001Can I have a roll call, please? Mr. Serrano? Here. Dr. Martin? Here. Dr. Mario? Here. Dr. Pallett? Here. Ms. Dee? Here. Ms. Wennmacher? Here. Let's all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. 4.1 Tonight, we welcome several of our students in recognition of their athletic achievements from this past winter. We will begin with one of our basketball players. All right, board, you got to come up front. I forgot to say that first. But you guys come up first. We are going to begin by celebrating Aubrey Lambert. This season, Aubrey became the all-time leading scorer for Oswego East Girls Basketball. She has a impressive 1,483 high school career points. She also leads the team in steals and most points scored in a game, and is second in career rebounds. Additionally, she was named to the Illinois Basketball
002Coaches Association 2026 Girls All-State Special Mention Team. Congratulations, Aubrey. At this time, we invite any coaches, administrators to come up and present or that are present to join Aubrey for a photo with Dr. Kilgallen and the board. Congratulations again, Aubrey. Next, we invite Owen Lippoldt, one of our swimmers, to please come forward. Owen is a junior at Oswego High School, and he placed third in the 50-yard freestyle at the IHSA Boys Swimming and Diving State Championships. In addition to getting third in the 50-yard freestyle, he finished eighth in the 100-yard freestyle and was part of two relays, the 200 freestyle relay and the 400 freestyle relay, which placed seventh and ninth, respectively. Congratulations, Owen. Any coaches and administrators, please come on up. Congratulations again, Owen. And now, we would like to invite the players and
003coaches from the Wildcats Junior Basketball team to please come forward. Last month, the Wildcats Junior team competed at the State Basketball Tournament and brought home silver. What a great achievement. At this time, any administrators present and coaches, please come on up for some pictures. Congratulations. And next, we invite the players and coaches from the Wildcats Silver Basketball team to please come forward. Last month, this Wildcats Silver team competed at the State Basketball Tournament and earned a bronze medal. Congratulations, Wildcats Silver team. And now, we would like to invite the players, managers, and coaches from the Wildcats Orange Basketball team to come on up. The Wildcats Orange team competed as well at the State Basketball Tournament and won a gold medal. Congratulations to this incredible achievement. Congratulations to all of our Wildcat teams. And our final
004athletic recognition of the evening, we would like to invite invite Andrew Byas and Davis Watson to please come forward. At the State Basketball Tournament during the individual skills competition, Andrew won gold and Davis won silver all across the state. Great job, athletes. Congratulations on all of your achievements. Thank you. I'm going to give them 1 second. You want to give them a second? Sure. Thank you, guys. Thank you for coming. >> [laughter] >> A lot of good celebrations tonight. Hard and well-fought season. They did. Erica, you were at the Yeah. many many many of the games. Soccer regionals is Monday. Oh. Wait, what'd you say? Soccer regionals. Soccer regionals. Okay, where? It's in um Minooka South. Like straight down 71. That's my old That's my old stomping ground. >> If it was If it was
005like closer, I have like a couple hours free. Sorry. I'll be there. I tried making it. I don't know. Maybe I have to go. They canceled the game. Oh, it's the It was supposed to be a little bouncy, yeah. Okay. Mhm. >> It's really upside down. Are we We're ready. Okay. Um 5.1 we're going to action items. Um 5.1 is approval of district administrator contracts. Can I have a motion, please, for the approval of district administrator contracts? I make a motion to approve the district administrator contracts as discussed and presented. Second. Any discussion? No. Dr. Murillo? I. Dr. Martin? I. Ms. Wenmouth? I. >> [snorts] >> Mr. Serone? I. Dr. I. Ms. Zee? I. Motion passes 6-0. Moving to action item 5.2. >> Before we go, we'd like to just make a comment by Dr.
006Mitchell to share some exciting news this evening on one of our appointments tonight, and I want to thank the board for its confidence. Thank you. Good evening, President Serone, Vice President Martin, members of the board, and Superintendent Dr. Kilgati. It is my pleasure to bring to the board Chanel Lawson as a recommended candidate for the Director of Schools position in the K-8 role. Chanel Lawson brings a depth of experience, proven leadership, and a clear commitment to student-centered education that makes her a strong candidate for the director role. Her track record includes successful leadership in the junior high setting where she has demonstrated the ability to build and enhance relationships with staff, students, and families. Her experience with emergency and crisis response, coaching, and data-informed decision-making positions her to lead. She prides herself on her relationships
007and attention to detail. Mrs. Lawson exemplifies the qualities needed to lead a school community with consistency, trust, and high expectations. Please join me in congratulating Chanel on her new role. Okay. All right. Action item 5.2 approval of building administrator contracts. Can I have a motion, please? I make a motion to approve the building district administrator contracts as discussed and presented. Second. Any discussion? No. Dr. Martin? I. Dr. I. Ms. Wenmouth? I. Mr. Serone? I. Dr. Murillo? I. Ms. Zee? I. Motion passes 6-0. Yeah, let's congratulate All right. You want to tell us the good news? I'm very exciting. We have some guests here tonight with us. This is exciting news. Brett McPherson is the recommended candidate for the principal at Oswego East High School. Brett brings extensive and well-rounded experience as a school principal across
008both middle and high school settings. He has a proven track record of leading schools through meaningful instructional improvement, fostering positive and inclusive school cultures, and building strong systems of support for both students and staff. His leadership reflects a strong commitment to data-informed decision-making, collaboration, and continuous growth. Mr. McPherson has demonstrated the ability to lead large teams, implement impactful initiatives, and maintain a clear focus on student achievement and well-being. With his depth of experience, steady leadership, and commitment to equity and excellence, Mr. Mr. McPherson is well-positioned to effectively lead Oswego East High School. Please join me in welcoming Brett to the SD 308 team. Okay. And you can't have Batman without Robin. >> [laughter] >> Tonight, Liz Perez is the recommended candidate for Assistant Principal of Curriculum Instruction at Oswego East High School. Liz Perez is
009highly capable and forward-thinking and a forward-thinking instructional leader who brings a strong balance of classroom experience, administrative expertise, and a deep commitment to equity and student success. She has consistently demonstrated the ability to lead meaningful change, support teacher development, and improve student outcomes through data-informed practices. Her leadership is grounded in collaboration, high expectations, and a clear belief in the potential of all students and staff. Ms. Perez's experience in both high school and middle school settings, combined with her focus on the inclusive practices and instructional excellence, positions her well to effectively lead and support a diverse school community. Based on her experience, leadership capacity, and alignment with district priorities, we are delighted to welcome Liz to SD 308. Yes, we have special Dr. [laughter] Mr. McPherson and Ms. Perez, come on up. We're going to just
010a little token. Dr. Kilgati, you want to lead us? >> [laughter] >> Yay. All right. Our first presentation for today is 6.1, the IHSA cooperative athletic teams update. All right. Can everyone hear me okay? Yep. Yeah. All right. Good evening, Dr. Kilgati and members of the Board of Education. Dan Arson, the Executive Director of Athletics. I'm here tonight to present with Stephen Tracy, the Athletic Director of Oswego East High School. I do want to take a minute to pause and congratulate a 2002 or 2022 graduate, Noah Schultz, for the remarkable achievement of uh his MLB debut tomorrow night for the Chicago White Sox. So, I would be absolutely remiss if I didn't do so as a White Sox fan and >> [laughter] >> as an athletic director myself. But obviously, it's a remarkable achievement that
011really gives our student athletes something that their dreams can be attained. And uh it's it's just remarkable to think that, you know, a few years ago he's pitching on that field out there and now he's pitching for the White Sox. So, it's remarkable. Yeah. He was drafted in the first round, too, right? First round. Yes, first round selection. So, uh we've had some He's had some I've received incredible success and uh I can't wait to watch it tomorrow night. I just hope it doesn't rain. So, that's that's the downfall of that, but Yeah, and we did share some stories with Teresa this afternoon as well, too. So, Uh all right. So, tonight we will talk about our cooperative athletic programs. As you all know and probably are aware of, the last few months have been
012a little bit of a up and down with what are we going to do with cooperative teams. So, if you don't know, just inform you what a cooperative team is. So, our our schools, Oswego High School and Oswego East, we come together to form a team. And largely, it's because of either resources or participation numbers are low. But together, we can form a team and participate and participate in the IHSA state series and individual awards in our conference, all of that. There has been a change based on this, and this is bylaw 5.141. And we can go through this in this very short presentation, but essentially, every fall, people propose bylaw changes um for whatever reason. And there are some reasons why that uh uh an athletic director proposed that it's a competitive advantage for
013teams to form these co-ops. Specifically, I made a fatal flaw. I didn't turn my pointer on. Sorry about that. They warned me about that as well. Um one of the one of the aspects of the new bylaw is there has to be 3,500 or more students for the combined enrollment. And so, that was the threshold, and where that number comes comes from, no one can really tell us. Uh but if you have over 3,500 members together, you cannot participate in the IHSA state series. You can participate individually, and your teams can win individual or or your students can win individual medals, but you can't participate and win state trophies as the year progresses. So, it's obviously a restriction from us for us. We've obviously had great success here historically. Boys and girls swimming have been
014great programs for us, and we hope they continue to be great programs for us in the future. But the one positive aspect of it, it does allow our student athletes, as you saw like Owen come up here today, he can still win individual medals. And even relay teams, things like that can still be formed, and they can win medals. It's just not state series or state trophies. Uh with that, there are six sports impacted here uh in the in Oswego. You have girls and boys swimming, girls and boys lacrosse, girls gymnastics, and girls golf. So, with these, obviously, as we stated before, we don't have individual numbers that would allow us to have teams, right? So, we come together, we form a co-op. We get it approved through the IHSA, and then from there, we
015can compete and have great success like we like we try to. One of the things we tried to do when this bylaw came to be is not only see what our our partners around the conference around the state of Illinois are doing, but also we wanted to see the thoughts and feelings of our student athletes and and and families, those who are impacted by this. So, we sent a survey out and really wanted to get information about what they thought. We gave options. Um do we remain as a co-op knowing that they can't participate or win state series trophies? Uh or do they want to split and we have an OH team and an OE team depending on numbers? Uh and we go from there. Overwhelmingly, the the feedback was to stay as a co-op.
