk through they will have to pay for that but if they get a standard lunch which is a requirement now you have

110to get a type a meal if you say yeah i wanna i want this they can they don't call it taipei they go i just want the regular meal deal or whatever yeah and they get that zero goes on their account and they could go to any like they can go to the smoothie bar or the i think we're going to try and have it at all three spots for them so then they're spread out you know so they can get and it should be higher quality food than what they're getting and what they're getting now thank you and for the first performer my quick question is it are we going to be collecting data that um they can use to make the standards for lunches because there are standards that we have to meet

111usually not technically anymore they'll be able to put together whatever kind you know well yeah because we've we've opted out of it but are they going to use our uh what our kids buy and what they want as data they're free to do that and since they're going to own the program it's in their best interest to get make as as enticing a meal as they can can for those kids for that five dollars you know and you can do a pretty good lunch for five dollars when you're chartwells and you buy you know millions of dollars worth of food at the time and you know you got to remember uh mcdonald's meal is is more than five dollars now so you know we're going to have a better quality lunch not that mcdonald's isn't

112quality food i'm not saying that he's speaking but yes we will have a highly up my previous life i can't deny that but [Laughter] but it it's affordable is what you're saying yeah yeah hopefully you know i mean i i realize five dollars sounds like a lot for a school lunch considering when i went to school it was like a buck 50 or something not anymore i mean five dollars but then you could bring it in a stone tablet so it sounds good so it sounds like everybody's supporting do we have any other yeah yeah okay thank you i don't mean to cut you off i just see a big agenda i know this is i know this is an important point yep and i would expect the best the same from you to me

113all right next item is insurance renewals um this comes to the board every year at this time uh we do combine with district 58 for some of these renewals as mark has outlined in his memo uh the overall recommendation from mark is an increase of 821 753 dollars which is five point seven percent increase from last year i'll turn it over to mark for the details and any questions actually eight twenty one is the total it's in the increase is forty three thousand dollars the the key things here really there's there's two key factors one is workers compensation is the largest premium that we uh have to pay in the coverage that we need under workers compensation and it's been a real rough year for workers compensation with the pandemic and so um in the

114past couple years we've seen little or no increase in workers compensation now this year we're seeing a four and a half percent income uh increase in in our biggest program so that kind of weights everything and the second thing is that we're increasing our cyber liability it's it's they're they are targeting schools schools have successfully uh been able to fend some of them off but it's by using these the cyber liability coverage they're experts and they have they'll set a team up if we get hit and it's it's a large you know hit so um that's what we're moving from one million to two million that's that's another twelve thousand dollars a part of that total increase of forty three thousand dollars so the the five seven is is um a hard number for us

115to eat but we didn't um get an increase in workers comp last year so really if you take that four and a half percent it's really two and a quarter over two years which is closer to our revenue stream so and we we have uh submitted or asked for submissions from 30 different companies on on the whole packages so um we have a real good uh relationship with the brokerage firm that we use for both districts and we're both very satisfied with the work that they do they also support us for training programs and just for whenever we have a claim they just pretty much walk it through for us um so right we're asking for 5.7 increase in the total insurance costs for next year that'll be the action item thumbs up thank you

116good job 457 403 uh this has come to the board i think in a prior meeting in several memos this is just a slight amendment that allows the district to make direct contributions to those two plans rather than having to be funneled through the employee this is pretty standard in school districts these are slight amendments as presented and recommended to be approved tonight any questions on those thank you bulk purchasing all right purchasing cmg supplies uh jim went out and as he does every year submitted for bids and then we award the bids inside of those smaller bids on individual items then he groups them all together and makes a recommendation to the board you've seen that full memo and recommendation so jim is recommending tonight that the board approves the aggregate amount of 112

117876.31 for all of the custodial supplies for the next year questions on that one next one's very similar uh it's on copy paper uh this has come to the board every year when i got here the board set some goals about decreasing use of paper especially as we increase the use of technology we've accomplished that goal very well year after year i kind of went back and did a five-year look as we prepared this one and you can see that this budget was over sixty thousand dollars per year uh five years ago and now we're getting close to about twenty thousand a year uh in that budget so we're we're accomplishing that goal set by the board as well uh this is an action item later tonight to accept that lowest bidder in the amount

118of twenty one thousand six hundred and fifty seven dollars and eighty cents questions on that one nope master facility plan a few things going on with this uh we continue to be on budget ahead of schedule well on on schedule um you can see where we sit with this that uh we're currently sitting with the contingency of 486 thousand dollars about some of that is movement between funds as we close out certain accounts and and all of that kind of stuff the big one this month was ff e fixtures furniture and equipment as we finalize what we need in those budgets those as we've done in prior months flow back into recommendations for the board to complete scope that we originally hoped when we talked to the community about getting this this project done but

