001to the flag of the United States of America and to the for stands Nation God indivisible andice for all good evening can you all hear me okay good evening everyone um thrilled um since 2015 our district has engaged in taking time every month to recognize those who are leading and contributing significantly in our district I'm going to invite Teresa Kamas to now speak to our pride award and we have uh members this evening who have joined us and we are excited to welcome them and to have the board recognize them here in our um monthly board meeting yes so Bard if you could join us in the middle here so as Dr KAG mentioned this is a program The Pride program stands for proudly recognizing individuals demonstrating excellence and was started by the board in
0022015 we want to thank our generous District Partners serve Bank Huntington Learning Center Chick-fil-A and Culver for helping make this program a success we'd also like to thank all of those who nominate individuals for consideration of these Awards awardees tonight as your name is called and we share your nomination please come forward and be greeted by the board and Dr katti we'll begin tonight by congratulating our February and March teachers of the month for February Joe Bean a language arts teacher from plank Junior [Applause] High Jill is the epitome of professional and caring to her core she goes out of her way to make all students valued and welcome and making the extra effort to get to know them as a person she quickly becomes a favorite of many students everyone is welcome in her
003classroom and recognized Miss Bean is the first to check in on her colleagues for new teachers she regularly takes personal time to make and share materials along with guidance to encourage smooth and successful transitions her creativity and personality are credit to her to the profession of an educator and to plank Junior High School congratulations Joe next we welcome up Katie bosi drama theater teach from as weo East High School next up we welcome Diane Johnson kindergarten teacher from Long Beach Elementary School Miss Johnson consistently goes far above and beyond and she does so effortlessly the needs of students are placed above all else and she stops at nothing to ensure that everyone has what they need to be successful Dianne's classroom management is amazing her ability to build relationships and pivot fluidly to accommodate the
004diverse needs of students this year is impressive going the extra mile would be a gross understatement for Miss Johnson and others are honored to work alongside of her congratulations [Applause] Diane next up our March winners we ask Tim T tivani the business teacher from ASO High School Tim is in his 20th year of teaching at asigo high school and he's also been a member of the boys basketball coaching staff as a teacher Tim is loved by his students and one of the kids' favorites he also runs the panther Credit Union teaching kids about finances as a basketball coach Tim spends countless hours at practice games reviewing videos all in hopes of making his players better people and not just better basketball players Tim is a great example of someone that goes the extra mile for
005his school his students and his players he does it all with a smile and never asks for any recognition we thank you [Applause] Tim next up Anna Marie cantos fourth grade teacher from Hunt Club Mrs Kos has been the most amazing pleasing fourth grade teacher she goes above and beyond for her students pushing them to do their very best and helping them keep their love of learning she also works hard in helping make students mentally prepared for taking tests reaching out and keeping parents up toate on everything and truly caring about their her students well-being and education she truly is an amazing fourth grade teacher and we thank you [Applause] congratulations Mela Matias kindergarten dual language teacher from Boulder [Applause] Hill she is described as a modern version of a Mary Poppins she's truly an
006amazing teacher teaching kindergarten is perfect for her because she's so welcoming and students have the most amazing and engaging experience entering their school system she goes above and beyond for her students always in communication with students and parents and cares for their well-being that whether that be their educational mental or physical well-being we want to say thank you and congratulations at this time we invite any of our building administrators who are present here this evening to come forward and join our awardees as we take a photo with the board stand on a chair want stand on a chair yeah okay HR don't look say not on the table congratulations [Applause] teachers next up we're going to begin awarding our amazing support staff winners awardees again after your name is called please come forward to be
007congratulated by the board and Dr katti starting off with our February winners first we're going to start with Tommy beel from [Applause] transportation tomm is a dispatcher and has been an integral part of the transportation team since February of 2023 from the beginning he has demonstrated a remarkable level of enthusiasm and dedication towards his role as a dispatcher his willingness to assist his colleagues in his infectious smile makes him a valuable asset to the team Tommy has exhibited exceptional potential for growth and development and his patience in assisting schools and parents with Transportation information is commendable we have no doubt he will continue to excel with the department and eagerly anticipate witnessing his future accomplishments congratulations we welcome up Yolanda Sanchez special education teaching assistant from Wolf's [Applause] Crossing as a first year teacher in
008the Stars program Yolanda was described as a godsend she's the backbone of the classroom defend Dependable firm yet gentle and hardworking she follows the teachers lead and goes above and beyond to make sure the classroom is running smoothly and students are working to achieve their personal best she arrives early to help set up the classroom and takes materials home to prep she has a special bond with the students and knows when they need time to process when they need a start chart to incentivize or when they just need a hug she pushes the students and encourages them you can always be counted on youa and we want you to know how much we appreciate you congratulations next up is Maria Sosa our custodian from our maintenance department Maria cleans several buildings around the district her
009smile her positive attitude and willingness to pitch in is appreciated she works hard to get to know people and remembers special things about them which is hard given how many locations she goes to we love seeing her wear school spirit shirts and talk about the things going on around the district in a role that can be difficult Maria always approaches each messy situation with a smile when she comes in she brings a bit of sunshine with her and we're always so happy that she's here Maria really lives out the values of sd308 thank [Applause] you our March winners begin with Mr Gabriel Torres building engineer from Long Beach not here this evening [Applause] okay next Kathleen matah special education teaching assistant from transition [Applause] Pathways and Kristen Whittle special education teaching assistant from Lakewood Creek
010Elementary School Kristen has a natural ability to work with children possessing a remarkable ability to connect with students and staff creating a supportive and nurturing atmosphere in the classroom she quietly goes above and beyond to ensure that every student feels valued and understood fostering a sense of belonging that greatly enhances the overall educational experience for everyone her calm and reassuring communication skills are such a great asset to the overall success of every classroom that she's in throughout the day she's able to identify the strengths and challenges of each student providing personalized assistance that promotes academic growth and confidence all the students who know Miss Kristen love her and are excited to show her when they succeed at a task within the classroom she's always there to cheer them on and praise every accomplishment big or
011small and tonight we say congratulations to you again we'll invite up any of our building administrators who are here tonight to join us for a photo just going back up close your eyes as workers come one final round of applause for tonight's winners congratulations [Applause] everyone y all did great I going to thank the Communications Department for their and the human resource department for the organization of our pride Awards and also all the sponsorship we received for this so thank you to both departments for really helping um honor the best in our district we'll move on to public comment now so on behalf of the Board of Education I would like to thank the public for attending tonight's meeting we value the feedback we receive from our residents and encourage everyone to take an active
012interest in their Public School System residents interested in speaking to the Board of Education this evening are asked to have completed completed a comment card and provided it to the secretary to the board when the secretary calls your name I ask that you step to the microphone state your name for the public record and provide your feedback in order to hear from as many as possible comments tonight have been limited to three per subject three minutes per person for a total of 30 minutes so after we have heard from that segment of indiv of public comment we will then take as many additional comments that have been submitted until our 30 minutes have elapsed comments should address the Board of Education as a whole and not be directed to an individual board member audience or
013staff the board does not participate in public comment and follow up to your questions and concerns will be addressed by Administration through the contact information provided on the comment card thank you thank you Kate coxworth can you hear me is it working okay hello my name is Kate coxworth I'm an industrial broker I was here last June speaking to you guys on behalf of the Caris project in Montgomery Illinois right up the road um I just wanted to come back we've have been having some discussions and as the project has been going forward we are still trying to finalize our incentive package and we are here to hopefully answer any questions that you guys might have although I understand that you cannot interact with me but I'll try to get some information out there that
014maybe you might not have already or um cover some things that hopefully if we we'll just play by ear you can let me know um so I understand that trusty Bowman met with a couple people today um the village of Montgomery has been very helpful with this project I think um some of the disconnect on the on the incentive piece might have come from there's been a lot of staff changes both from a incentive perspective at Montgomery as well as you guys have had some staff changes um as you guys have noticed I'm sure we have a building that's going up right now in Montgomery that we're really excited about it's home to Rago it's 500,000 square feet right now um that's phase one of what they have planned at that site it's supposed to
015be up to 1.1 million square fet when they're done and we hope that they continue here because they're a fantastic company um and they have over 325 locations throughout the world um they're one of the biggest plastic pellets distributor in the world they I think they do like 65% of all plastic resin P pellets it's a great company they really like the communities that they go into and they want to stay for a long long time the amount of money that they're putting into this project so far would take far more than the 10 years that we're asking for an abatement to cover the cost far more and they have really identified this area somewhere where they want to be so I we think that that's all really positive um we also have 100 acres
016left to the north and that is something that the developer is looking to um put into production as soon as possible truth be told we actually have three people looking at the site right now um all of them understand kind of where we are with incentives and none of them will go forward until we understand what what the situation is so we are asking if there's any way we can either have a more formal conversation we'd love to talk to the board directly about it um but we're just really looking to try to figure this out as quickly as we can so that we can put all this into production and get the full sight going because I think that in that situation everybody wins because that's all taxable dollars then instead of having just
017remaining farm field for a long period of time um trying to see what else I can talk to here so I know there's been a lot of numbers that have been thrown around but you know I think that there are a lot of positives to this project there's a lot of new infrastructure that wouldn't be there already um part of that is just because of some projects that Montgomery had planned I know that there's a new water situation that's happening in the early 20 30s and we are oversizing pipe so that that project is able to be carried a little further west and able to benefit the entire Community um we are really aiming to build to bring in worldclass businesses to be here these incentives go towards the businesses just so you guys understand
018that and not the developer we're not asking on behalf of the developer it's it's really to get the best companies that we can thank you Kate sure Dominic carar good evening can everybody hear me my name is Dominic carbiner I'm a Kate's partner at jll again here on behalf of jll and Caris to what I like to do is not talk about the incentives so much as to talk about the marketplace and how the market place has shifted for these occupiers and what that means to for you the community and how being a little bit more attractive with an incentives program can change these three options we have they paused we're kind of said once you figure this out it'll go into our analysis and we'll go forward from there being different matters today when
019you're marketing these projects um Chicago is a different marketplace now the demand has shifted it's not like it was 18 24 months ago so to be more attractive to these sites to have you know increased infrastructure to help produce for them today and then tomorrow in the unknown that all that all comes down and means a lot to the community furthermore as we as we invest in the community with these businesses you know they're going to input all this infrastructure they're going to be able to market the Orchard Road piece for more retail and Commercial businesses which will continually drive you know more foot traffic through the community and increase the exposure of Montgomery in general so it's not just it is you know a 10year program but the investment to Kate's point about Rago
020and the other two infrastructures they're not just warehouses where there's Fork uh Fork trucks and trucks coming in and out this is manufacturing this is you know the inside the Box investment is for the next 50 years it's not for the next 10 years and so that's what really matters and that's what the visions of these companies that we're seeing these companies we can't mention these three names but these names that you're all familiar with or have seen you know their vehicles going down the street thank you thank you Christopher Kennedy hello again hello uh if you don't mind picking up the the sheet here that we prepared this evening just a recap where we kicked off a couple of weeks ago talking about the exciting sport of Lacrosse but more importantly an opportunity for
021our youth for something new a new opportunity we uncovered a couple of barriers that were brought up diligently from the last meeting and we wanted to focus tonight on how we found solutions for those barriers most notably the financial one um H how do we get opportunities for our students in a creative way that engages our community and happy announce if you turn the page over an exciting announcement from epic lacrosse which is one of the national leaders they actually support the professional lacrosse league has selected asigo for our discount partner for all of the equipment outside of the helmets this is a tremendous opportunity and one that I work directly with the CEO he sends his congratulations directly to all of us and commends us on the planning that has gone into this so
022it's a really a testament to the people that you'll hear us speak tonight that kind of joined me in this effort um but I also want to highlight the the Dynamics around when we look at costing getting to True numbers there were some numbers thrown out at the last meeting that simply aren't accurate right it's not $35,000 in this case it was $25,000 when we got the quotes back the $25,000 between the boosters and our sponsors and more importantly in my mind our community stakeholders those dollars have now been taken care of so finances are not a barrier that that could have been there and actually something to for us all to consider is those barriers moving forward for other sport sports or even looking back in the revie miror at some of the sports
023today that have Financial barriers how can we raise money in the community to address some of the athletic fees for example I'll also let you all know that we took into account the education component and I know one of the other members of the boosters will talk more about that and in the spirit of these anxious other members of the lacrosse team behind me I'll turn my time over thank you thank you John [Music] McLure good evening everyone uh my name is sha mcair and I was here a couple weeks ago with Chris as well as some other fathers to talk about the lacrosse program and we listened and walked away with uh some things that we felt we needed to think about some effort and energy that we needed to put into things which
024obviously as you see here on this sheet we have done that and when I look at youth today uh my son being one of them I never played lacrosse I never had the opportunity to play lacrosse I had an opportunity when I was a resident here in iGo which I have been for over 20 some years and the coach through the park district program which was right here in the oso Park District said will you help coach and I said I know nothing about lacrosse he goes that's all right we'll teach you so I learned the sport with my son at a very young age I learned to coach many kids from the age of kindergarden up to third grade then I turned them over to someone that played the sport and knew the sport
025and on the education piece I think our district has put ourselves in a good position to expand the sport offerings and when you look at the sport of Lacrosse um ASO Park District is now offering Youth Lacrosse again this spring in a uh collaboration with East AV which is the program my son plays with true lacrosse has also been here for two clinics which I think most people weren't even aware of those clinics because they weren't really publicly advertised and there wasn't a lot of uh sharing of information but we had a good turnout in the first two sessions and I think when you look at our spring Sports there's sports that will cut kids and what do we have as an alternative if they get cut what if they don't make the team for
026say volleyball what's their other options out there track maybe what about lacrosse maybe it's another offering that our kids could consider and I look at the kids that maybe get cut from a program that's a tough feeling to walk away from a sport and I'm hopeful that when we get lacrosse in Osgo that we're in a position where we not only fill a roster but maybe we'll get to that point where we have to consider having a cap on the number of kids we've thought about that and we've talked to True lacrosse which is another uh company that uh offers youth programs in the area they'd be willing to grab those kids and help them in the offseason learn the sport get them educated on the sport and get them ready for the next season
027we can take this a step further and look at our physical education program we could take all of our element elementary schools introduce a session of Lacrosse with tennis balls and lacrosse sticks in the gymnasium very simple it's called wall ball we could build the future generations for our lacrosse program through the physical education program in combination with the park district assets whether it be East AV or true lacrosse but these are fundamental things that as a community I would love to see us come together and not look at this as just a high school sport for today but for Generations ahead and I look at my youngest son who plays o TF football I got 9 seconds he loves that sport but he also loves lacrosse so in the spring he'll be here trying
028out for lacrosse one of these days but again I appreciate your consideration of bringing lacrosse to asgo so we can compete with some of these neighboring communities and build a program that is known for us Wego thank you thank you Enzo morasco hello my name is Enz morasco I'm a student at Rob Junior High School I've never played the sport of Lacrosse but I enjoy uh like the thought of playing it someday thank you thank you hel Schultz think it's on already all right I would like to speak I'm Kelly Schultz I would like to speak in behalf in support of the math interventionists that were hired in the non-title elementary buildings with eser funds as we all know those funds will no longer be available to us this year and I've been lobbying to
029anybody who will listen to me all year in support of these interventionists the interventionist at Churchill Who services over 60 children a year has made a difference in our math test scores student achievement performance in the classroom and more importantly these students are more visibly confident and Performing and participating more in class they have found a fresh love for learning in math I strongly advocate for these interventionists and hope that the administration and the school board will actively continue to secure funds to continue this position thank you thank you Norman V J uh hello my name is Norman v um I currently attend Cher junior high school and uh I'm playing basketball I look forward to playing basketball in high school but I also feel like lacrosse should be included in high school sports because
030it also would have a impact on people who never played the sport before or people who's more passionate about the sport thank you thank you Earl Holmes good evening uh Earl Holmes um I have got four children that play sports in the village of asigo Ages from 13 all the way down to six two in trer and two in Prairie Point uh my wife and I both serve on the board for the asao Bears football and chair organization she is the director for cheerleading and I'm the director for recruiting uh we've worked heavily with that organization and other organizations in asigo to bring on Co-op Partnerships with pure motion and then other businesses throughout the community we've done recruiting in schools in sports and then in our neighborhood um and and I'm here to support
031um bringing lacrosse to as weo as well I've heard Rumblings from parents from moms from coaches Around The Limited options that some of the kids have especially when they get to sixth grade there's not many options for sports I think track and I think wrestling is it and then from when you start looking at some of the villages that surround us we go Neighborville planfield and they've got a program like lacrosse I think it's a great great option for some of our kids that one play sports and then two for options for the kids that don't really play sports to give them some education around what it means to play lacrosse so some of the things that we've done with the bear so far around recruiting and Partnerships with some of these co-ops I don't
032see any reason why we can't take that same Dynamic that we've done with them and bring it to something like lacrosse here in asigo I fully support um the vision for Chris and Sean to bring asigo to uh or to bring lacrosse to asigo and I appreciate the time tonight thank you thank you ran McKinley hi there I'm Brianna McKinley um lacrosse sounds really nice by the way I think some Boulder Hill kids might like that as well um but I'm not here to talk about lacrosse um I am currently in the school psychologist at Boulder Hill Elementary School um I take great pride in representing this school that's become my second home for the past seven years um I've always been very fully vested in the students at Boulder Hill I don't know if
033I can do it but we have a lot of amazing people in initiatives at Boulder Hill but we have a lot of barriers right now and we need some help so in order for help to happen we need to look at some of the things that can help us so one of them is overcrowding so we have a very high mobile rate at Boulder Hill and we have a lot of overcrowding and we have a lot of students who are not getting what they need a lot of the kids that come to our School are emerging in a lot of their pre- Readiness skills um you can see this from Mastery connect data from kindergarten screeners a lot of the kids that come in um it's just a different playing field and we need to