016All right? What this really tells us is it tells us that that the community really values the fact that we're having these programs and these programs are successful together. And we want to stay that even though we can't potentially win a state trophy. All right? Individual again accolades can be made. Uh but the one exception to all of this came back was girls golf. We will have 11 girls golfers. So, again, low numbers. That's why we co-op. Uh seven of which are from OH last school year, four of which from OE. So, that came back as the only only co-op that really truly says we would like to separate and form our own teams. Now, um that could be a discussion in the future, but right now we think it's still the best interest of
017of everyone here to continue as a co-op with girls golf as well. Can I ask a quick clarifying question? Um with low numbers, I know that the um 80% re- for for example, 80.5% percent of respondents prefer to remain a cooperative team at this time with low numbers. The other option would then be to not have a team? So, you would you would have a team. You would form two separate teams. >> But if you don't have enough numbers to >> So, th- this is why >> try and Yeah. Th- this is >> more numbers. >> it really becomes and we've got a number breakdown of how many OH students versus OE. Mhm. Uh there's some programs that could operate in that capacity, but it would really hinder the other school quite a bit. All
018right? So, that's where overwhelmingly people said collectively, "No, we should continue as a co-op." And I mentioned the girls golf aspect because you did have a team say, "Well, we'd like to form our own team as OH." But then that would leave OE in a very interesting uh situation. And we want to obviously support everyone. And once again, what would happen there is that the low number teams would just compete as individuals anyways inside the state series. They wouldn't compete as a team cuz they wouldn't qualify as a team to have those numbers. So, again, why we came back to this decision. Yeah, and just to go back to this slide here, um when we talk about collective teams versus individual awards as well, the the only sport up here that does not have um
019individual awards would be lacrosse. All right? So, what we're talking about co-ops, all all of these other programs have individual capacities. All right? So, boys and girls swimming and diving have individual capacities. Gymnastics, of course, have individual capacities. Uh girls golf individually saw Ally this past fall win the individual state title for that, too. So, uh boys and girls lacrosse is the only one up here that wouldn't have an individual capacity. Uh with this, uh what we're trying to do and ever since this really came to be in December about this is the final, you know, vote from the members. We've reached out to our SBC schools, which is our athletic conference, and we've reached out to Luda districts and and and other districts around the whole state of Illinois saying like, "Well, what are
020you doing?" All right? Cuz we want what feedback. Overwhelmingly, most schools are doing what we're going to recommend tonight is and that's continuing as a co-op. There are some uh considerations that we need to to try to figure out as we go, but one of things that we'll talk about here in this slide is um is a concern of how it's impacting female athletics. That's one of the bigger concerns that we have. Four out of our six sports that are impacted are female athletics. And if you look across the whole state of Illinois, you see kind of the same percentage breakdown. Um we are in in working with our legal team here to to draft a letter uh and trying to see what that would look like to um just make the IHSA aware of
021what what they're doing potentially has a negative effect on female athletics. All right? We're not going to say um you know, that they would do something deliberately to do so, but any sort of bylaw change or anything else comes with consequences. And this could be one of the things that just didn't think through fully. And we're trying to give them the best opportunity to say, "Well, you know, here's our data." And we've provided data to our legal team to say, "Here's what we're thinking." We have other schools als- also ready to sign on potentially with this as to to write a letter to the IHSA this asking them to kind of rethink or pause for a year until we can rewrite the bylaw or um have other options for us. That's kind of where we're
022at now because we do think that there are some Title IX considerations that really need to be addressed because how it impacts female sports. And so again, moving forward, you know, based on the data we have and and based on our surrounding school districts and conference schools as well, is we are recommending that we're we're we're moving forward with our co-op teams for next year as they are knowing the fact that they can't participate and to win state series team awards. Uh with this, again, we hope that we're able to persuade the IHSA to pause for a year until we can rewrite or amend the bylaw. In a worst case scenario, this could be a a one-year blip in the radar, all right, for us. If if all things go well, ideally we would have
023something soon by the IHSA before next school year starts so then we can help plan uh and have, you know, a scenario where hopefully our teams would still be able to participate and our individuals would still be able to participate. And again, at the end of the day, we're we're always trying to provide uh meaningful opportunities to our student athletes. Um and if anything changes along the way, anything with the IHSA or what our legal counsel would provide us, we'd update uh everyone here and including the community as well. But where we are right now, again, with our with our data from students student athletes and and parents, coaches as well, um and also what our surrounding school districts and things are doing, uh we are recommending to to stay with the co-ops for for
024the time being. Uh again, I think it's when we talk about with our athletic directors across the state of Illinois who voted in favor of this bylaw, um a lot of this doesn't impact other schools. You know, we are when you talk about the number of 3,500 students, um we're close to that in one building, let alone two. Uh so, most schools and school districts don't have to really take this in consideration whatsoever. Uh but the reality is we do. It does neg- negatively impact our students. And so, it's really an information campaign for us as we move forward to uh if we're rewriting bylaws or proposing that. And again, our conference schools are with us. We've talked about this at athletic director meetings about rewriting that bylaw to make it work for us. Um
025you know, one of our conference partners here in Plainfield, uh they co-op four um four schools going into one swim team. All right? So, and they don't have zero pools on any of their campuses, all right? So, um they have to work with the YMCA and what that would mean to them. Uh so, there's a lot of considerations but throughout the state of Illinois that again, I think it's an information campaign about how it's affecting female athletics and also resources throughout the state as well. What questions do So, how does it How would that work then in the state series? I mean, I I picture in a lot of um in a lot of sports, the the team enters and then there is the team score and then there are individuals. Swimming would be good
026for that. Yeah, so I know the team score is gone, but can the entire How do the individual students Are they students at large? Does the team participate anyway? Yeah, they still basically just technically still compete as a team. They just only receive individual awards. So, let's say you were swimming the 100 free. If you won the 100 free, you would get your gold medal, but on top of that, you get a certain amount of points allotted to your team score that allows, you know, the overall team championship. They would just not allow us to take a team score. Okay, so you can still participate as as as we are co-op. >> Correct. It's just okay. Okay. Can you break down lacrosse that way as well? How would that work? So, that's that's the trouble
027that we would face going into the next school year with lacrosse is that we would not be able to compete in the IHSA state series. So, you wouldn't even be able to We wouldn't even be able to compete at all. So, we could play our regular season schedule, um but then when it would come regional time, we would just not be allowed to compete in that regional. We could schedule further exhibition games after that point. Um you know, with other schools that possibly co-op at the same, you know, student uh numbers that we do. But again, we would not like move The first step is always a regional. We would not move into the IHSA regional going into that season. I just want to thank you for the work you did. I've been um lurking
028on the document and the data that you >> [laughter] >> that you've been playing. Um my son is on a co-op team. Um so, I do just want to thank you. I know you've been reaching out to the other districts and really, you know, um making sure that that this was like a well-informed process and I appreciate that. And I also would like to thank you and hi coaches. Um for like creating an environment in which like the co-op team was the priority for the athletes. Because I think like knowing how my son and his teammates on the swim team um responded and it was just an instant like, "Oh, we want to remain a co-op. We don't care about that state title." was just really um it was nice to see. It's nice that
029he like as a freshman last year came in and and had all these friends throughout the district and I appreciate that that's kind of the culture that's been cultivated throughout. So, thank you. Yeah, I mean, I would definitely have to speak word to our coaches who do an absolute great job of creating a really great student experience inside of those programs. I mean, uh without a doubt, you become to our pools, uh you know, or any of our co-op teams, you know, our our coaches care. They care about our kids. They go the extra mile to make sure that our programs are, you know, to the highest standard. So, I 100% got to give that, you know, that that that that you you know, mark to our coaches. I just I want to um I
030would definitely agree with Dr. Martin. My daughter participates on a co-op team as well, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear collectively during a team meeting that the girls without hesitation wanted to remain as a co-op, and then just talking to my daughter individually, um what a culture and community that's been built because additionally she didn't necessarily take stock in um winning a state series, but instead just the relationships that's been built. My question though, in terms of state series versus, and perhaps I just don't understand it well enough, when you say state series they wouldn't they couldn't win collectively, but there are individual meets where they would be able to win as a team. Is that correct or no? So, if it's like a regular season So, what sport are you referring to? Gymnastics.
