001Asel Community Unit School District Board of Education meeting for November 4th 2024 can I have a roll call please Mr Cerone Mr Gatewood Miss Johnson Dr Mario Mr ploger Miss similon present miss venm our student board members hope Bri here and if everyone could please stand for the pledge of of Allegiance and the flag is here I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all good evening every everyone thank you for joining us tonight and it's inspiring to see so many community members staff students and parents and it's appreciative that we are all eager and able to gather here tonight to contribute to the future of our schools as we begin this public
002forum focused on strategic planning I want to emphasize that this is a collaborative process we're here to listen to gather insights and understand what matters to most to you regarding our students and their education and their well-being strategic planning gives us the opportunity to look ahead to Envision the kind of school district we want to be and establish a road mapap to get there the plan will serve as our guide over the next several years helping us to set priorities to um allocate resources and measure progress all with a focus on preparing our students for success in an Ever Changing World our goal tonight is to learn together about the planning process and to hear directly from you your perspectives your concerns and your ideas the experiences you bring to the table are essential to
003building a strategy that reflects the needs and aspirations of our entire Community as we move forward let's keep our focus on students every decision we make every goal we set and every re resource we allocate should be driven by our commitment to their growth safety and future success thank you for being here for your dedication and for your partner ownership in shaping the future of our district we look forward to engaging in an evening of great conversation so thank you again for being here and now I would like to introduce our superintendent our Deputy superintendent Dr Heather concade to begin our presentations okay we're gonna do something different let's give our president a round of applause ultimately good evening everyone I'm Andel katti school superintendent it is truly my honor to lead uh School District
004308 um and looking around the room nothing brings me Greater Joy than to see the passion and the commitment to getting things done for our district that is why we are here tonight and I am so grateful to the board's leadership in really empowering um the district our staff our students and really this evening to really initiate a process to think about how we Galvanize our resources resources are broad term that goes from everything from funds to time to human capital to how we think about our curriculum there are a lot of priorities and this evening as I look around I know that there are a variety of passions commitments concerns things that have brought you here this evening it's extremely whether it's from concerns about your child who may have special needs or your
005child who has not had the opportunity to to to experience accelerated learning or your child who has been subject to unfair disciplinary practices that have marginalized them in their school or your child who may not have the right equipment because it is outdated from decades long or your child who may be in a program that hasn't had the right curriculum for years and years and years years and only the teachers have made the time to make those changes friend that process of re of resolving those tensions those competing priorities is exactly why we called and we structured a facilitated conversation to make sure everybody's voice in this room would be heard and the board would have an opportunity to collect feedback on that information and to hear the feedback from that information what you will
006experience tonight is really a chance to think about how we start to think about those priorities Dr Con in a few minutes is going to walk you through the work that we are intending to continue this year that we're going to need everyone in this room support for ultimately this is not going to be my plan it's not going to be Dr K's plan it's going to be our plan and truly only through that collaborative effort will we get to where we need to with which is sustained plans for success and economic viability that is not going to be an easy Road and we have individuals who spend a lot of time thinking about how we can save every Fund in fact this month we are for the first time uh doing uh coordinated purchase
007of paper you heard me coordinated purchase of paper you may think wow what does that mean that means that we have essentially been purchasing retail schools have had individual rights to buy paper that friends is not the result of people not wanting it's the result of a lack of a system of support to ensure our schools had the right resources to do what they had to do we are moving in that direction and when I came to this District somebody said uh you know July of July 1st of 2023 together we started to really discuss a number of things that you see up here the challenges that I heard in those first 100 days that I heard as I met with community members why is an IEP in this building different than an IEP in
008that building why is my child excluded from school and I know th neighbor's child did the same thing and was not excluded from school why is there a 90% administrative staff turnover what does that mean if you're a teacher and every year you've got to call the district off and there's a new person we have changing needs in terms of our student population we're still relying we are still heavily in debt from a 2006 debt related to building our schools and what's coming up is those buildings are now getting ready to many of them because they were all built at the same time guess what similar needs building roof repairs repairs of our Windows repairs of things that are going to cost a lot we also have a low industry tax base raise your hand
009if you think your taxes already too high right so the reality is that you're already squeezed and yet we've got to figure out how to do with more with less in this District so ultimately though we have great schools we have Barnes & Noble doesn't decide to put a shop they left neille to come here what does that tell you there's a commitment to this community there's a belief in this community there is a passion for this community and that's what gets me going every single day and I am confident that together we will find a way to ensure that we are wise about our funds we are strategic in how we plan our future so that our Educators don't have to be the ones who we rely on solely to the to do the
010good work in this district and to move us forward and I am so grateful for the team that put together the planning of the organization for a facilitated conversation to ensure that every voice is heard this evening and that in the months to come we are going to rely and call on your support and we thank you for starting this so strong so I'm going to turn it out to Dr conade let's give Dr concade a round of applause folks all righty as Dr katti mentioned what you're going to see and what we're going to talk about for the next few minutes really starts upon his arrival in 2023 but all of us know that this really extends much much further in the past I myself have been a Community member for the last 16
011years this is my sixth year in the district and my baby just graduated from OE last year so I walked into sag last week going this is the first time that I don't have two roles as parent and as District employee but I have seen my kids go through our elementary middle schools and high schools so we have a lot to share I'm going to go quickly because it's really not about what I say all of this information is being provided to you we want to hear what you have to say so I'm going to talk very quickly about opportunities over the next couple months and you will see them in your emails and on our district website so this is essentially where we've been and where we're going we started in July of 2023
