001[Applause] Unit School District Board of Education meeting for February 24th 2025 can I have a motion I'm sorry can I have a roll call Mr Cerone here Mr Gatewood pres Miss Johnson pres Dr Mario presid Mr ploger present Miss Simon present Miss venth present our student board members colleag parel pres and pres please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alce 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 good evening board uh tonight is one of our favorite uh evenings of the month which is our pride recognition I want to invite uh executive director of schools Mr Francis and also thank our Communications team for helping rally this evening's event thank you
002Dr katti tonight the Board of Education acknowledges Pride winners from Grand Park Homestead the wheatlands and East viw Academy for the month of February Pride stands for proudly recognizing individuals demonstrating Excellence the Board of Education began this program 9ine years ago to recognize promote and celebrate the many contributions made by teachers employees across the district we would like to thank our generous District Partners Chick-fil-A Culver's imagination Print and Design Huntington Learning Center serve bank and the scoop for helping to make this program a success we would also like to thank all those who nominated individuals for consideration awardees it's almost your turn after your name is called and we share your nomination please come forward to be congratulation by the board and Dr katti and then wait until the rest of the individuals from your
003school have been called up first of all we have Grand Park Elementary the first is a kindergarten teacher Lauren breaston Lauren come on up Lauren has stepped into her role as a kindergarten teacher this year with an emphasis on forming strong relationships with her students a nominator said quote Mrs bre has a natural talent for creating a warm and welcoming classroom where every child feels safe valued and excited to learn additionally Lauren has been intentional while integrating the new Ela curriculum creatively using engaging materials in a way that is accessible for all of her students congratulations [Applause] Lauren next up we have Rachel Fitzgerald first grade teacher Rachel is passionate about her work cul cultivating a nurturing classroom environment for all her students her dedication is evident in everything she does one nominator said quote
004Beyond her incredible work with students Mrs Fitzgerald is a true Cornerstone of our school Community her kindness and support for fellow staff members is appreciated by those around her congratulations Rachel [Applause] and finally from Grand Park Connie Harrison principal [Applause] secretary referred to as a hero by her nominators Connie works hard to help ensure everything runs smoothly throughout the school day she brings positivity to her building and demonstrates admirable precision and commitment quote whether it's organizing the day-to-day operation of the school with Precision or stepping in as a buddy and Mentor for students who need extra help she does it all with a smile and a Heart full of care congratulations Connie at this time we'd like to invite any Grand Park administrators and District administrators who are present to come forward and join the
005award the board and Dr kilg Gotti for a couple pictures a lot of time eff it's Grand Reserve what did I say grand Grand Park that's that's fantastic and while they're doing pictures let's get one more round of applause for GR Park tribe [Applause] winners all right our next Spotlight stool school is Homestead Elementary School our first a winner is kindergarten teacher Julie raldi Julie Works to create a nurturing environment for all of her students she goes above and beyond to connect with students and ensure they feel supported in their Learning Journey quote she demonstrates a genuine passion for teaching kindergarten fostering a love for learning in her students through creative and engaging activities congratulations Julie and now we have first grade teacher Valerie seti Valerie makes learning fun for her students she cares deeply
006for each of her students past present and future Valerie acknowledges the uniqueness of all of her students and develops plans for individual growth as shared by a nominator quote Mrs seti is a staunch advocate for her students and is endlessly creative when it comes to teaching her class congratulations Valerie and finally building nurse Susan Becker Susan carries herself with a joy that makes all welcome she supports her building responding to the individual needs of each student one nominator stated quote nurse Susan is always available to support and goes the extra mile to build relationships with students staff and all of our families her dedication to her role is appreciated by Homestead staff and parents congratulations [Applause] Susan at this time any building administrators who would like to come up for a photo opportunity come on
007up all right let's give one more round of applause for our pride winner from homestead [Applause] Elementary next up we have the wheatlands elementary school first up from the wheatlands is social worker Carly beitz known for her advocacy for students Ki is passionate about educating her school community in a number of ways she works professionally with both students and families ensuring they have care and resources that they need quote she is a safe harbor for her students and staff members one nominator said Carly is a leader who collaborates well with others to ensure the best for students congratulations [Applause] Carly next up we have a board certified behavior analyst Katie Todd Katie Works to understand and provide for The Unique needs of every student she encounters she collaborates well with teachers and is very knowledgeable
008in her area if she doesn't know the answer to something she sets out to learn and share her research with others as one nominator shared her approach consistently demonstrates a commitment to finding the best path forward a particularly crucial quality given the unique attributes presented by diverse Learners congratulations Katie and lastly from the wheatlands building nurse Raina elar tabani Raina cares deeply for all students at the wheatlands and puts serious effort into her professional development she puts a priority on safety and works hard to ensure students are cared for beyond the concern that may have brought them to the nurse's office her dedication to her role is evident in the report she has developed with the entire wheatland's Community congratulations [Applause] Raina and we need building Administration up for pictures congratulations wheatlands one more Round
009of Applause for our wheatland's pride [Applause] winners our final building celebration for this evening we move on to East View Academy school first of all we have special education teacher Michael fulam Michael is creative in finding ways to motivate all of his students in in addition to empowering students in the classroom he serves as a special Olympic soccer and basketball coach as shared by a nominator he also makes a positive impact on employees by ensuring they are celebrated for their achievements and their hard work is acknowledged within our building congratulations [Applause] Michael next up from East viiew physical education teacher Jack Marta Jack is dedicated to helping all students succeed he is flexible with his plans and supportive of fellow staff members quote he actively participates in PE activities with our students increasing their engagement
010and desire to excel Jack also works yearly to raise funds for new equipment and opportunities for the students at East viiew Academy congratulations Jack and our last winner of the evening is certified nurse Seline Gonzalez Marino despite being a District staff member for just two years now Seline demonstrates great leadership on nursing and special education teams the students she serves rely on her Selen is ready to jump in and help in any situation as a nominator shared nurse Seline always looks for the bright side and shares her Joy with every staff every student and every family every day congratulations Selen and we need Mrs suon up for some pictures all right one more final round of applause for East View Academy and all of our February Pride winners honores please proceed out into the Hall
011we will have some group follows out in the hallway thank you everybody for coming just feel like this is action and okay guys we're gonna do two action items before can you hear me y all right 5.1 action item approval of District administrator contracts can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the district administrator contract as discussed and presented second Mr Cerone hi Mr Gatewood hi Dr Mario hi Mr cloer hi Miss vmou hi Miss Johnson um I wanted to go ahead and explain um why I'm voting no um my vote has uh zero to do with Dr Mitchell I happen to think she's an incredible educator in administ administrator what I'm here to talk about though is having the benefits of a fully certified HR professional on staff that includes managing
012complex employment laws employee relations and recruitment strategies as a certified HR professional can Implement strategies to better enhance Employee Engagement Performance Management professional development a certified HR professional when ensure that policies are applied consistently across the organization minimizing favoritism or bias the consistency helps maintain fairness and clarity and establishes trust with increasing increasingly complex employment laws that need for Next Level HR guidance to navigate legal issues is becoming more and more evident I've also seen it firsthand in the um school district and I implore our leadership to continue to uh move forward um with fully certified HR professionals thank you uh no Miss Simon hi [Music] motion passes oh I we're done okay I'm sorry I thought we had one more person okay motion passes 70 61 61 I'm sorry madam selon may have Madam
013president may have a minute uh dry want to open up yes good evening board uh tonight we are very excited um to bring Dr maresa Mitchell uh as the assistant superintendent of human resources that you just approved thank you very much for that um let's give her a round of applause uh Dr Mitchell uh currently serves as our executive director of high schools uh after a successful administrative career in uh multiple States including Georgia and Illinois um she is remarkable throughout the interview process uh led by Dr K to Mr oian supported by Dr katti uh and many stakeholder groups uh we are really proud of her uh strengths of systems collaboration interdependence and problem solving are aligned with the goals of the successful candidate to continue to support Human Resources throughout our system so
014once again a round of applause to Dr maresa Mitchell okay okay action item 5.2 approval of personnel report can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the Personnel report as discussed and presented second Miss johnon hi Dr marel hi Mr Gatewood hi Mr cler hi Miss Simon hi mrone hi Miss ven hi motion passes 70 and with that good evening we want to welcome uh Bren Miss Bren patterman would you please stand uh she'll be stepping into the role yes of executive assistant for the uh superintendent as well as secretary for the Board of Education and we just want to thank you for uh uh joining our team and her start dat will start in uh May and official start will be in miday so we want to thank you [Applause] again
015okay on behalf of um or 6.1 public comment so 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 and encourage everyone to take an active interest in their public Public School System residents interested in speaking to the Board of Education this evening are asked to have completed a comment carp and presented it to the secretary to the board 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 and no responses to your questions are permitted comment should be addressed comment should address the Board of Education as a
016whole and not be directed to an individual board member audience or staff member the Board of Education will not address concerns against individual employees rather a complaint against an employee must be in writing and signed by the person who makes it and the Board of Education will refer any such complaint for appropriate review campaigning or advocating for any candidate is inappropriate during public comment comment should be limited to business before the school district and not political advocacy followup to your questions or concerns will be addressed by Administration through the contact information provided on the comment card thank you Katie Heiden hello hello okay it's on uh I come to you today as a parent in District 308 uh my name is Katie heyen I know our district has been great about supporting unionized education for
017teachers and staff at District 308 but I really feel there is an opportunity to bring Innovation when it comes to postsecondary education I I could see District 308 welcoming other unions within this sector to support our students in their future um I come to you today because I would like to see when it comes to committed to this University or this college committed to Career Readiness we do it for our athletes our musicians our artists kinary and it work but this still constantly is underserved for these students who choose different educational paths today I would like to give you some numbers to just kind of that way you guys could go on and you could go to Facebook or you could go to Instagram and be able to see what I'm talking about if you
018go to OHS Athletics 2.1k followers 3.2 likes asigo Fine Arts 1.9k followers asgo High School bands 1.1k followers asigo East band 1K followers asigo High School 4.6 followers asigo East High School 3.4k followers we go to ohos student services or what they referred us to go to which was OHS St uh for postsecondary 222 followers 100 105 that are actually following and 42 posts I could not find any committed signed days for unionized trades or postsecondary education I was told to go to the senior Celebration Day link and I could find it there and it was just a 30second video I know we can do better than this to serve our students at st308 thank you thank you thank you our superintendent to provide his uh superintendent report all right good evening board um this
019evening uh today is a huge day for a district it's really the comination of months and months of listening and collaboration that I would say has really um challenged all of us to really learn to better listen to each other think about the way in which we operate and take some next steps tonight you are going to hear the first formal presentation of the draft of the 2528 strategic plan big round of applause for all those who are here to present um truly thank you all for and really thank you to the community for being part of Designing our next uh chapter of the next chapter of our story um on a different note I just want to uh appreciate some really important information that came up last week that many of you heard and
020some reports that came from in our schools we often and it is an important slogan we say we when we see something we say something and this really isn't just a slogan um it's a shared responsibility that whether we observe hear or read something concerning we must reported immediately every report when it comes to uh things that have significant concerns are investigated and we are always looking to enhance uh the safety of our learned communities by working together we can't swiftly prevent serious incidents and ensure that the well-being of our students of our staff remain a top priority we always work to collaborate closely with law enforcement to proactively identify potential threats and respond swiftly to any reports or in incidents lastly I want to um thank our teams that were involved and our uh
021police department for really taking the after Action Report ser seriously um when every one of those scenarios um and as I shared in my letter last week we always want to make sure we make time to reflect because there is no perfect scenar the perfect scenario is Improvement and safety and so we are always taking each one of these incidents when they do arise with the utmost seriousness and where there is opportunity for growth we will take it because our students deserve it and that is our commitment um equally important is really the culture we create for our students and part of that is really ensuring that we are working together when uh whether it's uh your child comes home and says hey something happened in my classroom and you wonder about it is that
022is that accurate information accurate right do I email the superintendent or do I email the teacher say hey Johnny came home today and had a question right and so really understanding where in our systems whether it's um where is that point of seeking Clarity regarding information or misinformation that arises sometimes it's at the level of your son or your daughter or your child says something to you this happens to me every day I have a third grader so I hear lots of stories every day there are moments where I have to decide am I emailing the teacher the assistant principal the principal or Pedro Martinez right so I have to always think about where am I entering with that information now there are lots of ways where we we see that information that also moves
023on we've become a community where we rely on social media right that is how we gain our trust trust we gain confidence we use that as a support system there are also times when misinformation shows up on social media and we have to think about how that information shows up um in the last couple weeks I've heard situations where uh somebody talked about uh threatening uh it gave the impression of a threat um so on on social media and we had to investigate it right we've had hoaxes and so when information misinformation shows up on social media we have to look to ways to disrupt this information and think about how that we have to look to ways to make sure that that information doesn't distract from the work that's happening in our schools which
024is really creating a place of safety truth and academic success um I would ask that anyone when you see things that are confusing please reach out to the right place to get clarity about those things our goal is always to be um fair and give feedback and to give information as best as we can when we can there are certain scenarios when there's an active investigation we might not be able to give everything but reaching out never hurts um and for all of our information and we want to address misinformation as quickly as possible in order to address the core issues we have um lots of channels for this and we thank all of you for reaching out to those proper and appropriate channels lastly this evening I want to share something about some really