031>> Gymnastics. Yeah. So, let's say you went to the Oswego invite. Right. >> Okay, you're throwing a regular season competition. Yes, they could take first place as a team at that invite, but once you went to the IHSA state series, that's where again they can only compete as individuals. You would not receive a team score. That's what I just wanted to be clear about. Again, thank you for your work on this. One more question. In terms of the amendment process, are there timelines associated with that, and if so, can you tell us a little bit about that as well? So, yeah, the exact uh deadline I don't have in front of me or remember it right now, but there there is uh a timeline that we have to adhere to to submit um an amendment
032or a bylaw amendment to that. Yeah, it's it's early October. It might be even October 1, uh but I'll look at that to verify. Yeah, it's a process. Again, the more the more schools we have with our backing initially, um and this is the interesting thing. We probably won't be the only one submitting a bylaw amendment. This happens often where someone sees something within the bylaws they'd like to adjust, and often times um our member schools have to vote on several bylaws bylaws that have very similar aspects to them. Um and we'd have to present to the IHSA about why why the bylaw and things like that. So, we will get those very specific deadlines things adhere to, absolutely. Um but that it won't be just us even. I I know that for sure. It's
033our conference schools again have talked about it on multiple occasions about when are we going to get together to actually write the bylaw, what's this look like so we can propose it. Um so, yeah, we will absolutely adhere to those. Again, thank you for your work. Does IHSA uh then take public comments on something like this? Is this something that the community can help with? Yeah, I think again, an information campaign is always welcome in a lot of different aspects. Uh you know, the IHSA um and I think if looking at this bylaw, if I were a a school downstate for example, um I would probably vote in favor of the bylaw if it didn't impact me in some ways because at the end of the day, this was based on competitive advantage, right? The
034schools thought that combining schools with this much enrollment creates a competitive advantage to win state titles and place it as a team, but it wouldn't but it wouldn't impact individual accolades, right? Um so, the IHSA yes, does hear public opinion of things. Um it's much more um much more of a kind of persuasive if we can absolutely write something collectively as school districts though, and then uh you know, even from a superintendent's level, then they have conversations. We actually have as a conference uh are looking to we have a board of directors meeting in June. So, that's all conference principals and assistant or athletic directors and principals get together to talk about various things. Uh we plan to invite Craig Anderson, who's the executive director of the IHSA to that meeting, and if he can't
035come, somebody else comes. We also want to know about more of the process and the why because there's some issues that we ran into even as athletic directors going through um the bylaw amendment process. We sit in a room. They we hear the then we vote. But we also hear a vote on the commission like, well, everyone in this room voted in favor of the bylaw or not as as a 25 in favor, five against. Often we have where the commission voted five in favor, 25 against. It's the exact opposite of what we're seeing in our events, right? So, we want to ask about that process and does the commission have more sway or power than than cuz it it appears they do. Now, that could just be an appearance, right? But what does that
036process truly look like, and what happens in those initial conversations when these bylaws are are really proposed, and um so, we do have some questions as well. And as a conference, uh so principals and athletic directors are are inviting the IHSA to our June meeting. I'm I'm interested to find out what you find out about the governance of it Yeah. I know that if if we're represented the same way that every other school district in Illinois is represented, Yeah. um you know, as a one-to-one and not proportional, Sure. then there's very few large school districts in Correct. Illinois. So, there's like 490 small districts and like 20 big districts. And I think the good news is we we have school districts uh even within Ludlow, right? Is that this doesn't necessarily impact in a negative
037way, but they're also against it because they they they can see how it does negatively impact students. Um so, we do have those schools kind of lined up, and I've reached out to them, and we coordinate some of that response as well. Great. Just want to go to the board and just to say thank you both. Um your your directness, your involvement, and your leadership has been very important here. And really kudos to our coaches as you've mentioned a couple time. I too am um having been um really just uh thrilled by where we see 1 1308 is on our co-op teams, and I really look forward to all of our teams representing that kind of passion for our district and for the success that comes from being one team. So, thank you both. Thank
038you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Um Next presentation is 6.2, the annual operations update. Okay. Mr. Obafemi, we are very excited. This is a practice that we started a couple of years ago to provide the board as well as the community an opportunity to get familiar with the work that uh are often neglected, but very very important operation team and the work they do to make it possible for our students as well as our staff to uh to live in an ambient building and to be able to do their work well. With that being said, I'm going to hand it over to uh the interim director of operation uh Andre Shansey as well as uh Amy Plant. You take it away. Thank you. Uh good evening, members of the board and superintendent We're going
039to get you an assistant. Okay, is that better now? Oh, perfect. Perfect. As we present the third annual operations report, I want to start first-hand knowledge regarding our infrastructure. SD 308 is the seventh largest district in the state, maintaining 27 buildings across 65 square miles. However, the majority of our facilities have now crossed the 20-year mark with the four newest buildings finishing up their 18th year. For years we have operated under a significant funding constraints. While we have been resourceful, the simple truth is that buildings of this age, much like a 20-year-old home, require more than just daily repairs. They require a deep structural commitment to long-term health that our previous budget cycles haven't always been able to fully support. This brings us to our long-range facility plan. Because of the historical lack of dedicated
040capital funding, we no longer can afford to be reactive. We are currently moving through Oops, excuse me. We are currently moving through a three-phase approach. Phase one was a comprehensive facility condition assessment to identify every deficiency and life cycle forecast. Phase two was our educational assessment to ensure our spaces are actually support modern learning. And the third phase is a road map itself. This plan isn't just a list of wants. It is a data-driven necessity. It allows us to stop firefighting and start investing where it matters most, ensuring that despite limited funds, every dollar is spent that prevents a more expensive failure down the road. Excuse me. >> [clears throat] >> When the master plan looks to the future, our operations team is winning the battle in the present. I want to highlight the incredible
041work of our custodial, maintenance, and ground staff. In 308, we use computer maintenance management program to track all of the work. Repairs needed in 308 buildings. Since March of 2025, our team has closed 5,773 tickets. Wow. This is an increase of over 1,200 tickets compared to the previous year. Whether it's maintaining 58 boilers, 16 chillers, or having to maintain 560 acres across the district, this team is doing more with less. They aren't just fixing things, they're providing a safe, clean environment for 17,000 students. Their dedication is the only reason our 20-year-old buildings still feel like world-class learning environment. Despite our funding challenges over the years, we have been strategic. This past year, we successfully completed RTU replacements at Brokaw and Traughber. The new gym floor at Oswego High School and theater repairs at Oswego East
042High School. Looking ahead to this summer, we are maximizing every cent of our limited budget. Our capital improvement lists include the ADA sidewalk installation at Hunt Club, removal of outdated carpet in the Wheatlands and Lakewood gyms, extensive pool and diving board renovations at Oswego East, and a district-wide shift towards LED lighting to reduce long-term energy costs. We are making these not because we have an abundance of resources, but because we have prioritized the safety and experience of our students. In closing, we are at a pivot point. Our buildings are aging and our funding has not has been tight. But our team has been resilient. By supporting the master facility plan, we are hoping we are helping you are helping us to transition from a culture of patching to a culture of planning. Thank you for
043your continued support of the operations team that keeps SD 308 running. Thank you. And I would just be remiss if we didn't acknowledge the ladies and gentlemen sitting behind him. Those are the the troop. They do all the work every day. WHEN IT'S COLD, THEY MAKE SURE WE HAVE HEAT. When it's snowing, they plow the grounds to make sure the buildings are accessible. They have to be here every day, and most [clears throat] of the time they are the first face faces that our student our children see when they start school every day. And we don't normally acknowledge them until they don't show up for work. And I think it's important for us to recognize their I mean, their importance and just the indispensability of their contribution to the district. Thank you. There may be
044some questions. Hold on one second. Yeah. I said there may be some questions from the board. This was a really robust presentation, so No, my only comment was Andre, you said 5 minutes. That was only 4 and 1/2. So, you have time. >> [laughter] >> I just wanted to say thank you again. I know like obviously we heard a lot of, you know, all the tickets and everything is great, but I think one thing that I was surprised about starting as a board member is like obviously we started the school year with some intense weather situations, the loss of buildings, and just knowing that like you know, the weather had like in the middle of the night on a Saturday, and like I already like had texts and emails telling me that it was like
045under control by like 4:00 a.m. and whatever. So, I really just think it's important to voice that and just want to thank all of you for the work that you do. Um I just have uh the district-wide LED lighting upgrades focusing on gyms and cafeteria. I mean, yes, I know that over the years our operations team is managed on limited resources as far as our capital projects and things along those lines. So, something like with that that was grant driven, and so we appreciate kind of the um trying to go out and getting other funds um to help improve the experience of our students, save us long-term on our electric bills, and so um No, I just appreciate what you guys are doing. I I want to add that you have been you have played
046a significant role in the long-range facility plan. Um in addition to bringing in all the building engineers from and custodial maintenance from across the district, that was extremely important. And and I just um did you want to add anything more about your experience with that? Um having seen this for the years. So, sorry to put you on the spot with that, but I just think that you you were right there in the mix in a situation that I think is really important for our community to understand. So, So, yeah, when I started my career at 308, we were right in the middle of our previous $450 million referendum where we went from seven buildings all the way up to our 22 current school buildings. Um for example, I walked this building before it had a
047roof or a hard hat on as, you know, a maintenance staff. So, I have seen these buildings literally come up from the ground up. I know in my previous role as a maintenance technician, working with the amazing team that I have behind me, uh the things that it takes on a daily basis to keep these things running. And the fact that we can keep our equipment running years beyond the recommended life if we have equipment that's not running, more than likely that's going to result in students not coming to school. So, if there is a broken part, my team will find it. They will hunt it down. We will get the part repaired. It's not putting a band-aid on it as some people like to say. It's making a proper repair on an older piece
048of equipment to keep it running. Um and the skills and knowledge that a lot of our team members bring to be able to sit there and diagnose and troubleshoot is the reasons that we are able to keep a lot of our equipment running as long as it has been. Some things are beyond our control, whether it's the weather rotting them out up on the rooftop, things of that nature. We still have to do our best to keep things running cuz if it doesn't run, we know there's a chance of children not coming to school, and that's what our team tries to focus on every day. Oh, love it. Thank you for that. >> Great. Appreciate that. Anything else? Thank you very much. >> So, before we move on though, just to pause 1 second. Um
