SD308 Board of Education Meeting (12/8/2025)

001Community Unit School District Board of Education meeting. Can I have a roll call, please? >> Mr. Cerrone >> here. >> Dr. Martin >> here. >> Dr. Mario >> present. >> Dr. Pak >> here. >> Miss Robinson >> present. Miss C >> here. >> Miss Wenman >> present. Um, let's all stand for the pledge of allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. For public hearing, um, truth and public truth and taxation hearing 4.1 and Okay. Uh, we are going to have three opportunities for public comment tonight. The first opportunity will be during the public hearing on the truth and taxation hearing. The second opportunity will be during the public hearing on the

002state waiver application driver's education fees. And the third opportunity will be after the public hearings during public comment. If you wish to make a comment about the truth and taxation hearing, please make it during the public comment portion of that hearing. If you wish to make a comment about the driver's education waiver application, please make it during the public comment uh portion of that hearing. If you wish to make a comment uh about some other matter unrelated to both public hearings, you may do so during the third opportunity for public comment. Please make sure that uh you know on the comment you note on the comment card during which portion you wish to speak. 4.1 the public hearing. This is a public hearing conveyed by the board of education of community unit school district 308

003regarding our requirement for the truth and taxation public hearing for the 2025 levy. At this time, I would like to ask that district administrators who will be gi who will give information updates during this public hearing to introduce themselves and proceed. At this time, board members and district administrations are invited to ask questions. >> Mr. Ofi, >> Raphael Ofi, chief financial officer for the district. We uh presented the uh levy at the last board meeting and this is an opportunity for anyone who has any questions about levy and the levy certificate for the 2025 levy to ask any questions. Anybody have any questions? any >> I do have a general question. If we decide not to increase the levy, um do you know how much of a reduction in our revenue that would be? >>

004Are you asking if we decide not to levy to CPI? >> Yes. >> It will be a significant amount of money. We're looking at about3 to4 million just this year. >> And then it compounds. then the base get lower in subsequent years. So over a period of uh years it becomes a significant amount of money. >> Good question. And then the other part is we're going to be asking for a certain amount but that doesn't mean we're going to get that amount. We're going to get whatever the uh >> the CPI. Yes. >> Yeah. So >> any just a hypothetical question sorry um so for instance let's just say a home is valued at 250 or 350k um sorry um what is actually um the pay in 2025 compared to 2024. >> Uh now the

005tax rate in 2025 is actually lower than the tax rate in 2024. So, but the value of the the property is probably higher than it was this year than it was last year. So, the tax rate is proportionate to the value of the the property. So, if the property is higher, the tax rate is lower. So, the amount of money that the home um the homeowner will pay will depend on a number of variables. One would be the homeowner's exemption. that will be uh everyone is entitled to in Kendo County which I'm assuming that's that's since that's the largest portion of our property tax and then it will be that amount you take the uh the fair market value of the property you do the multiplier which is uh one uh one and 3/4 and

006then you which is what the taxable amount will be not actually the market value and And what you do, you do with the almon exemption, you take that out of there. Then you multiply that by the tax rate, which I believe the tax rate uh for this the based on the proposed this year will be about $5.37 for each $100. So if you multiply the value of that after you do all that calculation, that would be the estimated amount of the property tax. >> But that that's for 2024. >> No, this is 2025. >> Okay. >> So on a So in a $300,000 home, it would be approximately >> it would be approximately >> So then then the the assessed value is 100,000. So then you're looking at about $5,370 would go to the school

007district. Yes, >> that's the total >> that's the school district right total >> but that's not the bonds >> right >> and then that's uh but it's also varies because different properties were increased different amounts so the >> yeah so there's there's a little bit of wiggle room in there but if it were that simple you know >> I can actually I could probably teach a sixh hour course on property tax >> so I don't want to put everybody to sleep but it's Not that it's not as simple as it sounds. The bond side I think is simpler right >> the uh is also a value >> it's based on the value but it's a little >> a little more consu >> we can offer an audited class at the high school for anybody interested

008high school students be good >> thank you I think it's just um the curiosity being a taxpayer right to understand what that looks like so thank you >> yeah um so yeah last last year the rate might have been six But because that same $300,000 home might be worth 350 now. >> See what I'm saying? So >> the rate is lower. So yeah. >> Yeah. >> I actually have it if anyone is interested. I have the uh the tax rate going back the last 15 years. >> Yeah. >> A good question because one of the biggest confusions people have is that you're raising taxes because of the school. The increase is really because of values of property. Any other questions? No. Okay. And now uh the board asks, "Oh, are there any public comments for

009Nope." Okay. So, I don't I will move on. Um 4.2. At this time, we will close the public hearing. Um any other No. >> All right. 5.1, the public hearing for renewal of state waiver application for driver's education fees. Uh, this is a public hearing convened by the board of education of community unit school district 308 regarding the driver's education waiver application. Dr. Heather Kay, deputy superintendent, is with us this evening and will present an overview of the district's waiver application and the submission and approval process going forward. After the overview, the members of the board of education and members of the district's administrative team will be invited to ask questions and share their thoughts. Then members of the public will be invited to comment on the application. At this time, I will ask each

010member of the board of education and deputy superintendent and the district administration administrators who will speak to identify themselves for the record. And now I will ask that Dr. Heather Concade present her overview of the district's renewal of the driver's education fee state waiver. It says we need to identify them ourselves for the record. >> Just say your name. >> Yes. >> All right. Dominic Cerrone. >> Heather Martin. >> Yeah. >> We're not speaking to it. I mean, we're not doing the presentation. >> Well, it says that we each member of the board of education. >> Oh, okay. Yeah, I get you. All right. So, if we have any questions, we have to identify ourselves. All right. Okay. So, our current course fee for driver's education, which is a classroom and behind the wheel, is

011$400. In order to continue this uh course fee of 400, we have to have a state waiver. So, um we are recommending that through the work of Jennifer Cooper Wells and Amanda Satar, um they looked locally at the cost for private drivers education. um our recommended course fee is lower than if you were to sign up locally. And over the last two years, we have moved um our staff from temporary teachers that were hourly employees to our OEA uh union-based employees. So given the costs to run this program, we are recommending the continuation of the current fee of 400 Are there any question? Any questions? Are there any? >> No, no public comment. >> Okay. So, there are no public comment for the drivers at uh hearing as well. Um, [clears throat] okay. We'll go

012to 5.2. At this time we will close the public hearing or do I okay sorry this is the first time doing this particular piece here. All right go to 6.1 all sports recognition. >> So we're going to up this tone a little bit and get a little more excited. >> That was so exciting. >> Woohoo. So, at this time, board, if you could join us in the middle. We're going to do some exciting um recognitions. So, this evening, we're actually going to skip over 6.1. We had to move back. Um some of our fall athletes were unable to join us this evening, so we're going to reschedule and see them next month. Um but we are excited to bring to you our O marching band. So, um, [clears throat] this fall, our OS marching band

013finished third in their class and 10th in the state overall at the Illinois State Marching Band Championships at the Illinois State University under the direction of Stephanie San Roman. We have several student representatives here this evening from the OS marching band to accept the recognition award on behalf of their group. Students, as your name is called, please come forward to be congratulated by the board and Dr. Kgatti. We have with us this evening drum majors Heidi Glacer Connor Omar and Maddie Phillips and color guard captains Cadence Collins, Rebecca Dutton, and Morgan Plet. We invite any of our band directors and O administrators to come forward. We'd love to get a group photo with all of you in the award. [laughter] Congratulations, [laughter] marching Panthers. Don't go far, Mr. Grace. Also [clears throat] this evening, we

014are excited to highlight 4250. This is OS's online multimedia student publication. 4250 under the advisement of Miss Amy Howardon was awarded the George H. Gallup Award from Quill and Scroll Journalism Honor Society. This is the highest honor that a publication can receive. This also signifies that 4250 earned the distinction of superior across all five evaluation categories. Students, as your name is called, please come forward to be congratulated by our board and Dr. KGATI Ethan Monahan and Braden Hudson co-editors and chief Monaco Tiffany managing editor Sammy Davis managing editor and social media editor Nadira Nagassa news editor Kayla Gddard, news editor and social media editor. Maxwell Matthew, features editor. Madison Young, sports editor. Mariah Fquery, entertainment editor. Jessica Bella, opinion section editor. Stephanie Mayorgga, Spanish section editor. Aster Lasher, video editor. Liam Picartic, photography editor. Memphis

015Hugley and Gia Ner podcast co-editors Pierre Vargas art and graphics editor Christina Mario social media editor and Ansley Gerardo social media editor at this time We're going to invite up Miss How and Mr. Grace to join us for a photo. All right, come on over. Oh, don't worry. Congratulations, guys. Thank you all for joining us this evening. We love having our students here to celebrate. You know they're going back home and they're going to watch it online [laughter] so that they can report on. >> Of course they're Yes. >> Celebrities. >> [clears throat] >> It's very exciting. >> Thank you. >> Oh, you're made me look. >> Oh, no. No. You're fighting. Okay. Uh, >> item 7.1, the fiscal year 25, annual financial report for the audit. Get even more and more exciting as we

016[laughter] go. >> Yeah. Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, by law, the state of Illinois requires every school district to do an annual financial uh, report or an audit. And what it is is um an attempt to have an independent entity, in this case, Baker Tilly, to look at the district's finances uh to check it against the governor uh government accounting standard practice to make sure things uh the money's been spent the way it's supposed to, compliance with regulations. And the uh the audit for fiscal year 25 was completed I believe in early November and has been filed as required by law with the state board of education as well as the regional uh office of education. It was due by November 15. So, we've asked the partner in charge of the engagement, Jason Cole, to

017uh come by and talk to the board about the funding of the financial a good evening. Yeah, thanks Raphael. Good to be with you. Um yeah, so I just have a relatively brief comments about the fiscal year audit and I echo what Raphael said about uh getting things done timely. This is kind of the second year in a row we've really accelerated the the completion of the audit and gotten things filed with the state board in a more timely manner than in history um or recent history I should say anywhere. So we we like to see that trend continue and and that's f fabulous that we're able to do that. uh it meant that we got all the information that we needed from the district in order to be uh allow us to do the

018audit and there's a lot of work that goes into the audit process as you can imagine. Um the audit was completed or finalized I should say at the beginning of November. Uh the the actual audit work happens before that. Um the opinion on your financial statements as of June 30th is which is what you hire our firm to do um is an unqualified or unmodified opinion. Um which is the highest level of assurance we can give over your financial information and and really what that means is somebody could pick up the 200 plus pages of your financial statements and know that they could rely on that financial information to be materially accurate um as they evaluate your financial operations and your financial health uh for the fiscal year 25. Um the financial statements are presented

019on what we call a modified acral basis of accounting. So your board reports are just on cash basis, cash in, cash out. So this is going to be a little bit different than what you're used to seeing on a monthly basis, but this is what's required for external financial reporting. So really what that means is there's going to be um accounts receivable. So monies that were owed to the district at the end of the year, we record those. And then accounts payable and other debts um you know money that the district owes at the end of the year also get recorded. So that that's really the the big difference. So, at the beginning of the financial statements, there's a section called MDNA, which stands for management's discussion analysis. I always encourage everybody who's on a

