SD308 Board of Education (4/11/2023)

001Unit School District Board of Education meeting for April 11 2023 can I have a roll call please Mr Cerrone hi Mr Gatewood president Miss Johnson president Mr ploker present present Miss Swanson also here 3.2 Pledge of Allegiance it will all stand please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God nope okay so we're passing 4.1 public comment there are no public comments okay item 5.1 is the annual Human Resources reported as part of our strategic plan envision 308. tonight we have Mr Miller here to present to the board so Ken when you're ready the floor is yours foreign good evening and thank you it's great to be able to talk with you this evening about the HR department's accomplishments

002in the division 308 plan this year while there's no uh quadrant in The Envision three-way plan that's specifically oh thank you thank you all right is this better yes okay perfect thank you perfect so it's great to be able to talk with you this evening about the HR department's accomplishments in The Envision 308 plan this year while there's no quadrant that's specific to human resources in The Envision 308 plan tonight we'll be discussing our accomplishments and recruiting and retaining a high quality and diverse staff and also exploring ways to increase private and grant funding so with respect to recruiting and retaining a high quality and diverse staff the human resources department has two goals in Envision 308 the first being to reduce discretionary turnover by 10 compared to 2020 2021 in all categories and number

003two to ensure that the demographics of our newly hired teachers and administrators reflect the demographic makeup of those awarded Bachelors or master's degrees in educations from in-state institutions of higher ed as documented by the Illinois Board of higher education with respect to exploring ways to increase private and grant funding we have one goal and that's to increase revenue from private and Grant funds to complement and add to the district's financial position so tonight what I'd like to present to the board as far as questions go is how are we doing with respect to meeting these goals what did we accomplish as compared to what we said we'd accomplish when we talked this time last year what are we going to be doing to further our efforts for next year and how does this work tie

004into other components of the Envision 308 plan so to answer the question of how we're doing with respect to meeting our goals for discretionary turnover I'm pleased to inform both the board and the community that year to date discretionary turnover meaning July 1st through March 21st is down between 30 and 39 percent for oea oespa ocma and OTA covered employees compared to the same time period during the 2122 school year now while our turnover is slightly elevated compared to the same time period in 2021 I do believe that some of our more recent accomplishments that we'll get to in a bit will help address the discretionary turnover that occurs during the summer and help keep those numbers down when we look at the year in totality now with respect to how we're doing with ensuring

005that the demographics of our newly hired teachers and administrators reflect those that have earned bachelor's and master's degrees in education the answer remains to be seen I'd like to inform the board that prior to the deadline for this report I did reach out to the Illinois Board of higher education to find out when the 2122 degree data would be issued and was told that it would likely be finalized in a couple of weeks I'm hopeful that this data will be ready to go very soon and I'm looking forward to providing that information to Dr sparlin so he can update the board as soon as possible what I can answer with respect to that though is that the diversity of our teaching staff has increased year over year with that said our efforts were not as

006successful though with respect to administrators and our hires for administrators for 2223 were slightly less diverse than they were in 2021. with respect to exploring ways to increase private and grant funding it is a highlight that our one-of-a-kind partnership with Rush Medical will be continuing for the third consecutive calendar year and this partnership in in other efforts similar to that where we're reducing barriers to care for our employees and our medical insurance has been a Cornerstone of our strategy to keep medical insurance rates steady for six consecutive calendar years more importantly 36 percent of our employees that have District 308 medical insurance have never seen their premiums adjusted upwards that's more than one in three of our staff have never had to see their deductions go up come January 15th because of the need to

007increase our premiums now in looking back to last year and what we and how we intended to further the district's progress toward our goals we wanted to ensure that we had updated onboarding programs for all categories in place that we were identifying high quality and diverse teacher prep programs and prioritizing placement from those programs when all requests couldn't be honored that we were updating performance evaluation for different categories of employees and that we increased the utilization of Rush Medical as a percentage of our medical claims spent it's a pleasure to say that we have updated our administrator and teacher onboarding and training programs and that we're currently working on revising the onboarding program for support staff our student teachers for 2223 are coming to us from in-state institutions that have teaching programs with demographics that

008are aligned to our goals and I'm also pleased to report that we have had no need to prioritize placement because we have many cooperating teachers who are interested in sharing their skills and expertise with the next generation of teachers we have not yet but we are planning to update our performance evaluations for oespa ocma and our non-boarding support staff as many of our efforts this year were focused on revising certified evaluations to comply with new legislation and also our outpatient and Doctor claims at Rush Medical did represent an increased proportion of our medical claims compared to the prior year additionally we also entered into a memorandum of understanding with the oespa to assist in our retention efforts and we also negotiated an amazing contract with the OTA that will boost our Recruitment and Retention efforts

009for years to come when we're looking at what we're hoping to be able to accomplish for next year we're currently in negotiations with the oea and we're looking to negotiate a successor agreement that will enhance our climate and culture and increase student learning we're also hoping to be able to conduct a market analysis for compensation and benefits to facilitate our efforts to recruit and retain with a focus on those areas that are traditionally harder to staff we're seeking to build relationships with regional universities and organizations that reflect the community that we serve so that way we can further our efforts to recruit and retain high quality staff and also continue our partnership with Rush Medical and build upon that in focusing on the connections that we have to other areas Across The Envision 308 plan

010our efforts to negotiate an amazing contract with the OTA and to negotiate a retention-focused mou with the oespa will reduce turnover in the accompanying Financial impact of turnover on the district conservatively speaking turnover averages between 50 and 200 percent of the annual salary of the staff that is departing depending upon the level in the organization and so by keeping those numbers down not only are we going to be able to retain the investment in organizational knowledge and expertise that these staff members have picked up but we're also going to be able to help the bottom line at the same time so this focus on reducing turnover and increasing representation among our staff is also going to have a positive impact on students in our efforts to increase the breadth and depth of our onboarding programs

011will better equip them to be responsive to our student needs not only now but in the years to come finally our partnership with Rush Medical and also our new partnership with first stop health for telemedicine has created a Continuum of Care with no net out-of-pocket expenses for employees on our medical plan now not only has this allowed the district to keep medical rates steady for six consecutive calendar years but it's also reduced barriers to access for our staff to get the care they need when and where they need it so I know I've just covered a lot of ground in a very short amount of time so are there any questions that the board might have first off Ken I would just like to say congratulations on what you've done with the benefit plan for

012our employees here in District 308 you know six years of of consistency and 36 percent of our employees never knowing what it is like to increase in the in their cost of benefits is outstanding for uh for any organization especially in today's day and age so congratulations on that thank you um I just have one question um and for those of us for those of us that are teachers and um those of us certainly who are talking to our colleagues and so forth um it it seems like we have as our as our student population diversifies right um we have many um by by having by not having diversity in the staff we have many um teachers who are people of people of color many times that are dealing with larger amounts of students who

013are choosing them as their trusted adult and one of my concerns and I'm curious what we're doing is to ensure that we're not burning them out right in other words if um these teachers many times are having larger amounts of students who are who are engaging them and and and that can be um that can be a lot to put on someone's plate and I am just uh I'm happy to see us uh diversifying and and and and bringing in more diversity but my concern is for those that are already here I don't want to burn burn them out and I hope the question makes sense and if you need me to clarify one I'm just curious what we're doing to make sure that that's not occurring it is really stressful especially for our Junior

014High and our high school teachers we're not hearing that as much from the elementary that are there but certainly at Junior High that is a concern that you have so many people that are leaning you know to them one of the ideas that we're discussing it wouldn't be until the fall is to have some Affinity groups of those people to be able to come together not another after school meeting but something during the day that what what can what can we do to better support them in talking with other districts I haven't really seen somebody come up with a great here's what we need to do but maybe by gathering them we could at least show them some appreciation and maybe they have some ideas I had a quick question if that's all right um

015I think it was really interesting that you brought this up because it's something I'm going to talk about later in my little report but um you mentioned hiring uh diverse teachers having diverse faculty and this is something that I recently discussed with a group of students um that having diverse faculty makes students feel seen and heard and it builds a sense of community and safety that you feel at school that you don't really know you didn't have until you see it for the first time and I know I definitely felt that because we've had more teachers that look like me come into the school recently and I do realize that I'm leaning them on them a bit more so maybe having more diverse staff will prevent that burnout but I guess my specific question is

016are you looking at student demographics in any capacity when you're figuring out which demographics of teachers and faculty are bringing in because of course like I guess bringing in the correct demographics of stuff that get students can lean on might be important as well and that could be a factor but I'm not sure if that's something you're looking at right now well really what we're focused on is taking a look because we don't want recruitment efforts to become zero-sum where our gain is coming at someone else's loss as far as the existing overall makeup of teachers within the state of Illinois are those that are licensed to be able to come to Illinois to teach what I'm looking at is from data that's gathered by the Illinois Board of higher education in their degree in

