001On behalf of the community unit school district 300 board of education, we would like to thank you for your attendance board for for tonight's meeting. At this time, we would like to reconvene the meeting of the community unit school district 300 board of education for Tuesday, August 12th, 2025. Please stand with me for the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. We have one change of the agenda. We will not be needing a second um close session. So with that amendment, do I have a um motion to approve the agenda? >> So move second. >> Oh, you're right. >> Hold on one second. >> Um because we convene before 6:30, even
002though it was just before 6:30, we want to honor anyone who signed up for public comment prior to 6:30. Is there any else present who would like to make a public comment. Okay. So, um Oh, I'm so sorry. God bless. >> Yes, madam secret. I'm sorry. Madam Secretary, please take the role. >> Right. Burket, >> present. >> Fantino, >> present. >> Lamar, present. Lindmark, >> present. Mckende >> present. >> Meia >> present. >> Zeer >> present. >> Motion or you have seven board members present. >> Okay. So again since we amended the agenda to remove the second close session. Um do do I have a motion to approve the agenda? >> So moved. >> Is there a second? Okay. Madam secretary, please take the role. >> Lamarca I. Amelia. >> Hi. >> Zetler. Hi >>
003Burkett. >> I >> Lindmark. >> Hi >> McKende. >> Hi. >> Motion passes. 70. >> Item six. Dr. Smith. >> Members of the board of education, community members, staff, and students. We would like to acknowledge the passing of a district 300 staff member. District 300 would like to honor Joshua Zibbitan, a teacher at Dundy Crown High School who passed away on August 4th. Joshua will be forever missed and District 300 would like to offer deep condolences to his family and friends. At this time, I respectfully ask all in attendance to observe a moment of silence in honor of Mr. Joshua Zibbitan. Thank you. Okay, we'll move to item seven, public hearing on e-learning program verification renewal. We are now opening the public hearing for e-learning program verification re verification renewal. Is there a motion to
004open the public hearing for e-learning program verification renewal? Do I have a motion? So moved. >> There a second. >> Second. >> Secretary, please take the role. >> Lamar I. >> Lindmark. >> I. >> Meia. >> Hi. >> Zeer. >> Hi. >> Mckende. >> Hi. >> Fantino. >> Burkett. >> I. >> Motion passes 70. >> Dr. Melanie Grall. um assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for early childhood and elementary will provide a brief overview of the e-learning program verification renewal. Good evening, Dr. Smith, members of the board, and community members. I'm here tonight to present information regarding the renewal of our District 300 e-learning program verification. The purpose of this public hearing is to receive public comment on the proposed e-learning program verification renewal. This evening's public hearing will begin with an overview of the
005e-learning program verification renewal process. I will then turn things back over to board president Zetler who will accept public comment and then close the public hearing. We are seeking to renew the District 300 e-learning program verification with the Kain County Regional Office of Education. Our goal is to secure a new three-year verification period, which ensures we continue to have the flexibility of the option to implement e-learning days when needed, thereby preventing disruptions to instruction and avoiding the necessity of makeup days. Our current e-learning program verification is approved by the Kain County Regional Office of Education and is valid through October 25th, 2025. Its primary purpose is to provide district 300 with the flexibility of the option to utilize e-learning days as an alternative to emergency days such as those caused by severe weather. This means
006we can maintain continuity of instruction for our students and avoid the need for required makeup days at the end of the school year. An e-learning day means our school buildings are closed, but instruction continues virtually. Our students access their coursework online, primarily through Schooly platform using their districtisssued Chromebooks. The key benefit is that these days do not require makeup days, which provide significant predictability for our school calendar and for our families. Pursuant to the requirements put forth by the Illinois State Board of Education, District 300 has provided notice of its intent to renew our e-learning program verification at least 10 days prior to this hearing. Specifically, on July 28th, 2025, the following notifications occurred. A publication appeared in the Daily Herald. The hearing notice was published on the District 300 website. An electronic notice was
007sent to parents and guardians as well as an electronic notice sent to employees. Following this evening's public hearing during the August 12th board of education meeting, the board will be asked to adopt a resolution to approve the renewal of the district 300 e-learning program. Pending board approval, the final step would be to submit the approved e-learning program verification application to the Kain County Regional Office of Education. At this time, I will turn things back over to board president Zetler. Thank you. >> I I I do just want to clarify one thing. I'm sorry. Um um one point that um Dr. Gavl made. What is an e-learning day? School buildings are closed and students learn virtually. That is not live teaching. We just want to make sure that everyone understands that's not live instruction. It is