034help them and so I'm hoping that maybe looking at some redistricting um within our district or within our boundaries uh such as the mountgomery place Apartments there's about 70 students who have um had a lot of bus issues this year as well um there's five elementary schools that are closer in mileage that maybe they can um they be able to go to that one of those schools that way their bus routes not as long because they're also really hungry and exhausted um they pass the wheatlands Long Beach Churchill Homestead and wolves crossing the second barrier is the kids are not getting what they need and I just want them to get the things that they need sorry this is going to be really hard for me but I just I've served this district for seven
035years and I just want the kids to succeed um another thing too is we had a third admin position posted and it's not posted anymore it was posted in November December and it was never filled and we really would benefit from a third administrator to help us with crisis with access testing because we have the Dual language program and that takes a lot of uh proctoring and it would also help with some of the student discipline so I'm sorry that I got really emotional tonight but thanks for allowing me to speak with you and I just encourage you to continue to visit Boulder Hill regularly and have discussions with all those teachers and ta and administrators because you guys have a lot of power and I want you to be able to help the staff
036and the community of Boulder Hill thank you s Diaz hello my name is it on yeah okay hello my name is Sarah Diaz priz I come today as a concerned parent and frankly also a Fed Up parent I also come to speak on behalf of all our students but in particular our black and brown around students you see I have a problem when my child cannot use the school bathroom without being stopped and event and unreasonably unreasonably searched on his way out because the bathroom smelled like marijuana my child's rights are being violated when it is not a situation of individual suspicion because there are three or five other kids in the bathroom these searches are unreasonable how how are we sure unconscious bias isn't happening or children are not being subjected to unreasonable search
037and seizure are we here really for the benefit of the students and seeing them graduate high school or are we here to police all day and lose focus on what is most important because for what I can see District 308 or as we go East High School is part of the problem we have across this country with the school to prison pipeline are we not aware that the ones mostly affected by this are black and brown students or those with disabilities many times these searches are invasive and violate the rights of our students is this a school where our students can come to learn or a place where they have to face the uncertainty that they will be searched again because unconscious bias is in play I know there is the thought that these searches
038are here to protect our children but are they really doing that overall or are they just causing more damage than good by causing anxiety and other lifelong major mental health disorders trauma when being done so loosely and I can say this as someone who personally lived through this damage through this over overly policing behavior that it causes another concern I have is our students being used to give statements against other students and losing class time because of this why do we have cameras in the school shouldn't this be sufficient or shouldn't at the very least students who are not personally involved have a choice to participate or not these tactics are being done since elementary school in District 8 I feel this causes unnecessary trauma unto our youth that will then become lifelong trauma there
039has to be other ways of handling these issues in a less invasive way thank you thank you thank you there Aria uh hi I'm a student at trer junor high and and I play volleyball and I don't play lacrosse but I would like to give lacrosse a chance so I hope that you vote for lacrosse thank you thank you hi Kennedy hi U my name is Ty Kennedy I currently am an eighth grader at trer Junior High and I'm also here to talk on behalf of the possible sport of Lacrosse in the SD 308 District um I've been playing lacrosse for I think three years now and it's the game just brings joy to my life it's amazing I love playing it and I actually just came here from trying out for the volleyball team
040at trer Junior High and there were four total of like 40 over 40 people I think who tried out for the volleyball team and only 16 people ended up making the team so that's much over half of the people and those kids like they they might not have anything to do you know that volleyball is out of the picture for them so I just think that bring them across to the district and uh the high schools would be like just an amazing opportunity like Mr McClair had said previously so I hope that you guys will give it a chance thank you thank you thank you Ali Berto hi I'm Ally Rell and I'm a student at trer Junior High as well I'm also a multiport athlete and I going into high school I'm really looking
041forward to trying new sports and giving every chance I can to New Opportunities and Lacrosse being one of those so thank you thank you Katie heyden hello my name is Katie heyen passionate advocate for the Trel trades and Advocate also for neurodiversity and other Industries uh tonight I actually kind of want to Echo what the other teacher was speaking about before was how we can struggle with some of our students being underserve how sometimes your learning difference or some refer to as disability can be an invisible barrier that other people cannot recognize if you're introverted or different forms of Education when it comes to licensing exams or certification courses those students can feel those real barriers I wanted to kind of touch base from what I was here on the last meeting how I think
042it's wonderful how you guys are doing you know trying to create new sports within District 308 lacrosse water polo girls wrestling but as someone who's very passionate about the travel trades and construction one makes me feel that sometimes we're on the sidelines we kind of get forgotten about because what are visual canese learners those are people who love sports they love art they love music you know they love culinary all people who are physical not doing the same monotonous thing every day and I would like you to just dream about what a new kind of program would be to involve more kids in trades at you know a younger age even if they didn't like sports why not get them interested in the construction industry if you don't Market it and showcase how wonderful it
043is like how we do for Sports in you know the United States then people aren't going to be engaged and that's how we have a Workforce where most of our workers are 45 and older that's 45% I need you as Educators and staff and board members to promote it just as much as you do universities and Community College if you're not promoting it our students will not be eager to join so just as much as I'm excited about a new sport let's get students excited about the trades and new programs that we could bring on through deferred and preventative Mo uh deferred and preventative maintenance at local schools so they could get the experience they need and get prevailing wages out of high school thank you thank you Dominic Holmes can you hear me y
044hello my name is Dominic Holmes um I'm currently a student at trer Junior High I'm in sixth grade I'm 12 years old and I'm also here to uh talk about lacrosse and uh how we should bring it to asgo um I've been living here since 2018 and and I've been playing the three basic Sports football basketball and baseball and wanted to try out something new such as lacrosse and not just me other kids too um uh other people like if they don't want to play other sports they can try out new things such as lacrosse and trer is very limited on Sports and there's only two sports you can really play in sixth grade it is wrestling and cross country and we want to bring a third sport in for other kids who don't want
045to do those two things uh we want to bring lacrosse in for kids who do and don't want to play sports that much and uh we're considering bringing it to as we go thank you thank Simon yes we can you guys okay with hearing those last three okay Norman good evening I will try to be brief and and not not use up the entire three minutes uh once again my name is Norman Vil I am I'm actually here as a parent um I've I've actually had two children at actually attend uh District uh 38 schools uh currently right now my my actual daughter is a freshman at at actually how house University um actually have a son back there the the actual little guy little Norman uh 8th grade I am actually here in support
046of Lacrosse reason B is actually this for for actually starters my definition of success is options got to have options for our kids our kids are the future and it's up to us to provide for them an opportunity so that way when they get our age they can flourish even now in my job right now one of the things I actually look for is people that have actually played Sports because you know what it actually teaches you a lot about life competition teamwork family all those things that that that that actually we we look for as far as good employees and actually Future Leaders lacrosse is another option out there that can actually help out our children and you know what Christopher back there has actually done a lot of hard work I'm actually going
047to call him Verizon because you know what he has actually provided a network of actually knowledge and actually funds for lacrosse why not lacrosse lacrosse also what what would actually you do this make District 308 that much more marketable right everyone loves home value is going up right why not we're the seventh largest District in Illinois why not us let's bring lacrosse to District 308 thank you dlin McLure can you hear me yes yeah my name is Dean McClair and I'm here to support the potential lacrosse program company to ASO I'm currently a eighth grade student at tror Junior High and thecross has always been a huge part of my life I've actually been playing it for more than half my life and I started all the way back in kindergarten from kindergarten to now
048lacrosse has taught me sportsmanship discipline and what it feels like to be a part of a team and most importantly I made lots of friends along the way I hope to be able to play Spring asgo lacrosse next year and I thank you for your time and consideration thank you thank you Amelia Kennedy hi my name is Amilia Kennedy I I go to a prairie Point Elementary today I came over to talk about how girls and and a lacrosse because girls are getting treated not equally because boys are getting more Sports to play in the NBA the girls are getting a quarter of the money that the boys are getting just because they're girls think of a think for a minute why do girls get treated this way I once I first found out about
049that it made me think for a while then I realized it it's not fair and then I realized why can't girls play the same Sports as boys and now I'm happy that because when my family first told me we're going to provide 24 new sticks for girls to play lacrosse if we vote for girls to play lacrosse so hopefully we will vote for girls to play lacrosse thank you oh my go okay that's it another speaker one more speaker what one more speaker one more speaker okay come on thank you my name is Lena Funk I'm one of the social workers at Boulder Hill Elementary I'm going to pick up where she left off um Briana was talking about the overcrowding and then the other barrier is that the kids are not getting what they
050need I'm going to read her report for you we've had a number of students exhibiting unsafe behaviors in the pictures I have shared with you you'll see pictures of me with bruises scratches and bites you will also see classrooms that have been destroyed our teams work so hard to connect with students and families on a personal level with phone calls meetings messages and notes because we really try to understand who they are and how we can help them despite this students are struggling and we are in crisis daily this school year our team has responded to a total of 572 calls which is a total of 22,6 75 minutes of crisis on average we have five calls a day and they last on average 39 minutes per incident because of this other other students are
051missing out on their learning and services and are significantly impacted academically and emotionally our building is currently holding 697 students and is larger than two of the junior high schools in our district in School District 3 are eight four of the five junior high schools have one principal and two assistant principales model if we are the same size or larger then we should fit this model where did the posting go and why are we still trying to hire an additional administrator at R to Hill this is crucial to help with administrative D duties such as supporting the hundreds of students taking the access test supporting the crisis team and implementing student discipline in a timely manner an easy solution for this is to please repost the job so we can hire a third administrator I
052have the pictures that Brianna has I can leave them here for you to see um I can personally say that I have responded to just almost these or many many more so want you guys to be aware of what's happening at our school and that we desperate desperately desperately need we need a lot more help we need a lot more support and um as she said you guys um have a lot of pull and we could really really really take some of your help to get us to where we need so that our students are getting what they need personally myself as a social worker I am to meet my children that have 504s and IEPs I can't see them I miss them almost every day because I'm responding to crisis calls my other social
053worker we do the same thing it's just all day all all day long the same thing over and over another thing Brian was asking for is that um if if we are able to do this with the kids and this kids need maybe they need to have um something done maybe they need an assessment or something and these are being denied so now these kids continue to struggle day in and day out and that's not fair to them they need help and we need to be able to respond to them and be responsible for them thank you for allowing me to finish thank you thank you okay good evening board uh this evening really I would I want to just I know we are we often say we're not going to speak directly to public
054comment but I but I do feel moved to say that our presentation this evening is really almost symbolically aligned to the breadth of what you heard in our public comment period tonight and what I'm speaking to directly is both the significant and tremendous challenges that are faced in um some of the schools and in the school that you heard described tonight to the also the tremendous opportunity we see before us in the way in which it's reflected around lacrosse and the opportunities there both are are extremely um both tremendous great positive opportunities but also an urgency behind what needs to be addressed and and when I think about what you're about to hear in depth tonight in terms of our iggo sc308 strategic map road map I have to say that it's exactly for these
055reasons we are bringing to you this evening really the the breath and the scope of what we have what I have identified with the team with our staff with our oea partnership with our Educators with the board's leadership with the community with the partners and the parents and the business partners and the village presidents that we have engaged with over the last really seven to eight months these priorities are not in a in were not created in a vacuum they were really created in response and also thinking about what does it mean to start to build and to really create a foundation for a long-term success when I took this position almost eight months ago nothing was more important to me than a path for long-term term success every board member that I met with
056in those first few days talked about this long road map and I want to just start by appreciating all who participated in the recent organizational audit and in all the work with our partner an Cummings Bogan and our leadership and thinking about the foundations of these priorities so tonight I want to thank um our our leadership team um Mr obafemi Dr Paul Dr Waller Dr zmy Mrs Kam us Dr conade Miss doist and and cummings Bogan for really really laying out the the key components um this evening and presenting to the board what is important this plan is rooted in a vision of success for our schools and long-term sustainable success we're not looking for a flashband this is not a quick fixed result uh solution this is about creating that road map to really
057strategic success for this District so I want to invite um next um our our team to speak to it and so I want to invite to uh Dr Paul who also be joining us and Miss anomy Bogan and members of the cabinet will be um speaking to it so I'm going to hand this now to miss Kamas who's going to start us yes so thank you um we're all super excited to introduce this to you tonight so um really when we thought about what were the road marks along this journey that we really wanted to to stop and um honor they begin kind of with that Collective Vision in 2023 um prision over 24 reflecting over 25 and then really gearing up and planning to launch a true strategic plan um along this road map
058we um kind of summarize the journey as being led by our mission enhanced by our vision and driven by our values this journey of learning evaluating and planning sets a direction for where we want to be and how we plan to get there so the four guiding principles being informed guided intentional and aligned um as we walk you through these individual components um you'll find that this really is a different way of doing things it's pausing and not setting goals arbitrarily or or kind of just randomly you know picking numbers and hoping we can attain those it's really taking time to dig deep and understand where we are at status quo um good or bad and acknowledging and accepting where we are today um as we learn and build where we want to be tomorrow
059and developing that Collective Vision so um we've spent a lot of time getting to this point and we're super excited to share with you kind of where we're headed from here so I mentioned those Milestones on the journey so the first one really is the collective vision and this is the one we've kind of been in um since the fall I would say really the data collection as Dr katti mentioned we've been working really hard and having lots of focus groups and surveys and interviews and ways to really collect data we just involved this uh huge curriculum and systems audit for us to understand you know deep down at every level what's going on what's our current state how can we really analyze where we are today we really want to be transparent we want
060to make sure that we aren't just looking for the good things and putting the rose-colored glasses on we really want to take a hard look at where we are in order to design our ideal State we really needed to um you know work backwards and see where gaps were where opportunities were and what we have today um our next step is really refining that Collective Vision um and strategic Direction so that we are all working in the same direction and traveling on that same pathway and then one key component of this is really the reflecting so it's coming back and evaluating the strategies we set forth in the beginning and determining whether or not we you know had it right or if we're looking for revision and being able to develop um a lasting strategy
061for us to really attain those um success indicators that we'll share with you tonight and then by all of that kind of coming together once all those steps are in place then we feel we'll really be able to have an informed intentional aligned and guided um launch of a strategic plan so turn it over to you so not only thank you so much Miss citus um I really appreciate the introduction and I just really want to build on on that space as it pertains to our mission vision and values um and you know as a collective team we have definitely gone through a journey of um kind of you know all working very hard but um needing to work together and find that alignment um so this journey has been been very powerful um and
062we are human as well right so one of our six values we um are passionate about our families and our students and our Educators and our administrators and so as we look at our mission and vision and values um we wanted to make sure that that embodied um the full scope of our Center the core of um our work in what truly matters most to us um so going to the next slide I'm truly excited um to talk about our shared vision and the intersectionality of these pieces um and so hopefully as you're listening tonight you see This Thread throughout each of our priorities um we truly wanted to focus on our systems right we've had our families come out and share you know their feedback and so we want to highlight this is an
063important piece for us that we need these effective systems and teams working together um smarter and hard but smarter rather than harder um in addition to that we want that high quality instruction that ambitious instruction um and I'm skipping because I love Equity so I have to leave that for last but equity and rightful presence is also the shared Vision um and so it's been exciting to learn so much more about rightful presence and um we've been able to engage with a lot of different Partnerships and we're like cutting edge with our rightful presence piece and so it's important to make sure that everyone understands rightful presence typically as we talk about diversity equity and inclusion um inclusion still holds this idea of this guest and host mentality and so rightful presence truly stretches us
064um to address what what even got us there in the first place of having this guest and host it is directly acknowledging the challenges um the marginalization the injustices that have actually taken place place for those who are considered guests um within our spaces so that we make sure that they are seen valued and heard and rightfully present inside and outside of the classroom so without further Ado we are so excited to share with you all our eight priorities all right so throughout our presentation as Dr Waller just mentioned we're going to kind of go through all of our eight priorities um last time we heard about priority area one uh really looking at building that partnership not only amongst our district team but between our buildings and amongst our community so our focus in
065priority area one is on enhancing that collaboration you'll hear from all of our members of cabinet our leadership team and also and C Bogan about our partnership and collaboration again not only at the district level but also with our Union so really the focus of priority area one is strengthening those strategic Partnerships and focusing on the planning this road map takes us on that journey to really develop our new strategic plan so as we listen to all those voices that Teresa and Jadon mentioned we wanted to focus on what is essential for building the base to ready us for a strong strategic plan to be implemented for 2526 so the strong coherence is looking at our planning our teaming and our learning so with that J Don is going to introduce priority area too awesome
066thank you so much so equity and rightful presence there are so much to cover in that space um and it's exciting going into the third year um looking at this and seeing how much is being embedded throughout the other priorities um and how much of a team it feels like in the collaborating on equity and so um I just want to highlight that you know we're excited we have our Equity policy for information tonight our Equity success indicators are an important part of the work that we're doing um as we know it will be the foundation for mtss academic and SEO framework and our school improvement process um I also want to make sure that um I'm clear on the idea those three pieces that I mentioned the um systems the instruction and the equity
067those three pieces will also align with school Improvement plans we're trying to make sure that everything is aligned in and scen throughout and that would be done in collaboration with um our Innovation and learning Department um in addition we are truly looking into these restorative practices for our students again in collaboration with student services with seal with ntss um we are also um very excited to um leverage our student voices and our student groups and truly continuing to be intentional about that work with our superintendent student inv bors um with our um Coalition students as well as all the other student groups in those spaces um our students are brilliant and they have so much to say um and so we'll be utilizing that as well to continue to drive our progress to be able
