001hi here that's good thank you you ready okay I called to order the Oswego Community Unit School District Board of Education for September 11 2023 can I have a roll call please here Mr Gatewood president please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States public ly nation under God indivisible with liberty pay 4.1 public comment on behalf of the Board of Education I would like to thank you I would like to thank the public for attending tonight's meeting we value feedback we receive from our members of the public and encourage everyone to take an active interest in their public school system members of the public interested in speaking to the Board of Education this evening are asked to have completed a comment card and presented it to the secretary to
002the board when the secretary calls your name I ask that you come to the microphone state your name for the public record and provide your feedback please note that comments are limited to five minutes per person and that no discussion of personnel matters stating staff names or responses to your questions are permitted the board does not participate in discussion during public comment follow up to your questions or concerns will be addressed by Administration through the contact information provided on the comment card thank you Lisa Albano hi Lisa welcome so I have nothing fully prepared I just need to give a little background and just kind of want to explain my frustrations um to make you aware because you all received an email from me on the 31st whether you I know you didn't respond but
003just to give you a little background I've been in the district my kids my oldest is a junior here and I have freshman twins that are also here we have always been in the school district so we don't know any different I have also been heavily involved in the PTO at Grand Park Elementary at Murphy and then I also was part of the superintendent's advisory Council for many many years when my kids were second and third grade up until just when Dr Spartan left I'm just really frustrated and I'm also an educator I've been 25 years as a teacher myself so I kind of understand how things work and how things go I'm just really frustrated with Transportation um on August 4th all documentation needed to be submitted to the district to provide them with
004information if you needed an extra stop um I emailed multiple times and as of August 30th which was the last email I sent I still have no response and my transportation is still not fixed so we are now 17 days into school the fifth week of school and nothing's been done and I'm also really frustrated with PowerSchool I get that we needed to change it I get that Tyler was gone I also heard rumors whether they're true or not that there have been talks of this since December and the way it was rolled out was a little bit frustrating for parents um My Two children who are freshmen still can't get into Power School I've talked to the help desk multiple times at which time they tell me they are not able to help me
005because there is one person in charge of PowerSchool and she has over 3 000 requests and she hopes they hope that she can get to me sooner than later to me that's not acceptable it's not best for kids I can understand in elementary if they don't have access to PowerSchool on a regular basis probably not the end of the world but for middle school and high school kids who check their grades check assignments if they're absent it's not acceptable my son sat in the wrong class for four days because the room number changed and he had no access to know that and so I spoke to um the woman from Power School finally reached out to me on September 1st she told me at that time she was going to talk to the director of
006technology to figure out what was going on and I still haven't had a response and it's just not right it's not best for kids and it's unacceptable and so I'm very frustrated um on the flip side oh my gosh I reunited with a friend that I used to work with in Hinsdale I'm at uh 181 and the special ed Department here at OE for my son has been absolutely amazing I said today I got an email from a teacher and I'm not supposed to say names but she was amazing because she took it to that next level and she just you could just tell how much she cared and all the teachers here at OE have been and wonderful with communication and just you know letting us know what's going on and so it's greatly
007appreciated so I'm not usually one to you know be mad I usually try to you know focus on the positives and look for success and I do that with my own students like I call home with good stories as opposed to what they did wrong because that's the important stuff let's celebrate it but I couldn't not say something because I was just so frustrated because it's not this isn't affecting me it's affecting my kids and so that's where and I know that there's other families in the same boat so I just had to say that and probably talked over my time and oh god look that's actually pretty good I'm usually two years ago sorry so yeah so that's all I wanted to say I just wanted you guys to understand hopefully we can move
008this along I don't know there's nowhere for the kids to go in the school to bring their computer and troubleshoot and it's frustrating because these kids don't I can only help I could get into Power School my oldest daughter could get into PowerSchool my other two can so it's just it's a problem so hopefully it we can get it fixed and hopefully Transportation can get on track and we'll be good thank you thank you thank you thank you okay next we are building we're going to welcome uh presentation this evening we have Dr petsky and the team Brent Kiger and Kevin McDonald who are going to be presenting on technology this year foreign yes thank you thank you for having us tonight my name is Kevin McDonald I'm the director of information systems and support
009and alongside me is Brent Kiger the director of technology and infrastructure we will be giving you our yearly technology update tonight along with some of the goals for this year even though we did not have any goals this past year in division 308 that doesn't mean we weren't busy but rather than rather than sharing uh and I'll just jump into the first let me scroll down a little bit there we go all right the first one rather than sharing Chrome uh yeah rather than sharing carts in the elementary we were able to supply each section in first through fourth with a cart full of Chromebooks for each student to use while in the classroom we also were in order to support a refresh schedule for all our Chromebooks in the district we work with the