008set up to continue work in a virtual learning environment with the option to reach out for help in different ways through schooly. >> Thank you. >> Any questions before we move? >> Yeah, please. >> Does it have to be virtual through schooly? Like when we apply for our renewal, do we have to lay out how the virtual day is going to take place or is there some flexibility there? >> We already have that laid out as a district. It's already available on the website and schooly. So, I want to um would now be the time to make my comments on it, Nancy. Okay. Typically, I would like when when I was coming here today, I didn't really have any thoughts on this one way or another. Both my kids have done e-learning through COVID. Although,
009you know, each one learned differently and one had a great experience, one not so much. But the email that came in today really had me thinking, um, are we doing what's best? For me personally, uh, those days are just kind of, uh, keep keep you busy with a worksheet day. So, I can see this parents point, especially for her diverse learner. So, I guess I'm at a crossroads in what's best for our students. I also know that at the end of the year, the teachers are done, the kids are done in the last week or two. Not much is being taught anyway. So, if we continue the uh school year, that could screw up people's vacations, but that shouldn't be the reason we're not doing that. Um, so I guess I'm just not sure at
010this time. I I think if if it was more of a live teaching via Zoom that might work better. That's my comment, I guess. >> Yeah. And we've worked um very closely with our union leadership and we have a very good progress uh procedure in place that we use um that we partner on. Um understanding that, you know, every day is a hit or a miss. Every every day is not everyone's best day. what e-learning does for us as a district with our size. One thing that is critical now that I've been through it solo for a year when it is time for us to make a weather decision or if pipes break at a school or power is down and we don't know what the restore time is to be able to make something
011available for kids and keep a regular school year going is huge for us with the size of our district. So, I just want to make sure I speak to the scope of all of this knowing that there are very in there are many individual cases um throughout each school year for different reasons. So, >> and outside of COVID, how many days have we had um since >> and this is not the same type of instruction that was used during CO. This is a much more um planned um reviewed in partnership with all three of our unions specifically um where we work very closely with Mr. Williamson on making sure we can give staff the time that they need and the training that they need to be able to get these things up online for kids
012as well as a way for us to provide individual support for kids with one-on- ones and how that all looks with our DESA union as well. And so um it is very different than what we did in co >> really wasn't I wasn't comparing the type. What I wanted to know was I mean have we had any e-learning days since we've been back? >> Yeah, we had um two last year. Okay. We had a couple last >> and it was cold days and um in January. >> Okay. >> If my mind is serving me right, kind of blacked out a little bit because those are very stressful times. >> And then the year prior uh we had them as well. Um cold and snow days. >> Okay. But just a couple each year. We have
013not in my time being engaged with e-learning in the last three years, we have not used more than three in one school year. >> And I just um real quick and then obviously can have your say I I understand Lisa what and what um you know any the parents in the situation with alternative learning children. I definitely understand that. Um it is difficult though to be able to you know I don't know that's something we can revisit sometime but >> it is and I do just want to reiterate I really do want to honor you know staffs needing that break in the summer as well. Um knowing that we have a day here and there and like I said every day is not our best day. Every day is not the first day of school
014when it's the happiest day on earth and everything just goes all the way right and you get the best pictures ever. that's that's that's just the way it it kind of rolls. Um but there are many things that are considered um with us having the opportunity to have these days available. >> And just so everybody we met before CO we were piloting this program before CO which actually even though it had to be adjusted was actually a benefit to us because we were able to roll into it for CO diff you know better than a lot of other districts because that hadn't piloted the program. So it's got its good things and its bad things. um just like anything else like but like you said we're a very diverse district. We have all kinds of
015kids that we're working with in this district and you know it's a struggle all the time >> and acknowledging we can keep making it better. >> Right. Exactly. So but thank you for that was a good question Christine. >> Yeah. I just wanted to say too I mean I'm assuming that if we should have like a prolonged like say cold weather event where now we're on day five of being remote learning like we could look we have the chance to to call that a snow day still. Right. That's still an option for us. >> Yes. Um, coming soon, we will have our winter weather update about what is available to me when making a weather decision, right? And this is one of our options because we would want as many options with the district this