049Andre, what we'd ask for you and invite your team up here. I think we did this last year, and it was great. And Mr. Obafemi, if we could do a photo just kind of under the screen here where you have your your report displayed. We want to give you guys a chance to really be in front of everybody instead of just behind the scenes tonight. So, please don't be shy. Come up. We want to thank you and and recognize you. I'm good either way. You got it. You want to? Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Thank you guys so much for being here. Whatever you feel like. Everybody have a great night. All right. Move on to 7.1, the superintendent's report. Dr. Calgati. All right. Good evening, board. Um this evening uh just a few comments as
050we enter what feels like uh summer already some days these days, right? Um but uh first of all, I want to thank everyone. Um This is our first board meeting following the spring break, and uh we uh recognize that right before the break, our staff joined together in some learning experiences that were very exciting. Um First, I want to share some congratulations regarding students who've had some outstanding privileges earlier this uh have had some outstanding successes earlier. That was very exciting. What we don't see what we feel tonight, and I think we heard a student on their way out the door saying, "You know, I won." or something like that. I thought So, I did it. I did it. So reflective of the pride, right? And and really just also the the celebration of our
051families, uh our parents, um our uncles and aunts and cousins who come out and support our teams in this effort, and we just really want to recognize that. Um speaking of athleticism, but also uh culture, uh this past weekend, we want to thank all of our staff members who participated in our annual staff volleyball tournament. I know that we had some board members also show up tonight that night. Who won the final? Still hurting? >> [laughter] >> Who won Who won the Grand Park? Grand Park. And part of that effort is also really an opportunity to be of service. We know that we contributed that evening made contributions to Community Care. And a lot goes in the way of when we are able to serve as a community and building our culture. I also wanted
052to send a special shout-out to our hiring committees. We have this evening, as you heard, approved the new principal for Oswego East and the assistant principal for Oswego East. And we recognize and I want to thank Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Kincaid for their leadership in working with our outside consultant, Dr. Craig, in their leadership of putting together really robust process that I know took a lot of time. And I want to thank the families and community members who are part of that process. It really does take a team to find the right person, and we want to also thank those individuals for joining us, and we're excited about what's to come. In recent academic news, our high schools administered the ACT and the pre-ACT testing this past week. We are grateful for our time to
053our staff for orchestrating and making sure that all these things go off in order to ensure our students Did you all participate in ACT? Okay, so there we go. And thank you for being here. So, we know that that there's a lot of effort that goes into this, and we know that our certain our students will meet those expectations and beyond. This week, we have a momentous event. We are hosting our college and career fair at our high school in Oswego East. This is April 16th. This evening will kick off with a Schoolinks information session for parents and guardians at 5:00 p.m. with the college and career fair to follow from 6:00 to 8:00. All are invited to join for this great opportunity for students to meet with a college and career professional to plan
054their futures. Dr. Kincaid, did you want to add a little bit about this? I know that Mr. Owen has been working very closely, and I think this is a a really a momentous opportunity for our district for all of our students in the high schools. So, we have about 125 colleges, and they were working in the community to have like 40 to 60 careers also represented. So, it is a kind of comprehensive focus on both college and careers, and we are very excited to have the opportunity, as you mentioned our Schoolinks training, it is a new opportunity for parents to really dive into and receive additional information about not only what their student experiences, but how they can help their student through the use of Schoolinks. So, we would encourage parents to attend that session
055also. We want to thank This is April That's Thursday night. It's Thursday, April 16th here at Oswego East. Correct. 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. 6:00 to 8:00? 5:00 is the Schoolinks presentation. Sorry to put you on the spot there. Come on out again. Well, we we should all be interested. It's actually very important. Okay. >> [laughter] >> We're here for you, Mr. Strom. I I I would say that why this is important is that this is a part of our strategic plan, right? So, one of the things that we learned and you heard about board last time was the importance of us coordinating our resources in a way that's going to to ensure systematic improvements. And this is one of those fruits of that systematic improvement. This is something that's a result of a lot of
056work, the implementation of Schoolinks, the the shift in terms of thinking of our pace frameworks, and then also the link to our colleges. So, I want to thank our school counselors and our high school administration for their partnership in that regard. And and last but not least, I just want to when as a community things come up, I want to invite us to continue to use the resources. We have our principals, we have our district level administrators, we're always available to join in conversations when there's a need for support regarding challenges or things that aren't in line with our values. And I want to invite individuals to reach out to those resources. We also, if you're looking for just general information, Clarity Corner is a resource. And also, if you have on our website, we
057have a tool or resource called Get Help Now. And so, there are a number of resources for our community. When things are not in line, we have a responsibility to work together, and we are committed to that. With that, I want to invite our board members for some additional announcements as part of the superintendent's report. All right. Garrett Forward Robotics won both the Midwest Regional and the Miami Valley Regional. The team is set to compete again at Worlds in Houston, Texas later this month for, I believe, the fifth year in a row. Congratulations and good luck to the team in your next big competition. Doubling down, Oswego East High School alum, Noah Schultz, will be making his pitching debut for the Chicago White Sox tomorrow. Congratulations. Best of luck, Noah. The entire Oswego community is
058rooting for you. Talia Aburto, a junior at Oswego High School, was named a Chicago Bears Community High School All-Star. Danielle was recognized by the Bears for her service, leadership, and character both on and off the flag football field. Congratulations on this incredible on this incredible achievement, Talia. 4250, OHS's online multimedia student publication, and Reflector yearbook at OHS Both received multiple recognitions at the Northern Illinois Scholastic Press Association conference held on Friday. Congratulations to these teams for their accomplishments. We are impressed by their commitment to creativity and ex Oswego East Wind Symphony has been selected to perform at the University of Illinois SuperState Band Festival on May 8th. Congratulations to the students and the entire Wind Symphony program on this honor. Bednarcik Junior High School's Family and Consumer Science 2 students recently gave back to a
059special cause, sewing pillowcases for Ryan's Case for Smiles. This organization supports children with serious illnesses, providing comfort for them during difficult treatment. We are so proud of our students for using the skills they've learned this year to participate in this service project. And finally, our high school spring musicals kick off this weekend. Oswego High School will feature Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 from Thursday, April 16th through Saturday, April 18th. Oswego East High School will be performing Once Upon a Mattress from Thursday, April 23rd through Saturday, April 25th. Purchase tickets to these amazing shows by visiting the SD308 website. Select Departments and Programs, then Programs, then Tickets under Performing Arts Center. You you can figure it out once you get there, but make sure if you have some time you go to one
060or both of these great productions. Oh, yeah. Um Anything else? We do have public comments. Is that correct? 8.1 On behalf of the Board of Education, I would like to thank the public for attending tonight's meeting. We value the feedback we receive from our members of the public and encourage everyone to take an active interest in their public school system. Individuals interested in speaking to the board to the board this evening are asked to have completed a comment card and presented it to the secretary to the board. Any members of the public who have not yet turned in their public comment card to the secretary of the board are asked to do so at this time. When the secretary calls your name, I ask that you come to the microphone, state your name to the
061public record, and provide your feedback. Please note that comments are limited to 5 minutes per person. The board does not participate in discussion during public comment. Comments should address the Board of Education as a whole, and not be directed to an individual board member, audience, or staff member. Follow-up to your questions or concerns may be addressed by administration through the contact information provided on the comment card. Thank you. Mike Litman Hello, everybody. I know I've spoken to you before. Um wanted to share some concerns that I've been hearing in the community, and the reason why I want to share them is to give you an opportunity to address them in a future meeting. Um the last board meeting very long board meeting, as you all know. Um towards the end, the discussion of finances came
062up. And obviously, there's some We're in a dire situation as far as finances go. There's a lot of very tough decisions that are going to have to be made in the coming months, that we know. The concern is a lot of people are looking at myself included look at that and how do we sync that with the $500 million project was presented a few months ago. So now you're looking at facility improvements. I understand there's maintenance. That's a whole different story and that has to be done. No argument there. The problem is when you're looking at facility improvements and taking on a debt load that's the largest in the history of the school district. How do you justify that when you're also going to be looking at the next few months at layoffs of staff
063teachers, potentially a school closing, who knows. You guys have to figure all that out. But it seems like there's a little bit of a disconnect from a public perception when you look at we're in dire straits, we're within I think it was a few years of running out of money is where we're at on the current track. I understand changes need to be made and I I hope you make some very wise decisions in doing that. But at the same point, if you look at that balance that against a $500 million project an incredible debt load that the district is going to take on that's going to fall on the taxpayers. I think we got a problem. And I'll tell you what, when that referendum hits next year that's going to be a bear. We
064know they couldn't pass a much smaller one in Yorkville. So when it comes to this district folks, you got a problem. We need to look at a public perception on this to understand what is it we need to do, what is it we want to do. With all respect to the operations presentation was just given and I'm sure they're doing a tremendous job, not knocking them by any stretch at all. But you got to look at what the community is thinking on this. And if you're going to take a half a billion dollars in debt when you're going about to lay off teachers and staff and maybe close a building something's wrong. I don't know if it's lack of foresight, lack of planning we know through prior discussions there were some very poor financial decisions
065made in the past are now being overcome. All due credit that you're making those changes. But you got to look at it from a couple of standpoints. Number one, obviously the financial impact of what you're doing. Don't forget the public perception part of what you're doing. You could be doing the absolute right thing, but boy if it looks bad to the community, you have absolutely no shot. None whatsoever. And I just wanted to present that to you, so hopefully that's something you can discuss at future meeting. Thank you all for your time. Thank you. Kate Fish. Good evening everybody. I'm Kate Fish and I'm here with my husband Pat and we're here to represent our daughter who is a fifth grade student at Boulder Hill. And we stand before you tonight because we have exhausted
066every appropriate administrative channel available to us and we have not received what we believe is an adequate action in response to our concerns. Um since November of this year, we've been raising documented concerns about a pattern of inappropriate boundary violations towards our daughter. I want to have her fifth grade teachers. We brought these concerns first to building building administration, then to HR and most recently to district leadership. At each step, we were told the situation was being addressed, that coaching had occurred and the directives have been given and that a plan was in place. At each step, that pattern of inappropriate behavior continued anyway. Uh we're not here because of a single incident, we're here because of a sustained documented pattern of conduct that began at the start of this school year and has persisted
