001here Mr Gatewood present Miss Johnson uh present Dr Mario present Mr pler present Miss Simon present Miss venth present our student board members poier and Cali Pernell here okay please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stand one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all right good evening everyone Board t tonight we are so proud of our pride Award winner showcased here this evening and all of our dedicated teachers and staff and I want to now invite uh for board recognition we're going to begin with John Francis all right thank you Dr katti tonight the Board of Education acknowledges The Pride winners from Lakewood Creek Fox Chase Hunt Club and Wolf's Crossing Elementary schools
002for the month of November Pride stands for proudly recognizing individuals demonstrating Excellence the Board of Education began this program 9 years a ago to recognize promote and celebrate the many contributions made by teachers and employees across our district thank our generous District Partners Chick-fil-A Culver's imagination Print and Design Learning Center serve bank and the scoop for helping to make this sucessful we would also like to thank all those who nominated individuals for consideration award after your name is called and we share your nomination please come forward to be congratulated by the board and Dr kti and then wait until the rest of the individuals from your school have been called up first off we have Lakewood Creek Elementary School welcome Heather fiser fifth grade teacher Heather Fisher Heather cares for her students Beyond academics ultimately
003fostering what someone called a fun learning community that incorporates everyone's talents her students and fellow teachers alike admire her positivity and passion as a nominator shared she clearly defines students academic goals and let them know that is that that is preparing them for junior high and former students frequently remark I learned that in Mrs Fischer's class congratulations Heather next up we have Jennifer Maloney first grade teacher work to create a class students of all backgrounds and abilities makes her truly deserving of the pride award as shared her nomin she understands her students unique needs and strives to provide an engaging learning experience for all of them one parent said Mrs Maloney Advocates tirelessly for the best interest of her students takes immense pride in her work and displays personal and professional Integrity congratulations and finally
004from Lakewood Creek we have Nikki teer [Applause] assistant Mi is an eager helper always willing to serve her students and fellow staff members in her valued role as a teacher assistant she cares deeply about the wellbeing of each student and as her nominator shared Nikki goes out of her way every day to make sure that every student at Lakewood Creek feels special Creek would not be the same without her congratulations [Applause] Nikki let's give one more round of applause to our pride winners from Lakewood Creek Elementary School [Applause] at this time we invite any building administrators and District admin who are not present to come who are present to come forward and join the awardees the board and Dr kti [Applause] all right our next Spotlight is Fox Chase Elementary School first of all we
005have Jim Nichols fifth grade teacher [Applause] little known fact Jim has worked in this district for over 30 years and in that time he has left a profound impact on the lives of students families and staff members he is kind compassionate and leads by example always sharing valuable life lessons that positively shape his students academic experiences as shared by a nominator each year he teaches the whole child he makes sure that he not only teaches their minds but that he teaches their their hearts [Applause] congratulations next up we have third grade teacher Jamie [Applause] Wayne jimie has taught at Fox Chase since its opening in 2001 through the years she has worked to promote kindness and friendship among her students and has dedicated personal time to serve on a number of committees at Fox Chase
006Jim's teaching style acknowledges the district's diverse Community her nominator shared that her Des deposition and respectful communication with all students affirms the dedication to make asigo Community Unit School District 308 one of the best places to educate children and raise a family congratulations Jamie and finally we have Eugenia dasta teachers's assistant [Applause] Eugenia approaches her role with compassion making her a vital part of the Fox Chase Elementary School's special education department as highlighted by her nominator she perfectly balances supporting students while pushing them to be the best that they can be congratulations Eugenia at this time we will invite up some building admin for some pictures the principal andp [Applause] [Music] all right thank [Applause] you next up we have Hunt Club Elementary School first of all Melissa DeVito social worker Melissa is always smiling
007while working to provide resources to the Hunt Club Community she is a great supporter of students and staff alike Melissa leads the community outreach team thus ensuring she can help families in need a nominator shared Melissa gives everything she has to her students she looks for ways to support and help her students find success daily congratulations Melissa next up Heather mayor first grade [Applause] teacher Heather goes above and beyond to communicate with the parents of her student students allowing them to see all the Hands-On activities she incorporates in her classroom to promote a love for learning as one parents shared we feel so lucky to have her as our son's first grade teacher this year and it's only October congratulations Heather and lastly from Hunt Club Stephanie Zigman secretary Stephanie can always be seen as
008a friendly face at Hunt Club always smiling and willing to help as a secretary she greets students staff and parents while also working behind the scenes to ensure everything runs smoothly during the school day as one nominator stated she is extremely organized and has an incredibly hard work ethic she is thorough a problem solver and goes out of her way to support everyone congratulations Stephanie [Applause] and at this time if we can have the building administr coming up for some pictures [Applause] our final building we are recognizing tonight is Wolf's Crossing Elementary School first of all we have Stephanie Kus first grade [Applause] teacher Stephanie is positive in the midst of challenges always handling everything with Grace she works hard to make sure her students know they are loved and cared for as a nominator
009shared she is truly a role model for any educator congratulations Stephanie our next staff member is Nita meta teacher assistant NE sorry ne ne cares for her students stud and fellow staff members consistently checking in with her colleagues to see how she can support them her n her nominator said she brings out the best in our students and is always willing to lend a helping hand congratulations and the final teacher from wolves Crossing was not able to make it tonight due to some family emergencies but we want to recognize Aaron Jenkins kindergarten teacher Aaron is a one-of-a-kind teacher making her an excellent candidate to receive a pride award her nominator shared she cares about each of her students and strives to meet their unique needs as a team met member said Aon frequently has former
010students reaching out to her to let her know the impact she has made on their educational and personal Journey her current students light up each morning as they are greeted by Mrs jains congratulations Aaron and if we have Administration coming up for a picture all right one Final Round of Applause as we recognize and celebrate these members honores please proceed out into the hallway gathering at the Landing the stairs for one large group photo thank you to all the families and colleagues who are here tonight to support our winners good [Applause] was son heard and seen I didn't look it over okay all right board uh we will continue with our agenda this evening and uh before we go further let's we're going to take a minute to recognize um our board members you know
011that Friday was board member appreciation day and uh we are so grateful for the work done by our community let's give the board a big round of applause I'd like to invite you to front for a picture I'm just kidding just did that um but in all sincerity really um we are so grateful for your service your leadership and your courage um as you serve on this board um and we really think about the work that's been done over the last uh tenure that I've been here um really my own personal from personal level your your questions your your push your guidance your leadership and I'm so honored to be able to part partner with you and to serve under this board um your contributions enable us to strengthen our school Community our leadership think
012about our resources that we allocate and evaluate our opportunities for growth we as a community on behalf of our staff and students we could not be more proud of the work that you lead us in and the work we've done together in service to our community and our students on behalf again of our staff and students we want to thank you board president lutan similton board vice president Eugene Gatewood board secretary Jared ploger board members Dominic Sheron board member Jennifer Johnson board member Dr Amy Muro and board member Mary Joe wouth we also want to thank our student board members hope rier and Kali Parnell and um our Alternatives who are there to support um your work really makes a difference and we are so proud to serve under the board's leadership thank you thank
013you you notice yes all right we'll move to um 5.1 public comment so on behalf of the Board of Education I would like to thank you for attending tonight's meeting we value the feedback we receive from our members of the public and encourage everyone to take an active interest in their Public School System members of the public interested in speaking to the Board of Education this evening are asked to have completed a comment card and presented it to the secretary to the board when the secretary calls your name I ask that you come to the microphone and state your name for the public record and provide your feedback please note that comments are limited to five minutes per person and that no discussion of person Personnel matters stating staff names or respond to your questions
014are permitted the board does not participate in discussion during public comment followup to your questions or concerns will be addressed by Administration through the contact information provided on the comment card thank you Lauren shoe maker green green green Green anything hello my name is Lauren Shoemaker and I have a daughter at Thompson and twin Sons at Old poost I'm here to make a statement regarding student use of smartphones during school hours in our district our current policy states that in grades K through 8 cell phones are not to be used by students during school hours unless authorized by a teacher or administrator which on paper sounds appropriate however with my oldest recently entering Middle School I have learned that a cell phone can be carried around by students and used during free time in class
015passing periods and phones have even been offered as a student reward for high school there is no current policy in effect in regards to cell phone usage I am here today to advocate for a policy that strictly enforces phone- free schools for all of District 308 I have brought a gift for each of the board members today I don't know if any of you are familiar it is called the anxious Generation by Jonathan height this book discusses the harmful effects of smartphones for students who have one but also for students who don't let's start with students who who have smartphones students who engage with smartphones regularly suffer from many harmful effects including sleep deprivation so social deprivation attention fragmentation and addiction I understand the board cannot control the Sleep habit habits of students but we
016can decrease the three other harms associated with smartphone usage let's start with social deprivation the author reports that the time that the time students spend with friends having face-to-face interactions has dramatically decreased since 2009 he goes on to state that even when adolescents are within a few feet of their friends their smart smartphone damages the quality of their time together smartphones grab our attention so powerfully that if they merely vibrate in our pockets for a tenth of a second many of us will interrupt a face-to-face convers conversation just in case the phone is bringing us an important update when students are allowed to have continuous access to their phones the time they have to develop interpersonal skills with their peers such as building relationships problem solving conflict resolution active listening collaboration and teamwork is impeded
017another harmful effect of smartphones is attention fragmentation in this book the author refers to a study that was conducted with college students in this study students went to a lab and were assigned to either leave their phone out in the entry room of the lab keep their phone with them in in a bag or in their pocket or put their phone on their desk next to them the students were then asked to complete tasks that tested their fluence fluid intelligence and working memory I'm sure it is no surprise that the students who performed best were the ones who left their phones in another room the worst performers were the group of students who whose phones were left on their desks lastly smartphones create device addiction throughout the book the author gives multiple examples of ways
018in which apps have been developed with the intention of creating a device addiction however the most alarming information that I came across while reading this book is that many app companies and social media platforms hired scientists to study the brain of adolesence the goal was to Target parts of their underdeveloped brains to get them addicted to smartphone apps and social media Platforms in other words these companies are intentionally using a child's underdeveloped brain against them to get them addicted to their products as a result of these harms we have seen a dramatic increase in anxiety depression lonely loneliness and isolation among teens but not just for students with smartphones these mental health conditions have also increased in students without smartphones phones are an experienc blocker they block experience opportunities for students with and without phones
019the students without phones also engage in less face-to-face peer interactions which again impedes the development of all those essential interpersonal skills like with smartphone users social social deprivation for students without phones has also led to an increase in anxiety depression isolation and loneliness so what can we do to get our students child childhoods back that include more play more face to face interactions more connection among peers and less mental health conditions Jonathan height offers four ways in which we can give our children a healthier childhood they are no smartphones until High School no social media before 16 more Independence play and responsibility in the real world and phonefree schools for all I can do the first three mentioned on my own however I need your help with the last important piece I am asking the
020school board to please take immediate action in implementing a phonefree school policy in our district I also urge the district to en force zero tolerance with phone usage during school hours that is followed up with real consequences I know that with phone free schools we can decrease the harmful effects of smartphones that have led to the epidemic of mental health illnesses in children that we see all too frequently today thank you for your time thank you thank you I was waiting for my gift sorry uh good evening board we're going to continue with uh 6.1 we have an update regarding the 2024 Illinois school report card I'm going to invite Dr K to speak to that and then I'll have a few comments on the end thank you Dr K so before Dr K begins
021to speak um I'd like to have a motion to move agenda item 6.2 um as the first presentation can I have a motion to move agenda item 6.2 to 6.1 make a motion to move agenda item 6.2 to 6.1 second miss similon I miss venoth hi Mr pler hi Dr Mario hi Miss Johnson hi Mr Cerone hi Mr Gatewood hi motion passes 70 this is the other presentations thank you um this evening what I would like to do is provide a summary of our summi of uh report card so including our Summit of designations and our school report card um we did a lengthy um presentation at the equity learning and Innovation uh board committee report um meeting and during that report uh we will also get some additional information the focus of our presentation
022tonight is really connected to the school report card uh data linked to our Summit of designation so all data presented tonight including uh both our overall and our subgroup data is publicly available um on our district website so as our schools are as our schools are uh digging into their individual data what we will be looking at this evening is our overall District data so our Summit of designations uh every school at the end of the school year is awarded a designation there are four different possible designations that our schools can can receive Elementary and Junior High are categorized as 75% academic indicators with a majority 50% of their score coming from Ela or math growth as measured by the I and then 7.5 for both Ela or math proficiency based on the state standard
023there 25% of the Student Success indicator is based on chronic absenteeism and our climate survey which our dist utilizes the five Essentials the high school is also 75% academic indicators and 25 5% Student Success but a majority of the high school determination is based on graduation rates with fouryear five-year and six-year impacting their overall score um with four-year counting as 60% of their Summit of designation as part of that 50% 30% for 5 year and 10% for six year Ela and math proficiency um in school year 24 is measured for our 11th graders on the sat with their proficiency at 7.5 um and then the additional for our Student Success indicator is our ninth grade on track so in terms of the schools we had one school woles crossing um that received a summative designation
024of exemplary we had um this is the second year in a row that woles Crossing has received um exemplary summi of designation our all five of our Junior highs both of our high schools were commendable as were um Boulder Hill Church Hill Grand Park Homestead Hunt Club Lakewood Creek pre Point South Bing the wheatlands um we also would like to celebrate Boulder Hill because in school year 23 they received a sum a targeted summi of designation and in 24 they received a commendable designation Fox Chase Old Post and Long Beach all are uh received a targeted designation um and in order to be classified as targeted their overall um performance was um not in the top 10% but did not fall in the bottom 5% but one of their subgroups did fall into that bottom