012and hold on there's supposed to be a clicker thank you kindly I'm gonna go back there all right so we started with a collective Vision we wanted to make sure that all of our team was on the same page we then are moving into Precision this year using that inform inform our goal as you can see at the end of the road is a new strategic plan so where did we start we decided that we had to start with a strategic road map we were coming out of covid there were gaps and holes all over the place we figured at that time to try to quickly put together a strategic plan would not be the most effective for our staff members for our kids for our community so what we did is we brought people
013together and we really focus on a strategic road map what did we need to address first like what was the most essential thing we then brought in an organization to do an organization and curriculum audit we needed to have some information because again we were coming out of covid so where are we now we're actually implementing that strategic road map and findings from the curriculum audit our learning Innovation station today has some of that information from from the curriculum audit but essentially this is where we are right now in our schools what you see on the left is what our school Improvement plans this year are focusing on we're focusing on high quality instruction every school in our district has a goal about high quality instruction we're focusing on equity and rightful presence as you
014heard Dr katti talk about we want to make sure each student not only has a voice but a place in our schools and third we're focusing on effective systems and teams again you hear about we need to work together collaboratively for a shared Vision what you see on the right is really the building blocks of our school Improvement teams what are they focused on throughout working through the plan these are really the building blocks that we're going to use to get from our strategic road map to our strategic plan so this is the how how are we going to go from a road map to a plan as you can see the three main areas we're going to focus on are the master facility Plan programmatic reviews and hazardous travel studies and then our strategic
015plan those will be encompassed in the wood so here are some information about the um individual uh projects so our Master facility plan is really in three phases phase one started today yes so Mr Queen and Andre both walked buildings we had four uh buildings uh covered today but phase one is a facility condition assessment over the next couple weeks phase one will be completed as our Master facility plan phase two then we start to look at the educational needs in our buildings so while the condition assessment very important Dr katti talked about roofs HVAC Windows all of that extremely important but so is how we use our buildings in an educational setting the third phase then is how do we want to use our buildings what are those needs what do we want to
016change in order to have an educational opportunity that we don't have right now so those are the three phases over the next year or so that we'll be engaging our community through our staff and our students we also will be engaging in a student assignment plan this year the focus is on a program review of our multilingual and our special ed students we know that we've got programs for these Learners at a variety of different schools we need to do an effective program review you to make sure that we are servicing our students in the best way possible coupled with this um we also have two Transportation things that we are looking at one is our hazardous Crossing review we have not done a hazardous study in many years the other part is really just
017a systems review we're currently using an Antiquated version of our routing software that we need to make sure that we update and include new geom mapping within the software so that routing our students as effective as possible all of this then will lead to our strategic plan so we're looking at our road map our audit um we have a team working on a profile of a learner staff member and leader so what are those qualities that we are looking for within our district and there will be staff community and um student engagement throughout essentially this is why this is what we're looking for ultimately is to accomplish our mission so these are our questions that we're looking for dreaming of trying to plan for for the best opportunity for both our students and staff so
018with that I would like to turn this over to Dr Waller who will talk about our next steps to get you going into one of our Five Focus areas here's your clicker so you're prepared wonderful thank you so much we are looking forward to having a very thoughtful and engaging conversation with all of you tonight um and we decided to do this in the form of a World Cafe Miss prior is going to join me up front um as she has been in collaboration with a lot of our team and putting some of these Parts together um but this is an opportunity for us to gain as much feedback from you as possible um so that it will inform our work moving forward thank you Dr Waller I did not realize how many familiar faces
019is in here I'm so happy to see everybody we are going to engage in what's called A World Cafe I do want to preface with we love having everyone here and we have had to make some pivots because there are so many people here so some patients would really be appreciated as we go through the process so I want to talk a little bit about the things that you need before we get started everyone should have been given either a clipboard or a folder within that folder is going to be a AAA protocol and at the top you will see attendee notes you're going to see assumptions you're going to see a agree and you're going to see Aspire is there anyone that does not have that tripa protocol we have one person that doesn't
020have it I want to be sure that everyone has the has what they need in order to be successful so we have one keep your hands up please one two three four people someone over there does not have the AAA protocol let's make sure that they have that two hands one here one here that still need the AAA protocol don't be shy you're going to need it to be successful and we want you to experience success so if you don't have it Now's the Time perfect perfect everyone has it now so I said you're going to need three things one of which is the AAA protocol everyone has it if you have the AAA protocol you should have a one pager which is five sheets and those five sheets are the five possible sessions that
021you can attend and I'll go into more detail with that you're going to see one for Learning and Innovation diverse Learners transportation and finance Master facility everyone has that if you do not Now's the Time to say so we can make sure that you have those one pagers the reason that you have five is because you can only go to three sessions but you might want to get a slight overview of what's happening in the other sessions so we want to be sure that you're able to take that resource home with you does everybody have the five one pagers who's missing one pagers which one are you missing we're missing a diverse Learners one pager here can we get that over here okay perfect thank you and does the third thing that you need is
022something to write with why because you're taking notes right okay good all righty so if you can go back to the slide right before so let's go through our ground rules of World Cafe active listening active listening one person is speaking at a time every single voice is important and we want to be sure that we capture what you're saying so one person at a time respect being respectful of what people share it might not allow align with your thoughts or your feelings but we want to be sure that we're respectful of what everyone has to share in the space one person speaking at a time and then curiosity move into the space with curiosity just wanting to know more right and then open-mindedness all ideas are welcome one thing that's incredibly important we not