068to monitor our growth with our students um there's so many things listed up here but I will also just add um our Data Systems is an important Focus as well um we are very want to be very intentional about how we're utilizing our our data to drive the work that we're doing um as well as having that research to support our vision as well um so very excited now to um hand this off to Dr Paul thank you Dr Waller the third priority is about rigorous curriculum and ambiti ambitious instruction and using the results of our curriculum audit we're going to be able to identify our curriculum review cycle priorities in addition next year we're going to be implementing our um English language arts um literacy pilot that was taking place this year as well
069as social emotional learning you'll hear more about that coming soon uh career Pathways and continuing the implementation of our Pace framework grades 6 through 12 in collaboration with the equity and engagement department and Human Resources we're going to continue to Center our work on profile of a learner you'll hear more about profile of an educator and profile of a leader a little bit later this evening in addition um priority three is focused on creating protocol and expectations for collaborative teacher lead time in collaboration with Union leadership and then finally we're going to be working on integrating professional development in collaboration with equity and engagement and our diverse Learners so handing it back to Dr Waller for priority four so I just want to make sure because I want to make pointing all of this out
070but our first three priorities those are shared Vision if you notice we're looking look at the Innovation and learning that's our um instructional piece our systems is our Priority One and our equity and rightful presence is our priority too so just wanting to name how those pieces are weaving together for us in addition um so really excited about our effective programs and services for our diverse Learners another piece that I didn't mention within Equity but also lives within this space is our partnership with our families um their voices and their needs and rightful presence in these spaces is extremely important our multilingual and our special education students um they they need space to be able to grow and to learn they need to be seen and valued and so we are going to be working
071diligently to have those clear roles and responsibilities um for our district um and school administrators as well as our staff so that again our students are always rightfully presence in those spaces um I know that um a little bit later an um Bogan will will be speaking a little bit more about the work that is already begun within special education um but so we are extremely excited um for all of our collaborative pieces with communication and HR and so I would like to hand it off to Dr zmy thank you Dr Waller thank you everybody um really our three goals in uh priority area number five in Human Resources is always about recruitment retention and rewarding our staff those dovetail very nicely to um our three uh eight priorities but are three big areas of
072high quality instruction effective teams and staff members who promote equity and rightful presence um ultimately we need to make sure that we have high quality Educators in our system um it really starts with a strong union partnership and we've been blessed to have four strong union Partnerships that care about uh these priorities they've been Partners along with us and will continue to be um I think it's also very uh important as we develop uh a portrait of a student and a portrait of a graduate we think about the portrait of the educator uh working with the folks and then we also think about the portrait of the leader to support those Educators and then finally um making sure that we have organizational Clarity around um the jobs the job descriptions need to be refined throughout
073the system those will be part of our work in priority number five and at this time I'm going to turn it over to Dr King Kade for priority area number six so in priority area 6 um as we heard earlier this evening uh really a focus on collaboration around our crisis management with consistent protocols um with that not only protocols in response to students in crisis but then enhanced professional development for our threat assessment protocols emergency response and crisis management one of the priority areas that we continue to focus and enhance on is our systemic safety protocols including our visitor management uh we started some of that work last year into this year and that continues to be a focus for the physical health and safety of our students um looking at our priority area
074and our goal some of the emotional safety uh that you'll hear later tonight is around our students rights and responsibilities specifically our call to action which really brings a focus on equity and rightful presence that Dr Waller spoke to but then it enhances our systemic response to bullying harassment and racism so as we look forward to addressing our student safety our uh staff safety and then also we want to in priority area 7 talk about our families and our commitment to our community with that Teresa cudas is going to talk about priority area s yeah so within this Communications and community relations we really are going to begin to expand out what we would have considered up to this point as really the community um and moving out into um a broader educational Community including
075our business partners um our legislators you know everyone that makes up our educational community so we really want to increase that Community involvement perception and support with really some improved communication practices branding of the district and increasing our Outreach so um within this one of our success indicators is our website strategy um within our brand our website is our largest um you know forward-facing piece that helps us to really Define who we are and we want it to represent and be both engaging um accurate timely information that really helps for people to understand and hear our story and how we partnering with people on this journey so um there' be some intentionality behind updating that as well as a calendar of updated district and school Publications so people can again understand what consistency and reliability
076in relation to building that trust and engagement and we will be working with our school leaders on enhancing their um professional development around Communications by um helping to develop you know some common templates some common language some goals within those Communications again to really reiterate and strengthen that communication and that partnership with our families and community um we will be continuing to um participate in Outreach and events it's just that we would be really monitoring this and helping to align this type of Engagement more purposefully with our communities and we want to make sure that um you know our communication and our engagement is both Equitable across our community as well as engaging um one of the other uh indicators that we have up here is really the the awards and recognitions that are received
077across the district and really how those uh affirm our commitment to transparency accountability and Community engagement so I will hand it over here to my left to Mr OB well everything sounds nice and good but we know none of this is going to happen without some money so Financial Resources is the is the secret source that make everything go so we recognize that and we've been working to make sure that is done thoughtfully and it's done well one of the critical way to do that is to re imagine the way we develop budget and uh starting the with the 2025 budget we actually are doing zerob based budget whereby we reimagine every single line of expenditure and we figure out a way to justify the need for those expenditures and once we determine that then
078we go ahead and we develop the budget and we are committed to making sure every budget that we present to the board for approval is balanced and additionally we will make sure that we have some surpluses in that budget and the key reason for that is we need to start increasing our fund balances we know we need some rainy day funds because there's so many unknowns on a daily basis as we operate this organization so it's important to have some some reserves some savings if you will and in addition to uh to the the financial aspect there's some operational imperatives that we need to consider to one critical thing that I would like to point out is that we know the majority of our buildings are actually approaching the 20e mark this is when those
079buildings need some TLC and we have to be thoughtful in making sure that we have a plan that is coherent as well thought out to make sure those repairs in our buildings are addressed and really the only comprehensive way of doing that is through a master facility planning whereby we work with uh expert to Envision I will be using our building currently 5 years from now 10 years from now 20 years from now so we start planning the repairs that we need to have done another important operation uh phase that we need to look at is food service from the day that I walked into the building every time I see a student I talk to a kid one of the things they ask me is when are we going to improve our food service
080so with that I will say my second week here with my team we work to develop an RFP for food service and we are very close to actually providing a recommendation to the board probably no later than May where we will select a provider hopefully that provider will bring a better quality of food and services to our students two other things I would like to point out on the operational side is transportation and Technology we transport a lot of students in the district we were big District we cover 68 square miles so the goal is to reimagine how we do transportation and we provide good Transportation with a great customer experience one thing that I would like to point out and I think I've shared this with the board before transporting our students is very
081expensive it's something that we need to do but we need to do in an efficient way that doesn't result in financial ruin to the district so that's an important thing we need to spend time doing the other part of the operational thing that we need to focus on in the district is technology how do we use technology enhance instruction how do we do it in such a way that provides and protect our cyber um assets those are important things and the final thing that I would like to point out is to continue to work collaboratively with a union colleague we want to make sure that we negotiate Fair affordable contract with them we're in the process of doing that with one of our unions right now and the work goes on but make no mistake
082this Administration working with the board is committed to doing whatever we need to do to make sure financially we are sound we're able to to ensure that our kids get an excellent educational experience in a way that we can afford with that said I'll hand it over to miss an cumins good even evening everybody um Board of Education thank you uh for the opportunity to um work with your amazing uh staff leaders um and I really am just here to uh be available in case there's any questions about the process I've supported um up on the screen are those six building blocks that I shared with you back in October um when I had the opportunity to meet with you um as you reflected on your own sense of common Vision um and aspects of
083the system and I think it's just been a remarkable um amount of work these slides look really um nice and it's very concise but it reflects hours and hours and hours of uh reflection self assessment uh vulnerability openness uh willingness to be challenged um and I think really getting everybody on the same page about what's the most important thing this is an amazing District um but there are great opportunities to really harness the the talent and the expertise of the the leaders and then the um the Educators the students and that's what the systems piece is about so um I you know the one thing I think somebody highlighted was um one of the reasons that I was brought in to support the work is the experience I have with supporting um Partnerships between labor
084unions and management um and that work is off to a great start I think Brian um talked about there are already healthy strong relationships which is great and we've been able to partner initially with oea to start to do some collaborative assessment of special education and um we're in a midst of a pretty good process we had um a group of engaged Educators and administrators come together a couple of weeks ago got really great feedback from 31 participants on that um and a future meeting scheduled so um really I I think just uh I hope you're hearing the alignment I think um Jadon Dr Waller's reference to that um the effective systems high quality and rightful presence and Equity as a as just a foundational approach is is solid and um really will help um
085to move this and I and I just I know that there is tension when we're trying to be strategic and thoughtful about the work because sometimes it takes a little bit longer um but the research would show and I have great confidence that you will start to see Returns on the investment pretty quickly just as this team starts to work together so um I'm open for any questions um that folks may have um but just very very excited to be part of this amazing work so thank you okay so we'll move to questions and discussion um we want to thank you one of the things that I want to highlight and this work is that at the center of this work is the student and really the classroom space so when we think about all
086the priorities you heard this evening everything is about strategically aligning creating the pathway and creating really the scaffold that's necessary to ensure that that educator those Educators in those classrooms have the most robust Dynamic learning experiences that's going to accelerate those outcomes for students and with that is the par our parents our staff are the finances are I mean it's an increasing circle of support for that space so these priorities are really about the level of coordination you've heard a lot about our financial shifts that we've been doing this year these priorities reflect those same mirror a sense of what we need to do in our instructional in our organizational space to get to success for those classrooms questions from the board uh I have a comment a question and then another comment uh so
087I can I want to say thank you to everyone for all the hard work I can see I can see things coming together and I see the alignment and a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about uh this past year uh so thank you for for for all that hard work uh my question is about um so and I appreciate the success indicators because that is very helpful for me to understand kind of what that means in in practice um my question on the success indicators is about timing because and I I I see the aster these are highlights shared from a longer comprehensive planning document so I can see that some of these are more finite like complete the curriculum audit check right and some of them are more long lasting um
088and I don't know if this I'm assuming there's some timeline that will be some timelines maybe this is a comment more than a question but um that's one thing I'm noticing about the success indicators and then my other comment is more also very specific um and I don't know if that has been T you don't have to answer this now uh but um School structures like what I'm specifically thinking about Middle School where the Middle School model where an investigation of that type of a model might fit Within These priority areas I have some ideas of where it would fit uh but I don't see it specifically named here and I don't know if it came up in the discussions among Administration but I know board members have talked about it for a little bit
089and I think it's on the mind of at least some of the administration that I've had interactions with um so I guess those were all comments but I'll open up the discussion with that Dr Kate and then Dr so just uh some thoughts about thank you for uh the comments um so in terms of when we built out the Strategic road map we kind of started with a wide priority area went to the goal success indicators and in conjunction with that yes each um person in their team does have action plans with time frames Associated so there's even more minute details than what would was um in the planning document um and again we're trying to time bound what uh suc indicators that we have here for the end of next school year so um
090there are um timelines for each of the action plans connected to the success indicators um we've also had some uh introductory conversations about the Middle School model and that is something that we are looking at I'll turn that over to Dr zy with our uh School Day committee yeah so I have um currently right now the privilege of serving with um oea on um the school Day committee and so we had a chance to meet uh in mid-February um have um Penn together a joint statement that we're currently reviewing with our cabinet team uh to look at the feasibility of of some Concepts um in in looking at the middle school concept itself when I look at these eight priorities successful middle school has four key features organizational structures academic Excellence Developmental responsiveness and social
091equity and I think when you look at any of those four when you look at Strong Middle Schools strong 40 middle schools across the state or 600 across the country that have achieved this type of status and recognition those absolutely fit those four components fit in very well into our 8 priorities um it would just be a matter of taking the time to research the model to make sure that we're making the right investment that they are aligned to our priorities I look forward to bringing you more information in the spring on that yeah um one of the things that we identified through uh focus group conversations primarily is the need for greater Pathways for your learners um when they enter your district and when they leave your district and so I think the the
092thought approach of connecting your entire system um also makes sense because there is a there there is an opportunity for greater connection as your fifth graders move into the sixth grade and then your eighth graders into the ninth grade and so kind of trying to just bring everything together which is going to be a lot of the work under the the um academic um rigor as well as again none of these priorities lives alone they they really do touch each other but I think from my perspective it would be um to look at middle school and isolation um without the greater context given the way the system sits right now it it makes sense to kind of extend that a little bit but yeah I'm not saying to look at middle school and isolation good
093but I do see specific like K8 things on the priority aers so I just want to make sure that we're not missing out on the other piece as well but yeah I mean I agree with the the Continuum of the experience for our children is super important and that's good feedback in terms of the specific their uh ensuring that that is named rightly in our process so we will definitely take that and thank you for the feedback um I'll speak so um a board is focused on two things student learning and organizational Effectiveness so when we hired Dr katti we charged him with standing upst systems that were going to root out inequities and injustices within the system and we know that students don't fail but it's the systems that fail our students right and
094so we want to make sure and and I'm I'm appreciating what I'm seeing because you're addressing both of these issues that will help our our organization um to be what it should be so that the disparities that we see in achievement the disparities that we see in so many different different areas um that are affecting the learning experience of our students we're going to root them out and I I believe that this will do exactly that so I appreciate the work and thank you for all of you for your hard work thank you okay so now we're going to move on to our superintendent report Dr kti thank you yes thank you so first and foremost just want to thank our teams for all the work across the district all our partners and really preparing
095this evening um these comments uh around our priorities um just some uh important business tomorrow is election day um your vote does matter and our schools will not be in session and that is important part of this work as they are are they are used as polling locations and we encourage again everyone to vote polls are open Statewide from 6:00 a.m. to 7 p.m. this week we are thrilled to really begin um to have our annual student Le amplify we want to thank our our student ambassadors for their support of the Amplified work and we know that this is important in Dr Waller and her team's leadership um this will happen here in asigo on Thursday um March 21st beginning at 5:00 pm we encourage everyone to come out and hear the voices there is
096nothing more important than really listening to the voices of our students um this is an opportunity where we're going to hear their stories showcase empowering and inspirational performances we want to acknowledge our Muslim Community um and we join them in acknowledging the observance of Ramadan which in Islam um which is significant in Islam and many of our students and staff are participating in this um exercise of fasting it was interesting a couple schools I found you know students who are fasting were gathering and I was able to encourage them in their fast it was really a meaningful moment they they were very excited to to meet with me and I to meet with them and also our families of Christian faiths who are observing lent um through March 28th and we want to um recognize
097this important time of fasting and prayer for all and reflection for all of our communities of various Interfaith um faiths and backgrounds um tonight you heard these eight priorities these are directly aligned with the five Essentials and I want to invite and I want to ask the whole Community um check with your neighbor did you fill out the five Essentials check with each other it's a really important part of this we are at the last uh in the last days of this survey um parents teachers and for students to provide their Viewpoint this becomes a real important barometer for us to gauge it's a litmus test it's a thermometer test of where we're at as a community and we really need 20% of our communities to take of our parent Community to participate um when
098you break it down um it's really it's really not a lot of time invested but it does have a significant impact in our ability to understand and really supports our school Improvement planning and our resource allocation in our school district um as a reminder studies show that when schools are strong on at least three of the five Essentials they are 10 times more likely to improve student learning and as I just wrap up I just my comments formal comments I really want to thank everyone um for their efforts um for coming together and really helping build a shared Vision team our senior leadership our executive leadership teams District's parents um who've contributed to what you heard tonight um the challenges are far and deep in our schools there are also lots of successes what these
099eight priorities provide us with with a road map to really getting to that next stage of success um it is us who really build the system the system is not out there we we are the system we are the system and so the challenges we Face are a function of what's we are creating the challenges we Face are a function of what we are creating from the classroom to the school to the district and really to our governance ultimately really to society but we have an opportunity to make a difference when I was a principal I always say to um teachers I'd say you know wow the classroom is humming there's such energy in the classroom and oftentimes teachers would say it's it's the it's the kids it's a great year and i' say no
100actually it's something you're doing yes we have great students but really it's the impact of our teachers and I would say the same applies to everything we do the work that we put in is the outcome we're going to get and I want to thank everybody for their leadership and making tonight's presentation of the priorities relevant and connected to the work I want to invite um my my uh the board me the board to share some other additional celebrations from around the district that um are part of the public comments that I make every month so thank you board for your support I'll start excuse me just like to say congratulations to Murphy's mathletes on their first place finish at our District's Junior High math competitions congratulations another congratulations to Jessica Corey the music teacher