067through and after every um coaching has been provided. That pattern in its scope and in its repetition is resistant to correction and that's what brings us here tonight and why we believe the board must get directly involved. Um it's important to note that this teacher has not earned his professional educator's license yet. He's hired as a part of the Aurora University's residency program um which we want to be clear we're really big supporters of. We were really lucky that last year our daughter benefited from having resident teacher and we saw firsthand that value that the program can bring. Um we raise what follows not to undermine that program, but because we believe it's directly relevant to the situation um and highlights this teacher does not have the tenure, history or experience to warrant simply trusting
068him. The school year began with Mr. Alvarez, this teacher, singling out our daughter. He called her her favorite, told her she was the best in the class. Um and we understand that teachers sometimes encourage students and that um this is just something that teachers say, but this was the beginning of a pattern of disproportionate personal attention directed at our daughter specifically. From there, the concerns escalated. He touched her hair, he touched her back. He would lean over her to touch her computer without her consent. She repeatedly asked him to stop. She repeatedly asked him to step away from her. And so when she brought that concern to us and said that she doesn't feel safe in her classroom, we began to get involved. Um this is something that her her peers also talk about so
069we hear from her about how this is not just happening to her. Um this was November when we brought that concern up first. After that concern was brought forward, he continued to do some of these boundary violations. In late January, after his initial coaching had occurred, um he made a comment about our daughter's dating relationship using her name alongside a male classmate in what was framed as an an instructional example. Um this is all ways that he's continued to to violate her boundaries and her feeling of safety in the classroom. Our concerns extend beyond our daughter alone. He's continued to uh maintain classroom order. There's multiple instances of the entire class becoming disregulated. The administrative response has been to remove these problematic children um to send them to another fifth grade teacher. We've been told
070that our daughter has the option to leave the classroom to go to the bathroom if she needs. She's been given the opportunity to speak with um a social emotional teacher as well. This is all about what she's been doing wrong and the focus has been on what our daughter should be doing. The focus has been on what um we could be doing as far as taking our daughter out of the classroom. Um we've we've seen this as professionals that this is really a an obvious evidence that the teacher has not been able to build foundational trust and safety that's required and necessary for a healthy and functioning classroom. Um we have a lot of concerns about the way that the school has responded to this in light of many other allegations and things that have
071happened across state, across our nation and schools and the like. As somebody who works with victims of sexual assault, as somebody who has worked with trauma victims, it starts like this. It starts like with little boundary violations in a classroom with somebody saying, "Hey, I'm not comfortable." But then nobody doing anything about it. We bring all this together because like we said, we've we've tried, we've gone along the pathway of bringing these concerns up. We've asked for more intervention and yet we feel like nothing has really been done. So what we're really asking is for you to take a closer look at what the investigation has has entailed, um what the school has said that they've been documenting. We would like you to look at it since we were not able to look at it
072ourselves. Um and we would ask that you consider whether this is really um if the teacher has really earned his right to stay in the classroom despite several opportunities to be coached and to be given uh mentorship despite the fact that he does not yet have his license and as far as we know is not on the way towards getting his license and he may no longer be in the program. Thank you. Pat Fish. So I apologize for that. Uh I am a coach, I'm a community member, a pastor here in this community. My wife is way more put together and wrote out uh what needed to be said. But I will just say this, um we tried to do it the right way. We worked with the principal, we worked with Dr. Mitchell and
073everyone has been fantastic um in trying to again alleviate the stress. The reality is my daughter hates going to school. You all don't know my daughter but she loved school. She is her mother and was one of those kids that just loved to read, loved to not like me that wanted to run around, but wanted to be in school. That has been taken away from her. Fifth grade's hard and I get that fifth grade girls are hard. I'm learning that. But again, on spring break, when she's coming back to school, she's not worried about the drama that's waiting for her, she's worried about her teacher being inappropriate. As a parent I don't know what to do. When we met with the people that are trying to help we were met with, "Well, there's not enough
074to do. Can you help find more students, more parents?" And cuz again, we don't want to speak for, but I have now emails and messages that I'd love to share. They're not my story, it's their story, but I don't want to speak for parents, but they're here and they're afraid to speak. And that's a problem. That's a problem. When I asked the parents why they're afraid, they say the same thing. Well, when we bring it up, nothing is done. There's no belief that there's going to be accountability. We're made to feel like we are the crazy ones and my daughter's behavior is the problem. A fifth-grade 10-year-old girl was told the only solution was to leave her classroom. And we were going to rehearse with her so that when she had to tell her friends,
075leave all of her friends, I can't wait to tell you what she told me. Leave her friends and she's got to go rehearse with the principal what she's going to tell her peers. That's our answer. A 10-year-old has to hold that. That's what we want our daughters in this district doing. You know what she said? That I don't care about myself and my safety. I care about protecting my my friends. And if I don't stay, who's going to stand up for them? Now, we're advocates and of course we're raising these fierce independent women, but it shouldn't take that. We're here tonight and she wanted to speak and we said, the adults should handle this. You should be a kid. But she's so sick and tired of waiting. Because we've gone through the right processes and
076the only answer is, well, he's got to remain. Here is your options. She leaves the classroom. We're alienating a 10-year-old instead of holding a person who's supposed to protect and hold my daughter safe accountable. We have to be better than that. This district has to be better than that. I am here because as a community member who's born and raised here and wants to be a leader here, our kids deserve better than this. And I hope you all again help us to strive to bring that standard into our classrooms. Student behavior doesn't matter when it comes to feeling unsafe. When you feel unsafe, when you're in trauma, you act out. Student behavior is secondary. We have to make sure the kid is safe first. Then learning can happen. Let's again make sure that that is
077first and foremost at Boulder Hill Elementary. Thank you. Thank you. Myra Mugford Hello. Hello. Uh my name is actually Myra Mugford. Oh, I'm sorry. Um no, it's okay. Everyone gets it wrong. Um I attend the dual language program at Plank Junior High. Um and me and my classmates and I have been preparing for and planning a trip to Memphis, Tennessee for a school trip in I forgot which museum, but it was about Abraham Lincoln and we're supposed to um fundraise and plan and work really hard for this field trip. Um unfortunately, it was canceled at the last minute with no real explanation. I think that that action of canceling Memphis field trip was unfair. The school already approved the trip and we had enough people and we had enough money. The teachers that organized this
078have made quite an effort to make enough money and flyers for this trip. So, why would it be canceled just a few short weeks before it happens? According to the information that I was given, the trip was canceled without reason, so I would appreciate a detailed for reason as to why. I would also like to point out that most of us, including me, I have never been on a school field trip. This is a big opportunity for us to see the world with friends since COVID destroyed any opportunity opportunity for. Thank you. Christopher Barnes Good evening. Good evening. My uh son attends the same school as uh the Fish family and my daughter is slated to go to that school in a few years. These allegations are extremely concerning. Every day when my son goes
079to school, they go through this little motto, we are Boulder Hill, we are accountable, we are respectful, we are engaged. Where is the accountability for the adults that are supposed to be trusted with my children for you guys to provide my safe learning environment? We can hear you. Oh. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Carrie Ryczek Good evening. My name is Carrie Ryczek. I'm speaking tonight to express my concerns about how the district is handling inappropriate behavior and misconduct by staff. We are all aware of recent um firings and and other things with staff members of one kind or another. We are aware of the current lawsuit. We are aware that there is also uh what's happening at Boulder Hill. I totally understand that you cannot discuss employee hiring or firing or an
080active lawsuit in any way, but my questions are bigger than that. What are we doing? What policies are in place to ensure that this does not continue to happen in our district? What action plan does the district have to handle a situation when a student reports misconduct or makes an allegation against a staff member? In other words, as long as we'd like to pretend that these were isolated incidents, clearly they are not. What will you do to to create policies to both prevent this from happening in the future and have an action plan to handle further incidents? Would it be immediate leave during the investigation, a second adult in the room until further questions can be asked? Are the policies different for student teachers or temporary staff versus full-time staff? Is the current background check
081system doing enough or should more be done? Something needs to be done to make these victims feel like they are being heard, believed, taken seriously. We owe them that. Currently, that is not happening and that is not okay. In a world where everything can be made public, the district needs to stop operating in a let's keep this quiet until we know more and instead be proactive in stating that these behaviors will not be tolerated and follow up that up with publicizing the policy or action plan that has been established. To be clear, I'm not asking that people are divulging specific investigations uh into public information, but rather publicizing how the district will handle it in the future. The fact that our local mom and parent pages on social media often have more information than our
082local news is unacceptable. Parents are asking to take action and asking for the administration to do both preventative work and disciplinary action. My kids are now all in college, but that does not lessen my concerns. They all went to Oswego schools from kindergarten through high school and more than once I had a concern about a teacher and or a coach and I was scared to report it. I was scared for the retribution that might come onto my child as an athlete. I was scared that no one would believe them or take them seriously. I regret those decisions and feel determined to make sure that current and future families and students are comfortable coming forward and feel safe to be honest about what is actually happening in our classrooms and in our schools. Please consider what
083is in place now and ask yourself if it's enough to make our students feel safe. If there's any hesitation in answering that question, we need to do more. We need to establish a proactive preventative plan to protect students and families. No more covering up to save district reputation, but instead taking a stand against this behavior and establishing firm action that will be taken to anyone who breaks these policies. We are the adults in the room. It's our job to protect the children. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other public comments? Okay. Thank you, everybody. 9.1 student board member reports. Okay. Uh good afternoon. Actually, good evening, board. Um this evening, we just want to give you a brief update on what SSAC has accomplished. So, the biggest announcement that we have to make, I