0255% so for this coming year both Fox Chase and Old Post will enter a planning year so similar to Boulder Hill and Long Beach last year they will have the opportunity to really work with their staff throughout the school year to develop a supplemental um School Improvement plan to really help support our children with disabilities so both Fox Chase and old poost the subgroup that um qualified them as a targeted Summit of designation was children with disabilities which includes both 504 and IEP Boulder and long breach do continue into their year one implementation um we did present and was approved for their uh supplemental School Improvement plan this last summer so they have already implemented um additional supports for children with disabilities this year so in terms of overall our school Improvement data um we
026did see a slight decrease in our enrollment um from 16797 to 16696 from school year 23 to 24 we had slight changes uh to our demographic subgroups in terms of some celebrations we did see growth in our I for ELA in terms of overall so these are students in grades 3 through 8 going from 41.3% meets and exceeds to 45% meets and exceeds in which we were also above the state average um overall for our district as measured by IR in ela we also if you um take a look at the data we did see increases from school year 23 to 24 in I for ELA in all of our subgroups for math for I we did see a slight increase from 31.5 to 32.2 um percent we were also above the state average um
027we did see some increases um but we also did see a slight decrease in one of our subgroups so over all um as I mentioned we did see an increase from 41.3 meets and exceeds so these are our students that scored a four or five on the I um from 2023 to 45% in 2024 and overall we did see growth in both our meats and our exceeds for I math we did see a slight increase in meets and exceeds overall from 31.5 to 32.2 for sat for ELA we did see a slight decrease in our students um we also saw um some decreases between um some of our subgroups and then an increase in one of our subgroups we were above the state average for um Ela overall for our high schools our math also
028saw a decrease from 30.2 to 25.4 and we did see again some increase some decrease um in our subgroup so overall um this data has been uh shared and discussed uh with the high schools um Dr Paul and Dr dubiel with their teams are also working um with our high schools in relations to this data some additional data that we wanted to share with you um related to our summi of designation is our growth data um from 23 to 24 um we did see a slight decrease um in our overall growth in both Ela and math but we did see uh less decrease in our growth data in math as compared to ELA so what we also saw though um increase was our um Isa and our El exit rate so um we did increase
029from 7.7 as our exit rate to 8.3 and we were above the state average um for our exit rate for our students um in our El population um as measured by the access test so just some uh again some summaries we saw an overall increase increase in I Proficiency in both Ela and math but we did see a decrease in student growth student growth has measured in this case from 23 to 24 in comparison to like peers um our El learner um student exit percentage did increase from 7.7 to 8.3 so in terms of our high schools um we did see an increase in our graduation rate our four-year graduation rate in 2023 was 94% and that did rise to 95.5 um and we were above the state average in terms of our gr graduation
030rate for overall and for all of our subgroups in terms of our ninth grade on track which is part of our Summit of designation in order to be considered on track you need to have five credits by the end of second semester and not have failed more than one semester of a core class so English math social studies or science so we did see an increase um from 92.1 to 92.5 from 23 to 24 um and we were very close in one subgroup but um above the state average in every other subgroup in terms of of our last um data point in related to our Summit designation is our chronic absent we did see a decrease which is what we want um in our chronic absente rate our chronic absente rate was 22.9 in 2023
031and then in 2024 was 20.9 um and we um in terms of in comparison to the state average we did have some groups below the state average which is what we want and some groups um um above the state average so these are the um State data points that our buildings and our district do look at in relationship to our suive designations any questions any questions board there's a lot to digest there um one of the things that Dr conc as you heard at the public forum has been leading is our strategic planning process and so this data is becoming will be a part of how we think about what we've learned through the curriculum audit what we've learned through really the partnership we're building with our union leaders our union leaders um and our
032various committees that are really brought about by the union and the district to really think about how we organize ourselves to really ensure that our foundation is strong and in a few minutes you're going to hear a follow-up presentation um from our Innovation learning Innovation team marting engagement and diverse learner team about how we are going to be thinking about these scores as well I just had a couple comments because um I'm in the equity teaching and learning committee so we had an opportunity to also view this uh in that committee as well and just a couple I guess public comments the public kind of digests uh some of this information um one my takeaways are like there's room for a growth and there's Al also some celebrations right and I know that there some
033work already going on and then that there's more work uh to come um I also want to iterate that this is not these are not the only data points that we use to determine if our students are achieving um you know especially this um you know standardized tests they're a moment in time they take them one day at school that's their score you know and that's not always it's a snapshot in time it's not necessarily the full picture of their their achievement uh but it's good to add to the mix and then the last thing I'll say is that sometimes in um the public you'll you'll hear people say well our scores are at this rate in let's say Florida 80% of students are you know achieving at whatever rate um so just to reiterate
034every state is different so in Florida and Ohio and California we're all using completely different tests to um provide us information about the achievement of our stud students um so it's really not a great comparison I think what is a great comparison that we include in here is the state average so that we can see how we're doing in comparison with others um in our surrounding areas in our state who are taking the same exam so just some points of clarification there as this becomes you know publicly digested very good point yeah okay all right thank you board um I'm sorry oh please I was caught in my thought for oh I apologize um kind of in parallel to this but not regarding necessarily the state report card but in the in the future can
035we please look at what is going on with our K through 8 new Ela curriculum and what the trends we're seeing there um I already know this is being looked at with Mrs man with the different Junior highs I want to bring up two things um that have come out of both the Forum but also as I've talked to parents throughout the district because I wasn't sure if this was just something that a specific junior high was going through but I've now heard from parents at every Junior High that we're seeing um some assessment uh Trends with our new Al two things one of the things that came out of the Forum was and I actually have an email from an Ela teacher that said that we shouldn't focus on grades I think we need
036to be incredibly careful when we talk about that and when we say that to both parents and students because it does have a direct correlation to whether students can play sports if they are not achieving you know academically but secondly it also when a recently um the students underwent an Ela assessment and a good portion of them did not do well it happens to be 55% of their grade but don't worry because grades don't matter so I think there's a lot of um of communication uh messaging that needs to be adjusted there and one of my favorite books that I talk about all the time of C Street data and when we are looking at grading for equity and it specifically says allowing redus and retakes any student should be able to retake a major
037assessment for a full Mo grade as long as they are coming to school and putting in effort this this tax to the culture of revision and Redemption that discusses in the book earlier so I just want to make sure that there's more a district review of um how we're communicating to parents and students and grades that matter or don't matter and then ju oppose that to you're taking an assessment it's worth a significant portion of your grade you don't get to retake it and the response to that being well um the specific response being we are increasing our rigor and standards alignment okay that's that's true but when a new curriculum is introduced the students that receive that new curriculum for the first year shouldn't pay the price of lack of professional development lack of
038understanding of teaching of that new curriculum and so forth so for the future um if we could if the board could see um just how we're doing with that which I was very excited about that new curriculum um and what the trends we're seeing with assessment data and our assessment data um and so forth it would I think it would be very helpful for us to understand and identify where maybe we need to make some adjustments it's really helpful feedback and I think you you hit on a really important point that actually we've been visiting schools the board members and and um Educators and our district team and one of the trends has been how can we when we think of our strategic planning process think about renewal cycles for our curriculum to have a
039much longer runway in terms of providing teachers the right amount of time to really get the Deep professional learning instead of you know uh processes which are are unfortunately very typical where we you know we adopt the new curriculum and then we go into implementation within two to three months right and so uh that is something that definitely we've heard quite a bit and I appreciate you raising that tonight I I think also the questions you raised about Street data and we think about how we should be uh reflecting on formative assessments really how our students are doing along the way and Summit of Assessments and then what's the coordination the connection that has to the curriculum itself and are we measuring the right things in that pathway so really good points and actually it's
040a great segue into our next president thank you no you you nailed it I was just moved to respond and speak to it so thank you um I want to invite now if we may please if there are other questions we can move this into the next part which is somewhat complementary to what you just said so in 6.2 which is really thinking about our foundational practices and this evening I want to invite Dr Waller Dr dubiel and Dr Paul to speak to it um in our strategic Ro mapap board we identified the need for what we call our foundational practices because what we learned last year as we thought about the work that needed to get done for this year we needed to identify some key priorities which we're really thinking about effective systems
041high quality instruction and then really this idea of a culture of welcome and um inclusivity and presence which we call rightful presence which is connected to our board policy and so I want to invite the three of you to please share some Reflections that uh was first brought to the equity teaching learning committee so thank you the floor is yours thank you to our Tech Team for preparing us and getting us there good evening board mic check che check check okay good there you go you're good um on behalf of the I lead group as a reminder I lead there it's at the bottom um stands for Innovation learner Equity advocacy and diversity the I Le group represents Dr Paul Dr Waller and myself uh tonight we're going to reiterate the criticalness of the foundational
042practices and how we integrate it to lift the academic learning environment two main ideas that we will be discussing in tonight's presentation is defining cultural and relational responsiveness and using what is the iso framework to examine the five essential surveys before we dive in a critical reminder as well to why we're here our foundational practices and how it drives our work um everything that we do is grounded on the shared vision of effective systems and teams high quality instruction equity and right for presence I cannot overstate how often this has become part of who we are as a system um as I turn it over to Dr Paul and she will provide um incredible Insight on the iso framework I'm just going to provide kind of that overview when it comes to supporting students and
043perhaps when students struggle historically and in many different institutions sometimes it is a deficit view when the students are not thriving so we want to look beyond that deficit View and really examine our own instruction how are we differentiating to support the learning for our students look at our curriculum and how it is rigorous and it is aligned to what we want the students to learn check out our environment to ensure that we have an environment that is inclusive where students feel valued and valid in the space and then look at the learner if all of the i c and e is not met through the iso framework thank you Dr duel um as we continue to unpack the iso framework in our system we know it's situated in our mtss academic and social emotional
044learning Equity handbook um we are providing professional development for our leaders and teams this year and understanding how to use this framework when they're analyzing data as Dr dubiel indicated we want to really situate our system to look at tier one instruction how we're differentiating our curriculum our instruction paying attention to the environment of the learner and ultimately this is in response to what our curriculum audit tells us we need to have a better systemized way and common language of vocabulary when we're talking about uh student achievement data to help us unpack the iso framework we're using the five Essentials data that is available to our schools from the previous school year you can see in this graphic here there are different elements we're going to touch on today the first one we're going to
045highlight is is ambitious instruction how this relates to um the iso framework this data here that you see before you gives you an overview of where we're at and the respondents that responded to these questions um in particular one area quality of student discussion for for one of our schools for example is an area they're addressing in their school Improvement plan with high quality instruction the team at that high school is unpacking that data and identifying tier one instructional differentiated practices that they can lift forward in their action plan to make that come alive in addressing this area in addition on this slide you can see some questions at the top of the graphic that are from our learning and Innovation team as well as Equity engagement team as we are lifting forward for our
046leaders questions they can ask their teams when they're engaging in data such as ambitious instruction the trendline data here you can see where we show growth and then where we go slightly down paying attention to this data we're asking questions such as are evidence-based instructional strategies and materials used that take into account specific student concerns utilized questions like this again reflect what the audit indicates in encouraging us as a system to run after evidence-based instructional strategies as we support our Learners the next area of the five Essentials is curriculum in this area we're making a connection to what the five essenes data tells us about collaborative teachers you can see very similar to ambitious instruction the different measures we were looking at and then the respondents Who provided feedback you can see areas where we
047are neutral in areas where we um have areas for growth one thing that we are encouraging our system to do again is to be really reflective of the curriculum that we have in front of our students we want to be reflective and analyze is the curriculum unbiased and representative of the diverse ways students demonstrate knowledge again this is a reflective of what the curriculum audit guides us to do in having Curriculum maps and scope and sequence for every course taught in our system and that is something we are unpacking within the I Department along with other departments this year to be making recommendations not only for our curriculum renewal cycle in the future as well as the work we're going to be doing together with our strategic plan the next area to highlight is supportive
048environment and I'm going to hand it over to Dr Waller thank you Dr Paul um so when we consider the EnV some of those recommendations um Direct Les the dis seeing between our different student groups and truly focusing Dr Waller I'm so sorry do you mind grab the microphone from right there I just don't want what you're saying is important I don't want it to get lost hello hello there we go this one is hot all right um So within the curriculum audit um it it really highlighted how important it was for us to eliminate the disparities that we're seeing between our different student groups and so we understand how impactful um that is to our students learning experience if the environment is not what we need it to be and so when we make
049the connection to the five Essentials um presentation there we notice here when we're looking at student teacher there's neutral areas academic personalism as well as safety is also neutral and then peer support is strong and so how can we leverage and Elevate that in our classroom spaces much of time spent this year um as well as at the end of last year has been this focus on student teacher relationships and so while neutral may not indicate weak it is still an area of opportunity for us and so when you look at the trend data here the performance across all the surveys from 2021 into this space um you see that it is trending down and so we want to make sure that we focus on bringing to the space um culturally and relational uh responsive
050spaces and so in highlighting that um rifle presence pathway number three is cultural and relational responsiveness we recognize that there's a difference between those two areas cultural being making sure there were understanding students lived experiences and embedding that and considering how those factors influen their learning experience whether it's students with disabilities whether it's language um whether it's family background Etc and then when we lean into the relational aspect this is something um I know that our student um ambassadors or board members have also been focused and gone through ssac but really wanted to highlight The Importance of Being physically and psychologically safe in the classroom and how important it is for them to have that so that they can take risks so that they can begin to um have the relationships of trust and respect