101and director at plank junior high school for being recognized as one of six Illinois Educators in the fourth annual Yamaha 40 exceptional music educators under 40 program congratulations moving on this weekend at the central Illinois Regional Garett forward the robotics team took second in the competition and was awarded the engineering inspiration award which sends them to the world championship in Houston and this is cool and NASA pays the registration fees and if I'm not mistaken I I believe they're at the village board meeting tonight doing a presentation as well uh this award celebrates A team's outstanding success and advancing respect and appreciation for engineering and Engineers both within their school and their Community they will compete again over spring break at UIC so congrats to them uh the Illinois art Education Association celebrates March as
102youth art month Fox Chase fifth grade student UAH Newman was the Elementary winner and featured on their web page the youth month uh the youth art month program emphasizes the value of art education for all children encourages support for Quality school art programs and promotes art material safety congratulations think that's it okay moving on to 7.2 we'll hear from our student ambassadors all right hello everybody hi Luke um since our last meeting we have taken the data from last year's uh student mental health survey and the teacher survey okay there we go and the teacher survey that we put out just this February um and we've combined the two to create the innovate K through2 which you have in front of you we gave you all a copy um so through investigation uh into the
103data in Trends we found some critical data that is vital to better understand the student teacher relationships and how we can bridge the gap that currently exists through our data collection we were able to identify patterns and commonalities to further that goal So today we're going to focus um more on our teacher survey data that we've collected um so on page 26 um in regards to our teacher survey uh we received a total of 307 teacher responses um with 163 being from iGo East um 141 from iGo high school and uh three that indicated working in both High schools a big issue that was uncovered by students last year in our mental health survey was homework uh many students acknowledged that homework and overall workload uh they acknowledged that as a concern so we asked
104the question how much time do you expect students to work on their homework daily this is on page 26 172 teachers indicated 0 to 30 minutes 120 teachers said that they do not assign home homework in their respective classes and 15 indicated that they uh require 30 minutes to an hour of homework daily through this data we've identified that most teachers uh don't assign hours of homework to their students um another major question that was asked in our teacher survey that can directly relate to Stronger relationships in the classroom was how important is discussing post high school plans with your students so this is on page 28 uh we've indicated that 175 teachers indicated it as super important to discuss um post high school plans 108 um identified it as important and 22 um indicated
105it as not important and only two said very not important so um we looking at how that can um grow student teacher relationship ships as it um uh relates to postsecondary plans uh College trade school whatever that may be so going off of this specific question we were able to ask the follow-up open-ended question of how they promote these second uh postsecondary plans from the teachers responses uh we identified five main themes uh those five main themes are uh integration into curriculum and daily activities individualized support and goal setting creating a culture of open dialogue incorporation into curriculum and assignments and utilizing various strategies and resources so those are the um five key themes that we developed from uh that main question of postsecondary education and all of those are defined there for you um
106there is also a Frequency Word chart that includes words that were commonly used in the teachers open-ended responses um and some of those main words are um conversation plan future question goal and talk just to name a few I'll now turn it over to Isabelle to continue the conversation yes so we also collected a good amount of data on student Behavior so on page 32 you can see a graph on and this was something we were all kind of looking forward to seeing the results for so the graph on how often do you experience cost from disruptions that take away from student learning and we saw 17 teachers said always 56 said often 91 said sometimes 133 said occasionally and 10 said never so that was actually positive compared to maybe what we had expected
107with only seeing occasionally but also of course there is always room for improvement because we just want all teachers to feel respected and understood um we also had a majority of those teachers from there state that the the um the most disruptive behavior that he experienced was off task Behavior often times citing phone use uh earbuds all of that so this has really led a lot of our past meetings we've been discussing how we can manage these discussions around cell phone policy how to ensure that both teachers and students feel heard but also to make sure we're getting to the root of the problem because it's it's not always just the cell phone there may be other things going on and we want to make sure we're looking at it holistically and today we also
108began our research process to better understand the issues we are addressing we're also working on comparing this data to our past student survey so to board members the front of the packet is all student survey data and the back of it is teacher survey data so you can kind of flip back and forth and look at that in our student survey we had mult questions on how students feel respected compared to their teachers that was really great data to Overlay with our teacher survey to attempt to kind of get the full picture of how students and teachers are viewing it and lastly we also asked Educators what they would like to be done to feel more respected many stated that they already feel respected which was really positive to see but um of course the
109most common were creating a cell phone policy and to have more support from school administration which has really caus caused us to have some wonderful conversations with our students our district our um School admin District admin and everyone has been very supportive very interested in the conversation which has been wonderful and again this data we are still working on investigating deeper Dr Waller has been giving us some great research uh information especially today we went over it so we learned today we learned about non-verbal teacher communication perceived caring and lack thereof as well as true understanding how teacher student relationships can positively change the trajectory of their learning experiences cell phones have been highlighted as mentioned before we are learning that this is just one barrier to the relationships but not directly about the relationships
110students have with their teachers um and so that's it on the survey but I just wanted to say quickly in regards to tomorrow and just going off what Dr katti was saying if you are 17 or if you have a 17-year-old if they are going to be 18 by the November election date they can vote tomorrow so just remind your students if they're 17 and they will be 18 by the November election day you can vote in the primary in the state of Illinois and I believe we have same day registration so so we can open up if you have any questions about this data now uh it's we know it's a lot but we'd be happy to answer or going forward um if you have any questions just anytime just shoot us an email
111or a convers ation and uh we'd be happy to answer any questions that you have um and we look to developing a goal and an action plan going forward with all of this data thank you I don't have any questions at the moment but I really I have to commend you on this is amazing this is a lot of hard work lot and you both and and the team did a did a wonderful job congratulations thank you I'll Echo that and just ask who else are you sharing this with our SS sorry our ssac has seen it and I believe it's getting shared with uh School admin so yes everyone that that's the adults and the students who are a part of ssac will have this but as the students so today they they um
112went through three different research articles so as they're going through that wi part process some of this will be lifted um to be a part of their action plan so then people will see more data as we go along but are you suggesting we share more now can I so I would say that this becomes a part of how we build out the priorities every one of our priorities is going to have a rationale portion which essentially situates the data and this work is really mentioned in the priorities and so this becomes complementary they'll essentially be an appendix that supports this I think situating within the level setting around here's our Baseline here's our understanding I'm so proud of our students interests and commitment to really hearing what's being said and then finding ways to
113find Solutions it fits right in the prior so it will be definitely forecast there I think we can put some more attention to that yeah that's that's what I'm suggesting like where where else can we use this so it doesn't live on its own and then also like when you take a survey and I think this is all high school right you always want to be like what happened to that survey that we took you know like that question is always out there so I'm glad to hear that it'll be part of more conversations so make note of that you too we need to have a conversation in our next meeting regarding how we can I think it would be great for our students and um teachers to just again be able to hear those
114results so thank you yeah so you know as I understand Yar right the youth participatory action research it's about not students trying to solve problems but calling us to action right so I don't want you know them to dwell too much on trying to come up with Solutions but bring us a recommendation y so right no I was that's exactly what it is so the research and the articles that they're looking at will help them to be able to determine some recommendations so that we can then call to action the adults to push it through because often times um adults want others to come up with the solutions but that's what y power is all about it's about making sure that the adults are accountable for making sure that change happens yeah y okay thank
115you great thank you excellent excellent work all right 7.3 board committee report so we'll start with the equity and teaching and learning who would like to share out on that uh I can share out uh the equity and teaching and learning committee uh met and we discussed a couple things uh we looked at uh the presentation of a portrait of a learner um we went over we talked and gave some feedback about the um um the event that we had with our with our students um and um what else and gave some ideas about that and then we um reviewed student rights and responsibilities update um and we're going to see some of that tonight for information as well uh and we were able to give some feedback about that as they think about the
116best way to present um that uh document um and we were able to provide some suggestions and feedback that's all okay thank you finance and Facilities you know I is going over kind of the summary of that and I think we're addressing everything I think you're right in the meeting today so perfect so we don't need to take up any more time with it we'll hear it tonight okay and then policy and legislator no it's all about you so it was it was a um somewhat short meeting uh we went over the um policies that we had to review which which fortunately were not very many um we did have some updates with some conversations with some um um uh political people um and there are more policies that are coming up and will be
117available but they won't be available until the end of this month so we scheduled our next meeting until April the only thing I'll add to that is we did discuss trying to have a little bit more um of a different I I think we go into the mindset of okay we're going to have a meeting every month and honestly there might be months where we should be having two maybe even three meetings and then there's some months why are we having a meeting so I think it needs to if we're really going to reflect policy and legislation then it needs to actually reflect the EV and flow of policy and legislation okay okay 7.4 board member comments any want to have any board member comments um just real quick I I know a bunch of
118us have busy I was a busy I know I'm trying to remember everything uh a bunch of us have been um visiting doing a lot of school visits a lot of site visits um I know D and I and Dr katti and and um Mrs Kam I'm running out of who went went to uh both B Hill and Long Beach last week uh there a couple others that we went to and and forgive me because it's all starting to become a blur um but I think um particularly in the case of Boulder Hill and the Boulder Hill parents that might still be here um we we definitely we definitely hear you uh we definitely we were on site we we see you we hear you um and we're working on it and and it'll be
119short-term rather than longterm um the other or short-term answer rather than one too far into the future the other the other thing on a totally different subject um Grand Park Elementary had their diversity Fair on Friday so I went to that um and it was just it was great it was well attended there had to be I don't know maybe 18 different countries that were represented uh it was pretty impressive there were um quite a few programs um presentations that kids did so um it was it was fun all like that anybody else um I just wanted to thank um the equity team can you just name everyone who's on the equity team yes um Miss Kiana hero who is here this evening um she's our director of school Improvement and professional learning Miram osich
120and Michelle Simmons are equity toses and Michelle early is our assistant director for engagement okay so they all joined me and supported me in um a award in which I received from the Quad County Urban League um on women empowerment and I sat on a panel with um Dr Susanna Rivera Mills the president of Aurora University and Dr Anita Thomas the president of North Central College and we were on a panel um speaking to to um empowering education and inspiring minds and trans trans transforming Futures and um it was a very um Dynamic and exciting and robust conversation that we had they kind of highlighted who we were in terms of being the first um you know Dr Rivera Mills is the first Latina president of Aurora University and Dr um Anita Thomas is the
121first African-American woman um president for North Central College and me being the first African-American School board president for our SLE 308 so it was a very exciting time and I just want to say thank you awesome congratulations congratulations that's awesome okay we're moving on to our consent agenda so can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda make a motion to approve all items under consent including 8.1 minutes from the board of educ ation meeting on February 26 2024 open and close session and minutes from the public forum on March 4th 2024 open and close session 8.2 to acknowledge all foyer requests received by the district 8.3 to approve the Illinois High School Association membership renewal for 20242 for both ASO and ASO East High School and 8.4 to approve the field trips for
122overnight and or more than 200 miles second are there any questions on the consent agenda I I have just a quick question is is there any equivalent uh I know we're app we're voting to approve ihsa membership is there any equivalent motion at some point for um Elementary School for IESA that you're aware of I am not we don't okay IA being the elementary school equivalent about HSA yeah that I don't I don't think that um it's nearly as detailed and and since it's not as what's the word I'm looking for it's not as I don't want to use the word common but it it it just seems like if you're not a part of ihsa and you're a high school I don't know what you're going to do whereas in IESA it's not as
123universal there's been more movement up north of 80 but um it's still not necessarily the norm if you're in the Chicago area um okay I but it depends on the sport well I was hold on to the caveat it depends on the sport right so um you know if you're talking um let's say I don't know basketball quite frankly um I mean I wasn't playing I'm not playing a lot of the closer you get into the city the fewer teams I'm going to be able to find that are IESA if I'm being honest now if you're talking like track and cross country that's a lot more common but it does depend like Neighborville is not IESA plane field is not IESA um that I'm aware of they might have a couple things that they've started
124it depends on the sport it's not nearly as universal as HS and listen I'm a big proponent of IESA so I'm not I'm not you know saying that from a lens of I don't approve just don't want to forget school kids Mr Gatewood I Dr Mario hi Miss ven I Mr ploger hi Miss Simon hi Mr Cerrone hi motion passes 60 okay so first up 9.1 we have our financial statements and investment schedule um board are there any questions or um dates okay okay uh thank you uh this evening we uh have uh Mr Bell and bayy Campbell who are joining us to discuss our student rights and responsibilities handbook I want to thank you for your leadership in this uh we you will you'll speak a little bit to how we we participate in
125some engagements with the community but also this is connected to the leadership work around our equity and uh board priorities that you heard this evening thank you Administration and Board of Education my name is Jeremy B I'm the executive director of student services hello my name is Bailey Campbell assistant director of student services and tonight we are here to discuss um our annual process of updating the student rights and responsibilities um you should have a couple of different um handouts for your board packet one of those is the timeline um for for that review of the the process um the goal here is always to get in front of uh multiple stakeholder groups um to make sure that that's updated accordingly um we're going to talk a little bit about the rationale tonight the student
126rights and responsibilities communication and acknowledgement the summary of changes and those key takeaways for you in terms of rationale as I mentioned this is an annual process we're governed by a couple of different things here with regards to Illinois school code um board po policy and we have to make sure that we integrate any recent or new legislative updates in terms of that acknowledgement our rights and responsibilities our student rights and responsibilities are embedded for all of our parent acknowledgement and student acknowledgement within Power School um as we migrated this year to um from Tyler to uh Power School um as part of the returning student registration and New Student registration um that is in the enrollment side of our s system um and so parents when they log in to complete that online registration
127process have the um option then to be able to go ahead and click that acknowledgement part of the feedback we talked about um at ETL was making that a required or mandatory field and there's some um there's some aspects to be able to do that but as it's loaded in the enrollment side um and the student side on power school it is not currently a required field but it is something that you click open um and acknowledge uh school code mandated that uh student rights and responsibilities or student handbooks are provided to parents and families or sorry students and families within 15 days of enrollment in the district so whether that's returning student enrollment or new student enrollment as long as we're providing that handbook and that information to them um within 15 school days
128um and uh the other side of this uh is that uh the buildings are very um active in getting those students to acknowledge um the student rights responsibilities on the student side um they kind of Chase those students all year along um and we did have some um challenges obviously with migrating to Power School sis um this year but we're hoping that that's much smoother transition we're able to get as many kids as we can we do offer centers at schedule pickup and those types of things for students to access um the student rights and responsibilities and sign that acknowledgement um early on in the school year with that I'm going to turn over our summary of changes to Miss Bailey Campbell to kind of highlight those uh key points all right um so if
129you can take a look at the redlined draft student rights and responsibilities code that was provided to you guys I'm going to highlight some um high level changes for you guys starting with section one and section two so if you flip to page two you will see in red right in the middle there that we added language to reflect our Equity Journey that we're currently on regarding equity and rightful presence that we heard discussed earlier today there's additional some minimal language changes within section one and within section two you'll notice that we changed our title from um student rights and responsibilities to student rights and student commitments section three and section four have very minimal changes along with section five and six um so if you take a look at those you'll notice a lot
130of that is based on some headings changes and small language changes um in addition to some changes required for the IEP meeting and puns information jumping ahead to page 15 this section is where we have adjusted the title to reflect the bullying harassment racism discriminatory language and hateful acts so this aligns with the call to action that was referenced earlier tonight so we want to just uh show focus on that in terms of the title change that title change language is then reflected throughout that document in the different headings we've also added definitions for racism discriminatory language and hateful acts and we have revised our current definitions for harassment and microaggressions again to match up with that call to call to action document okay can I highlight this we often talk about bullying um and
131its impact um for those of you who've experienced bullying as a child um it's a Memory that you it's hard to reflect and erase it's actually something that stays with you for life um and I would argue that um I'm really proud of the work of the equity committee and the collaboration the work of your team of integrating this because the reality is that when a child experiences a race based or ethnic or identity based right whether it's your uh from one identity to another any kind of thing that situates you it requires a different response and not only does it require response it requires a certain level of attention from the community and so I want to thank you all for integrating and lifting up how we think about this it's something that's really
132important and we can't ignore the impact it has on children when they experien this whether it's a racial epith or a gender or or or a um what's that religious freedom religious freedom um all students have the right to feel and experience School with joy and of course grit but that's not the kind of grit we want to experience at school and so the response has to be equally attentive we have to think about how our students and the restoration and the Justice occurs in our schools and so I want to thank you for integrating this into the work um it will make will go a long way um this evening we heard parent comment this will go a long way to ensureing that our students are protected and our staff are protect frankly and
133I want to Echo um that as well with the work that the equity um and engagement department is doing around those uh Equity policies around the success indicators we have that call to action for what we expect our adults uh in those spaces and what we expect our stakeholders in those spaces to adhere to when those things are finalized um it is an um it is definitely warranted and needed to have a proportional response um if we're finding um opportunities um to continue to educate our young people to continue to educate our adults and create that system around those folks so um it is present in this it will continue to evolve um I hope that you have seen this document continue to evolve year after year um and we hope with um the opportunity
134to kind of Rebrand and really make it um much more uh student usability the student usability of this document um that you see that come through as well all right so now jumping to section8 which begins on page 19 um we have rebranded this one to reflect student conduct if you turn to page 24 you'll notice down at the bottom that we have added definitions for preventative measures which includes intervention and then flipping to page 25 prevention there's also a graphic in the middle of page 25 that we have added this year this is a graphic that we shared out with our buildings universally at the start of the school year to help guide the work that they do for student support plans and student safety plans at the bottom of page 25 you'll see