025important upcoming several there are several upcoming events uh we have our parent University at Boulder Hill which is beginning on February 27th at 5:00 pm we have the speak and Spark um event and this is going to be our student Le Roundtable discussion hosted by the school district through a board of education um this will take place at plank Junior High um and led by our board Representatives student board members so thank you on March 3rd um we have our kinderquest Fair an expo for incoming kindergarteners and their families which will take place at asigo East High School for 4:30 to 6: pm. on Tuesday March 11th uh student Coalition presents amplify claiming our space where students will take the stage to show showcase what makes them unique and this is going to be at
026asgo high school not East where it was last year and uh next we have several area candidate events that are taking place in the coming weeks um some of those include uh parents for education and Global success host will host an event on uh March 14th uh we will have this information many of these events we also will have the League of Women Voters who will host an online event on March 19th we have an online student panel um Tuesday March 18th and the bilingual advisory committee will host a forum at hun Club elementary school on Tuesday March 20th which is an opportunity to hear all our candidates who are running for the Board of Education Miss Camas these this information will be on the website for anybody oh great it's already on our website
027uh we want to thank all our candidates for their dedication and service I'll turn it over now to board to uh we have had a lot of exciting things so I invite board members to share any additional uh exciting events yes weo yes weo Co-op finished fifth as a team at the ihsa girls State Gym final gymnastics meet this past weekend Eva Sullivan won the State title in Vault uh and took second place on floor third on beam and fifth all around yeah Sam [Applause] Phillips it was impressive thank you John for sending that to us um Sam Philip took fifth place in Vault and sixth on floor congratulations to Ava Sam and the entire team Braden Swanson of asgo high school took sixth place in his weight class 144 PBS I haven't seen that
028number for a long time at the IHS a boys individual State final wrestling tournament congratulations Brayden the asgo East High School girls bowling team took sixth place at the ihsa girls State final bowling tournament this past weekend congratulations on a great season the oehs and ohos journalism programs flourished at the Southwest Prairie Conference Championship OE took first place and O took fourth congratulations to student journalists the co-op boys swimming and Diving team took third place at sectionals this past weekend this performance secured their spot at the state competition congratulations Dr Amy Howton English department chair at o and my friend was selected as a finalist for the 2025 Golden Apple award for excellence and teaching over 470 nominations were submitted for this prestigious award and Amy is one of 30 finalists congratulations I always feel
029like this time of year we totally need to celebrate right coming out of these uh cold days and uh there were several sd308 members who have been named recipients of this year's Illinois state Board of Education those who Excel and Teacher of the Year Awards congratulations to the following individuals Amy rguez uh oehs classroom teacher Moren turel uh ohos classroom teacher dangit por uh plank Junior High early career educator Deborah rabic um Grand Park Elementary Murphy jior High student support personnel and Dr Adam B Russ uh Rus uh Director of Human Resources School administrator okay now we'll move to 7.2 we'll ask our student board members to give their report okay so we are just a few weeks away from amplify which will take place on March 13th a moment where student voices take stage
030um ideas turn into actions and we showcase the power of collaboration in our school Community last Friday we came together in the Coalition meeting that helped us solidify our vision and strengthen our bonds we gathered ideas discussed what we would present and most importantly create a comfortable space where everyone felt hurt this sense of unity and shared purpose is exactly what amplifies about take students taking ownership of their experiences and claiming their space space which is the theme of amplify as we move forward our president presentation continues with an important event on March 3rd the student Le um board speak and Spark this discussion will allow us to dive deeper into crucial topics particularly the relationships between students and teachers this conversation directly connects to our planning for amplify ensuring ensuring that the discussions we
031bring to the table are meaningful relevant and impactful additionally as your student elective Board of Education Representatives we are excited to invite you to another key event a student panel discussion with the sd308 student board candidates on Tuesday March 18th we'll be hosting this discussion and give students a direct opportunity to engage with the individuals who seek to represent us a social resection will with pizza yay will take place from 5:30 to 6: p.m. followed by the panel discussion from 600 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. moderated by student board members this event will feature questions crafted by high school students to reflect our Collective concerns and priorities leaders from various clubs and organizations across the district will be invited to attend in person and the event will also be live streamed for the Public's viewing this
032is a chance for students to not only learn about the candidates Visions but also to make our voices heard as we shape the future of our school community so as we prepare for these important events let's continue to support one another bring forward new ideas and ensure that Amplified 2025 truly ref reflects the voice of our students thank you a plank Junior High yes no problem oh that one was not open to the public thank you so much you said unfortunately it's not brought to the public but will be live streamed for everyone to view students um the student board yes let me let me just jump in so what we decided was is that they're going to moderate it with the uh potential candidates or with the candidates and then they are inviting other
033um student members from various groups at both high schools to come in and do a meet and greet um but then alongside of that we're working with building Administration and Communications to get their questions so there'll be tons of questions that students will be able to submit um and then we want them to be able to view it live stream okay March 3rd is in person and it's at plane and we need you to be there okay thank you is that it ladies is that it oh yes thank you thank you thank you all right 7.3 board member comments any board member comments who would like to start you always look my way CU you always got I'll start um it's kind of hard to do it seems kind of weird doing this on a
034day when it's like 50-some degrees outside but I just want to thank Mr Bell Mr Queen and everybody in operations who you know one week ago today we were like we were really cold thank you um I want to thank you for all the hard work it's not an easy it's not an easy job and no matter like as we discussed no matter what kind of call whether School whether it's e-learning or whether um students are in class somebody's going to be upset and nothing is a perfect solution but we always try to maintain the safety of the students so whatever decision is made just know that it's made with a great deal of thoughtfulness prior to and a lot of hard work it can't be easy starting buses at 4:30 to get them all
035warmed up I don't know I was asleep um so um again I just I just don't think it's said enough so I wanted to I wanted to give props to to all of you people who who kept running during that time make it while you can get the other thing I wanted to say was um Saturday there was an event by the robotics team over at bed nurc and there were uh a couple of speakers at the beginning and unfortunately um we kind of missed the speaking positions Dr katti and I were busy giving blood um Dominic was off blood drive yeah yeah yeah at a blood drive yeah okay we'll clarify somewhere else we have needles in our no um but we did we Dominic and I did get there later um we did
036and again i' I've said this before these kids are so amazing so I won't go into all the details but you know all of the stuff that they do goes right over my head um but they did want to they did present us with plaque that I'm going to turn over um and it was basically um a thank you from them for the support that 308 has given them um this particular year um as usual they are their expectation is to go to Worlds again in Texas um we are one of the few teams that kind of plans beyond beyond Nationals and actually goes to Worlds uh so again um great time and um I'm going to pass this over to you thank you either either that or it's going up in my living room
037I love it this looks very exciting thank you thank yep can I piggyback that because uh I want I was I actually had that on my list too and um unfortunately I had a college visit this weekend so but I did it was interesting what's that fortunately unfortunately for well I mean fortunately but I'll be honest with you I try not to miss that event so it's kind of like unfortunate that I can't clone myself being in two places at once and I actually did receive a text from a parent saying where's the board at and I explained the um uh the the the blood drive and so forth but I wanted to say thank the reason I want to piggyback that is say thank you to um representative kwit and also um bill um
038Bill Foster for coming out I know they were here and they spoke so appreciate uh them doing those things I think it was called the wow event right wow um the other piece I'll be quick is uh tomorrow is Tuesday listen I'd like to lecture our country at uh what 2025 we still vote on Tuesdays I really don't understand that I really feel like it's an Antiquated piece at this point but nonetheless hey many of um many of the people in uh our district will have the option to go to the polls tomorrow and vote and as I try to always remind people you do not vote once every four years you do not even vote once every two well I should say you could but you have the opportunity to not just vote once
039every four years or two years but in fact you have the opportunity in this uh country of ours to vote at least once every year and this year uh some of us get the opportunity twice there's tomorrow uh Aurora and asigo I believe both have uh primaries and then we'll do it again in uh a little over a month April 1st so uh don't forget to go exercise your vote my wife and I went uh together um yesterday yeah went down to um uh the county uh y county seat and we uh cast votes together so don't forget please make sure your voices are heard anyone else okay moving on to the consent agenda 8.1 can I have motion to approve the consent agenda please make a motion to approve all items under consent including
0408.1 minutes from the Board of Education meeting on February 10th 2025 open and close session and 8.2 to acknowledge the foyer requests received by the district second are there any questions on the consent agenda Mr ploger I Dr Mario I miss vmou hi Mr Cerone hi Miss similon hi Mr Gatewood hi Miss Johnson hi motion passes 70 okay good evening I want to invite uh Miss Amanda satar and Mr Rob FEI uh any updates regarding our financial profile and information thank you Dr katti I want to start out uh this evening by recapping a meeting that we had with a legislator this afternoon where the legislature talked about the governor's bring your mic a little closer sir the governor's budget message and the governor's uh appropriation to the legislator for fiscal year 26 I mean
041there were some good information that I'm happy to share the fact that the state will fully fund uh ebf evidence-based funding and evidence-based funding has been a change maker for us because we're tier one in the district so the governor has appropriated uh $350 million which means that we should be able to receive the same amount that we expect to get in fiscal year 26 that's the good message the challenging part of the governor's uh uh recommendation to the legislation is the fact that mandated categorical funds are been prated they've actually been prr over the last few years and for example in this current fiscal year Transportation regulated Transportation special air transportation instead of also receiving 100% of the expenditure that we Ur this year is been PR rated regular a has been prated at
04279% that is how much we get not 100% of the money we're expecting that we spend we only get 79% for special a transportation the pration in fiscal year 25 is 69% but it gets worse in fiscal year 26 the budget that was presented by the governor to the legislature reduces the pration for regular ad from 7 79% to 69% and for special education it goes down from uh 69% to 61% so as it stands right now and I think I've talked to the board and the public about this transportation is the One Fund that is the most challenging for us as a district the One Fund that consistently we've had a deficit and the latest projection that I will present to the board next month shows Transportation deficit growing from now till 2030 which
043is 5 years from now to be about $26 million if we don't do anything about it just in that fund and the paration based on the recommendation of the governor's budget is not going to help that the hold just becomes bigger so it was imperative before that we do something about Transportation it's become doubly triple imperative that we address that now because we have a we have a bigger hole than what our projections were to begin with now what I would like to talk about now is the uh the financial information that is in the package if you look at the first item there we have the fund balance I want to point out that the fund balance is out of 30 uh January 31st and which is is gone down because this didn't include
044the uh Bond payment of about $30 million that we made after the 31st of January so and also the uh the expenses of an additional 30 $30 million in payroll and other related operational cost so if you take that of that 116 we're closer to about $60 million so this is the time of the year where it gets tough as far as cash is concerned and the reason being that we get paid the majority of the money that we get in the district twice a year we get the first installment in June of the uh proper tax extension we get the second installment in September and we have to pretty much make it last for the balance of the year what we've been trying to do is do a better job of projecting our cash
045flow and this is tied to the if you look at our investment uh statement too you will see that last month it was much higher than where we are right now we had a lot of investment that we placed short-term investment and some long-term investment we had to liquidate that to be able to make payment on those on that $30 million bond that we have to pay on so if you also notice we don't have a lot of investment right now because at the end of the at uh on the 19th of the month we only have $58 million left so we are really now in a position to engage in long-term investment three months or or longer because we need that cash to pay immediate uh immediate expenses that comes through so that's why
046we don't have any so what we are we have some investment the liquid investment that pays about 4.2 million uh 4.2% interest as suppos to a longer term uh investment that will pay us more because we need that cash for day-to-day living but I'm I'm happy to say that uh last we've been monitoring our cash flow as I mentioned earlier we met with a a financial advisor last Friday and we will be able to to get through June when we get our first installment of the 2024 uh property tax extension without doing a Taw so this would be the second year in a row after 20 years of not having to [Applause] do so the other things yes sir yes sir can I request just the interest earned sure from from whatever period to whatever
047period actually it's in the uh it's in the uh projection it's in the uh Financial is it on page um what's your document though yeah can we project these when we talk about them H we project them oh that's a good idea yeah yes right now I don't know if it'll be prepared to be too small but maybe for you do have earnings on investment earning on investment on the revenue if you look under the revenue which page are you on the dashboard yes yes the revenue dashboard if you look at only on investment to date we have earned $3 million so that was and that's year to date that's year to date since September yeah since uh July 1 since ju okay get ju dates wrong sometimes um and that's kind of a new
048practice yes so $3.1 million because of a new practice yes of putting our cash to work can can you explain that just a little bit more say so in the past what we did we put our our extra money in the savings account essentially but what we've done this year is to since this fiscal year we've aggressively tried to invest our money but rest assure we're not doubling anything uh risky risky because we have to follow the state law under the Illinois Municipal investment act there things that are permissible that we can invest in such as CDs uh that actually as long as we put less than 20 and $50,000 in it is uh is ensured by Bic we also have investment in government uh agency bonds uh Fanny May Freddy Max uh t uh
049treasury bonds Tre uh treasury bills so those we invest in those so so we're getting 4.2% right now currently in our liquid a shortterm liquid liquid assets yes and then you were chasing basis points by doing a lading type of strategy yes we were and when we didn't need all that money so I'm I'm not trying to you know but so over a six-month period yeah $3.1 million yes sir so this this is I mean that's huge you know I I don't this is this is why we have yes this is new money that wasn't there before so we need to look at the revenue side that's being generated you know because of these new practices and and they're far outweighing anything that we're any investment that we're making but also and that we're able
050to help you know um pay our teachers more and our T more and you know but to never have done this in the past that's what I'm saying it's new right it's new money and and you know rates were lower but not that long ago I mean we could have been getting this you know um so and it could have been at least a million you know but now it's it's going to be like four or5 million you know year thank you for pointing that out so so on the expenditure side one thing I would like to point out if you look at um on the revenue side I'm sorry since we're on Revenue if you see there's a difference uh in the memo that is included there that we actually received 12 $2.5 million
051more in Revenue last year than we did this year and most people may be wondering Federal federal revenue why we got that if you think about it what was different last year about this year yeser last year we had Esser and that 2.5 million was the reimbursement that we received from Esser at this point this year we don't have Esser that's the that's money that is that we're not going to get this year but that was know right right but I just wanted to point out that's the explanation for the areans the $2.5 million difference now on the expenditure side what we've seen so far if you look at it what we project is pretty close to what we're getting there's no big uh surprise now if you look at other objects if you see