010finance department to increase our yearly budget this will help ensure our fifth and ninth graders have a device that will last them for the four years that they will be assigned in collaboration with the High School administration we came up with a way to create a course that ran out of the tech hubs this course will help give students who are interested in technology the opportunity to get some career Readiness skills to use post High School they also learn customer service skills while dealing with students and staff that walk into the tech hubs so far the students are loving the course and are learning a lot we ran a pilot for a classroom management solution using securely classroom this pilot ran out of both high schools and included about 25 teachers by the end of
011the pilot we ended up with about 50 teachers due to all the requests that we received from others that were in the pilot we ran it for about three months and once again we received very good feedback from everyone that was involved all the projectors in the district have now been replaced this is uh this was completed using Federal and Grant federal and state funds or federal excuse me using multiple federal and state grants this was necessary since we were using 15 year old projectors in the classrooms and learning areas that didn't have good video and audio quality the new projectors help provide a clearer picture for the students to see from anywhere in the room we were able to purchase new Chromebooks for the 5th and 9th grade students using Esser funding this helped
012give us a jump start on our Chromebook refresh schedule we want to put in place and allows us to provide our students with new touch screen and higher performing devices in collaboration with student services and operations we were able to implement new door intercoms at each school's main entryway doing this helps protect and lockdown our schools even further by keeping the patrons outside the building entirely until someone in the front office lets them in lastly we are able to replace 52 of our highly utilized copiers with new devices to help prevent prevent breakdowns and repair calls leading to a better end user experience and now to highlight where some of those projects apply to the various core areas in The Envision 308 of course with Finance we worked with the finance department heavily to ensure
013that our budget would now allow for the future refresh of the Chromebooks for fifth well for fifth through 12th grade but in addition to that I our plan for the first through fourth grades will also be supported for in a refresh rate student learning as mentioned before we were able to create this uh Tech Hub um that uh the students I I will say that we did receive a quote earlier this week or last week that they say it's their favorite class of is great A lot of energy surrounding that class very exciting to be involved with that the support for student learning we were able to ensure that all students were able to have a Chromebook in their hands to continue their learning in classrooms as a side note there is an extra slide
014in the board docs presentation but it does go through some of the incidents that we were able to work through some very interesting numbers there um and then again want to hit upon the technology Hub it was kind of a double hitter not only are we providing the environment where they can learn and expand their skills but it also gives other students other staff in the high schools quick access to solve their technology issues uh and as mentioned the securely classroom we are hoping that it will provide a environment that students can or the teachers can use to keep their students engaged with what is being taught in the classroom and as mentioned we didn't have a task for The Envision 308 for this year but now we do this January and we are playing
015to form a committee an instructional technology committee that will consist of various staff members throughout the district that will be a place that people can come and brainstorm investigate and start to define the vision of what instruction looks like with the integration of technology and our final goal in year 2026 is that we will have that shared Mission across the district and in the community as so that was one task but again just like before we have other plans for this year plan to initiate the creation of the technology plan the committee will be somewhat a chapter in that technology plan looking forward to getting that out there the continuing the development of the tech hubs and those courses and those students involvement in those courses we also plan to finalize our district cyber security
016plan and we are planning to evaluate a new door access control solution for the district and there's a nice little picture there at the end with the students involved in the tech question questions yes one oh no go ahead just one thing I want to uh celebrate is the both the work you've accomplished but also the work to come around a tech plan I think it's important to really think about how we are looking both in terms of an audit of our current systems both the infrastructure and the ins um the infrastructure but as well as on the instructional side and within our security so really understanding the breadth and depth of what is missing and what is needed I think as the also the issue of personnel are we staffed appropriately are some of
017the things that you brought to my attention as you think about the need for a tech plan because that also determines the kinds of Investments we need to be playing for as we look ahead so before we open up the questions I want to know Dr pescue if there's anything else you want to add no it's funny I was going to ask Ty and Peter back there to zoom in on that picture because it was hard to see I looked at just some blotches of color but to go through those Tech hubs at the high school and you know watch the kids come in kind of get their plan for the day and some of the course material they're going for and some of the mentors that they're working with it's just uh it's really
018nice to have in our high schools and I think Brent and Kevin would agree that's kind of a some tech experiences that we'd like to see trickle down into middle school and even the fourth and fifth grades with some of the things that they're doing so I don't know if any of our student ambassadors have had a chance to get into the tech hubs at all or seen what those have been like um I've only been in there because I've had a problem with my Chromebook but um it was very helpful and um I do think that it's a good thing for our students to whether they're learning more or whether they just need some help so I do think it's really good so my question is for the tech hubs is it just for
019working of your Chromebook or like we heard earlier about PowerSchool or what is it PowerSchool and how people are have students are having trouble getting in is that an opportunity for students to come to power you know to come to the hub to see if they can get access to PowerSchool that way it is not the original intent for them to do that that being said we do have other members in that Tech Hub uh usually are on-site technician is there and our integration coach or the buildings integration coach we have a shared Tech channel that not necessarily with the students but with those individuals where they can reach out and reach other members of the tech department to try and find out a solution for them so and I would imagine at this point