017enrollment data tools what are the demographics of those teachers those people who are graduating with bachelor's degrees or master's degrees in education from in-state institutions of higher education what is the pool of available talent that exists and are our hiring practices mirroring those that are coming into the profession because otherwise we get into a zero-sum type situation where where all all districts are doing is robbing Peter to be able to pay Paul and at the end of the day that's I want to see us be able to grow and I want us I want to see this District be able to take advantage of the talent that's that's coming into the ranks of Education who are motivated who are excited to be here who just spent four years or longer of their lives honing their

018craft to be able to step in front of students for the first time in an official capacity that's that's an area that we definitely want to be able to focus on because to do anything else would would in invariably as we go down you know as you go two or three moves out on the chessboard becomes Zero Sum at that point so thank you in addition to what Mr Miller said um one of the strategies that we use this year was to expand the pool that we're drawing from so we about tripled quadrupled our attendance at job fairs we went outside of our typical um kind of within the two hours and we actually went to our surrounding states both urban and rural and Suburban areas to really try to diversify the candidate pool that

019we were trying to attract myself members of HR and Mrs comidas are working to also rebuild that recruitment website because we're looking at a new generation also of talent and um looking at different recruitment strategies based not only about the schools and recruiting to the schools but also to the area also there's a lot that we have to offer in our community and surrounding areas that we want to kind of get us out on the map and recruit a wide variety of people to come to meet our students needs and reflect our students for our staff thank you thank you for saying that Dr Kincaid did you get your question answered on you um to some degree it wasn't exactly what I expected but I got the question answered so thank you both so much

020I think it's really important and I challenge the administration here and whoever the new superintendent might be that it can we can go beyond Educators our our Dean's assistants our Deans our um custodial Crews our I would like to see some more diversification in our Administration um it doesn't have to be a teacher I know when I was growing up and going through school wasn't always a teacher that became my trusted adult it could have been mine was the librarian it can be anybody so I challenge our administrators our higher those that are hiring in our district to look Beyond and continue to make sure that our staff and its entire entity reflects our community and our student body I wanted to ask the question regarding like our grow your own um exploration we have

021been you know looking at it and reviewing it and I would like to understand like what are the challenges around growing your own and what you know are we interested in going that route what do we need to be doing about about that and then the other thing is I know that there are teachers who live in our district and they work somewhere else so what is the you know what what is what is that about um I can guess but just wondering people just don't want to teach and work in the same Community okay I know and I'm sure they're probably they're probably more more issues right than just that yeah but um I would love to understand like the grow your own piece and where what what what has stopped us from doing

022it what is it that and we know that it's a benefit there are many other districts who do it and do a really good job at it so what is it about us that we we can't get off the ground with that and by growing your own you're talking about having high school students experience teaching and giving them time to do that and not just them but like other individual in our school system who are currently work for us putting them in a program that would help them be to become teachers as well so we currently have a few opportunities right now we had a partnership with a local University this past fall where they were working on their administrative endorsement so we in essence worked collaboratively at the University to give them release time

023from their teaching responsibilities to be able to do that internship that's required similar to a student teaching for their admin endorsement we also currently have a a cohort that are working on their El certification that we are funding some of the tuition so there are programs going on within the district to help grow our own or expand the opportunities for our current staff we definitely could look at expanding that program but there are some programs currently in place within the district so those programs are they producing in yield for us what we expect I'm very excited about the El endorsement we've utilized a couple of the recent pieces already for our staffing for the fall in hard to reach areas so that's been exciting and where we really struggle sometimes in having teachers that have

024the proper certification for English Learners this year we do not have near as many gaps absolutely so our university has a program and we're not partners with them in this District but there are universities the problem at the end of the day boils down to who can you get to go into teaching and who wants to do that and you have to do that with you educator programs in your or clubs in your buildings and at the end of the day you have to get them in college you have to get them through college and they have to graduate college but I just like I would I hear what you're saying a hundred percent I would just caution that sometimes when we talk about we need to add more diversity I want to caution us

025not to hire some all things being the same I think you should hire someone that is diverse but I don't want us to start a I don't want us to start just hiring somebody based on a peer you know what I mean on a culture I just like I don't think that's the intention I don't it's not the intention but like sometimes when we talk about it like people hear what they want to hear so I I just I think people people um and I think we could do more for our Tas too because we have Tas in our building who are incredibly different that population of Tas is incredibly diverse and if you could get them in a teacher program and somehow help them out and get them into their teaching degrees I mean

026these are people who are working with our highest need Kids all the Time those are the kind of adults you want in your buildings as staff and we don't currently do anything for them and there is a organization called grow your own that you that you can look at to model it's it's a phenomenal organization but it is hard to get people to take I mean as you know the decline of of people going into education but I think the opportunity within the TA population is tremendous I think also what you choose to measure and what you focus on um is incredibly important writing down those goals and I think on the flip side of that I think that's the easy part is um pulling down barriers when organic opportunities come I do know that

027our talk hike program has started to take their mentors and go into different schools and so the and honestly Caitlyn you can probably speak to this more than than myself but that is such an incredible way to create those um the grow your own organically which is their their meeting with their mentors they're they're programming with their mentors their mentors then go to their what would you call it their home school if you will so what's your home school um mine's Old Post but we haven't run a hike that's actually next week so we haven't yet to do it at Old Post but I know a lot of people do it um box Chase is one of them in Boulder Hill I believe but um the feedback I've heard from that is really great and

028students look forward to seeing those mentors and I think it's really good to make those connections especially with older students and then having whatever that population is of our mentors who want to go into teaching how do we then support them through the process but how do we also remove that we find out that this program works how do we want replicate that success and remove barriers so that it can work across verticals like not just teaching but like maybe it's custodial maybe it's technology maybe it's I can't of all the ones but you know where do we take that and why don't we make that a goal and write it down and then really focus on that so because Latonya I wrote that as my second bullet point what is going on with growing

029your own because we keep talking about it but we're not focusing on it and measuring it and so yeah and so jump um with regard to accountability because you brought that up and Ali brought it up earlier um we know what gets measured gets done right and so where where you know what are we doing in terms of our evaluations that would help us to um achieve more success if we are evaluating and holding people accountable for um you know these areas that we're interested in you know Mr simultane the second question you asked is uh you know why do teachers why do people work in school systems you know that live here in other places and I can I can tell you over over my time here that's the one question and I always

030ask anyone that says they're in education and say why don't you why don't you work here in 308 and you know you can get you can get a you get a variety of answers for that just like one just like aliens in regards to um sometimes people just don't want to work actually in the same schools where their kids go to school um sometimes it's that they moved here they moved here and they already have tenure in another school district so they're you know they're they already have they're already stable in that school district what have you sometimes they just love their school districts sometimes they just love the school district they're in that's true so I think there's a lot of I think there's a lot of answers to that question thank you want

031to share your answer [Music] well you know me I I sometimes I'm an open book to a fault but I actually did apply here a number of years ago yeah and uh no but the reason I bring it up is because I knew going in that I was probably not going to get to the position I don't want to speak ill the position was more geared towards a language arts position and the social studies it was half language arts half social studies and for my fellow social studies teachers out there you'll probably be able to relate to the following story um I knew that um they wanted somebody who was stronger in ela then in social studies and I was I had my endorsement uh Ela at the middle school level but my primary focus

032was social studies so sometimes it's also a matter of what's available here and what what you can teach and so I never took it personal or anything like that and to be honest with you to Ali's point I find it extreme rewarding to serve the community I I live in here this way and serve the community that I work for and there's a lot of lessons that can be learned learned from bringing those pieces in I talked to a lot of Educators quite often in this District who work elsewhere and it is it is educational to share those experiences and so I I get the desire to have people here but there's also and and I see the downside but there's also there's also a positive to that which is many of those Educators have

033enlightened me quite a bit over my tenure here as far as some of the things that are going on in their own District good and bad right I just didn't want to teach chemistry I got offered the job I thought I went straight for the physics job see many many reasons many reasons thank you thank you Mr thank you Ken well done all right moving on to 6.1 superintendent report all right good evening board tonight I have a few items I'd like to cover um as we all know on March 27th there was a school shooting in Tennessee our hearts go out to the community and the victims families whenever tragedies such as the one in Nashville happen it causes us to think about school security and what we can do to help prevent these

034types of things from happening within our own community another way to look at the question is to look at what we've done and what and to reflect on what else can be done uh Mr Plover and I were talking last week uh in regards to this and I felt that I should highlight some of the advancements in school security that we've made over the past 10 years within our school district Safety and Security is always something that we take very seriously when thinking about Safety and Security there are many things to consider ten years ago we started out by adding alarms to our schools to ensure that they're secure in the evening hours we then looked at security measures during the day we've created secure vestibule entrances where people are able to enter the vestibule