052what we actually project and what we actually spend there's a big variance we're projected having to spend about 54% of our of our expenditure in uh other objects we've only spent 49.6 and if you look at the I can show this to you and let you see the cause of that variance is actually a timing issue if you look at um uh budget reports the what I'm looking at here I don't know that number four uh let me see this will be one two yeah number four thank you you can put that so what that is is the timing of a bond payment by this time last year we had PID $30 million in our bond payment we pay the bond payment after we pull this report so that's the difference so it's not like
053we spent a whole lot more last year that we spent this year it was just a timing of the bond payment we have to make the bond payment we paid it earlier last year we paid it after we're going to pay it after this report has been pulled I just wanted to point that out can you just real quick um Define other what other objects those are Bond payments oh they are the bond payments those are the bond payments that I just mention so the other thing I want to talk about talk about the revenue talk about the expenditure is CPI CPI I I put a memo there every month for us to track CPI because CPI drives the amount of money that we get that we can Lev in property taxes so it also
054governs how much we spend for things such as electricity and other things that we spend money on as a district and uh as we're seeing now CPI is actually the CPI is actually gone down a little bit over the last few months but it's then coming back up again what essentially showing that inflation is still sticky it hasn't gone anywhere so if you look at the last 12 months from January of 2024 to January of 2025 uh CPI is actually 3% so it's actually remember if we remember that goal is for us to have CPI to 2% that's the target so it's 3% so we're not out of the words yet as far as inflation is concerned and it impacts Us in how we spend money and the things that we spend money on that's
055why I think it's important that we track that and we keep that uh in our sight those are the things I wanted to point out as the financial is concern the other thing I would like for Mr to talk about peace collection thank you so this is a report that we should kind of get used to seeing um that would be nine yeah the last one yes number nine okay so this is a comparison at the same time last year compared to this year what we've charged versus what we've collected you can see the bottom line is um sign significantly lower in comparison to last year we're at about only 71% collection rate whereas this time last year we had an 85.6% collection rate um you know it we're not really sure why people aren't
056paying their fees but um it is an it is an issue um it's an issue with uh food payment too meals we know why I mean just to be honest because a legislation was passed about 3 years ago that prevented the district from from taking actions to collect fees owed uh to the district by families and I think the word is gotten around and the level of collection is suffered as a result of that and what is important to note is that as we lose this Revenue it has to come from somewhere else from some place else some right that's somewhere else in the budget those Services still have to be provided those bills still have to be paid we just have to find the money from somewhere else again I appreciate more than anything
057um this word is being thrown around a lot transparency and I am incredibly proud of the transparency that you are bringing um from a financial perspective than we that we've ever had and to understand where we what is very hard to understand about school budgeting is it's very cyclical like you said we get paid twice a year but we have bills due every single month so we have to pay them no matter what and so when we don't when when you put a budget together and you put it budget together to say we're going to have3 million or $4 million in fees but we don't collect that you then have to go to the budget and find it from somewhere else because we still have to pay for whatever those fees are for whether they're
058for activity ities or sports or whatever um so I really appreciate the transparency that you are continuing to bring to this two things I wanted to talk first of all were you finished yes we are I'm sorry so the the other document is the the activity funds by school the balance how much was spent last year how much was collected and the balance left by each building that's it um I think regarding Transportation one of our core values in the district is collaboration and I really wonder and I'm just posing this as an idea would it be um feasible to put together a transportation task force and to bring in some people from the community from areas of Industry parents and so forth to really just bring in and talk about the issues when we
059had our bus situation the other day when the buses weren't moving you know it was very interesting for me to see from the community to hear ideas like was did this take place did that take place and is something around you know collectively um letting other people know what's going on but we also have a lot of experts within our community so I think that's something that maybe we could think about or that you know if the administration could think about one of the other things that I don't know that if we've talked about this or when we're going to talk about this or how to bring this up but are we facing some deficits from federal funding with a new political Administration and um obviously I'm on the board for 49 more days but
060who's counting and um I can answer that question straight up yeah and I think we need to have some really hard conversations right now the projections that we have the five-year projection I was actually going to provided today but it was so much on the agenda with the uh strategic plan we didn't want to stay here till 1:00 or 2 o'clock so we decide to to present it uh in March but the projection that we are assumes $9.1 million a year in federal funds which is about 4% of our Revenue wow so in real terms that's about 130 teachers salary so losing that fund will be devastating financially to us as a district so it's not small potato okay go ahead yeah and just want to say I'm glad you put it in terms of
061jobs but um the one thing and please don't take this the wrong way but I know I heard ever and I would disagree and but I think there's a lesson in that piece which is we did have a finance person who was very transparent we lost them um they went to another District he did a great job um also of doing a lot of educating in the community and a lot of what the community knows was due to that to that person and the reason I want to mention this is because listen it's a tight Market you know this I mean it's a tight Market finding good Finance people and so when you get one please Community hold on because um it's it's it's a tight Market uh in a lot of areas right right
062now so um and that's not to you know you're doing a great job and so did he and I remember at the time the discussion on the board was well I don't think we could pay that much I'm like I don't know kind of thinking maybe we should but would have been a good investment but we're we're happy that we have you too be very careful who you're talking about I don't I why what not our most like recent oh no okay no no no I go ahead you guys go ahead no I I I'm just thinking about um you know you're you're very calm and you're very you know matter of fact you know I want to say even casual about these bombs that you're ding sh right and um it's just very disconcerting
063to know that we could be in a situation where we need to come up with $9.1 million um and so my question to you is how are we being proactive um around that possible scenario you want to start we've been we've been working on the the fiscal year 26 budget and we actually are not we're not as far along as we will have been at this time as we were last year because we're looking at different scenarios that we didn't have to consider last year because we knew where the appropriation was last year we knew how much we have to work with and it was easier to budget the fiscal 26 budget is a little more difficult because of the different scenario for starters before the governor presented it his budget uh last week the
064state was uh communicating a $3.16 billion deficit and we didn't know how that will impact ebf and how that will impact mandated categorical funds we have that now we feel pretty sure about what we're going to get from the state but what is not clear is what we're going to get from the federal government and even to some extent the the appropriation that we build the fiscal year 20 five current year Budget on is contingent upon the the federal government coming through between now at the end of the this fiscal year with the money that is promised to us in federal funds so we are we're looking at different scenarios when we present the budget and we present the uh the financial projections about what we looking at but what we know is that if
065we don't get all the money that we assume we're going to get that would be $9 million so we have to find a way to reduce the budget proportionately to be able to operate and that would be a significant significant impact on the on the operation of the district so some of the things we've done is we've we've built a strong connection with our Senators and our legislators at the state level and today uh I was on a call with at least uh 10 other superintendents and so we discussed what are the types of contingencies so I think everybody's think think about it uh there were two senators on House of Representative member and the senator um who are very connected to what's happening um so there's a lot of strong advocacy around a contingency
066so I I just think that that's very important for the community to know that we're not just sitting back and waiting this is an active situation and we are very much connected to understanding how we will weather kind of like uh with the with the covid days how do we weather uh catastrophic situation like this right so number one number two uh we are looking at really what our efficiencies in the system so we're uh mro befi Dr zmy uh members of the senior leadership team Dr K have been working very diligently to review any place and every place that we can really think about efficiencies and and really thinking about how do we you know every year we have natural attrition right we have natural attrition that happens as a result of retirements somebody
067moves out of state somebody decides to go work a place else we have those right so uh fortun unfortunately a lot of times when those happen you automatically a system may replace those right but are there ways that we can move diligently strategically where we're not impacting our schools to address some of that does it get to $9 million I don't think so but does it get to shortening small making it a smaller Gap so we can we can ensure I can assure you that those are are some things that we're looking at the last thing that we're doing is we have to think about the other um more operational expenses um the board will hear from Mr Obi um maybe not next week but the meeting after one about some of the transportation challenges
068we currently essentially if you want to ride a bus in our district for example you ride a bus there's never been a system to validate who gets a ride a bus whether they're within the mile or not so we spent about $1,500 per student ,550 actually per student for students who are out within that mile we are still busing students who are within the mile who may be have access to what would be realistic walking to school we've never vetted that the district has never vetted that when I say we I'm saying over the last 5 to 10 years that's never been vetted so we are actually engaged in the Hazardous streets study to ensure that we are ensuring that every child has safe passage to school whether it's walking or Transportation secondly ensuring that
069you know right now there are places where it's very much like door too a bus stops here there there there there those are natural efficiencies that would save a significant cost around that and so I just those are things that will come and I we've got guest here for the Strategic plan meeting so I want to honor that and this was not necessarily the focus but I will say the board will hear a full thorough review of that in a very soon time Z if I asked my question of course oh great thank you um so the first question is I was looking at the CP CPI piece for that month right and I I know a lot can change right so I'm not going to sit here and ask you to project the next
07011 months but the part that concerns me when I start seeing like a 0.5 yeah in a month is if you project that out you're talking about a 6% CPI which means that means our expenses are going to out outpace what we can possibly bring in for revenues and I think that's an important piece that people need to realize is that um we can't go above five so anything at 0. five should become alarming because 04 all right you're still talking 4 8 if you project that out but anytime it's getting 0.5 or higher that's the piece that should alarm us since we're capped and so I want to make sure that was unless you think I'm wrong no you you're spot on and if you look at the driver of that 0.5 one of
071the key drivers utilities which is a big chunk of our expensers at the district we have to buy electricity we have to buy heating to uh to we have to cool our buildings so that's a big chunk of the of the high end of the CPI so directly impact us and then the last and food is also another part we have to buy food to feed our kids and that's another part that is going up a lot yeah and then the last part is and you don't have to answer this now but I'm I'm sitting here listening to transportation and I'm wondering uh and I think it ties into what you said Dr katti but I'm sitting here thinking about the um options right and I don't know and listen I am not suggesting that
072we should have a referendum but I I I I've heard like is the referendum on the transportation end an option uh could we go electric buses would that be um an option and and listen I'm not saying any of these things other than this is the this is what you hear out there uh and then of course the cutting cutting services right like are is there an opportunity for cutting services and I don't expect you to answer all three of those I kind of think I know what the answers are to all three of those just say that we can't referendum our way out of the cost of Transportation it's not sustainable long term the way we're run it right now a referendum will be a short band-aid and it will come back again so
073we have to right siize it uh the way we do transport what I just explained earlier so the state only reimburses us for three class of kids those who have special uh special with I uh Transportation included in the IP kids who live beyond a mile and a half and students who live in designated hazardous area even with those suspensors they all they've always prated us this year they prating us at 79% next year it's going to be 69% so it gets lower so right off the gate there's a hope even if we did everything right right and in our case we don't even limit transportation to those three categories we provide transportation to everybody so by that very nature we we're in a big hole and the hole gets deeper and the state is
074not really helping us to to fill that home so so what I hear is that it's not necessarily cutting services to those that were obligated but there is a I don't want to say opportunity because that sounds terrible but there is a situation where we could potentially see a cut to services to those that we we just quite frankly can't um service because of what we're bringing in but we're not obligated to either okay I mean thank and the 9.1 million is that title one and Medicaid all federal funds so that will be TI all the title funds idea funds okay and Medicare so and Medicaid and then the other part that we can't even begin to possibly think about but we do also apply for other federal grants we don't know that other federal
075grants are going to be available and what that could also potentially and fortunately we don't include those in projection right because all we include are what we know I'm saying is there's other Revenue out there that we may also not be able to have access to um because the money just or the grants just won't be will be one that comes to mind e rate will be one yeah we normally don't include that in that projection but that's a federal fund and the other one that comes to mind is uh FCC funding for uh for upgrade to technology those are grants that we are nearly a prideful we don't even know that's to your point okay that's available thank you Mr OA very much okay next board I'm want to invite um Mr bell assistant
076superintendent to discuss the students rights and responsibilities handbook um I know you've got some guests with you this evening to also help with this presentation I want to thank all the families and parents and uh community members and staff will really help uh prepare this uh updated version this is a state mandate that we are complying with this evening very nice good evening board even uh I'd like to introduce uh my counterpart here uh Miss Bailey Campbell she's our director of student services for special programs um and uh everything you have in your board packet could not be have could not have been done with without her work she worked tirelessly and diligently to make it uh visibly appealing to put all of the the hard work and content um and take all of the
077changes that it took from all those engagement opportunities um as we kind of go forward so you have a couple of items uh in your uh board packet one of those is hopefully just the summary of changes so that it's brought to you in kind of in a digestible um way um you know members of our student services team include myself Miss Bailey Campbell Miss Michelle Pete our director of special education for uh secondary Michael Johnson our director of special of uh student services um for elementary and then Mike frers our coordinator for School Safety and Security sorry I'm not managing the clicker well um as with everything we do we still um work to do all of our work uh and align that to our foundational practices um and so you can see evidence
078of that uh for from high quality instruction to equity and rifle presence and effective systems and teams throughout this entire document this document is required that we bring to uh you for approval each and every year um and those adjustments that are made as per school code uh listening and learning through collaborative input um this is uh just a snapshot of those engagement opportunities and stakeholders that we've tapped into um to be able to kind of edit and refine this document as it's as it exists um we have met with uh the superintendent's Advisory Group um ssac along with the Coalition board for a student voice component um they were awesome by the way um I give you uh Kudos um our um policy committee um uh we have presented in front of our Board