135continued definitions with restorative measures on page 26 nonviolent Crisis Intervention physical management of students and limitations if you jump ahead to section nine which is on page 28 this is a new section this section was added to reflect newly required language regarding registered apprenticeship program along with accelerated placement restrictions on Publications chat GT chat GTP Ai and puns and again those are legislative changes flipping to section 10 we want to highlight some new language here as well again this also ref reflects some changes um which is newly required language regarding awareness and prevention of child sexual abuse and grooming behaviors we've also added newly required language regarding inappropriate relationships and other boundary violations by adults and I want to also point out that on the bottom of page 32 we are including um available resources
136and assistance information for a number of different uh resources that span between Kane County Kendall County and W and Will County the rest of the changes for Section 11 12 and 13 again are very minimal language changes um there was a merging of sections um and again just some reformatting throughout the document so I also passed out in front of you um uh a document that is a draft publication if you will um as we talked about the information that you're receiving tonight is strictly around content changes we wanted to uh to highlight those pieces to understand or for you to understand the content and the work that been shared with stakeholders to provide input and feedback on that content however we recognize that if you look at this document on its face it's very
137text Heavy it's very policy directed it's not necessarily as easily understood by our community by our families and by our students so the document that you have in front of you is a sample and a sample only of what that rebranding of this document uh may very well look like um any thing that we bring to you for Action at the May board meeting is our anticipated timeline uh April board meeting S as our anticipated timeline will have this document in its entirety with all of the content changes referenced in tonight's information section we were we had some really good feedback from our board members at ETL uh sorry Equity teaching and learning committee um about how to present that information within a rebranded document um making it a little bit bit more uh even
138with the potential to make it more interactive um down the road um with videos and QR codes and the potential for kids to really be able to access this um in many more ways than just that initial acknowledgement and so again this is a template or a sample um of what that publication could look like and we hope to be able to expand on that so tonight the focus for you is just U information on those content changes but know that greater things are in store for this document to make it user friendly uh and to make it easily understood by our community and our kids so what feedback have you gotten or or do you intend to get from our students um we have taken parts of this content um when we met with
139um uh was it our Coalition kids jadan um we were in front of uh the Coalition group we were in front of um I guess I don't mean the content I mean like it it becoming user friendly and having all the things that kids or students need um in order to to interact with it like that's I would imagine that's the kind of feedback you want because they they're the user right for the most part I mean our our obviously families because the parents are reading it and looking at it too but I would imagine our students probably need some really good time with how this should be presented that's my thought thank you for that at the um um at the committee meeting we talked about the inter some of the interactive pieces and
140I think it's a really important point because um if I'm a student like at let say the high school level and I want to take responsibility for I'm going on vacation or I need to do this or I'm going to be absent and I want to take responsibility for that where can I go and do that they're not pulling out their student handbook right they might go to the Dean's office so is there a QR C you know like and you can use those QR codes or those video kind of tutorials both for parents and and students so I think that interactive piece will go a long way we were talking mostly about it in in the realm of parents um but as we have older children uh and you want them to take I
141think it's a good really good point and ask them how how where would you go look for this information like if you want to know about pick a section right uh where would you go look for that and then you can place some of those pieces in those locations or websites where they would go look for it about attendance matters or highlighting those kind of aspects of of that for our older students that may have um be more mindful of that and want information um thank you for some of that feedback I just want to conclude here and then uh open up for some more questions I hope that you can see through some of these changes in the updates to the content and the work that's been done with those stakeholders for that feedback
142that there is some intentionality around that purpose um and that intentionality of rightful presence our Equity Journey jne climate culture um the focus on diverse Learners and student interventions rather than just a student discipline um pathway here um and then as I said that student friendlier usability through the rebranding of this handbook are there any questions for us I just I just have a comment and that is um I really appreciate the work that was done on this it's pretty evident and and it's it's quality work um shows that we care about our students a great deal um but also the adults in the building that are servicing them as well so I really uh appreciate all the work that was done thank you for that great thank you team appreciate great job thank you
143next I want to invite um Marie cellario and Dr zmy to discuss give us an update on The sdo sd308 Residency program and some information that's coming to you for action in the next month tonight is for information we heard an update recently um that was very um impactful um tonight is a continuation of that presentation so Dr yeah thank you board um at at our last meeting we gave you really a comprehensive review um uh of our teacher Residency program and we mentioned one partner that we're working with which which is the national Center for Teacher residencies um anamarie Canario uh has been working with the group um we are currently in the process of reviewing their contract U through our uh through a variety of of uh lenses if you could speak a
144little bit to uh what the agreement May entail hello good evening um so the partnership with um NCT um just a little bit of background um they're one of the experts in um building residencies currently they are in 47 um States and have over 40 residencies currently in the state of Illinois there's only four um Partnerships that nctr has and if approved we will be the fifth um a little bit about nctr and what they provide um they are truly a consultant um able to design what we need um based on our goals and so they support us through various ways um Consulting conversations and then also the various modules that cover anything from um The Residency year um to what our priorities mission and vision of The Residency um is as well as um
145the roles and responsibilities and allows us opportunities to track the progress of The Residency um again it's very collaborative um they help and support myself to create a residency design team out of St stakeholders so for example um some individuals are our tosas our directors um Aurora University and so we work together to create the residency and they lead this work and Lead this partnership um and so just you know a few examples by putting us on the map and connecting us um and we do become an apprenticeship uh partner through them um we are open to um the US Labor um grants and funds um which will really allow us to expand our residency and so that's just one thing that just actually hit my email today um was that if we once we
146could apply as an educational apprenticeship and apply for a decently Fair large Grant to support us so um it's been really great and so I hope that um this contract will get approved so we can really Excel nextg Residency program I have a question are there any other um residency programs or I guess Consultants that will be considered their competition have we considered them um and yeah I guess I'll stop there for now um yes there are um uh Branch Branch head is one of them um and they were able to provide a great foundation with the um uh details packets that's how I was able to start the residency um and so they were great help with the Equity lens um but then just to kind of move us forward to the next um
147step with being a national network um that's when we chose um NCT got it I had a I'm not sure if I caught everything there so was there a correlation between joining this network and getting access to more funds or was or were those separate things so they are supporting our application to become an appr ship and so they open our doors to apply for these type of Grants it's not being a partner with them to open up our grant but it helps us build in the pieces of The Residency for to apply for those grants like the US Department of Labor and then this helps us do it more comprehensively and quicker that's correct yes okay has NCT supported other programs so far thus far in the in the apprenticeship piece um yes so
148some of the um I don't know the states like the particular programs but they are in the large cities I I was writing them down for like Nashville Seattle Hartford Boston um Memphis Philly they are all connected to those large larger cities they're connected them through they're helping them with Apprentice the specifically The Apprentice piece I can get The Apprentice numbers for you but those are the ones that are connected to the as building the residencies those are fairly newly a available funds at the federal level designating a teacher pathway as a as an apprenticeship so I know there are other kind of assistant centers out there that are providing some some supports um NCT nctr is a great you know I have full confidence so um I feel like I had another question or
149comment but I lost it yeah excuse thank you both thank you for your time um doc um Dr Queen Bill Queen operations update forecasting Dr Queen [Music] here good evening board even colleagues um so as you know this is a very busy time for operations this time of year this is Overlook of uh capital projects um a lot 90 probably 95% of this is still in development but I would like to highlight a couple of projects that we have that you're going to be seeing up in front with you here in a week or so um Fox Chase roof approval is up for approval tonight that is going to be a free a full redo of the PDM and asphalt shingles um is there is there any questions about that Fox Chase Ruff no all
150right we will move on to the plank rtu project so we've been talking a lot about getting this project going over spring break I've got great news from the contractor these units are going to be delivered we are going to go with those units over spring break depending any weather so everybody cross your fingers let's keep the rain away and uh we will pull this project off no problem and have a great jump start on on that summer project for the year the third and final Pro piece I want to touch on are the parking lots for Hunt Club and Fox Chase as well I got an RFP set up for these uh jobs set up for this Thursday at 9 o'clock at 71 Stonehill where we will be receiving bids to further that project
151outside of any other questions that is my update for this month thank you thank you all right thank you thank you thank you Mr oi fix assets and inventory actually thank you is it on okay so we brought this to well they did they brought it to finance and facility I was absent that day so I apologize for that um but gasby 34 has to do with fix fixed assets and inventory within the district um gby 34 stands for governmental Accounting Standards Board statement 34 it requires government to report the value of capital assets on financial statements um you know besides being required by the state it's very important to track assets for inventory loss prevention and catastrophic total loss um we did receive two quotes um one was for asset control Solutions at 37,500
152the other one was industrial pral which was quoted at 89,000 I think it's important to note that the price difference is because we have history with asset control solutions they currently um have inventoried all of our assets up to I think five years ago so they have all the barcodes they have everything um locked and um reported on all of our financial reports they just need to do a refresh um another important note is they're able to come right after spring break whereas industrial appraisal said that they couldn't come until next year um so it's really important that we get a company in here to do that inventory if I can also add uh this has actually been a noted exception for the last few years every time the financial audit of the district has
153been done we're required to have that we haven't had it as the Mander said for at least five years so we absolutely need to get this in place because the audit for fiscal year 24 which is this current fiscal year it's going to start back in June and if we don't have it set up it's going to be another uh audit exception internal control issue we're trying to prevent that thank you did you say five years clarify yeah okay it's been an audit finding for the last five years or has it been completed okay that was the only thing I was going to call out but you already did so it's basically best practice did it didn't it also required didn't it also come up at the meeting at the the finance meeting that they
154had not gone down to the level uh there there were more assets that were not identified yes um that's why it's important to do a refresh it's with a district our size it's almost impossible to capture everything ourselves we really need an outside company to come in and make sure that they have everything um located where it's supposed to and um depreciated as the years go by it's um really important thank you Miss SAR um next we want to invite uh Mr Stuart Whit from whitlaw to speak to an update on the village of Montgomery abatement discussion I know you prepared some information ref from the board and so thank you Mr good evening good evening good evening as you know the village of Montgomery has been advocating for the school district's abatement of property
155taxes for Industrial Development the shuring farm east of Orchard Road West of the cat old Caterpillar plant the shuring farm consists of approximately 204 Acres 5.75 Acres adjacent to Orchard Road are design are reserved for uh retail development and no property tax AB baitman is requested Ed for that territory of the balance approximately 100 acres comprise the southern site which is reserved for current future use by rajo it's a Belgium company with uh facilities worldwide uh they deal in polymers that are integral to products used in and around our homes the southern site is already being improved with the 500,000 Square ft building for use by rajo occupancy is expected in August 2024 that building will be used for distribution of polymer materials as well as the regional headquarters for the company we're advised that
156the polymers will arrive by rail be stored in silos ultimately transferred into the building packaged and shipped out by rail so there won't be any real heavy truck traffic there the Southside may also include a future 300,000 squ ft addition to the first building as well as a future second second building of 300,000 Square ft² fired used by rajo once again it is possible that the second building the second 300,000 foot building if constructed be used would be used to repurpose recycled Plastics into usable materials for various Industries the total Capital Improvement for rajio in the initial phase is 150 to $180 million the north site will be marketed by Caris which is developed V ining the entire site uh for warehousing distribution and possibly Cold Storage as many as three buildings as many as
1571.2 million square fet the total capital investment in the north side is projected at 150 to $215 million and these cost projections include uh the interior uh equipment that is used to handle the products and that is generally tax exempt equipment so there'll be no property taxes derived from that on its website Caris touts that it develops builds owns uh dry storage facilities and C storage facilities so it appear that they will the buildings they build they will own and they will seek out long-term tenants to occupy these buildings which is not at all unusual in this type of industry in exchange for these developments rajo Caris and the village are looking for property tax abatements over over 10 years after issuance of certificates of occupancy for each building a 75% annual batement for years
1581 through five and followed by a 50% annual abatement for years 6 through 10 as of today's date no taxing body has approved has no taxing body has taken any formal action to approve any property tax abatements at the end of the day what you have you have a development that will assist of regional distribution facilities and Regional Offices for rajo that's much like what we have in other communities we've reached out to other communities to learn what if any property tax abatements they provide um we learned that Grundy County no longer provides any property tax abatements for big box and distribution facilities nor does the city of Aurora nor the city of North Aurora the village of Manuka has a property tax of batement program for its reg uh Manuka Ridge I80 Business Park
159uh which is offering um 3 years of abatements at 50% each year Kendall County also has a property tax abatement program for warehousing distribution and logistic facilities as well as Regional headquarters the application for tax of pment is published on the County's website a business is eligible to receive an abatement for a term of three years the the amount abated will be on a sliding scale 75% in the first year 50% in the second year 25% in the third year the term and levels of abatement may be modified only at the discretion of the governing Boards of the taxing bodies that approve it according to the Kendall County's program I've had two conversations with tend Kendall County uh one on two on Friday and one today actually I've had three uh and was told on
160All Occasions that according to their notes they were not prepared to extend any property tax abatements for rajo or Caris in excess of 5 years that's where that's where uh kendle county is I also spoke to wansi Community College and was told what I could tell you so I need to check my notes here last Friday I spoke with officials at wansi college and they too are asking questions over agreeing to a 10e property tax a batement the officials made clear however that any final decision would come from the college's Board of Trustees like your board of education uh after further deliberation during one of their open meetings which is kind of what we're doing right here so that's the wansi college position I can answer any questions that you may have I have one
161initial question and then I'll so my first question is do you have a formal agreement for the tax abatement to be presented to us that has all of the final details but before you answer that question I wanted to just um I took the time to go back and look at our June 5th meeting and the reason why I did that is because I wanted to make sure that I was clear because there's of course I want to make sure I inform the community because I've received several emails and calls um in regards to this um in regards to this abatement and so when I went back to watch the board I mean went back to watch that meeting um many of the questions that we were asking um and during the presentation the information
162was not final at that time for for example uh we were asking about the appraised value and it says it and and the response back to us was that it depends on the type of appraisal and what they reviewed and what they were presenting to us was based on cost um we did go through many of the assumptions that were in there and of course they they were you know based on a 10year stagger scale um but there was a lot of things within that presentation that just had not been finalized yet and the last recommendation um from at the time from our uh Chief Financial Officer at the time was that we that we he would they would go get information and then they would put put it together and then come back to
163us now being fully transparent I mean there was some train Transitions and Staffing and in the position and so but I just wanted to be clear that at no un no un certain I'll speak for me that and again watching it no one Agreed 100% that we were uh going to to uh to approve it but it wasn't that we were against it we just needed more information and so I just wanted to make sure just based on the emails some of them pretty aggressive um stating that we already approved it and I just wanted to be clear for the community that we had not approved it yet and I I said I just wanted to make sure that I'm doing my due diligence and rewatching it so my question to you is that is
164it standard that we get a formal agreement with all of those details in order to approve uh the abatement for the 10 years or whatever it is and and in that do we have the opportunity to have the discussion uh to to include any additional uh information that we think that would be in the best interest of the school district um or in our interest before we agree to it an abatement agreement has been prepared okay an abatement agreement has been commented upon by us okay a revised agreement has been prepared that all occurred several months ago um and uh in our desire to get this information to you tonight I've not picked that document up to make certain that it's got everything in it that we need that would come to you before we
165ever asked you to do anything okay and that would come to you whether it's a three-year agreement a 5year agreement a 10year agreement or a 25 year agreement agreed you're going to get the final document from us with our recommendations that you act on it whatever term you all decide that's your decision agree I'll reiterate I mean I would like to see that I mean obviously we would like to see that before we we decide on anything and then I have um a couple questions um earlier in public comment I heard um some Representatives refer to you know incentive packages um to me that sounded like different taxing bodies offering different types of abatements um and so I'm just wondering well I have two questions related to that um is it typical that through tax
166abatements that each taxing body has a separate tax tax abatement agreement or is it all in one package together and then my second question is in those incentive packages that might include tax abatements are there possibilities for taxing bodies such as the school district to also receive incentives to what to also receive incentives in regard to like um you know partnering with us on uh career Pathways for students in manufacturing uh or students in transportation um or um you know supporting uh you know um some some of our English learner families and maybe their parents who might be working at TH those facilities um I'm just wondering if there's opportunities like that in an incentive package my experience has been that those taxing bodies who are going to participate in an abatement program and usually
167it would be the county the city the public schools agreement that that that's been my experience um with regard to uh support from the business for your mission for what you do that's always a possibility as well we we do a lot of property tax work in our in our firm and uh with big huge industrial oil refineries nuclear power plants and those settlement agreements that we enter into with the plant uh often times provides incentive for the local schools the uh K12 schools maybe more high school students and certainly community college students that's good to know and I guess a call would be um in my you know to those listening with the companies that are asking for abatements um you know I think we would like to consider some of those incentives for
168the school district as well if they're available um in regards to like the other taxing bodies um I've heard you say that no one has agreed to any other none of the other taxing bodies have agreed to other tax abatements um is it typical that we would go first like a school district would go first like and say this is what we're going to offer and then why are we being put on the spot right now sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you I can because we're the largest taxing body because we we get the most tax Abate in money in dollars the the most obvious answer is look at the Chicago Bears and what's holding that up I mean that's the most obvious example shouldn't we be having a discussion with the other taxing