023only have parents here staff members here we have Scholars here right and what we're trying to build is the best experience for them possible so I want to be sure that our Scholars have an opportunity to be present in the spaces and then everyone has the opportunity to share so let's talk about the process all right so you can choose three of the five areas only three you probably already know your three but you can choose three there will be 15 minute sessions I will walk around quickly just to show you where you will go for each session but while you are while you are choosing your sessions and I am walking around please know that if a session is full there are three opportunities so move on to another session and circle back to
024that one that is full because you get three opportunities so over here can you hold that sign up for me please here these three tables are Finance technology and transportation one of the things that I asked is if you could please be patient we are going to create one more section for that and it will be these three tables so we will pull those tables together shortly okay this section back here can you hold that up for me please this is diverse Learners okay walk with me next session over here is learning and Innovation next session over here rightful presence and student voice and over here here is another place where we're asking for a little bit more patience because we are going to have two sections here is going to be Master facilities and
025operations we're going to do these three tables and then we'll do these three tables so we'll have to push these together just a little bit all right and these three also all right are there any questions before I move on with next steps no okay so you get to choose three of the five when you get to that section all right let me try this if you can hear my voice clap one time if you can hear me clap two times if you can hear me clap three times all right the reason I do that is because I want to be sure that everybody is paying attention and you know what to do all right have an idea of where you want to go each session is 15 minutes someone will give an overview one
026of the administrators and then they will begin to give you an opportunity to share any thoughts that you have from that AAA protocol there is a scribe at every section and they will just be taking notes to capture what you say and then there are two facilitators there to support any questions after the third round we are going to go into what is called harvesting ideas so after your third round you come back to your tables and we will ask you one final question to reflect on that gives us an opportunity to capture what we need to do to ensure that each and every student thrives does that all make sense all right do you know where you are going all right go and I will tell you when to begin do do do do
027do do e e is everybody going to hear because e e e facilitators if you have not moved on to the AAA protocol you have about 45 seconds to finish your overview and then be begin going through the AAA protocol if if you have not already started if you have not started the AAA protocol please begin that now when we have 10 minutes for this session e e e we have 1 minute and 15 seconds so wrap up your final thoughts e e okay if you can hear me clap one time if you can hear me clap two times if you can hear me clap three times all right we're going to do one more round if if you can hear me clap five times it's time to move thank you so much for your
028patience go to your second session I will tell you when the time starts we're moving to your second session of choice e e okay facilitators you can begin your overview I will set the timer for 15 minutes no more than five minutes on your overview and then begin asking your questions from the Triple A protocol e e e if you have not moved on to the triaa protocol you have 9 minutes and 30 seconds left in this session e e e we have two minutes left two minutes left in this session e e e all right I'm G to pause you for just a second I'm gonna pause you for just a second I'm gonna pause you for just a second okay thank you all right it is time to move to round three this
029section right here where I am Master facilities and operations if you want to stay for another round you may everyone else round three go to your third session please third session third session e e exactly please make your way to your third session your third session make your way to your third session we're going to begin in about 30 seconds we're going to begin in about 30 seconds make your way to your third session please make your way to your third session please facilitators one more round please give your overview no more than five minutes and then begin your protocol e e e if you have not moved into the protocol please do so at this time e e e we have two minutes left in this session two minutes e e e Please wrap
030up your last thought we have 30 seconds left all right when I say bring it you say back back bring it let's try it again bring it bring it all right please go back to your original tables if you were at table one at the start please go back to table one if you were at table nine at the start please go back to table nine if you were at table seven please go back to table seven quickly please back back to your original spots please go back to your original tables please go back to your original tables back to your original tables e if you are at a table without a number please move up if you are at a table without a number please move up if you are at a table without
031a number please move up you too if you are at a table without a number please move up any table go to any table sweetheart it's no not going to be wrong if you are at a table without a number please move up all right if you can hear me clap once if you can hear me I'm going to see who's listening to me if you can hear me clap three times if you can hear me clap five times yep I wanted to see if you were list listening okay this is very important so please have your listening ears on this very last question this is incredibly important right the goal of all of this all of the questions all of the feedback is for us to collect that feedback what you feel like you
032need in order to ensure that your scholar has the very best experience that they can so that they can move Beyond just surviving and they can actually thrive in the school district so here's the question that you will reflect on and talk about at your table every single table with a number should have a scribe that person again is taking notes of every single thing that you say so the question is in what ways did this learning experience shape or contribute to your ideal Vision ensuring that each and and every scholar thrives in this school district that is the conversation you will have five minutes your scribe will take notes so again the question up here in what ways that this learning experience shape or contribute to your ideal Vision ensuring each and every student
033thrives I am going to set the timer we only have five minutes for this activity so be sure that you give everyone an opportunity to share I'm going to start the timer right now and there should be a subcribe there to support e thank you e e e one more minute e e okay when I say bring it you say back bring it bring it you guys must be tired tonight when I say bring it you say back bring it bring it all right you guys let me say this number one keep in mind that our goal is to gather feedback for what you need our goal is to gather feedback for what you need what questions you have what our Scholars need in order to be successful that is the goal of this I