035but not the building here we've added air phones and video equipment where front office Personnel are able to screen people prior to entering the main offices we are currently in the process of adding another layer to this where the vestibule entrance will soon be locked and visitors will be screened prior to entering it once admitted admittance is given into that vestibule the door to the main offices remain closed with video surveillance to ensure that the only person that has entered a vestibule is the person that that we that we admitted once in the main office we have the Raptor system which screens visitors against sex offenders and Custom Custom databases prior to gaining entry into the building outside of the main office and then to gain entry into the main school you have to get

036through another secure entrance over the years we've added hundreds of security cameras throughout all the buildings of our district that are used to Monitor and record information we've also looked at the exterior of our buildings to ensure what Security Experts consider line of sights around all of our campuses we've implemented Alice alert lockdown and form counter and evacuate training in all of our schools our administrators are trained in Alice and we conduct an active Intruder drills at all of our buildings we allow the police to use our vacant robber building to conduct training drills with an in an actual School we also work with our law enforcement to help ensure that they have the tools if an event does arise they have maps of all of our schools and we are working on providing them

037camera access to in an event that just in case any type of situation to help in any type of response this year we hired a safety and security coordinator for our district who is also looking at additional screening and prevention technology and over the years we've promoted see something say something to what with all of our students we have the safe to help as well it's a free service that allows students to reach out 24 7 by way of phone text or Internet in our obligations as school administrators to report clear and present danger also helped to create a safer state in Illinois pursuant to the Firearms owner identification card act when a student or other person demonstrates threatening physical or verbal Behavior determined to pose a clear and present danger to themselves or others

038School administrators must submit a report to the Illinois State Police within 24 hours and the state police evaluate these reports and prevent individuals who pose a danger from Legally accessing firearms for firearm Ammunition by revoking that individual's FOID card from preventing them uh that will get it preventing them to get one in the future so those are some of the ways that we've increased security and safety in School District 308 over the past 10 years because again when whenever we have such a tragedy such as the one that happened in Nashville people want to say well what what are you going to do and it's not so much what are we going to do it's what have we done and then as I said when I first started my comments as always continually looking at

039what else can we do to to ensure to the best of our abilities the safety of our students and our staff on March 22nd we held our community advisory committee meeting and Mr Bell executive director of student services started us out with a high level overview of the changes to the 23 24 student rights of responsibilities that we are going to be the board's going to be asked to approve this evening they were Rich discussions at each table and at the beginning of the meeting each administrator at each table provided feedback for each of the groups that rotated through feedback also being that also from that evening is included in the document that we're asking you to approve this evening two other quick items I wanted to share that Dave Jeffers uh building engineer Brokaw

040Early Learning Center is a top 10 finalist in the sentis custodian of the Year contest yes Cintas will offer 5000 and census and Rubbermaid products and services to the winter school and the winter school will also receive a facility assessment and Consulting package from Issa the worldwide cleaning industry Association valued at thirty thousand dollars the winner is determined by the number of votes one receives information is on our website and how to vote this would be a great tribute to one of our employees to be recognized as the custodian of the year as well as a benefit to our school district so I Contin I encourage you to visit the website and vote and you can vote until April 14th and we wish Dave the best and on a final note last week was National

041assistant principles week I'd like to take an opportunity to thank our assistant principals for all that they do their commitment to our staff our students in the community of SD 308 they are all very much appreciated I know that report was a little lengthy but but that is my report for this evening so thank you Ms Hamilton I I just want to say thank you for addressing that I know I have quite a bit um since since the event and a lot of concerned um community members and parents so I'll appreciate you addressing uh addressing that tonight great thank you can I comment as well I think something that as I've transitioned from a parent and Community member to a board member that I think is incredibly important to touch on when we do have

042um something happened in the in the community in the schools whether it be a school lockdown whether it be the I don't know a variety of things oftentimes our human um nature is to go to the internet and start talking about what may or may not have happened and why hasn't the school called us and why hasn't the district informed us and um I just want to make a plea to our parents and community members out there that our staff is so myopically focused on the safety of our students and our staff when something happens they are going to communicate as soon as it's safe they are going to communicate as soon as they know that all of the checks and balances that have been put in place have been checked and balanced so I

043encourage parents when they are like well my child texted me my student texted me and told me this my student students have such a small purview into what actually is going on in totality but I also know that our communication in times of Crisis is incredibly quick but please know that there is a process happening behind the scenes to ensure the safety of all of our students and all all of our staff and you will be communicated to as soon as it's safe I appreciate that because as quick as we are we can't be as fast as social media and uh and as you said the number one priority always is the safety security of the situation at hand and the second is the communication piece so thank you for that appreciate it we get

044a little bit you know the board wants to know as well because we start getting phone calls and it's taken some time to for myself to train myself not to be like I just heard on you know the Oswego mom's page that this happened what's going on John you know and so it has been I just ask that we all do that and give our administrators and our teachers and our students the time to get to a safe point and all of the correct information will come from the school as soon as it's possible there's also a whole set of things that you didn't share tonight that happened in buildings in our district that we are not purview and should not be purviewed to to also increase the safety of our staff and our students

045and so there is so much that goes on behind the scenes that I just want to thank all of our administrators and teachers for um for keeping our our students and staff safe very good all right 6.2 student ambassador report hi everyone so the ssac plans to meet twice next week uh we finally finished our survey surrounded surrounding mental health and we hope to finalize some of those last minute details and plan for a day when we are sending this out to the student body uh just as a reminder this survey is going to have three sections including student-to-student interactions student to teacher interactions and building accessibility it'll have long answer questions and multiple choice questions in order for us to best receive feedback from our student body today we also got the chance to

046talk with other students in a focus group surrounding the search for the new superintendent and it was split by schools but I thought it was very impactful to hear the voices of other students and something that was I it was really strange but I thought it was really awesome that we all had such different perspectives in our group but we all share the same goal of wanting to help our student body and I feel like in all the other conversations I've had with other students I never really got that same feeling and drive in students and everyone wanted something different so I think today our little focus group was very impactful in how we talked about our community and our schools and how students are interacting with each other in them um Oswego East also

047had focus groups and artists took place right here at the school we also were talking about the search for the new superintendent and one thing that I would love to add to Caitlyn's point is that it was really interesting to see students really take the opportunity to use their voice if they're provided the opportunity and Caitlin and I had to work hard to like find people that represented a wide portion of our student body because of course you can't have all like 3 000 of us heading to a room to talk it's a little bit difficult but I saw people that weren't really comfortable speaking in big groups and I saw people who love speaking in big groups and people who had a lot of opinions and people who didn't know they had as many

048opinions coming into this room but they all really took advantage of the opportunity to be able to advocate for their students and they really took to heart that they weren't just representing themselves they were representing their like their fellow students I guess I just wanted to talk about some of of the big points that they emphasized a lot throughout the meeting that I was definitely touched by the first one was diversity which is like a super big topic so I guess I'll break it down a bit um first they wanted to talk a little bit about teachers faculty how certain students have uh teachers that are from the same Faith as them or who look like them or share beliefs with them and they're able to find a community with that and they really appreciated

049that they talked about the fact that having different communities that are recognized by teachers in schools and respected by teachers in schools is extremely important because when they feel unheard or unseen by teachers for who they completely are it's hard to thrive in that learning environment they talked a lot about the fact that especially oahs because I can't speak for OHS but add to this if you definitely agree but there's a lot of extracurricular opportunities in our district we have so many opportunities for students to express their interests and that's that's really amazing but a lot of the time these aren't pushed as much for a lot of students who don't even know that they exist or who don't know that Mental Health Resources exist or where they are in schools um we were talking

050about the fact that when we're getting a new superintendent but also when we're working on building bridges between Administration teachers students and parents we want to emphasize these resources a lot more and I guess the last thing that we talked about was making sure that we are communicating effectively and in a way that's receptive to students especially we did feel that information is being communicated to our community a little bit better especially in recent years and we appreciate that but a lot of the times like high school students get the information first and we're all deliberating privately and then like a day later we'll get some information and it's like totally different and we're all really confused and there's several events that have happened this year that caused that to happen so I guess one

051thing we really wanted to talk about was not just strengthening like Administration to community and parent conversations but directly Administration to student conversations as well especially at the high school level that was a lot of talking but thank you so much I think that was everything from my side did you want to add anything um maybe just like a couple of the bigger things we talked about too we talked a lot about staff diversity that was one of the first things that got brought up um even by like we've talked about this in other meetings before and it was brought up by students who didn't even attend those meetings so that was really great to know that students will share their voice like Anya said and we also talked about how there are a lot