016size. >> We would want as many options available to make sure we're considering students, families, staff, all of the above. And we would want as many options as possible in front of us or I should say I to make that decision. >> Absolutely. And Dr. Smith as she just mentioned this going through this process it gives the ability to exercise the option without moving forward we wouldn't have that option when faced with these decisions it doesn't guarantee that it would be utilized but it does guarantee that we have that as an option >> anybody else really good discussion thanks guys um okay so we'll be voting on the approval of the e-learning program verification renewal later in the meeting under roll call items. Do we have anyone signed up to speak regarding the e-learning program
017verification renewal? I believe we do not. Correct. Okay. Is there anybody in the audience who would like to speak to this right now? No. Okay. Given that there is no one else who wants us to speak, um at this time we are closing the public hearing. Is there a motion to close the public hearing for e-learning program verification renewal? >> So moved. >> Is there a second? Thank you. Um, secretary, please take the role. >> Lindmark, >> hi. >> Melia, >> hi. >> Zetler, >> hi. >> Mckende, >> I >> Lamar I, Burkett, >> I. >> Motion passes 70. >> Thank you. Um, so on item eight, we have nobody signed up for public participation. Um and we did have keep it open till 6:30. Make sure that you know even though we came back
018a little early. So we're going to go on to um item nine, superintendent report. Dr. Smith, I would like to have uh deputy superintendent Mr. Mark Wetzel and um chief of communications Mr. Anthony McInn will give us an update for our handover research cell phone project. >> Good evening, Dr. Smith, members of the board of education and community members. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics and other studies indicate that 91% of US teens own a smartphone with students spending about one hour per school day on their devices and checking them more than a dozen times during class. Over half of school leaders report negative impacts on academics. 73% site reduced attention spans. 72% note negative effects on mental health, often connected to social media and cyber bullying. 77% of schools nationwide are restricting
019phone use during class. And several states are moving towards full day bans. Given this data, it is timely that we've engaged with handover research to conduct a study to review stakeholder perceptions of cell phones. To begin tonight's presentation, we'd like to review some of the project's key milestones. First, we partnered with Handover Research to conduct a research study and identified the scope of our project to gather comprehensive feedback on cell phone usage patterns in district 300 as well as stakeholder perceptions of current policies and through two primary act uh and attitudes towards potential policy and procedure changes. My apologies. This would be accomplished through two primary activities. Surveys and focus groups, both open to students, staff, parents, and community members. Next, we administered surveys. One was designed for parents, staff, community members, and students in
020grades 6 through 12. And the other with simplified language was created for students in grades four through five. Each survey consisted of roughly 20 questions and could be completed in 10 to 15 minutes. Survey administration took place between January 17th and February 7th and nearly 1,200 individuals participated. We then conducted a series of virtual focus groups between March 4th and April 29th. These focus groups were open to students, staff, parents, and community members. A total of 134 people participated in focus groups. On June 10th, the district provided updates on the project to the board of education. During the presentation, we explained that one of our next steps would be reviewing handover's data and analysis. Tonight, we will share key findings from the study with the community. Cell phone use among students varies by grade level
021with younger students in grades four to five primarily using cell phones for personal communication and a majority not using them during school hours. Starting in middle school, cell phone use in school begins to increase and continues to increase as students progress through high school. There is consistency throughout our system with opinions on the benefits and concerns of cell phone use. When asked to select the top two benefits of cell phone use, the top response across all grade levels was for emergency preparedness with the second highest response for enhancing communication. When asked to provide the top two concerns of cell phone use, the top concern across all grade levels was that cell phones distract from learning with the second highest concern for cheating and academic dishonesty. Now I'll turn it over to Mr. McInn. Good evening.
022The survey revealed that stakeholders have mixed opinions on the overall impact of cell phone usage. The graph on the left includes responses from students in grades 6 through 12 staff, parents, and community members. 61% of respondents indicate that cell phones distract from class. 44% feel that they are used appropriately and 39% believe that they enhance learning. The graph on the right includes responses from staff, parents, and community members. When asked about access to social media via cell phones, concerns are high. 73% of respondents are extremely or very concerned about excess use. 67% expressed concerns about long-term impact on development. and 63 expressed concerns about cyber bullying. Handover research also asked respondents about their support for potential policy implications. Broadly, across all stakeholder groups, there is support for allowing cell phone use before and after school.