020governing body um to at least look through that. You might not want to look through all 200 pages, but it is a nice summary of what went on during the year. And there's some really easy to read pie charts in there. For example, you'll see only about 44% of your revenue comes from property taxes. Um you know, the rest of your revenue comes from other different sources, state and federal aid largely. Um, every district is different in its makeup of its revenue sources. And obviously there's a pie chart in there where your money is going. Almost 80% of your funds are going directly to the care and transportation of uh students. That's on um well, it's a Roman numeral page, so it's a little harder to tell you. Um but um getting into the the

021heart of the financial statements, which is on page one of the fin the paper copy of the financial statements, um is what we call your statement of net position. And I won't get into this too in depth other than on to say on this financial statement are all of the assets of the district including all of your capital assets and all of your liabilities uh including long-term debt and pension and oped liabilities which are things that we don't typically talk about except the one time a year during the audit we talk about those pension and oped liabilities. um and they're relatively substantial even though you're making your required contributions to those um different organizations which is really what drives the negative net position at the bottom of that page is because of those relatively large

022OP uh and um pension liabilities that you have outstanding. A few pages later, um, on page, um, let's see here, page six is where you get into the funds that you're typically used to seeing on a monthly basis. The general fund in here is made up of your education fund and your working cash fund combined, although later in the report, we do break those out in the schedule. Uh, and then you have all your other funds that you're typically used to seeing. And you could see for the year on page seven, you had um a deficit of $6.8 $.8 million. That meant you spent more than you took in for the year. Um the biggest contributor of that was the uh transportation fund spent $3.3 million more than it took in for the year. Um

023which, you know, contributed to about half of that 6.8. Um overall, your primary operating fund, if you will, your general fund, uh saw a decrease in fund balance of $1.7 million. you know, um but these are um you know, just for the one year. You do continue to have positive fund fund balances in all of your funds except for in the transportation fund which continues to have a deficit fund balance and obviously went a little bit further into the deficit um during the year. >> Jason, if you can just clarify uh about OPED, I think it's important. >> Sure. [clears throat] when I've had uh some folks, especially during the last election, uh postulate that the amount owed that is the liability of the district as opposed to being on behalf payment. I mean, if

024you can speak to that. >> Yeah. Well, there's there is um try to keep it as simplistic as possible, I guess, is what I'll say. So you have the the dis the um state makes on behalf payments for you. So on your behalf to different organizations, one being to the teachers retirement system. So you have a relatively small liability with the teachers retirement system um because the state holds most of that liability um and they contribute on your behalf um a large amount of money every year. And so that gets recorded in your financial statements as an in and out even though you don't actually get the cash. Um the other post-employment benefit or THIS um you're contributing to that as you're required to every year by state statute, but the requirement is relatively small.

025Um and so that liability continues to grow because there's no real funding mechanism for you to make additional payments into that plan. um you're just required to contribute that that small percentage. So while that number that liability continues to grow, you're funding it at the required contributions. Hopefully that >> Thank you. >> I just wanted >> you're actually from a pension standpoint, um school districts are in a pretty good position because the state holds most of the liability for the teachers retirement system versus the local school districts. Um, yeah, if there are any other questions as I go, please feel free just to ask for clarification. Um, and and from a financial perspective, there's a lot of detail in the financial statements. I wasn't really going to go into too much more depth uh on

026the financial information. There's a lot of details in the notes in later on in the later half of the report. There are budget to actual schedules for each of your funds which uh and also includes a prior year column which does a great job of being able to see you know what did you plan to spend what did you actually spend and what did you spend in the prior year for each one of the individual funds and then later in the report near the end there's a statistical section which shows 10 years worth of trends of a lot of different information fund balances revenues expenses things like that I personally find that to be the most useful because you could see you know the trend of the district over the last 10 years and where

027things have come from and you know give you an idea of where things are going to be going in the future. >> Can you tell me where that is again? Just note it for later. >> Yeah, that is in the very back of the report. Let me see if I could find an actual page number for you. It's going to be in the in the hundreds. I believe >> it's actually >> 96 >> probably. That sounds about right. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. So that's where it starts and then there's several pages thereafter that show different pieces of information. So it starts on yes 96 um which shows the net position for the last 10 years and then um as you go to you know 98 that's going to show your revenues and expenses and

028then you know as you keep going you'll see more trends in financial information there >> information about the uh tax levy extension collection rate uh debt uh extension rate all that stuff all [clears throat] >> even the uh the tax rate all the [clears throat] the um any other questions on the financial statements otherwise I'll touch on one other document that we issue. So the other document we issues um related to uh your internal controls. When we come in to do the audit, we take a look at your internal controls within the district. We don't have an opinion on the internal controls. That's not purpose of our audit. Uh but we do look at them as we plan our audit and if there's things that come to our attention that um we would recommend some

029changes in um we we document those in this report. Um there hasn't been um any new recommendations this year, so that's good. We have two that continue from previous years. The district over the last several years has made great improvements and has eliminated many of our recommendations over the last several years, which is fantastic. And you're now down to just these uh couple remaining. And I know just recently you've brought on some additional personnel in the business office that are going to continue to um hopefully make some improvements to these recommendations in the future and and hopefully um we'll see some of these um either go away or maybe at least be reduced if if not going away in future years. So, so that's great. >> Can you tell us where that is in the

030report? >> That's not in the financial statements. It's in a separate document um called the communication to the board. Um so, or audit results letter. There's different terms for it. Informally, it's called the management letter. I don't I don't know if you have that in front of you or not. >> Okay. Can you highlight some of those examples just for in terms of the findings because I think that the the the committee received them. They were not attached for this evening, but we will make sure that board received them, but I think it'll be important for the board to hear what those two findings were. >> Yeah. Well, the first one >> Well, I would like to hear the two findings and kind of the things that we've corrected if if the soft talk had

031whatever you >> Yeah. I'm I off the top of my head, I won't be able to tell you unfortunately what what you've corrected over the past years. Raphael might might remember better than I would. Um the two recommendations that remain, one is the fact that we continue to help with the preparation of the financial statements, which is extremely common. I do that with all of really my school districts because you don't have somebody on staff who has the the time, frankly, and and the background and expertise to prepare the financial statements. But the the standards say we have to disclose that as a recommendation because technically, you know, you you would have somebody on staff. Unfortunately, the audit standards are written for everybody who gets an audit from very large governments to public companies, etc.

032Um, right down to yourself. So, um, there are a few school districts that have the ability to do that, but it's very, very few and, and we do tend to help most of our clients with that. Um, the other one relates to segregation of duties, particularly around um, the bank reconciliation process. Um, we'd like to see um, some more review. Um there are continue to be some relatively small unreconciled differences that we see um and so we'd like to see some more controls around that process um moving forward. And I know as I mentioned um some staff have been hired recently to really focus on that area to hopefully make some improvements there um during this fiscal year. So what I'm hearing is that is a recommendation to increase controls. That is not because there

033were anomalies that were identified as part of the audit finding. Correct. So there were no glaring. So I'm just I think we have to separate. >> Yeah. Yeah. For sure. >> So the go ahead. >> The two particular um issues that Jason point out to one is from 2015 >> 2015. >> Yes. And it has to do with the preparation of financial statement like Jason said. And uh we do our budget and cash but we do accounting in acrruel and uh the district has never had an account. That was one of the uh things that I noticed when I got here. I think I spoke to the board about the need for us to have an accountant. We hired an accountant um at the beginning of last year. It didn't work out. uh the person

034didn't work out and we just hired someone else who started uh after the last board meeting was approved and the role of that person is to is to create our financial statements instead of waiting for the auditor. So we go from cash now we'll be doing the uh I should state an acrruel basis we'll do balance sheet tri balances and those types of things it will be an acrruel basis that's one of the things that we hope to address with that and uh the other issue which is also related to that has to do with uh reconciling the bank accounts to the books right over the last [clears throat] uh and I think this been going on >> it's it's It's been a while. I I don't remember the exact year, but it's been around

035for a while. >> So, what happened is with our accounting, we we tend not to close the month. So, we just kind of keep entering transactions every every day. So, there's no period of time where we stop to actually like you do in the private sector where you actually have a closing, right? And then you you match up uh your book to your to your bank to make sure everything is aligned when you do bank. Now >> like your issued versus outstanding. >> Right. Right. Right. So what we have now we have a a bank balance that's actually favorable to the district just to be clear. >> Yeah. Yeah. That is a good point that when I I said there's a slight unreconciled difference. It's actually to your advantage where it would put revenue on

036your financial statement. So it is to your to your advantage, you know. Hopefully it works through the the difference. Um, but you know, either way, it's going to be to your advantage. >> We've actually been working, that's one of the things I've been working with the new accountant with. We've been going back, we went back to uh 200 uh I believe 2023. We started reconciling that from the uh from July 1st of uh 2023 and we making our way back and that uh difference is actually going down. That's that's one of the benefits. Some of the other things that over the last two years that Jason mentioned that uh were findings that we corrected. One of them was the segregation of duty as it relates to payroll. It used to be that uh when I

037got to the district payroll did the identification of the the amount that an employee is supposed to pay and then went ahead and paid that person which is a bit scary because what you're supposed to the person who decides how much someone is supposed to make not be the same person who's paying that person. So that's one of the things that we identify very quickly and we've actually they took that first year. We don't have that anymore. So HR is responsible for determining the payment is responsible for making the payment. Now another one that uh inherited when I got here which we addressed the first year too has to do with the with um uh with capital >> capitalism again. >> Yeah. We had no way of actually tracking uh capital expenditures, right? And um

038so we actually we we we had uh an entity that goes and actually tagged uh uh uh fixed asset fixed asset registry is really what it is. We had no fixed asset. So every time they came at the end of the year they try to do it for us and we spend money on fixed asset over the over the years. We should be tracking it. we should be putting in our books and we should carry it forward. So we we got that result. So those are two that came to mind uh very quickly that we address the first year. >> Thank you. I should also say and probably should have mentioned this beginning and failed to. We tend to focus here on, you know, these recommendations. Um, but the standards don't really give us a

039mechanism to tell you everything great you're doing, right? They really just have a mechanism to focus on some of the recommendations. And by, you know, we don't we don't have a communication that says, "Hey, you're doing all these 115 different controls accurate on a monthly basis." Um, unfortunately, there's just no means to do that. So, we tend to just focus on on the few things that we recommend some improvement on, you know, but from a day-to-day operational perspective. Um, you know, you do a lot of great things from a control-wise um perspective day in and day out. Um, and and so we just had a couple recommendations at the end of the year. So, I just kind of wanted to point that out. >> Thank you. >> All right. What did you Was there anything

040else you wanted to point out to us or >> There wasn't no and unless you have any particular question >> any just want to say thank you to Mr. Rob to your team for their due diligence and to the support and for your your leadership and making sure that we have another successful year. >> Thank you. >> Two in a row and we're looking for >> and I I really want to point out what the team have done. I know my first year when I started here, we didn't do a finish audit till >> it was at least January. Yeah. Not later. Right. >> And uh even though it was due by November and that was I said to Mr. Coyle when I started that uh we need to be compliant. We need to get

041our audit done as required by ASB and we've been doing that last couple of years. And it was funny my first year in my second year my first audit when I went to the office to present IFR is required by by statute. Lady looked at me she said oh you're from 308 we put you down for an extension already because they just do that routinely for us. I'm like no we got it ready. Like whoa. So yeah. So I just want to thank uh the team. They've been very instrumental in making sure that we get all the document required by June in anticipation by July in anticipation of the uh the field work or even preliminary work before the field work. That is a testament to the uh to the work that the finance team

042has been doing. Just want to acknowledge them and say thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Well, thanks. It's good to be with you. >> Appreciate it. >> Thanks. >> All right. >> Speaking of audits, uh coming up now, I want to invite Dr. Concincaid. We'll be bringing uh part of our commitment with our strategic plan was to ensure that the board and the public would get regular and timely updates regarding our progress on the priorities that the board approved back in March of this year. So, this evening, uh Dr. Concaid and members of the leadership team will be presenting those findings or those updates. >> Um, for the time stamp purposes, we're at uh 7.2 strategic plan update. >> Oh, no. I better save those from now on. >> Thank you, Dr. Katti.