020students don't know that that's available to them probably not right yeah probably not a lot of it would depend on the building's advertisement so if we have this backlog of individuals who can't get into power school then maybe we should consider it I'm just asked I'm just saying there may be an issue of student privacy of data as well with PowerSchool some of this so I think that's something that I would want working with the student that would be a crossover this part of it will be a student registration issue and so I'd want us to look at yeah look okay look into it because if there's only one person who's handling PowerSchool and we've got this long Jam then we got to figure out some other ways to get that yeah I would say
021let's investigate if we're thinking about some of the earlier comments this evening I think we need to look into the details of that because there are lots of factors before I would say that I could say that that is the case maybe Dr Kincaid but I would say that that is an important point we want to definitely be looking into it okay other questions or comments Jen is securely a learning management system no it's not um it's more of an access control monitoring management of the device environment okay it isn't like a learning management system like Google classroom or something like that and did is this being piloted because of why I guess like when I what is for me when I looked when I read this presentation some of these things felt I was
022trying to like okay where what what's the why behind this how does this align to our goals what is the purpose of us piloting this uh the main focus was to give the teachers the ability to not only be efficient in the classroom but also keep the students engaged and task oriented they with this particular software they can view what's on the Chromebooks so you don't want the students strain yeah and I totally understand that but I guess my question is did this come about because to teachers that we have this as an issue I guess I'm trying to get to the root cause the why we're doing that I know it's something that every school district does and so for them just trying to get to the root cause and when we look at
023our priorities of what we need to do in the tech World why was this something that we're doing now and so forth so that was my question and something I would like to see directly in the presentation because we can read the whole presentation but I guess it's the why and the root cause of what why we're running a pilot and why we're doing a pilot and then how it's aligned to our goals and then is that is that looking at securely as the pilot have we looked at any other Solutions and why did we focus on securely one of the main features of securely is that we work with them for our filtering and aware applications which also does some monitoring and if we felt that if securely had the ability to do what
024we needed it to do it was a great fit with the integration not some other system to support in the environment it already has the ability to open up and block websites that this that the teacher may do needed so it was really a good fit with what we currently have in the environment and how is let's say the next stage is to adopt this or purchase this or whatever how is that being rolled out to our Educators how are they going to be trained on it how are they going to use it and so forth uh yeah we we do have materials from securely uh training videos documentation we've been worked with the integration coaches over the last year to develop some of that and along with our department but honestly as Kevin mentioned
025those other staff members that wanted to become part of the pilot they were not part of the initial training and they just picked it up so it's a very friendly application not to say that we won't provide these materials but I feel comfortable that the teachers will be able to use the application very easily with all due respect many people think that about PowerSchool too and I spoken to a library frustrated Educators that don't have access to PowerSchool and don't know how to use it so providing materials and having that connection happen are one thing what I ask is that it's been done very intentionally and maybe not like at the beginning of school or you know at another time very critical for our Educators to be focused on something else in a very intentional
026rollout so and uh if I could just weigh in for a second so I do appreciate the question too Jennifer because it's it's one of those things how many Tech initiatives are we going to have and roll out and this is kind of an evolution of where we've been and where we're going so where we've been is we've had tech labs and we've had technology in the schools but not necessarily a one-to-one program so we had and correct me if I'm wrong but it was net support school that we had in the labs where teachers had a window into the world of what the students were doing rather than looking over everybody's shoulder and when we ended up going to one-to-one with the Chromebooks then we knew that was a concern all teachers now we're
027going to be concerned about what are the kids doing one of the strategies I saw while I was monitoring the pilot was a very easy one the teacher put their screen that had all of the kids little thumbnails and put it up on the projector and then walked around and helped the kids on the different projects and the kids kind of could see what the other students in the class were doing and not only does it give what they're doing in real time and help the teachers monitor but it's got a few other features including like limiting what sites the kids can go to or only putting sites that are available for the kids to peruse and the one one is also the history so you can a teacher doesn't have to put in a
028ticket to say Brent and Kevin what was this student doing at this time of day they can log into securely and pull up exactly the time and the sites that those kids were on so if people are trying to hide what they're doing there's a little accountability there and I I think the reason it came up now was because we've got teachers in the district who experience it in their Labs but when we went one-to-one with covid now we're taking the time and attention now that we've actually developed a refresh and gotten these resources out there this is one of those technology energies that actually impacts the classroom so to be able to give the teachers a window to the world rather than just feeling like hey all of your kids have Chromebooks good luck