052of clubs and extracurriculars that students want to do but the accessibility and engagement in them has started to like fall back and we might have the resources to put on a club or activity for school but the engagement is so low that it doesn't always succeed and then that causes them not to continue in the future I was just yeah I know I'm not I'm always wild but yeah I was thinking about how when our search firm asked us to identify students for a focus group and we were sharing with them that we have student Representatives on our board and that we have every confidence that we could put that into your hands and that you would do a fabulous job of handling it and so I loved when you said we wanted to make

053sure we worked really hard to make sure that all voices are being heard that you Diversified the group of students in the room so that you would make sure that you had the voices in the room that needed to be there and so I so appreciate the efforts that you've made toward that in and we knew we would be able to have confidence and if we put that in your hands so thank you for the opportunity the search firm also told us that they had much more fun with you than us so they got a lot from you yeah they said don't take any offense but the student Forum was the coolest best so we're just like well which by the way on that note committee report um I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna turn

054to you a little bit because um we'll get there but don't go anywhere whatever you do because I want to hear your voice on that student voice okay well we're here now that first yeah 6.3 board committee reports is that what you're referring to I am yeah and I would love to start off because I'm going to tell you that I don't want to speak for for Mr Cerrone here but I have to say that that was promoting uh tell them what you're talking about I'm sorry our Dei committee Equity advisory committee yeah Equity advisory committee sorry sorry my fault sure I'll hear about that one um but it was probably one of the most rewarding experiences I've had as a board member and I'm not going to sit here and talk about it but

055I would love to because we have two people and I understand I get it that there's notes on that and everything but the the premise of this is we brought in many students we had some very um awesome conversations but I'd actually love to love to hear from them if they want to offer anything can you just preference it by saying well why were they there what was the topic that kind of thing sure although I I would I would love to hear from them but if you want me you want me to do it that's fine why were they there like we decided do you want me to speak or yes yes okay so we decided when we were doing this one of the things we wanted to do was we wanted to dear

056from students we like you know that's that's we talk about Equity so we wanted to hear directly from a group of students and um so we sat down and we did a lot of listening and was very interesting okay I would love to hear it we would love to hear it thank you Caitlyn so I'm kidding so the conversation was about equity and learning environments like it was that broad yep you're asking me yeah yes yes awesome that is such a big topic um but it's definitely one especially in my second year in this position that Dr Waller has definitely emphasized a lot she's big on that and I'll admit I didn't know much about it before she talked to me about it so I guess when we're talking about equity in the learning environments

057I'm sure I don't need to tell you guys this but I guess I'll just give like my student outlook on what that means to me um and what it means to students it means that we're being given an equal chance to thrive in the learning environment and that doesn't always mean we get the exact same resources or the exact same opportunities because someone might need a different opportunity to thrive just as well or just as much as they need to in comparison to another student when we're talking about equity in the learning environment I think the most important aspect that I've seen among the communities I know in my school is on that individualized diversity Spectrum because when we're looking at students who have who come from extremely different backgrounds or different values when they're

058not having those parts of themselves addressed in the learning environment whether that be part of the curriculum or not it inhibits from that and it feels so I guess my the example that I'm thinking of in my head when I'm saying this is I was in my AP human geography class and we were learning about different cultures and there was one religion that was talked about and one culture that was talked about like for about like five weeks and then there was one of those taught taught in like maybe three or four days um that's of course based on the AP Human Geography curriculum but when when we're in a class that's talking about you know the entire world at scale perhaps deviating a bit from that very rigorous curriculum to make sure that everyone

059is feeling hurt in that learning environment is important now does that necessarily mean that you're getting an opportunity from that no it's not like you're getting like an internship or something but you're getting an opportunity to learn and when you learn about different cultures especially in a world that's as diverse as ours right now you're more likely to succeed because you'll be able to meet different people you'll be able to talk to them in the future and you'll be able to understand them better I don't think that diversity is taught the way that it needs to be and that's taking away from our students ability to thrive in the future when they'll inevitably be people who are extremely diverse that's one of the biggest ones that I've seen so far that we actually talked a

060lot about today in our student focus groups I'm done [Applause] I mean I know we might as well and thank you brother yeah I do we actually scripted it so I rehearsed for a really long time that's so important especially if they Dr Kincaid I mean I think that's so important when we take that back to you know when curriculum is being purchased or developed I think that is something that lens that needs to it needs to go through that lens because you kind of heard it from being responsive and sustained practices yes yeah wow um so at our table for this meeting we talked a lot about safety um and we were we acknowledged that we do love all the clubs and things that we have at our school and we have been able

061to Foster environments within those clubs for students to feel safe and to have teachers to go to the sponsors who run our clubs are very good and they will reach out with helping students when they need it um So within those individualized clubs we do have supports for students in places where they can accomplish the goals that they want to accomplish but with that also came people saying as soon as they stepped out of those clubs they don't feel safe in the hallways they don't feel safe in their classes um and we talked a lot about like knowledge and people just don't understand that some of their actions are um can like be taken in different ways and they are negative and they they don't create environments where students feel safe and I think that's

062also a really important thing is knowledge people always say knowledge is power and I think that some people take that very lightly but I really think that if you're knowledgeable about something even if you don't fully support it if you know about it and you have the ability to ability to understand and put forth like the effort to care about others then we can really create environments where students feel safe in our schools [Applause] absolutely I want to click a clarifying question physically safe psychologically safe both um I think we talked a little bit about both intellectually safe all of those things yeah yeah all of them I think that is something that the administration needs to hear and understand what that means and how that's those supports can be better resourced so thank you

063for bringing that yeah it was we just got it was very it was it was a lot it was in the classroom it was in the hallways it was in any physical space it was you know in diverse of staff there was yeah it was great conversation it was also uh you know recognizing differences uh in in the school culture because we were listening to high schoolers so it was it was very cool so you guys aren't just sitting you are putting forth ideas and thoughts and giving us insight and it's our responsibility to act on those things and so we hear you and this is really working it's working really well yeah yeah Mr pluger you said that you talk to other students too about equity in the learning environment um could I ask

064like some of the things that they brought up because I know there's a lot of like more academic focuses on Equity that I don't know if they brought that up or not yeah and you know it kind of relates to my you know I I really was able to relate to what you were saying with with e-classes and as some AP it can be frustrating because at on one point you're really trying to prepare your students and on the other point they bring up the exact same things you do which is p you know students want to see themselves right they want to be able to relate um and and sometimes right sometimes teachers certainly and Educators I should say can certainly help by by stepping out of their comfort zone or getting to know

065um what's going on um and and it's sometimes it's hard to describe you know um and sometimes I have to keep my mouth quiet because I gotta share the time up here but when we had the example of um you know trying to bring in staff um there was an example here at OE where my my son he runs cross country and and all of a sudden um we have an uh an all-girls Muslim school that was here running against them and I look over and it's it's my it's my former student right who's the coach uh which was just awesome um but one of the things I learned because I learned from my students constantly is she did not go to school to be a teacher she would school be an accountant and this

066was her way and she was explaining this to me that she was giving back right so she was doing a year of giving back um and teaching and of course me as the educator I was like hey well you know you never know and it's like no no Mr plugger I'm gonna be an accountant I'm like okay um but but it's those little nuances and I think sometimes listening and sometimes to your point everything you're you're you're saying I I sit here because my with my own students I hear that there's this feeling it doesn't matter whether it's reality or not it's the feeling of not being heard I ironically I'm going to say I hear that loud and clear but um and that seems to be a common a common theme and I understand

067that we as adults have um our own perceptions and our own feelings and our own things with that but uh and and we do need to prepare our students for the reality of the world on the other hand in some ways our students and this is uncomfortable for many adults to admit in some ways our students are more in tune with the reality of the world than we are and I think that's uncomfortable at some times to to point out and talk about it's an uncomfortable conversation for adults because they have to go into a place that they're not comfortable with and one of those things that I hear all the time is you know um where where is where is my community here right um and and sometimes to your point yes there there

068are but then like how much pressure is on those those uh those faculty those those Educators because that's a huge that's a huge burden at that point and I don't think we understand sometimes that feel like they're always on you know under under a microscope more so appreciate the question I hope I answered it did I answer yeah and thank you I guess for like talking about that a lot too because I guess it's nice from like the student perspective to get the full picture of how things work around here because of course like I didn't know that before I came up here so thank you [Music] come all of these reports Equity finance and facilities and policy committee reports are online or in board Docs um and then do we have any other questions

069on any of the other ones I just would actually like to invite our community and our students to our teaching the learning meeting tomorrow evening at The District administration Center room 61 at is it six or six thirty six right the agenda is to discuss three policies six colon 130 program for the gifted six colon 260 complaints about curriculum and six colon 290 homework we are also on the agenda to discuss parent teacher conferences parent involvement controversial topics the curriculum objection form and we would really love any student and or parents to join us and provide feedback so I just wanted to throw that out there very good all right 6.4 board member comments any board member comments trying to make it quick uh I made quite a few School visits because as we mentioned