023However, opinions diverge on classroom use for educational purposes. Stakeholders were asked to share their input on potential policy for elementary, middle, and high school students cell phone use. And the table displays those results. The percentages on the left for elementary are based on responses from staff, parents, and community members, and students in grades four and five. The percentages for middle school and high school are based on responses from students in grades 6 through 12 along with staff, parents, and community members. When asked about elementary schools, 53% of respondents support cell phone use in designated areas at designated times, compared with 59% for middle school and 57% for high school. Though it's the second highest level of support, fewer than half of respondents support cell phone use under direct teacher supervision. The options that received the
024lowest level of support were for a total ban on cell phones and for use of clear backpacks. After reviewing the data and analysis provided by handover research, the district will be taking the following next actions. First, we will work to draft options for refined cell phone policy during the fall. We will then work with targeted stakeholder groups to gather input on potential policy refinements. We would then look to provide an update to the board during a winter board meeting. pending board support of a proposed refined policy. We would begin communicating to stakeholders shortly after any decision was made and would continue messaging through the summer of 2026. And the culmination of this project would be to implement an updated cell phone policy for the 2627 school year. >> Questions? >> Any questions? And to clarify,
025we understand that is a proposal of a policy to the board as the board makes policy decisions. >> So when you look at, you know, possible policy draft drafts of policies like you mentioned, will obviously you'll pull in what other districts are doing and are there any other large districts in Illinois currently implementing I don't know how to say it. Uh, I'll just say >> there are other districts in Kain County that have um implemented some procedural changes and some with some policy changes. Um, and we work closely with them and we'll include what we learn through that as well. >> Thank you. >> Anything else? >> Okay. Thanks, guys. >> Thank you. >> Oh, uh, uh, Steve. >> Oh, Steve, I'm sorry. I would just because you all and we we received this on
026Thursday and looked at it a couple times, but you've had it now and really work with it. >> We got the report from them in the full report uh towards the end of June. >> Okay. So, were there any ahas from your perspective that you want to add to that? I mean, thank you for the summary, but there was there's obviously a lot in this um 20page document. Um, and you know, I appreciate you doing it and it cost us some time and money and we learned a lot, but are we surprised by anything? >> I personally am not surprised by anything. Um, this has been an issue that's, you know, throughout the nation, people are struggling with this issue and it's because I feel like if I put 10 people in a room and
027ask them each the same question, I get 10 different versions of the answer. So, this really pretty much um where I thought we would land with the data. >> Can I ask just a couple clarifying um on the first few? So 90% of the database of about 10,000 were either students or parents. Is that correct? >> Are you talking about the initial slides? >> Uh it's it's the second data point. So it says N equals 9200. >> He's looking at the data sheet that they received. >> I just want to make sure I have my numbers correctly. Like who are we talking to? >> Um okay. So can you which data point are you talking about please? >> Not these slides. So it's actually the report that you sent out. Which of the following best
028describes your relationship with the uh district 300 and it says student 68% parent. >> That's everyone. >> You're looking at the topline data sheet that was uploaded with this. Yeah. >> Yeah. I just want to make sure that I'm pulling the right things out of here because obviously a different perspective changes what the data says. So it is correct that about 90 plus% of who we pulled were students and and sta and students and and parents >> not who we pulled who responded, >> right? >> We pulled everybody data, right? >> Yeah. eight like 80 89% and then another 10% of staff >> and then of the um of the staff 90% were it looked like inclassroom staff people does that sound right? >> Yes. >> Okay. You know, one of the common things as
029we talk to people, I think um outside of this study is that most staff have pretty um bold responses to what we should be doing and how aggressively we should be doing it. I I really haven't heard a lot of variation uh from from the educators and not not just our district, but districts um that we talked to. So, um interesting information. It'll be part of the process. Thank you for doing it and appreciate your summary. >> Did you have a question? >> Yeah. Well, I just wanted to say I appreciate that we're going to move to the next phase of really getting stakeholder um like dialogue because I took this survey and sometimes your answer is how you're reading the question, your response on that day and even some of it I didn't know
030like what the clear backpack even really meant or the pouch. Now I do, but at the time when I took the survey, some of these options that were before me as a parent didn't even really make sense. So, if I were to take that survey again today or actually have a conversation, I think that's where we might even get a more of a a jelling together of what people really think about this. You know, you're you're rating multiple things. You're putting them in order. Maybe I didn't even like any some of the other options, but I had to, you know, give a response to them and rate them. And so, I think these conversations are going to be very illuminating hopefully to helping us um get even a better sense of of what people think
031the path forward is for this. So, I appreciate that we're doing that step. >> Thank you. >> So, when you say we're going to reach out to other stakeholders, are you saying we're going to give this survey to other stakeholders or are there other things that you're going to do? >> No, we're not giving the same survey again. We actually did it this way because sometimes, you know, in all the things out there, um, uh, it's better to have a third party gather data than us just always collecting the same data and disseminating it and then, you know, who's really doing what, who's saying what. It's and so I think that this gives us a great starting point that is transparent. So now we can actually have very clear um probably complex conversations um kind
032of knowing and understanding um as I have had conversations with a few people myself um knowing we'll want to work closely with um our lead leadership as well um to make sure we are supporting staff and what needs to move forward as well as kids and families. >> Okay, that's what I was hoping. Thank you. Anybody else? No. Okay. Thanks, guys. A lot of good work. >> Dr. Frank Williams, chief financial officer with a 2026 tenative budget update. >> Okay. Good evening. Oh, okay. Let's see. This will stay. There we go. Okay. Uh good evening me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me members of the board, Dr. Smith, administrators, community stakeholders. We'll be talking about
033the FY26 tentative budget. As we go through the presentation, we'll review the FY25 budget. Kind of look at where we started, where we anticipate ending, and then we're going to look at the FY26 budget, walking away with the understanding of the why we're asking for uh a particular dollar amount from spending authority. So, here is the FY25 budget. In September of last year, you guys approved a $42 million in revenue and 398 million in expenses with an expected fund balance increase of roughly 4 million. As we went through uh the data for today, this uh the numbers you're going to see from an FY25 perspective are all unudited actuals. In fact, those columns should say unodudited actuals uh because we're still going through the audit. The audit will be presented to everybody here in December.