043So, yes, the team today is here to really present our second impact monitoring. So, um what we have prepared for you today is um not only a look a relook into our strategic plan, but really what are some of those key takeaways of our current progress, what are some of the key next steps within each pillar and then also um at the end we'll go over an overall picture of where we are with all of our objectives in terms of um the progress. >> No problem. >> So, um our first uh pillar is future ready in terms of our priorities. Um we just wanted to make sure that we had a uh review of our objectives. Some of the things that we added for our second impact monitoring based on the feedback that we received

044is not only the who but the what. Um in the bottom leftand corner you see the work groups. These are the focus areas of the work that is being done in our first priority of future ready. [clears throat] So, some of the key takeaways of um our uh excuse me of our workg groupoups is that we've had some continued progress of school links. So, remember school links was our college and career readiness platform that replaced Navian. So, we were very excited that we were able to onboard all five of our junior highs, both of our high schools, EVA and goal. So, each student has their own individual login. Um we've been able to launch a scope in sequence under the direction of Ben Owen uh complemented not only by um both Dr. um Campbell but

045also uh Jen Cooper Wells um and really has launched those activities again in both the junior high and the high school. Um Mr. Owen was here earlier in the year. We have received um approval for both of our career college and career pathway endorsements where we added the additional dual credit classes for both early childhood education and also um elementary secondary education. So with some additional uh key takeaways I'd like to hand off to Teresa. So, as we [clears throat] continue to try to build up that school links database, um we have developed flyers to try to um encourage alumni to begin to register there. We had an alumni network that we are working on transferring some individuals over to the new school links platform and add a bunch of new people to it. Uh

046in addition, the other arm of that would be the industry partners. So beginning to add people that might be interested in offering um experiences opportunities to students in different ways and partnering with us um beginning to add them to that school database as well. >> So the next steps focused in that college and career readiness is really focused on reviewing the launch and also the scope and sequence. We know the first time that we do anything brand new, it's never 100% where we want it to be. So we will be surveying our staff and students. Um they're even uh potentially expanding into parents but based on the initial implementation not only of the experience but then also um the the applicability of some of the lessons and surveys. Um, with that, um, through our high

047school team, we're looking at our CTE courses because we want to move into a third potential college and career pathway endorsement. So, they're working with those teams to really evaluate what courses that we have in alignment with that application process and then what endorsements um, we could look at as a third potential pathway. We're also starting to be more intentional around determining places and ways to have district representation at community events in order to begin to develop more official partnerships with industry partners. Um things like working through chambers of commerce and other business opportunities um both with the communications department in partnership obviously with Mr. Owen as we work to build up that database. Um again we are trying to grow both arms of that both the uh alumni which is an incredible resource to

048uh this future ready pathway as well as um individuals that represent different industries and businesses within our area that could offer those opportunities to students. [clears throat] >> Our next priority areas is systems of support. Um this is one of our most uh comprehensive and spanning of the district. As you can see in terms of our workg groupoups, we go from professional learning to the work of our diverse learners in both special education and multilingual um our data dashboard and our MTSS, our human resources department with staffing, our schools department with our school leader paradigm um and our school leadership teams and then specifically focus on our junior high with our student support time. So some of our key takeaways are focused um in educ. So educ was our replacement um for five lab. This

049was our data dashboard tool. Um so our um research and development team led by Andrea Parker has been um doing all of the onboarding of Educ which includes not only our student demographics but a whole host of data from attendance to discipline to assessment to grades um and looking and expanding from EC through transition. Um we had limited data in our previous system. So she's really trying to work across the system um to get more comprehensive data into the system. >> When you say limited data, could you just clarify that for the board like in terms of is that >> grade level like what Yeah. >> So for example um uh previously we did not have early childhood um assessment data in our um data dashboard tool. We are um bringing in TS gold into

050um educ. So that is one area of assessment data. We will have easy access to access data to AR data um to our ACT data. We will have um uh grades 6 through 12 in terms of course data in terms of grades. Um as I mentioned we already have um attendance data we have um discipline data. will be able to cross reference um by demographic whether it is grade level, gender, um race. Um so there's >> intervention prior intervention support. Um she is working with our teams on an early warning system which will then be able to um kind of at one time pull in students by risk levels of attendance and discipline and academic performance to do some more targeted identification. Um so right now um we're in the data validation um process. Um

051but that's we just it's very exciting um time. So [clears throat] her which I will get to on the next slide. Anyway with that I would like to then hand it over to Dr. Waller. >> All right. So at the junior high level every building has now completed its first career cruising event. The students were fully onboarded into the school links and completed their activities giving them a consistent starting point for that career exploration process across all five of the schools. Um, additionally, we have also brought forward the draft of the school leadership team um, work plan for the district leadership team to review. So, they went through a couple of different processes where we talked about the pros and the cons and considering an audit of where we are with every one of our

052buildings so that um we can be in alignment and have that collaboration with OEA um on those expectations. And so um that process has really helped us begin to shape the criteria that will guide the strong consistent SLT um across the district. Um finally, um the NTSS work plan has been refined based on feedback from the DT steering committee. Those revisions are going to ensure that the plan reflects reflects, excuse me, what schools need and is aligned with our district-wide priorities. Next, we'll talk about our key next steps for this particular priority. In collaboration with HR, we are looking to review our hiring process comprehensively. And so this includes staffing. It includes ensuring a complete timeline is clear, concise, and communicated with school leadership. We are also being very mindful to incorporate feedback from school

053leaders as we review this process. Um, additionally, so as we look at this final bullet point, one of our next steps is going to be gathering feedback from our students, staff, and families. Um, we're going to be administering a survey to better understand the impact of the different changes and things that have taken place for our student support time during junior high. And in between those two bullet points, um just additional steps with Educ Climber. Um so very exciting. Um as we alluded to before, there is going to be a wider birth of um not only assessment but also academic data. Um and then additional information based on performance bands which will really drive that identification of the tiered level of support. So moving into academics. >> So yes, now we are going to transition

054to our priority three for academics. Um priority three centers, excuse me, on strengthening our academic systems from curriculum and instruction to assessment to professional learning um and equitable access for all of our students. This work spans across multiple departments and truly requires a strong cross department collaboration. So, it's testing our power of team of teams, right? For for the comprehensive review, we've conducted over 20 focus groups. We're about 40 focus groups in and we're still conducting focus groups for the rest of this semester. Um we have distributed surveys and the surveys have been uh positioned on our website as well as through multiple channels for students, staff and families and that will close by end of day, December 19th. Regarding professional learning, we've continued building the resources that we need in order to anchor our

055comprehensive professional learning plan, ensuring that we have alignment, clarity, and support for educators districtwide. We spent a lot of specific time ensuring that there is alignment with what our staff is learning um as it connects to the strategic plan and the active work of our curriculum committees. While we're simultaneously collecting quantitative data through focus groups and surveys, we're also working with our research development department to obtain quantitative data as well. We're looking at demographics. We're looking at students in a variety of different programs to also include as part of our comprehensive review. So for these next steps as we consider our professional learning committee members, we want to ensure that the survey that we have not only has that alignment to our strategic plan but also meets the needs and desires of our staff um

056as that they know what they need. Um so getting that feedback from them then gives us an opportunity to lift what's needed for them while aligning that to our strategic plan opportunities. Additionally, our curriculum committees are actively meeting. Yay. And moving through the different stages of our curriculum review. Um, as you all know that they're in different phases, but everyone has been actively um getting these pieces together and working through our processes collaboratively. This work ensures that our instructional materials remain current, aligned, and responsive to what our students need. I would say that overall priority three ensures that we are building a coherent, equitable, and future focused academic system that enables every student to succeed. >> As we move into our fourth priority, um Mr. Bell, >> so our fourth priority centers around wellness. You

057can see to the left those work groups include that professional learning work group, the safety and security work group, and the staff wellness work group. Um this particular uh priority um highlights uh several things with regards to cultural and and relational responsiveness um common language across the system, our labor management partnerships, and overall incre increasing staff knowledge and engagement in the resources that we offer. Our key takeaways um from this priority that have occurred over the last few months is that we were able to launch the safety and security workg group in collaboration with those OA representatives and building leaders um for that safety and security focus. Um that last meeting um highlighted um the strategic plan connections, the annual safety and security board update as well as some breakout sessions and some guiding questions

058as we walked through some scenarios with staff and administration. Our next meeting is scheduled for this week. Um, and it will be a deeper dive into those safety and security audit findings and some of those things that we've been working um so diligently towards in the last month or so. >> Go ahead. >> Oh, no. I'm okay. So, one of this is the second year that we've had um Kiana Hero leading our professional learning pieces and we've had we've pivoted significantly um and she's done a phenomenal job of establishing this professional learning core team that spans across the various departments in order to ensure that the voices are all at the table and that she's not carrying this load all on her own. And so um it has they've now had this steady cadence of

059meetings where they've been collaborating not only to support what's happening with SIP and teacher institute days but also um in our preparation for elevate ed which takes place um February 27th 2026. Um so the schools department is actually about to um launch the different subcommittees that we need in order to ensure that that is a success for February. Um s is >> oh school improvement plan. >> Thank you. >> Okay. One of our stated key next steps is to distribute distribute a district-wide wellness survey to analyze current wellness resources and identify gaps. So while all of our employees who participate in our insurance plans have access to EAP, which is our employee assistance program, there may be other identified needs among our staff. So we really want to dig deeper into what their wellness needs