034want to thank everybody for taking the time I want to thank everybody for their feedback for their patience one of our core values is collaboration I do look at this as a form of collaboration because we will synthesize all of this information and I know that some people have so much more that they want to share but we only have so much time so again thank you I'm going to hand it over to Dr kelti he is going to close it out do that a parent came up to me and shared that there were some lost opportun opportunities tonight in terms of the structure in terms of some of the detail the feedback um in terms of translation for those who may only speak Spanish um in addition to other ways we could have been
035more inclusive so I just want to thank you for the feedback we're receiving about that we are a learning organization and we are committed to learning so I need that feedback we need that feedback it's the only way we get better we want our students to get better we've got to get better and we've got to do better and so I apologize for any missteps misunderstandings or lost opportunities I take responsibility and I commit to learning from it and to doing better and I want to thank you for your patience I want to say secondly I want to thank our facilitators can we give them a round of applause y all brought the fire tonight and I want to thank you for that because ultimately it's that passion that we need in our community to
036make it the best place because it is already an incredible place to come to work and to go to school and so we want to make every place of our schools better I want to now invite Mr Gatewood to come up and and share some fine and closing remarks can we give a thanks to the administrators and all the teachers and everyone who came out and to yourselves for this amazing amazing night this is one of the most well attended um forums and so we just most definitely appreciate you coming so thank you for being here and for all of your active participation um we've actually explored it's been some amazing conversations that I've been a part of a lot of great feedback and we've explored challenges and we've listened to your valuable insights um
037which are essential to help us to continue shape our strategic plan and I want to remind everyone that this is a collaborative Journey this is a journey and we we continuously will invite you to continue to share and to continue to engage in this in in this essential process for us moving forward and we'll be talk we'll be taking everything that you've shared tonight into important data points in order to con to include it and to inform our planning and we'll update you on our next steps and how we'll how on how update you on the next steps and how you can continue to contribute to that process so again we thank you for your support and for your dedication and together we are confident that we will continue to create a strategic plan that
038reflects our our shared vision and our values setting us up for a bright and sustainable future so thank you all so much for tonight finally some technology we've had a lot of it but we want to get we had a lot of paper and pencil paper technology tonight we're going to give be a chance to give you some digital techn technology on the screen is a QR code uh if you would take that screenshot also in the next uh two weeks I'm going to host a zoom version of a followup to tonight that you can come and join and give more feedback because tonight we could have probably gone till midnight if we had more time so here's an opportunity now for public comment so on behalf of the Board of Education I would like
039to thank the public for attending tonight's meeting and we value the feedback we receive from our members of the public and encourage everyone to take an active interest in their Public School Systems residents interested in speaking to the Board of Education we are asking that you complete a comment card and present it to the board of educ to the secretary to the board when the secretary calls your name I ask that you come to the microphone state your name for the public record and provide your feedback back please note that comments are limited to 3 minutes per person and 30 minutes in total and no responses to your questions are permitted comments should address the Board of Education as a whole and not be directed to an individual board member audience or staff the Board
040of Education will not address concerns against individual employees rather a complaint against an employee must be in writing and signed by the person who makes it and the Board of Education will refer any such complaints for appropriate review follow up to your questions or concerns will be addressed by Administration through the contact information provided on the comment card thank you R go ahead Ryan Dolan okay hold on Ryan do you have a timer do you have the timer okay we got a lot of comments okay all right hello um I got some notes I wrote down here so try to make it a little quicker uh my name is Ryan Dolan um I'm an owner of a local family real estate company called Dolan Murphy we out of Aurora been in asle we've lived in
041asle here for about 14 years um we specialize in commercial industrial Farmland investment real estate um company was started by my father Dan Dolan 1965 I've personally been a broker GR in 28 years I like to joke that real estate is my part-time job and volunteer Youth Athletic coaching is my full-time job um definitely have a passion for both I believe the two passions allow me look at what we're discussing today and U is everyone aware or has kind of seen the movement of aigo unity fields at all if anybody knows what we're talking about there um we'll have some more comment on it from others hopefully but um um as a as a coach I've traveled all over the country with uh with our teams and we've seen some tremendous facilities around the country
042um these facilities offer a unique a unique opportunity for the for the area Okay um seeing firsthand the positive economic the positive economic uh impact these projects can have on the local community I'm talking about there's a a park in betor F called tbk tbk Park um 15 baseball field soccer fields football fields that are host tournaments uh weekly okay their revenue generators their economic drivers to communities um and it's not just the thousands of people that come every week it's the it's the real estate development that follows talking about hotels restaurants um commercial commercial developments um what I've what I've come to find out tonight and I knew it was it was it was a hill to climb but we've obviously got a financial issue here that's that's greater than maybe we even known
043from the start um we need to create Revenue in this area we're not going to get massive industrial buildings Millions a square foot of industrial or or Corporate Offices here to help boost our revenue and if we have to rely on on property tax to be our main source of funding it's going to be a it's going to be a continued problem um this type of project just as an example new lenux is doing one now okay on 100 acres they're taking 10 acres they keeping for for restaurants hotels and such building I think 28 Fields um turfed um their projections for year one in Revenue are are 12 million a year in Revenue by year three double it to 24 million and by the end of that the Fulfillment of that project 34 million
044in 34 million in economic impact to the area okay to to new L this was funded by the city of New Linux they invested in this we have got to work collab is gotta sure no problem there'll probably be more okay thank you I'm gonna move it so people can see the timer that way that way Ryan Chrissy should be about 230 oh no rush rush rush okay where should I go restart the timer where do you want me to go okay to each of you here today whether you're a parent student and any of the students here awesome job by the way for being here um thank you so much for everyone's time for being here board and the admins it takes a lot to deal with what happened today so seriously mad props