084mean, we already uh presented at the last board meeting was the luncheon learn. And um there was actually an equity learning and innovation meeting that uh most of you board members were able to attend. And we basically presented SSAC's work for this year. We shared the journey of SSAC over the years. We guided our our work this year, and we grounded SSAC in rightful presence, youth participatory action research, all these concepts, the district's strategic plan even had an uh an effect in that. Student-teacher relationships was a big part of SSAC, as well as the portrait of a learner. So, all these qualities um really grounded SSAC into what we accomplished this year. So. And then um the second thing we want to um express today is the student perspective. So, um in terms of, you
085know, rightful presence, student-teacher relationships, and what SSAC stands for, you know, the when we look at, you know, students that at CV East, um the environment and setting, you know, we've realized are big factors contributing to their behavior. So, like, when students enter different settings, you know, they have to feel comfortable. They have to or like, if they don't feel comfortable, if they have, you know, any of these issues, they they'll have trouble maintaining focus or grasping what the teacher is actually saying. So, it's really those small details that makes a difference. Um like an example of this is like, for example, like teachers greeting students as they walk in, like, you know, that makes them feel more comfortable. That makes them more encouraged to learn in class. And again, that just, you know, re-emphasizes
086that that idea that these little details do make a difference. And that improves the overall student-teacher relationship. And then um yeah, many students were talking about like this past week. We're talking about how they feel different depending on, you know, like like a lot of variables play into how they feel when they enter a class or depending on the teacher they have, and even what time it is. All these factors really play a big impact into what their mood is. And you know, that that at the end of the day affects their ability to learn. So, the biggest thing is it impacts the the relationship between the students and teachers. So, these factors is what, you know, I've been learning from my student like um some of my peers this week. So, the one thing
087I want to emphasize is that like, you know, students and teachers, they both have expectations for themselves and each other. And both students and teachers, you know, they need to be on the same wavelength in order for the process to work. Students have to switch classes constantly. You know, their mind when they get to the next class is still in the previous one, right? And then by the end of the day, students will begin slowing down, and this will affect their, you know, productivity, right? So, there's a lot of factors that play into it. And, you know, students are not necessarily grappling with an overload of homework, you know. Though that's how it feels. Like, what they're really struggling with is the various things they're learning, how it's being taught differently in each space, various
088teacher personalities and levels of relationships, cultural differences even for that matter, and understanding like the student-to-student interactions in the classroom based on teacher and student management. It's very different, right? So, all these factors really do play a big role in student-teacher relationships. And like that's what we've been gathering feedback like, I mean, this week. So, yeah. Hello. Good evening, board. Um So, from our luncheon learns, we gathered all this information that we decoded from the podcast that we had also shared to the equity learning innovation meeting last Wednesday that we had that some of um board members have been able to attend. Um with the feedback and the podcast, we were able to come up with um kind of like a draft to a strategic plan um for our next steps and ideas and recommendations
089that we have to our board and um the future of SSAC. Um we will be sharing our podcast if it hasn't been sha- shared yet to the public um and with fellow members of the Board of Education staff and students. Uh based on the luncheon learn conversations, our proposed next steps to improve student-teacher relationships through rightful presence in the classrooms are starting with district admin and working along with SSAC, what matters beyond grades, what matters beyond the A, B, C, D, E, and F type of report cards. So, starting off with district admin, um we wanted to identify, clarify, and consistently communicating the shared definition of success. Uh diving into what it is to be a portion of a learner. Uh the SSAC's role to co-create student-friendly language with visuals and posters we could put
090around the schools. With district admin, we wanted various stakeholders with SSAC to identify and implement three to five non- negotiable relationship practices such as, as Awik said, greeting students, the 4 + 1 rule at the door, uh knowing students' interests um outside of the classroom. Um SSAC role, we want to share student examples of what works and partner with staff to amplify student voice to make sure they're being recognized. Uh for teachers, um focus on increasing classroom engagement. From our luncheon learn, the podcast really highlighted hands-on activities. Um incorporating regular hands-on collaborative activities, like I said before, clearly communicating that students are valued beyond their grades. They're more than just a number. Uh building relationships through simple daily interactions, match strategies to students' needs and subject areas, especially like the core ones like English, math,
091science. Um and then for students, we wanted to focus on increasing agency. Uh communicating needs, proactively engaging and asking questions, taking ownership of learning and behavior, and seeking out spaces where they feel connected. Um and just focusing on these areas to kind of slowly build these student-teacher relationships to become more proactive in the near future, especially when we give off all this data and all this information to the next members of SSAC. Um and that concludes our student board member note. Thank you. >> Thank you. You were there, yeah. Yeah, I was going to add just comment [clears throat] that um you all played for us the the podcast. The first The first 5 minutes or so, yeah. Uh I'm looking forward to listening to the whole thing, but at first when I was listening
092to it, I thought it was like an actual [laughter] Not it's not an actual podcast. But, can you tell them a little bit about what the podcast is and how it came to be, uh and how it how it helped you all kind of summarize the information you learned from the luncheon learns? Yes. So, um obviously, doing luncheon learns at two different schools, we wanted to collect all the data like verbatim. We wanted to incorporate every single idea that was given, and obviously writing a hand by hand would take us forever. Uh so, we used an AI tool called Coconote, which um we would press record and it took every word of every conversation into account. And with the help of Notebook LM, which is also incorporated in Google Classroom now for students to be
093able to use in our district, um you put in any type information and it turns it into a podcast, which it kind of talks you through exactly what happened. And as many of you have heard of the podcast, it feels like a real person is talking. Uh fun fact, it actually uh took at least one of the voices of one teacher from O E and one teacher from O A, incorporated their voices. So, when I was listening to it, I was like, "Oh my god, that's one of my teachers talking." I was like, "Oh." Um so, we ended up using all those thematic codes that we kind of broke down with the use of AI. And then we also used student voice. We also cooperated um fellow SSAC members and also staff members in schools
094to kind of direct where we wanted this podcast. Obviously with AI, it is heavily flawed. So, we had to go back and kind of like nitpick a little things because it didn't fully focus on the student-teacher relationship. It kind of drifted off to different conversations that were happening, which tended to happen because student-teacher relationships, we kind of drift off in different conversations. Um however, we wanted to pinpoint main issues and things we wanted to focus to improve on, such as hands-on activities, feeling present in the classroom, um expectations. I know a lot of students talked about how they um wanted to feel more seen when they didn't feel like they're 100%, especially with their current day with technology, everyone so often led to go to their phones. And with this new phone policy, a lot
095of students feel like um uh a way to kind of escape from the classroom sometimes is taken away from them, especially some students like to pop in their headphones and listen to music when they feel a little overstimulated. And we kind of talked about communicating with our teachers and how we can find a space to communicate that, "Hey, like, I'm having a bad day today. Can I pop in my headphones? I'm not trying to be disrespectful towards you." And kind of start that relationship from the beginning. So, we wanted to focus on little areas and little um anecdotes like that to kind of fully understand what students and what teachers feel on either side. That was very very well done. Yeah, thank you. Did your teachers here that Like, did your teachers say >> Um
096not I don't think they have yet, but I think one of my teachers is going to be really surprised. I think he's really flattered if he were to find out right now. >> [laughter] >> Thank you. Any other questions? No? All right. Thank you again. Yes. Um 9.2 of our committee reports. We had policy and legislative, finance facilities, and equity, learning, and innovation. Um We can start with the policy and legislative. So, what we primarily reviewed at um policy and legislation were the um students' rights and responsibilities. Um part of it was kind of a review, part of it a good portion of it had to do with the updates partic- particularly things like AI and other sorts of uh of e-devices that hadn't been in existence or hadn't been widely used the last time
097this was reviewed. So, it's it's basically pretty extensive. Um the board will be reviewing it for information at the next meeting. And then we will be voting on approval uh the following meeting. There were also some items from press that we needed to go to to go over. However, we really focused on um we really focused on the rights and responsibilities. Great. And the next go to finance finance and facilities. I don't know. I wasn't there. Oh, oh that's right. You weren't there. Nice. Nice. You guys started after I was at the other one. Started after mine. >> Yeah, finance and facilities was it >> It was like the fastest Yeah. It was very efficient. It was very efficient. We had an extremely finance extremely efficient finance and facilities meeting. Uh basically went what we
098went over was uh were Medicaid reimbursements. Um through submitting requests etc. Um it it we can be entitled to or we are entitled to as much as as close to a million dollars in Medicaid reimbursement from the state. Uh which is wonderful. However, um the state doesn't write a check for that amount and send it to us. Um it's really um sporadic. The state sends us money when pretty well when they please. Um so, it's not something that we can say, you know, these funds will be here on X date. Um it can go beyond a particular fiscal year. So, um number one in spite of all that, number one, we want to make sure that we're up to speed in um submitting all the reimbursements that we're entitled to uh because that's part that
099we can control. So, it's a pretty it's a it's a fairly big number. It's just timing. I was looking it was 21,000 two years ago and almost a million. So. And part of that has to be has to do with the fact that we're submitting more. We're keeping better records. And where it's it's my understanding that it should be sustainable thing that we can do into the future. It sounds like yeah. So, that we have the the knowledge base. All right. Um and then the ELI meeting. Um how was that meeting? We we heard the presentation from our um lovely SSAC members or our student board members. Um so, a lot of what they summarized we were able to talk to them about that uh and their successful lunch and learns and things that we've
100learned and also next steps. Um and then we got an update um or like a check-in kind of on our um data system that we've adopted at EduClimber. Um and how that um kind of a timeline of how we're getting data into that system and how we're going to be using it and training and professional development that's going to happen around that so that um the right people have access to the right data at the right time. So, I actually think that that tool and um utilize the utilization of that tool going to inform so much of our work. Um I remember being um you know, like a department chair and having to like almost like hand grab data out of like our gradebooks and things like that and this will make it a lot
101easier both at the building level to set goals, the team level, and even the individual teacher level. So, um if you didn't get a chance to look at that presentation, it's a pretty good synthesis. A way to be proactive as well. Yes. So. I think what aligns to to that and is just um timely conversation from um our student board members or student ambassadors. Um just as we talk about student agency and how students are proactively um discussing amongst one another and courageously discussing with staff because I know that that can be a bit intimidating as well um regarding their needs. And so, when we think about EduClimber and when we think about student voice, how do we really accelerate that beyond just admiring a problem or admiring like the data or admiring the feedback.