051and then attain the knowledge that they're learning in those classes and so we wanted to to make sure tonight that we brought forward some of the work that we have been doing across I lead as well as within other departments um and so when we look at cultural responsiveness we have our English novel renewal that Len I has been focused on although they have recruited and so we have all been collectively reading books so that's been um it's been a nice collaborative space um our SEO curriculum with character strong um students we've gotten a lot of great responses to how they are engaging in those spaces um we are um under the development of our sd308 Curriculum maps again all lni if you have more questions we have Dr Paul here um hmh and Benchmark
052Ela and cultivating genius has been underway for quite some time um but the equity and engagement department has been able to go through with the collaboration of other Educators and include Equity um resources and information and support for teachers as well as highlighting some cultivating genius as aspects I and then additionally we have worked towards increasing our diverse and Multicultural student groups on the relational responsiveness side we have our superintendent student advisory um committee um who has been lifting both of the high school school Improvement plans which is um their goal is one trusted adult and so I know that you'll learn a lot more from them regarding that um we have been developing ways to communicate with our families and with our students based on background and culture just really trying to make sure
053we meet everyone where they are um and then we've been uncovering and leveraging axiology that is about how um different groups value relationships which I know our board members will speak about soon um we have been lifting our superintendent Advisory Group um as well as our parent University and our caregiver cafes and so with that how does this connect with our I framework for environment um these questions like Dr Paul had shared um they come from a document that really helps us to slow down this is the the intent with ISO is to slow down so that we are not blaming the learner so that we are considering the work that we are doing in order to lift and Elevate that learner and so two questions um of several that we have are you know
054do the student and teacher have a connection that supports their success working together to learn and are all aspects of physical and psychological safety considered in the learning environment and so in having those conversations we open the door to learn more about our students and where they're coming from so that we can meet them where they are as we round out this analysis of um five Essentials data and the iso framework we have now um gone to our learner and um you can see the learner touches all parts of the five essential survey and the data that we have here again you can see the respondents um are teachers and where we are neutral in an area for growth as we think about our system and how we can help support our Learners um essentially
055as Dr Waller was indicating with environment is how do students demonstrate positive connections with other students and adults again focusing on relationships and how important that is for community and in the classroom and when we know students have a sense of psychological and physical safety they are all able to feel more successful in an environmental space where they feel um they're supported um one thing to note that when we administered our fall uh Panorama survey we actually used the five Essentials data to create in grade 6 through 12 additional short answer questions because we were left asking more questions as a team learning Innovation equate engagement student services and diverse Learners along with uh students from 612 Coalition we created questions we asked our students to respond to to give us additional St data sets
056around belonging and psychological safety this data along with other data that we've received from the Panorama survey that our buildings have just gotten training on is very useful for us as we analyze our student achievement data as we run after looking um at developing and lifting up the whole child here in 308 it okay so at this time we just want to emphasize again the learner and where isil stands as far as the framework and supporting the holistic child and then see if there are any questions thank you uh very much I want to invite now Bor if you have any questions about this presentation I know you have a copy of the packet um so this evening welcome pres uh questions you may have not a question but just a statement I'm I'm I'm
057so excited because you know can you talk like in the past our systems the ones that existed were kind of like siloed and now we have like Frameworks that are aligned with all everything that that's needed in order for our students to be successful so I'm I'm just so excited um and thank you for the work um of everyone to to make this happen for our students I'm excited to see the results of it right thank you um I just had a statement as well um I think it's really important what you guys are doing because not only is about the Student Success but it's also about the teacher success with the student and creating that relationship so I think it's very important um about how you guys are going about this and involving ssac
058and involving um yourselves into it as well and getting these other opinions from teachers and students to build that relationship because it's also vice versa it's about our Student Success but it's also about the teacher success with the student as well because every teacher wants a successful student and every student wants a teacher that knows what they're doing and enjoys their environment that they're in so I just want to say thank you to you guys as well well set mic drop can you talk I just have a couple of go ahead after you I just have a couple of questions with regard to evidence-based instruction what are the specific criteria that we're using kind of when assessing um whether it be strategies or curriculum or whatever what is the criteria especially for students that are
059at or below grade level I can start off and then I can hand it over to D to do Mel um one two areas that we have talked about a lot uh last year and leading into this year using two websites called what works Clearing House and evidence for Essa um last year in leading the four mtss committees I introduced these websites to our system and encouraged our staff to look at the current interventions we're providing our students in academic andal to see what is the evidence behind it and then to dig actually deeper and to look at what the demographic data tells us about the studies does that match the demographic data of our students and if it doesn't this is not the most appropriate intervention that we're using and we need to go
060back to the drawing board we had a lot of aha moments a lot of like oh no what do we do and I encourage them that once we know more we do more and there's an opportunity as a system to provide some additional piloting of academic andal interventions moving forward because what we recognized is that we have some areas where we need to be tighter to have some Equity across our district as you mentioned teachers teachers need to have consistent professional development around interventions as well as our students need to have a similar experience if they were to go from school to school within the same school year they should have similar opportunities to be provided support within our district so one of the areas I've learned about is quite a number of curricular resources
061that we may be using in diverse Learners either not truly with Fidelity or hasn't gone through some type of Clearing House to ensure that it is evidence-based so so um learning Innovation and diverse Learners have come together several times to comb through all of these resources there were quite a bit um and now we're going through and we're prioritizing which ones we know um that we feel should be a priority and then make sure that they are in fact evidence-based as historically it may have been purchased without really thinking about the value the of the resource and we're just another uncovering that we've encountered I really appreciate that and I also just want to give you kudos for um I I in the past have been a little um hard on past administration around mtss
062because I didn't think we were really utilizing mtss so I want to give you you know definite kudos for that you answered like kind of my next question but with with that um can you tell me Dr dual for our um our not speaking Spanish Families how are we connecting with them it's been a goal of ours for a long time I know that it continues to be you know there continue to be challenges um but where are we with kind of getting through those challenges and what are we doing to help those families so um if we're I'm guessing we're referencing Beek Beek has been amazing we've had several meetings um with them and they they were very honest with their frustrations with the Dual language program particularly at the junior high level and
063so we're working to build their trust and we're working to understand some of the challenges that has come with the lack of quality curriculum so we are actually examined some of those pieces externally we've worked closely with elen and also recognize that we may need something unique with them so just today actually in our meeting we um are considering partnering with someone to help those dual language teachers at the junior high level to build that in working with the parents we have had multiple meetings they feel very strong and very supportive of the Dual language at the elementary level they were concerned about it at the um high at the middle school level and our junior high level and at no fault um of that team it's just what they have inherited and that been
064provided a scope and sequence and quality curriculum app so that's where we are at and working with those teachers to build their capacity so we may be relying on um some external expertise but we're going to get it done and we did I know we did a contract with a company and I'm it's totally going over my head right now yes we did last year and that unfortunately that Consulting contract did not deliver what they had promised so we're going a different direction disappointing um thank you very much for that I'm sorry I just have one more question with regard to our our superintendent Advisory Group um our parent University our caregiver Cafe how are we um maybe Dr katti this is for you or anybody how do we assess the um success of those
065programs um I personally just want to share that I think that those have really started to break through and build trust with parent communities and with um taxpayers that may want to have input um especially in the super superintendent Advisory Group um but how are we how do we make sure we're getting and using those resources to the best of our ability it's a great question so um two things the first thing I think that you've used you've talked about Street data quite a bit so I think uh we think about exis we think about at the end of the meetings we sit with those who are participating what did you know what was your experience what advice do you have um secondly ultimately parent University really we've we're thinking about as across the district
066but really needs to be a situated in a school-based community and so where the direction I'm going to invite Dr Wall to speak to it a little bit where we are looking to strengthen the involvement is to really lean in into our respective School communities so right now we're centering it we're building it up Boulder Hill and plank communities but it's not exclusive but it's it's it's definitely centered in those and so as we think about I guess you could say spawning various experiences I know that some communities or districts do kind of like a huge par parent University for the whole District which is where we're at right now developmentally I really believe we have to move to smaller based places um do you want to add to it Dr wall and then I'll
067close out with another no um you know it it is we've talked about the school-based piece and actually in our um te meeting today we were talking about making these stronger connections even with our um hsos and PT and how we filter through our communication and those spaces because the thing is about parent University is that it really needs to be parent L and so um we've had you know an opportunity to have two and each time we we collect more parents along the way um but to Dr katti's point you know we we need we need to be consistent but we also need to figure out ways to bring more people into the space and so we intend to do that by lifting kids right cuz we know if the kids are there then
068can get the parents to show up so and and if we can get them in the space then there's so many opportunities for them to attain all of these different resources and it's just getting them in those spaces and I think to your point Dr katti I I don't know this just hit me but it was aha moment a lot of times a Boulder Hill Community functions very differently than a wolfes Crossing community so having it be school based feels like you may get get more people to want to join versus but if we don't you can't just you have to build it right so building it from a district level but I really like that idea and I think that will get us to better S success criteria um measuring success of these programs
069if we get it to be more building based and then I just have the last comment which is one of the things and I'm not going to steal any Thunder but the work that the um superintendent student Advisory Group is committee is doing around the one trusted adult is truly I personally feel groundbreaking and really proud with how they are breaking down different um Avenues of data that are coming into them and Sh and determining what trusted means and how it's um defined and how depending on who you're asking you're going to get a different different definition and I'm so excited for the board and the community to see all the work that they're doing thank you okay done okay I just wanted to close by saying thank you I think it was really helpful
070you all did an excellent job of linking the work of the audit uh the curriculum audit and all the other learning and also I know that you're really on the front lines of working with Educators uh through our Union partnership to ensure that those voices are really surfacing um as we think to serve our students so thank you for your attention to those details thank you yes thank you all right we're moving on to 7.1 uh Dr katti if he would give his superintendent report all right good evening everyone uh board and Community I'm so proud again of our pride Award winners who are showcased this evening um and all of our dedicated teachers staff and families who work together in our mission to help our students this past week I was moved to email
071a reflection on our mission um I sent this to the whole community on Friday about our purpose and commitment to focus on what truly matters and to remember that our students our mission is to provide them with the opportuni support and education they need to succeed both our students and staff bring unique backgrounds beliefs and experiences to our community and this diversity in our community all 68 square miles of it is vital to who we are as here in sc308 board policy especially the board policy that was adopted this year regarding rightful presence calls for us to prioritize a posture of learning as a community um board you know this is something I've been thinking about a lot and how learning how we can learn to embrace the opportunities to reflect on challenges that arise
072and missteps even we must hold ourselves accountable and we are committed to doing those to doing that and using them as a valuable Lon lessons to guide and toward guide us towards Improvement and growth the work is really about upholding our core values of empathy dignity humanization Integrity courtesy and collaboration these are not easy but yet these are goals and ideals that we must commit to and call ourselves in there's a phrase that I love is call each other in and not push ourselves away we've got to call ourselves in and not push away because sometimes that estrangement makes things worse so um these principles guide us as we strive to make sure every student can succeed in the best educational experience they can have here in our district where they feel not only successful
073in their academic experiences but where they feel safe and heard and valued and for this for this and many of those reasons we are committed to a particip atory strategic planning process which we introduced at the last public forum and we really also want to make sure that as we're thinking about the allocation of our district funds and resources we are using a master facility planning and the research and the support we have to make thoughtful and really fair and Equitable decisions for our our our resources recently we've received a number of inquiries uh via email and in conversation about private and public Ventures to support District improvements I know the board is extremely receptive to thoughtful projects and opportunities to promote solutions to improving our facility needs our systems unfortunately do not have Limitless
074capacity um so our board and District team are committed to engaging a methodical and coordinated approach to facility and school improvements phase one of our Master facility plan has begun and building evaluations are underway I know we have Mr Queen here who may mention that more importantly we are committed to a collaborative and strategic approach to assure sustained and ever improving results and with that I conclude my remarks this evening board thank you very much 7.2 student board member reports oh yeah I guess we should forgot about this so I guess I don't conclude my remarks because we have so many exciting things happening in this District I want to invite board members to share some of those exciting news that we always take time to uh celebrate and uh to hear multiple voices so
075I turn it over to the board I will start thank you uh congratulations Togo East Jr Katie mom who won first place in the diving at the ihsa swim and diving competition this past weekend I know and Addie Miller also finished second in the AWD somebody got to tell me what that mean because it doesn't mean all will drive AWD 100 breast stroke uh breast stroke so congratulations to K Katie and 0 for their and the whole ASO Co-op swim and dive team great job uh as the son of a veteran who served in the big red W um it was a it's awesome it's awesome here every year right but veter on Veterans Day but Veterans Day was full celebration again this year uh song dedication to men and women who have served our