034Here we can see the revenues came in 13.5 million higher than budget primarily due to an increase in interest earnings and the timing of tax deposits from tax year 23. So, for example, Cook County is kind of known for being an unknown as to when those tax receipts are going to come in. However, Kane Du page and DAL, they're pretty steady. So we get those usually in June we'll get a deposit and then we start really get deposits come that July time frame. So that then flips into the next fiscal year. Expenditures are estimated to come in 11.7 under budget, but again it's a budget, right? So we're setting that dollar amount. We're kind of doing a a good our best educated guess as to what one year is going to look like. So coming
035in uh under 11.7 is is acceptable. Uh we do see that the O andM was over budget. However, this mount this amount is within that understood 10% acceptable ban. The overage is primarily due to overtime hours and the continued efforts of maintaining our schools and buildings through repairs and maintenance. So, we looked at the budgets. We looked at our unawited actuals and this tells us what we anticipate our ending fund balance to be. We anticipate the funding infunding balance to be about 223.7 which is an increase of about 29.3 million. The balance is place places the district at 43.83% fund balance to expense ratio which is greater than the board's policy though. So the board has a policy of 30% fund balance to expense ratio. This this particular fund balance keeps us above that plus
036six months cash on hand. The fund balance is strategic and that it prepares the district for any emergencies and prepares for the capital projects associated with the master facility plan. As has been discussed at previous board meetings, the district is embarking on that master facility plan. This plan will require the district to access its fund balances. So the fund balances we see here will have to touch those in order to execute building improvement which we have been strategically accumulating over the last five years. So, we've been strategically accumulating those cash balances in order to prepare for this master facility plan and for any type of emergency rainy day type funds. So, with that, we talk about the FY26 budget, but I think it's important to make sure we understand what the purpose of the budget
037is. Budget dollars are meant to support the mission and the vision which is set by the board. Our job as administrators then is to come up with our execution plan. How do we execute your mission? And the mission is what do we want to do today? The vision is where do we want to be in the future. So our job is to come up with those plans to execute that. But we also need the dollars to help support that. So that's what our budget is for. As we start with the FY26 budget, we have to start with things that are known and things that are unknown. The known that we have are the consumer price index. That's the CPI that comes in at the 2.9%. So when we talk about taxes here as we progress
038towards the month of December, we're going to understand that the most amount of new revenue we can receive regardless of the increase in the price of housing is 2.9%. That's that's the the pel CPI limit there. We know that as a fact. So we have to take that in consideration as new money because that counts for new money next year. Right? Then we have our evidence-based funding, our aotment that we did receive from the state that moves us to tier two. We're going to talk about that a little bit. We also have the known variable of our salary increases. We know that we have our collective bargaining payment um agreements in place. Kudos to the board, the administration, and lead on settling their um contract this past year. We do have an extension with our
039DESPA as we move forward with that for one more year. And then our DESA has two more years left on their particular contract. As far as our unknowns, it's our grant allocation as part of our one of our bigger unknowns. Typically, we receive in that 20 to$24 million range for grant allocations. Right now, we've only got confirmation of 16 million. So, that's a pretty big difference between our 24 and our 16 million, but that's an unknown. We're still waiting on the federal government to come through on whether it's title two or title three or to increase the other title one or our idea. We're still waiting on some of those confirmations, but we do have actual allocations for some of those. The impact of tariffs and inflation on discretionary spending is a big one. We
040heard today CPI was up again, particularly in the goods portions that we need to buy to operate on a daily basis. So that's an unknown at this point as to what price increases will those continue. So we have to budget wisely as to how much is our supplies going to cost us over the next year, how much our goods going to cost us over the next year. but that it's unknown because we just have to make sure that we're moving forward with we believe inflation and those impacts of those tariffs will have and of course our new property impacting tax year. We don't know what that's going to be at this time. We typically won't know that until spring of next year, but we start having those tax conversations, but those also have a big
041big impact particularly on our revenue side. Those are some of the known known and unknowns that we deal with as we start to prepare and and finesse our FY26 budget. And so here it is. We anticipate revenues of 405.7 million and expenses of 418 for a planned deficit of 12.2. So it's a planned deficit, meaning that it's it's not structural, meaning structural would mean that it's ongoing permanent. This is planned, meaning we have some control over this, right? Particularly as we dive into the expense side, we have some control on the capital maintenance projects, right? those things. Sometimes as we go through the year, we go, "Oh, look, our parking lots are doing okay. Maybe we don't need to do the parking lots this year." We have some of those. So, it's a planned deficit