102Um as this is our first year on the board and we just completed our first year. I want to say this is our first year anniversary just about in terms of almost. Are we okay? But I say all that to say just coming to board members even coming to board meetings even prior to becoming a board member, I'd always hear like students talk about like some of the needs that they've had and they're pretty consistent with what our board members um our student ambassadors are reporting out. And so, what I'd love to see as we move forward, what are just some actions that we're going to put in place, what are some non-negotiables in terms of um the student experience. They called out um just feeling um welcomed within the classrooms and something as small
103as being sure that I'm being greeted in the morning. And so, what's our blueprint for learning when we think about students? And I think that as we look toward next year in planning, um definitely something that we'd love to charge ourselves with like next steps in terms of just what some non- some non-negotiables are. Um I also just raised the question relative to EduClimber um potentially um accelerating that work too and getting data in front of teachers prior to school year 28. I think right now we're on track um just with this tool utilizing it um school year 28 for our teachers and I think our teachers would definitely like to have access prior to school year 28 when we talk about triangulating data and just navigating the data. And so, those are just some
104of my thoughts from um from the committee meeting. >> captures um student behavior data. Um so, principals even as soon as next year will start being able to kind of see what's going on in classroom better. Um and then you know, taking some of that data and discussing it with teachers. Hopefully we can get it to the into the teachers' hands a little bit sooner than 20 than the following year, but we'll see. We know we can't do everything all at once. Is there a movie like that? Everything everywhere all at once. Yes. Yes. But yeah, I it it No, I mean it's something it's a it's a it's a very good tool. Um and it surprised me that we didn't have it, but then I also hear that it's um not necessarily the norm
105um in school districts. So. You had seem like you had some want to say something. No? Okay. All right. Anything else? No? 9.3 board member comments. You can start. Uh I had the I did my last uh school connections for the year um uh at Angle program today and uh it was a really good meeting. Um a lot of uh conversations back and forth on how we can work to improve things. Um I really appreciate those meetings because I think at each different at each school it was a completely different vibe for lack of a better word. Um but I think that work is very important to be talking specifically to the teachers, the people on the ground um instead of just always talking to Dr. Delgado and the district admins. Um I would like
106to also say that uh the a lot of the kids that you saw here tonight from Special Olympics, they're competing on Sunday uh at the regional uh soccer tournament. And that'll determine if they will go on to state in June. So, let's go Wildcats and uh yeah, that's that's what I have. So. Great. I've expressed my thoughts. Nothing else. Okay. Yeah, um I'd like to kind of bring something up came up a little bit earlier. Um during public comment it came up that the importance of public perception and I think as board members we're incredibly aware of that um as elected officials and we kind of operate in this weird space of not being involved in the daily goings-on of the district, but also understanding that that we are to be representing the public. Um
107and while I think public perception is really important, Um I think at the same time it's also equally important that um that we remain grounded in accurate information and fact. Um and you know, when things come up like discussions of closing buildings and $5 million projects and whatnot, um those are not things that those are not conversations that I've participated in on this board, I can say. Um so I just want to to mention the importance of taking time to seek out facts, um so that when we do engage in dialogue, whether it's in the context of a board meeting or in communications um via phone or email, that it can remain constructive and solution-focused. Um if you are ever looking for facts, uh we do try to maintain um you know, as up-to-date information
108as possible on the district websites. They know all the individual schools have their websites as well. Um additionally, there's the BOE email that's just BOE, I believe, at uh sd308.org, which goes to all of us, um and our individual emails. So, um you know, while while we welcome the opportunity to engage with everybody and we um really actually thrive when we get to engage with everybody because of the nature of our roles, I do just want to remind people um to seek out accurate information um so that those conversations can yield uh can be more productive. That's all. And we And we are having we're having lots of conversations around those things. I mean, it's we're getting public feedback Yeah. constantly. >> The The comment, I wish the gentleman were still here, the comment about
109considering closing a school, that was totally news to me. So, but my my This is not I mean, again, this is going to be part of my comments, I guess, but my under my perception is that maybe he was referencing Traughber. Old Traughber. Oh, I thought it was the long-range facilities plan. >> some of what we can I what I think the $500 million is in regard to the long-range facility plan, and then the school closing is in regard to Traughber. >> Ah. I That's just what I perceive. Old Traughber. Not the And so, that's what I perceive. So, it's what to your point, >> specific specificity of information is also important. And And even the the $500 million was not Well, in our mass facility plan, there is a there is a section where
110there is a maintenance part. Yeah. Which is you know, a a chunk. And then there is a um a section safety and security part, right? And then there's should be aspirational. >> be completed as one project. It would be very expensive. That That would be us signing on for for a massive, you know, but but that's not the nature of the plan. Right. Yeah, we we've had conversations with lots of community members about the going forward. Yeah. So. Okay. >> That's all I have So, now that actually works out well, kind of tying into tying into what you said about fact-checking. Um kind of on the other side. So, um the day after the last board meeting, I went down to Springfield um for kind of a mini kind of a mini hill day. Um
111and and it was interesting because apparently the Village of Oswego decided to do that as well, so I saw a lot of people I knew. Um but one of the things that we talked about is certainly we talked about funding and and all the things that you would expect. Um but one of the things that we talked about that's actually kind of going through um Congress right now has to do with FOIAs, or Freedom of Information Act requests. There are not just in this district, but certainly in this district, um across the state and across different entities, school districts, you know, um villages, etc. Um an inordinate amount of FOIA requests that are coming in, and they're coming in not even from the local community. Um they're coming in from national organizations asking um all
112sorts of information. Look, if somebody is asking for information that's 80 pages long, they're not reading it. I mean, it's it's it's kind of it's over the top, let's put it that way. But additionally, what I think people don't realize, particularly, and again, I'm going to focus now on our district, what people don't realize is that these FOIAs, although some of them are are are, you know, individuals are entitled to ask for information, but they take hours and hours of from our our FOIA person, from legal. Um so, not only time, but it costs a lot of money, especially when we're going to our attorneys. So, i- if you And again, they will all become public after, you know, after they're approved and and all that type of thing, but um I just want to
113emphasize that we do have If you have a question, ask us. Um Dr. Martin just kind of gave a list of ways to contact us. Um I I'm not sure I'm not sure what people are necessarily looking for, but the requests that are coming in are very vague, uh very non-specific, very um involved. If you have a question, just please I- anyone out there, please ask us. Um we're happy to answer to the extent that we can. We just don't want to be spending thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars um on on unnecessary requests. That's my comment. Well, and what I think is really important, just our work with Dr. Dr. Burkey, and we started talking about that publicly in terms of how we make decisions, how we engage as a board, and how
114we follow very specific protocols. And so, there's more to come with that, but I think um that's great for public perception, too, so that they can understand that we aren't just randomly making decisions, that there are protocols that we do follow. And so, the more I think we discuss that openly, the more the public can understand that there are rationales in terms of, you know, how we're going about making decisions. And protocols that must be followed, more importantly. Amy? Sorry. You want everything else right now? Thank you. Okay. And 10.1, the minutes from previous meeting. Are considered read. >> after if anybody wants to speak with me. Um consent agenda. Minutes from previous meeting. Do you want to make a motion to approve the consent agenda? Oh, yeah. Approved. Can I have a motion to
115approve consent agenda, please? Certainly. Uh I make a motion to approve all items under consent, including 10.1 minutes from the Board of Education meeting on March 23rd, 2026, open and closed sessions. 10.2 to acknowledge the FOIA requests received by the district. 10.3 to approve field trips for overnight and or more than 200 miles. Second. Are there any Are there any questions on the consent agenda? I just wanted to say that I'm really excited that the softball team is going to the national tournament because I went to that tournament when I was in high school, so I hope they have a great time. All right. Missy? Aye. Dr. Collick? Aye. Dr. Martin? Aye. Mr. Syracuse? Aye. Ms. Winnett? Aye. Dr. Mario? Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Information item 11.1, the school calendar 2026-2027 amendment. Thank you, Board.
116Um Dr. Kincaid? So, Dr. Mitchell um will be sharing additional information, but I will kick us off for the >> [laughter] >> amended school calendar. Here she is. I don't want to steal any thunder. There is three areas of which um we are proposing some changes to the upcoming 2026-2027 uh school calendar, focus on school um improvement and when the April elections are, some 5-hour attendance days, and then parent-teacher conferences. So, with that, I would like to turn it over to Dr. Mitchell um with some recommendations from her team and committee. Thank you, Dr. Kincaid. Didn't hear everything she said, but I think she set the stage that these are outcomes from the calendar committee. Included on that committee is OEA, members of DAC, and members of um building leadership. The uh first one that
117Dr. Kincaid named was school improvement days and election days. So, um the rationale to minimize the impact on student learning while prioritizing safety, the calendar committee believes that scheduling a school improvement day on the April 6th, 2027 election day would best serve the school community. The school improvement day is currently scheduled for April 16th. The recommendation is to move the April 16th school improvement day to April 6th on election day. The next item that Dr. Kincaid mentioned is the 5-hour student attendance day. So, through the collaborative efforts of the district leadership team composed of members of OEA, OESPA, building administration, and district leadership, there will be a relaunching of the school leadership teams for the 26-27 school year. The recommendation is to add three 5-hour student attendance days in order to increase teacher and staff
118collaboration and planning focused on outcomes and supports for all students. The recommendation for the addition of the 5-hour student days is September 21st, 2026, February 1st, 2027, and March 8th, 2026 2027, in addition to the existing sit day. The third proposed change is around parent-teacher conferences. The calendar committee recommends, based on multiple years of feedback from teachers, to split parent-teacher conferences into two different periods based on the unique concerns of the early childhood and elementary building and the junior high and high school building. Early childhood to fifth grade teachers requested a later conference date that is reflected in the calendar by a November 19th and 20th, 2026 date. And this allows early childhood and elementary teachers to have completed the first trimester with a full set of data and feedback to present to families. The
119junior high and high school teachers, who teach on a semester schedule, believe that a November date is too far in the year and they would miss an opportunity to meet with families and intervene sooner in the school year. This is reflected in the calendar by an October 22nd and October 23rd, 2026 date, aligned with the current practice. So, student attendance for the parent-teacher conferences essentially would look like um on October 22nd for EC, student attendance all day, elementary all day, junior high and high school would have a 5-hour student attendance day. On October 23rd, EC all day, elementary all day, junior high no attendance, and high school a 5-hour day. On November 19th, EC no attendance, elementary 5-hour, and junior high and high school all day. And on November 20th, no attendance for EC and
120elementary, junior high all day, and high school all day. So, there's essentially some flip-flops happening here to free up families to attend more than one conference if they have students at different levels within the school district. Um yeah. I think I'm mixing up some things in my head. When it says all day, that means parent-teacher conferences is an all-day event? Or that is a full day of attendance? This is the student attendance. So, the kids will come all day. Okay. On the on the days you see all day. These are the list of the parent-teacher conference dates and these are the attendance structures for each of the Got it. Yeah. I think that's where what I originally thought and then I got myself complicated and now I'm back >> on track. So, in October, the
121parent-teacher conferences will be for junior high and high school. So, therefore, early childhood and elementary will not have parent-teacher conferences on October. So, they attend school as normal all day. The flip then is, Dr. Mitchell described, parent-teacher conferences for um uh elementary and early childhood would occur, hence the change in student attendance. So, but there are no parent-teacher conferences for junior high and high school in November, so those students would be attending all day. Um thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. >> want to say just one comment just to say thank you to you and the team. Also, this is a big part of our strategic plan where our unions um all of our unions have been participating, specifically actually OESPA and OEA, in our district leadership team to think about professional
122learning opportunities. And so, this is a big turn in our district to elevating the voice of our educators in the leadership of professional learning practices. So, I want to thank those unions for that. I also just uh the parent-teacher conferences, as someone who is I think I saw you at the last parent-teacher conference, but yeah, it's feeling that having to be in two places at once and, you know, deciding kind of which kids and which teachers can have very limited amount of time. I appreciate um you making that more accessible for parents so that they can engage with their kids' teachers. Okay. Information item 11.2, the Chromebook refresh. Oh, I'm going to start out by saying that over the last uh 2 years or so, we've been employing RFP in the process of buying things.