060are. and then obtain information about potential um groups and other external resources we may be able to bring into the district to support our district staff well I've got a quick question about that so um are those wellness survey results for the staff and faculty are those going to be able to be disagregated by like by building by demographics by you name it >> yes so um I guess as the introduction to the survey staff members will identify themselves, their school, grade level, um, bargaining group, all of that. So, we'll be able to disagregate the data and look at it from a several different lens. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Next, as we shift into priority five, systems management, this particular priority really looks at the operation side of the house. That's what

061we call it. And so specifically, it examines budget, operations plan, transportation, technology, long range facility plan, which you've heard about over the course of this school year, recruitment, hiring, and attendance, and payroll. >> Thank you, Dr. uh Mitchell. So as it relates to that the uh key takeaways of uh priority five in systems management uh we've been addressing some of the shortages that we have with subool uh as it relates to bus monitors and drivers. I know we are all aware that we have a very high shortage of drivers and which causes problems sometimes when a handful of them calls in makes it very difficult for us to be able to run the route. So we've been working hard to recruit more bus miners and drivers and uh what we've also done is uh we

062are working on the technology plan and uh that we're ready to to publish and before we publish it we have a work group that has been working together to to make sure that all the inputs are incorporated in the technology plan RP that we develop and another thing is we've been working with uh the technology ology department to use the IQ ticketing system to use it to create a system whereby we're able to monitor all our operations equipment such as our Hback system, RTU uh filter replacement. So we notified in real time. So we actually do more work on maintenance instead of just repairs. And then the uh the last takeaway from there is the work that we've done with widen company as they work with us with the development of the long range facility

063planning. We work very closely with them on phase three of that plan. So the next step is uh we're testing the operation system link with the ticketing system that we we mentioned earlier and see to make sure that that really works the way we want it to work. so that we uh we have a timeline that we use for the maintenance of our equipment. Then the uh the final step in this area will be the development of an RFP for time and attendance solution. As it stands right now, I know it's hard to believe, we actually don't have a robust time and attendance system. By that I mean when it comes to folks uh letting us know that they at work, we still use paper and pencil. So what we doing is we've developed an

064RFP that we that we're completing that we will [clears throat] be releasing that allows us to use technology in doing that. With that being said, I'll pass it to uh Dr. King. So in followup from our last impact monitoring, we just wanted to provide some additional details um for each of our objectives. While our work plans really merge together multiple objectives, we wanted to create be able to provide kind of just an overview of where we are in the process. Um as you can see in priority one, um it really is ongoing for the remainder of the year. Um, as we talked about, there's some continuous improvement cycles built in uh throughout that priority. In priority two, what you can expect over the next few months is additional um onboarding, some training, and then some

065uh demoing here um at our next board meetings um coming up in the future of our um data dashboard. in terms of the right co sorry the left column with the objective are ones that are in green are on track. They're currently in progress. The ones that are in yellow um have not yet started. Um you can see as you go across um the particular row when they're scheduled to either start or when uh they are occurring. If you see an objective, which we will get to, um, that is in red, that is one that has been determined, um, by the person that is overseeing that objective to be off track and then work is being done with that work group to get it back on track. So, some of the Can I ask one

066clarifying question about the graphic? >> Um, I'm looking at like the first three, one point 1.1.1 >> 1.1.2 and 1.1 or 1.2.1 2.1 the are the the two blues are look different to me. Is that just to distinguish between the two? Okay. And then the yellow line does that mean or the gold bar >> just just to distinguish between the three. So it's kind of on a rotation of of different colors. The colors to note are in the objective column and that is all. So >> and then where they start is where they're intended to begin. >> Yep. And when they finish is where they're intended to finish. So >> that was feedback we got up what what's falling off >> correct. >> So we really wanted to kind of circle back to our first

067impact monitoring where the questions were really are they on track off track because they haven't finished where are they in the process. Um so we wanted to provide uh more specific timeline for that particular objective. Um so as you can see we do have objectives that have not started yet. And then for example 2.2.1 um which if we take a look specifically at that which is our implement a new data dashboard to increase the utilization to drive um district and school improvement. Um by February we're going to be moving from the implementation into the training. So hence the data should be inval validated by the end of February. So then we'll move on to um for example 2.4.3 which will then be the training of staff to utilize that dashboard. So um again just trying

068to provide some more specifics around the objective um in terms of priority three and four um some additional starts and stops. Um but again just to provide some more information and then if we look at priority five we do have um one uh priority that is currently off track that Mr. Oafme is working with that team um to further the progress of that particular objective. So, some of the things that'll be upcoming either today or over the next uh few months um looking towards our next impact monitoring in February. Um we have some RFPs that we have heard about this evening. Um we have we'll have some uh curriculum recommendations, our data dashboard um and then also our student assignment um plans coming next month. So again, we just wanted to bring some more specific

069um not only accomplishments, but also some key things that will be coming in the next um few months, but then also some more specific um either status checks or when things would be occurring um across the strategic plan. So with that, are there any questions for the team? >> So maybe it's just a comment. So, as I'm reading it, which I respect all the data that it's displaying, but it's kind of hard to understand if I were a parent, what is 5.11, right? So, what does that equate to as far as like does it mean we're talking about math? Does it mean we're talking about whatever that particular deliverable is? I think it would be helpful. Yep. Even if there was a little bar at the bottom to give a little additional insight to what

070we're speaking to on these particular slides. >> Yep. Um so we could also direct just to the coding in terms of the linking between um the objective um that's a good idea >> and then also that graph. So for example as you mentioned like 5.1.1 is priority five >> pillar one objective. So, but we can definitely enhance the key just to be able to map those slides to the priorities in the presentation. >> Absolutely. >> Just to make it more seamless, right, and fluid. So, parents to your point have to go back and forth and then have to uh again navigation um and then which equates to sometimes assumptions. So, this is easier because it's right there. >> I just have a few comments. Um I um this is a lot of work and I

071want to give kudos to the team because I know we gave some feedback previously about how you were giving us the updates and this felt to me like something manageable in my brain like and and on point like it was enough information to feel like yeah we're on track or or we're not in some cases um and the references and things like that. And what I also appreciate is that um I can see the work in other areas like these this is not just the first time I'm hearing about edge of climber or some of the curriculum stuff because we're talking about it in in different committees and stuff too. So that alignment to me feels um the work feels really aligned and so I appreciate that as well. Um the qu one quick question

072I have can you look at um priority three and four impact monitoring slide 14 I think it is 4.4 4.4.3 I don't know why I get all the >> increase staff wellness >> um >> no 4.4.2 two. There's on the on the bar there's like a gap like we started something and then we're stopping and then we're starting again. Is that what that indicates, >> right? 4.4 >> third from the 442. >> Third from the bottom. >> Yeah. 442. >> You see what I'm saying? You see the the >> Oh, so that's one project that's going to come to a close. So with that in that in that particular if you if you look at 4.4.2 um priority four >> pillar four objective two >> um allocate time and resources for crisis management and essential

073training for staff on established protocols. There was work done at the beginning of the year. There's not currently work in those months on this objective and then that work will continue on that objective at later at a later point in the year. So, it's indicative of where the work is happening >> for that particular objective throughout the school. >> Good. I'm just making sure I'm reading it right. >> Then my only other suggestion, maybe this is like a quarter four type of a thing or like a summers type of a thing. Um, I don't know if it's in a graph. I don't know. There's like like it feels like we could be more celebratory about things. Um, it feels very like and we're like good next [laughter] >> we're building here. We're no celebration here

074Dr. Is there I think that might be like a quarter four type of summer thing like >> a lot of it's in progress right now. So yeah. >> Um >> yeah, >> because I think there's a there's a lot to celebrate and so um >> that was just another >> I think that's part of it is >> um you know I've heard that this is a quite aggressive strategic plan >> very comprehensive. >> Yep. >> Yet achievable but necessary. >> So they've got I mean it's >> Yeah, >> we could be here all night. >> Maybe maybe that's what we do, you know. >> No, we won't do that. But [laughter] >> no, I'm just saying what I'm saying. But there's a yeah a time we could you know you know whatever it is you

075know there should be some more stuff >> I'm just saying yeah all each one of these things is huge >> right >> that's kind of the >> it's hard to kind of grasp >> when they're going through all those thoughts >> yeah and so many are systems level things which it indicates you're even having more of of an impact and as I've always come to say you know this is a living document and so I know that um I think we've talked maybe summer would be the time you would review it and think okay what do we have to shift or move or what's not possible now due to this this and this or what can we even you know accelerate or enhance in some way so >> so and that's a a great point

076um we're actually taking January and February to um really look at the bridge from year one to year two because to your point we already know that there are some things that we want to either Um you know for example Dr. Weller talked about curriculum there are some things that we have added there's some things that we have shifted um and some things that we need to kind of press pause on right now so that as we're looking to launch next year um we anticipate more than likely bringing some of those shifts to our next impact monitoring uh report. Will the board have a chance to approve those if they're significant? We wouldn't need I since we voted on the original strategic plan, we would want probably want to vote on changes or at least

077approve changes in some sort of a way. >> It's a great idea. Absolutely. Um one one Oh, go ahead. >> If significant with time or budget, I would probably or as long as it's a >> Yeah. I'm not saying we need a formal process to like reapprove a revised strategic plan or something like that, but just that we are weighing in as a board before those things are in motion. One of the fa facets of the strategic plan, a key priority that emerges in multiple um objectives and you heard it tonight is the collaboration between the the district management team and our union representatives, right? And so ensuring that our the representatives of OEA presidents and vice presidents and then their team and then their leadership members and then their the educators as well as

078OESPA and other unions are included is a priority that the board approved. And so how this plan is being enacted in many of these facets are requiring a different layer of time commitment and to understand. And so one of the things that emerges is that like so there are gaps or there are places that we are learning about through our partners like hey we may have to slow down here to ensure that ensure that that engagement is authentic. This is not an easy practice when the traditional model is that the you know somebody at the district decides that this is the way we're going to go. You say okay here's the plan and then you execute and then everybody's supposed to follow. Well, what we know and there's a lot of research that's emerged that

079says that that model does not move to sustainability. And so working with our parents, our families and educators to ensure that we're de developing a different pathway was what this plan really calls for. And so even Dr. to dubia. When we think about uh the challenges that we are finding in with our diverse learners, with our IEP process, our special education programming and structures, those are not going to be built unilaterally by somebody in an ivory tower, right? Those have to be built through a thoughtful process. And in fact, um time was invested back in early September to develop even the questions that were on surveys, right? We got feedback about what those questions should be. And so I I would say that sometimes you have to slow the process down to ensure that we're

080moving through this. Now, frankly, there is always pressure, whether it's from Facebook to the individual person um who wants things done one way or another. There's always going to be pressure. I think the power of a strategic plan, especially a living one, allows us to then be thoughtful about those things that emerge. And I'm really proud of the team for allowing themselves to receive critique when the the struggles aren't necess. So the celebration I would say is that we are moving from a place where the answer was always supposedly coming from one space to another but where you're seeing more collaboration however difficult it can be sometimes. Any other? >> Okay, thank you team. >> Okay, moving on to 8.1. Uh, our superintendent reports mean to be prepared. >> Good evening board. There is a