042at this time. From our revenue perspective, there are three legs to the revenue stool. We have our local, our state, and our federal. Local, that's primarily our property taxes or other local. Also, things that make up local would be like rental fees or any interest earned on our cash that we have uh in the bank. Now, we do anticipate the interest that we earn to go down this year. Right? Right now, you're go to your local bank, you get maybe a 4% CD. We anticipate that to be decreasing over the next year. So, we anticipate our interest earnings to come down over the next over this next year. From a state perspective, evidence-based funding is our largest uh our largest revenue from the state about 81 a little over 81 million. The additional 27 million
043comes from our categoricals. Those are things like our transportation claim uh that we do get reimbursement for. And then from a federal perspective, as I mentioned, typically our grants are our federal dollars. So, our titles, the idea uh grant, those we usually are in that $24 million range. Right now, we're at the 16. I'm budgeting what we know. I budgeting what we know. I could have budgeted more, but I want to make sure that we're not doing that. We want to make sure that we're budgeting what we know today from our federal grant perspective. This is a quick historical look at our revenues. Uh you can see again our un audited actuals. We believe we're in that $416 million range and then next year anticipation of the $45 million range. Our year-over-year budget comparison. We
044do a budget comparison year-over-year as opposed to an audited actuals versus budget. Well, one because of budget. The budget gives us a good view of what we thought we were going to be last year versus where we think we're going to be this upcoming year. And two, it helps us to truly have a better apples to apples comparison. So, we can see here from a local perspective, we have a difference of 7.8 million. That's that difference is primarily in the increase of property values. That's property uh from our local property taxes. The state has an increase of 3.3. So, even though we're getting uh only about one and a half million new evidence-based funding, from a state perspective, we are budgeting to receive the full transportation claim, even though we know that we're most likely
045not going to receive the full transportation claim. Right now, the transportation claim is prrated at about 81 cents uh versus a dollar for dollar, which we should be getting a dollar for dollar, but state's been prrating that particular funding for a long time. They anticipate about 81 cents. We anticipate getting about 78 to 79 cents on that, but we are budgeting that full 81 cents with our fingers crossed on that one. From a federal perspective, again, this shows you that our title, our title two, and our title three are unknown at this time. So, we are budgeting what we actually know from our federal perspective. So, for a total year-over-year budget increase of about 2.9 or a little less than 1%. It is important to point particularly this year from our evidence-based funding. We worked
046have been a tier one school uh since the f the the since FY19. So when we first started off in FY18, we were a tier 2 school. You could see there in that tier percent off that's the actual change that the state has year-over-year on that tier one cutoff. Uh so you can see that tier one cut off. So you can see how it fluctuates, right? A couple years ago it was 73, then it was 77 78. This year it's back down to 75. The district does move down to uh 70 uh 70 or does move down to tier two because we're now 78% adequately funded. This is not uncommon amongst many districts. In fact, I think in Kane County, I think there's only one district now that's left as tier one. Primary driver behind
047this, I believe, is the fact that CPS moved back down to tier one. They were tier two. They moved back down to tier one. they receive an additional $57 million. When they only fund it at 300 million, you take away 57, that leaves, but that's one6th, that leaves 250 that you got to spread over 851 school districts. So, you can see we we do we will receive less than evidence-based funding uh this year, which does have an impact. So, about 2% new money from the state, 2.9 we know we're going to get from property taxes. So all in all about 4.9% in new revenue for the FY26 budget. From an expense perspective, I anticipate about a $418 million budget. This our tentative budget about $418 million. An easy way when we look at expenses is
048to look at what we are buying. When we look at what we're buying, it's the it's salaries, it's benefits, it's the purchase services. So, as usual with districts, the employee costs are the largest expense. For FY26, salaries of benefits make up 60% of the budget, which is in line with historical. The largest expense within the purchase services is our contracts with Durham and organic life. Purchase services occur when the work needed is outside the scope of the talent within the district. So, think about HVAC and those CNI engagements for PD. Supplies and materials are daily one-time use items. Our capital outlay is our capital maintenance. So you'll hear us throughout as we talk about our master facility plan. You're going to hear us use the vernacular capital maintenance versus capital project. So in a little