070earlier uh some of us Educators work in different districts so it's always an interesting two weeks where this district is on spring break and I'm not and then the following week I am on spring break and and this District isn't so um I'll make this quick visited Prairie Point uh noticed uh phonics instruction stuck out to me the dhh program always sticks out to me when I go there Library I'm always impressed with our libraries I don't know why but I always uh Churchill was definitely one of the highlights and fun I get to exercise do calisthenics with some kindergarteners one actually asked me if I was a rock star that was interesting uh no I'm not although it wasn't a band back in the day but that's yeah they literally asked me that and

071that was that was funny I love kindergartners they're great um the homestead the fourth and fifth graders they grilled me on government wow oh yeah and that was awesome uh to say the least uh so that was uh that was fun uh like it's great going to these schools uh an old post the thing that stuck out to me was the SEI programs I could sit here and talk about it forever but no one wants that I know so but thank you to all the staff and the principals and assistant principals at those schools I appreciated it should we copyright calisthenics with kindergarteners that's a nice ring to it it was it was it was cool like uh yeah it was a great brain break and yeah it was awesome I have one I had

072a phenomenal opportunity and I have a picture but I promise I burned it already uh I was I had a phenomenal opportunity to attend an event uh the BSA black Excellence um event that was held last week and the purpose of the event was really to provide the students with the opportunity to showcase and to celebrate Black excellence and and I all of these student events that we attend from sporting events to Fine Arts I'm just always to even the academic events there's another well I'll talk about that in a second um it was a fun it's always phenomenal for me just to watch the um the talent that we have in our schools and so we had we were able to observe Runway walks to poems to cello performances uh to trumpet and cello

073Duets um art and and digital art displays we have such phenomenal talent in our district and I just always am impressed and and thankful to have the opportunity to display so wonderful event most definitely in poems although I'm sorry I don't know if I said that but wonderful event and was glad I had an opportunity to attend at the end I guess it's custom that they call everyone up from the audience to come and dance but I did not know that there was a photographer there taking pictures when I was forced to go up there but it was fun I enjoyed uh doing the wobble with the kids you know what I I um I invited the community last meeting to attend the uh MSA fassathon I went ahead and participated um I failed on

074the drinking water part um and I admitted it I didn't realize that part but um I made it all the way till eight or whatever got a nice uh nice meal there there were some great speakers they had a trivia contest um on you know your what you know about Islam and Muslims and it was uh it was great yeah and one of the speakers talked about you know the benefits Universal benefits of fasting um temperament you know ground you makes you appreciate what you have I I didn't write down I I did but I didn't bring those notes here and then there was another lady she was an author of a book um she was an Egyptian uh Muslim and uh you know her experience in in Plano and you know how she has

075uh you know there's misinformation and you know a lot of different things so it was it was it was great to go so I just figured I'd indicate that as well yeah um I just wanted to remind the community that he um search for the new superintendent the um survey is available online on the District home page if you'd like to access it it's about 20 Questions shouldn't take you very long at all if you'd like to fill it out I had asked Dr sparlin um and he assured me that our students and our staff would be able to take the survey during school hours so we're looking forward to setting aside some time for them to take that so that they can participate and then just a reminder that tomorrow there is a open

076forum for our entire community at is it six o'clock or six thirty six thirty and where is it it's at Old Post in the gymnasium and they should use door number one to get in Old pulse in the gymnasium and use door number one and then there's an open form for staff only at 4 30 4 30 where same place same place okay and also tomorrow your kids should get some sleep because the SAT is happening it's good to know I just wanted to make um too quick I just wanted to share two quick things um before our policy meeting um not this last one the one before that Pathways um if you don't know has two micro businesses one of them is Creations by Pathways and the Phoenix Cafe we were very lucky to

077right before our policy meeting to attend the Creations by Pathways craft show and it absolutely blew me away what our young students are learning with regard to Independent Living skills employability skills functional academic skills absolutely unbelievable work going on there I just wanted to give a huge shout out to principal Mecklenburg and the entire staff over there I bought some of the coolest products that I um that I now treasure for Easter that we'll have in my home that will always remember and just to see our students selling things behind the cash register like adding things up and doing things skills that I think we all could have a refresher in was just incredible to see what was going on over there and then I just also wanted to share an email that was actually

078shared with me and how I just am so proud of our students I'm so proud of the things that they do the voice that they use and this one happens to be from a student who was writing to his teacher I'm not going to say the names but dear so and so I wanted to thank you for reaching out to me as you see that I'm having a horrible time recovering from such a horrific illness I just wanted to thank you personally this news was really exciting to me and I'm not going to share what that was about that it almost brought me to tears it's no exaggeration when I say that I am incredibly blessed and honored to attend this school and to be your pupil I truly can't remember a time as a

079child where I could confidently say that the entire school had my back until I attended goal once again thank you a thousand times I just I was so touched when that email was shared with me and it just goes to show that our students are thriving in all of the different programs that we offer and I'm incredibly proud of our staff for the incredible work that they're doing here all right moving on to 7.1 consent agenda agenda are there any questions on the consent agenda um I have a question at some point too so foia's I'm curious what is our process for alerting the board when the Attorney General finds we did not release enough information for a foil Dr Betsy would you like to answer it yeah so um any uh any person who

080requests a foia can uh not agree with our response or feel like we're not sharing as much information as they think we should and so they can request to the attorney general or the Public Public Access um and they can have the foia reviewed and what we do in that process is we give the attorney general or someone on their staff the unredacted uh response and the redacted response and then they determine whether or not we were in line with the redactions so uh anyone can do that and it doesn't change our process in my honestly in my 17 years I've had three people question uh this last time we did have one person question and uh if anything was found to be an error then we would notify the Board of Education about that

081but otherwise we fulfilled Our obligation in fulfilling the foia request and we didn't notify the board at that time so if we want something to change or if you want to know if we're challenged we can certainly let you know that too I just want to know the process I appreciate it thank you yeah you're welcome all right can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda I make a motion to approve all items under consent including minutes from the Board of Education meeting on March 20th 2023 open and close session and to acknowledge the foia request received by the district second Miss Swanson aye Mr Cerrone aye Ms simultan aye Mr Gatewood aye Miss Johnson aye Mr ploger aye motion passes 6-0 8 win his financial statements does the board have any questions

082on what has been presented this evening item 8.2 uh Dr petsky all right it's always nice to change seats for presentation um tonight um on the agenda what I've got is just a conversation and see if there's any questions that the board might have but the village of Montgomery is actually looking at some development and so what I want to do is take this opportunity to talk the board about what development commercial industrial manufacturing development could look like and uh what exactly number one it is and why we're talking about that so presented by me but obviously in the background I'm working very closely with our property attorneys uh Brittany feast and Stuart Witt just to make sure that uh we're dotting the eyes and crossing the t's on this so some of the project

083background just so that you're aware of the last three to six months we've been working with the village of Montgomery's Economic Development Office they've been working on a series of projects that include several Parcels of land that are currently in our district it is a very competitive market so the commercial properties that were looking at developing there's the developers could go anywhere they want to go and they're choosing to look at Montgomery so uh they're they're right now the Montgomery economic develop Corporation is working with the village of Montgomery waubonsie Community College Kendall County and the school district to see about what incentives or our appetite for incentives otherwise known as abatements that we're willing to support so just to fill in on what an abatement is a property tax abatement is just a way

084to support or promote the expansion of businesses at the locations for new businesses um basically a business that receives approval from a taxing body what they get is um they're going to invest dollars to develop a site to build infrastructure um to buy the property to do a bunch of things to have their business there um what we'll receive is a benefit uh will receive increased property values um and things of that nature but Wilder while they're doing those Investments what they'd like to do is instead of paying us the full percentage of the updates to the property tax or the properties that they would be updating they would be seeking an abatement so in other words they would they let's say they have a ten thousand dollar parcel of land and they develop it

085and it's now all of a sudden worth a hundred thousand dollars we would get more tax dollars because of those Investments but in order to go from ten ten thousand to a hundred thousand they have to invest in that property as well so when they pay their taxes on those developments or those updates they they would be able to pay a lesser lesser property tax value use that to invest and then after a certain amount of time we would collect the full assessed value on that property probably the worst explanation on a property tax abatement I've ever given if there's questions on that um we'll we'll definitely talk about that a little bit more what I did want to show the board today in the community was just uh the location the property property that

086we're talking about um so if you look up here we're looking at Galena Road and Orchard Road it's kind of where the old Caterpillar plant was there's vacant land in that area in green that you can see to the west and to the south of that plant and on the picture to the right you can see how they're looking at developing that putting in some some commercial industrial distribution facilities in that area and in very very tiny writing in that blue box you can see some of the developments that are happening there as well so what I wanted to show the board today is okay that property you're collecting some assess assessments on that property now we are it's about 204 acres and if you look uh those four pin parcels and the number of