079of policy committee for feedback um and provided a number of administrative Focus opportunities um and collaborative office hours for them to be able to weigh in on how this it uh how this uh text in this document exists within the schools and how they use it to better serve our kids all right thank you good evening everyone so um essentially when we took a look at this document for this upcoming school year we wanted to kind of keep some of these priorities and focus areas in mind um first off obviously for those of you who have had a chance to peruse this document it is like a 7080 90 I think we've lost count at this point um it's a lot of pages so the goal really was to try to continue to make sure
080that the the meat of this document if you will was student focused integrating both policy as requ ired but also our practice and procedure within the district um this also helps us ensure compliance with our board policy legislative updates and then really just making sure that it is true to what we stand for and what we believe in The District in terms of that culture climate and purposeful language um this year you'll see a lot of changes in order to prioritize the continued focus on rightful presence for a variety of um students in our spaces including diverse Learners and specialized programs which we'll highlight in just a second and then the biggest thing again is just that commitment to ensuring that this document continues to be more and more userfriendly um you'll notice Graphics you'll
081notice QR codes um and even as you kind of walk through our buildings we start to see some of these Pages taken off and put in posters on bulletin boards and in classrooms and and that's really what we want this document to be um is more than just that 90 page manual so here I'm just going to kind of start to highlight some of the changes that are proposed um within the document so our document really is broken into two parts the first part really focuses on policy and then we'll kind of transition into the second part which is more of that handbook if you will so the first part that I want to highlight is section one um you will be hearing shortly from my teammates um about the profile of an sd308 learner
082there's a beautiful graphic that goes along with that that we're going to be embedding within the introduction of our rights and responsibilities so again that it's living there and it's forward facing section two this is really our student rights and student commitment section here we did add a section focused on Safety and Security within the building again really focusing on that policy piece which highlights our school safety drill plan which is the required drills that are um mandated every year the annual review of school safety in terms emergency response plans and then we highlighted our School Safety and Security procedures for both visitors and parents this is a section that um is very common we talk about this often but we wanted it to make sure that lived somewhere section three is Student Records a
083quick um addition to this section included language around parents and Guardians who wanted to put a statement in their students file in the event that they pull their students records and they wanted to dispute something so that was currently missing and we wanted to also make sure that we highlighted that there are ter uh times in which our um our buildings would then not be um they would be exempt from uh polling Student Records our next section section four minimal language changes and then that brings us into section five special education and Health Services so this I highlighted earlier but we just wanted to highlight that we are proposing a title change for this section to really Encompass Health Services special education and special programs so the special program section highlights um a lot of
084our Learners that we wanted to make sure we're represented in this document including our rights for our students who may be pregnant hospitalize and homebound Services multi lingual Learners our Alternative Learning Program in the district which is goal um our homeless and mckin vinto students and also those students who may be involved in the with foster care another thing I want to highlight real quickly about that section is we also relocated and added the suicide and depression awareness and prevention language into that section our team felt very strongly in collaboration with a variety of stakeholders that this really needed to belong in health services and special programs and removed from student Behavior all right that transitions us into the second part of our document which is that student handbook section so here we start off
085with enrollment and attendance so here we just kind of further defined compulsory attendance as defined by the state we also added guided language we're making up missed coursework when we have students who fall into that absent category for valid cause and then we also made sure that we wanted to highlight the incredible work that our buildings are doing in terms of those attendance interventions the next section there was minimal language changes in terms of the bullying harassment racism discriminatory language and hateful acts there was a lot of time and intentionality and focusing on that section section last year so we felt that that was in a really good space for this year our next section student conduct here we added um a number of items in terms of personal belongings just really emphasizing what our
086students are bringing into our classrooms and our spaces student parking privileges and regulations at the high school level cell phone and mobile electronic device procedures at the high school level and again just wanted to highlight that we already had language in there for our elementary and junior high schools and we had a lot of conversation and input from our high school teams and from our students um about what that language looked like in or in order to incorporate that along with our other levels we did include language along our threat around our threat assessment process and then we further Define restraint timeout language as required by code um minimal language changes in the next section which then brings us to section 10 which is the title 9 section here we just wanted to highlight the
087change of title from Title 9 to Title 9 sexual abuse and grooming behaviors because that section really encompasses a lot of information aside from just Title 9 we also wanted to highlight the work that our buildings do around aon's law which is our curriculum that is embedded um in our spaces um in terms of um grooming and safe touches the next section we really just worked closely with transportation to further Define what those expectations look look for for our students that are um utilizing our transportation services moving right along section 11 this is our suspension and expulsion guidelines here we really wanted to focus on adding language around the re-engagement and the returning of students what does that look like and how do we support our students when they return after a period away from
088our schools and then last but not least the code of conduct Athletics and extracurricular activities worked very collaboratively with both of our High School athletic directors reflecting in minimal language changes for that section so I know that was quick and that was a high level overview um so I guess at this point oh one more slide sorry um so our continued Focus um again we just want to make sure I kind of highlighted at the beginning this is like we're committed to the cause um of really just continuing to enhance the usability of this making sure that this document while yes hot heavy and policy is really rooted in our student focus and then just making sure that we continue to be dynamic responsive and adapt to those changes as they come our way and
089what does that look like and how do we best incorporate those to meet our students and our families where they're out now we'll open it for questions I have Dominic I have some if um okay uh page [Music] um just wanted to clarify TBE meaning kind of what the state refers to as TBE not TBE programming it's uh yeah for multilingual number three yeah yeah so so um TBE is kind of dual language TBE there's different things you're just using kind of the grant you know wording or whatever yeah so TBE versus TPI yeah and this is where uh Dr dubio comes in because this is her uh expertise um being able to describe the difference between the two of those and which ones are in English and which ones are in Spanish and how
090that kind of rolls out from a service delivery but we wanted that language in here and that is represented with the transitional bilingual educational programming of which we utilize dual language okay I just wanted to because there's Al you know how that there's a lot of different uh acronyms wherever um page 41 I'm sorry I got to get there too I know I know sorry um any other question Junior go ahead so Junior High um students are not permitted to carry backpacks of any kind same with ele but in high school yes so I just want I'm just a little concerned about um that transition and if they're going to have enough time to be able to go to their lockers and yeah um they're not going be able to carry all those books um
091so has it been kind of tested uh I don't know if I don't know that I can answer the tested question but I I can say that prior to covid this was not a practice uh and that students were not carrying backpacks um at the junior high level did they do something where they shortened that time though too though and then so going into covid right um then we kind of went to utilizing those personal belongings um whether they're backpacks or some other items right and what they can carry um and there was a shortening of some of those passing periods as a result of some of that um Mr Francis uh has worked extensively with those buildings um and the staff to kind of understand um how to use that space um in that
092time um we've talked about how this is going to increase the need for executive functioning skills and some of those soft skills that kids need to use um and need to be taught and need to be reiterated um with how do I organize things how do I get from one place to another what does that look like and so we've talked about kind of rolling um this out um what the communication needs to be how we're going to support those kids how we're going to support the staff and being able to get um this across but we felt that um this uh in in many of our conversations um and supporting staff's asks uh supporting buildings asks um that this uh that uh the number of of bags and things like that in classrooms are
093significant hindrance um to that space um and so that doesn't mean that we're going to eliminate all personal carry items um but those giant backpacks that tend to make their way into the classroom and into aisles and into um all the kinds of spaces um we're going to need to be attended to and if I might uh step in for a moment um Mr Francis will be at the equity learning and Innovation board committee meeting um presenting the interconnectedness of a b bell schedule change with backpacks um and a uh revision to the student support time in conjunction with uh what Mr Bell was just speaking of so more information to come which will then come to the board so preview yes so okay also answering your question about the backpacks I was in Middle
094School not so long ago and it is kind of easy just um putting your backpack in your locker quickly grabbing your stuff and just bringing it to your class because Middle School is relatively smaller than a high school so you're not walking from like point A to point B and it's like it's a super long walk it's Rel your classes are relatively really close to each other and I feel it's a good way to teach time management to the middle schoolers so like if you grab your books you can't just be like walking around talking with your friends like no you got to get to class you got to keep your priorities straight and learn with when you're in school and H H I'm just going to give you the mic I I just want
095to make sure that we're doing the we're doing that support part that's and go ahead and I think that's to the collaborative nature is that we didn't make these decisions in isolation we we really um again you know listen to the buildings and other departments to be able to kind of make sure we're doing this with intentionality I'm I'm I'm also speaking for students and parents right now um sure you know sure and also to add on to Callie's Point um counselors do a really good job of for middle schoolers to have their classes relatively in the same hallway between like first and third hour your classes are not spread apart like very like far apart like sometimes you'll have your class on the first floor and the second floor first period and second period
096for high schools but for middle schools sometimes you'll have all your classes in the same row I know my brother yeah same pod and like it's after lunch now you have on like the first pod so it's not like they do it like a challenging way like you're going to go from the first floor all the way on the left to the second floor all the way to the right like they have it relatively in the same for my experience and for my siblings experience they have in the relatively same area for a majority of your class periods depending on your grade level and definitely in high school those Deans let you know when the bell is about to ring like they are on us so I feel like it'll be easy for the middle
097schoolers to change and uh we have kind of a pretty big change um on page um so we touched on you know this but uh this is a pretty big change so i' kind of like to discuss that a little bit um I don't necessarily have a question um but high school and cell phones I think change is a relative term I think that um our teachers in our classrooms at the high school level have been doing any number of things to try and um remove the distractability of our electronic devices um some of their teachers are uh have pods in the front of the room or um I'm not using the right word word but um pouches shoe organizers shoe organizers you know some of those other things um I don't know if you
098heard Governor priter uh announce kind of recently um about his potential proposition for um what that would look like uh as a Statewide statute um what we did was we looked at uh a number of different uh States that had already adopted this um and our language closely aligns to what potentially would come out of a Statewide ban on cell phones um it still leaves a lot of autonomy for the teacher um to be able to use those uh just screen time I don't want to limit it to cell phones but let's say say screen time um um for for instructional purposes what we want to get away from is the need and the Reliance on our streams um and the distractability that it causes for um everyone in the space um whether that's the
099teacher the student the uh support person um we when we met with uh ssac and the coalition we actually did hey pick up your phone go to your settings look how many times you had pickups you know on a daily basis and it ranged from 74 to I think 270 some um just in terms of pickups and and what that does to your to your kind of mind frame right we've heard from parents we've heard from staff we've heard from legislators um but we also listened to the kids and that they said that this is a useful tool to them um the times in which they're in the hallways or the times in which they're at lunch some of them using it to check College uh to check email for college applications um and to
100be able to kind of stay connected um outside of the school um for the things that they're doing in life um and so we have to figure out a way to to provide that balance and so I wouldn't say that this is change in language I would say we've added Clarity to what is an expectation already that exists within our within our spaces um and and I think you'll see that come out on the state level as well as the national level as it already has thank you Miss Dr moodo did you have a question or no Dominic actually kind of brought to the Forefront one of my questions about characterizing what the change is at the high school so I appreciate that thank you well I want to thank you and your team for
101the the oh sorry so with regarding that cell phones I I mean I personally love it but two things that I want to say um I had a group of uh junior high students at my house last weekend and they were like well what about the teachers that are always on the phone too so um like my son's math teacher talks to her daughter in college throughout the entire math period so I think that needs to be I think we need to model that as well my other question is and something that I shared with um a parent shared with uh Dr katti um and myself and I don't know what other board members but we are a lot of especially elementary teachers are rewarding students with screen time and that almost sends the opposite
102message so there needs to be something done with it and administration to um really talk about the effect of that and what that does so just wanted to bring that up thank you for adding um Ai and chat gbt in there um if we could go to page 30 number six excused absences is the needs at home is that a Illinois code thing and the reason I say that is um I know a handful of kiddos that have to stay home when their younger siblings are sick and I mean it just breaks my heart that they being I mean let's be honest you know it's here or there I'm sure it's not devastating but that does happen and there are families that are in that situation is that our decision or is that an Illinois
103school code thing can you just clarify which number you're looking at excused it's page 30 number six number unexcused absence oh unexcused and it talks about needs at home like I know my neighbor was just home with his little brother who was sick the other day and yep yep absolutely so we utilize those as some examples because within the excused absence that's what's specifically taken from is in terms of what qualifies as valid code however we just want to reiterate that those are absolutely case-by case basis and like conversations that we we often get in student services of hey I have this really unique circumstance can you guys kind of help me problem solve what this looks like so if there's any a situation a situation like that we are available we have a director
104for elementary and secondary and we can help kind of problem solve some of those situations okay excellent and then on page 55 talking about controversial topics this is just a draft obviously but will you make that form that parents can opt out live yes so um Dr Paul and her wonderful team are currently working on updating that form to make sure that it's ready to go um but that was also something that we made sure that we did in terms of going in linking all of those pieces and then eventually taking all of those forms and having an appendix where all of those extra resources in terms of forms that may be submitted um can be quickly found so yes we will absolutely get that to you guys excellent thank you as U Mr Bell