081lot to reflect on and I just want to um reflect and just say it's hard to believe that this is our last meeting before the end of 202025 and uh wow. Right. [laughter] So just uh just want to hope everybody had a a a period of rest. you know, we had a week off uh for many of our staff and our students and come back arrested and I know we got exams coming up at the high school and uh uh feeling recharged as we get ready for winter break which is also right around the corner. Hard to believe that we've uh we've already crossed that bridge almost into a halfway point throughout the year. Um really we've seen so many wonderful accomplishments this fall. Um and you'll hear some more of those including our uh

082our uh from our athletes to our students from the academic sphere music um many many spheres and you'll hear some more about those excitement um accomplishments this evening. Um at the district level I really want to again thank the team the senior leadership team who came and and really shared those reflections tonight for the board. Uh the board's feedback has been very helpful as we think about our strategic planning process to ensure that it's a living working document that supports our schools as we go through our growth and our improvements. Um tonight you also heard the uh final uh the annual financial report. This again um this is the second year where we have uh the team has filed this officially um in the appropriate amount of time far ahead of what would have been

083considered tardy in the past and we want to thank the team for their work. This independent unbiased audit again assures our community um that our community our records are reviewed for their accuracy annually and they are available and this is something that the community is welcome to look at and to submit questions and we thank you. Um again the comm we are our priorities always to develop and strengthen our community trust which are a big part of that is our resources. So knowing that the audit is done in an appropriate amount of time, we recognize that um is important and then we also recognize that there are challenges that we are continuing to face particularly around our cost for transportation and wanting to ensure that we are moving towards thinking about the ways in which

084we do engage our transportation and some of those are forced costs from the outside but what are the ways that we can strengthen those and that is something our team's looking at. Um later on the board will be approving um we'll be voting on accepting the plan for the long range facility plan which this document really provides us again with this uh analysis that and planning required and priorities required to think about the way in which we address the needs of our students in our schools. We want our classrooms to be safe spaces. We want them to be effective places that are not rot with uh leaky roofs in some of our buildings or or gaps that need to be addressed. And the long-range facility plan is part of that development to ensure that we've

085identified the priorities as we start to think about what comes next. Um how has our community spoken to those things? Um and uh we just look forward to hearing um this uh just beginning that next phase um following these thousand point thousands of points of feedback from students, community members, staff members and coupled with the priorities that emerged. I want to thank again the board for its time and I want to invite you all to join me in sharing some positive shout outs things that have happened in the last uh month since our last meeting. The music comes on just in time. Uh if you don't hear it online, we've got music in the background for this next announcement. >> Pretty exciting. So, congratulations to Kevin Show. Apologies if I messed up your name. Uh

086associate band director at Asiggo High School for being named a top 10 finalist for the Grammys music educator of the year. So, the music was just on par. So, congratulations It's a big deal. >> Why is football not in here? >> It's coming. >> We'll get to that. Uh, we had a number of students at the junior high and high school level perform at the Illinois Music Education Association District 9 Festival and Honor Assembly this fall. Congratulations to our talented musicians for this amazing accomplishment. and I happen to be at that um all of those performances and um again we've got some we've got some talented students. >> Oh yeah. >> Danielle Stone of Asiggo East High School has been named the Record newspapers girls flag football player of the year. This season she helped

087lead the team to a 155 record including winning the Southwest Prairie Conference Championship. Congratulations Danielle. Oh, congratulations to Jill Glazer, physical education teacher at Asiggo East High School, who was named the Illinois Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance High School Teacher of the Year for the 2025 school year. >> The nomination period for next month's Pride Winners is now is open now through this Friday, December 12th. You can visit the SD308 website to nominate staff members from Grand Park Elementary, Homestead Elementary, Wolves Crossing Elementary, and Murphy Junior High School. Do you or someone you know have a child turning five by September 1st, 2026? If this if so, this student can begin kindergarten next fall. Visit the SC 308 website to sign up for our kindergarten registration mailing list to receive updates on

088upcoming events and registration details. Mark your calendars for January 10th for the district's first special education parent university. From 8:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. at Asiggo East High School. There will be a day full of learning for the SD308 special education community. This event will include breakout sessions, community exhibitors, and complimentary babysitting for ages four and up. Visit the SD308 website to learn more and RSVP. >> Thank you. And as we close out, I wanted to just say that in January, we've invited some uh members of our football team who were at the state championship who coming out for a special celebration for those of us who froze our toes off. Looking forward to that. And then we also have some swimmers and divers we've also invited. So, and golfers who will be joining us

089in January as well. So, lots and lots of uh athletic uh and uh other skills prowess that we want to celebrate. So, we'll be looking forward to that. >> Absolutely. Appreciate that. Um 9.1 public comment. Do we have >> Okay. >> 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 this evening are asked to have completed a comment card and presented it to the secretary to the board. And any members of the public who have not yet turned in their public comment card uh to the secretary of the board are asked to do so

090at this time. When the secretary calls your name, I ask that you come to the microphone, state your name for the public record, and provide your feedback. Please note that comments are limited to five 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. Followup on your questions or concerns may be addressed by administration through the contact information provided on the comment card. Thank you, >> Mike Litman. Welcome Hello blue. Blue. >> Yay. Thank you. >> First of all, happy holidays everybody. >> Happy holidays. >> Today is an important day. My name is Mike Litman. I'm from Lincoln Prairie, the 55 and older community on Eola and Route 30.

091Today's an important day both for the school district and the taxpayers. Today is a day that this school board puts into motion a plan to commit hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars with your long range facility. I spoke at a prior board meeting about the burden this will place on retired people who are on fixed incomes. There's an obvious benefit in this project for students and their families. but none whatsoever for seniors like us who are legally forbidden from sending kids to the schools. That applies to several senior communities in this district, not just Lincoln Prairie. Being on fixed incomes, we don't have the opportunity to increase our earnings to help pay for higher taxes as we would if we were still employed. Of course, it's not only seniors who should be concerned. What about

092the family of four that lives in your district, has kids in your classrooms, and is struggling with increasing food costs, rising electricity bills, skyrocketing insurance premiums, and an uncertain job market? How much of a tax increase can they afford? And will it be for things that the district needs for things that the district wants? For your paid consultants, none of this matters. you actually we the taxpayers are paying them to tell you how to spend our taxpayer dollars. They benefit financially when you agree to spend our money. They certainly are making a lot of money to provide the recommendations. The larger the project, the more project phases are included, the more schools that are affected, the more money they make. We're talking about tens of millions of dollars just for their services. tens of millions

093of dollars. That's a heck of a lot of money. Think for a moment about their motivation. Whose interests are they serving? Whose interests are they not serving? If you vote tonight to move forward towards spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, look at the current bond repayment schedule. Time your expenses to kick in when the current bond schedule lightens in future years, as shown at the last board meeting. Try to be kind to the taxpayers that are funding your plans. Minimize the shock to our budgets and to our bank accounts. Focus on projects that are needed and less than what is simply wanted. For retired taxpayers on fixed incomes and for families struggling to put food on the table, those dollars are a precious resource that you're ready to spend, eager to spend. So, please

094proceed carefully and thoughtfully. Thank you for your time. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> That was all I had. >> Thank you again. Next, we're moving on to 10.1, our student board member report. >> Good afternoon everyone. Um just want to give a quick update on SSAC's progress. So just to recap um our action plan this year is the lunch and learn right. So at our previous meeting um we had a lot of new members and we had a lot of returning members. And you know that's great because the more perspective we can get right that can contribute to SSAC's vision it's it's all the better for this action plan that we have right and um yeah we had members from OHS and we had members from OHS and what we ultimately um came down

095to is we finalized our action plans and after we finalized it we dedicated some time to like critique it right because um we only the like mistakes mistakes we can correct the better it'll be. Right? So we clarified any questions, concerns, predicaments with our action plans and um we feel it's in a better place now. So so everyone has a vision of what an action like our action plan looks like, what a lunch and learn looks like, but um we all have different aspects, right? Like not everyone's the same. We all have different perspectives of different things. So just like taking those key values and those key aspects of the lunch and learn that everyone has and trying to make sure that it stays with rightful presence and student teacher relationships. Um those are the

096values that are really important that we need to incorporate in our action plans. So, um, that's where when we critiqued both action plans, it was really instrumental to see how we're able to take certain aspects, but we're also able to learn from the ideas that were proposed at the meeting. So, very, very important. Um, so the lunch and learn action plan is going to be for both schools. It's going to be done by OHS and it's going to be done by OHS. Um but although we are two different schools, um there is that concern if we're going to like host on a different time or if there's any discrepancies between the situations and the circumstances that we have. Um as far as a date, we are thinking about February um because there's a lot of

097administration and um approval we need to um see. as far as like um the concerns about like expanding like there's a lot of students who expressed a lot of aspects of the lunch and learn but some of them were like expanding a little bit too far and that's good because we can learn from what other people think. So um just like like for example I could say like the number of students and like where we would host lunch and learn and how we're like um going to like manage that target population like who are we going to who are we going to see who are we going to involve in this lunch and learn how are we going to limit the amount of people we don't know the the market if if you would like

098we don't know the supply or the demand right >> so um just knowing what the strategies are for approaching these students based on that market is really essential, but that's what was provided at the meeting and um that's the discrepancies between the two schools. So, it just comes down to like we'll figure it out on the way when we go through the administration process. So, yeah. Um building off of more of what was discussed by Dwick, um we are really excited to kind of launch this action plan for both schools. Um even though there's a lot ahead of us to get this going, um a lot of new members and returning members um really wanted us to foster diversity overall because both schools we look at different groups, minorities that are under reppresented and we

099really wanted to uh provide more context for them to be um represented. Um the lunch and learns at O and OE will be a little different but we are working towards the same goal of fostering uh studenttoteer relationship in these schools. Um uh we cannot move forward until we get um approval by our administration at our schools such as our principles to book um a date in February for both of us um in which we hope you guys can also participate in and come and see us. Um, for OE, they're thinking of doing it on a teacher institute day so they can foster more of getting teachers outside of classrooms and just hearing them out. For O, it's a little different since it's in the middle of other events that are happening at our school

100in February, but we hope to do it during lunch periods where teachers and students can both come in and speak their minds. Um, a lot of the new students really wanted us to collab with other big um, organizations that also foster students voices such as Bionic, BSA, MSA, Lasso, and Student Council, which are really big clubs at our school both here and there. Um, and their main goal is to also foster student voices and activity. Um, working with these organizations will build off a lot, especially since these students work alongside other administrators here throughout the entire year. Um overall we're really excited to finalize these plans through our SSAC meeting this week on the 11th. Um we hope to have a lot of your input as well while we get this approved. Um but we

101just hope that it's smooth sailing after this especially with all the planning we have to get done. But we are really excited and we see a lot of um hope to get more intimate relationships between student teachers and we hope everyone has a great holiday for those who celebrate and yeah >> thank you. I think the distinction you make between the the schools but with the same goal is important, right? Like every school is its own community, but you can have the same goal and just implement differently depending on the needs of the school. So, I thought think that's really well thought out >> and I like that you're thinking about making sure that you have a diverse population and diverse voices. Um, how you're going to go about that, that's be interesting to see.