045to you guys for sticking in and listening and all all those things I'm a parent of two students uh in the district I uh I am involved with asigo unity fields and asigo Catalyst group uh so both groups want to form uh a a collaborative effort within the governing bodies to bring something incredibly unique to the community this is more than just a project it's a smart sustainable solution that keeps our community dollar local in 2021 the village of oigo lost $287 million to neighboring towns due to uh economic leakage this is according to an economic leakage report provided to the group from the village with multi-use turf fields we can reduce the outflow drawing visitors to oigo and keeping our kids activities local benefiting businesses and fostering Community Spirit the space utilized for the
046project could be on current Parcels of school land and Park District lands the initiative follows a 3p principles public private Partnerships it aims to utilize underdeveloped public lands and outdated facilities within sd308 transforming them in versatile spaces that uh for new tax revenues it answers Key Community needs and concerns one employing financially sound model with no tax increase two unifying local stakeholders with support of sports organizations and investors three modernizing outdated facilities redirecting sd308 budget for necessary School infrastructure curricular needs professional development for staff based off the revenues coming in four creating revenue streams that benefit local businesses and public bodies alike five offering many of the schools instructional spaces and competition or practice practice spaces where all kids from all walks of life including Special Olympics can benefit from top-notch facilities in the end
047thank you to everyone that is here Administration board and concerned citizens thank you very much Sean McLure these other gentlemen so I got to pull it down here a little bit so good evening uh sha McClair 25e resident of oigo uh my wife Kathy actually went to asgo and uh so she's been here she won't want me to say this but she's probably been here 55 years when it's all said and done but uh I have two young boys uh one is Aiden who is a sixth grader at trer and Dean who's a freshman over at OS and uh I actually uh had the opportunity to see something great that our school board actually helped us with doing which was bringing la to asgo and uh in the spring we're going to have lacrosse as
048the first uh opportunity and we're going to have combined two high schools together ohos and OE coming together as one and that's what you call Community coming together is one you've already heard a little bit about Unity fields and when you say the word Community you get rid of the Comm what is left is Unity okay and when you look at some of the things you've already heard tonight um we obviously have some Financial issues that we have to address and I think the key understanding is that as a community our Revenue stream is not the best yes we have Route 34 which we have all kinds of retail space brings in tax dollars but what supports this community is us here the taxpayers and there's assets that our school district owns that can be
049modified brought up to today's standards which is sports complexes turf facil fa ities that could host some of the events that you heard tonight because I'm tied to Lacrosse I've traveled throughout the country and I've seen these facilities Rockford Illinois I was just there two weeks ago two-day event thousands of people come into Rockford for a one we in tournament brings in over 250k just the event itself not to mention the hotel Revenue the restaurant revenue and if I go to Grand Park which is part of our Park District they have a lacrosse tournament Every Spring but when people want to go get lunch they don't come into iGo they go south to planfield or they go east to neille so again talking about leakage our park district has an event in Grand Park where
050we do oytf practicing today but when people want to go and have food why the events are going on there's food trucks that do come in from planfield which again food trucks coming from outside of Osgo not even Freddy's is there but when you look at the unity Fields it's the asigo Catalyst group which is a lot of people in this room that really feel there's a vision that we can help our community and bring together what I call a community is your schools your village and your Park District that's what our community is and over the 25 years that I've lived here our Administration for the school board our Administration for the village and the park district have all worked in silos for their own benefit or their own goals today today I think
051there's a huge opportunity for our leadership at the school district our leadership at the village and our leadership at the park district to come together on this Unity Fields concept and not only bring Revenue but help the school district help the community and put us in a better place than we are today so thank you Kelly Kennedy thanks Sean I don't have to move the mic hello I'm Kelly Kennedy I'm the wife mother of four kids a public health professional small business owner and an active member of our school district and our community and I'm happy to be here with you all tonight I have to say we need more of this the dialogue is enriching and there's a lot to be learned and a lot of questions and comments I wish I could have
052heard from others that I know they didn't have the opportunity to share um you have already heard from some community members about Community Fields I'm going to come at it a little the bit differently I absolutely agree the foundation of that is motivated out of a need to provide funds and relief of our um economic bondage that we're sitting in um so as a member that's involved The Village um in Economic Development I'm 100% behind that however I want to also Focus how it can be a path forward to providing multi-use turf fields facilities for athletics which we all know is something that galvanizes and unites across diverse backgrounds so when we talk about Unity Alo Unity Fields provides that but it also offers an opportunity for activities that aren't Sports so think band competitions
053think maybe cheer competitions sorry that's athletic too um I know some people CL categorize it there but I'm just thinking outside of the box opportunities but moreover I'd like to point out that the up such upgraded facilities can provide opportunities for students and the community even beyond the appr vention this group The Catalyst Group which some of these gentlemen spoke about they're proposing accessible Fields accessible facilities and accessible playground um that is part of the concept plan so as our school district continues to focus on rightful presence and inclusion we can't just think about the athletes on these on these um these Adventures so let's not Overlook that some of our very first friends we made when we moved out swo three and a half years ago have a daughter with special needs and she's
054a model of joy and kindness and for me that's something we could all learn from I sat at the table in the um that Harvest conversation and that's what I I heard from one of the table members is we lack we lack civility sometimes here right so we need to do better we need to learn from others um who do it better from than us so Katie and other young people like her um participate in the area regularly in Special Olympics and I think um one of the gentlemen mentioned that earlier but for bot ball practice she gets to do that at um Fox Chase Elementary right here in aligo but for everything else they go to Yorkville Plano or much further beyond that um so I just want to point out that it's not
055only an opportunity for us to provide upgraded facilities which we know are clearly needed here um not necessarily a higher priority than our our classrooms in our instructional space but they're needed we are behind we are sometimes the embarrassing place for people to come when you compare it to the other places so let's not forget though that we should be delivering that we can be delivering with unity fields um on one of the pillars of who we say we are and who we want to be and who we're striving and what we're striving to do which is be inclusive um so thanks to the Board of Education thanks to the administration for the opportunity tonight and thanks for your emphasis on providing opportunities in and outside of the classroom for all students ban Dolan I'm