105will tell you that came up in our former um committee that people parents didn't know where to find that so if it's there then they should have no problems thank you for this is a lot of work thank you thank you B hopefully she had something to say I just had a question on page 55 about teaching about controversial issues can you talk briefly about what you mean by a balanced view I'm going to kick that one to Dr Paul in terms of uh talk it says teaching about cont controversial issues um and specifically the language says Where Are You Be informative and present a balanced view policy you know go ahead Dr Paul so um it is exactly what it says uh having a balanced perspective um so we have a we have a
106uh novel text review process as well as a textbook review process um that our novels that are were were proposed for information and today for Action to the board uh went through and this is the consideration that was used when looking at uh the novels that are coming forward for kid Street okay um this is more of a comment but on page seven I really like how when you put additions how you're advocating for more spaces that aren't talked about and and you're creating a space that's very comfortable for other students because we don't talk about we don't talk about how like some students might be homeless or some are pregnant or multilingual I really like how you're creating more of a comfortable space for things to talk about because I feel like mostly in
107education students find it difficult to come to it to come to teachers when that's happening and you adding on to your policy I just I really like it that's all thank you great job I a shamess plug all of you have in front of you kindergarten registration if you're going to turn one you do hand those out to uh your your uh people accordingly but if you're going to um turn five by uh 91 please please please register early register often um we have Kinder quests coming uh 311 no you can't have the microphone um kinder Quest coming 311 so please putting on when sh wipers don't call I thought it was a commentary on my maturity all right we have quite a few special guests this evening uh you all want to come on
108up uh really important Gathering um you guys to stay back there you going to stay there or we Dr conade I want to turn it over to you all right for our presentation wonderful so we are so excited our team is here to share truly share our next chapter so um tonight you'll hear about our journey the connection of our past our present and our future um including really the alignment between interweaving our district Vision our school plans and then also our portrait attributes so we have teams from both our portrait of a learner um uh team and our district leadership team not only presenting but also here in the audience um we will talk tonight about what do do um our priorities look like including how is the voice of our students our staff
109and our community really coming through our plan so with that I'm very excited to turn this over to our executive director of communications to racer kamias hello hello so yes we are super excited so we are going to kick this off in just one second but I want to give you a quick preamble to this video we are ecstatic to share this with you tonight um this work is really a culmination of many weeks of being out in literally like hundreds of classrooms and practices and you know events and things all across our district um you'll see it's it's our kids it's what's every day happening in our classrooms um we often forget when we're sitting around at meetings um all the amazing things that are happening behind the door and really why we're all
110here and so we hope as you watch this video it will set the tone for what the strategic planning Journey has been like and what it's going to be like it's very different we got excited about it when we presented to you about our engagement um but this is really unique in that it truly is a story a reflection of where we've been where we're at to now and where we all want to Aspire to be in the future um together and that's really what sets this process apart is is how we got to where we we are at this point and how we're going to work together moving forward so um I do want to give a quick shout out to my team because a few of them are here this was a ton
111of work to put this video together lots of time following cameras around in lots of schools so without any further Ado we present our our story video to you can we hit one of the lights just to make it a little oh thank you don't hit all of them just yes this is Premier we should just keep stay like oh rewind Pump It Up Turn up the basee [Music] we were the first class to graduate from sgo high school in 1964 with more than a 100 Kids primary kids went to the little white school we were starting to get the growth by then Boulder Hill had just started there was no uh Boulder Hill or Long Beach Schools so those kids were bust here to the swiggle during period of time when all that explosive
112growth kemell County uh was the fastest growing County in the whole country similarities uh with the district probably are the quality of education kids get we got a pretty good grounding here we were at one time a small country school district and now we had people from all over the world speaking 52 different languages at home home the biggest uh I think positive of all this growth has been the expansion of the curriculum and the expansion of the opportunities for kids we wound up having a huge percentage of our staff having Advanced degrees we have better educated teachers give kids better opportunity we find unity and solidarity through those around us now more than ever our differences that put us apart also Define us and bring us together a single entity We Are One constructed
113out of many like a piece of artwork like a painting our class is a single image though it's composed with all shades all brush strokes and all markings but together we create more we achieve more these Impressions form a masterpiece that cannot be replicated even when the brushes have been cleaned and the canvas is left to dry what has been created is something that'll be a permanent part of the past as we walk out of this Auditorium with our painting completed we walk out with another blank one in our hands one meant to portray the actions we will take in the next chapter of Our Lives I'm going to remember that I am capable of overcoming failure that I have potential for greatness that I am incredibly lucky to have gotten these chances to grow
114surrounded by people who love and support me I'm ready to trust try and to fail and to rebuild and to finally succeed but we have our own story now keep telling it but go figure out the next chapter of this [Music] life this is my story this is our story this is my story this this is our story this is my story this is our story this is my story this is our story this is my story and this is our story yay so now you have all the feels right we've set a good a good tone so um I do uh want you to know that we are working currently on having it um a voiceover created fully in Spanish and then we will also have um our Clos captioning available that can be
115translated in other languages so it'll be accessible to everyone so um without anything else I'd like to pass it on to our portrait of a learner team the babies we're going to get one more chair and then we're going to go ahead and get started good evening president similon members of the board superintendent kelti and members of the school Community it is an absolute honor to officially introduce portrait of a learner the portrait of a learner demonstrates our District's vision for our Student Success shaping the skills and experiences that guide them it's a part of our story ensuring each and every student is ready for their next chapter with a strong Foundation I have had the pleasure this year of leading the portrait of a learner task force which includes the collaborative efforts of various
116classroom teachers counselors coordinators reading Specialists building Administration and District administration from every Department tonight I have two members of our task force with me Pete meismer and Sarah Fischer they're going to walk you through our journey and our process thank you so our portrait of a Learner Journey began during the 2023 2024 school year superintendent Advisory Group and School Board Forum participants were asked the following questions how important is it for high school graduates to be prepared to enter a university community college postsecondary technical training such as apprenticeship military or a living wage job how important is it for high school graduates to be prepared for their roles as responsible informed and courteous Global Citizens to explore and understand different perspectives and to participate in society how has the world changed since you were a
117student and how has the changing World impacted students today and what skills and mindsets will be necessary in a rapidly changing and complex world the responses to these questions were compiled into a comprehensive summary through a partnership with innovate K12 our task force work focused on additional analyzing and synthesizing of the data gathered in response to these questions with a strong commitment to continuous feedback and increased engagement from a variety of stakeholders we are able to identify and Define five key attributes that represent the skills and abilities critical to the development of a Learner in School District 308 so as we prepare students for their future here are the five essential attributes uh that we have identified to equip students for their success as engaged communicators and collaborators students will confidently express ideas actively listen
118and work effectively with others to problem solve as Innovative thinkers and problem solvers Learners will be able to tackle challenges with curiosity persistence and creativity by being responsible D digital citizens they will be able to understand and practice e ethical safe and responsible use of Technology by being emotionally aware and responsive students will develop empathy resilience and emotional intelligence to navigate diverse situations and as adaptive lifelong Learners students will Embrace a growth mindset adopt to change and pursue continuous self-improvement so through the work of our task force as a portrait of a learner we wanted to ensure that this framework supports every student and being equipped with the skills and mindset to thrive in an everchanging world thank you so at first glance I think it's important to point out that some people might look
119at this as a simple graphic right but as the evening unfolds you will see more of the connection to our pillars our priorities our three foundational practices as well as the data that guides our decisions to support each and every learner the portrait of a learner framework provides a comprehensive vision for Future Ready Scholars and that is our True North at its core this framework reflects our commitment to holistic student development ensuring each and every scholar is equipped with the skills knowledge and support needed to navigate an Ever Changing world next you'll hear from Principal Smith who will share more about what falls under the umbrella of portrait of a learner all right good evening oh good evening welcome good evening making sure it's working good evening Board of Education members District administration and community
120members uh I'd like to share a little information here regarding our portrait of a learner framework the portrait of a learner framework is a comprehensive visual representation of the key components necessary for student development it highlights the essential elements that contribute to a well-rounded Future Ready learner emphasizing the interconnectedness of academic achievement personal growth and systemic support within our elements of framework at the heart of the framework are foundational practices which act as the backbone for both academic and personal success these practices ensure that students develop strong skills habits and mindsets that prepare them for lifelong learning and adaptability surrounding this Foundation are four critical pillars that support a holistic educational experience for one at the top there is Future Ready this pillar focuses on equipping students with the skills the knowledge and the mindset
121necessary to navigate a rapidly evolving World it includes competencies such as critical thinking problem solving adaptability and technological literacy to ensure students can excel in both careers and personal lives next systems of support recognizing that Student Success is Not solely dependent on academic instruction this pillar emphasizes the importance of resources guidance and interventions support structures may include mentoring programs Counseling Services tutoring or Community Partnerships to address the diverse needs of our students academic well academics and wellness this underscores the balance between rigorous academic achievement and the overall well-being of students it acknowledges that cognitive social emotional and physical health are interconnected and must be nurtured alongside the traditional learning schools that prioritize Wellness create environments where students feel safe supported and are motivated to learn systems Management in order to maintain an effective and sustainable
122educational experience structured processes must be in place this pillar focuses on leadership governance policies and operational efficiencies that ensure schools can provide high quality education while fostering Innovation and responsiveness to student needs at the base of our framework here you'll see core values which serve as guiding principles that reinforce each of these elements these values humanization collaboration dignity courtesy integrity and empathy ensure that student development remains aligned with ethical and educational priorities they help shape the culture of learning environments influencing both curriculum design and daily interactions within the school communities next you will hear from Principal van Kowski who's going to discuss District pillars and priorities good evening so I'm Laura bosski I'm the principal of ASO East High School the teacher and me is kicking in and I want to tell everybody to stand
123up and stretch and stuff because otherwise I feel like I'm going to be Charlie Brown's teacher with so um just real um so I'm happy to be here tonight um I'm excited to talk about the four pillars of work and just kind of the journey that that has been um and really when you look at that and you think about that within our school district strategic plan these all five of these priorities that Sean just talked about are included in these four pillars of work um and they really serve to connect the objectives to you know the necessary time that we're going to need the resources that are needed and everything that's been talked about tonight right ra Raphael uh talking about uh the finance piece um others talking about students rights and responsibilities talking
124about just all of the nuances that we have um so this serves as those foundational pieces um the pillars really are a focus focus on our commitment to enhancing educational opportunities for our students and those outcomes and supporting them through that process so the first pillar is academics and student services student I'm sorry Student Success and it really emphasizes those High academic standards that we have facilitating student achievement through engaging teaching practices um our desire is to have for students to have those experiences the skills and knowledge to be successful in whatever future Endeavor they choose to pursue and so we want them to be set up for Success when they leave as weo East High School when they leave as we go high school we want them to be successful and that takes everything
125that they experience in their entire time um the second pillar is educational access in supportive environment and we need to ensure that every single student who comes through our doors has Equitable access to educational resources to a nurturing trusting environment and we are and I I'm going to say for for people who dedicate their lives to this profession we are passionate in believing that we have to support students emotionally physically nurturing and that that is at the core of who we are and what we do every single day and supporting students um you know and if you look at that pillar one and that pillar two those are the things that we do that we do on a daily basis but then if you look at pillars three and four this is how we want
126to accomplish and be successful in those first two pillars so that third pillar in Partnership and collaboration that is talking about building those strong relationships with families with Community with organizations with uh businesses with stakeholders that connection building those relationships that is vital for our school district's success we are not just this single entity that can just stay in this tiny little box right we have to build those relationships and we have to go out and seek them for our students sake we need to create those opportunities for our fam to be involved that they're welcomed into school spaces um and that's going to help build those relationships to support students um looking for those that collaboration with local community business Partnerships to create those opportunities whether it's the student who wants to be an
127exotic animal vet we have one of those at as weo right now um or we have individuals who are seeking opportunities in trades in engineering whatever it might be that we are finding those connections within the business Community within the greater oo community that students can have those experiences um and then you know um as Raphael was talking earlier that resource allocation um and talking about how we are going to find that efficient Common Sense use of our physical our financial and our human resources so that we can maximize our impact on students and their learning um and that is our goal is we want to be very strategic in how we use that and how we use our resources so that we can support students academically instructionally and emotionally um so you know in
128conclusion these four pillars um are vital to our strategic plan and they are going to guide our efforts in creating that in educational envir environment where students can Thrive I'm going to pass it over to Dr K thank you so as we discussed at our last meeting we really took a deep dive into the data to shape our pillars across each of the five priorities you will see objectives in each of these four pillars so looking at our strategic road map analyzing the curriculum audit looking at both academic data and our social emotional data that we see not only um through our school data but also five Essentials that's where we landed on the four pillars from there then we transition to what is our community which is encompassing our students our staff our families