102I know I'm really nervous on the process, but um I really don't think it's going to be as difficult. I just think preparation is going to take time, especially with organization because it gets quite messy when you kind of put all these different groups together because you you really do want to come together and put out that main goal. >> Yeah. And those other groups have a lot to offer. That's for sure. Yeah, 100%. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? No. Well, thank you. Yeah, looking forward to it. Um 10.2 board committee reports. Oh, 10.2. >> Well, no. Thank you for Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. I've been known to skip things. Um board committee report 10.2. Would anybody like to report on on the policy and legislative? Um >> so basically we finished

103up reading the um reading and reviewing the policy items from uh press >> that we hadn't done last time. Um, we did review all but one which we tabled because we're looking for some um for some further information. And basically, um, all of the ones that we did review over the past couple meetings will either be for information tonight or for voting tonight. Finance, facilities, anybody We're >> big AFR was it? >> Sounds like we're going through it tonight. >> And then the life safety plan which we're going to see. >> Yeah. I mean I think >> we got an update on the auditorium here. Uh it's coming along. That's the only thing that we don't have a presentation on tonight which is um basically the performance arts center as um Erica said is coming

104along. I think the first scheduled performance is in February um and we should be done in time for that. >> Okay. >> And then we all have to go to the football game. >> Y um and then the um equity learning and instruction. Anybody like to report out on that? I can do a quick overview. Uh we heard um an update on um the strategic plan and some updates um from diverse learners, special education uh and multilingual learners. Uh and then we had a couple presentations from different programs in our um in our district from East View Academy uh and then also from the goal program which serves some special populations and provides extra support for them. Um and then we had uh an update on the school improvement plan process. Um this is our

105second year doing a a different process than previous years. Um and so we got some updates on how that's going. It seems to be going well. Okay. All right. 10.3 board member comments. Okay, >> you can start. Yeah. >> So, um, first of all, I'm I'm so proud of all the students in sports, in band, in in everything that took place during, uh, during the fall. Um, we have so many students doing so many cool things. Um, I I think we all we all should just be really proud of them and for all their accomplishments. >> Absolutely. Um I did go to the East View Academy Thanksgiving um which was um pretty amazing. Um there were there was a wonderful the um students, teachers, parents uh culinary department uh put together a wonderful Thanksgiving. Um,

106I got uh a chance to spend a lot of time with a lot of um a lot of kids um talking about the you know cranberry sauce versus turkey versus stuffing versus whatever. Um it was it was absolutely delightful. So um I do want to thank them again. Um and >> Coldplay again. >> I do like Cold Play. [laughter] I just I just wanted to thank them again and wish everyone out there happy holidays. >> Just to add on what Mary Joe stated regarding u the program at EVA for um Thanksgiving, it was fantabulous. Enjoyed every part of it and just seeing the kiddos just being able to enjoy the moments with their collective peers and of course with the um staff was just really nice just to have that presence. So kudos to the

107staff and the students. >> Awesome. >> Uh I was going to say that um EPEC is uh hosting their open gym night uh tomorrow at Church Hill from 6:30 to 7:30. Uh it's door 12 and I believe they're going to have the robotics team there to do a demonstration. Um, on a personal note, I played uh a band concert with the Wanzi concert band. And I bring it up because we have a lot of SD308 alumni in the band. And I happen to be talking to another uh adult who's in the group. and um like me, she's impressed with the amount of talent that's coming out of all of the schools, but notably SC 308 because um they're just above and beyond where we were as students when we were their age. So, I think

108it I think it really reflects well on um the fine arts programs that we had within the district. >> Love our fine arts program. >> Well, Mary Joe touched on it. Yeah, we attended uh quite a few football games lately, frozen feet and it was it's been a it was a nice playoff run and uh I think there's more to come on that. Um you know also did you know attended some student assignment uh you know kind of seminars and I think uh Dr. Kane if you can remind people when the next ones are going to be I >> Yep. So, we have um two very targeted um um presentations next week. One on Monday and then one on Wednesday. Um the one on Monday is specifically for um Auburn Lakes. Individualized invitations have gone

109out directly to the families, but everybody is welcome. It will occur from 5:30 to 7 at Murphy Junior High and talk specifically to that potential recommendation. The one on Wednesday the 17th is um specifically for Emblem and um Hudson Point. Um so the students potentially impacted from the South Berry and Murphy. Um, again, same thing. Uh, 5:30 to 7:00 also, um, located at Murphy. >> Thank you. I I know I didn't tell you I was going to ask you to do that, but um, [laughter] there's, uh, it's an important topic. Um, anybody else? All right. 11.1 or 11 approved consent agenda. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda, please? >> I make a motion to approve all items under consent, including 11.1 minutes from the board of education meeting on November 17th,

1102025 open and close sessions. 11.2 to acknowledge the foyer requests received by the district. Uh 11.3 to approve field trips for overnight and or more than 200 miles. >> Second. Are there any questions on the consent agenda comments? No. >> Miss C. >> I. >> Dr. Pak >> I. >> Miss Robinson. [clears throat] >> I. >> Dr. Martin. >> I. >> Mr. Cerrone. >> I. >> Miss Wenmouth. >> I. >> Dr. Mario. >> I. >> Motion passes. 70. >> Moving on to 12.1. Health life safety survey for elementary schools. >> Mr. Femi. Yes. >> Uh the all school district including us are required to have our 10year life safety survey by the Illinois State Board of Education um school district code and um we've engaged the service of u uh Uber architecture to provide that

111services. So the one that was presented I believe a couple of months ago was for the high school And then uh I think the junior high was has been done. Now the one that has been presented today for the board's uh consideration approval is health and life safety for our elementary school. With that being said, I have uh Charlie from Kubler to uh to present the information to the board. Thank you, Joe. >> Hello. Thank you. >> Perfect. >> Um as Mr. of a fee said this is a requirement in state statute from of the the the isby requires this of all school district and you as he pointed out this is phase three we broke out each um we broke out high schools then your junior highs and then your elementarymentaries. It just so

112happens they're about a million square foot each. So, it works out for us, but it works out for you too and your staff as they start to to uh execute the work that we've identified. Go to the next slide, please. Thank you, Dr. Kay. Thank you. I appreciate that, too. Okay. Um, and this is sort of the the um information that you've got 22 school buildings over um the last three years. We've gone through all of them and provided this data. Like I said, over just just over 3 million square feet in total. But as Mr. Obi Femi pointed out, we're specifically we're looking at the elementary schools this year. There are 13 elementary schools or specialy schools. So we also looked at East View Academy and Brokaw and the um and it houses these

113these spaces house about 7600 kits. So it's a it's a lot of your student population. The methodology for um going through a survey, a student survey is professionals, licensed professionals go through your building. So we had architects and engineers uh walking all of your spaces on your roofs and uh the grounds looking for particular violations and the violations are uh categorized into three groups. Urgent is something that should be done in the next year. Uh required is something that should be done within 3 to five years of the survey and recommended items as previously discussed under um other life safety surveys. the district has made it the point to move recommended items to your planning to like your long long range planning. Doesn't doesn't mean they won't do them. It just simply means they're not

114going to register them on the IWAS system. Um it's the recommended items aren't required by the state. Um but they uh can be beneficial in many ways to your students. We presented to um Andre in this case all of the uh documentation that will be uploaded to Isby. The only document that won't be uploaded to Isby is the the schedules that are there to the left side of your screen. But those are our documentations to capture the information before it actually gets inputed into the Iowa system because it's one violation at a time. This also is a document that was reviewed with um uh Andre and he has the full list including the uh C items. So he has a list of everything in the C's, but you're required to submit each violation. So each

115of those line items in the schedule will be inputed individually to I was between now and your next board meeting. So you could sign those documents and then the uh floor plans for each of the buildings uh which includes site plans uh floor plans, roof plans as well. And those should be kept on file at each building and given a copy to your um fire department so that they have those as well. And then your uh safety reference document includes how close that fire department is to you, the ages and um years that your buildings were built or modified. So those are uh doc and the codes under which they need to comply. So we talked about reviewing the violations. I reviewed the items that are in bold are items that CLER does above the

116statute. Everything that's not in bold is required by the state that they require these things to occur. Um, again, just for those of you who don't aren't familiar, the health life safety looks at the code under which the buildings were built, not today's code. So, we're looking at it in context of when it was built to see if it's still in compliance, but it does include things like uh tripping hazards as you're walking into your building, which you've addressed a lot of them, which is really nice to see at at some of your elementary schools. but it also includes wet ceiling tiles and the like. We're to about the point where um Clubber is coming tonight to to come do this is one of the statute requirements is to come to the board and present

117this and then you ultimately have to approve it and sign it. We will upload that data and Mr. Dr. Dr. Profi will get a email that says he needs to approve it and then it goes to the regional office of education for them to look at in review and then it goes down to ISBY for their final review and approval as well. So just some key points from this year's or um assessment. Uh again it's the third phase that we've gone through and it's the elementary schools and special schools. Um we did not get an opportunity to review with uh buildings and grounds what work was completed from your previous assessments. Last year you might remember we came in and said oh so much of this work had been done at the high school. So

118in the dollars that you're seeing they probably be less than than we have because there's probably quite a bit of work that's been done by the building and ground staff. But we will continue to look at that and get and get um those updates because at the end of the day, Clubber is responsible to um close out these health life safety documents with the state. So our our our license goes in when we input this information to the state. Again as discussed we have uh A and B um requirements and that C is inputed into your planning by by buildings. So the findings there's approximately 1.3 million in project costs that we identified. The largest of which would be uh the roof at Long Beach and um those are identified by schools in the next

119couple slides. But priority A violations are just uh over it's about almost 350 30 it's 345,169 and priority B's again that's priority B the big number out of there is your Long Beach roof going to the next slide which you can see all of the buildings together and again like I said the the biggest ticket item in that U B column was your Long Beach TR roof. Um Boulder Hill, South Berry, Wolf Crossing, and East View were just o over 100,000 and concrete was kind of their um higher higher um cost ticket items. Uh Churchill and Opost um were just uh both um at about 90,000 or just under and uneven pavements was again there's exterior work. It it happens a lot in our inclement weather. We get a lot of heaving and freeze thaws

120that affects your exterior concrete and pavement. Uh Grand Park was the fewest the the smallest dollar value there at just 15,000 and there was uh water leaks at the doors at entryways and some minor uh roof leaking as well. The and the rest of the schools range between uh 25,000 and 77,000. And again, your highest ticket items were probably in your exterior uh asphalt pavement and play areas as well as some ceiling replacement costs as an aggra as a total. >> What's the uh what's the large line for Bernardik? >> Bernard Bernardic was actually surveyed last year. >> Oh. >> But the large but the large line for Bernardic as you see in that graph Yeah. is also its roof. >> Okay. and and yeah, as mentioned in the FFC, we talked about the the