029so this gives a tool to help manage and give us some insight but your points are duly noted you know professional development is key making sure people are comfortable with it and uh just kind of building some experience with that some different best practices what can you do with this test and I appreciate what you said at the beginning that was what I was looking for was kind of the trajectory of connecting the dots and I have to be very honest I did this five years ago in another District so a little bit because of resources because of a lot of reasons behind the times but it definitely is something that we have needed for a long time and when you go one-to-one you have to have let's be very honest with you so you
030know let's be very honest so I guess but my is connecting the dots on a presentation instead of just a bullet point that we're piloting this okay why what's the reasoning what's the projection or what's the connect the dots of why we're doing this and what you said is that you know what we did historically and why we're doing that now so that's all I would really appreciate good thank you it's just a point of clarification I was looking under the finance excuse me uh the tab for finance and I'm I'm remembering another report that I read but my plain question is is for our one-to-one devices are they leased or are they purchased we originally leased uh when covet hit um that contract is up I we just made honestly our last uh finance
031payment or lease payment for that from that point on we are now purchasing the prices so the ones that we at least originally are we purchasing those are we replacing those with purchase devices ultimately replacing those with purchase devices all right for the purchase or the least of the purchase for the leaves it's like a seven or eight for this year yeah yeah for this year only okay and Eugene just for clarification there the leases the the thing about Chromebooks their end of life is only three to four years and so when you lease them for five years they're pretty much at the end of life anyway so I I'm not exactly sure but what I know about the contracts probably we had a dollar buyout we don't have to return those machines when the
032lease is up we just need to get rid of them they're not really good to us they're not good to the kids they're end of life right so we're not really replacing them but what we are is we're replacing the ones that are end of life now using District dollars but we're only replacing them in grades five and grades nine where one of the reasons we needed to do the lease was we needed to get Chromebooks for everybody and then we're cycling through them and just doing like now kids will get them in fifth grade and keep it to eighth grade then in ninth grade they get a new Chromebook and they keep it from ninth grade to 12th grade so every student only gets two Chromebooks but over that eight year period it makes
033sense I'll just ask another question later about you know sure you have this but I I would say looking for in terms of our Tech rollout um both for our PowerSchool system and any other initiative we have doing some kind of a survey check I think is an important part of this checking with our staff how the professional learning is happening what are the kinds of things that what kind of feedback we're getting so figuring out a quarterly system we want to avoid over surveying people I know that everybody feels very strongly about that but I think for both of our students and our our staff and listening I think that's an opportunity for us to I'm sure you have something in there but maybe Elevate for future reflection three two one um thank you
034thank you John thank you thank you okay 6.1 Dr Calgary will give his superintendent report good evening board um I want to First Welcome to our group our student ambassadors we will have a chance to hear from you in a few minutes but it's about Luke welcome to the team I know the board's been very excited to have you joined this evening and frankly it's one of the first things I noticed when I was uh getting to know 308 was the presence of student ambassadors on the board and the value and the importance of that for this community to know that the voices of our students are centered and are prominent in this work you're not an afterthought you're at the table literally and we're glad to have you here this evening this evening I
035wanted to begin by Reading part of the comments that I wrote in my weekly update to our community um that um SD through once stands with our community as we remember and honor the memory of the countless lives lost and those forever changed following the 9 11 tragedy personal friends in that tragedy who lost their lives many Heroes put their lives In Harm's Way to save the lives of others during this time people from many backgrounds came together to care for each other and to help find a way forward we honor these Heroes for their courage and sacrifices and vow never to forget those who are God SD 308 also wishes to acknowledge and denounce the Judgment that impacts our Muslim communities because of the radical violence undertaken on 9 11. we stand with our
036Muslim Community in solidarity recognizing that the acts of individuals do not of those individuals do not represent an entire community we remind our families staff and students that in every religion communion and culture there are individuals who intentionally undermine the purposes the faith and the values and should not be considered representatives for their broader community Switching gears there's no easy segue from that but I want to just say that over the last few weeks I've had the great honor of celebrating with our athletic teams golf to football there are some great wins and some tough losses already I want to thank our staff and coaches and our athletic directors for their investment these are all important life lessons for our students and it's great to be in the community that recognizes and committed to increasingly
037investing in those efforts I also had the opportunity to learn from our bionic team if you don't know what bionic is maybe thinking it's a robot dance but it's really believe it or not I care and it's such an important framework and umbrella for really elevating student voice in our community and I had a chance to sit with their board they're actually interested Mary Jo actually joined me that day and they're they're hopeful to come and present to the board some of their efforts so stay tuned for that um this past few weeks our students have now actually started to wrap up the fall a fast Bridge assessment this is a tool where we get to know and do our due diligence our teachers do their due diligence and really understand where our students are
038as we start the school year across the whole system our school leaders and District Improvement team are going to be drawing upon this data and information to help lead and guide future instruction and also to monitor progress after all as you know in sports we don't know how far to without a scoreboard you don't know where to go and similarly in academics we need to know what the scoreboard says in order to plan and effectively think about the decisions that we are making in supporting our students last week we had our continuous Improvement Institute day we want to thank our staff who participated in that and tomorrow our school leaders will be engaging in their own professional learning around continuous Improvement part of that will include a workshop led by Dr Waller around diversity and