129what are the priorities and that is what we are about to unveil in terms of our project or our objectives across um all five of our priorities so what I would like to do next is invite um both our Oba uh co-president uh fa scobby and our oesa co-president Lynn waight who are going to do a deeper dive into some of what informed the plan and highlight the connection for us so with that thank you for being here F good evening Lynn just asked me if I was going to sing a song which I am not so you all know recorders can we have a recorder I can bring out my recorder if you would like um I am as said I'm F scobby I teach elementary music at Church Hill and I'm also the
130co-president of OA and um I just wanted to talk a little bit about how um when we were building the Strategic plan we really wanted the plan to reflect um the voice of the community we really wanted all stakeholders in asgo to be a part of building and creating the plan not just being given it at the end so the um the district has worked very hard about engaging voices from as many different places from as many different people to really get the voice of our community to really hear what they're saying um I'm happy and excited to say that uh we've had over 4,000 points of Engagement um we've had a lot of people from staff students families community members they've all participated in a variety of different uh methods they've participated in surveys
131polls there have been town halls and focus groups they've got to meet both virtually and um in person and just take the opportunity to share their expertise their thoughts their experiences here in asgo and we're really excited that the plan is been being created by everyone not just the school employees and kind of explain how everything's connected is when hi I'm Lyn Wade I am um the uh administrative specialist for special ed at ASO high school and like I was introduced oesa um president so our next thing is how we wrapped it all up this is our strategic vision for uh the next three years hopefully um and as you've heard from everyone previously um this is our strategic Vision uh it encompasses um all of our uh points our portraits of a learner their
132attributes our four pillars of work um where we at leading uh to our priorities and then finally with our annual objective so everything is going to be where we can physically see and follow the plan and not just hearsay or you know we think this might work we have definitely visions of um and our priorities will be uh definitely written down with our objectives that we will be reviewing um on an annual basis so it will also become fluid as well as things change we all know nothing stays the same we can't predict everything so that's the beauty of it um with all of our stakeholders and where we're at we have that ability uh to be fluid with the plan as well um and then these were all driven by the foundational practices that
133we have and um I'm excited this connects the Strategic plan from the vision that we started with a while back to the actual work AC the district and our school so very exciting yes I do and next thank you all oh no oh no okay so we are gonna start getting into the meat of it before we jump right in we want to remind you that there's five priorities and four pillars each priority considers all four pillars that you have here these were um kind of discussed in detail already what we want to um show with this slide though is that there isn't a finish line for us this is an ideal State this circle and what you see up here as far as having you know physical and psychological safe environments and trusted relationships
134and um equital distribution of our our resources these types of things we know aren't going to be done come 2028 this is Journey this is the next chapter of our story we aren't going to be um writing the end at the end um but this is really ongoing for us so we just wanted to remind you uh that each of these four pillars are present in each of the priorities for each of the three years so it is very um programmatic in the way that it all kind of flows out and so we are going to kick it off with Priority One Future Ready with Mr Francis thanks Isa uh so when you look at the the three-year plan for being Future Ready this is really grounded in that pace framework uh that Dr Paul
135Ben Owen and I spoke about at the last meeting right the pace framework just again to to refresh for everybody is just postsecondary career expectations so this really Blends right how are we getting kids ready for postsecondary schooling and just postsecondary careers right post postsecondary career expectations really are grounded in three things it's it's career explor ation and development so again finding yourself as a as as a future worker and employer how are you using and leveraging what we're doing as a school district to help you prepare for Life After asigo East and asigo high school and and Pathways and goal in all of our places Eva all of our our our places so it's it's Career College exploration development it's postsecondary education exploration right preparations applying all of that work that is is Led
136through our high schools of getting kids ready for college and then also like I think a really under undervalued but really important financial aid and financial literacy how are we helping our students being financially aware of of how life operates how how they can H use money for their benefit and and stay ahead of the game that way so again it's grounded in that pace framework everything that we're kind of talking about in Future Ready starts with there as as you look right on the the educational access environment again this is what Ben Owen really talked about last week that School links as that platform to better help prepare our staff our counselors to work with our students Jared pluger already is a little familiar with School links we know that game um and we're
137excited to roll that out with with our district when it comes time right and then as this goes like the the layers that we're doing with this is really developing that digital literacy for our students how are they understanding their footprint on electronics how are they understanding you know just their life within social media all of those skills that they need also relating that eventually to AI literacy right again all about this future Focus for our students throughout all of this if I can go to the next slide right this is really the how this is all really rooted in like a cycle of inquiry right right now we're in the planning phase we're going to start implementing as these three years go right over and above what we're doing is is we're going to
138roll this out we're going to assess how it's going and then we're going to reflect do the next cycle of inquiry right how are we continually changing and making this better for our students better for our staff throughout all of this right here are the Partnerships that we're going to do uh there is a lot that will come with this right it's it's more Pathways for uh for college credits for for all of our endorsements that we are doing within that pace framework but again we can't do that without getting some Partnerships from our community how do we get businesses to help our Educators and our students learn this work how do we identify where we are getting time for professional devel development and again bringing in experts to help our staff and and really
139lean on that that expertise that is within our community so all of this is really that three-year plan as far as our priority of being future ready and we are going to turn it over to jadan and IET thank you very much um so I actually am going to be focusing on the what we do um area for our priority systems of support and then Dr dubiel will explain to you all how we intend to accomplish it um and so our goal is to create an environment where students Thrive academically socially and emotionally um we are strengthening our academic Student Success and access to supportive environments through the following action So within academics and Student Success we are integrating rightful presence and behavioral expectations within a scope and sequence of the social emotional learning curriculum
140from EC Early Childhood through 8th grade ensuring students are able to understand what they need within their environment to be successful alongside academics we are establishing clear instructional and SEO Behavior standards for tier one to ensure that all students are receiving Equitable differentiated support at the same time we are aligning tier 2 and tier three interventions across schools to provide consistent academic and behavioral support ensuring no student is overlooked in the following years we will continue the integration and evaluation of of those systems to ensure its Effectiveness and its impact within our next area educational access and supportive environment we are imple implementing a new data dashboard to analyze student needs gu guide decisions and improve school performance by identifying the most effective interventions and enrichments for our students to enhance student support structures we
141are reorganizing student support teams particularly in our junior high schools to be more responsive iive and student centered and through professional learning and Leadership collaboration we are refining our foundational practices that ensure that every student receives the resources that they need in order to succeed and furthermore we are developing Frameworks that explicitly include special education and multilingual Learners reinforcing our commitment to equity and Excellence thank you can I just underscore something right there Dr um well I think one of the most important things that that you may be as your listening board is important that what we've created is really based on where we are today not what we hope we were but really based on what we are where we are today in terms of the types of things we need to to put
142in because they weren't there right so for example a data dashboard those kinds of things that you may think well what so what so a lot of these things are really self homegrown structures and so when you're listening I want you to really tune to that I think it's really important to that many of these things are because we're really starting and when you listen to the feedback from the curriculum audit it really underscores that so I I apologize for interrupting the flow but I just want to underscore that go ahead Dr duel sorry okay um we're going to talk now about how we accomplish these systems of support so we recognize we need a comprehensive professional learning plan that is aligned with our goals and our needs we recognize that we need to embrace
143the highly regarded and evidence-based School leader Paradigm which is a Leadership Model focused on cultural culture learning and systems of collaborative leadership and continuous Improvement we recognize we also need to increase our special education collaboration to ensure that students are present in special education through the collaboration with their general education peers we're working to monitor our staff resource allocations to ensure equable staff plans for schools and departments ensuring alignment with student needs and refining Based on data and best practices we're looking at our financial resources and continue to do so to identify the necessary Financial Resources for new interventions and programs and overall as Dr Kari say is providing that time and that training on the dashboards and the implementation of tier academic and profession Behavior interventions that's all so our next priority area is
144academics and I'm going to be speaking to what we plan on doing uh the first area is curriculum development we will be conducting a comprehensive review of curriculum needs from Early Childhood through High School ensuring Equitable access to Spanish language arts Math Science and English language arts in addition we'll be working on um refining our student centered structures with efforts including restructuring our Junior High electives to better meet student needs and aligned to programming at the high school improve assessments to refine Equitable instructional strategies and instructional resources in addition we'll work on educational access and Equity we'll do a phase review of multilingual special education and gifted education programs in order to enhance Equitable programming and student learning outcomes how we'll accomplish it in academics is we will strengthen our partners and collaboration across grade
145levels and content areas through structured articulation schedules to ensure alignment in curriculum and assessments in addition with resource allocation we will focus on identifying and allocating professional learning time and financial resources to support culturally responsive curriculum in instructional technology and then with technology and assessment we will conduct A needs assessment that will guide our development of an instructional technology plan with measurable goals and stakeholder input up next is assistant super intendent Jeremy B over the next three years we have Focus this pillar um with these objectives in the area of Wellness um what we do is going to be focused and centered around relational responsiveness in tier one tier two and tier three instruction we're going to communicate that practice and have common language as it relates to systematic or systemic responses for emergency and
146preparedness training this also encompasses the district Comm unification planning in terms of educational access and supportive environment we're going to lift those shared definitions of relational responsiveness in that tier one tier 2 and instructional framework we're going to evaluate the use of that common language and we're going to continue training and evaluate those districtwide processes in the event of a need for a campus-wide evacuation how we will accomplish all this we will accomplish this through Labor Management Partnerships and continuing that expansion that work has begun this year um through this entire process as well as with our district leadership team we're going to continue to uh address disparities within our school Improvement planning and examine plans for the physical mental health and financial well-being of all of our uh staff and uh respective uh supports
147and last but not least we're going to uh continue allocation and time and resources around Safety and Security based on our security audit findings and and uh provide essential training um in all of these areas so I'm going to speak to the systems management party I think one of the key area that I'm going to speak to we mentioned earlier before for when we're talking about the finances which is the need to restructure transportation that is an important thing that we need to do as a district and so we are going to uh look at the uh Transportation as we currently have it look for ways to restructure it and make it more efficient so that it can be sustainable uh long term another part of that will be to do a m to continue
148the master facility plan that we've engaged and that will be uh the first year second year will be contining to monitor transportation for efficiency and then we know for example as a district we spend significant money on technology we need to come out with a technology plan to actually create a process of Designing a plan as to how we use technology our Technology support the work that we do as a district and once we've done the uh the technology plan uh assessment then we can start uh coming up with how we can Implement that so the next phase will be in the systems management will be the implementation of the assess assessment of Transportation how do we determine ridership who is eligible to ride on on the bus who should we provide transportation and uh
149we continue to monitor that to make sure that we can continue to afford transportation long term and we know related to this as it relates to Resource allocation is do we have the resources the money necessary for us to continue to do what we need to do as a district and part of what we do is to be smart with the way we budget and what we've started doing last year and we continue to do now and moving forward is to adopt zerob based budgeted whereby we don't roll uh the programs over every year we look at it from the beginning and we look at what do we need this particular year in order to develop a budget and in doing that too we come up with a concept of Roi whatever it is that
150we Implement that we bring in this year we have systems in place to see we get a return on our investment yes as Mr obami mentioned the systems management is really the foundation of our operational efficiencies and Effectiveness so this priority includes not only Transportation operations technology but also human resources in terms of more efficient Recruitment and hiring practices in addition the bridge between our human resources and our finance department um we are also uh looking to implement increased efficiencies in staff attendance and payroll so as as we talk about all five of our priorities our systems management really then connects all of our priorities together so with that uh Teresa will talk about next steps yeah so that's the end of the um overview of our objectives you have them all um in full
151in front of you in a draft booklet that we're working on um what's next is really building the the work plan so we shared with you what the ideal state is at the end of each of those years and and kind of what the to-do list looks like but what needs to happen now behind the scenes is really developing those work plans that will get us to each of those objectives so that's where kind of the rubber hits the road for all of us um then we'll be helping to make this plan really digestible to our community our community was part of authoring this plan uh many of the objectives that you saw represented in the plan were ideas from our students our staff our families um our community we really want to make sure
152that they understand that they're there and in what ways it impacts their experience uh with the district so we will be helping to develop materials for everyone to see and understand how they um fit so we will come away from some of the big uh ideas and some of the the difficult education language that we sometimes lose people in and really make it uh simple we're going to use a web page to kind of keep everybody updated unlike previously where it was just kind of a measurement we're actually going to use use stories and narrative going along with our theme of um our story so we'll be giving you proof points as we go along on this journey of different things that have happened by developing stories and sharing photos and seeing how this plan
153is coming to life across the district also connected as part of our um whole overall theme of keeping all of these things kind of tied together and aligned is our school Improvement plans so those were based on our foundational practices um once the board takes action on this plan in March next steps for the schools will be then to assemble their teams to help build next year's School Improvement plans that again will align with what you just heard in the Strategic plan and then at was as this was mentioned previously this is not going to be um published and done so we are going to be establishing a very clear protocol for revisiting and refining along the way so that this does not become a plan that's unrelatable to our system we really want this