169bodies though so I listen I think there's a deeper conversation here and I think it's you know I listen I I I don't disagree with things that are being said but let's let's if we're going to be honest let's be honest and we talked about systems earlier so let's talk about Illinois and its system right Illinois is in the top 10 states that taxes its poorer citizens at a higher rate at an inequitable rate as opposed to its um it's most wealthy right uh and part of that is because the concept of Illinois was you everybody really wanted local control and so the um the um uh um need or desire the word escaping me but the need to rely rely is it rely on property taxes is something that Illinois has adopted couple that
170with the fact that we have more school districts than any other state in the Union right the things that we do no other state does and so I agree in essence that um because of some of these situations where you have all of these taxing bodies it's very difficult to do business in Illinois because we have this the system that we have of taxing and on top of that we have have all these governmental entities that said I also agree that it probably would make sense to probably um approach school districts first and there probably are a lot of people that are looking at us because we are the largest portion of the tax bill of the property tax bill if we had a more Equitable system in this state which is the whole point
171of ebf some of these conversations would be mute and mute mute and we wouldn't have all these scenarios and situ situations the reality of the situation though is instead of them going and dealing with the state they have to deal with all these local taxing bodies and I agree I don't necessarily think it is all fair to us I do think it's incumbent upon us to look to reach out to those municipalities and the counties that are bringing in these these pieces and say how can we work together better yes because what we can't have is just houses agree because the other piece is and I'm going to get to it later sorry but I'm I've been very quiet tonight for purposeful reasons I'll get to it later we've got people coming in here saying
172we want to we want to you know hey the the revenue side we need you to give something hey the we need we need this over here because we need the math interventionist we need a new sport we we've got a building in crisis let's redraw the lines all of these things are not isolated I get it that they're isolated to those individuals who care about it but to the school district they're cumulative and unless you invest right unless you nourish all you're going to do is take from it I mean I think there's like what was there's like that story The Giving Tree right shell Silverstein from so long ago and and sometimes it feels like the school district is the giving tree and pretty soon all you got left to sit on is
173a stump but that said those are pieces that we need to be advocating and are Beyond this we have to be able to do business because we need business here we can't just have houses 100% that's why I was on the Planning and Zoning commission for so long that was literally my only goal was to get to diversify the tax base 100% um so okay so we're GNA we're going to be coming back and forth and bouncing back and forth but I I want to make sure um Amy's question I I understand it and your response was regarding the different tax in bodies and the fact that you mentioned um that one of them actually has a the Kindle county has a policy that they do five years right um well they have a policy
174that they do three years years but they will deviate from that policy on a case-by Case basis I've been told three times now in the last two business days that they will not go beyond five years okay so which is consistent with what we were told months ago right so then just make sure I'm understanding do we all all the taxing bodies have to do the same thing all the taxing bodies do not have to do the same thing however what I would in every instance recommend that every taxing body signed the same agreement that could have different terms so that everybody knows what you're in for so all of the taxing bodies and what they're offering in one agreement so everyone knows what each taxing body is agreeing to oh yeah that's what I
175would definitely recommend that and that is something that we would see I'm sorry that is something that we would see prior to making a decision what I what I'm trying to avoid in the interest of partnership with all of our taxing bodies um I don't I want I want everyone to come to the table and put on paper what we're going to offer and then offer that as a community to the businesses that we want to come and do business in our community and Al you know I completely agree like I'm like we need businesses here no doubt uh I just want to make sure it's not inequitably on the backs of our public school students um and unfortunately we're in a district that's underfunded and so it's a really small tight rope to walk
176we can increase our funding potentially you know so I agree long term yes I agree there's both sides I understand there's 60% of the tax bill like eight or nine other entities that are making up 40% so we're really the weighted average is I know we're the driver of it I understand but I'm I'm saying in the on in the um in the spirit of partnership um I think it's important that all the taxing bodies are on the same page but and but I want to add something to that though because I do think there's a component to this where and I'm not trying to get nasty with some of our partners before we even develop a relationship but there are you bring up the county and so it's it is hard for us like
177listen again I know where I stand on this and I I know I know that what we need to do right but it is difficult for us and I I hope that somebody's listening at home because I want them to understand that a lot of the rhetoric that comes out of some of the people who are elected at the county is that's the school district it's their it's their bill you know they're the ones taxing well they keep raising the you know they keep do they keep levying more right and we don't that's fine but then notice we're being asked for a 10-year abatement and some of those people who are throwing shade at us they're saying well we only do five so I I I think it's I think it's very imperative that these
178taxing bodies work together I think it's very imperative that they come together I think like it's very important for us to work with Montgomery they've been very um in my experiences are they're they're very easy to work with um but when it comes to something like the county I think the rhetoric has to be fair yeah and I I just think that you know our students our district our parents the community at large the businesses we all have an opportunity to benefit from a properly Str structured partnership and so I believe that this is that this is one of the ways to diversify the tax base it's a phenomenal opportunity for the the village of Montgomery um I'll just go on the record and say I I think it would be a good idea to
179do it but when we keep saying the word partnership um it doesn't this didn't feel like a partnership this felt like this is what's happening do it do it and so all I'm saying for president sake for future is like hey what can we do to ensure that we have the open lines of communications that we actually see the agreement that is being uh for uh outlined so that we can see before us what we're agreeing to and then we'll sign that but I think it's unfair to um to us to say that one we don't support it because that's not true or two that we that we don't want to do it or that we're being slothful and slow in doing it um because that's not true either it's just that we did not
180have all the right in all the information or the information was incomplete and not you know shared fully at the same time and once we have something in front of us to actually see and approve I think that we can then decide as a board what's in the best interest of everybody okay so let me just add one more thing to that and then I I'm coming to you okay um so when we talk about not being at the table not being in full partnership in order to understand this full scenario I heard something today about a phase two and that there was an abatement schedule already in place is that true I think I think I might be able to answer aware huh a new abatement starts for each building at the certificate of
181occupancy occupy occupancy yeah shaking your head though so the way the the the way that the village is looking for this to be structured and I have not looked at the draft of the agreement in several months but the way that the matter is being structured it is there's a there's a general window during which they can access the abatements but the abatements start for each building and each substantial addition to a building as their certificate of occupancy is issued so they're going to get the cert rajo is going to get the certificate of occupancy um in August of two uh 2024 and just a few months and they're going to occupy that property at that time pH their period of vapen whatever it may be however many years you all agree upon that would
182start at that time now whether it starts in tax year 2024 tax year 2025 that's the detail that we have to kind of work out in terms of the implementation of this thing but but if and then if they do a 300,000 foot addition a couple years from now then that 300,000 foot addition qualify at that particular point in time so that's the way it's being proposed that's the way the agreement has been drafted in that particular fashion and that's where we want to be in on the conversation right it's like this is the time for us to come together with the village and us as a board yes cuz the board is the one making the decision not our Administration so I think of course they're advising us but I I want to be
183clear that this is a board decision and I don't want and I'm know I'm not talking to you stu but I'm just speaking to the public a lot of the conversation and even uh what's the word I'm looking for has been pointed toward the administration as if they're doing something wrong no they're advising us of the decision that we need to take and we're just asking for additional information is all we're asking so I can I can tell you that I've read a lot of board minutes over the last 48 hours this this is the first public discussion that I've found relative to this abatement program I haven't found any other taxing body and I looked at a lot of them I haven't found any other taxing body who has discussed in a board meeting
184this proposed abatement program with the exception of what happened June 5th of June 5th correct again that was here yes I haven't seen it anywhere else discussed I haven't seen terms discussed anywhere else it's always been at the staff level and maybe a committee of at the county level I mean doesn't it just make sense to get a proposal in front of us and then have the discussion rather than trying to figure it out right now because we don't even know what we're looking at we don't we don't I mean I'm go ahead we we know it's been proposed for the school district but we we don't see the full package the partnership package the incen the incentive package I want to see it in writing I want to see things like if if if
185it's 10 years what our protection is if for some reason you know the the occupant decides to get up and leave town I I want to I want to know all those details before I can make any kind of decision or ask any intelligent questions and in the in the June 5th meeting the last three things after it was proposed um with the recommendation the three things that were on screen is that it would include clawbacks that there would be a minimum assessed value attached to it based on um mean you can tell me why having a minimum assess value as a matter of fact it was such a a good point you either yourself or rapael can explain why it would be important to have a minimum assessed value inside of the agreement and
186then also our ability to negotiate the 10 years at this point and so minimum assess value can either one of you answer why that's important sure you want me to do it yeah okay you on a roll St so anytime you have a big industrial property built in your community and I've dealt with a number of them you always have an argument of what the property is assessed at what's the fair market value for property tax assessment purposes I'm letting some of my secrets out here anytime you've got someone coming to ask for property tax abatements you want to make certain that you've got a threshold of equalized valuation that they're not going to contest and you've got that for a number of different reasons uh the assessment of competing properties uh you you don't
187want to give 75% or 50% property tax abatements and get through that and then turn around and have them instantly file tax assessment complaints no more than what you want them to take the advantage of and I'm not suggesting these people would do that but no more than you want them to to take advantage of the property tax abatements and then at the end of the day say we got to leave if you drive West on I 88 right at Route 39 there used to be a facility on the southwest corner that was filled with subway cars I don't know if you all remember that or not but row after row after row after row of subway cars that was owned by a Japanese company their abatement period ended and then they decided Well that's
188no longer suitable and they left no protection for the taxing bodies at all that's the clawback that you're talking about so you want certain minimum assess valuations to protect you to protect what you're going to get to protect what you've got so that when the abatements are up you've got a steady Revenue stream coming your way um and I forgot the last one I no you're fine that was perfect so St can you can you speak to a little bit just to be clear because I I know you've aged we've the goal has always been to partner and to bring as much information on behalf of the board on on behalf of the village trustees and the um the economic development work that's happening in Montgomery there's a huge commitment to doing this and to
189seeing success there my question for you is when you think about what's in the contract and the questions have been posed what's the connection between those two you said that you prepared in a certain way this evening in terms of the questions that were brought versus the contract and so I think if you could paint the picture of the connection between those two is really important to speak to the desire to see success here if I'm understanding you correctly okay I think what the developer wants to do is to build their product to make a profit and provide a service and that you know that's what they do that's what businesses do and you know that's good for them and it's good for the community because an investment is good for the for the economy
190here um it's not enough to Simply talk about the total assessed valuation it's not enough to talk about the property tax abatements that are going to be had you there's it's just like everything else it's just like you got to dot all the eyes and cross all the tees and make certain that you fully know well you know fully well what's going going on and they know fully well what's going on and all the taxing bodies that are going to participate are going to sign on to the same basic terms while their actually amount of abatement might be different I don't think there's any reason for you to enter into any abatement agreement that applies strictly to the school district and a different one that applies to the Village of Montgomery and a different one
191that applies to kle County one agreement if you're going to have different participation or no participation at all likely in the case of the township of the road district um you know that up front so that at the so that over the 10e period of time and the 15E period of time however long these various abatements are going to last because they are going to last for each building um you've got one source you got one document where you can see all the rules that apply to everybody we we do this stuff all the time it happens all the time um so is minimum assess value the same as a clawback no no okay so what is can you explain the mechanics of a clawback the purpose the purpose um we've got we got an
192email earlier asked them to consider increaseing the clawback from 10 to 15 years um for greater Comfort how does that benefit what is what is that to be honest with you it's been a couple of months since I looked at the contract I've got to go back and take a look at it and I'm not asking for specifics I'm asking if you expand describe as clawback generally speaking what's why is 15 years better than 10 years what does that mean in my mind a clawback is what you is what protects you to keep the company from leaving once their abatements are over okay you the the subway Factory out there at i88 and 39 you don't want to be in that situation you don't want them taking advantage of the tax abatements that you give
193and then saying we're out of here or like a lot of corporate companies do take the advantage of the property tax abatements and then say now we need to renegotiate that's the minimum part yeah and now we need to go further or we're going to have to look elsewhere you want that kind of protection so if they simply announce we're leaving they got to pay you back what you abated that's a claw so what so what would be the reason to extend that out from 10 to 15 years to get the 10 year abatement I mean what so that they don't leave after 10 years so here's you ask them so then they would owe like five years more of property taxes that they'd have to pay year 10 so here's one of the points
194and and I don't I don't want to negotiate in public I agree a TV no get it the point would be if you want if if if if if a taxing let's get off the 10 year let's just if a TA if a taxpayer wants a seven-year property tax abay your biggest concern and if you agree to it your biggest concern is what's going to happen in year eight mhm are they going to come back and say now I need another abatement are they going to come back and say I'm going to leave okay if they're going to leave then you got to have some protection which is that they need to repay you you you need to somehow be secured that you're going to get these property taxes back if they're going to leave
195in order toic amount of protection that's a significant amount of protection um and the other thing that I wanted to you know what I'm going to ask the you latata um I saw a head shaking from Kate taxor um Kate yeah regarding what regarding the um how the uh occupancy works and the start of an abatement um can I ask it's pretty straightforward ask ask him ask should be it should be pretty straightforward you get there there was a lot of head shaking so I well ask him he's our he's our attorney it all depends on how it's written that's the whole point okay so anybody can shake their head or not or whatever they want to do it all depends on how it's written I've not read this agreement for several months okay but
196but I I've got a billion dollar I got a billion dollar Power Plant 15 mil down the road that I negotiated the property tax abatements for and I know exactly how the occupancy worked in that instance and there hasn't been any question with regard to it so how it's going to work is all going to depend upon what it is that I yeah I understand the current status I think it just goes to show I mean this is a prime example of the fact that we all need to be in the same room at the same time like so you can understand what the head checking is and we can understand you know all these things that we we need to be saying to each other right um I I I do appreciate the clawback
197conversation um that was very helpful it you want to say something yeah it also now they might say well clawback is a completely different thing in my mind the clawback is what I just I didn't see that for that I saw I saw acknowledgements it yeah that's why we all need to get in the same room right okay go ahead well and again these are these are things that in my vision of a a a policy and legislative committee right like we we should we we have opportunities to us um you know we we span so many different taxing bodies and kind of this is the piece where um I think we we do need to improve that communication piece so that yes we can have that done right and and you know I know
198that there have been situations Dominic you probably know about this better than I do where maybe maybe Dr katti one of you where we've had like representatives from 308 um sitting in certain certain committees and certain M or certain taxing bodies and you know Versa yeah right right totally vice versa absolutely and so these are these are pieces where I think at the end of the day what the taxpayers really want to see is functionality they want to see functionality they're not they're not interested in someone pointing a finger at the other and vice versa they just want to see it function yes so and that that's all I'm really saying I think that again we've all talked about expanding and diversifying the tax base so that the burden of the tax does not fall
199solely on the backs of the residents and this is a perfect opportunity to do it we just need to all be in the same room to have the conversation to figure out the right way that's mutually beneficial for everybody that's it I 100% agree with that I think it's a great opportunity um I want to say my piece very um high level um um which we probably all share right um and congratulations to um rajo and the cooling company for being million million million dollar companies um right it's un to me um we're working in a system that is inequitable when we're abating taxes for million million million dollar companies um so that public school when Public Schools don't have the funds that they need that is no um shade towards the companies that are
200coming to our our community and asking to be part of our community um it is just something that leaves a bad taste in my mouth um but it's the system that we're in um and with that said I think it's a great opportunity to like Eugene said expand our tax base um and so I'm hoping that we can get everyone on the same page and we can look forward to moving forward so what so can I tell you so so can I tell you what I think I heard sure in terms of Direction yes and you can tell me I'm wrong yes I think I think what I heard was you all want to know what everybody else is going to do in terms of a property tax abatement and our job is to go
201out and find out what everybody else is going to do whether it be any or or none you know anything or 10 years 5 years three years or nothing at all find out what they're going to do and then get the contract finalized and drafted so that you can take a look at the whole picture and make your final decision in that regard and and yes but primary that's secondary primary is all of the agreement everything in regards to the the uh the the company that we're actually giv the abatement to I need we want to hear like what is what is what are we agreeing to with them and then all of the other taxing bodies as well sure absolutely I I I don't know if we need to I'm just this is my
202opinion I don't know if we need to hear from everybody else what they're going to do before we because I mean we're literally I hate to say you know that they're 6% 3% 1% 8% we're 60% um I I yeah I don't I I I to me it's more about the discussion than it is about I don't the terms coming to the terms you the mutually agreed upon terms and then we have our individual sections that he was discussing where we you know uh all give our individual abatement schedules or and and we're by far the largest body but that still doesn't mean that we um negate what anybody else is doing yeah but this is never going to I don't I feel feel like this is never going to get anywhere yeah and and
203the other thing too to consider is there are some considerations in what the other taxing bodies are doing if there's a fire or an emergency at the property I don't know how to break this to everybody but School District's not sending buses and people to put out a fire or stage an emergency rescue right I'm I'm pretty sure that's coming from either the village or the county so I I I think I think it there's a there's a difference between Equitable and equal right and like to your point like we could take that conversation a million ways but I don't know that you're going to you know hopefully we understand the difference I agree with you Dominic but the only reason why I'm saying total is because our our lawyer is recommending that we have