119then had to scale back to make sure that we would be in budget now that we're within budget we're trying to release back in projects that we originally talked about a big one here that was a huge discussion point of community members as we did the master facility plan and the referendum is classroom improvements so you can see we're starting to allocate more and more of the resources that are being freed up to specific individual classrooms what's nice about those is that jim is able to kind of hold that money off to the side until the summer is done because those are its supplies that we order and then our team will replace the lighting the flooring repaint the rooms those kinds of things so it's really a supply budget in some ways to get

120that equipment in those capital items in and then over the course of the year we can just keep turning over room after room which is a a nice way to say hey we're going to set aside 400 000 because we have this contingency we're going to plan towards it but we're not going to spend any of that until we're really done this summer just in case something should go wrong that was unexpected so and i think you're going to see more and more as contingency has freed up us putting it into that classroom remodeling plan and get as many of those classrooms up to date as we possibly can which was always the plan i think also by the the longer we wait to make those purchases i think the more we'll get for our

121money going forward my my speculation but just you know looking at supply chain issues and stuff that i see in my in my work world what i actually think it's going to go down instead of up yeah sure yeah yeah i mean so many so many things are you know in short supply and and are artificially inflated because of because of that right now so there'll be a there's some leveling off and dropping down so i i i suspect that we'll get more for our money pushing things off a little bit not indefinitely you know because eventually prices you know it's i think things are going to get better i hope i pray so that's kind of where we're sitting right now yes that's good news it is good news uh just some pictures i

122share every month with the board uh south by auditorium seats are in place and the walls are all getting finished it's beautiful space south high learning commons you can see starting to feel like a finished space north uh commons we got a lot of ancillary spaces that are getting as we talked about at the last board meeting that are attached to the commons that need to get cleaned up uh as part of this uh that was from last month all right and then oh any questions on master facility plan beyond that no no it's just so exciting yeah it's really coming along it is i you know i i was actually wanted to mention too that um thinking about next year plans and how we potential things that we might have to deal with with

123covet having our facilities done and having additional space allows us more more options in how we deal with things than we had a year ago yeah and so that's something to be you know uh positive about and you know well may not fix everything it's certainly something we'll have at our disposal that we didn't have before and that's helpful all right foia requests as always we've received them and they're posted on our website before we close the superintendent's report at the beginning i was distracted i do want to point out two important things uh going on one our community was unfortunately hit by some extreme weather right uh last night throughout the day i've kept close contact with district 68 with the village of woodridge we have offered them any assistance that they need from

124our custodial maintenance group or you know if they need anything at all they know that they can reach out to us and we will support them i know they've done a lot of just i i know the administration in district 68 was helping people clean their clear their driveways today and they were out working um the village has been very supportive we have heard from many of our families that were impacted and we will continue to support them i know ed was reaching out to families throughout the day to make sure that they knew we were here for them i put out a note that encouraged people to reach out to the district office if they need anything from us and we'll continue to support uh people as we go actually janice i think had

125a few impacted at north as well so we'll continue to support families in any way we can throughout this and glad that overall it sounds like there were no significant injuries as a result of this so thank you modern science for letting us know that the bad weather was coming and then the other thing to uh that i need to point out this evening is this is janice's final board meeting with us so um thank you janice thank you [Applause] and we're not glad you're going we're just we're happy for you actually yes yes and that is the end of the superintendent's report you know just uh if if a community member thought we could help them what kind of help would we provide certainly we could help with some meals what other kinds which

126i would not immediately think of schools providing but we do provide meals sure what else would we do it would depend on the family so anything that they need reach out to either we would provide that or we work with the community providers to partner them with that like right now we know that woodridge has some an organization working to provide meals so that might not come from us it might come from that so just as we do with any family that's in need they'll reach out to us we'll talk through what what they need and then if we need help we'll ask for it and hey you know the community always delivers when we ask for help like that so thank you um so yeah if somebody needs it reach out to us and

127we'll talk to them and figure out what we can do to help anything else we'll move on to the consent agenda is there any member of the board wish to remove any item from the consent agenda is in yeah yes chris i believe is still on yes i am did you did you have anything you wanted to speak about specifically was there anything you wanted to remove and talk from the consent agenda and talk about individually uh me no okay then i need a motion for the board of education to approve the consent agenda as presented which includes personnel report appointments certified leave of absent certified transfer position classified appointments classified personnel reports retirements administration retirements classified resignation certified resignations classified financial pages 2021 2022 amended calendar property and liability insurance renewals employer contribution amendment

128to the community high school district 99 457 b retirement plan the 403 b retirement plan adoption agreement and resolution of nomination for membership on the donors growth plan commission so i moved second with a heavy heart i second that's really nice but i think joanna beat you to it so it's mike and joanna and terry's heavy-hearted mike davenport aye terry pavich aye joanna vazquez drexler aye christopher espinoza aye shirelle fuller aye jenny hagstrom aye and nancy cupcake aye the consent agenda's adoption is adopted now we'll move on for recommendations for action first we need a motion for the board of education to approve the district 99 consolidated district plan as presented by gina for submission to the illinois state board of education so moved second mike and terry thank you mike davenport aye terry pavicich