056going to call someone that had a different okay Shani Ria hi I'm Shani Ray um I so basically my husband and I we run a wellness company called ninja Science Academy he has taught science to over 15,000 students in all the districts in the Chicago land area in like you know schools hire him for like assemblies where like he blows stuff up but one of the biggest things that he has to offer is that he takes like very complex Concepts and makes them simple beautiful and increases um like curiosity in every child so that's his passion and for me I'm a double black belt a national gold medalist I competed internationally and nationally I'm in Taekwondo karate so martial arts has taught me the discipline and together we' created this company called ninja Science Academy
057and I feel can really like this program can really help enhance the the school district um overall because our son he goes to the school district so we're kind of passionate about bringing our program and helping to enhance the quality of the schools by offering like well like ancient Wellness techniques that like you know it's a really good balance between technology and modern education so using those techniques to like really help Foster learning Foster curiosity um and also just you know helping to build like so using this concept and I love like the unity Fields concept of like you know really bringing the community together um we would love to offer like fundraising opportunities and like events and ways that we can really uh bring in revenue for the school and also just bring to
058make our community stronger so that was kind of my point if anybody would love to connect I would love to um offer um our skills to the community this is our first this is my first time attending a public forum and I'm super excited to be part of this community and I hope there's a lot of room for collaboration John mold hello everyone um I kind of do stuff off the cuff there's been a lot of great speakers here a lot of people that have we got a lot of good information tonight Dr kilat has been very open really appreciate him you know talking but I am part of the asle unity Fields ASO Catalyst group and I've been a Community member for about 40 years so I've seen this town grow from here to
059here now as we talked about tonight our schools a lot of our schools were built 20 years ago or more a little bit more recent so we see these Financial you know downfalls of previous administrations okay what we're doing I'm a big part of oitf there's a lot of oitf guys here it's a youth football league we are playing in Yorkville okay this these are all mostly asgo kids we play on a Hayfield in Yorkfield basically okay it's very embarrassing I invite friends and family out that go what is up with this why am I coming to Yorkville why why can't oitf for the asgo Bears we have great representation from the asgo Bears here tonight that why can't we play in asle the asgo Bears play in a at AU we play in Yorkville
060we practice in plain field at isas school district but to have pride this community was built on taking care of its kids okay somebody we've already talked about the three PS we've talked about you know private public you know partnering and what we're trying to do is without increas in taxes improve facilities bring money in for our kids I mean this affects all kids we're talking any any kind of extracurricular activity which most kids in our district do we do something you know band is a huge thing it's a huge draw our Fields sometimes are muddy we can't use them I mean baseball teams got to go play in Playing Field or Yorkville you know what we're trying to do is trying to bring the school board the park district and private funding together to
061make us so we go a better place but also to bring in tax dollars you know economic we over there what is Aso missing we don't have huge you know warehouses we don't have that people fight that I understand that people don't want semis driving through Orchard Road or 34 but the partnership we're talking about is to bring tax dollars in but also improve to help the school not have to spend money just let us use your facilities let us get a lease on land get a the old trer has been sitting there empty it's very embarrassing in a way for us to do you know this is just something it's very passionate because I take great pride in asigo you know I consider this place my home and it's always going to be my
062home and I want to have pride and I don't right now it's very embarrassing even the the high school football field okay thank you peace out Faith cardo hello I am not a speaker um and I did not prepare your speech because I wasn't supposed to be able to make it here tonight but I will um I am not here to talk about the field I'm very I support everything that you guys want with that that's great but figured we could mix it up a little bit um I am here to talk about just the need for more um I think that a lot of times when we're talking about inclusion of neurod Divergent individuals we're talking about coming in them into our classrooms and that's great that you will allow my neurod Divergent son
063in your classroom thank you so much for not making him sit outside but I would like to see more neuro affirming classrooms more neuro affirming practices more neuro affirming um development with the teachers a lot of the teachers that are teaching in the schools were taught years ago and I mean if you think about what our knowledge of say you know I'm going to use autism for an example because that's what I know about that's what my son has a lot of these teachers went to school when autism was UN understood completely differently um and so if there's not continued education and professional development directed to develop or to I mean updating these Educators on how to be neuro affirming specifically then all these children are falling through the cracks um my son his this
064isn't this isn't an issue in the Stars program that his Stars teachers are absolutely amazing and so just wonderful with him so loving and warm and welcoming and and and thorough with him and everything but then when he goes into the janed classroom that's a different story he is treated very differently there were multiple instances in which he was kind of being excluded from their lessons um and I feel like I have been to multiple forums about these issues and every time I'm told that my feedback is welcome I give my feedback and nothing happens and it's kind of just swept under rug and pushed aside or I give my feedback and they say what can we do to make this situation better and I tell them and they say oh no no no that
065won't work so it's almost as if they already have an answer in their heads this is how we're going to handle it and I feel like they could benefit from humbling themselves a little bit in taking in this parent input okay maybe you don't have the resources to fully educate all these Educators on these advancements on the new understanding and everything then humble yourself and understand that as a parent if I'm telling you I know what my child needs maybe you can accept that and understand that also just the fact that one of my son's educated the general Educators um was not sending the newsletter to the the kids from the Stars program that were integrating so my son and one other child um come into this uh Jed classroom to get math reading social
066studies different items um that teacher was not sending her newsletter covering what was being covered in class to the students from the Stars program and when I asked her about it this is someone who's been taking Stars students for five years she said no stars family has ever come to me and told me that they had an issue with the newsletter not being sent to them well I'm sorry that these parents who probably didn't know your newsletter existed didn't you know come to tell you that their child has an equal right to an accessible education um so I realized that I'm out of time and I didn't get to a single point that I wrote down um um I'm also neurod diversion I have ADHD so you know I try um but anyway so I