087Acres you can see what the current assess value is and then what the extension is so basically the school district is getting about uh six thousand dollars in tax revenue from those properties when it's developed we will get much more than that so I really want to just talk and offer that to the board and and kind of offer these recommendations number one is just to see um uh the administration is recommending that the board kind of provides some acknowledgment of its support for the development in those areas are there any questions you have as uh as they look at developing that for commercial industrial manufacturing types of facilities and those are questions that I can bring to the developers and things that I can have answered for you but also I'd like to ask

088the Board of Education provide some direction to the administration to allow myself and whitlaw to work with the village of Montgomery the Montgomery Economic Development Corporation and the other taxing bodies to really to really get the formal proposal what exactly are they asking for in terms of abatement how much how long and I'll be able to put some financials to that and tell you what the financial impact of that would be as well So based on that information just wondered if there were any questions or discussion as we move forward I have one how do you guarantee that it's not that it's business in that housing yeah because we've been down this road before where they've said it was senior housing and then it became something and then it was going to be veteran housing

089and then it became low income housing right so I have zero interest in abating I mean clearly I won't be here but I wouldn't Abate housing but I would have made business yeah so I I hear what you're saying so the residential component right absolutely not and uh but for commercial it depends on the investment and the and the uh what that's what that provides okay but I'm looking for a guarantee yeah and we can actually work that into the abatement agreement it's like what is this property to be used for so they don't change the use on us as well I would agree with with that piece but one thing I will say is um I have 100 appreciated um I want to acknowledge that the communication that comes out of the village of

090Montgomery and their board um you do an excellent job of of communicating and working with with their partners and um I have nothing but good things to say and nothing but good experiences and so um this is a controversial issue for sure um I get it uh but but to your point ali um we need more than houses here we need we need business along Orchard Road and um the other piece is you know I I am hopeful and I'm sure they are but I'm hopeful that they're doing whatever they can to make sure that that business stays here um and I I understand that this is part of that and that would be my my only message to them other than the one that Ali brings up which I think is valid too is

091okay we but we're also you know making this investment too so um and and I'm sure they are I have a lot of faith in them but um I want to acknowledge um I think they're great good that's nice to hear I've I've had some really good dealings with them as well so the village of Montgomery the Montgomery Economic Development uh committee they've been doing some really uh really close coordination um keeping us up to date on where they are yes as far as as far as I'm concerned yeah obviously your second bullet you know work with with law I'd be more interested in the details of the you know the abatements um and the long-term prospects um because obviously right now it's six grand but you know if we if there wasn't an abatement

092did we suspect it would be another 20 years before this developed kind of things along those lines I I just don't know the those kind of details um and there are there are some um in the village of Montgomery they do have some rules about abatements and things like that so we're going over those uh we're going over those and finding out how this fits and how exactly they're looking at quantifying the abatement amount and the time so we'll be engaging in those conversations oh yeah I'd love to see that yeah all right thank you Dr petsky most appreciated uh additional commercial industrial property with our 308 boundaries is a is a good thing so yeah um our next item is 8.3 this is an informational presentation and how to improve our transportation services and

093I know Dr petsky and Mr DeArmond are going to share some information with the board of education so with that it's all yours good evening thank you for letting me come and share with you tonight so we'd like to uh persist to the board for consideration developing and working with Tyler Tyler systems to for a system called Tyler Drive and then also part of that system will be another apparent app called versatrans my stop so what is all right so what is what is uh Tyler Drive so it's a it's a tablet solution it's uh it's a GPS solution so it's essentially uh nuts and bolts it's a it's a turn by turn drive a turn by turn GPS for the drivers but it's a multitude of other things too the technology allows us to

094do lots of things so one of the key safety features that we want to develop as part of the program is to have our students actually check in and on on off the bus I don't know if anybody's been in the uh I think Faith was with me in in the beginning of the school year when when police officers come knocking on transportation's door looking for kindergartner students that happen to get put on the wrong bus is that seems to be a repetitive thing every year they get put on the wrong bus or don't get off at the right bus stop uh with the check-in and check off software we would actually know what buses students got on we would know if they got off tried to get off at the wrong stop because it'll

095actually give you an alert if they're trying to get off at the wrong stop on the high school level it would keep students who aren't supposed to be on that bus off that bus sometimes we have that issue but definitely a strong safety feature that I'm really proponent of additionally route changes so right now in the craziness of being short staffed we're always making changes last second changes last minute changes a driver becomes available something changes we have them at the school but they don't have the route so now our process is we have to print off the route we have to create a PDF or scan it in at the printer send it to the we have to email it to whatever school they're at somebody in the school's got to get it off

096and print it off over there somebody's got to walk it out to the bus and and it's even happened that sometimes between all that they still end up getting the wrong route um so we could actually all they have to do now is just type in a code on the tablet and voila there they have the route and they have GPS directions so a driver potentially a driver that's never been in Oswego before could have GPS directions for a route right in front of him in a matter of seconds instead of going through the whole process of a driver trying to read a route sheet that's in about eight font eight five size eight font that I'm driving and trying to keep track of 40 elementary students and go down the road at the same

097time so anyhow so that that kind of moved right into that so substitute drivers new drivers people not familiar familiar with the area it would uh definitely be more safe for them to have this type of situation system in place um and then again kind of lastly our contractors they use different types of GPS systems with a tablet system we could actually provide tablets to our contractors and then we could all be under one GPS system you know currently somebody calls looking for a First Student Bus well now now I've got to go look into for students GPS system and dial up and I got to figure out which bus that is it can be become penitious but now with this type of system we can actually provide them the tablets and we would all

098be under one platform that we could view it from I think the question is probably going to arise well how is GPS better or than a paper if they've got to watch the GPS it's actually designed to go dark when the bus is moving and it's Audio Only so it would be Audio Only GPS system when they're actually moving so that they aren't distracted by that so what does Tyler Drive offer like I said it's a turn by turn navigation it helps eliminate the paper route sheets uh the Tyler drive integrates with our current versus trans routing and planning software which is also another Tyler product so it it integrates I don't want to say seamlessly because there is no such thing as technology integrating seamlessly but it integrates better and they've they've been doing

099this for a while they were kind of the innovators for this type of system so they've been around and they've done this a few times so also like I said gives us the ability to adjust in real time for route changes even even such something as simple as hey I've I got three students that didn't ride today I can take those students off the off the route right there on the tablet and the tablet will re re uh reroute for me automatically so I can take you know I can maybe knock 20 minutes off my route if these kids are way out of the way that aren't on the route also again increased accuracy for our ridership management and tracking I can get real-time updates on who's on the bus again to keep students reporting

100the wrong bus one of the things I'm really looking forward to would be is real-time student accounts which allow us to respond quicker to bus inefficiencies otherwise buses that aren't as full as they should be and or overcrowded buses um and you know so sometimes trying to get head counts uh actual head counts is sometimes difficult and usually it takes you know two three days over a week a week a period of trying to track to get those numbers so but with this with someone actually swiping their card on and off the bus we could actually have instant accounts almost every day now versatrans my stop what is that so part of this uh versus trans myself is a parent app it's a it's basically a ETA notification type app that would allow the would

101hopefully reduce it would reduce incoming calls to Transportation you know from people asking asking our dispatchers Hey where's the bus you know these things are this is always always worse when dispatchers need to focus the most uh you know first days of school bad weather when our dispatchers really need to be concentrating on what where the buses are and what they're doing and what's going on those are always the days when we get the most phone calls get the most people wanting to know Hey where's my bus what's going on where's you know so my stop would help us eliminate or reduce that it would also allow us another level of communication with our community with our members it's an app so we could actually push out notifications to that app so whoever's got the

102app would be able to get those and then it would also the mobile app would allow us to have multiple student families with multiple users so parents and students both will be able to view the bus ETA and receive those push notifications and why that's important is because as we go through here so communication is it Transportation everyone knows that the buses unfortunately are going to be late sometime but and it's the thing I always hear just tell me let me know let me communicate that to me that the buses that the bus is running late parents don't get so frustrated with the bus running late as they do the not knowing it's running late so this would allow us to be more timely because it's automatic it automatically gives you the ETA when the

103bus is going to arrive at your stop you can also set up what we call geofences so you could actually receive a notification say it passes through a certain intersection at a certain time you know that it's got to pass through that intersection five minutes before it gets to your house you can set up a notification so when it crosses that intersection you know you get a notification you know you got five minutes to get out to the bus stop currently our current notification process through Blackboard just rather time consuming you kind of got to jump back and forth from systems you got to jump into a system into Blackboard and it's very like I say time consuming susceptible to making mistakes then also again our incoming parent calls tend to overwhelm our office staff