154to be uh representative of of current times and if we need to adjust a little bit in order to be relevant to our stakeholders then that's absolutely what we're going to do so we'll be developing those protocols um for everyone to continually evaluate and improve this plan so it's a single driver to all the work that we are doing so with that we're going to open it up and Heather's going to help us kind of narrate through our question so thank you so much to the team for being here and thank you all for listening thank [Applause] you I have a comment more so than a question um just trying to recognize the incred slide 89 it's slide 89 for me but just to recognize the incredible amount of time effort energy intentionality um and
155engagement that went into creating this and I I just wanted to and I know it's been said and I know you guys understand it uh but I just wanted to say thank you for being committed to the process that it took in order to produce a document that's really the starting point as you just said um but I I believe it it really does go a long way and I appreciate and I've been saying this for three years and I appreciate the thread slide nine I mean I can just if I could hug a slide like that's the slide it just it makes so much sense to me it connects all of the dots the intentionality behind it and any of the questions that I would have had were answered in one slide and so
156I just appreciate um and I'm sure I'll have questions as we implement it because the pr it's one thing to have a plan it's another thing to implement the plan um and of course we have learnings and discoveries as we're attempting to implement and it's so important the practices are as in sometimes the outcomes that we that we get are not consistent with what we what we desired but I just wanted to say thank you I'm still digesting and uh more to come yes Mr Gatewood I really appreciate you mentioning that and that really connects to that first what's next bullet point is we have our district leadership team coming together tomorrow to start not only processing through the feedback for tonight but diving into the work plans which will connect the objectives to the
157metrics so there will be not only deliverables but then also reports to come to this team and to our board to see the progress each year and year over year so that has been something that has been part of the fabric of all the discussions and actually what the team kept wanting to jump to was how are we going to measure but we really had to take the time to build the structure to get to the how and that's what um we hope to bring back at least some year one work plan drafts so you'll see those metrics over the next couple of weeks why we have the timeline we did was because we're really um intentional about the connection between the district and the schools and the schools really wanted to start with their
158school Improvement planning for 2526 in April so hence the timeline that we're on so thank you so much for that that's great that's great talk to I mean I'm G to Echo U Mr gatewood's comments of kudos to the the whole group um and then I'm just dive into a couple questions um one question and maybe the answer is I haven't seen it because there's a lot here and I've read through it a couple of times or maybe the answer is it didn't come up as a didn't surface among when we gathered all our data and that's okay is there anything in this plan that I is it related to sport or activities for students so there is um and maybe you could point me to it yes um so we have a couple of
159different spots in terms of that first um especially connected to some additional opportunities for um our uh special education Learners um yeah in terms of no not necessarily I'm just wondering and then so and yes I should have this please um within our um wellness and then also um within our transportation um so we are as Mr Ali talked about trying to bring some efficiencies to our transportation over the next year or two what also um came from that was the desire to look at some additional after school transportation so um that is part of of the plan so looking at what are some opportunities um in connection with our students needs and then also Transportation okay I'm asking because I um I feel like we hear often from the community about sports and activities
160um and I'm wondering um you know I know we cut Junior High Sports at one point and it was like are we going to bring something back and so I don't know I don't want to put something in a plan just because I mentioned it at a board meeting right I want it to come from the community so if this is not something that surfac from the community in regards to looking at our extracurricular activities and looking at our um you know uh Sports uh and after school programs I don't want to put in there because I'm asking it so my question I guess a followup would be did more than what's in here surface in our data around um extracurricular activities in sports um I'm not asking you to answer that right now I'm
161just asking is that a thing yeah Teresa wants to add something and then I want to add something yeah so um actually one of our online polls was specifically about extracurriculars and the amount of them that we offer and it was actually incredible feedback um explicitly in our focus groups on multiple occasions it was brought up that um both the the offering as well as the accessibility of the offering so um students with uh special needs needs being able to participate in extracurricular activities um language barriers um maybe a def of Hardy hearing student it may not be able to participate in an after school activity because the sponsor may not you know be fluent in sign language and so there was just this desire to really examine what we're already offering and how it's
162accessible to our full student body and one piece of that was the transportation because if students don't have a way to participate in after school activities or Sports because they don't have transportation home afterwards that was another barrier so it was really more about bringing the barriers down for students that don't participate today than it was about a need for for more or new things and in sense and in 2627 if you look at page 17 it talks about continue to enhance school-based programs and activities that provide connection and right rightful presence for all students so this is to your point about the Junior High in the elementary space specifically and then when you look at 28 27 page 14 it's on the on the it's so sorry board do in the board do you
163you have the slide presentation and the booklets yeah so so it's actually good that we're going through this because the nomenclature will help you as you're looking through this so there are years part of the evaluation process we talked about sorry you got it all right yes yes sorry so part of what happened was the team evalu what can we functionally and productively achieve in year one of this plan versus everything has to be achieved in year one of the plan because we understand very realistically and this is where the DLT the district leadership team became very Paramount because together they said okay realistically with the amount of time allotted for professional learning based on current conditions the amount of time the human resources of staff to enact these things what can be actually productively
164achieved in year one two and three and so to your point many many things emerged and then in multiple passes we had to say Okay can this be good done what's what's urgent what comes first what come second if we haven't resolved programs during the school day but yet we're over prioritizing after school but we haven't even addressed internal curricular issues challenges in the school day how can we up to year two to after school not that it's not important which is I think a big distinction it's absolutely important but it had to have a place where it could be what I kept saying what we kept saying to the team was let's not put on paper what we cannot achieve I completely agree and so to that a lot of what we heard from
165Educators like is this going to be another fancy laundry list that's going to sit on a wall they really wanted a plan that could be felt as a result of what we're doing over time versus a plan that has like all the things that are important to everybody but then doesn't achieve much of anything yeah Dr KK do you want to add to that I think you you you know we yeah so I'll just I'll say do you want to add anything to that no it it's definitely prioritization and um there were many many passes uh through um listening to voices both in and out of the school of what needed to foundationally be built and then built upon so as you look through all three years you'll either see planning progression and implementation or
166strengthening so taking on additional things year after year so but we did have to make sure that as we have you know heard about earlier we have some uh connection between not only professional learning as Dr katti mentioned but also budgetary considerations about what is accomplishable so um that's why we looked at a three-year strategic plan knowing that we will see some changes over the three years and really building for the future yeah I appreciate that and I do appreciate the way that the things are written and that it is very um tangible like it's not so overarching that you can say yes we accomplished this um I have another question but I don't want to I'll go to my next question um this is a curriculum thing it's very particular but um in the
167future ready priority in 2627 There's an opportunity to articulate or to overview and articulate on articulated credit and dual credit um I'm wondering if AP is uh Advance placement is particularly left out of that for reason reason and then I'm also wondering I if that you're going to be doing some articulation of curriculum in your other academic priority area and I think it would be important to also I feel like that's late in the game in year three if you're Artic if you're doing some curriculum work um in like math and language like in science and Things Early in the um um strategic plan does that make sense yes so the math work and Dr Paul can also speak to this is just starting the curriculum renewal cycle so um why we placed that um
168in uh year three was really to then have some foundational knowledge and information about our Ela and math to then do comprehensively across all departments right now our dual credit and articulated credit offerings are smattered uh and it's not a consistent overarching plan so we wanted to make sure that we entered the curriculum cycle that was determined priorities or building off the work that's currently being done but then also um looking at uh the Dual credit and yes obviously connected to our AP offerings also um but really what are those College um and pre-ol opportunities for our students Dr Paul is there anything add on um again it's underneath the Future Ready um area um not that it would only stay there in isolation right we're paying attention to everything's interconnected but really wanting to
169create more clear Pathways for students and so when we talk about dual credit opportunities how we can increase that connection to Pathways at 912 um so that's why it's it's here in Futura but everything Dr K Kate said I would Echo there are specific things she's describing why were those delayed and I think if we could speak to that a little bit why why are they not earlier what I'm hearing is that ramp up may be too late so but what is the current state of things as to why that is a little later versus right now like there are some things that you have to hone in like establishing a curriculum advisory Council that was something that we had to really build so please speak to that if you could so we also were
170implementing for the first time at curriculum renewal cycle that Dr K Kade alluded to so um in the academic priority area it kind of alludes to the different stages that the different curricular areas would be in um so we're paying attention to that when you go into that first um part of the cycle you're really doing A needs assessment and that's where we can see what we're currently offering for dual credit and articulated credit um in our K12 system and then be looking to see that as we move forward throughout the cycle what recommendations will we be making for cor selection um to enhance our opportunities for students um but that again we need to do some foundational work first um and then also make a connection to the career Pathways that we want to
171offer for our students um as we continue to build that um throughout our system if any members of the um DLT or here want to jump in for any answering please also come on up just so you know um I just had a thought about um oh the portrait of a learner and and maybe it's here and it's just not ex as explicit as I'm thinking um about it but you know as a a learner I'm I'm I'm wondering if being having a Global Perspective is important um for a student so that they understand the interconnectedness of us all you know whether whether we live in this country or whether we live across the world um as well as just being interconnected like we're not just Islands among among ourselves but that we are all
172interconnected um even as part of you know this community and so I'm just wondering as you know as the portrait of a learner is that in there and I'm just missing it or is it important enough or is it okay if I yeah um so that's a really good question and my answer might answer some other questions that might be existing today was an effort to give a broad view of portrait of a learner what is coming next that you haven't seen is the definitions that go under the five attributes the piece that is um making the process take a little bit longer is we want to get feedback from our Scholars so we've gotten feedback from the community we've gotten feedback from our uh alumni we've gotten feedback from um District level staff and
173some other staff but right now what we did was listen to our building level administrators when they said it's too much going on to do another survey right now and what we want is for when our Scholars interact with these questions and they're really thinking about what they need so we have the perspective of what their parents feel like they need we have the perspective of what district administrators feel like they need building level administrators like we have that perspective but if we're creating a portrait of a learner then the voice of the learner needs to be present as well so that piece is what we are waiting going so we have the information from the community and we take that and we synthesize it along with and comes Bogan we send it to her
174and then she aligns all of the information that we have received since last year and so when we create more questions which comes out from Teresa she sends questions to the teachers and then we synthesize a little bit more and then we begin to create questions in a way that students can understand in a way that they can articulate this is what I need regardless of we're talking about what they need academically socially emotionally psychologically like all of the things and so it's going to be more than just the high schools and the junior high we're also speaking to elementary school students too we won't go down past fourth grade but we do want to have the conversation because we truly do value what they say they need and sometimes that's missing from a lot
175out of the work that we do you have these Roundtable conversations full of adults and you are planning for students without the student voice so that part is coming that has come up from various stakeholders but we still are holding out for that student Voice without overwhelming them because it's so much happening in the buildings and we don't want them to be exhausted from surveys and assessments and all the things because they're still babies and they get tired too and we really really value the data so we want to gather that data and use it to really say this is the voice of all of our stakeholders and how do we use our true north and then develop what is next for them if that makes sense thank you Dr Paul did you want to
176add something or on to that um from the learning Innovation side we eagerly wait to see the findings of the work that Toya has been leading um with her team because we want to use that information to integrate that into our Curriculum maps and scope and sequences that we're creating for our different curricular areas so that it becomes embedded within the classroom experience for students so that doesn't feel like a separate thing that we do um so we still have some work to be uh doing ahead of us and we're excited about future collaboration around this area thanks I was just going to say in a in another District I I don't want to say I was in the trenches but certainly had courtside seats to this and uh it's it's a that's a it's
177kind of difficult to narrow this down and when you're dealing with like a lot of people coming from a lot of different directions with some of those pieces sometimes yeah I think it's good that you bring it up because like there's a lot of I'm sure there's a lot of other attributes if you will that probably were mold over or kind of made a list if you will that was like well wait a minute what about this or that and and I think it's important that those pieces get in there but it's it's it's difficult process when you got to narrow it down to like three four or five it's tough but I think it's good that you bring it up because I I agree with you and I and I think though um um
178what Toya said is that we it can be there are there are many more attributes under there that you just haven't presented to us yet I actually asked Dr Waller that same question I do have a question though what what was the choice in going with portrait of a learner versus portrait of a graduate just stay up there Toya thank you to what's interesting is that we had that convers we've had so many conversations I'll tell you this work has really been invigorating right because we're all passionate about students um the reason the team well part of it is I inherited portrait of a learner portrait of a leader portrait of an educator but I think when you think about future ready every student's path looks different right and that has to be taken into
179consideration because even where they think they're going that could change because you don't know what the journey is going to be so at the end of the day we're thinking about lifelong learning be it if we're talking about problem solving or collaborating or being empathetic or understanding diverse perspectives this is the learning game right and so these are it's it's a life skill it's not just about graduation because postgraduation you still need to be able to do these things so something that came up from character strong certification was like the foundational things that are are necessary and some of the some of the goals that are proximal and some goals that are distal right we won't know for a very long time if you truly are an Engaged learner if you're a collaborator if you're