076country and Inspire students every day my personal favorite is a lot of the schools I know they'll play like the the the song or their you know their um their Anthem if you will for the various branches uh and that's pretty awesome to see as well uh and every school celebrates its own way with thank you letters assemblies guest speakers more um I really applaud the district for what they do to celebrate their veterans and we hope you've had the opportunity to enjoy the video which is linked on our website uh get a sneak peek into so many of the um these memorable celebrations and so um while it's great to honor our veterans on Veterans Day should honor them every day thank you congrats to the ASO East girls cross country team and their
077coaches on their 24th Place finish at the ihsa state finals congratulations also to our All State athletes from OS uh Carson Cooney foot football 8A All State Sydney haym maker volleyball First Team all state Mia yurkovich volleyball second Team all state Ava Flanigan volleyball All State honorable mention congrats to everyone at last month's Illinois art Education Association Association student show that is a mouthful six of our students were named Student Art ambassadors for K12 art curriculum in Illinois congrats Maxa Milano balleros Caitlyn Russell Jenna Allen and Cheyanne Beasley from asigo high school and Shia love and pton lustr from Oe and their Educators and mentors and I apologize if I mispronounced your name we we are always proud to see one of our core values in action in this case we're talking about collaboration um
078a recent story highlighted the ongoing partnership between Wolf's Crossing Elementary and bednark Junior High bed nar's family and consumer science one class Carri carried out lesson plans in three of Wolf's Crossing kindergarten and first grade classrooms um and Dr wampy I hope you have their names and you'll be hiring them and get the appropriate time um this was a fun real life educational experience for all involved check out the full story at our website oh nice congratulations to the three students congratulations to the three students from oehs and 18 students from OS who signed their National letters of intent this month the student athletes will continue their academic and athletic Journeys at the Collegiate level all [Applause] right and last eight students were named semifinalists and one named commended in the 2024 2025 National Merit
079Scholarship Corporation program congratulations to these students for your hard work and academic achievement [Applause] okay now we'll have our student board member reports okay during a coalition a diverse group of students came together to support each other recognizing and valuing the differences each group brings student groups contributed Innovation and fresh ideas environmental groups focus on sustainability and where cultural diversity groups emphasize rightful presence and and respect for different cultures and identities by sharing resources collaborating on projects and celebrating each other's unique contributions we aim to build a strong supportive community Through knowledge and mutual respect additionally we discussed how important relationships are between students and our teachers based on the values through axiology trusting each other each other's well- means showing respect kindness and empathy for example for example honesty helps build trust in relationships
080while kindness can bring others can make others feel valued appreciated empathy allows us to understand and share the feelings of others leading to more supportive and Care caring interactions by practicing these values teens and really anyone can create a positive and meaningful connection with those around them making their Community a better place for everyone we learned of stories within where we come from by koi Gibney young shin and Wilson and how their Journey throughout their lives shaped their identities and impacted how they see the world we were then given Silhouettes created by Miss Sherry Worster that had each of our various identities available so that we could create our own artistic stories this will help cap uh catapult our amplify Event Event where we amplify student voices this year's theme is claiming our space it
081takes place on March 30 March 13th at iGo high school at 5:30 p.m. more details to come cool thank you all thank [Applause] you okay now we'll move on to our board committee report starting with equity and learning and Innovation um at the equity learning and Innovation meeting it was very similar to the items that we saw today so we had a chance to dive into the framework that we presented as well as uh some of um or a lot of the data presented on uh the school report card uh and that work showed up here today okay else okay finance and Facilities all right at the finance facilities uh meeting we discussed student fees and our collection rate um we looked at previous years um as well as year-to date um something that I
082believe you're going to be what okay I was wondering if I was misrepresented um something that's going to be uh uh brought to the board um routinely uh facility rentals um talking about the uh facility rentals fees and what we're bringing in for that um Human Resources update we were wondering kind of why that was being brought to the finance facilities but then it was pretty clear why um they were looking at um ways to um increase revenues through human resources there's some cool projects that that's going on I don't know if you want to talk about it or yeah Dr I was there yeah I'd be happy to um going over your head y uh we shared uh that evening about really focusing in on our staff uh in a three-pronged approach uh in
083terms of their physical health their mental health and their Financial Health and we've laid out a program over over the next uh 6 months to a year uh to achieve that um we talked about uh memberships at at at gyms and rush reimbursements and things like that since 2021 since um the board and Human Resources adopted a rush reimbursement policy Rush uh Hospital a great partner of our has paid out to our own employees $500,000 of uh Revenue uh coming back for simply going to um the doctor um through our affiliate I think that's a huge celebration um in addition to that we talked about um some of our goals around an EBC audit um as you know last year upon the arrival of myself and Mr obafemi we have switched to a um employee
084benefits cooperative and within that Cooperative um we just recently uh completed a audit of dependence at a 98% clip um um it was um to say the least a grueling uh process very similar to going to the dentist uh but necessary um and this should happen in our system about every five years uh to make sure that we have on our insurance role who should be on our insurance role so I appreciate um Everybody uh in particular Glenn Campos uh who is our benefits coordinator and Dr Adam russik for for their support so uh many opportunities for human resources um to connect from the finance perspective as Mr obafemi and I talk about it our human resources are most important resource in our system um they also make up 80% of our budget and so
085we want to make sure that we focus in on the Financial Health our mental health and our physical health of our most important asset which is our teachers uh and our staff so that they can do the great work uh with the kids on a daily basis so thank you yeah and then I remember there was something with uh kind of our health insurance policy where um they have different initiatives and you know depending on how many people are participating in those initiatives that reduces the cost so brings us some Revenue things like that so um it was uh pretty interesting and some big dollars um and then uh we also discussed the health and life safety survey um I think we're going to be going through that so relatively soon so okay and then
086and then policy and legislation um policy and legislation we were able to review several um uh policies uh that will come to the board uh through the pre through press um and that's mostly what we spent our time doing we also chose some as per our what we decided is going to be a practice to highlight uh some legislation or some bills going through the Illinois assembly um and so we could do that now you want to start sure um I found this one interesting SB if I can read because my eyesight SB 30 holy cow 3649 uh which is employee freedom of speech uh just kind of defines a little bit more um parameters behind um workers freedom of speech act um and so um talks about declining or attending or participating in employer
087sponsored meetings or um so forth and um kind of just I I don't want to readed this entire thing but it just kind of goes over the act a little bit more and I think I think it's interesting to kind of ponder and look at when it comes to talk about uh freedom of speech and and in the workplace as well um talks about penalties potentially for the employer so I think that's important to know as well um and um yeah like I said I'm not going to read the whole thing but I I I think there's some changes there that are relevant to us I chose to highlight um Senate bill one which is the creation of the department a depart a department at the state level uh for Early Childhood the department of
088Early Childhood act uh this creates a new state agency that would oversee Early Childhood uh when previously it was kind of overseen and managed by a variety of agencies so um hopeful that this will bring you know um necessary streamlining to Early Childhood Mary Jon did you have one you were going to have now unfortunately I was I have been kind of in and out of being under the weather so I did not pick one for this time all right that's it thank you thank you moving on to 7.4 board member comments any board member comments okay I do um I just want to one of my goals has been to um make the community more aware of us as a whole and who we are and how we're spending their money Etc um and
089so to that end um Mr obafemi and Dr katti they did the presentation I just showed up um and I set up a uh a presentation at the asigo senior center where we they did a presentation on basically where tax dollars are going and and how the School District budget Works um we had a great slot it was right before Bingo um excuse me anyway it was it was I I I I feel that it was well received I it's something that we're going to um do again with a different topic next week um you know they're taxpayers and we're spending their money and they need to know where and they've heard so many stories over the years and when their kids were in school um that um setting them setting them straight I mean
090that in a nice way as to what's happening in the district I think is is pretty key to um maybe getting a little bit more Community involvement so I don't know I thought that went well yeah it was very constructive dialogue and they had a great questions for us and uh about just some of the you know misapprehension or clarifications rafhael Jo and we got a couple of feedback about things that folks have been talking about uh that we needed to know about so we were able to address that so it was it was very fruitful thank you we did not stay for Bingo we did not at least I didn't we had to get back to work anybody else okay 8.1 the consent agenda can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda
091please yes make a motion to approve all items under consent including 8.1 minutes from the Board of Education meeting on October 21st 2024 open close session minutes from the Board of Education workshop on October 28 2024 close session and minutes from the Board of Education Forum on November 4th 2024 open and close sessions 8.2 to acknowledge the foyer requests received by the district and 8.3 to approve the field trips for overnight and or over 200 miles second are there any questions on the consent agenda I do have a couple of questions I reviewed um kind of at length the field trips and I have a question about a couple of them first of all I would like to say uh to the OS band and uh the professional business of America Prof business Professionals of
092America and for the mock trial they all did a great job of filling out their um their permission slips but when we don't have things filled out it makes me very uneasy about approving for the boys bowling there's no permission they're not having permission slips done parent permission slips but for the girls they are they're actually the only one in the group that is not having a parents permission slip so that I just want they check no I think it's good business practice I think it's also a liability so I'm very um I have some questions about that the other thing is is that um whe when they don't fill out where it's funded we definitely have some Equity issues across uh Sports and activities and co-curricular and extracurricular it's very helpful for the board
093to know how this stuff is funded so when they don't fill that stuff out again I'm very uneasy about um approving those things and then for the mack trial mini buses uh Mr Almy where does that cost come for because that's not in part of what their cost is for are we absorbing that as a district the stands right now we are but we are moving to a system where organization will be assessed their share of Transportation that's where we go okay that these are all things that you know when we look at our our finances and understand where money goes and and where we're leaking a lot of money um I think it's really important to especially when um we are using our mini buses which we should and that's what they're for but
094understanding who is absorbing those costs so um I don't want to necessarily take the opportunity away from these kids but I would ask that who is ever in charge of this make sure that those permission slips are filled out um intentionally and so we know um everything so thank you for the feedback so wait so just so we're clear when when this comes before the board we are not approving all of those logistical pieces that that should all be cleared up before it gets to us correct and so whoever is responsible for that before it gets to us those things should be addressed because all we're doing is saying that those trips that are over the what is it the 200 miles is all we're okaye because I know in the past um parents have
095been confused about what this vote is about and sometimes they will come back and say well the board approved it but that's not what we're approving and so when there are issues like what Jen uh Miss Johnson is um bringing up I am I need to be really confident that before they get here that those things are taken care of and you know those kind of issues um we're not because that's not what we're doing here so are is there anything that we need to be to M doc oh sorry anything that we need to be I apologize well is there anything that we need to be like CU I don't want to approve something and all the eyes haven't been dotted and the te's crossed correct I agree I will follow up with a
096person who is responsible for this um on both the B boy bowling of why there was no permission slip and to ensure funding so I appreciate the comments and I will follow follow up directly thank you so much and then sorry did you want to say something Dr katti do you or who is the designate who signs these do you do it after the board is there a there's a process after the board yeah okay thank you really I want you to speak if you need to I'm just curious like I wonder if it and I don't know you'll do your due diligence to find out but I wonder if it's like kind of misunderstanding because I know for when I was a coach like I don't I remember using permission slips but there's stuff
097that they had to fill out at the beginning and I'm curious if maybe that covers it doesn't I'm not going to worry about it you'll figure it out yeah we need to look into the facts to your point and I think uh you you notice something we need to look into it we don't have we we haven't spoken we need to get some facts on the table uh we can come back to the board with clarification and I think I was was looking for the inconsistencies and that was the only of the 10 or so that said we're not going to ask for permission slip so I kind of wanted to understand why but also when we get lacks in our processes and our procedures that's when Things fall through the cracks so if it's
098on us to approve it we just want to make sure all the eyes are dotted and tees are crossed so what are we doing right now as a board are we only voting on a few are some being taken out what I don't want to okay I just want to make sure we're all on the same page and I and I trust that Dr conade will follow up and make sure that those things are done I don't want to take any opportunities away from these students perfect okay all right so then oh go ahead gwood hi Dr Maria hi Miss Johnson hi Mr Cerone hi Miss similon I Mr ploger hi Miss vmou hi motion passes 70 okay uh Mr Obi uh 9.1 financial statements in our investment schedule I think there's a Nuance yes
099we uh we included the financial statement uh up to date in the board package what I wanted to point out is on the revenue page there where I know I'd mentioned that we're doing a more aggressive uh job of investing our money even though we're complying with illino Municipal investment policy one example is uh property tax that we have uh that we received that sits in our Reserve account uh we budgeted 128,000 for the whole year to date just till the end of October we've already exceeded that we've made 505 $55,000 already just from investing more aggressively so we continue to do that and um as far as the other expenses and revenue they're in line with what we spend at this time and uh I wanted to point out again as you saw in
100the investment as you see in the investment schedule we continue to lather and we actually at an investment placement of about two 8.5 million uh last week where some of the reserve that we have instead of just sitting in a savings account we invested it uh with a due date towards the uh the spring period when we need that money in the meantime we were earning we're going to be earning some some return those Investments the last document I want to point out I've been tracking the uh CPI can I ask a question about the before you go so um in your time you've been here or any time that you've observed since you've been here have we ever in invested if so how much have we approximately not exact but how much have we
101um earned in the past versus this past year what I know is when I got here we left our money in the savings account with PMA and uh what we've been doing since is we've been actually placing them uh on a series of investment we do CDs that are ensured backed up by the full fate and cred of the FDIC the US government and we place them in such a way we don't invest money 249 500 so that if anything happen to the financial institution we fully uh reimbursed by the US government we also have been doing agency funds uh agency uh bonds and so what we've been doing we've been putting the money to work we look at since we have a well-developed cash flow and we meet every month with our Municipal advisor