129aye joanna vazquez drexler aye christopher espinoza aye shirelle fuller aye jenny hegstrom aye and nancy kupka aye the motion carries next we need a motion for the board of education to approve the request for qualification strategic plan as presented so moved second mike and i think they were shirelle mm-hmm yeah okay thank you mike davenport aye shirelle fuller aye jenny hagstrom aye terry paversich aye joanna vazquez drexler aye christopher espinoza hi and nancy kupko aye the motion curious next we need a motion for the board of education to approve the one year trial period food service agreement with chartwells and opt out of the usda meal program a second terry and mike thank you terry pavisic aye mike davenport aye christopher espinoza hi shirelle fuller aye jenny hagstrom aye joanna vazquez drexler aye and nancy

130kupka aye the motion carriers next we need a motion for the board of education to approve the uh to approve awarding the contract for custodial maintenance and ground supplies to the noted vendors in the aggregate amount of one hundred twelve thousand eight hundred seventy six dollars and thirty one cents so i moved second mike and joanna thank you mike davenport aye joanna vazquez drexler aye christopher espinoza hi shirelle fuller aye jenny hagstrom aye terry pavich aye and nancy kupka aye the motion carries next we need a motion for the board of education to approve an award of for a contract to midland paper wheeling illinois for copier paper excuse me copier paper for fiscal year 2021 through 2022 in the amount of 21 657 and 80 cents so moved second mike and joanna thank you

131mike davenport hi joanna vazquez drexler aye christopher espinoza hi shirelle fuller aye jenny heggstrom aye terry pavich aye and nancy kupko aye the motion carries next we need a motion for the board of education to hold the monday monday july 12 2021 board of education meeting entirely in closed session for the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park recreational or educational setting or specific volunteers of the district or legal counsel for the district including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee a specific individual who serves as an independent contractor in a park recreational or educational setting or volunteer in the district or against legal counsel for the district to determine its validity wow mike and cheryl i think can i

132answer the question now or no sure yes okay i didn't hear what you said i'm sorry can i ask a question yes because i i believe that a point of clarification earlier today about that meeting was someone thought we were going to have our meetings entirely in closed session i wanted to make a point that this is a an additional meeting and it's not our first and third meeting that we're having right in order to discuss this so i want to make that point of clarification because i think that was the misinterpretation of the communication earlier thank you today that's good excellent yes special it's a special board meeting entirely in closed session right exactly okay second terry and shreema i thought mike and shirelle mike and sherrell i already yeah it had to be

133my character to ask the question oh sorry okay we still we're good now okay yes yes mike davenport aye shirelle fuller aye jenny hagstrom aye terry pavich aye joanna vazquez drexler aye christopher espinoza all right thank you and nancy kupka aye the motion carries and finally the motion for the board of education to adopt the findings of the complaint manager related to uniform grievance complaint number 52021 so move on second i didn't hear who moved terry and mike was it terry it was mate joanne i'm sorry joanna terry slip smooth it's joanna and mike yeah joanna mike thank you joanna vazquez drexler aye mike davenport aye christopher espinoza aye cheryl fuller aye jenny hegstrom aye terry pavich aye that concludes our action items we move on to communications and announcements report on the legislative education

134network of dupage we haven't had a recent meeting we had just the one yeah okay summertime it slowed down uh joanna do you ever point out the asset no report uh terry 99 foundation uh no report but just so you know um julia beckman had a hip replacement last week so she's doing okay yeah she's doing great she's around and doing great so but just so you know she's pretty formidable mm-hmm julia is julie yeah she is she's tough mm-hmm yeah so but i think she was up in wisconsin and did it because her daughter that's a doctor right so the ed foundation will resume business in july as a result yeah we got moved back a little okay uh chris do you have anything on the illinois association school boards probably not chris anything

135to report on illinois association of school boards oh uh no not as far as i know i have signed up for the conference in november i believe and i truly sent me the information on that great uh just as an aside district 99 will be hosting the dupage divisional meeting either spring or fall to be determined oh i believe that ed will volunteer that courtney do that that's been the theme over the last week okay so we have upcoming board meetings again july 12th which will be totally closed to sherelle's point this is not in place of an it's not it's an extra meeting it's an extra meeting it is not going to be a continuation that will be meeting in closed session along and this is specifically to work on some employment issues and

136then on july 19th we're going to have our regular business meeting at 6 30 p.m here at south well location to be determined because it depends on the government's executive order and everything else so well okay stay tuned stay tuned we will announce it in advance as to where it will be okay do we have anything else we have a motion to adjourn so moved terry joanna all those in favor aye all those opposed we are adjourned thank you thanks you