121roof project. And then so now that we have all of your buildings, we have a a total chart here uh which includes your student populations, uh the negative numbers on your on your students. Doesn't mean we have bad kids. It just means you have uh it just means you have less students there than you did the last time we surveyed. That's all that means. It's just showing the trend lines of where they're going up or down. Um and then your uh costs uh in by building in total you can see so again the 2.9 million that's in that bottom line is probably less because you've probably accomplished some more work at all the schools which uh will sit down with Andre uh and Bill and his team and work through what has been accomplished. >>

122And that's everything. you have the full report, I think, in your documentation. So, you could look at every line item in each school. Um, and if you have any questions, I'm here to answer those. >> What I would like to point out is that the state mandates us to do this every 10 years, but there's no provision for funding of it. So they come up and tell us all this violation that they found that we need to fix that we have to figure out to pay for even though the amount of money they gave us for mandated categorical front shrinks every year but we have this unfunded mandate that we have to figure out to pay for >> your comments were along the lines of my questioning about and my question was to Mr. Oafi

123how it interacts with our long range facility plan. So I'm assuming yeah these are required and some of them are also going to be subsumed within the long range plan. Correct. >> Yes. There will be overlaps there. Yes. >> Yeah. One is a compliance audit document. The other is a strategic planning capital planning guidelines and principles and roadmap. >> I hear your comment about the um the state requiring it and um not necessarily funding it. Right. um are with our other reviews have we currently been able to fund >> the stuff that comes up and the like um >> the long range facility plant what we've been doing is as uh Charlie mentioned earlier there's some of the work that we can do internally we can have our tech guys our maintenance guys do the

124work >> and there's some of it that they can do with help from a consultant, an outside repair person if you will. But there's some of it that are significant in the cost of of repairs that we just don't have the money internally from operational budget to be able to fund it. >> If I might add, Mr. Dr. that uh in your in that uh spreadsheet that you all have copies of for every school building there is a column that talks about uh whether it would be done by in-house as he mentioned or something that would be bigger. The other element is that you have a lot of common themes as you go through these buildings. So there's some um economic advantage to p packaging them together as a little project which is similar to

125what we had were doing with the uh concrete work a couple years ago. Uh but again as he pointed out it's it's it's a little overwhelming sometimes and you just got to sometimes you got to just take one bite at a time. >> So and something else I would like to point out as uh was mentioned earlier during the presentation that some of the uh preliminary architecture work have been done for this project >> for the for the Bernardic roof. Yes, that work has already been completed. It's just a matter of when funding becomes available and you'd like to put it out onto the street. Right. And so um we are working now the operations department in conjunction with finance as we build a 2027 budget to start figuring out what the capital projects that

126we can fund for next summer are based on the availability of resources. We will take into account where some of these projects the architectural work is already been done and trying to see about working with uh Google to take that to to the bid uh take it out to bid and see what we can get as far as uh bid submission and then we'll probably do alternate bids that's beyond that too. So I'm just saying that part of this we will include as part of our capital repair project summer project that will be bringing before the board recommendation during the summer. >> Thank you all very much and merry Christmas and happy holidays to all of you. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> All right. Next item is 12.2 the Chromebook collection. >> So I'm I'm

127going to tee up uh Mr. Kiger the director of technology here and uh what uh what happened is during co we as a district we know we had uh some of our kids working remotely. We also knew we got three trunches if you will of er money. part of the funding we used to go oneonone because of the fact that CO was around and we needed to have uh devices for all our kids. But what I would like to point out is since then, CO actually funding ended in September of 2024, which is well over a year ago. And uh we're trying to review some of the the um the expenditure that we use COVID money for because we had that money then, we don't have the money now. We're looking for a way to

128to manage our resources and finding trying to figure out how we can we can be more efficient in how we use the money that we have and taking to be realistic about money we don't have anymore. With that being said, I'm going to have Mr. Ker. >> Thank you. Yeah, as Raphael mentioned, um due to uh federal funding that we no longer have access to, it's caused us to re-evaluate uh how we are spending our money. Um and at the same time being able to provide access to technology across the district. Uh so tonight we are going to uh make recommendations um in in to account for that uh lack of funding. um specifically dealing with our Chromebook refresh cycle and the uh graduate retention process that we put in place for the last couple

129of years. So um during COVID that's where we moved to the onetoone model um and it was primarily due to the esser funds that were available previous to that uh we used a shared cart model um very uh the numbers of Chromebooks and that we had in the environment were drastically less than uh the initiation of the 1:1 model. uh they were shared amongst uh grade levels. Um it was uh inconsistent if you would uh as far as the ratio of devices uh to students per building. But again because of the ESSER funding we jumped to the 1:1 model and that gave us the ability to form uh the model that we have been using for the last several years uh which is uh 5th through 12th grade. uh they get a device to take

130home. Uh specifically, we refresh or provide a new device to fifth graders and uh freshmen in that environment. And then we also provide a cart uh in every classroom for grades K through four. Uh and then also uh have put in place a refresh cycle for a grade level every year. Uh with those three grade levels that we have to refresh every year, uh we spend about $1.2 million. Um as it's been mentioned, now that funding is no longer available, it's not sustainable with that model. So 1.2 million, what can we do? um with refreshing three grade levels and still keeping uh access to technology. The equipment that we originally purchased uh was uh we had to get the numbers in here. Uh it wasn't quite up to par or what we would hope in

131the environment. Uh it was non-touch devices. Uh the amount of RAM uh was lacking. Uh that definitely came out uh when trying to do Google Meets. Um and so now we're um at the fact of uh where do we need to make adjustments uh to uh account for that? Um and so um in collaboration we gathered uh feedback from um let's see it was uh the high school representation uh K through8 leadership uh senior leadership and of course senior leadership we came up with these recommendations uh for going forward. So uh this year starting this uh spring we will uh exclusively focus on uh providing new devices to freshmen uh instead of the changes uh where we previously provided uh new devices to fifth graders and then also cycled a grade level through K through

1324. Uh this also means then that the devices that we are collecting from eighth grade will be repurposed um in uh uh backfill or repurposed in uh keeping the carts at a uh consistent number uh for grades one through four. And then the next recommendation is specifically with the uh graduate ret retention uh device retention uh process that we put in place. That process has only been in place for about the last two years. it was that uh graduates were allowed to keep their device partially because uh they were the original COVID devices again uh lacking in uh touchscreen capabilities and 4 gigs of RAM. Uh but now uh we have cycled through all of those devices and now we're finding that we need to keep those devices inhouse. Uh they have much higher value

133uh when we need to consider uh repurposing them. um repairing old devices uh and uh really getting hands in or keeping hands keeping technology in the hands of every student and as it Oops. Um and so what does this mean financially? Uh it means an $800,000 uh in reduction in spending every year. uh that is significant amount and can be uh repurposed uh for other uh better avenues. Um but it is a huge uh savings if we follow these recommendations and so thus ending we're recommending that the board uh approve of these adjustments. Now something else that I'll add to it is that the cost of technology and technology infrastructure and not just the equipment but monitoring the uh infrastructure to make sure the bad actor doesn't get in the system and do various things.

134those costs have been going up too and uh so we have to look for a way to continue to do that without you know uh without without asking for more money if you will. So the ability to try to do more with less because we there are things that we doing nowadays with our technology infrastructure that 5 years ago we didn't have to do it. It's just it's the nature of where we are with technology. So those are some of the things that we kept in mind in trying to reach this decision. So we knew we needed to do this. We were saying okay how do we do this without allocating more money that we didn't have quite frankly. And this is one of the things that we came up with of being able to

135do that. I [clears throat] mean my only concern is are we we have what we need in house in order to repurpose and repair and >> I if we again follow these recommendations and collecting the eighth grade devices and the senior devices we currently have still some stock but having that those quantities of devices I still think that we're in pretty good shape then to continue this for the next couple of years at least. Uh, I want to say that I think this is a good testament to Mr. Buffy's team thinking about how to be fiscally responsible and thinking about the money that we can save when we're able to save it. This plan makes sense to me. I just have a couple uh comments. Um, and this is discussion for possibly another time, but

136um, you know, academic research is currently pointing to maybe we should have less Chromebooks in first and second and third grade and um, things like that. And so that could be a potential future discussion and that would be more costsaving. Uh, and of course if we didn't um, if we didn't need or think we needed to supply those to our younger students. Um, the other comment that I have is for when I think about our 12th graders who are graduating, uh, and previous last couple years, they were able to keep their Chromebook. I know I have some Chromebooks sitting at my house that haven't been touched in two or three years, and I'm like, "Okay, what am I going to do with these?" But I do have one student who used it through the summer

137until I bought her a computer for um for college. And I know that there are um families who are short on resources. Um and I just want to make sure that we're not stunting anyone from doing the work they need to do as they transition from um 12th grade to college. Um whether it's filling out applications or scholarships or anything like that. And I know they have their phones. That's just something that I thought about when we made the practice of letting them keep it. I thought, well, that'd be good for families who maybe can't afford like a um afford something. And I know there's only so much that we can do, but just keeping that in mind for 12th graders who might need access to a device for a little bit longer. I'm sure

138that the high school team could work something out if needed. Um even if they were to like come into the school and use it, I just want to make sure that our students have access to that um as needed before they start college if that's their plan. >> Thank you for that feedback. And I really want to say this was uh something that was developed by the IT team. I just spoke to them. I said, "Hey, it you all know we we need to do more with less. Can you come up with an idea that we can use that doesn't negatively impact the educational experience of our kids results and savings that doesn't hit the classroom?" And this is what he came up with. So I got to give them that credit. It's not mine.