102we lay out the cash flow and we see where we need money and when we don't need we we on average we spend about $18 million a month on payroll for example and we spend another $6 million in operations so when we lay out that cash flow if we don't need all this money that we got now in September that is supposed to last till June instead of just sitting in a savings account what we do we just lad for different times during the year and try to get as much healed in conservative conservative invested instruments as possible so it's safe to say we've earned significantly more in the last year than we have in the past yes we did thank you yeah I was looking looks like you know on the schedule here started
103in early October all the funds come back early February and in that time period it's about $900,000 so that's signant can I ask what what you're looking at the investment schedule there an investment schedule in there so if you look at the subtotals on investment summary document if you look at the board dos as of November 13th is that correct right at the know the date when this was pool we actually have uh $137.2 million cash on hand at that time but I want to point out though that since then we've had payroll on the 15 which is approximately $9 million we've also paid some operational bills related to other bills so it's actually gone down from that but this is a snapshot of a date of of November 13th can I can I back
104up a minute to you had talked about um and I can't I can't remember it was it was property taxes right you we were ahead we were ahead by what $400,000 or uh cppt I I'll talk about that if you don't mind when I go ahead I just want to I just want to emphasize the yeah difference so that was part one yeah so I'm just real quick piggyback that it doesn't surprise I'm just more of a statement it doesn't surprise me I mean don't get me wrong I'm very happy and and and trust me I my head just went down when I heard savings account so thank you like I want to make sure that we give credit I want I don't want the following comment to come off the wrong way because it's
105not aimed at you but it doesn't surprise me though that we're able and ahead of um when we're investing I mean anybody can look this year and if you're talking about your long-term Investments or people who are investing you had a great year um I understand and listen I'm not trying to downplay what people are dealing with and all that stuff when it comes to like inflation and those pieces um but it's a really complicated conversation to have with people and I mean I'm looking at my long-term Investments and I'm I've been happy all year long it's been great um and so uh thank you um because if if we weren't if you didn't invest which I have a feeling that's where people are feeling it probably the most if you didn't invest you probably
106didn't see your portfolio expand and it's it's been crucial we you should always like whenever we can right play it smart but this year has been great he's keeping us short though right because we don't have a whole lot of money right so but I get it I'm not saying you know but my point is the knows that we're not looking at and that's that's my ultimate question I'm I'm sorry go ahead Jared finish I My ultimate question is okay we've got all this extra money what we doing with it what are we doing with it I are we right so the the extra money per se I just want to point out that we 40 about 45% of the revenue that we get comes from property taxes and we get it twice a year
107we get the first installment in uh May June actually the biggest trunk in June the first installment of the PRI year property tax extension and then we get the second installment in September and we have to make it last for uh for 12 months as I pointed out uh previously just payroll alone every two weeks is $18 million and then we have some operational expenses that are not payroll related that are non-personnel light bill gas bill uh supplies that we buy that's another $6 million there so we have to really be careful how we spend that money while at the same time putting it to work I believe last year and the audit is going to be presented on the N we made about $2.5 million just an interest alone from investment last year now
108that less money we wouldn't have had if we hadn't we hadn't invested and if you think in terms of the fact that every two weeks we do 9 million that's a pretty substantial contribution to our bottom line but but to your point Mr Gatewood it's not extra money no no extra money that's the point I was trying to make this is not it's not extra money those are some of the reason why the the actions we've taken to lessen our chances of having to Bor right by just keeping the eyes on the on the till on the expenditure side as well as on the revenue side yeah because before you got here we were using tax anticipation warrants to the tune of about $120,000 for three months I believe it was we were yes that
109was the cost of insurance M the cost of insurance it was $20 million each year so it was $2 million for yeah we've been we were doing that for a long time and that was one of the things we as a board really wanted to get away get away from and so how were you able to make that happen we just we look at our expenses very carefully on the expenditure side which we have more control on on the revenue side we don't have as much control on Revenue because we get Revenue mainly from property taxes and then the last few years since ebf was passed a big chunk we get from uh from the state and once we get now the state is more regular we get about $4.7 million every month from the
110state in ABF the property taxes I mentioned earlier twice a year so what we have to do is we we have to be very careful about what our cash flow need is and plan accordingly and also invest the extra taxes that we get that we don't need at this point instead of it sitting in the account we put it to work to get as much yield as possible but while at the same time selecting conservative investment choices and making sure we comply with the lard Municipal investment uh policy so those are the thing we look at from the expenditure side and also from the revenue side and we manage the money tightly yes thank you um thank you uh next up Mr Bei we have some uh presentations regarding the Recycling and Disposal of electronics
111RFB I want to invite um we've got uh Brent Kyer and Kevin McDonald here if there any questions regarding this uh proposal we'll get it we'll get it yeah this first one is uh just talking about the recycling RFP uh we don't have a formal uh presentation but it is in the memo um we did go through the RFP process for our uh normal recycler uh we had a couple of uh vendors bid on that uh RFP however after the bids were submitted we found that our Uh current vendor that we recycle with uh was more of a value mainly because the items that we recycle uh in real life really have no value they are parted out uh devices that are a h of what they once were uh so our recommendation is to
112go or stay with our current recycling company and just to clarify we're talking about obsolete devices right I'm obsolete devices yes obsolete just to clarify when people hear recycling could be paper could be so these are devices that obsolete they are no longer use for parts but we need to try to uh to get rid of them correct okay any questions board okay all right thank you gentlemen for being here and for your work on this and okay next up next topic is there too yep yep two for one tonight yes uh next topic 9.3 Yep this next topic is talking about the Chromebooks um that we uh have in uh in circulation uh last year at the end of the year it was a there was a decision made to um give out the
113handbooks to the graduation graduating seniors um we think that it was a uh well-received program uh mainly because again uh there's not a whole lot of value um for us to either retain it or um even sell it uh they have at that point uh the devices that we have given out uh have been in circulation for four years um although the devices are still supported by Google uh for updates uh they have become somewhat Antiquated as far as uh new devices for new students so we are recommending that we continue this um program however with the recommendation that we now instead of a handout we want to uh make it more of an incentive and so we are recommending that the seniors that uh do not have fees uh to the district will receive
114their device anybody with current fees uh they will need to turn those devices in okay um with that how do you do you wipe the devices or do you just give them to them is there anything that's on the device that's decommissioned like any software Etc yeah uh the Chromebooks are very easy to manage uh Within our admin console uh when we deprovision them it automatically the next time the device talks to the network wipes the device and it it it's basically an outof box experience for the end user got it I just had a question you made your first statement by saying oh sorry I'm over here uh your first statement was that there's that you feel like there's no really purpose of keeping the device but then the second statement was that you're
115only giving devices to students that do not have fees to the school y so I'm I'm just confused cuz then why would they have to return it if there's no purpose of you guys taking it back we could still use it for parts uh there are still different levels that may have uh it but there isn't a value in trying to sell it in in in and try to recoup costs we may have it for parts or spares um when students may forget their device at uh school we can use those as spares is there any Communications to the parents about the fact that there's an opportunity for their student to have a Chromebook if there are um outstanding fees to pay those fees so that they maybe that's an incentive for them to pay
116their fees yeah uh there hasn't been yet but that is the plan of uh making this recommendation uh that that communication if uh approved uh would go out to the parents and students uh specifically saying that if you pay your fees the seniors get to keep their device um I actually missed this note in here because I I am familiar with them keeping their Chromebooks and stuff and so um I mean I'd be okay with the like doing this this year to see how it goes but I'm really wondering if this will will be an incentive for them to hand in their Chromebooks and are we if I think about students who might have outstanding fees they might have other Financial constraints in their lives at home and a Chromebook might be actually more valuable
117for them to keep it um as they transition out of high school so that they can apply for jobs and things like that um I don't know and but I also understand we need to collect fees I'm not sure that this is the exact way that I would have approached trying to fees from students I can I can answer that so uh are students are eligible for free lunch they don't have to pay the the fee okay the ones who are eligible for reduce they pay a reduced amount okay so this will be folks who didn't belong to either category okay and a dimed based on their financial information has been capable or pay the fees okay that helps thank you it doesn't exclude it doesn't exclude students who are eligible for this so there
118are students who are eligible for this so there's a category can you explain but I also think do we know every student that is capable or not capable there's a reason I get we need to I get it but I want I I'm going to I'm going to probably say this from now until my last board meeting we have a lot of fees in this in this community and or in this school district sorry and I what Amy said I continue to reverberate those students may not know their parents owe fees but if they need a computer for college or for a job or for something I just I find this to be punitive and I don't I I don't care for it as one voice on this board um I think there's plenty of
119other ways to um collect fees and I don't understand I don't feel that this is just the appropriate way to do it or incentivize to do it I am I'm just wondering if it'll be effective like I'm not sure that a fam I I'm not sure that there will be it will initiate people paying their I think to your question so I think what I'm hearing is that there's some questions so one of the questions in here it says it was a positive experience what I'm hearing is a request for some data I think for the next you know this is being brought to the board uh so I was I would say that this is the information and I would encourage the board I'm hearing questions that are about like okay so how does
120this Mr spoke to like if a student qualifies for pre reduced lunch they're not going to be excluded from getting those crowns right so but this is there are there are some gains and Lessons Learned so I what I'm hearing is there some important questions could you make sure that we have some of those in terms of why you described this as a unless you have the data right now but you probably want some time to prepare that uh for the follow-up memo I would say that some of the questions are like why are you describing as a positive experience there's some concern that this may be seen as punitive how does it address that and so this was a pilot that was done last year there's a desire to continue it um what was
121the the data that came through that helped do that so I think these are important questions and I appreciate the board's questions but Dr kot I'm thinking we did do the let's keep our Chromebooks last year but the idea that we are now keeping the recommendation like there's a change for this year that they would not if they hand in their Chrome how am I reading this hold on there is something new here and I'm not sure we have the data that you're referring to like can you speak to that BR yeah the new part is to to try and uh if they if the student slamily still owes fees to the district they need to turn in their Chromebook rather than it just being a handout to those individuals okay and we have no
122data on how many last year paid fees in order to keep their Chromebook I misunderstood that the first time I misunder I think I think the data then would be how many wouldn't have gotten it yeah how many students are we talking about because what what I see an administrative students with you know what Rafael said is not in here about you know students um with free and reduced lunch it just you know says if you owe money right um You would not you could hand in your you need to hand in your Chromebook but then you still owe money right yes right so why would I hand in my well somebody there I guess the idea is somebody would hand over a check instead but if it's I don't know I'm just um but
123I'll let you speak and I guess part of what we're trying to do is I I think about three or four years ago there was legislation passed that made it uh almost very difficult uh to incentivize uh parents to pay fees that their kids owe yeah was there were no there was no longer any leverage yeah so and we've seen a drastic reduction in fee collection we really have and let do we have an idea for example well I guess we wouldn't until we're at the end of senior year right how many people have outstanding fees like how many seniors last year we actually impacted we actually have it's part of our annual financial report that the state ask us for since they passed this law they're trying to see the impact of it on
124our finances so there's a page in the annual financial report that actually ask us for graduating senior how much did they owe the the the last graduating senior so we that is including the AFR for the 2024 that is going to be presented to the board next month so that amount is actually in there and that amount would that that would be that would not include student fees that were owed by students with free and reduced lunch no because because those fees not NE right they don't they don't have to pay I mean the the free the students who are eligible for free lunch they don't pay any fees the Fe the kids who eligible for reduce they'll pay a reduced amount these are oh hi you actually just answered my first one but for
125my second question how last year um the computers wasn't worth that much so you decided to just give them away as computers are going through over the years they keep developing for example last year the computers didn't have a touchcreen but now they do and I see in the future um different things about the computer will will improve so over the years as things are improving and the price of computers will go up will this plan still need to be like ex happening because if we keep giving away free computers as like computer prices go up to like oh $8 to like $10 to $50 would it become just a waste of money handing it out to people who have like the money for or no well when we again when we look at the
126devices uh we look at the value of uh the longevity here at the district so a device that has already four years of wear and tear if you will on it um it it the uh I guess kind of the sequence of what was is going to happen for those devices it's just spares uh for us uh we don't want to provide that to a new student coming in um because now we're also talking about Equity issues got it uh so yes it does have the value will still be relatively low in comparison uh for the original purchase price uh honestly uh the model except for the model um that is not not touchcreen um has all been within the last 3 years have all been within the same approximate price strange M and and
127sometimes they even go lower I would and then just to clarify people families that have free lunch they don't need to pay the fees was that what you guys were talking right they don't pay fees okay and then for people who don't have free lunch but still have fees to pay it would there would there be a plan for where they have to pay it in full or would there be a plan set where they can pay like slowly up to graduation and then when they completely pay the fees then they get the computer we are happy to work out a payment plan it we we flexible we just want to collect the money at the end of the day I had a follow-up question actually thinking about what cie said um uh my question
128was do you have a range well do you have a range for these feed like is it like a $5 fee $500 fee that you're not providing these Chromebooks for because I feel like if a student owes 500 compared to a student who owes like maybe like less money of a fee they should like do you have a range that you're going with when it comes to this fee that's a good point we haven't thought about it and I I'll be very honest with you from my point of view I want all the fees collector every dollar counts every day whatever it takes ladies don't go there withes so I think did you have no that was all I that was the only question that I had cuz I was a little bit confused CU