104especially on the days like I said that they need to be most more focused and then again some of the issues I've received are the with Blackboard our students our students don't receive uh tend to not receive text messages because the because those that contact information comes out of Tyler sis and that information is usually just parent contact phone numbers so it goes parents get those messages but students tend not to so our Junior High and high school students you have to rely on their parents to contact them with the information if a bus is running like whereas if they have the app on their phone they can get direct contact uh get a direct message and they can actually have like again say they would have the app they would actually get etas live

105on their app on their phone and that's basically all I have to share about that thank you to Mr DeArmond what questions do you have uh Forum at this time you know I um I'm sorry I didn't send these in advance um I love the safety features um other districts that use this and their experience 204 uses it uh I talked to them quite a bit with Ron Johnson over there he loves it again it's it is technology it's it's based on a database so you got to keep your database current you got to stay on top of it you get you get out of it what do you put into it so so but yeah everybody I've talked to I was at a a conference um and a couple weeks ago and uh just

106before spring break and several people that I and they were Transportation directors uh several of them in there in districts similar to inside stars or larger use that type of system use the Tyler system year one is um oh year one is um on the the fees is that Hardware mostly yeah yeah it would be the tablet would be the installations uh it would be the card readers um I'm trying to think what else professional development and training that's involved they would they would do the installs so even even that part is at the reimbursable rate yeah so okay yeah because yours two through forever it's definitely an easy hurdle um and then it's budgeted yeah we already had a line Engine line item in place uh you know our Hope was to kind of

107split it over to budget periods so we could get the initial contract established and pick first initial payments and then final payments in the next budget year and this is this here's a final question um the app um is that limited to people that are in our database or yeah it would be limited to basically who we set it up as you know you know they would have to we could set it up that we actually and I'm sure our tech department will love me for this but we can actually set it up so that we establish the credentials and that it's it's secret you know yeah that's that's the only I love the safety feature there but that was my only safety concern and that's why I asked yeah you got to have a

108student ID or or something related to that in a credential to get into it yeah I'd hate somebody to download the app and know exactly where such and such buses you know what I'm saying yeah so okay two-part question so thinking about the the challenges that we had uh last year and thinking about um some of those greatest challenges and or root causes how will this system I'm not expecting you to rehash the presentation but with thinking about some of those root cause causes how will this system address those which I guess I mean which which exactly well I'm not con I'm thinking about the the issues I'm thinking about making sure that when we invest into the system that we still can ensure that it's going to address some of the concerns that we

109had last year yeah so like I said I think a lot of the issue is not knowing where the bus was you know with the driver shortage um you know not having buses at all and and then our being overwhelmed in our office that we weren't able to get those messages out um or if they were you know the bus is running 30 minutes late 40 minutes an hour two hours we can more quickly because you can go right through the app you can be right in the app on a dashboard basically we can see where all the buses are and then that dashboard actually allows us to send those push messages out to specific buses so it's a little bit cleaner than what the Blackboard is as a former Tech guy I would I

110would get very frustrated going into the transportation office and knowing we have all of this data in versatrans and all I'm asking is simple questions I want to know this route this bus I want to know who's on it and I want to know how we've Consolidated those routes and took to watch the process of having to go in and manually do it what this software in this system allows us to do is it automates all of that so it automates three things routing and routing assignments it automates the uh attendance and then the uh and just tracking of those buses so by having that database accessible to uh to us all of the data is there there's not a whole lot more data massaging that we need to put in it's now just having

111a system that can give us the data we want out so will it decrease the the delays that we had or will it just increase our opportunity to communicate it will increase our opportunity to communicate but it'll decrease the amount of time it takes when we decide when we finally decide we need to make those changes to be more efficient we can do that much quicker in real time than having to manually manually do the process can I throw a wrench in your attendance so here's a thought as a senior well not a senior he's a sophomore as a Sport parent in general you have sports who run some Seasons you have kids who go in go work out you have kids who only take a bus home but they're entitled to the bus home

112then they get to that bus and oh wait a minute we don't have room for you so then they get on the wrong bus and they end up across town we've been there right um so like my concern is when you guys are talking about real-time attendance not every kid is going to take the bus because the bus doesn't come when they need it right so how do you ensure that those kids who you know like I get it if they're getting a parking pass they probably don't need to be on the bus those kind of things I get but my concern comes in when so now my kids in football he's not going to need it until whatever November right or now he's in wrestling and he's not going to need it until March

113whatever it is right so how do you ensure that he still gets a spot on that bus if he needs one yeah communication I mean it's it's a two-way street too I mean it clearly states on our website that if you know we have somebody that hasn't ridden a bus for several weeks that we'll probably drop them off the bus you know we'll probably drop them off the route but on the converse let me ask this have you ever communicated that with parents because it might be on their website but nobody ever called me because my kid never takes the bus to school because he's always working out or he catches a ride with the neighbor but nobody's ever communicated with me that he lost his spot on a bus well doesn't mean that the

114driver always communicated that the student wasn't writing either well whose job is it that's my question well I'm saying if we have this type of system that would make it easier to make those decisions it would make it would kind of take that take the weight of that decision off of the driver right and bring it back into the administrators to my point who is a crapload of money on another system that could help us communicate better but we're still not communicating it gives us the data it gives us the information gives us the data and the information to know what we're dealing with like right now we're not getting some of that information so part of the challenges for transportation is we have to provide transportation for students who are with with a farther

115I'm clearly but now how many of those families really ride we rely on the bus drivers to share and update that information with us and sometimes we don't get the full picture with this we'll have much more information to make much more quality decisions now how that translates necessarily to the the Athletics and whatnot we'll we can monitor that I think that there is some ways that we can communicate better about now that we've got some system and we know what those we know who's riding and who's not we can clarify some Communications to those families who opt not to ride is this permanent is this temporary what is the reason for that and I'm sure the system can you know we can take some notes on student ridership and one that needs to be

116accommodated I would just I would caution taking kids off a bus if they're in a sport because sometimes kids get hurt and then they're not in their sport but my other question was I know that we have to get new software because our Tyler system is right so how will this work with that do a Power School whatever it is PowerSchool has been around the block a few times too right but how do they we have no concerns about PowerSchool communicating with Tyler with our versus trans or with but have we checked I've I've worked with it at other school districts when I was a first student a lot of our school districts use PowerSchool to communicate with our versus trains so I I really have no concern about powers for a little but to

117that point I guess what I'm interested in is two things number one when would if this was approved what is the rollout plan because you have a wide variety of drivers with different skill levels when it comes to technology so I don't want to see a rollout and a training program like two weeks before school starts like what is that number two um how are how does this address exactly kind of what Ali said but all of the things that we have discussed over the last couple of years for instance um I know one thing it will solve right when our buses were late last year at my home school what was happening was they were so late that information only the principal would have to go find the emails from those parents and sent

118I mean it was just a clunky system but those kids were missing their bus to get home to get to go to sports so I see that but what about the kids that maybe at the wrong bus stop but got left there and not picked up what about the fact that we heard from a lot of parents that buses were um overloaded and Michael knows that I've off I've come to him and say I heard there were you know 80 kids on the bus and he's like okay there were really only 62. you know it's it's tough kids don't want to sit next to each other and be squished but will all of these be addressed and I don't mean just like from a communication standpoint but how is this helping first of all I

119understand manual to technology is is right but are we solving and is this the best solution for solving all the issues that we find you're always going to find there's always a better solution out there but what how much do you want to pay for it I guess you know that's what's your Roi as far as the question sorry back up what your first question was how are our how is the staff going to be trained on this how is it going to be rolled out how is it going to be how are you building buy-in and so I've been I've been talking about this to my staff for two years I was talking about this before I was the director of Transportation so my my my drivers know it's coming knowing it's coming it's

120a 12-month rollout from from hopefully from whenever we agreed you know the board if the board approves it it's a 12-month rollout so you're talking uh you know essentially 12 months for the tablet portion we can probably roll in uh the the parent app I think might be able to roll it out quicker we might be able to get that before by november-ish November December when the weather starts getting cold we might have it down to where we can use it effectively but as far as the tablet portion that's they it's at least 12 months out what was your second question um just is it addressing all of the um and we have documented what all of the issues that we've run so so the overloading yeah I mean this would allow us to because

121like say you get the phone calls and um you know oh there was everybody was sitting on the floor kids were standing kids were you know stacked 3D you know high up all the way to the ceiling um and so the only way to verify is really to pull the video count the kids as they get on the bus or kind of as they get off well if we have a system like this we can actually you know I get the phone call I can pull it up and I can go okay yeah I see yeah we had you know it's a 70 72 passenger bus and we had 76 kids on there today so yeah we need to look at and then I can look at the stops and see which stops are heavy