123But we're in a unique situation with the um the situation in the Middle East, as well as the um the the uh cost of everything going up, cost of petroleum, shipping, uh supply uh supply chain issue. So, we are trying to do something different to still be able to realize some good pricing in our Chromebook refresh. With that, I'm going to hand it over to the director of technology, Brent Kaigler. Good evening. Uh as Raphael mentioned, I'm here tonight to um provide information, answer questions uh about and request for the approval of our purchase of our uh Chromebooks for this next year. Uh if you recall, uh a few months ago, we didn't or we approved the uh reduction in our refresh rate. So, this year's uh purchase will only be for 1,400 devices. And
124as uh Mr. Obafemi mentioned, I this this process, the procurement process, felt like we had to do something a little bit different to take advantage of uh pricing. Um as we began this process looking for different models uh that we would be looking for uh for the fall, we reached out to our vendor and quickly discovered that the price of a similar machine had already increased by uh over 25%. Um yeah. Uh some of that uh after investigating and realizing and speaking to various people, uh it is um uh can be related to the uh tariffs that might be going on, um the AI data centers, uh the popularity of that, uh those are sucking up the resources that might be used for the Chromebook devices, uh and then, of course, the uh uh world
125uh situation dealing with uh petroleum, uh not only in gas prices for shipping, but also the creation of the plastics. Um so, we're seeing that price increase. Uh now, for the expedited or the reason we felt like we needed to move quickly uh and why this didn't go through a normal RFP process, um uh as I said, when we reached out uh to our vendor, our previous vendor, uh not only had the price increased, but they could no longer hold a quote for any extended amount of time. Um uh and they suggested that uh or said that uh even uh it wasn't necessarily that they didn't want to, the manufacturers wouldn't up upheld or um keep the price that they uh were first quoted because of the manufacturer's ability to uh for the cost of
126that. Um as we looked at it further, again, the supply chain is be- was becoming very restrictive. Uh we wanted to make sure that we did have devices on time to prep them during the summer. Um and we uh wanted to make sure that we had equipment that would uh last longer. Um again, since our refresh rate has reduced, we're now looking at devices that need to last for probably 8 years. Uh so, uh even though we are uh suggesting a different uh process and the uh expedit- uh expedited process, uh I don't feel like we uh neglected our due diligence in either our research or evaluation. Uh we did request uh the device that our vendor uh previously uh had quoted. They did uh in in order to save some uh cost on that,
127they did recommend a different uh chipset, um MediaTek, rather than the Intel processor we had before. So, we felt like we needed to uh get a hold of the device and do some benchmarking to make sure it was still adequate and performed just as well if not better. It did perform better than the previous model. Um we also reached out to various vendors and manufacturers uh on what they would uh charge for a similar device. Uh trying to find the configuration at the price point was difficult. Uh many times, the vendors uh would quote us a previous generation of a device or a lower standard of device. Uh and even with that, uh they couldn't hold it. They said as supplies lasted. Um and so, again, we had to uh move we felt like we
128needed to move quickly. Uh we also heard from other districts that they were using an expedited process to procure devices. Um so what we did in order to do this is that uh knowing that we needed to go to the board for approval, we went ahead and did sign a letter of intent that we would like to purchase uh these devices from our vendor. Uh and we also investigated uh the leasing opportunities uh to procure those devices. Uh so tonight and it lays out in the memo the cost, um but uh tonight we're requesting or providing information so that you may approve this uh procurement process at the next board meeting. Just to be clear, we we thrive and we pride ourselves on going through a comparative process. But when there's a market imbalance, that
129makes it difficult. Because even from the initial time of having conversation with vendors, prices kept going up. It wasn't going kept going up because it was just a confluent of different things happening in the marketplace. There was not an imbalance in the marketplace. There were more demand than supply. And when that that happens, there's a lot of bidding of the prices going up. What we're looking at, if we were to go through the RFP process, it'll be longer time. It was no There was no stability like it was last year of being able to get the the best product at the best price. And and and I'll tag on to that. Um so with the RFP process, you look for the best quote. Uh however, many vendors or what we heard from them that they
130would have had to pad the prices on an RFP process because they knew it would take weeks to complete that process. So we felt like even if we we did go through that, it would wouldn't be the best price. And we did negotiate the lease rate that we agreed upon. Um went back and forth with the initial pricing, the interest rate on the lease, and uh given that just the other thing, interest rate is is trending up. If uh which I'm going to bring uh the next board meeting, if you look at the um CPI data that was released last Friday, uh interest rate is actually is the highest it's been just in the month of uh March. It went up by 90 basis points in 1 month. That's the highest it's been since '22
131from the height of of COVID. So interest rate is actually going up. So those are some of the things that we tried to work through to be able to get a better pricing for financing financing because it helps our cash flow since we know our cash flow situation is challenging. So instead of paying uh close to 500,000 up front, we um we propose a lease option. So during the 3-year duration of the lease, we'll be paying just over $41,000 in uh in interest payment. Any questions? No, I I get a little uncomfortable that there was no RFP, but I understand the circumstances. The situation. Oh, I I want to add though, and I think that this is important that it doesn't also preclude any of the information is also still not public to us what
132came of it, right? So I think Mr. Bafemi, I think one of the advantages of the RFP is that it creates that competitive work um uh opportunity and it's and it and it holds a very high standard, right? So in this situation where we're dealing with market forces, it doesn't lower our commitment to naming and all the other factors that are important in a transparent and process that really speaks to integrity. So I just I I I want to underscore that. And unfortunately, yes, it also it's terrible that we're in this pigeonhole where they can set whatever price they want, sure, and those forces are changing. So I want to thank you for naming that, and I want to say that there's other things that come up for folks on the board, please name those
133now because I'd rather those surface now for us as we're thinking about this. It's very helpful. Any other questions, comments? And as far as the leasing, it matches the usage, right? So it's kind of Yes. Yeah. So it's So we're we're leasing it for 3 years, and we're hoping to keep them for at least double that. Potentially up to 8 years. >> Yes. Okay. A computer in 8 years? Yeah. [laughter] Exactly. A Chromebook in 8 years? It better be shiny. [clears throat] >> [laughter] >> Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Going to action items. Action item 12.1, approval of bills for payment. Can I have a motion, please? >> I make a motion to authorize the payment of bills in the amount of $3,467,193.44 as presented. Second. Any
134discussion? Mr. Serone? >> Aye. Ms. C? Aye. Dr. Martin? Aye. Ms. Wenmouth? Aye. Dr. Murillo? Aye. Dr. Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Action item 12.2, approval of 2026-2027 budget calendar and resolution to designate the preparer of the tentative budget. I make a motion to approve the 2026-2027 budget calendar and resolution to designate the preparer of the tentative budget. Second. Any discussion? Okay. Dr. Aye. Ms. Wenmouth? Aye. Dr. Martin? Aye. Dr. Murillo? Aye. Ms. C? Aye. Mr. Serone? Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Action item 12.3, approval of IHSA membership renewal. I make a motion to approve the IHSA membership renewal as discussed and presented. Second. Any discussion? Ms. Wenmouth? Aye. Dr. Murillo? Aye. Mr. Serone? Aye. Dr. Aye. Ms. C? Aye. Dr. Martin? Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Action item 12.4, approval of hazardous bus recertification. Can I have
135a motion, please? I make a motion to approve the updated list of hazardous bus route bus route areas as presented for the purpose of recertification and authorize the district to submit the required documentation to the Illinois Department of Transportation and to the Illinois State Board of Education for the 2026-2027 school year. Second. Any discussion? Mr. Serone? Aye. Dr. Martin? Aye. Ms. Wenmouth? Aye. Dr. Aye. Ms. C? Aye. Dr. Murillo? Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Action item 12.5, approval of junior high and high school course titles. I make a motion to approve the junior high and high school course titles as discussed and presented. Second. Any discussion? Dr. Martin? Aye. Mr. Serone? Aye. Ms. C? Aye. Dr. Aye. Dr. Murillo? Aye. Ms. Wenmouth? Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Action item 12.6, approval of natural natural gas reverse auction.
136I make a motion to approve and authorize administration to enter into a contract with Direct Energy as the awarded supplier for the natural natural gas reverse auction. Ms. C? Yeah, there's nothing to do. As discussed and presented. Second. Any discussion? Ms. C? Aye. Ms. Wenmouth? Aye. Mr. Serone? Aye. Dr. Martin? Aye. Dr. Murillo? Aye. Dr. Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Action item 12.7, renewal of 2026-2027 building administrator contracts. Can I have a motion, please? I make a motion to approve the renewal of the 2026-2027 building administrator contracts as discussed and presented. Second. Any discussion? No. Dr. Murillo? Aye. Dr. Martin? Aye. Ms. Wenmouth? >> Aye. Mr. Serone? Aye. Dr. Aye. Ms. C? Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Action item Wow. 12.8, renewal of 2026-2027 district administrator contracts and addendum to multi-year contracts. Can I have a motion,
137please? I make a motion to approve the renewal of the 2026-2027 district administrator contracts and addendum to multi-year contracts as discussed and presented. Second. Any discussion? Ms. Wenmouth? Aye. Ms. C? Aye. Mr. Serone? Aye. Dr. Aye. Dr. Murillo? Aye. Dr. Martin? Aye. Motion passes 6-0. Action item 12.9, approval of resolution authorizing non-renewal of administrative contracts and non-reemployment of administrators at the conclusion of the 25-26 school year. Can I have a motion, please? I make a motion to approve the resolution authorizing non-renewal of administrative contracts and non-reemployment of administrators at the conclusion of the 2025-2026 school year. Second. Any discussion? Mr. Serrano. I. Dr. Martin. I'm going to abstain from this due to a personal relationship. Ms. C. I. Dr. Maria. I. Ms. Wenmouth. I. Dr. I. Motion passes five eyes, one abstention. That's it. Yep.
13812.1 action item, approval of resolution authorizing non-renewal of non-tenured teachers at the conclusion of the 25-26 school year. Just slight correction, 12.10. What did I say? 12.1. 12.10. >> Unless you want to start Unless [laughter] you want to start this over again. Yeah, it's not math. You know, it's a zero on there. 12.10. I make a motion to approve the resolution authorizing non-renewal of non-tenured teachers at the conclusion of the 2025-2026 school year. Second. Any discussion? And I appreciate everybody catching that. Okay. Dr. Martin. I. Ms. Wenmouth. I. Ms. C. I. Dr. I. Dr. Maria. I. Mr. Serrano. I. Motion passes 6-0. Action item 12.11, approval of personnel report. Can I have a motion, please? >> I make a motion to approve the personnel report as discussed and presented. Second. Any discussion? Dr. I. Ms.
139C. I. Dr. Maria. I. Dr. Martin. I. Mr. Serrano. I. Ms. Wenmouth. >> I. Motion passes 6-0. Item 13.1, can I have a motion to adjourn? I make a motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor? I. I.