129you said that there was a positive outcome from last year so like I'm so confused about like changing it up this year but I do understand you know all money counts but that was getting less I think he's trying to be creative in in some incentive program because it wouldn't violate the spirit of the pay to play yeah which is what he's called it used to be you with old service and kid if they owe money the legislation made it so that you know Essentials or you have to give it to them but we don't the district doesn't have an obligation to give a device to someone so we are just extending that as a courtesy and we saying in order to get that courtesy can you pay us what you owe us that's essentially
130what we saying do you gain anything by getting the Chromebook back uh yeah we can use it as uh we can use it as parts to fix uh other devices well it's and it's actually an educational tool I've seen it uh in practice at the high schools so um I think this raises some qu I'm sorry D go ahead um this is for information so I guess some want some more information I would like is how much were uncollected fees for example from last year um I don't need that right now but and if possible like how many students did that represent in the senior classes I don't know of this so so we get a sense of how many people this uh could impact and then if we move forward with this and then
131are there any other ways that we're suggesting trying to collect more fees besides this from our seniors or is this the only have there been other brainstorms around around this um and then if we move forward with this idea I'd like to see what it looks like once we enact it yeah so I Mr I think either tonight or next time I think you can bring in more detail around fees collection period I know that's something that your team has been working very hard to understand and address um I know there are lots of questions about for example act uh Sports fees Rich which uh parents submit but really are really a small are you know they subsidized our overall expense on Sports so I think there's a lot of questions about fees and how
132they're used so that is something we can come back to I know that the scope of this was really to focus on part of it but you're really bringing up a more holistic and how are we think about the whole package of fees and so I think that is something um Mr OB if me if you don't mind and I will consult and either it's at the December because I know we're in the midst of the levy process or in January if you don't mind we can bring it we'll do we'll we'll bring back the additional information requested I'm just the only last thing I'll say is I'm also thinking about the the enact like enacting this process a senior keeps their Chromebook doesn't pay their fees someone's going to go and like take take
133it from them you know what I mean like in the middle of the night you know it's having worked in high schools before during graduation time when you're trying to do these last things um I just want to be you know considerate of that that time period as well but I know we need to collect fees too so I want to be you know cognizant of both you probably get back a lot of broken computers yeah correct um when the seniors are done with it previous to last year we had receiveing back cracks screens yeah Keys missing blah blah blah so in some cases they might I mean I don't you know they might just hand back their computer and be like they could my fees remain they could but I I think also if
134we start this plan uh seniors understand that hey I'm going to take this potentially after four years I'm going to take better care of it too yeah yeah yeah and the original legislation was really about transcripts and report cards and access to grade based information diplomas um when it as Mr OB mentioned it changed a few years ago um so it really was to allow um access to those items specifically the diploma and the transcript yeah I think I'm remembering some Trauma from that when we were try when I worked at high school and we were trying to collect fees and parents wanted access to grade like all this stuff and it was just yeah it was a lot that that is what's not allowed in yeah yeah okay thank you I had one more
135question sorry um do you is the fees the what the fee that you pay in the beginning of the year beginning of the school year a variety of fees is the fee what you is the school fee what you pay in the beginning of the year well it depends by building and by grade but um like based on the classes that you take you could AC crew morphies or if you take different sports or if you sign up for different clubs um there are fees all different kinds of fees there are registration fees class fees um you know don't any kind of D fee oh cuz I was going to ask like you can maybe I don't know if you already have this data collected but between freshman year when a student first receives their
136Chromebook and how they decide to pay among these fees up until their senior year is there like um a reduction of how much they're actually paying every year as they go throughout their grade level or is there an increase in these fines and then figure out where we get that inbalance of students or parents not paying for these fees starting from the freshman year to the senior year so that maybe you can reconsider way another way about collecting your money at at the end of their senior year instead of taking their Chromebook I think what what I like to recommend is and Brent and Kevin if you would invite to meet with our student advisory team and get their feedback and include that in the next presentation and I think a number of other things
137so we want to thank you all for your time and your presentations toight thank you thank you um next we want to invite uh Clayton Holderman and Charlie johnso for update on our health Life Safety survey for our junior high schools welcome so Dr catti i' like to speak of course and I want to lead in with Mr Queen so this is a survey that we're required and mandated by the state to do every 10 years um this is a process that we started last year with our high schools uh District our size we need to run this in three phases did you say we started this last year we started this last year with with both high schools okay um and our first phase so this is our second round phase with the junior
138highs where we walk through the buildings with with clubber and we identified things in a in a priority with uh urgent uh required and recommended um to document all that information and get it down so we can move move through the process of uh completing those tasks and getting those safety concerns taken care of great thank you Charlie okay I'm all done I don't have to say anything more you we're good that was my goal thanks Bill um for the all all of you were here last time to go through this as Bill mentioned this is the um um a three-phase process for your District simply by size um it is a requirement you can go to the next next can you go to the next page thank you um again uh there are um
13922 academic buildings that we surveyed that we will survey when we're done with this process by the end of next summer um actually this time next year because we'll go through the same thing of presenting you the information we have gone through the two high schools last year this year was focused on the U junior high schools um we had five buildings total totaling over nine um that's not right 900 900 uh, not 9 million square feet of building housing over uh 3,700 students the total uh square footage of the of the district we've talked through again as Bill mentioned we have the uh the categorizations uh a b and c priorities as discussed previously with the um facilities team we've migrated all of the the c um elements the recommended elements to District staff
140to look at review because those are recommended not required by the state so bill and his team have those and bill has a plan to uh get those into your uh system to uh become work orders essentially um again our methodology is our we set out teams of people we have engineers and Architects that go out and review everything from the roof to the buildings and grounds to the grounds as well to walk around the buildings and we produce um uh violation schedules and we produced uh safety reference plans which are kept at your buildings and we reproduce what's called a safety reference document and they're all they're all here you this is the safety reference document safety reference plans and then the schedules of violations um uh again we we viewed these items with
141District Personnel walking through kind of highlighting the big ticket items which is what we're going to do for you tonight as well and also identifying those things um that they can accomplish themselves or put on their own to-do list um then we then they then after tonight um next um board meeting you guys will approve these this list of items and then clubber will uh input them into the Ia system and submit them to the regional Office of Education who then reviews that and submits it down to to is to the state and then the state comes back and says yep please continue to get those things done which um is a great thing to talk about in terms of key points um last year as Bill mentioned we did the two high schools and
142um uh the interesting thing about the two high schools is that well that the the uh your staff has been working on some of those items pre previously identified so in this document you'll see a reduction in costs associated with the high schools but then you'll see the additive of the of the junior high schools that are there so some of the high level um overall and for the junior highs there's like 1.4 million between the A and B priorities of work and I'll I'll Identify some of the the high ticket items um most of the items fall in the B priority which I think is important to to Showcase because the a ones as you might remember need to be accomplished in within a year and B ones can be accomplished within uh five
143years um this next slide I sorry I walked through that slide and didn't didn't let you get a chance to read it this is um a graph where we've kind of outlined and I've and I've included the high schools at the top as well as the five junior high schools and one of the items that I added added uh for your benefit Mary Joe is that which which of these high level ticket items which category they fall in so for Bernard there's um a chiller replacement and uh a carpet replacement which are both B categories at this point um and they take up more than half of this big red bar down at the bottom okay and same with these other items at Murphy uh and plank uh asphalt paving as you know uh bill
144is and his team are working through uh School each schools to try to jump on those those are big ticket items between um Asphalt Paving and carpet replacement in a building wide th those those numbers get pretty high this next slide I you might remember from last year this was um the high schools that we showed you and what I the only thing I'm pointing out for you is these are last year's numbers and when we roll into this year you can see those values coming down so when I go to the combined this year with the uh high school and the junior high schools the um I don't know if you can read up there but the uh number at Osgo East High School was in the a priority was like 118,000 so they've
145done some work there as well as many in the B priority as well and for o Wego High School also a reduction there that they these have come come down between these two numbers from last year um you have access to the entire report in in your backup so you can see each uh building's schedule violations and walk through them on your own but if you have any specific questions I'd be happy to answer those Mr Queen anything else you want to have what is the purpose of putting the um expenditure per student that was from uh that's a hangover from years past that we've added that there was an effort at one point to see um um payment across the district that was commens to the students and how many students were in a
146building um it and it it's um also a document that that we had put into the Invision Plan before so that rolls in that the Align to to each other so it's specific to our district these are specific these these enrollment numbers are updated as of this last demographic report we got those uh values from the district well I think you're saying this request is specific to the district right yes yes correct yes I'm yes 100% it's not standard this this particular summary sheet is solely for your benefit it doesn't go to the state in terms of cost per student that's so you're aware of where the the costs are needed um uh so that you can see them by building um thank you Don overing Mr over do you do you have um these
147numbers already um incorporated into our no they the majority of this we cannot pay for out of our operations fund okay so that's the that's the goofy thing about the health and life safety it's one of those some funded man mandate and there's a there's a health reason why it's an unfunded mandate you it's an un unfunded mandate and it's for health and safety reason why the state requires it but the state doesn't provide us any money as out to pay for it and we still have a you know thousand other things as a district that we need to fund so what we try to do we try to as much as possible our uh facility folks do some of the work uh internally and then if it becomes a major issue and we have
148the money we do some of it but we don't have the means to be able to do all of this all at once right yeah so how does this Dr K fit into our comprehensive facilities plan there's going to be an overlap there's going to be an overlap some of this will be things that uh once the facility assessment happens it will be an overlap about things that needs to be to be fixed and then um what when do we start the elementary building we'll start them next summer as soon as your your uh students are out of the building actually clubber prior to that will be planning when our staff could get in there and then as soon as they're out of the building we'll start to make our trips to walk around the
149elementary as well as brok off is in that uh group as well and So based on what we know about your experience with the high schools and Junior High do we have any idea like where we might come in as it relates to the elementaries and the dollar yes unfortunately we do and the and the biggest indicator of what we know is that in years past the district has not been successful in managing the health Life Safety work prior to last year you we could probably say with very high certainty that items that were on your previous list in 2017 will be on there again and I can say for the junior highs that was 100% true for the high schools it was proba probably 85 90% depending on which building so the high schools
150have a larger staff if that's fair that were able to accomplish a lot of these things um before but the bigger um plus and I think this is a big uh kudos to to bill and his staff is that now they're aware because I think a lot of the building level folks weren't even aware of these documents that they kind of stayed at central office and not at building level build building level team has these documents as as as soon as he does and I think that's a plus and the data that I showed related to the high school and the work that they were able to accomplish over this last year speaks to exactly what Mr obami said is now they're actively pursuing completing this work and so the dollar amount you're thinking might
151be um I can get that back to you I don't have at the tip of my tongue because it's it's in the older document that I didn't bring I only brought your newer ones but I can send that forward and let you know give you heads up and he goes up every year as we all know cost of conr is gone up considerably so yeah it goes up every year not only that we have to escalate the costs that were originally put into that document in 2017 to be commens with today's dollars but I will forward that dollar figure to you uh dry and or M when we're done I was think Dr I will get it to thank you that's that would be very helpful yes I think that's the important piece that I
152think I want to make sure people realize that by not fixing these things now they'll only get more expensive in multiple aspects first of all breakdown is like going to be higher and second of all I mean you want some inflation I know that sounds terrible but the alternative to inflation is deflation and you certainly don't want that so the the number the price is just going to go up anyways from that as well the other element is some of those B priorities all of a sudden bubble up to a priorities and become more urgent for the district which you all are familiar with great Mr Queen you had a comment you want to make that's we've just taken a very aggressive approach with getting these jobs completed in a timely manner I got a
153great team I got great staff underneath me and and we've been really reactive to these situations and just trying to stay ahead of them and the last couple of years we've actually appropriated more money to get some of this stuff done what exposure do we have uh from the state level if we give a report back now unless they want to pay to do it the the big asset that the district has is as Mr oemi said you're not asking them for dollars dedicated to this so therefore they're they're less concerned they are concerned but they're less concerned about your Prosecuting of this work the good news again is that the district is taking a proactive approach to prosecuting it versus a reactive thank you thank you very much very much do you think any
154of this I was thinking about letting the students go I yeah you guys can thank you for your contributions today yeah have a great night thank you all right m Mr oemi uh the 2024 tax levy adoption cycle update is the time of the year again when we have to do a levy preparation uh as I always say the levy makes up the the majority of the revenue that the district gets and so it's important that that we do this uh it uh it pays for a lot of the money that we get as a district so Dr can can you share the clicker clicker good evening see you guys thank you thank you now there's uh there's a specific statutory adoption cycle for the levy and uh today we're presenting the uh the levy
155to the board for approval for a resolution and then uh um on the 28th we have the uh publication teed up we'll do a truth and Taxation notice in local newspaper and then uh on the 9th we'll have a public hearing as required by Statute for the uh for the levy and then by law we need to file the levy the last Tuesday of December with the Three Counties where the district live is from now I've gotten a couple of emails already from citizen who saw the uh the post in online and they are questioned and what I to explain to them a levy is just a request it doesn't necessarily mean that's what we get and uh what we actually get is what is called an extension the actual amount that is extended and