039Equity as that is important and is at the core of our values that we are pursuing in this District we are pleased I am pleased thrilled to share that our district has been awarded a teacher of vacancy Grant pilot program for four hundred thousand dollars [Music] [Applause] I thank Dr Kincaid and Dr zwemke for their leadership it's work development for this and this will jump start our efforts to invest in our Educators both present and in the future last but not least um two more things actually I wanted to highlight number one we recognize and I want to thank uh Mr obafemi for coming right in and start to address some of the major challenges we've gotten to to see around our tracks we recognize that this has been a long protracted process I want
040to thank Dr petsky for collaborating with Mr obafemi and really figuring out what are some solutions I understand that on the 25th at our board meeting we'll have a more robust presentation about the status of this along with our director of buildings and grounds Bill Queen we'll have a chance to hear a little bit about the status and also what are some updates and what are some potential short-term Solutions if we're not able to get to a viable solution for one or one of our tracks we are I am launching so over the last since I've landed I've had the great Fortune of getting to know this community um and it is as you have said to me a community full of heart when I first met the board and members of the hiring committee
041it was very clear that that was a huge priority that we recognized of the heart and the passion that exists in this community for the work of serving our children meeting engaging in the meeting meet and greets and even this past Saturday I had the fortune of attending the BiPAP um bpac picnic here at Will's Crossings uh picnic area and really just uh such as tremendous interest and thinking about the Excellence of our education programs and access to learning for our students I was really appreciative of the welcome and I felt that welcomed throughout every meet and greet um and as I've listened what emerged for me is that there are many priorities there are many ways to start to think about this the challenges but also the opportunities and so for that reason as
042you heard in my latest update I'm launching a superintendent's Advisory Group the purpose of this group will be to bring representatives from every single school to engage in some really discourse and discussion to really highlight what are the what are the things that are really percolating to the top and have we understood what the community is saying I have heard the board has surveyed the board engaged in the superintendent's search survey this past spring there were there have been multiple surveys over the last two years the question becomes what do we understand and what are we gleaning from these reports we don't want to just receive data and then jump right into Solutions and so the purpose of this and one of our board members earlier mentioned root cause analysis is to bring constituents from
043a variety of communities to engage in root cause and Out start to think are we affirming does it make sense and how far do we want to go what's the first priority what's the last part how do we take what really our limited funds and then use those funds wisely in the execution of our efforts we don't want to be in a position where we run too quickly to serve one urgent need and then ignore what may be a greater need down the road we know the impact of such mistakes when we move too quickly to serve one loudspoken need versus those silent voices who may also have needs that we need to be able to assess and so for that reason the superintendent's Advisory Group is not a voting body but really A consultative
044experience that we will then I will use them as part of the information that I gather and bring back to this board I want to thank everybody for their support um and I also want to thank the board for its uh continued support of this effort and with that thank you all right 6.2 board committee reports question before we move on how are you determining who will be on I don't know how many people are You're Expecting or what have you but we'll be on that committee uh when World up first meeting be and is there any transition or carryover from our from either Dr sparland or our community advisory committee great questions thank you for raising those topics um so the so the first question is we're going to be working with our school
045leaders to determine who is invited to participate that's number one number two we know that there are those who have offered their service and may not be selected there are two ways that I'm going to invite well there's lots of ways people can get involved but I'm going to highlight three the first is that if you are selected welcome number two if you are not selected after every session the following week I will host a call it a midday reflection meeting where we will follow up with the presentation about what came up in that session there are no secrets here it's not an exclusive closed group this is an open session right so we'll bring that data and I'll share what were the lessons learned and so anybody who's not selected will be welcomed and
046invited to participate everybody will be welcome but it'll be a a Google meet a virtual space gives people flexibility to join and to hear them the third thing is that we have board committees we have board finance committee we have a board Equity teaching and learning committee we have a board um policy and legislation committee I want to invite any and everybody to participate so if you've offered your support please if you think about where your interest which is part of the survey that we put out there we want to know what your interests are we'll invite you to come to those sessions so you can hear and participate and in those meetings there will be a point for public comment where you can speak to your passions and your interests and give reflection um
047and then the second part of your question which was those the community council work that existed in reviewing that what I heard pretty clearly from a number of individuals was that there was an operation for that group becoming much more involved in a consult consultative process that had some influence right and so what I opted in speaking with our board presidents and reflecting on the work from the years past was to invite those individuals to be essentially um automatically on the superintendent Advisory Group so they will be additional individuals who will be participating in the experience um and so that they won't be they'll have an opportunity to give voice in that space and then schools that they are coming from will either have an opportunity to say that that's fine or they'll be a