204one agreement so as agreement but it it feels like to the the generic terms um what we have individual allocation schedules yes so I how do we I mean like getting everybody in the room sounds great but I don't know yeah I'm I'm more concerned about our terms but well when I say everybody in the room I'm talking about the village the the board and those bodies that impact our contract impact terms of our agreement yeah the terms of our agreement I mean Amy talked about incentives you know are there any like what are we how are we partnering and what does that look like like Stephen cubby says our contract should be a win-win we should both feel like we're winning right yeah and I to me it sounds like uh there's potential there
205for the company that we already know is already there um but I I don't how do how do we have a conversation with companies that we don't even know um want to build yeah we're not talking about them we're talking about what's currently on the table what currently on the table what's C saying then we need to I I kind of want to just move and take responsibility for this and um well how can you do it when you don't even know like okay you just need contract we get the terms for our what we're offer what Raj can provide you know as far as um supporting our students supporting our families AG the things that are important to the district um and review that I don't know that ends up in abatement language or
206if that's a separate thing um but if it's in if it's in the you know abatement language then so be it um tied to that yes um but I just I I don't want to um I don't want to wait for everybody and the and and and the answer to what you just asked is yes sometimes it's in the agreement and sometimes it's not yeah I to me it it seems like it's yeah if if we want to say you know we'll accept your batement in exchange for these things and it probably needs to be tied to there if if not um then it would be you know a conversation outside of so so so I let me I yeah to try and get us there so can you get us the agreement so we
207could take a look at it and can you do the best to see that we we would prefer I'm assuming from what everybody said whatever the agreement is with the other taxing bodies put it in front of us and let's go let's go fine okay by when though I'm Sorry by by wi I don't want I don't want to leave this is this to me is very important um because if you kind of look at the project as a whole um at some point what what what do we get from the property taxes rafhael it's an estimate in the uh in the me the dollar no no no the dollar amount that we get cumulatively from the district yeah the in our property taxes oh the that's a district yeah 9 from uh all Three
208Counties or just from kendle County all in total from all Three Counties we get about 150 million 150 million yes okay so if if they build out you know Grant indicat this is you're 11 or if you have clawback and they decide to leave a 10 then we get claw back um you know that's 1 two 3% tax taxing you know uh that's that's pretty good divers diversifier right there I mean that's a great start it's a great start and so even in year one you know it's it's not one two or 3% but um with the multiple phases and however the occupancy would end up working um it's it's still uh would help support a lot of the things want and and and it goes far beyond that because I just want to make
209sure everyone understands it's not not just what the district will get we understand the benefit of this company coming to the community and the extended uh benefit that it'll offer not just to the district but to the community we want that but we just want it to be a partnership and to be at the table at the onset of the conversation and not an afterthought so we want it we want this to happen for this one but it just has to be we have to understand what the terms are I'm glad I I want to just say again I just want to make sure we didn't I I know it was late but I wanted to leave with something and I just want yeah I just want to make sure I understand this phase is
210it I don't I don't know if you call it a phase two abatement is there if a seate agreement okay I just don't want that to be tied to what we're doing now because we don't know anything about that and I don't want that well it might have been it might have been addressed in an email that was received and if and if so I was reading that while I was driving down the highway so let me let me I've got some time I will I will address this at least in part tomorrow got it and get in touch with Dr katti and Raphael tomorrow with regard to how we move forward perfect thank you thank you thank you thank you now stud in terms of timeline can we did we clarify timeline we we're
211leaving okay sooner than later okay we just want to make sure that sooner than later we know that there's a lot of um you know questions and so we want to make sure so thank you st okay all right next um next uh Mr obafemi regarding uh authorization of loans Mr you have the resolution first oh the resolution for the uh thank you for the transfer thank you we have presented uh a resolution uh before the board I'm sorry you got to go to your mic they can't hear you online I'm sorry we presented a resolution to the board for a fund transfer and to uh from working cash it's the time of the year right now where cash is is low before we get uh 55% the largest uh chunk of our property tax
212which is the largest source of our funding so we um we asking we have a bank internally which is where a working cash is a working cash is a District's Bank where we don't have to pay interest it's our money but it it it's set up for that reason we Levy for it we can borrow off of it we have three years to pay it back but our plan is to pay it back when we get our property taxes in June so what we're requesting is that the board allow us to transfer some money to transportation and and also into the Ed fund and I'm oh God go this the main purpose of this is so we don't take the tax disspation this yes we are borrowing from ourselves this is our first year not
213doing it in 20 years in 20 years Hallelujah okay feels good not to fund playing field schools this year Payday Loans on steroids so we're in the process of uh of developing the fiscal 25 2025 budget and part of the process of doing that is to do uh a five-year projection that's customary and just a five-year projection it's a it's a what is a financial projection it's a way to estimate the the financial outcome of the district it includes the revenue how much we're going to get in our key Revenue areas what we're going to spend uh should the expenditure and the cash flow that we need to keep running the district and what I would like to point out is this is a snapshotting time and so much is going on every day so
214it can change because of things that we don't know about so I just want to say when you look at a a projection to snapshot and the other part of this is the farther you are away from the current year the less reliable it is it's just the nature of projection so the first year the second year tend to be close but then you move away from it there's so much that is unknown so this are the uh the key reason why we do a uh Financial projection I mentioned before it's a way to let the board know and for the community know what is going on financially in the district it's also part of the budget development process and we also use a for Levy strategy uh so for example if we look at
215the funds that we have in in our in in our funds and if we have a fund that is lower that is projected to be lower shortterm immediate term it can impact how we decide to Levy real life example of that is uh the levy that was approved by the board in December what we know is is transportation fund is been dingling so instead of leving more money in the Ed fund we decide to LY $5 million less in the Ed fund to fill the hole in the transportation fund going into the future so as I mentioned before uh there's some some known fact that makes up the projection and there's some unknown so I'll would talk about on the revenue side we know what CPI is CPI is important because a big chunk close
216to 70% 65% of our Revenue comes from property taxes so we know the CPI that was uh the levy that was approved back in December we use 5% CPI for that that Levy is going to impact the fiscal 25 our revenue and we also know the uh the CPI that is going to be used for the 24 Levy which is going to be presented to the board in December of this year we know the CPI for that is a CPI for January uh for December of last year that came out in January of this year and that's 3.4 now the things that we don't know as we move the projection is for 5 years so we moving all the way to 2029 so for fiscal year 27 which we are going to do the levy
217for the uh 25 Lev year we don't know what CPI is for that time because we cannot see that far ahead but because of the history based on the last few years of inflation that the feds have been trying to fight that they have not been able to Wrangle if we all remember the last couple of months inflation is actually been trending well except last months inflation report that came out on the 12 inflation went up again the uh in January it was 0.5 in February went up to 1.2 so it's a it's a little tricky to uh to forecast inflation So based on current data we estimated that the CPI that will impact fiscal year 27 is 3% and from that period on fiscal year 28 and 29 we estimate will be 2.5% those
218are the unknowns on the revenue side now on the expenditure side there are some things that we know about we know for example that clearly 81% of our expenditure is driven by people as I always tell people we're in the people business that's what we are we educate children and the only way we know how to educate children is to have our Educators teach them and that's where most of the revenue uh the expenditure goes to so the known facts we have a a contract with the largest Union in the district which is the biggest source of expenditure for the district too the teachers union for uh for fiscal year 2025 and on we uh since we have that data is 3.8% right on average and then for ocma the uh the maintenance and the
219custodian Union is 4% for the uh Transportation Union is 4% and there's also a known fact that we have some retirement coming right now folks who' have actually put in the paperwork to retire and that retirement will provide us an estimated Savings of 1.2% and that comes from the cost of the folks who are retiring they tend to be on the high end of our pay scale and the replacement cost for the folks that we're going to hire to replace them they tend to coming at a lower rate so we estimate our savings to be 1.2% uh 1.2 million now the unknown fact is that uh we know that uh expenditures are going up by 5% in 2025 we also the Assumption I'm sorry the assumptions that we're making is that expenditures are going out
220in 2025 we're not in 2025 years we use the best data that we have to try to estimate that but we don't know that for sure the the things on top we know those for sure but the ones on the bottom we don't know what we do we use the best available data to try to estimate now for the uh the insurance we know for fiscal year 25 for example what our insurance rate is going to be because we transition to a co-op and when we transition to The Coop we signed an 18month agreement so the first six months was La this fiscal year the next 12 months is going to be FY 25 so we know for example that there's not going to be an increase in fiscal year 25 in in health insurance
221and um what we also uh estimating is that uh we will spend $1.7 million in capital projects in 2025 that is going to be dependent on the revenue that we get that year to make sure we can fund that any questions Rafael the 3.8% for OA salary increases that's really an average over the life or that's can you clarify that because so known facts I'm I'm talking about really for fiscal year 25 is what I'm talking about because remember we're using the immediate projection information to develop the fy2 budget so all the things that I'm stating here as far as the known expenditure is what we know that will impact fiscal year 25 Budget on the expenditure side so in looking at the fiveyear projection this is what we see uh based on the information
222that we have which is the property tax we know what the cpis are and we have an estimate of what it will be as we go out further into into the uh the out years as I mentioned earlier we estimating that our reserves are going up right if everything comes together that is the property tax ebf continues to come in if the last three four years we've actually been averaging about $7 million in additional Revenue in ebf but we were been very conservative in when in determining how much revenue we will get from ebf so instead of booking the whole seven this year for example we got $9 million soad of booking that whole amount we decided to go on what we thought was realistic which is $4 million a year for the next five
223years so doing that and property tax and federal uh federal revenue as well as other state categorical uh Revenue what we are looking at the expenditure this is what we looking at so we are gradually building our reserves it's not quick it's not fast but it's something that we believe is realistic and as I mentioned earlier the further we are from from the years the less tricky it is so as I I want to restate this a projection is a snapshot which is why we do it every year So the plan is that if we have additional information when we present the budget to the board by may this will be upgraded to reflect the changes that we know of and then in February of next year too we we will have more information on
224CPI for for December of this year we will also include that in the outer years so you normally do projections typically in February because you have the CPI figure it comes out in January so provides you more information to use into the future any questions okay so this is essentially the uh the number of the charts that I just show you and if you look at fiscal year 24 this fiscal year what you see the the red I know it gets confusing when folks see red they think automatically deficit but in this case what this is is sources and uses of fund what we essentially is saying is transfers so this are transfers from from the working cash to to other funds that's what that is the base uh the base area where you find
225out whether you have a surplus or deficit is at the very top you see the top line where it says Surplus and deficits so if we are a true deficit that's where it we show up okay I I asked the question when we look at the financial statements when we get those later on the year are we going to see that deficit and the answer I got was rafhael no and if you look at this is this is if you see the reserve is trending up wor which is what we saying if you look at the figures it grows gradually not by a whole up it grows gradually and the goal is to start building our reserves surely but slowly and to get it to a point where we are closer to the 25% that
226is required for best practice when it comes to reserve yes now I have a question you go back sure so we will often have community members even elected officials in the area who will say well you've got the money right that's what they see and I'm not arguing but here's my fear okay because that's one side of the conversation but the other side of the conversation is that budget up there is dependent and you can correct me where I'm wrong we go On Us increasing the levy and also increase in ebf funding Am I Wrong absolutely so I'm hoping at some point that we can show the public like we have in the past what the five-year projections look like if a board comes up here and says hey they've got money I'm going to
227hold that Levy because we've done that historically and then we went back to the public and asked them listen this didn't work we got bad advice we want to have options and everything else and the public said no no And for those of us who were hitting houses trying to help kids have options what we ended up doing was sitting in an auditorium down there making cuts and it wasn't fun was it my friend it was terrible and that's the part of the equation that some of the community doesn't get and heck I take I I got I get beat up all the time about the fact that I tried to support that referendum that's fine I'll take the hits but when people come in here they need to realize that happened within the last
228decade and so they need to see Raphael what it's going to look like if someone sits up here and says I'm going to hold you hold the levy they need to see what's going to happen up here if ebf funding doesn't get increased and we say we need your help we want to keep all these options for these kids Athletics I need you to put in some witness slips to help us so that people in Springfield understand what's going on so that's the one piece of this that I need because I have to be able to show the community yeah we have the money if capital I capital F absolutely if you remember those are excellent points when I started this presentation I said is based on assumptions they are knowns they unknown the only
229thing that we know for sure is how much we're going to get in this fiscal year right and the further you are away from this current physical year the more speculative you get right and so we're depending on a lot of variables to your point we don't know what inflation is going to be at the end of this year that's significant even if inflation is high enough the board has to make the decision to tell me to Levy up to what we're able to Levy to that's another thing the other big part of that is if I get to the charge here you will say is that uh the appropriation from the governor which is what fund zbf for the fy2 budget year the governor introduced his budget message this month earlier this month and
230what he's proposing is that he's going to appropriate $350 million to fund ebf and if that happens we'll get the funding that we need and I think for next year no for fiscal year 25 this year was done already right fy2 that starts July 1st now it's more likely than not that that will come true because of two things we have a governor who's a Democrat we have the Democrats who are super majority in the legislator so they tend to work in concert right so it's more likely than not but those are very very important important points that you rais well in addition in that speech that he gave he warned they have no idea what they're going to do fiscal year 26 that's the thing with projection yes and I said the same thing
231too when I start I said it repeatedly this is a projection it's a snapshotting time there's so many things going on that we don't know about perfect example 2020 we started 2020 everything was Rosy right February we started hearing about Co by March everything shut down most businesses shut down if you weren't for Esser and special appropriation from Congress it would have been a different story so we don't know what will happen so I so if we could go back to the Assumption slide I think what uh Revenue I think what what Jared's asking for is we put CPI zero as one scenario and then it's highly unlikely though that CPI will be zero that's what he's asking but here's the thing I agree with you but a board might come up here and tell
232you they don't want to Levy CPI so I so what I want is the levy part right so what I want is the them to see what happens if someone comes up here and says that and then the other part was not saying I want to go that route I'm just saying I want to show so we expect 112 million in fiscal year 25 I think what jar saying is that make it 11 113 million every [Music] year talk ebf correct okay without the for Jared tends to like and and it's helpful I'm it helped tremendously in this community people get it now when you go to the door now if we did that everything will be right all around that that's what they need to see that's honestly what they need to see they
233honestly need to see it so it's it's it's you do with both of those worst case scenarios and then with one of those gone and then another so basically you want what is it four I I want three scenarios well four projections actually Four you're right I want one just how you have it that's the one I want and and I'm imagining that that's if you just put zeros for those numbers no problem it's a micro it's going to be I want this like I'm happy to see this but the second one I want is what happens if you get a board up here and says we're holding Levy study for 5 years that's the second thing I want the third thing I want is what happens if the state says throws up their hands
234and says we don't know you're on your own we're not going to increase ebf and then doomsday is the fourth one what happens if both of those things happen What happens if you get a board up here that says now we're going to hold it and ebf is done I know what it's going to show you what I what I can tell you right off the top of my head is you'll be losing between 30 to 25% of your Revenue right at the top so you have to cut proportionately so when people say what we had to do so when people say you've got the money they need to understand that that's contingent on an increase in revenues which comes from raising the levy or state taxes in or state Appropriations increasing all and it's
235not just all yes raing and the state incorporating what the commitment calls for for ebf I'm happy to do that otherwise get the get the lights out on the auditorium and here we go because we're not we're not expanding anything want make we point out I do want to give credit here um because it is a relatively conservative when it comes to re this isn't a Rosy picture either um the Baseline here that he's presenting agree um so can I ask one more question SL 7 before you go does this include the projections for the master facility plan cuz I know when we looked at it some years ago for the 20 some odd buildings that we have I mean the the preventative or scheduled maintenance would cost somewhere around I don't know million 2030
236million doll per year we can't afford that that but that's my point my point is not included in this numb no it's not it's not what we anticipating is being able to appropriate 1.7 mil but that's for 20 something billion contingent of how much revenue we have to cover an increase wait increase over no 1.7 million a year is that enough totally no of course not well that's what I'm saying because it was like Milli total flat flat what I'm saying toal every year that's not included that's why I'm asking because that if if you took that 30 or 40 million and put it within this budget that also would boun oh that would be that would be crazy well that's that's my point but that's to the point of that he's also making with
237with the the projections that we have are great but if and again I know that the worst case scenario won't happen that all chillers boilers and everything would go down in one year but all of our buildings are 20 plus years old right now so the probability of of things breaking down is higher and so we have to also have um fund to take care of our building so that our our students can continue to learn so we have five scenarios you would like for me to do now I'm just trying because because the Assumption slide it says $1.7 million increase I just want to make sure that no 1.7 million dollar uh it should be just period yes yes yes okay okay well that that changes that word increased it changes everything it changes
238things yes okay that's just what they put increase in fiscal year 2025 in just one year so that's $1.7 million increase in next year yes and then from there on it's from there on I'm estimating 2.4 million from there 2.4 million as long as we have the revenue to be able to drive it and as see looked we put that 2.4 million it still looks good with all the assumptions we continue to Levy based on CPI we get at least $4 million addition every year in EPF okay so he's at about 2.4 is what's built in after 25 oh okay yeah 25 it's this year's plus 1.6 better than nothing from last year we well we have we have to we have to budget some money for a building we can yeah okay all right
239so you still want me to do the scenario with the 30 million four no I was really stating if you want to see it I think you talked about I I just the four okay I can do the four I would love that thank you so much no no problem so what this is here is just uh a graph of the revenue breakdown and if you see as I mentioned earlier property tax is a big chunk of that is a really big chunk and another big chunk of that again is CF I can't say enough about how much of a ebf is made in the uh in the financial trajectory of the district so when people talk about how do we go from being so broke to be blunt to doing better you can see
240that iide that's a lot of money and it's it's helped us and and not to not to beat a dead horse here but we had these these presentations have really done some serious education in the community because we had a lot lot of people um submit witness slips from the community this time when ebf came up because it it really did make an impact when people saw what it means when we're not getting that so that's great and every opportunity I get to to speak to legislator I always remind them of how much of difference that ebf has made in our district in our ability to be able to fund a lot of things we've been really connecting with a lot of legisl over the last year um and we thank them for their leadership