156the reason why that is important and I need to to clarify is that the way the law is written is is it's a little weird in that we need to complete the levy and have a file by December last Tuesday in in December except the assessors the assessors in the Three Counties where we Levy from they don't know the equalized value of property is till January so what we have to do we have to make an assumptions and then the assessor would then they'll T up the actual number and they'll come up with a number that is actually the right number so when people see the L they assume that is uh automatically the extension it is not the extension so uh one of the the driving factor of the levy is the CPI and
157it's specific too that is the uh the prior December CPI so with the 2024 Levy the uh CPI uh factor that will be using is the December 2023 CPI that comes that came out in January of 2024 and another important information that goes into calculating the levy is the equalized assessment value eav and what that is is the value of all taxable property in a taxing area and that final number is actually going to be determined by the the assessor their process of appeal and that goes all the way that may go all the way to the Circuit Court before the final determination is made and that's not going to be made till next year so so I I I pointed out the uh what the final level will be is is governed by pel
158and that's the property tax extension limitation law which says it's going it can be 5% or CPI whichever one is is is uh lower so even though we we Levy uh we we calculate the levy with a high amount we will never get more than what the CPI is and I'll talk some more about why we do what is called balloon Levy later on so this is where the money that the district used to fund itself comes from 48% is from a property tax so it's by far the largest source of revenue for the district and then over the last few years since ebf went into effect in 2018 it's become a larger share before then the state contributes normally about 12 to 15% so ebf has been a game changer for us uh especially
159since we were tier one district and then the rest of the revenue falls into 4% Federal uh 4% uh local and then the rest of it now um I know Mary Joe asked me about cppt now cppt is considered local fund but it's not really it's local but it's not property tax what cppt is back before the uh the new Illinois constitution in 1970 what used to happen is each municipality where actually go out and they will go to all the the companies and and factories that make products and they'll try to determine the value of the equipment that they use to make those prod product and once they determine the value of the equipment then each municipality can then tax those equipment which is why the term personal property replacement tax that's that's where
160that term came from but then after the Illinois constitution starting in 1979 what the the Department of Revenue decided is we would do we would determine the tax uh the amount that uh companies will be taxed but instead of actually going out and doing personal property uh determination what they did is they set an amount based on the uh the structure of the company if it's an escort they pay certain amount if it's a c they pay certain amount if it's a a partnership they pay certain percentage so it was benchmarked to whatever the municipality got back in the 70s and that's what they continue to get now which is which is weird in that some of those communities if you think about some of the communities that had nuclear plants before where those nuclear
161plant have closed now they still use the same Benchmark that was used back in the 70s to get the same amount now the last three years or so co uh once co uh started and it kind of went down a bit businesses wrapped up to be able to produce more products and what that did is it created an increase in uh company profit under the cppt so we went from preco receiving about $2 million in a district in cppt to last year we actually received a record $6.4 million but when doing the budget projection for 2025 I kind of figured that that things are going to pet it down that that was a a one-time bump so we projected um uh cppt of been 2.5 million and as things will come in we only will
162allocated $2 million so we only had to make up about half a million dollars in Revenue compared to if we estimated $6.4 million that we got the year before it would have been catastrophic for us fin so going forward we we believe that cppt is going to go back to prepandemic which is going to be about $2 million so uh the uh the levy what it does it funds the budget but the way the levy works is it crosses to fiscal year there's the first installment and the second installment I'm going to try to explain this as simply as I can the first installment of a levy is actually not that current year Levy if you remember what I said earlier the assessor is still trying to determine what the valuation of our taxable property
163is so what the assessor would do is they will take the prior year where they had the actual Levy calculated already and they will give us 55% of the prior year Levy and we get that in uh normally in May June and that's in the current fiscal year when the Lev uh was uh was developed the second installment is actually the real Levy for that year because by then the assessin knows what the valuation of the the properties are and then extension can be made and then that second installment comes to us in the fall September which is the beginning of another fiscal year so I always try to explain that levies cross two fiscal year instead of just one most people think it's one but it actually goes through through uh through fiscal year
164so I want to point that out because it's important in this case the first installment that we reive of the 2023 Levy was based on uh the 5% the 5% for the first and the second one but the second uh the the 2024 Levy that we're going to get in the first installment in the spring is going to be based on a 3.4 CPI so it's going to be a lower amount in the 2024 than it was in the 2023 because CPI was lower so I talk about CPI a lot because when pil was passed back in 1991 and applied to the Coler County in 1994 what happened is the increases that a school district in uh in the color counties of cook uh Kendall McKenry uh Kane and Will County and all those counties
165it has to be his P to CPI so it's 5% of CPI which everyone was lower the last couple of years in 2022 CPI actual CPI was actually 7% 2023 actual CPI was 6.2% but in those two years we have to use 5% and I would say the uh pel took it took effect back in 1994 the last two years were the first time ever where CPI was actually 5% the highest it was before then was 4.1 so if you go back the 30 years that pil is been in existence and you do the average of CPI it's actually been about 2.5% I remember a few years ago when CPI was one base point1 I remember a couple of years ago too when it was 7 70 basis point and 80 basis point so what
166we are seeing right now is abnomal for CPI so I just wanted to show what drives CPI things like housing apparel uh utilities and the things that most people spend the majority of their money buying if the prices of those go up then CPI goes up for that given month so I wanted to show you historical CPI uh going back to 2013 if you saw in 2013 CPI was 1.5 and then we are those two outliers that were brought on by uh covid in 2021 where CPI was 7% and then in 2022 when it was 6.5% in those two years that was where we used the uh the 5% but now the CPI that we're going to use for the 2024 Levy that we presenting tonight is at 3.4 so the district would now be
167getting as much revenue in property taxes as it did in the last couple of years can it yes as much of an increase as much of an increase that's what I meant yes thank you so I wanted to show two different ways of showing that the first one was the line but then I wanted to go back to the Inception of of pel and you can see that uh this is what cpis look like and the average as I mentioned before has been about 2.5 so when we do projections moving forward we know what uh this year cpis but we need to do projection for the next five years so going forward for the next five years next year we assuming I'm assuming 2.5 CPI up to date if you look at 12 months up
168to date the document that is in the uh in uh in the B Dog uh actual CPI from September to September it's actually 2.4 but we assuming that Christmas which is the December CPI people tend to shut more then so which is why I'm assuming it will be closer to 2.5 as opposed to what it is right now but in the out years from the from the 25 Levy all the way to 2030 when I do my projection I'm assuming CPI of 2% because if you go back which I've actually done this I went back to 1914 I looked at CPI from 1914 today and what you see the average has been 2% which is what the feds always try to uh to set as a benchmark for inflation you said 1914 194 and I'm
169happy to share that but anybody want to contest in the audience no noing out on yeah he no but I will add one time we got tonight I will one thing that 0.1% that was the year the the Great Recession started so that's why I said earlier be be careful uh yeah I'm not saying you want High inflation but you certainly don't want no inflation I remember doing H levent too it it was painful it was it was very painful so this is the levy that uh that we are we are proposing uh in 2024 the at for 94.6 and if you saw that that's actually higher than what it was to Prior and I when we get the out Shore comparison and for operations 15.9 Transportation 8.1 what we've done we've steadily increase the
170amount of money that we actually Levy in transportation and since we have a c we actually couldn't Levy anymore what we've done we've taken what we would have Levy in education and put it in transportation since we've spent more in transportation than we've received as far as Revenue uh State reimbursement as well as fees that we collect special education 9 uh 10.9 imrf and Social Security those two funds they're actually lower than what we Lev last year and the reason why by Statute you only Levy what you need in IMI refence or Seca you're not supposed to Levy any more that you need and in looking at the reserves that we have in both funds we do not need to Levy what we've done the last couple of years and I think what happened is
171a few years ago here the uh the fund balance for those two funds were lower than they needed to be so it was made up but we've gone to a point now where we didn't need to Levy as much and what in in the levy strategy that has been presented tonight what we've done what we've done is then took the difference and then tried to Levy them in the Ed fund instead which is where the majority of our expenses comes from and that's also the fund that provides us the most flexibility as far as what we can do we can transfer it to other funds we can do what we need to do with that and then working cash we only live in 241 and what that is is the district's bank and whatever we
172have in working cash can be loaned to other fund and they have to be the money has to be paid back within three years of the loan without having to pay an interest can I answer a question question here as you know I I asked I was going to ask this question right about can you explain to me like how that works as far as maybe from a percentage standpoint like I know we're CA at CPI but how does that work when it comes to adjusting like what we're bringing in for each of those funds so there are some funds that have uh rate limitation and some funds don't the fund has some rate limitation it also has more flexibility onm doesn't have rate limitation Transportation doesn't special education doesn't but imrf you you get
173to Levy what you need for imrf but working cash has a rate limitation and you can't really spend money directly from working cash so you don't tend to Levy more it's more of a bank I a back up in case another fund needs to borrow money so I'm not saying we would want to do this by any stretch of the imagination but let's say you Levy Transportation by I I'll use Simple numbers so that it's like not complexer let's say you wanted to Levy Transportation at 10% how would that affect your ability to Lev Levy elsewhere or would it not okay so the aggregate doesn't change so it's kind of like a pot you can Levy a pot and then you can distribute it so if you Levy more in one then you have to
174Levy Less in the other it's kind of like a bail it's a balancing thing that you have to do you can't get and I I I let people know that they see the levy and they think you're going to increase it by all this money but we really don't the most we can get as fast increase request is what CPI is but what we do this may be the time that I talk about it we do what is called balloon Lev and the reason why you do balloon Levy you look at L stre as extension you add cpri to it and then what you also do then you have new construction nobody knows what new construction is going to be until the Lev is completed that's the thing and no construction is not cap but
175the problem with that is if you don't balloon Levy you you get data from uh from the uh from the municipality to see what the economic uh development is as far as no construction but then that data is guesstimation nobody knows so you do based on the data that you have you try to to infer what the new constructions are and then you have to put it in there now if you miss on there and you don't balloon that becomes the new Benchmark that means you on the levy so that means that new Benchmark becomes the Baseline for future living you can't go back and ever recoup that so in order to protect against that oping what you do you do what is called balloon Levy knowing that you actually probably not going to get
176there but you're trying to make sure that you don't live any money that the district need to operate on the table and create a situation where you have a lower Baseline for future levies thank you so I wanted to point out uh we have a pretty high burning interest and I want folks to know that goes back to the referendum of November 7 2006 when the district was growing by lip in Bound and uh we have a lot of children showing up here who needed to uh to have a school and the only way District can pay for that is to do that referendum and that referendum was actually approved for $450 million but thank God we didn't issue all that Bond we issue about 250 of them and actually the amount was so big
177that we actually had to go to Springfield and ask for legislation to allow the district to be able to have a referendum for that big amount but we only issued two uh $250 million and of that amount we've been paying approximately 36.9 million a year in debt service and what we've also done along the way is the older debt when we can have a situation where interest rate is lower at the present time than it was that we issued it for what we did we did what is called refunding and we took the savings that would have gone to the bond holders and we gave it back to the time ta pay it may not be a significant amount of money but every little bit counts the last one we did was a refunding of
178the 2014 bond which just closed on November 6 I believe and that uh refunded about $300,000 plus to taxpayers in and before that in the spring we did something similar to the 2024b which was issued in 2013 where we had a low interest rate and we were able to refund some of that interest rate that we will pay to bond holders to taxpayers but I want to point out you can only do that after the bond has been out for 10 years Bond holders want to make some yield before you can refund those bonds so we can only do that after 10 years and if interest rate is favorable to us something else that I want to point out is as we keep paying down this this debt here the amount that we ow keeps
179going down so that by the time we get to 2027 we will see a significant decrease in the bond payment that we have to make right now and the reason too if you think about I just I want to explain this if you heard me I said the the bonds were issued back in 2026 for 251 million 25 2006 you mean uh 2006 I'm sorry 2006 and we still owe the same amount even though we've been making payment the reason why that is the case is because of how the bonds were structured a big chunk of the bond that was issued before was issued as a capital app appreciation bond what you what you call a c bond and you do that in order to make the bond payment uh easier for us to make
180because if you were paying everything all at once it would have been a significant high amount for us to pay every year so what the the downside of the c bond is that you then you defer interest and you defer principle but when you do that though they don't go away you just have to pay a higher amount later so I I wanted to include a table that compares what the actual extension not the levy what was extended by The Three Counties uh Kendall Kane and will last year and those are the in 2023 extension those the what was extended uh alog together 125.95 milon less uh uh Bond and interest Bond and interest is actually Lev separately directly because whenever we issue a bond we send a document to those two uh to those
181three counties and the counties Levy those and it goes directly to uh to to that fund we don't mingle it with the operational funds so when you look at I I think I mentioned earlier that we asking for the dollar change in the Ed fund a big chunk of that is the uh the levy strategy where we Levy Less in imrf and Social Security and Levy more in education fund and if you go down you will see a decrease in the corresponding decrease in the uh in the imrf and Social Security so you see the uh the imrf and Social Security went down by the same amount so yeah I just wanted to show that the percentage but at the end of the day what we are asking for as a levy with a balloon
182included is 5.99 knowing fully well we would not receive that the most we're going to receive as far as an increase is CPI by Statute the County Clark cannot Levy they cannot extend any more than what CP was which is 3.4 but we put in the balloon to capture new construction which we don't know yet so and this is what I try to say here too that the ballone is 599 5.99 but that's not the actual amount because we're requesting it before before we know what the total amount of eav is going to be as well as new construction so why Levy to to cap uh the critical reason is that the majority of the fund that we use to run the district 48% comes from property tax so in order for and we know
183for the last three years inflation has been high the cost of everything has gone up the cost of electricity cost of gas everything is gone up so we have to keep up with the cost the increase in the cost of everything even our Educators when we negotiate contracts with them they expect to to get an increase commensurate to inflation so we have to try to keep up with that and another thing another reason we want to do that is it was it was perfect timing the architector did the health and life safety just left we have millions of dollars in life safety work that we need to do the only source of funding for that will be from the levy that's a big chunk of it another thing is we need a rainy day fund