180a problem solver but we have everything in place every step of the way to hopefully ensure that you can demonstrate that right because we can talk about it all day long but you really don't know until you're tested right yeah that's when you know people think they can hold their temperament but get in situation where somebody frustrates you and then you see how someone truly shows up right and so I think it's about The Learning Journey not just the graduation I really love that answer um I'm was hoping to hear that so I want to make a comment and I don't want anybody to feel that it is negative in any way um so I appreciate all the work that has gone into this the thousands of hours hundreds of hours that have gone into
181this but I have a very specific question about is this strategic planning or is this the actual strategic plan because this sounds more like it's planning versus it's a plan if or do I need to elaborate no no no I understand okay so two things one is when you look at what was before there were many many things on that docum in fact what we heard in the why we ended up with the Strategic road map was because there were multiple plans in action and depending on what school you visited yeah what community you were in you heard different things and so the first thing was to really rally the well the first thing was the Strategic road map which was really to identify the major holes that we need to start to address on
182the roadway on the path to a strategic road map right then was to really engage is there a collective vision and really to bring together all the various Educators staff members uh certified non-certified families to say okay when you think about the landscape of how we're going to Pace our resources and our time and our learning what are we going to do first second third how a parent say when are you going to fix this okay well to fix that we've got to fix these three things on the road to getting there right so and so I think um it's it's really tough because there are significant academic areas that within our performance that we need to address but if you haven't built a cohesive plan that addresses how we think about professional learning that
183thinks about how we are providing the appropriate resources um that the district or even principles or teachers have access to relevant rigorous performance data on a regular basis we just this year just started testing our for giving our students Forma of Assessments in Spanish Visa the star is it Star right star program that's the first year so so can you imagine if for we're going to do this in year one but we don't even have the appropriate Benchmark so I think um it's a both a plan and a pathway Dr King K so the strategic planning is really the culmination of the connection between our um portrait to our foundation with our pillars to the priority areas and then the plan are those objectives then supplemented by the action plans those work plans the actual
184like here the task with the measurable outcomes so comprehensively yes this is our strategic planning to connect the Strategic plan is our objectives and our work plans that will accompany I and I just I know this seems very um maybe minutia to some but no it's very helpful thank you someone that has done this a in another school district but also in my professional life a strategic plan has very specific components it always starts with your vision and Mission and I didn't see that um it always starts with establishing accountability and Dr katti and I talked about this um a year ago that this is great but who's responsible for page 12 who's responsible there has to be to to be able to be accountable and responsibility we need to see who is you know
185you'll say oh well that's Dr Paul or that but that's not that's not in the plan so that's something that's very important and then the other thing and our core values those are kind of missing from here too and then the other thing is the idea of a SWAT analysis and I think it's really important especially in the environment that we're in right now that we really do show what those threats are we know that we know the strengths we know the weaknesses we know the opportunities but what are the threats to seeing this happen funding you know uh we know a lot of times when there's a change in or turnover and and so you know so forth so I think that if we're really going to call this a strategic plan we should
186make sure kind of those key components are in there and we are very honest with ourselves about all this is what we want to do but there are definitely challenges and then finally I am hoping um well two things um first someone who is this is a lot of information for someone who is neurode Divergent like myself but will we see can will you guys as you're kind of finalizing do like here's what 2627 looks like and just have a one pager for 2627 a one pager for 27 28 whatever the numbers are I'm 25 26 and so forth so we can just see snapshots versus like the whole thing and then what is the for the board the future board current board what is the Cadence for reviewing with the board where we're at
187the touch bases for where we're at and can we see that in the plan so that we know where that's coming when that's coming and if it's there I'm sorry this is little o overwhelming no this is why there's two meetings and also we we we want to make sure that the the board has full understanding and questions are addressed so there's thank you you know and I and I think for anybody else who listening please send in your questions uh we welcome them um it's been I think a big priority was building a shared plan because many strategic plans are developed uh presented and then they don't do what they are intended to do which has really changed the system um and so that was a big I would say the most important thing
188in this process was to build a shared plan and I think um not I think I know that that was achieved internally um I have seen many many many of plan that have been built created that led with a lot of very clear smart goals we're going to close this Gap we're going to do this we're going to do that and those plans did not realize the goals that they had I am I have very strong belief in what I see in this plan in terms of addressing that pay Cadence and that's one of the things I heard from the board was really how do you change culture and climate in the district and this was achieved um in terms of the internal shifts of what it took to get here was not a Dr
189kti's plan Dr K K's plan this is something that really was a collective effort um do you want to add there were a number of questions that I think I want to at least name I just want to say I agree with you the the difference that I see versus our Invision 308 is 180 degrees so I want to give you massive Kudos and I think the involvement of just everyone has been even down to our committee meetings and we had people that came to our committee meetings that gave feedback I want to give you huge Kudos I'm not meant to pick anything apart no no no I'm not hearing that at all we're at a 30,000 foot View and you guys are so inside of it it's like sports and activities you know and
190and you know it and we're just seeing it we're like yes whoa yes um I want to just thank our those of us who joined this evening this may go a little longer so for our guests who came tonight if you if you want to uh if you have a early start tomorrow I I want to give you permission I know you have early starts tomorrow so uh let's give our our our speakers a big round of applause and our uh student uh board members as well you got class tomorrow or work tomorrow so thank you all um [Applause] yes yes yeah Dr K you want to speak but I would like to address some of your your questions so as Dr Kat mentioned today is is a draft right like we did we wanted
191to come specifically with this stamp as draft because we wanted the feedback from everyone around this table um and that's why we literally are meeting tomorrow uh to start to process through so the pack that was left um at your station that is the start to some of those um kind of tangible things that you had asked and talked where yep there is a page just for pillar one year one so there is focused attention to be able to separate that out um as Teresa also mentioned um and I made sure we came to kind of the what's next slide like what we have is the need for the strong level of detail for the work plan which would include that rasy of who's responsible who's accountable absolutely that is part of the work plan
192which will be an internal document that you know that that's where we're getting the metrics to review now as we kind of go through like the what's next the third one is then the the public facing of how are we going to interact and be able to see what this plan even accomplish so is that the dashboard that Dr Waller referred to or is that something separate it's so the dashboard is really the generator of that data so today launched um the uh vendor review of a new dashboard we had two vendors in today uh Andrea Parker our director of research um and data is leading a team through reviewing different vendors um so our goal is next month is to bring a recommendation similar to uh the process that Dr Paul and her team
193led uh for our College andc read platform so the data dashboard will then give us and um ideally that is one of the elements on the rubric is will it then have public facing that is our goal um is for our data dashboard to then have both internal and external reporting features so so we will be looking for ways that the board what in the vendor review for an information system specifically we've used a particular product till now it's not serving our needs um we are looking for a product that would be able to say okay here's your strategic plan here are the metrics for you know implementing the pace framework evaluate EV and then here is the progress on those related to this particular goal now at the beginning of this conversation one of
194the things that uh Teresa Miss Kam spoke to was that some of these when you look at our long-term goals Wellness uh collaboration I'm just let me pull it up here but efficient impactful supports for student learning that's a vision that's a shared Vision this is not just drawn out of a a packet or hey let's look in some meaningful educational jargon of like what schools should have and you know I've heard many consultants say you could just pull up a strategic plan and replicate it right no this was a hard fought word I mean I sat with parents who said well why does it say Equity oh it shouldn't say Equity it should say this it should say that uh we we feel tested it right so each one of these efficient pathf supports
195for should learn where we will be in three years from now we will still have this because we know the community prioritize it but what the goal goal and the metric behind what that looks like will change in three years because we have identified in year one things that support getting to that resource allocation in year two improvements and if funding changes we're going to have even more difficult conversations so those metrics have to be built together in relation to that but the the you know I know that there's a lot to cover tonight but I I do want to go back to this page which is that's a big win when you think about that shared Vision as a community saying here are are what the community has says is important for our school
196district Full Stop Now within those there's a lot to be unpacked but what it does is it sets the vision for where we're going now comes the even harder work or more deliberate work of saying okay to get there what are we going to do and so what you heard tonight are those breakdowns um another tension that we are working on which will the board will receive at the next meeting was the outward facing language right internal facing language our word facing language layman's terms I think about a school Improvement plan I love I'm going to use the example Wheatland here does they have student friendly language you walk around the wheatlands you're going to see their school Improvement plan they have articulated their school Improvement plan it's student friendly language so students read it
197and they can say oh that's what we're doing this year right that's aw very different than what the teacher School Improvement plan is versus that so those stages will come as part of this living document you heard at the beginning also part of the pressure of what we're trying to get to is establishing some of these key priorities so what we can start to do is then in April and if and if it has to take a little longer it has to take a little longer because we want a good product however we do know that if we want to be able to arrive at something meaningful and purposeful that schools can then because ultimately the school is a nucleus of change not up here the school this is about coordinating our resources to p
198schools so if the goal is to get something meaningful relevant and and purposeful that schools can then react to in terms of building their plans that's a win for the district and but you also couldn't have done it we could have rushed the system that the district could have done in isolation that's come to you in January in order to get to that goal that wasn't as inclusive of the community's voice that our teachers voice so there's this tension and so while it may have not have been as elegant as we would have liked in terms of the time I do think it it its purpose which is to ensure that there was a common vision for our language and what our purpose was where we're going and then to be able to bring something
199to the board and the board's been apprised of many of these things along the way and where there is something that feels like it's missing as you brought up Dr Mario anything like that I think is really important to note and not forget because we want to make sure that the language in terms of where it shows up whether it's in an objective or in the pillars is not in the pillars in the priorities is well articulated so I'm learning the language thank you I think we're all learning and then my my last question I promise is that how does this crosswalk with the curriculum audit and I'm asking that very specifically like I know part of the answer but I also know that the curriculum audit is being much talked about right now and
200so I want to know I know specifically that it was done very intentionally but can you just kind of really synthesize that great question or anybody everybody on the team there's a lot to be said here so please there's a lot to say um but one of the biggest things that we've learned from the audits recommendation is to spend really intentional time planning and that's what we've done this year and being um going slow to go fast um because we really need to take the findings from the audit all the way from you know aligning um practices when it comes to grading to um job descriptions job descriptions resource allocation collaboration um a lot of the things that you see as kind of like our non-negotiables that we're always paying attention to in our strategic
201plan is really a direct correlation to the findings we um have gleaned from the audit thank you so not only the planning but also the audit Drew attention to some more depth of analysis that was needed specifically in special education multilingual and gifted education so Dr dubiel and her teams have started some of that work this year but as you can see reflected in the plan that work needs to continue and then uh recommendations from there so not only the curriculum very specific pieces also you can see in Resource Management the connection to some of our processes for uh HR um but then also programmatically things that we want to address across the system I know that a lot of community members don't always get to [Music] see the like level that the board does
202but to see all the dots connecting is just very powerful and really cool and um I just want to say thank you to everybody um it really shows um that this is really all about students and their success and um the path of getting there is not easy um but to dig in and do this hard work is I hope rewarding for everybody as well um and I'm just so looking forward to the future study slide nine we're gonna get you a t-shirt with slide nine on it there I know I really like domic has a question it could be the back one more dot that we do need to connect that we did start to address in the last round of committee meetings is the state's plan so tonight we've talked about our portrait
203so our student at the center to our school with our foundational practices um of high quality instruction equity and rifle presence and our um our effective systems and teams to our district built on our uh pillars and priorities but then also when we come um on March 17th we'll also be bringing uh Vision 2030 so it's essentially the foundation of our state's strategic plan so we want to make sure say again I said ours is matter so we want to make sure we connect our students to our schools to our uh our district and our state so um we didn't want to bring that on top of all of this we really wanted to focus on our district plan uh but we will be bringing that um on the 17th just to be able to
204see that alignment also Thomas I don't a a question it's more of a an ask or a suggestion um when we have the outward facing just to um be very um explicit you know with special education and multilingual and gifted goals that connect those dots for people um because in in in this document it's not necessarily you know um very obvious um but we do need to make sure that that's communicated well um to the community so in those three areas the focus of this plan right now is in that deep analysis and creating a plan so um we we don't want to jump into action before we've done the the research and and created the plan so absolutely I just wanted to get that out there y um thank you for the feedback yes
205absolutely absolutely okay other thank you very much all right 10.1 action it item approval of two rtu units can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the purchase of the two dalan McQuay rooftop units to replace the failing bro call units in the total amount of $400,000 excluding labor second Miss venmo hi Dr Mario hi Mr Cerone hi Miss similon I Mr Gatewood I Miss Johnson I Mr pler I motion passes 70 action item 10.2 approval of high school English text selection can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the high school English text selection for an initial one-time cost of $7,350 second Mr Cerone hi Dr Mario hi Miss johnon hi Mr ploger hi Miss venth hi Mr Gatewood hi Miss Simon hi motion passes 70 10.3 approval
206of career and college readiness vendor can I have a motion please make a motion to approve School links as the recommended College and Career Readiness vendor platform per the attached quote second Miss Simon hi Miss vmou hi Mr pler hi Dr Mario hi Miss Johnson hi Mr ceron hi Mr Gatewood hi motion passes 70 can I have a motion to adjourn before I do for those at before before I do those at home we got like a dedicated bunch here past 10 o'clock so kudos to everybody out there motion to adjourn favor