048second person from those particular schools um I've been asked also about students and we have us uh Advisory Group for students as well I felt that in this instance I wanted to protect the voices of our students when you have a large group of 100 plus adults to have a small group so it can be a little intimidating and so I felt like to have a genuine voice of students that suffice um the last thing and I will say that the superintendent superintendents advisor group allows me to do is to bring principals Educators and community members parents into the same space so often those groups are kept separate and then there's some kind of caring of the message the goal is to create opportunities where we can engage in community building thank you so much
049okay so board committee reports we these are the first meetings of the year we had our equity and teaching and learning committee which we combined and we also had our policy and legislative so for our community within the board docs you have an opportunity to have to find a summary of the of the Committees and what they worked on that particular session they talk about what was discussed and what were their takeaways and their action items and so for their first meeting this is these are the kinds of things that they um addressed regarding like creating a submission statement for their committee defining the roles and responsibilities reviewing the process for determining agenda topics and the likes is there anything that anyone would like to add to to that I'll add one thing for the
050equity teaching and learning meeting we had a very exciting and remote robust discussion um it was very collaborative however um I want to make sure that going forward that those conversations are very comprehensive so our next meeting is October 4th at the district office at five o'clock and so just to Echo Dr kilgotty I invite you know all community members to please be in attendance because it gives an opportunity for input I just add one thing that um you know I I think being on both of those committees the one thing that um I was encouraged but kind of new going in is as we combined committees it was it was definitely interesting to see how we navigated um that that both of those pieces and those committees I think for teaching and learning and
051Equity it's a natural fit I don't think that was so much the navigation piece as it was trying to figure out what um what we wanted to kind of what was the actionable things that we wanted to do I think that's kind of where um them together was was really where uh the heart of the discussion was as far as policy and legislative committee that was I think a little bit more um strenuous I'll go that way um as far as trying to mold the legislative and the the policy piece but one thing that um I wanted to bring up that came out of there was that how these go hand in hand the the policy you know I've heard this and listen I don't I don't mean to say anything I've heard the comment
052come up with well heavy lift when it comes to the policy committee and the reason you have a heavy lift and the reason you will have a heavy lift in the future or you won't is because those policies tend to revolve around legislation right and and what comes out of out of the state and legislation so if you have heavy legislation you can probably bet you're going to have heavy heavy load on on the policy end and so where I think the these two come together is we have an opportunity to flex some muscle if you will based off of our location um and you know one of the things that I keep talking about is um how is it that we can help those of us who are are all of our citizens that
053are in 308 connect with all of these taxing bodies right and you know I know we had the the topic come up with transportation and you know I I'm a teacher also and I work in Bolingbrook and I've I've quizzed the people who are driving from here and um and and the word nightmare has come up and there's like a five minute window and if you don't get in that five minute window good luck to you um some of these are the conversations that I've had talking to them and I'll remind everybody that um if if that's really the case if that if it's really a nightmare out there getting around um that our buses are out there and there is in that as well and so um I think there's an opportunity that's been
054missed in the previous years where it's um yes we might have a heavy lift on the policy end but let's take a proactive approach when it comes to the legislative end so that we're not surprised right um so that doesn't come down necessarily to um always having to reactively educate because we are much more proactive in these conversations so I was definitely encouraged from that piece and I wanted to share that because I think that shows kind of the natural progression so if we ignore the legislative aspect of this then we can um you know we get what we get right um and so I'm encouraged that we will be more proactive through and I I just wanted to mention sorry if for anyone that does want to get involved there is another committee meeting
055a week from today Monday the 18th which is the building and finance committee that's a I think six o'clock at the district office so if anyone's interested come on down finance and Facilities Finance facilities um I just want to uh Joe I look forward to um serving on that committee with you I just want to touch base on like what Jared said um and what Dr Calgary said I I think we definitely I think that uh community action or Community advisory committee was a step in the right direction where I think that we fell a little short is looking for a recommendation from a broader uh group of the community and bringing that recommendation up to the board and I look forward to using our communities to have that voice brought to the board table
056and I love that we have combined some of these committees because last year we started making sure that if we were talking about a subject matter in a committee and it had some connection to another committee we would step back and we would send that information to another committee for feedback and I think that's something that we need to be very cognizant of before it gets to the board people that we have had the appropriate administrator and board members have a chance with their committee to weigh in so when it comes to the board it feels more holistic so I I'm excited about bringing these committees together and I appreciate all the work that's been done on this um Dr Calgary on your end to really make these committees work for us versus just a