184we need to start building our reserve the um good practic is for a district to have 25% of his operational Fund in reserve we're knowwhere close to that and uh in case of of of unforeseen circumstances if you remember when covid happened no one was predicting that and the economy just kind of froze thank God that they there was extra funded I don't know what we have done as a district since at that time we didn't have much of a reserve so that's another reason why we need to Levy what the district is entitled to to be able to start building that rainy day fund which is essentially savings and if we do that then we'll be less relying on uh on what I call a payday loan which is the tax anticipation Warrant Where
185We borrowing money so we can Tire us over for the next uh couple of months from the levy so we get the first installment if you remember in May June we get the second one in September and we have to make it last again in September till May June so if we have a reserve we can weather that without having to do short-term borrowing and when you borrow shortterm you pay high interest you also pay issuing cost and I would just add from a historical standpoint part of the reason we got ourselves into the issues that we did here is because this was not the philosophy we were operating under at all we were stagnating revenues in an already precarious situation right and that that's an important point and the other important point that I
186want to point out one of the reasons why we have a higher tax rate in addition to the fact that we're paying our standing Bond and interest is the fact that we have a very homogeneous tax base a lot of communities if you go to valy viw next door not too far from here they have a lot more commercial uh base in addition to their residential base 90% or 88% will be precise so if you round it up 90% of our taxes come from residential single family homes so as a result of that there's no burden sharing if you will that you will that will exist if we have more commercial here so that is another reason why we have a higher tax rate relative to that but we know we need those funds to
187provide a worldclass education to our children is there a way to restructure our capital appreciation bond like when we've been refinancing like you know how you refinance a house you can you can go from a 15 to a 10 you can do all sorts of things to help with your savings is there anything we can do at this point that was the agreement that we reached we defer interest we defer a principle so those Bond they expecting to be paid now and because they've waited without getting what they should have gotten so we're spending $36 million a year and we are not even doing anything we are We Are One chunk of it is the cap that's about 80 million okay out of the 20 and 51 million all right the rest of them are
188just go buns that we actually were hitting pretty good okay so yeah and when you hit a certain point it really starts to yes it's kind of like if you someone took out of mortgage and if you remember back in 2008 or before the the bottom fell out there were folks who would takeing interest only mgage where the first 10 years they were only paying interest and they didn't pay the principal and then once after the 10 years then the principal and the interest came do and so the amount that it were paying then Belo up so it's something similar to what we are seeing here and we did that strategically to be able to make the payment more affordable of course yeah okay thanks well and the other the other part to add here
189real quick is because we were operating under that previous philosophy that's part of the reason we have not been able to upkeep our building yeah and so those those pieces are are an issue as well as I mean at some point those aren't young buildings anymore and right yeah and we'll never get that money back right and it continues to oh it it's comp it's still doing it becomes the lower Baseline we're probably at like 5560 million at this point so I I'm bringing this up even though we don't have any a tiff uh do right now but uh I get calls sometimes email folks asking me about how Tiff impact a levy strategy a levy development right now we don't have any Tiff that is due but I know we have a couple of
190tiffs in the in in the taxing area for the district we have a tiff there was established by the village of uhgo and there's also a couple of tiffs that were established by the village of Montgomery but those tiffs are not coming to and I personally am a big supporter of T because a lot if it's set well a lot of time you have an area that but for uh for investment in t growth would not happen and if it's done well over time when the property goes back on the tax road it creates a really good increment that the district can then draw on and it lessens the burden on residential property owner from having to pay higher property tax so we are recommending to tonight that the board accept and approved the 2024
191tenative tax levy has presented authorized the uh the 2024 ta Levy public hearing to be held on December 9th at the at the at the board meeting then thank you to your for your attention any discussion any questions please I know it's not a real sexy subject but it's fundamental to our existence I would say the opposite around here honestly I was going to say there's been so much uh education over the last decade that I would disagree I think like I think there are a number of people who get it who used to not get it so trust me there's some people who that's what they want to hear that is really what they want to hear yeah we we know that not everybody gets it I still see all over social media that
192we want to raise everybody's taxes because we're talking about the ly and I just silently cry I would wish I wish we could afford to send this particular presentation to every household in the district I don't know if we can do it via email a paper version but is so this is everything we can do that this has the history this has we can explore that put it into at least email um and make sure it's on our website this was a great comprehensive overview of historical and moving forward thank you I think the tricky part is having someone to explain it to to folks because I had a couple of people they saw the presentation and they email me they were saying you increasing the levy by 5.99 you can't do that pil is
193only 3.4 and I said even if we wanted to the clerk would never do that because the clock follows the statue which is that 3.4 you do one of the you know where you record yourself presenting it well I think you we just did so yeah and I do think like we you know I'm just going to be you know speaking bluntly here and honest we had someone who um and and you know Mr mahanti um who did an excellent job probably close to a decade ago right a little under um explaining all of this and it was it was fundamental it was very important and and so um I really like just want to say it is it is crucial um for whoever sits up here or whatever time we have to have um
194competent diligent um and effective people running our finances at all times and and we have paid the price in the past for uh losing talented people like Mr mahanti and and we're very happy to that you're here you you remember my reaction when I saw you so thank you it was genuine thank you okay all right 9.5 I think you already spoke to it but I Dr I I always call you Dr Raphael rapael Mr overi you mean the uh the truth and Taxation we need to have a hearing uh on the uh 9.6 I'm sorry yeah so yeah that's another process uh in the levy yes right all right 9.7 integration of Pest Management Services rfp's a all right so this is another RFP that I worked in collaboration ceration with uh Caitlin earwood
195to develop we uh sought out the requests from three vendors to help us keep in order in our house with the little uh pests and mice and things in the district that want to try to integrate our buildings and uh out of those requests Kim Weiss Pro proved to be the best candidate for that and we're recommending that we sign that sign off with Kim Weiss for a pesticide any questions and this is another way what we're trying to do we're trying to Le leverage our buying power because in the past what we did we bought retail on a lot of things and we'll call uh for p Services even yes we'll call A P company when we needed them we didn't negotiate up front where we got best pricing where we didn't have them
196sign an agreement not to raise their prices for a year so we're trying to use our economy of scale of buying power to try to get the best uh pric in for some of the important things that we spend money on that's great Mr Queen anything else all right what is 9.8 okay 9.8 any questions oh I see we left out the demonstration regarding any pests wanted to see the ear works yes okay we're done yep okay moving on to um 10.1 action Dr Kade oh okay so go ahead in 9.8 um in our last policy and legislative committee meeting uh we reviewed several policies for first read um starting with section two for the school board um we reviewed 270 um exhibit for the checklist for following filing board vacancies By Appointment um we
197also reviewed 210 5 ethics and gift ban uh we specifically looked at prohibited political activity and prohibited sources um and we will be Consulting board attorney for additional uh consult but we're currently not recommending any changes um also in section two we reviewed 2120 uh board member development um and the changes there um focus on required PD changes by Illinois school code um primarily focus on trauma informed um throughout the remaining policies you'll see most of the changes are in response to Illinois school code or also um Illinois Human Rights Act um in section four for operational Services Revenue Investments are the updates are in response to Illinois school code changes um also for 460 the refer references our updates due to Illinois school code we are not recommending any change to our own policy
198language that we um adopted last year for 4150 the changes recommended by press is increasing the renovations or permanent alterations to buildings or grounds increase from 17,500 to 35,000 um the the change would then trigger uh board approval necessary in 4170 um the changes to the safety policy focus on at least one AED being present um during District ATT or at each district attendance Center and at District sponsored extracurricular activities um in terms of section five for General Personnel both 510 590 all focus on changes based on the Illinois Human Rights Act and Illinois school code and Title 9 in 5120 um it changes to um the verbiage of school counselor um and then also includes bands um of in receiving uh travel lodging food or beverage in 5125 um it does broaden from teacher
199to school Personnel um I apologize in 5125 um it changes the social media apps and devices and but then in 5230 for maintaining student discipline that is what broadens from teacher to school personnel and prohibits uh corporal punishment for 660 so section six is about instruction um additions based on Illinois school code are uh worker safety personal health habits career exploration and development which you've um heard Dr Paul and her team speak to as well as College and Career pathway endorsements and then new for fall of 2026 would be the inclusion of um Environmental Education um 6 135 um possible changes include um uh going from meets and exceeds for automatic placements to just exceeds um we're currently still talking about this it also the changes include notification both for qualification and for changes um
200we currently have followed the policy and the recommended changes um we have recently submitted and sent out our AP letters to our parents um in 6270 uh the changes are in relationship to school counselor services and professional development and then finally in section 7 um changes to 710 similar to 510 um in regards to Illinois human rights and Title 9 in 7100 it removes the requirement for notification in regards to um and kakle I apologize for any mispronunciation uh materials and then uh 7180 um is updates in response to Title Nine any question second can I just ask a question about um 6135 The Accelerated placement program yes um I love everything that's in it I get this is just a policy and it's pretty generic but what U what are the um criteria beyond
201the state assessments so in terms of the early entrance to kindergarten or first grade there is a variety there and um I know Dr Paul can also supplement um they do interviews they look at a variety of because there is no State assessment in kindergarten first grade um they uh monitor basically play um they um do administer some small Assessments in terms of our Rising 9th 10th 11th and 12th graders they are using State assessments um so they will consider other um additional assessments as needed um in terms of fast Bridge um if additional courses are requested um but at our high school currently it we pretty much have an open enrollment to any um honors class um so the communication that went out to parents was based on both meets and exceeds of either
202I or last year um uh PSAT 89 or psat1 or the SAT um and then uh the courses that represent the next level in math science English or social studies um was Pro that information was provided to parents and students I just think that when we you know when we continue to look from an equity lens and recognize those with ADHD those with anxiety disorders and with regards to testing you are just to base it on testing alone just concerns me um because we know that there are a lot more data available that um that affects how kids perform so I just wanted to I just wondered thank you we we're talking about placement we're talking about placement for advanced placement right I I'm I thought we had discussed this in the past that there's
203more criteria than just the testing portion right correct so this depending on the grade level so this not this is notification in terms of above and beyond what work is done and recommended by the teachers so for example a teacher can recommend a student for an honors course that regardless of the test score um they could place into um as I mentioned many many of our honors and AP do not have prerequisites so a student can choose to take the honors or AP course at the high school the application of the advance placement plan currently is just additional notification and qualification so there are many ways to be able to take an honors or an AP course at the high school okay thank you Dr K thank you and uh policy Team all right action
204item 10.1 approval of bills for payment can I have a motion please make a motion to authorize the bill the payment of bills in the amount of 7,147 667 and 62 cents as presented second Miss fenmo I Dr Mario I Mr Cerone hi Miss similon hi Mr Gatewood hi Miss Johnson hi Mr cler hi motion passes 70 action item 10.2 approval of Transportation hazardous route study can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the hiring of Ericson Engineering Associates LTD to conduct a hazardous uh walking route assessment for asigo Community Unit School District 308 for a cost not to exceed $66,000 second Miss vmou hi Mr Gatewood I Miss Johnson I Mr Cerone hi Miss similon hi Dr Maria I Mr pler hi motion passes 70 action item 10.3 approval of radio
205and repeater RFP agreement can I have a motion please make a motion to approve a LLC as the vendor for our radio communication needs and the three-year lease agreement with American Capital to fund the acquisition of the radio and repeater second Mr ploger hi Mr Gatewood Miss ven oh sorry I I Mr Sone hi Miss Simon hi Dr Maria hi Miss Johnson hi motion passes 70 action item 10.4 approval of fiscal year 2025 2026 budget calendar can I have a motion please make a motion to adopt the resolution to designate the CFO to begin the fiscal year 20126 budget development process prepare the budget in in tentative form and adopt the fiscal year 2026 budget calendar second Dr Maria I Miss Johnson hi Mr ploger hi Mr Cerone hi Mr Gatewood hi Miss vmou hi
206Miss Simon I motion passes 70 action item 10.5 approval of resolution and request for kindall County Land cash can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the resolution to request the Kendall County Land cash in the amount of $ 5,669 second Miss I Dr Mario I Mr Sone I miss similon I Mr Gatewood I miss Chon hi Mr CL hi motion passes 70 action item 10.6 approval of intergovernmental agreement for sharing Services can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the intergovernmental agreement for the installation of a multiuse path from Ogden Falls subdivision to asigo East High School school second Mr Cerone I Mr Gatewood I Miss Johnson I Mr ploger I miss venmo I Dr Mario I miss similton I motion passes 70 action item 10.7 approval of
207estimated tax levy and Truth in taxation resolution can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the truth in taxation resolution as presented second Mr Gatewood I Dr marel I Miss Johnson I Mr Cerone I miss similon I Mr ploger I miss vmou I motion passes 70 action item 10.8 approval of board policy second read can I have a motion please make a motion to approve board policies section two School Board two colon 260 to colon 265 Section 5 General personnel 5 1 0 section 7 students 720 7on 185 second Dr marel I miss vmou hi Mr Cerone hi Miss similon hi Mr Gatewood I Miss Johnson hi Mr Koger hi motion passes 70 action item 10.9 approval of resolution and fee agreement can I have a motion please make a motion to
208approve the resolution authorized izing diabetes medication overcharge litigation and the France Law Group lawsuit agreement second I wanted that one miss venth hi Miss Simon hi Mr Sone hi Mr ploger hi Mr Gatewood hi Dr Maria hi Miss Johnson I motion passes 70 action item 10.10 approval of destruction of audio recordings can I have a m please make a motion to approve the destruction of the audio recordings of the closed session meetings from October 11th 2022 through April 24th second Mr ploger no Dr marel I miss similon um I Mr Cerone I Miss Johnson no Mr Gatewood I miss venoth I um motion passes uh 5 5 52 52 sorry yes um action item 10.11 approval of the release of closed session minutes can I have a motion please make a motion to make available
209no closed session minutes at this time due to a determination that they require continued confidentiality second Miss Simon hi Miss vmou hi Mr song hi Dr Mario I Mr Gatewood I Miss Johnson I Mr ploger I motion passes 70 action item 10.12 approval of board agreements can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the board agreements as discussed on October 28th 2024 and change the name to board protocols second Mr Cerone hi Mr Gatewood hi Miss Johnson hi Mr ploger I miss venoth I Dr Mario I miss similon I motion passes 70 10.13 approval of personnel report can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the Personnel report as discussed and presented second Mr Gatewood hi Dr Mario hi Miss Johnson I Mr ploger hi Miss similon I Mr
210siron I miss vmou hi motion passes 70 action item 10.14 approval of resolution for dismissal can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the resolution authorizing notice of dismissal to educational support staff employee Nicholas chosi second Dr Mario I miss vmou hi Mr Cerone I Miss similon I Mr Gatewood I Miss Johnson I Mr bloger I motion passes 70 um action item 11.1