049bit you're going to see what our with our next summer capital maintenance projects are. There are capital maintenance are there are a couple capital projects in there and I'll highlight those as well. Other objects are things like dues and fees, our property, casualty, insurance, and of course, other objects is where we pay our bonds out of. Do have to pay our debt. And non-c capital or larger items that have more than a one-time use. Think of things like our Chromebooks. That's typically where we would pay for non-c capital items. Here's a quick historical look at our expenses. You can see it's been pretty steady. Again, we anticipate ending about 387 million. That is an unudited number. And right now I have the tentative budget at 418. Again, a budget is our best educated guess for
050a full year worth of expenditures. We're asking for spending authority of 418 million. A year-over-year look at our expense budget comparison from a salaries perspective. Again, we know what the collective bargaining agreement is. We know what those are. So, we're roughly about 5%. When we look at our benefits, up 11%. Not only do we have to cor correlate the raises to our our taxes, our retirement and the taxes, we also have to take into consideration medical and dental and vision and all the other health benefits that the district provides. Kudos to the district for providing a very well package for that. We can see our purchase services comes down a little bit and the biggest one of course is our capital outlay. That's going to be our capital maintenance up right now about 11.7 when
051we do a year-over-year budget comparison. When we look at those projects, you're going to see the list of 23 of them. As I mentioned before, sometimes we get all of them done, sometimes we don't. They also cross over fiscal years. So, you'll see some of them may be paid out of one fiscal year and the next are paid out of the next fiscal year. That's just how those projects are done, right? We got two months to get 23 projects done. So, we got to fit all those in. So, right now, we're projecting about a $32 million worth of projects. And that's what we see here. So we can see our elementary schools, our middleles and our highs. And we have some particularly focused on the district. When we look at the district, we look at
052the transportation one's a big one as well. We're going to do some modifications to our buildings over there. But these are our capital maintenance projects, right? When we look at this and we look at the the park view and we know it's a classroom additions and interior renovations. That's more of a project. That's more of a larger cost item that we know we have to pay for. We're going to pay for that with cash. So kudos to the board for building that rainy day cash strategically to say we're going to pay for these bigger projects with our cash right now, right? That's that's a that's a a kudos to the board for that one. So here are the 23 projects we plan on starting pretty soon. We get those plans launched out there and that
053way we can get this work ready to go for next summer. In the end, if we got every penny and we expensed every penny that I have planned, you can see our ending fund balance is about 211.5 million, which is about a $12 million decrease. Uh, but again, it's just the budget at this time. We're trying to guess where we're going to be at this point next year. And those capital maintenance projects are the ones that we kind of have some control over, right? If working with John and Dr. Smith and we say, you know what, that that parking lot looks good. We don't have to do it. Okay. And now all of a sudden we can have those kind of controls. Remember, it's a planned deficit at this point. So our next steps are
054to display the budget for 30 days. It's going to be both in print right here at the central office and it's going to be online. We will continue to analyze your revenue expenses expenses. Our work doesn't stop just because we present this tonight. We have to come back again in September. And then we'll recommend the adoption at that point. Then when we're done after you guys hopefully adapt it for us, I'm just kidding. you guys will of course we'll go ahead and make sure we file it with the required entities. We have to have a budget by the end of the first quarter. That's the state law. So of course we do all of this to say that we want to meet our mission and our vision which ultimately leads to our students. So the
055dollars that we ask for the spending authority we ask for the 418 million is to support our students to empower and equip them to reach their highest potential in their chosen pathway. With that I'll take any questions. Any questions? No. >> Okay, we're good. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Completes the superintendent's report. >> Item 10, board discussion. Um, are there any updates on the following board committees? Um, board committee, I'm sorry, board operations committee. Uh the next board operations committee meeting is Tuesday, September 9th at 4:30. Um we did go over the same presentation about the budget. So that's why we didn't really probably have any questions. Um as we always mentioned that we go over a lot of the things that we vote on tonight in that meeting and that meeting
056is available online if you're not able to attend in person so that you can see some of the discussions we have about these items. >> Um board or superintendent evaluation ad hoc committee. >> No update at this time. >> Okay. Um, board policy committee also no update at this time. Um, board member handbook ad hoc committee. >> No update. Um, do any of the board members have anything they'd like to add? Anything they'd like to discuss at this point? >> No. Okay. Um, item 11. This is items for discussion. I will read each item individually to allow allow time for any discussion. 11.1 board meeting minutes. Any discussion? Item 11.2 disposal report. Any discussion? 11.3 treasures report. Discussion. 11.4 donation report. Any discussion? 11.5 Boys and Girls Club um of the Northwest Suburbs Learning Center