139Thank you. [clears throat] >> Thank you. >> You're not going anywhere. >> Don't go too far. >> Nope. Still got one more. But >> what else we got? >> Fancy slideshow. >> 12.3 Decommission Devices RFP. >> Uh yeah, this is um there no slideshow here. It's a memo that is in the uh board agenda, but uh this is uh in regards to an RFP we released this fall uh to uh sell equipment that no longer has life here in the district. Uh it was a mix between uh Chromebooks, the majority of it was Chromebooks uh with Windows PCs that we've refreshed or they've become unusable and then some old iPads that uh no longer had Windows up or sorry iOS updates uh capable of. Um and so we released this RFP asking for interested parties

140to uh bid on this equipment. Uh specifically uh we asked for a minimum value and a maximum value and various grading levels depending on the quality of the equipment. Uh along with that uh they also had to prove um uh present uh information that uh said that they would dispose of equipment environment environmentally sound also with uh secure destruction if they no longer had a purpose for it. Um, with this RFP, we had four vendors that uh responded. Technically, only two that we really took seriously because of the dollar amount. Um, the one that really stood out to us uh was uh came in at a minimum amount of uh 51 a little over 51,000 uh for the minimum. uh in looking at uh there was one other company that was came close. But then

141when we look at the grading of the equipment that we believe that is in this stockpile, we think we have the most potential uh using this uh vendor that not only again came in at the highest minimum amount amount but has the most potential for the full amount. uh when uh the awarded uh vendor uh picks up the equipment, there will no there will not be any resources used from the district to uh manage uh that they are uh all the shipping and uh inventory uh taking is done by their company. And so with all of that being said, we are recommending that the board award the contract to Cornerstone Technologies uh for uh disposal of this equipment. >> How often do we do this? >> Uh a year and a half ago, I think

142we passed an RFP for recycling. This is honestly the largest disposal that we've ever uh encountered. Uh so this is I don't want to say it's a one-time only but this is a uh major shift in what the practice has been. It has been just uh recycling vendors uh and we get dollars for devices. Um whereas this one some of the equipment can still be used in different scenarios but not here. >> So this would be like on an as needed basis as we have more decommissioned devices. >> Yeah. Yeah. And so the plan will be we will do an every time we need to get rid of the commissioner because that's the only way we can, you know, we can get uh folks who have the ability to pay us for to fight with

143each other, if you will, and potentially get the best return. >> We've got a block of old devices that we knew we had. We told them what we had and then >> they said they're going to guarantee us a certain dollar amount, but if it's better in better condition. Will they give us >> correct? Thank you. Anybody? All right. Have a good night. >> Thank you, Brian. >> You can stay and do mine if you want. Be great. [clears throat and laughter] >> Um, security window film RFP 12.4. has nothing to do with Windows security. >> That's Microsoft >> Windows securities. That is correct. >> Um there is a memo uh in the board packets referencing the RFP that was conducted around uh window glazing. Um this uh security measure was represented in the long

144range facilities plan as well as has been um on our uh three-year safety and security plan over the last uh couple of years. Um we had already started to engage in the opportunity for this project um prior to much of the master facilities plan and the long range facilities plan um but this uh aspect is included in that planning um aspect or planning document um we would like to we we did go out to RFP we received six bids um as a result of that RFP um we selected the uh the bid that was next to lowest uh the reason for not selecting the lowest bid was because at the time of the submission of the RFP, not all of the documentation was provided as requested um in the RFP. Um and so as a

145result, we would like to move forward with uh Tint Nerds LLC as the recommended vendor um to provide some window glazing on our main points of entry um to increase those security measures. Anybody? >> No. I I just want to stress you you've clearly done research on tint nerds. >> Yes. >> Uh >> I mean as as far as track record, that type of thing. >> So as part of the RFP process, they are required to submit references and those types of things, insurance certifications. Um before we would approve any final contract, we would again uh take another targeted look at that vendor. >> Okay. >> Before any work or project was agreed upon. >> Thanks. Okay. All right. Move on to and back 12.5 board policies. first read. >> So as mentioned um in

146our policy and legislative board committee update um we have are bringing for first read the remaining policies under press issue 120 um from 770 through 8:30. There are some small policy and then legal reference changes. um provided to you are the redline versions. Um in 770, some of the key changes um is in regards to the approval process for newly um allowable activities in terms of an aus absence versus an unexcused absence. Um in 7180, an updated definition including bullying and cyber bullying. in 7190, uh, additional information to our board policy about parent notification. And then in 7340, um, updates to the Illinois School Student Records Act. Um, so there's been a slight change to the definition of a student permanent record. Um, and then in 8:30, an updated definition. So today is just on

147first read. All of these recommendations come directly from Is there any questions? Anybody? No. >> Okay. >> Thank you to your team. >> Thank you. >> All right. Moving on to action items 13.1, 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 3,251,731.84 as presented. >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> No. >> Mr. Cerrone. >> I. >> Miss C. >> I. >> Dr. Martin. >> I. >> Miss Wenmouth. >> I. >> Dr. Mario. >> I. >> Miss. Robinson. >> I. >> Dr. Pock. >> I. >> Motion passes 70. Action item 132, approval of the completion and acceptance of the long-range facility plan. Can I have a motion, please? >> I make a motion to approve the completion and acceptance

148of the long range facility plan as discussed and presented. >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> I have a couple comments before we um uh before we consider the vote. Um, I think that our the conversation last time at our board at the meeting helped clarify my helped clarify for me what this vote was for. And even today's vote, I think it's it stated like the acceptance and approval of um of this plan. Um, I want to say that I've been very happy with the engagement activities around this plan, the longrange facility plan, and how much input we got from the community about what they wanted to see in our facilities over the years. Um, and I think overall we're just doing a really good job with that in in our district about getting feedback in

149a variety of circumstances, whether it be long range facilities or the strategic plan, uh, multilingual, diverse learners, all of that. So, we're really making some concerted efforts there. And when I thought about it, um, I really thought then if that's the case and I believed in that process of everyone coming together and giving their ideas, then this plan is really a culmination of those efforts, which makes it not necessarily our plan, but it's what our community has said that they want for for our um for our our schools and our students. But I also know that that comes with a cost and that there is cost associated with these items. Today, we're not voting on any type of spending. We're voting to acknowledge that this is a plan that everyone thought was a good plan.

150And then we can make plans from here how we make those plans come uh to fruition. I know that some of the things on the plan are like high priority like we need roofs and we need >> heating. >> Yeah, we need air conditioning and things like that, right? Uh, and there are other things in the plan um that are um more nice to haves. Um, but I think that's the next step in the work is to figure out what comes first, what resources we're going to use to to make it happen. Um, and if it needs to change because we know that same thing with the strategic plan, you know, there may be some things that we have to, you know, put in the background and hold off on because we don't have the

151resources or the time or the energy. Not the energy. we always have more energy, right? Uh to do it. Um or things might change in regards to, you know, the resources that we have from our state or the federal government and all sorts of things. Um so I think that is our next stage of work is figuring out what resources are available to make as much of the plan come to fruition as um as possible. So I want to clarify, we're not voting on spending anything today. We're voting on this is the plan that our community said that they would like to see for our facilities in the future. And from here, it's our job to figure out what we can do >> and prioritize. For sure, >> think about when like what comes first,

152what comes. Well, to piggyback on that, um, you know, not only like did we get the input here, but it's it's ties to our strategic plan and kind of the integration of it in our kind of educational goals and our goals for our students, but then also, you know, to kind of reiterate um what was said about the spending, you know, one of the things that I personally like about the plan and find comforting from like a fiscal responsibility standpoint is the fact that there are recommended budget categories of capital repairs and infrastructure. So those like more immediate needs you were talking about safety and security improvements which we just heard about educational environments and then you know a lot of the nice to haves with comprehensive reconfigurations things like that. So um so to

153just kind of reiterate everything Dr. Rio just hit on. Um I do think that it's important to keep in mind that this is is a framework um that was built not only on community input on our facilities but community input but tied specifically to our strategic plan which also received community input. So, um, you know, I'm excited about about having a framework, um, potentially that we can use to guide the future of the district facilities. >> Anybody else? I I was just going to add that I think um from I think it's important for us to reiterate that our primary focus needs to be keeping students in their seats learning instead of all the nice to have things. Um I I personally find 20-year-old carpet to be really gross. So >> while that doesn't keep

154them in the seat, um I think that that also is maybe a health concern. It it >> well >> could be a health breathing issues which would be a need. >> Yeah. I mean I think I I said I said that much as um you know this meeting as well that prioritizing is going to be key and we know that we certain things need to be done and are going to be critical up. So um okay Dr. Pock >> I >> Miss Robinson >> I abstain >> Miss Wenmouth >> I >> Dr. Martin >> I >> Dr. Mario >> I >> Miss C >> I >> Mr. Cerrone >> I motion passes six I's one abstension um action item 3133 adoption of 2025 tax levy. Can I have a motion please? Oh yeah. Sorry I

155had gone off to Bermuda. Uh I make a motion to adopt the 2025 tax levy as discussed and presented. >> Second. >> Any discussion? Not >> from me. Okay. [clears throat] >> Dr. Mario. >> I. >> Miss Robinson. >> I. >> Dr. Martin. >> I. >> Miss Wenmouth. >> I. >> Mr. Cerrone. >> I. >> Dr. Pock. >> I. >> Miss C. >> I. >> Motion passes. 70. Action item 134. Approval of intergovernmental agreement with Yorkville Community Unit School District 115. May I have a motion, please? I make a motion to approve the intergovernmental agreement with Yorkville uh school district 115 special education programs and services as discussed and presented. >> Second >> any discussion? >> Nope. >> Miss Wenmouth >> I. >> Miss C. >> I. >> Mr. Cerrone >> I. >> Miss Robinson

156>> I. >> Dr. Pock >> I. >> Dr. Mario >> I. >> Dr. Martin >> I. Motion passes 70. Action item 135, approval of 2026 school maintenance project grant. Can I have a motion, please? >> I make a motion to approve the 2026 school maintenance project grant as discussed and presented. >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> No. Go ahead. >> Mr. Cerrone, >> I. >> Miss Robinson, >> I. >> Dr. Martin, >> I. >> Miss C. >> I. >> Dr. Mario. >> I. >> Miss Wenmouth. >> I Dr. Pock. >> I. Motion passes 70. Action item 136, approval of a renewal of state waiver application for driver's education fees. Motion, please. >> I make a motion to approve the resolution authorizing the submission of a state waiver application for driver's education fees as discussed and

157presented. >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> Nope. All right. >> Dr. Martin, I >> Miss Wenmouth. I Mr. Cerrone. >> I. Miss Robinson. >> I, >> Dr. Pock, >> I, >> Miss C. >> I, >> Dr. Mario, >> I. >> Motion passes 70. Action item 137, board policies for second read and approval. Can I have a motion, please? I make a motion to approve board policies section 2 school board 21 120 250 2270 section 4 operational services 4 col 10 430 480 41 140 41 190 section 5 general personnel 5 col 10 59 5 col 100 51 190 520 5 220 5 col 280 5 300 Section 6 Instruction 620 64 660 6130 6 160 6 210 6 260 280 6300 6 310 6 315 6 320 Section 7 students 7 col 10 as discussed

158and presented Thank you. Second. [laughter] >> Did Did anybody second? >> Okay. Any discussion? >> No, just to reiterate in terms of 660, there was one um decision that we would be voting on in terms of the policy and we will not be adding the Irish famine. And then in 6210 um with the approval we would be leaving our current practice of the board would approve all of our core instructional materials um but then would have administrative approval for supplemental current uh instructional materials. Appreciate that. Um anybody else? All right. >> Miss I miss Robinson. I >> Dr. Mario I >> Dr. Martin >> I >> Mr. Cerrone >> I >> Miss C >> I >> Dr. Pock >> I >> motion passes 70 138 action item approval of personnel report I have a motion

159>> I make a motion to approve the personnel report as discussed and presented >> second >> any discussion >> miss >> I >> Dr. Martin >> I >> Dr. Mario >> I >> Dr. Pock >> I >> Mr. Cerrone >> I >> Miss Wenmouth I >> Miss Robinson >> I >> motion passes 70. >> I have a motion to adjurnn. >> I make a motion to adjurnn. In favor?