057committee that's there in name and it's like yes we're doing it but actually making it work for the board so I appreciate it I will say this the the I encourage us as board members to kind of self-reflect on um if either a um we are trying to put too much on the committees or B we need we need more meetings right either one is is is viable but what I don't want is one of these pieces to be lost because of the agenda of of the other half if you will eventually it won't look that way like hopefully and it'll be smoother but I I hope we will encourage us to do some stuff well I'm glad we got Dr Kincaid and Ursula on last year before you said that because we definitely put
058a huge burden and workload on them to update the policy manual so thank you for that yeah and again that's part of I think that legislative piece that goes hand in hand with this which is if you um are on the proactive and and you you're you're more ready for that and you know when the heavy lifting is going to happen I mean we've done heavy lifting on policy committees in the past too so you know when you're when you see them busy in Springfield you know we're going to get busy at the policy for sure okay thank you 6.3 board member comments any comments from our board members well I can go over a few things that I've that have been going on um so in the past three weeks I just want to
059recognize uh some of the people that are that have been participating some of the students some of the staff Etc that have been participating in in some of the things that that I've had the privilege of witnessing um just real quick the meet and greets continue we did have one at the park district we had one at Hunt Club we had we had some people turn out there those were very productive and I would invite the public to to the extent that there are any that you continue to come by and if you'd like to host one you're welcome to do that as well uh also did some tours at Prairie point and trauber uh at trauber I really want to recognize Crystal Rutherford Crystal has put together the best resource center um it is
060welcoming it's it's comfortable uh the kids want to attend the kids the kids want to read what a concept the kids want to read and they want to participate in and she's put in a lot of hard work so I'd like to thank her for that bionic Dr Calgary's already mentioned they do want to do a presentation they're also looking to get their graduation cords added to uh added to the collection they want to be recognized at graduation I also went to the robotics open house on a Saturday I like those people those those students just like blew me away I mean they're just incredible the things that they're doing they also want to do a presentation for us for the board and I think that's a great idea but those are those are some
061really talented students we have out there and then finally as as Dr Calgary mentioned there was brunch with bpac on Saturday there were about as many bees as there were people and there were a lot of bees yeah here so uh but yeah I mean that was that was well received um they are looking for a couple more people to be on their committee they're looking for um a couple more English learner families to their committee is not full they have three positions open so if anyone's interested please let them know and then finally not necessarily School related but last Friday I was participating at the food pantry at Old trauber I just encourage any family that has a need again the next one at Old Travelers October 6 but they do occur they do
062occur on a weekly basis please stop by we really don't want to see anyone any student any family in our school district going hungry that's it for me for me um I just want to touch base really quickly that 22 years ago as Dr Calgary said we all experience the devastation of 9 11. over 2 600 Americans never went home to their loved ones that day among them was one of the first volleyball players I ever coached Katie who had an incredibly bright future I will never forget her and it certainly is a sobering reminder that tomorrow's not guaranteed um uh transitioning to something also very serious September is recognized as Suicide Prevention month suicide is the second leading cause of death among people aged 10 to 14. the third leading cause of death among
063those aged 15 to 24 and the 12th leading cause of death overall in the United States and unfortunately has intimately touched uh School District 308 if you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis please call or text 988 immediately if you are uncomfortable talking on the phone you can also chat with the suicide in crisis Lifeline at lifeline.org you can also text Nami to 741-741 to be connected to a free trained crisis counselor on the crisis text line and remember you matter on a lighter note Welcome to our new CFO Mr Rafael of obafemi I look forward to working with you on the finance and Facilities committee and finally bringing some transparency to sd308 finances forward to getting a true variance report up and running and also so honored and look forward
064to working with our new student ambassadors who will help center student voice at our board table and please please do not hesitate to jump in when you have something to say you do not need an invitation your seat at this table is just the same as ours [Music] it'll be quick um I always love to brag about my my other role if you will in our community which is the one of the Commissioners the gar and it allows me I was invited uh Wednesday night so when this coming Wednesday we are the Commissioners from the various uh commissions for the city of Aurora have been invited to um conduct new members into the Aurora education commission so I am looking forward to uh a uh yeah the gar commission uh commissioner pays off again number
065one I'm always happy to serve that in that capacity as well but looking forward to them uh also welcoming you you in as well so I'll try and get in the front row if I can we'll see we'll see just out quick uh welcome to Isabelle and Luke welcome to the team look forward to working with you all and uh had the opportunity for another one of the other meet and greets with um the city of Aurora Dr kilgotti uh Latonya um and some of the administrative staff we went over to the city of of Aurora and met with uh mayor Richard Irving and his staff and as Jared was stating um legislation in order to be proactive in legislation you have to start with relationships and so I just appreciated the opportunity to start
066building the relationships because we have five different cities that feed into our school district and that's just one of the many meet and greets that Dr kilgotti has been engaged in so just looking forward to continue to do that other quick thing simultane myself Dr Phil Gowdy Dr zwemke this weekend opportunity to meet with a local University to think about different ways we can partner on several things and so I just look forward to more robust conversations with them and with others in the community about partnering on a variety of initiatives so all those things um I Echo them I ditto them welcome to to Mr obafemi and also to our student ambassadors Bell Gershon and Luke Lockwood and now we have an opportunity to hear from our students and so 6.4 is our student