057agreement. Any discussion? 11.6 Extension of Copper Copier paper bid. Any discussion? 11.7 Musical Instrument Bid. Any discussion? 11.8 Snow and ice removal extension bid. Any discussion? 11.9 Roof um renewal of roofing consulting services contract. Any discussion? 11.10 Renewals of Techn Technology Services Contracts. Any discussion? 11.11 Family Service Association um I'm sorry renewal of family service association of greater el greater elgen area discussion 11.12 language services and supports opportunity review any discussion and 11.13 freedom of information act report. any discussion? Okay. And the reason again we that we don't have didn't have any discussion is a lot of these things were also discussed in the operations committee meeting and also um we have a lot of these things available to our us in our packets. So we generally have um been able to go through it
058and everything. So that's part of the reason there's not a lot of discussion on this kind of stuff. Item 12 consite consent items. The consent items are standard procedure items. items or items that have been previously reviewed and discussed in the board operations committee meeting and need no further discussion. Is there a motion to approve the consent items? >> So move. >> Second. >> Madam Secretary, please take the role. >> Verentino >> I. >> Burket I. >> Lindmark I. >> Lamarca I. Zetler. >> Hi. Mckende >> I >> Amelia >> I >> motion passes 70. >> Thank you. Item 13, roll call action items. Is there a motion for the approval of the e-learning program verification renewal? >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Um any further discussion hearing? None. Madam Secretary, please take
059the role. >> Meia. >> Burket. I >> Lammerica. I >> Mckende. >> I >> Zeller. >> I >> Fantino >> I >> Ed Lindmark. >> I motion passes 70. >> Thank you. 13.2 approval to display the 2025 2026 tenative budget and publish the b public hearing notice. Is there a motion for the approval to display the 2025 2566 tenative budget and publish the public hearing notice? >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any further discussion? >> Hearing none. Madam Secretary, please take the role. >> Lamar I. Lindmark. >> I. >> Burkett. >> I. >> Mia. >> Hi. >> Zeer. >> Hi. >> Verentino. >> Hi. >> Mckende. I >> motion passes 70. >> Thank you. 13.3 approval of the Boys and Girls Club I'm sorry, renewal of Boys and Girls Club
060of Northwest Suburbs facility use agreement for 2025 2026. Is there a motion to for the approval of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Northwest um facility use agreement um 2025 2026? >> So moved. >> Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? >> Madam Secretary, please take the role. >> Lindmark. >> Hi. >> Amelia. >> Hi. >> Fantino. >> I >> Mckende. >> Hi. >> Zeller. >> Hi. >> Burkett. >> I >> Lamar I. Motion passes 70. >> Thank you. 13.4. Um, is there a motion for the approval of the workbased learning program? >> So move. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> Madam Secretary, please take the role. >> Burkett, >> I. >> Mia, >> hi. >> Lamar I. >> Fantino. >> I. >> Mckende. >> I. >> Zeller. >>
061Hi. >> Lindmark. >> I. Motion passes 70 >> 13.5. Is there a motion for the approval of the board policy review and revisions? >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> Hearing none. Madam Secretary, please take the role. >> Lamar I. Lindmark. >> I. >> Mckende. >> I. >> Meia. >> Hi. >> Zeller. >> Hi >> Burkett. I >> Fentino >> I >> motion passes 70. >> I just wanted to say it was a great first day of school today. >> Um we only had one downpour. We made it through at arrival for elementary. I think it was um but it was a great day. The team reported um you know there's kinks to work out for day two. We acknowledge that. But overall, staff and kids were in
062high spirits and um I was able to get out and see a lot of our students and staff today and it was great energy in our schools. So, appreciate everyone that hit the ground running today for our kids. We have great staff in district 300 and thank you to my team um helping me through the year two start. >> Well done. >> Yeah, well done. And also um I don't know, I just have a feeling it's going to be a really good year this year. So, We all plan on working hard >> and we all plan on working hard to make sure that happens. So, thank you for >> Did you see those little kindergarters in those pictures today? >> Yep. They're they're awesome. Um >> I just want to say too, I had the
063honor of being able to go to a couple of the schools today with the team and it was just the energy, the enthusiasm, the dedication is just palpable in these buildings and the buildings themselves. Beautiful. I should have said this when John was still here, but they were just just beautiful. All of the Oh, you are here. I didn't see you back there, John. Sorry. Everything looked great. The people look great. The energy, it was great. So, just Yeah. Thank you to all of our all of you that make all of this possible and the wonderful staff and all the buildings and just everyone that just like Dr. Smith said, it just was you could just feel the energy for a great year to come. In a couple of weeks, we're all going to get
064to see what everything looks like because John's going to come back and he's going to have a um photo uh presentation on everything that was accomplished over the summer. And if anybody knows anything, they know that's our favorite day of the summer. It's always our favorite day of the summer to see what's been accomplished and what's been accomplished a lot of it by our people in house. So, it's really great thing to great great thing to see happen and knowing that we're saving a bunch of money doing it the way we're doing it. So, again, thank you. Um, all right. Well, since we don't have a second close session, then I'm going to ask for a motion to adjourn. >> So, move second. >> Madam Secretary, please take the role. >> Meia, >> I. >>
065Fantino, >> I. >> Burkett, >> I. Lamar I >> McKende >> I >> Lindmark >> I >> Zeller >> I >> motion passes 70 >> we are ajourned thanks everybody [Music]