241um so yeah so that's the other if you look at it property taxes if we if we follow CPI 49% almost half of that is CBF now almost then the rest of it as you see I mean they are significant but not that big if you look at the scheme of things how much it contributes to our revenues first and then uh this is our as I as I always tell people we're in the people business so if you look at the salary and the benefits is 81% of our expenditures and everything else pale com in comparison to it so when people say just cut the budget what it comes down to you cannot cut the budget if you don't lay people up that's the only way you can reduce because everything else is really
242not significant purchase services and really there's not much in the way of uh of flexibility and purchase Services that's where we pay for transportation for example uh the Contracting of Transportation the oper uh the uh the bus leases the uh the light bill that we that that you know the heating those things that keep minimally keep the the district going you pay for that at of purchase services so if you want to cut that you're going to have some sign ific impact on how uh the district runs and when it says salaries does that include like stiens that nature anything that is paid out of uh object 100 100 is your regular salary 132 is your skyp in those rolled up into uh into salaries and something that we actually uh contemplating and budgeting for
243for the first time this year I want to point next year I want to point out his termination benefits uh in the past we've never budgeted for that but that is how you pay when people leave us let's say they retire or they leave us we pay for the accumulated sick days the accumulated vacation in there in the past currently what we do or in the past and currently with this year's budget we pay for it out of salary and that's really not the right place to pay for for it you need to budget specifically for termination benefits and that's what that is and for the next 5 years we projecting it will be approximately $300,000 a year questions on discussion I think we have some great one along the way so yeah I'm good
244I'm good thank you thank you so we plan to bring the uh there was a memo included at pretty much is more detailed than the presentation it's about seven pages we plan to bring the uh the budget to the board in May and hopefully get it approved by by June and part of the the budget process too is we'll be doing community presentations at three locations in the district it'll probably be in Osgo we'll probably do one Aurora and maybe another one in Montgomery or somewhere else where we'll actually do a presentation we go over the budget we give folks in the community an opportunity to ask questions and just to engage with folks so they know what's in the budget and those presentations and next time we see it they'll have those for four
245scenarios cor absolutely I can actually get it to you before then I can have it to you by the next uh board meeting just put it in there as an FYI thank you thank you okay almost there all right some big topics though I mean like want to give them time y great uh last but definitely not least in terms of our consent agenda um I'm uh really honored to present oh this is not the oh for oh I'm sorry oh for information this evening um it's it is late so thank you for your uh your your forgiveness all right here we go I want to invite Dr Waller to speak to what I would say is a really important opportunity and really a trailblazing moment for our district um to speak to really our
246draft Equity policy that we are bringing to the board for its review and engagement as we enter a really important part any you know there when we think about change we think about policy people and practice um do we have have the right policies in place to really support the vision that we have for shifts in how we support our schools if we've been an equality model where everybody gets the same if our two high schools get the same if every single school gets the same that's there's there's a function to that right so that's the practice those are then the practices if we have everybody gets the same then the result is going to be very similar but unfortunately that doesn't make those same um doesn't necessar address the needs you know at home
247I've got two boys if if I gave them exactly the same uh they would say Dad whatever you know so there's a uniqueness to how we think about all that we're doing and so um I want to thank Dr Waller I'm going to invite her to share who's on the committee um and then also really this is really coming to the board for its engagement around this policy because through this policy we can begin to shift how we fund how we think about the supports that our schools get um for example tonight in tonight's public comments we heard some Deep Cries for concern and so this is this is the foundation for how we change the outcomes we're seeing even today in terms of the frustration in our community and so this is the beginning
248and I want to really appreciate again Dr Wall for your your leadership here thank you I'm super excited for this moment um so quickly I just want to thank the members of the equity committee Ally Jeremy Bailey and Marie Rita Joe Michelle with two L's Tony Erin Tammy Kiana Agnes Toya Dr kgy Pete Paul mam Dominique Amy Michelle 1 L Reagan Steph Kristen Paul um and all the other individuals who we've um allowed us into their space to ask questions as we've developed um this Equity policy um I also uh want to thank everyone for um accepting us as we went on our little tour of the different committees um we just we have a lot of amazing passionate um Educators in our system and so we're just excited about this opportunity to uh establish
249a foundation of equity and put this in writing um I know I've said this and shared this but you know our commitments are um an integral part of this policy I don't know if we can slide down a little bit you would see those are the starred ones down here and then also the sd308 call to action again this goes into the collaboration that we continue to talk about um from what Mr Jeremy Bell and Bailey Campbell shared um we know that these are words on paper and we need this call to action to be able to um Drive the work of making sure that our students are um rightfully present in spaces and safe psychologically in spaces um so we're excited about this opportunity um we look forward to bringing our success indicators draft
250to you all next to do another fun tour um as we know that all these things work in collaboration if you look at these footnotes you see um we are talking about a span we have over 177,000 students we serve a predominantly marginalized groups of students and so we have to be able to create a space where they believe that that space is for them um that it's not a guest host space or mentality um that they again like we said are rightfully present inside and outside of the classroom so are there any questions did I miss anything Dr K can you share a little bit about the policy development process and how this aligns with that and what's happened just so the board can be aware of that too yep so in terms of
251kind of the policy setting Foundation um so as Dr Waller mentioned she has not only engaged the policy committee but also um the equity committee and many many groups from uh across schools across the district so our policy really serves as a foundation from there then she has a team that is working on um uh success indicators which we will then parallel with some administrative procedures so in conjunction um with the policy um we'll look at some admin procedures um Mr Bell and Mrs C took talked earlier about the call to action which will also partner uh with that from a um operational um uh lens so uh it's really this will be all-encompassing for both um our protocols our procedures and our direct workings with student staff and the community thank you okay so
252I'm excited about this because um after um the death of of George Floyd there were many school districts who were looking at the social injustices and their systemic inequities and how they were showing up in in their school districts and they were and know they were calling for um School boards to bring forth like proclamations policies um and how they wanted to go forward and what their stance was on equity and our school district um we we we settled for um our Equity statements um and I use that word I don't use that word lightly it it was a settling and um I'm I'm proud that now we we have this so thank you for it other questions comments feedback I I just appreciate the call to action because I think stopping short of a
253policy leaves it um really up for interpretation for how these uh how they're implemented and so I think it just has another level of accountability by adding the call to actions and I appreciate that yes can I ask how how those Equity statements roll into the work I'm so glad you asked that um so we're really excited about having that collaboration and actually I'm going to put uh Miss cus on the spot as well but one way we are going to weave in and and leverage really and lift right because you know these are water approved September 27th of 2021 and they've been important statements and words but we need traction and we need to lift that and so the equity statements will live within the success indicators so we're going to be tying those
254statements within each of those indicators and so I know we're not here to talk about the success indicators tonight but just so you all know the the tour of like bringing all these different people in includes us looking at you know Mastery connect and the standard space learning piece of that as well as the behavioral um subjective nature that we see within Mastery connect we're looking at gifting Ed from elementary junior high high school and and looking at representation in our processes and procedures we're looking at student discipline we're looking at lgbtq where we've um connected with HR with multilingual Department with special education so it's a lot of different pieces um and so those Equity statements fit perfectly within those educator spaces and so we're going to be creating um a forward facing um
255platforms so that those can be lifted within Network cuz and I do want to you know acknowledge that like we that work took like a year to produce those Equity statements and a lot of people put in a lot of time energy and effort to make them happen but what they did was they weren't embedded and they weren't systemic in nature and so they just were piece they were words on a piece of paper and so I app appreciate the fact that now they will live and breed thank you without those Equity statements we would not have an equity policy today exactly right and those Equity statements were the result of I would say decade L decade long effort by members of a very diverse members of this community who really started a nucleus going
256back I want to say 2002 or when was that 2011 2011 no 14 14 um individuals really saw the need and really I would say were Trailblazers and so there's some history there that I look forward to bringing back and making sure that history is Unearthed for the community because that's a really important uh frame that we have to recognize which makes us really proud to be a part of sd308 when we think about the context within which that effort was was spawn and developed and so that's what brings us to today day and so I think uh that history cannot be lost and that history has to live when we think about this policy so miss kedas were you gonna add in did you want to oh yeah I think I think Dr Waller
257pretty much filled in the blanks but yes um as you mentioned um president similton um having been here at the same time when those were created they kind of lived as a parallel and not as an integration and so when we sat and looked through this policy and looked through the calls to action it's it's no longer that um it's Equity statements are here and what we're doing is over here it's that the equity statements are driving down to the words that we're using and we're talking about building Banks of words even so that literally not just what we do but how we talk about what we do um and how people read about what we do and everything is really inclusive of um this you know this lens it's everything looks through the lens
258it's not a separate picture like it was before so um we're really proud of that integration yeah and I would are you gonna add something go ahead no go ahead go um and I and thank you for recognizing the history of the work that um the Dei committees um and their effort and because of all of the work that has been done since that time the U Midwest and plains Equity Assistance Center they're going to be um showcasing our district and our work in the equity space at the um what is it the American educ American educational research Association in Philadelphia in um April and I'll be part of that presentation so that's cool awesome that's really cool our District's doing a lot thank you thank you thank you thank you all right so okay
259now we'll move on to action item 10.1 approval of bills for payment can I have a motion please make make a motion to authorize the payment of bills and the amount of 32 m87 4,602 as presented Miss similon hi Dr Mario hi Mr Gatewood hi Mr Cerone hi Miss venman hi Mr pler I motion passes 60 action item 10.2 approval of cyber security testing can I have a motion please I make a motion to approve the agreement with l l RS LLC to conduct cyber security penetration testing second Miss Simon hi Miss mouth hi Mr ploger hi Dr Mario hi Mr Cerone hi Mr Gatewood I motion passes 60 action item 10.3 approval of new ihsa sport can I have a motion please make a motion to approve adding lacrosse as a new high school
260sport in sd38 second I have a comment on this one yeah listen I if you bring something to me that's going to give students more options and more things and you tell me we can afford it I'm never going to say no however I do want to make sure that there's a couple of things said about this one I do think we need a process and a uh almost like a kind of a timeline with that process just like we do with buildings facilities anything like this right I think we need the same thing the other piece that I'll say is this and you know sorry but I'm going to give the history here which is when I hear options and home values those were the arguments we had when we failed with two referendums
261in this community we went around door Todo knocking relentlessly trying to get people to support school district and we still got less than 20% of people to show up and vote I take a beating for doing that I publicly own it I don't care because I agree with everything that was said we should have options for our students and yes the quality of our schools does affect our home values those arguments they lost in the community twice and what ends up happening is what I call the old American argument you can win win versus somebody has to lose in order to win and what happened was we were we told people this is going to cause pain and pain can be seen in a band here that doesn't have a shell still pain can be
262seen out on the fields that aren't really well kept for our teams and our marching bands pain can be felt when it comes to math interventionists that are needed pain can be felt from what we heard from the school with what I call the best mascot in the district the Bobcats from Boulder Hill these are all residual effects of that pain and I say this because if somebody comes up here and fools with our Revenue if we ever get into a situation like we were where we needed those those those we needed those funds for options and to help people's home values if it's just about our my group of kids it's not going to work people are going to lose so you have to be willing to Advocate when you say you want options
263and you want to help home values you have to be able to advocate for the kids that may not be directly your kids I show up I love robotics I've never had a kid in robotics right we're all passionate about some of these things we have to understand that as a community so when we add something that's why I say there needs to be a process but when we add something I don't think it's unfair to ask for the commitment the other way which is we got banned kids in need we got fields in disarray we've got problems in schools that we need to address those are our kids and we have to remember that I I appreciate the comment and the question and the call for and that's exactly why this board um invested
264this year in what I would call the what we call the curriculum organizational audit because it's not enough to have this one moment of success for one important sport tonight right and we want to celebrate that but the purpose of that audit that the board approved and really was Visionary in doing is really increasing the capacity of our team to do a field stud to make sure that we are understanding the bread of where those priorities are going to lie just like we would do in terms of a building process or our or our fin our Master facility planning process we have to do the same thing now our team through the eight priorities has identified variety of needs and is beginning to work we're not going to wait for that audit because we have
265responsibility today so I want to say the second thing I want to invite um Heather um Dr Kade and Mr artson to speak a little bit to the process because that we brought those two together in this process with the lacrosse this was a field testing right to then get fi feedback about what the process looked like um in addition to Bringing lacrosse this evening so I think if you could speak a little bit down to the process in terms of a timeline to make sure that we are not overlooking that um an important factor and then also to seek further feedback from the board around what that process can look like in the future we want to make sure that that gets resurfaced I don't know if his mic is on is your m
266is it on I know it's late Dan thank you so much that green light there we go all right so as we look at the process there there was a process that we we did follow with this and it's a 15-step process the final step in that process is board approval uh as we go through this you know the step one being assessment of Interest going with the the the student survey and interest thr about the community even is there an interest to add these Sports and as we go through look at facilities planning and look at the budgetary analysis um can we can we feasibly handle these Sports uh and I'm not going to talk through each and every one of these because you do have the memos to to look at these yourselves
267uh but I will say the process that we we did lay out was pretty much all inclusive of everything that we need to add or need to review within those steps um the timeline being one of them one of the things we had indicated in that is that from time to time uh it's not that we would speed through any of these but if we're doing something like lacrosse for example that was approved many years ago by the ihsa um we do have local Club teams and organizations that are currently practicing in that too um that would be something that we could uh and we have here in Step One in cases where the ihsa has already adopted a sport in into a state series the process can be reviewed uh if the majority of
268our resources are needed for the sport are already in place and that's kind of what we we have done here with lacrosse for example it's already it's already there yeah so so it's about also it's about a holistic picture what I'm hearing from you just to be clear is really it's about a holistic picture that centers Equity versus uh maybe I'm Miss no what I what I I have no doubt that you did a process and I'm listen I okay you know all that sure my issue is like we'll see like a building facility plan right so I want to know hey what what sports are on stage one what you know what what sports are in stage 10 I have no doubts like you come you bring it to me it's not me questioning
269your faith it's it's me saying hey maybe we need to see more of that in a transparent lens sure so that we have it I'm not saying I need to go till midnight on a on on a on a sure you know uh presentation on it but I think that's what I'm talking about but I think also oh go on sorry go no go ahead please so as um Dan mentioned earlier too there are other sports kind of in that pipeline um not only through the ihsa but also through discussions within the district so um we can definitely make sure similar to a curriculum review that there is a stage process with communication about what's potentially entering the process and where it is in the process and what triggers it to enter the process is
270it it's well there's an emerging Sports through the ihsa uh and I can't remember the exact percent I off top my head at you know 11 11 12 at night right now but uh there is a percent that the ihsa says this stays in the emerging sports list until enough of our constituents basically say yep we're running something something right now then it goes to the ihsa board to say are we going to have a state series with this and then the ihsa votes on it from there but so am am I hearing you to say that if we're going to look to add new sports we should make sure that the ones that we have are also supported are also supported and that we restore those that were taken away or um they were
271cut back on because of the cuts that were had is that that's an excellent point but I'll also add this like you know as as board members what if someone comes to us and say I mean somebody comes and says hey why did why don't we have um uh girls flag football right now if I know where it's at in the process I could say well we're at we're at we're at stage 10 um we just need this that and the other and these are the things that we we can we we need that way we're able to have a better conversation with the community about what our needs are maybe it's maybe it's about facilities hey hey we're we're stuck we don't have enough fac we don't have the facilities or maybe it's I
272don't know um there and I know it's not this but there's not enough teams in the conference whatever it is it gives us the ability to have that conversation with the community and be more transparent with them as well yeah sure I I want to just close out I know as we move to the vote we just to say that I know that there's just I want to just appreciate the those who have rallied for the lacrosse because of its commitment not just to Lacrosse but overall the sense of Entrepreneurship um of lifting up our community and engaging in looking at the best in our community and rallying people together I think it's a great model for all the other sports and Endeavors period that that we when we work together when we find mutuality
273around opportunities that can invest and support our students we're going to be better for it and at 12:00 at night I have to say I just have to close out with that and just uh just to to to underscore that I think that this is a great example that effort and I want to thank Dan and the team Mr Howard and ton lard and then and all the families who've rallied to support this tonight we saw a great show of that tonight and really kudos to to their leadership as well this is going to be a this is a a silly plug uh for all the Ross families that are watching today uh do the 5 essential survey yes [Laughter] okay tou okay nobody hopefully the students are asleep all right let's vote Mr G
274hi Dr Mar hi Mr hi Miss Simon hi Mr hi I motion passes 60 action item 10.4 approval of activity bus trust lease to purchase agreement can I have a motion please make a motion to approve five a fiveyear lease to purchase for eight buses for a total of 1,147 23090 payable in yearly installments second Mr Sone hi Mr ploger hi Mr Gatewood i m venth hi Dr Maria I miss Simon I motion passes 60 action item 10.5 approval of Fox Chase roof replacement can I have a motion please make a motion to award the contract for the Fox Chase roof replacement to JL Adler Roofing and Sheet Metal incorporated in the amount of$ 75,7 second second Miss similon I Mr ploger I Mr Gatewood I miss venman I Mr Cerone I Dr Maria I
275motion passes 60 action item 10.6 action on the 2023 2020 I'm sorry 2023-24 D2 student disciplinary case can I have a motion please make a motion to expel student 2023 24 that -2 per the written findings and decisions as presented and discussed in Clos session second Miss vmou hi Dr Maria hi Mr Cerone I miss similon I Mr Gatewood hi Mr cler I motion passes 60 action item 10.7 action on uniform grievance m-d can I have a motion please make a motion to authorize president similton to prepare a written decision affirming Dr katti's decision with respect to Mr maa's pending grievance against Mr Dar Aran second Dr Maria hi M similon hi Mr cler hi Mr Cerone hi Mr Gatewood hi Miss vou I motion passes 60 action item 10.8 approval personel report can I
276have a motion please I make a motion to approve the Personnel report as presented second Mr Gatewood I Dr Maria I miss ven I Mr ploger I M Simon I Mr s i motion passes 60 can I have a motion to adjourn I make a motion to adjourn all in favor ah