067would like us we we have this community here we we all have this need we acknowledge this is a need there's so many parents that have vocalized this over and over and I'm not seeing any progress um we do need to have some type of professional development targeting neurode Divergent education and inclusion included in the professional development thank you Jamie Howard hi thank you for having us my name is Jamie Howard I've been a resident of asigo for over 25 years years I've spent almost 20 years coaching travel baseball and football and I'm currently the president of asigo utle football and cheer I'm also part of the unity Fields collaboration oitf is one of the largest and oldest football programs in the Chicago land area celebrating our 45th season and home to over 600 young
068athletes age 6 to 14 for both football and cheer we're also one of the largest tenants of the asiga Land Park District but as mentioned earlier we practice in planfield two years ago oitf reviewed options to deal with space constraints in game for games due to our significant growth we had over 25% growth coming out of covid we signed an agreement to move our games to a privately owned facility in Yorkville called Go Fort Sports the decision was based on criteria that would Elevate not only the players experience but the family's experiences such as basic field facilities like pay parking restrooms and power all things the park district when we asked for their support in that couldn't provide it over the last two seasons oitf has hosted approximately 180 games on one field one grass
069field 180 games on average a high school season sees 15 games on one field and we've had 90 just this season alone so there's absolutely no way that we can maintain and take care of a field with that type of participation we've paid over $40,000 in the last two years to an organization outside of our community we see approximately a thousand families a weekend come to our games in Yorkville okay and go and patronage local shops and restaurants in Yorkville not as weo there are 22 towns in the bill George League that we belong to and oitf is only one of three towns that do not have any type of turf playing facility we have grass for 90 games in one season our grow plan includes adding competitive cheerleading and gross flag football we're we're
070expected to grow with over 200 participants in the next couple years we need a long-term solution we need a longterm partner I've been asked by parents by school officials and by other organizations why don't we play in asigo it's easy answer there's nowhere to play nowhere to play when I moved here over 25 years ago I moved here okay thank you and I really hope that we can continue our support and work together I will Michelle Trager hi Michelle Trager for kids in the district um I want to talk about Boulder Hill tonight specifically in relation to what I talked about at the last board meeting which is mental health but but first I just want to share that I was told tonight that Boulder Hill is getting a new playground it's a guaranteed Grant
071and it's going to be adaptive and beautiful and the timeline is that as soon as the school year is over they're going to start putting it in and that is a huge positive thank you to everybody who worked on that it's going to show those kids that they are valued by our district and that is very important um so that's really exciting um but I what I want to talk about is um the issue of Social Work at Boulder Hill um I believe we have not had a stable permanent full-time social worker at Boulder Hill all year we have two and a half Social Work positions there that need to be filled we've had one temporary contractor and now another and I believe that person is not full time kids who have IEPs with social
072work minutes how are those minutes being met are they being met those are federally mandated minutes there should be some urgency so we're not in violation of the IEPs I know we can't get blood from a stone as far as making staff magically appear but I also know there's a TA at Boulder Hill who has an mssw but not the school certificate part is this something that NextGen can be used for because she's been told yes and she's also been told no she's had virtual meetings scheduled with HR about it and she has been blown up other schools may have more than one social worker as well as interns those interns are now a quarter into the year and should be able to take on some of the case load could one of the fulltime
073social workers slide over to Boulder Hill at least part of the time we know that Boulder Hill is the highest need Elementary School my daughter has had a wonderful experience there but some students aren't getting support they need and crucially we need to give our wonderful staff some relief so please act with urgency in trying to find a creative solution especially when there are people who God love them are willing to possibly take on that role thank you Michael gilio good evening members of the Board of Education and fellow community members uh my name is Michael julo my wife Brandy and uh we are we are parents of student athletes in School District 308 uh like many families here I'm incredibly grateful for the athletic programs that help shape our students teaching them valuable life
074skills teamwork and resilience however as we continue to prioritize our students growth I would like to highlight a concern shared by many of our parents regarding the current funding for our athletic programs as it stands parents contribute a $300 fee per sport each year per student expecting These funds will support their child's activity directly it has come to our attention over the course of time that these fees typically do not directly benefit the athletic Department's uh related sports equipment facilities or even even events related to that specific sport instead they are placed into a general fund which is then redistributed to School District 308 priorities however administrative leadership at Central offices decides uh this seems to or this seems a bit like bait and switch in uh in our opinion when on top of these
075significant fees families are frequently asked to participate in numerous fundraisers just to cover Essentials like equipment and other resources that are critical to these programs uh this cycle places a significant financial burden on parents and families and it may limit access for some students whose families are unable to cover these costs or meet the fundraising demands opportunities like the asigo unity Fields initiative offer a potential path forward and one that can help directly improve athletic facilities and programs without raising the taxes of our local citizenry by exploring Partnerships like these we have the chance to expand resources that support our students while also reducing the financial strain on families and our district and creating a more sustainable funding approach this kind of investment would not only benefit the students directly but would also help our
076district and Community by bringing in additional revenues ultimately reducing the financial load on taxpayers over time while improving facilities more than just improved facilities public private Partnerships as proposed with unity Fields would ensure that our extracurricular programs are accessible inclusive and fully equipped to Foster Student Success Athletics play a pivotal role in this physical social and mental well-being of our students and every young athlete should have the opportunity to participate uh participate fully regardless of financial means thank you for your time for considering solutions that prioritize our students needs and well-being while also benefiting the larger Community I pray I pray that you will stand with the community that want this for the community so very much okay I'd like to give our board members an opportunity to have any final thoughts any of our