067ambassador report um hi my name is Isabel Gershon and I'm a junior at Oswego East I am just so honored to have been selected for this position I first like to thank the board for having faith in me and giving me such an amazing opportunity to represent my peers I wanted to share a little bit about how I got involved and the reasons why I chose to pursue this position I got involved with sd308 policy when Mrs simultan now our board president saw me speak at an event on the importance of diversity and racial equity in our community from there I was lucky enough to join a student diversity committee and later the SD 308 Coalition where I was able to share my unique experience of being a Jewish and female student in our district
068being on that committee was such a transformative experience especially being able to hear everyone's unique perspective and work together to create solutions to some challenges we face in sd308 but I worried that our all our work in difficult conversations would not be taken seriously by leaders in our district when I first heard about the creation of the student ambassador program I felt hopeful that we would be heard and that is exactly what happened through amplifying student voices our district has been able to highlight issues that truly matter to students such as combating sexual harassment and mental health challenges these are issues I hope to Champion as well as work to make our schools a more inclusive space for students of all identities and backgrounds including members of the lgbtq plus community and anyone holding a
069marginalized identity I'm so grateful to the student ambassadors before me any Caitlin for building such a great foundation for Luke and I to continue to build on I am just so excited to be a voice for my fellow students and to get to work thank you so much for your time you hello my name is Luke Lockwood and I am a senior at Oswego High School I am truly humbled and honored to have the opportunity to serve and represent the great students of OHS and sv308 throughout my time as student ambassador I plan to highlight the importance of coming together as a student body district and Community as a whole it is imperative to ensure that every student is hurt I want to encourage students to be honest and use their voices whether through surveys
070emails or speaking at the board meetings I want the students to take pride and ownership in their schools as I know this will make our schools and our district better as result I want to stress the importance of listening to each other no matter the views each student has their own story and journey it's important that we acknowledge and validate those experiences if this starts among the students of our schools we will set the foundation for future students and generations to come overall if we come together and find common ground building a community of listeners there is nothing we can't do as students and as a community all students deserve a place where they can learn and grow and I am committed to ensure that every student research receives that right I would like to
071thank the board members and Dr Calgary for this amazing opportunity to serve and work for the students school and District that I love finally I would also like to take a moment to acknowledge the 22nd anniversary of the 9 11 attacks though our generation of students were not born to witness this tragic day it is important for us as young people to never forget the heroes who risk their lives to save others and the innocent lives lost we honor you today thank you [Music] we're cutting it up for both of them come on our we are in very good hands right right we are in yes the future is bright I love it thank you so much to you both we are so excited to have you we have no doubt that you will fill
072the shoes of Anna and Caitlyn and everyone who's come before you and you'll do great things so we're excited to have you thank you okay 7.1 consent agenda make motion to approve all items under consent including 7.1 minutes from the Board of Education meeting on August 21st 2023 open and closed session 7.2 to acknowledge the foia requests received by the district and 7.3 to approve a one-time only addendum to policy 7 colon 100 Health eye and dental examinations changing the exclusion date from September 15 to October 15 2023. second are there any questions on the consent agenda I just want to make policy piece I know that typically we don't like to bring things and and vote on them at the same time and with this one there there was definitely a obviously today is
073the 11th so so time here and a lot of districts have have done this where this isn't unique to our district so I just wanted to make sure it was acknowledging that and for the sake of transparency thank you okay what huh hi motion passes seven zero financial statements any questions about that all right um next item can I just ask a question I'm going to defer most of my questions to our our finance committee meeting but and I don't think you'll be able to answer this maybe Faith or Heather can answer this I just noticed that we had an overage for fast bridge for so much use why it was like eleven thousand dollars what does that mean like why are we going over on Fast Bridge borrow that microphone sorry we have started
074testing additional grade levels for fast bridge where we had used had been doing second grade through eighth we're now starting with our first graders as well so there's a whole other group of students so next year we will just have we'll buy a bigger I guess I'm trying to figure out we'll just buy a bigger package next year okay other questions no okay uh agreement with Kendall County food pantry questions okay uh this is a in terms of the on the agenda we had on here information on new High School courses I did put in a request to delay this discussion item yeah I'd make a motion on 8.3 to postpone uh discussion on the new High School courses so that they can go through the teaching and learning and Equity committee prior to coming
075to the full Board second second aye Dr Maria hi hi motion passes 7-0 9.1 action item approval of bills for payment can I have a motion please make a motion to authorize excuse me I apologize make a motion to authorize the payment of bills in the amount of six million five hundred sixty one thousand seven hundred sixty five dollars and 47 cents as presented aye motion passes seven zero action item 9.2 approval a board member travel request can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the board member travel request as presented second Dr Mario aye Milton hi Mr aye aye Mr Gatewood hi hi motion passes 7-0 action item 9.3 approval of personnel report can I have a motion please make a motion to approve the Personnel report as presented Dr Maria
076I I hi motion passes seven zero I have to I'm sorry 10.1 can I have a motion to adjourn make a motion to adjourn all in favor all right most