077board members have any final thoughts where are you guys want to come up yeah because we need to hear you in the microphone I'll just be quick uh because I know it's getting late at night but I want to uh on behalf of myself as a board member and likely the other board members thank everyone for coming out uh we enjoy the energy uh when we sit at board meetings we don't often have this many people in the room so it's nice to get to sit next to people and talk about the things that we talk about on a regular basis to note uh we have several meetings a month that are public meetings so you are always welcome at our regular board meetings and we also have several committee meetings a month as well
078uh and so we invite discuss or we invite you to attend those as well and learn even more in depth about the um items that um come to our full board meetings as well so thank you again everyone for coming out I appreciate it okay so I just want to give the details on those meetings Okay so our equity and learning and Innovation meetings is scheduled for November 6th at 5: PM it's they're at Dak right the district office our policy and legislative meeting is scheduled for November 7th and they're both at 5:00 P p.m. at Dak and then our finance and Facilities meeting is scheduled for December 3rd at 600 pm at Dak um I just first of all um thank you again to everybody but also to our Administration for working so hard
079and putting this together I um personally have fought for a strategic plan that um really utilized and center the of our community because when your voice is being used to build the Strategic plan um I really think that you then buy more into the school district and want to see us succeed as everybody has said tonight collaboration is critical to get our students what we want I too am an oitf mom Dr katti will tell you that I often say to him why can my boy not play on the field that he's going to eventually go to high school with I to have fought for that but what I encourage is and I'm speaking as one person not for the board it's really critical that everybody understands that we don't have any information and so
080all we know is what's out on social media we haven't seen plans we haven't seen any of that so really help us crystallize this and put it together and let us be part of it but asking us to stand behind something that we don't know a lot about is really hard to do so I just want to be very clear here as one person speaking not the board not the administration please don't assume that you know what we know and don't know and please don't assume because a lot of people have put out there that we have personal agendas please don't assume that we have personal agendas my agenda for myself is the students and the teachers and the administrators in this district and I fight really hard for them so I just wanted to
081share that I needed to address some things that were said in social media that were very upsetting so I just wanted to put that out there but we can work together and we will work together when all of the things benefit our school district and our community so thank you very much for coming out tonight please come to more meetings and please participate because it was amazing to have everyone here this evening you're the you're the reason I'm coming up here because everybody got thanked but we do have elected officials here and I thank them for coming um the you know we we touch a lot of municipalities a lot of different taxing bodies Montgomery uh Village of Montgomery has always been there to uh work with us and talk with us and it's greatly
082appreciated and so I had to come up here Matt because uh I had to remind you right of a conversation that we had and for those that don't know what was that seven or eight years ago seven or eight years ago we sat at asgo East right big lights right and uh failed refer ROM couple of them right um and if you remember one of the things I said was this is going to be painful for years perhaps a decade we will not recover in a year we will continue to have these pieces and as I listen to people um for those who don't know a little bit about me I uh reside here right seventh largest school district and I work in the ninth largest School District and my wife is in 204 uh
083so I I I get exposed to a lot of these uh Luda districts right and I will tell you that here's the painful part right um a lot of what we are experiencing is growth but on top of that and I always listen people get tired of me talking about this Illinois is a very unique State and there is a line of unit districts large unit districts that stretches from almost Wisconsin right down to here and next to those unit districts you have high school only districts and you have Elementary only districts here's some numbers for you Yorkville spends $115,000 per student Newark which is right next to it their High School District spends $22,000 per student this is going to be hard for me to explain but I'll try imagine if you will you
084have a unit district with a $100 right think of all the things they have to do now think of yourself if you have a high school district they got a $100 bucket and there's a bunch of stuff they don't have to do they don't have to worry about elementary students they don't have to worry about Junior High Sports and on top of that they've got an Elementary District in the same boundaries that have their own $100 bucket they don't have to worry about high school sports this is why Manuka spends $21,000 in their High School District on students now I used to like I'll be honest with you I went through covid and I thought man and then I thought to myself wait a minute maybe I got this all wrong I've been sitting here
085for years thinking we need unit districts we we need unit districts and those high school and Elementary districts were able to maneuver through covid quite frankly better than we were I started to rethink things Elgen u46 second largest District I believe uh glenbard backs up to it they spend thousands of dollars per student more than what you're going to get in u46 so I I always like to always play the educator and sorry some people hate that um but I I do like when the community comes out and I can only hope we take these macro pieces too because I guarantee they affect us I promise you even when you don't see it they affect us and and seven or eight years ago I said someday there's going to be a board up here trying
086to explain that and I hope we remember so thank you but on top of this thank you because you didn't have to come tonight both of you didn't have to yeah I know well he called me a hero one time for the grandfather uh clause on the Thompson to you remember yeah I'm GNA hold you to that um but thank you because uh you're here and um you remember those those pieces and you remember those words so thank you also to the elected officials obviously thank you to community members means a lot that's it okay now we need to conduct a little bit of Business board members um action item 9.1 approval of Transportation routing system can I have a motion please yeah you come yeah come on up here make a motion to approve
087Tyler routing system to replace Veris Veris versatran sorry as presented Miss vmou Dr Mario Miss Johnson Mr Cerone Miss similton hi Mr pler Mr Gatewood motion passes 70 okay action item 9.2 um can I have a motion to table this item and move to November 18th make a motion to table 9.2 and move to November 18th the approval of the radio and repeater RFP Mr Cerone Mr Gatewood miss vmou Mr ploger hi Miss similon hi Dr Mario Miss Johnson motion passes 70 action item 9.3 approval of policy 2 colon 125 school board can I have a motion please make a motion to approve board policy section two School Board two colon 125 as presented Mr Mr Gatewood miss vmou Mr Cerone miss similon I miss Johnson Dr Mario motion passes 70 action item 9.4 approval
088of field trip overnight and or more than 200 miles make a motion to approve the field trip for overnight and or more than 200 miles Mr Gatewood Dr Mario Miss Johnson Mr Cerone Miss similon hi Mr ploger hi Miss venoth motion passes 70 action I'm sorry uh 10.1 can I have a motion to adjourn