122Wednesdays are always heavy going home because of early dismissal not as many kids stay after school no school after school activities but you know there's yeah it it makes it quicker I mean there's still we still have to make changes we still have to adjust buses adjust bus routes but it helps us to respond quicker that's the so it's agility it's and um and it's safety yeah you say yeah and and I'm I'm thinking there's probably some staffing benefits um maybe not in in the form of a full-time employment type of situation but you can utilize the Staffing in different ways and more be more productive maybe yeah um I'm just so that's not a question that I I posed to you but I just um with the reimbursement aspect of it um it seems

123like it's a it's a worthwhile a thousand dollar request for Outsourcing some services that we had to pay for last time I think it was because well that was for routing that was for a different that's a different okay explain explain how it it does impact or doesn't impact this so why it doesn't impact the routing no why well what you're asking for we might see another request like that even if uh right because this isn't this is this is this yeah I mean somewhat attendance and Communications I mean that's in track being able to track our buses again and the routing was about making sure that we had efficiencies in routing right right that's why we paid thirty thousand or forty thousand whatever it was and so you're saying that this system isn't going

124to help with deficiencies in routing well it sounds like it does a little bit uh I mean it can help our dispatchers make decisions on the fly a little bit easier and communicate with their drivers more quickly but yeah that's this basically this system takes that routing information it pulls from that routing information so so the routing the routing system is a different system and this communicates to that it moves that information out of there to give us this information as well more quickly responding to what our our needs are as far as the actual routing that's a that's a different yeah I heard that when Jen was talking in alley too I wanted to make sure that we understood this is we're not replacing our transportation system Tyler Tech is versatrans which is our

125routing system uh routes and planning but this is just an app to help us mine the data and make use of the data we still need we still need routing services to take every year it changes with the the kids that we have and where they live and what the routes what routes translate to the most efficient use we still need that efficiency in routing um so you know 11 about 11 500 kids all the buses and routes we run we still need a human aspect to lay out those routes and say what is the most efficient but now that we've got ridership data an attendance data we can say hey maybe we can consolidate these routes this app won't it's not like uh it's not like artificial intelligence and it'll make new routes based

126on who's writing who's not that's the job of the router or in this case the routing company to look at those data points and eat those fish so did we explore any uh grant opportunities to cover any portion of this I looked into I mean we asked I mean the only thing we kind of missed the Esther vote I mean because we couldn't put extra funds towards this I know a lot of Statistics did because they could use it for sort of tracking uh it's a really unique grants up here but again like you said a good share of it is reimbursable by the state uh Michael do you know what that share is it's uh reimbursable by the state is it I understand that number can fluctuate from from year to year so what

127are the you know guidelines is it 50 to 65 percent what is it 365 to 80. and that's that's year one and then ongoing so that's that's yeah it's a sizable Grant yeah yeah so the actual dollars from the 308 budget I would be you're saying much less after State reimbursement correct correct okay yeah I always use 70 because it's generally conservative so can we see an update to this that shows us just the numbers what costs what what we get with each and what that full budget looks like to um Mrs simultane's point this is not routing this is simply whatever it is so that we have all the information and one chart did you say you want to see what versatran our current contract for Versa Trends with routing and planning is and

128then also what this would be in terms of Hardware software yes like I just feel like I need and if anybody else just all of the information and one chart we understand exactly what is being asked what this solves but also that we still need a router are we still going to be Outsourcing that router are we going to have and we're still okay can we have all of that information on one a one cheater please well and and also if that whatever I don't even know the thirty thousand dollars that you know is that reimbursable as well yeah um so that's that's literally not even close to thirty thousand dollars and then if we're going to go through that exercise soft benefits like I was talking about with uh you know employees um you

129know freed up time and things along those lines and then including whatever is reimbursable and whatever those rates might look like and then my final question is did we vet any other vendors I looked at some I'm gonna talk to um basically for two reasons the main reason is it's all Tyler so I've got one point in time back shoes I know who to contact and they can't play for playing games um you know what Mike oh sorry um trying to get everything under one one vendor essentially so that we've got one point of contact all the other type systems like this you know you're marrying versatrans Tyler system and with another GPS system that's some other parent app so we tried to we were my goal was to keep everything you know Under One

130Roof I guess and I appreciate that but kind of as best practice the board likes to see typically other options um so maybe just in that one sheeter you can let us know who else you've vetted but moving forward it's really important for us to see you know that the analysis was done and other vendors were vetted um I think that's incredibly important moving forward can I ask one more question so our our buses are currently GPS yes have we ever tried to as a district make that information available to parents not yet that's that's what we're just I mean like with the system right but have we ever like it is a district to make you know what I mean we're always buying grams buying it through this buying it to do that buying

131it to do this like is this something that we could do in-house no because the only way we can access it is we don't have you have to get some sort of system like this a platform like this that can can filter it and push out otherwise the only way you would have access the same way I have access where I can see all you know 160 or 139 buses out there so I mean that's this is this way we can get it down to a granular level so that it's for each student I mean I gotta I just my question was we don't have anybody in-house that could build a system like that no it would probably it would be costly yeah does the board have any other questions I think these gentlemen know

132what needs to be brought back to the board for uh to answer the questions that you've asked all right thank you gentlemen all right Adam 8.4 as regards to the 2324 Outsource Transportation Dr pesky [Music] I think just a reminder from my perspective the one thing I made sure was built into the RFP which was before covet it was nice to not have route minimums and that really hurt us during coven a lot of our drivers were taken to go put on other districts that vendors had contracts with so the one difference in our RFP this year was we put the we put a minimum route expectation for our vendors so and that was upheld so um do we have the title of title Drive presentations or the oh I'm sorry the transportation there's no

133attachment okay so we put the uh our current uh Pupil Transportation contracts were coming to an end we'd had a three-year contract that started in uh in 2020 or contractors that both said that they weren't interested in the two-year extension that they had originally quoted so so we had put it back out for bid for regular education and for our special services out of District routes we did as doc fetchy said we said that we would have a 25 route minimum for regular education or the 25 route minimum for special services special service transportation as far as bidders on as you can see on the memo we had two companies that bid for the regular education Transportation Durham services and Safeway Transportation and then we all then we had four companies well essentially three that

134actually bid on the 25 routes septran Safeway and a company called CST partnership which is out of Minnesota and then richly Vans a division of cook said they would were interested in five ban routes if we wanted to go that route so so our recommendation is that we would go with a Durham for the regular education and of course with septran for the special services Transportation which is who we had currently had Durham is also a we call a sister company of subtran they're all under the national Express parent company any questions I think this was posed by somebody but so I don't want to steal anyone's Thunder and ask the question I think you were going to ask go for it no I don't know you know it's probably I I mean the thing

135that's going to jump out is we didn't go anything goes why yeah so we we looked at that and based on our history with Safeway they're an organization uh right across the street from us and we use them for some of the smaller projects but we've not used them for something so large as our regular education so uh we did not have uh confidence that they would be able to fulfill our needs um and that there would be a large learning curve where uh Durham is uh they're a more established company they run more routes they've got the efficiencies down and uh we're a lot more confident that they would be able to satisfy our needs we will still maintain some of Safeway so they are going to do some of our smaller like McKinney

136Bento some homeless kind of van transportation and things like that and we look forward to seeing their company grow but we want to make sure that they are well suited to take on a volume that we would be demanding yeah with the five percent discount it's not as a little bit closer than five percent yeah I guess one thing that I I have for a follow-up question to that is that it you know I am always cognizant or aware or um want to be sure that we are servicing our students with IEPs and 504s properly can you speak any of um any of that was was a part of this decision in other words we have more like when we when we think about servicing our our special education students was that part of the

137process of going with the larger bid well yeah I mean well the other thing subtran is our current provider so we know through experience the quality of service that they provide and we don't have any issues with septran so part of the caveat here and the reason we were able to go with the 333 was simply that we already have an existing contract and based on that we could extend that through this RFP process and since we didn't have any issues we maintained and on another note uh I had Mike I don't know if it's important but Durham and septran the relationship there yeah like I said they're they're all they're owned by the same company so they're there and so what is the five percent discount if we award it to those two what

138does that mean for the first year all three years it's all it's strictly just for the Durham part so for that regular education route I understand that it's for all three years for all three years yep okay are there any other questions for from the board that's correct correct I was out of the room right yeah yes 25 reps minimum because we didn't have that before right correct and that went and so the consequences of not having those guarantees were on that when we needed buses we didn't have buses right yeah the first student allocated their resources somewhere else for districts that had route minimums that they had to maintain very good any any other questions all right thank you gentlemen item 8.5 as an informational report on a 2324 student rights and responsibility section

139of the handbook uh Mr Bell welcome thanks for staying yeah thank you all right thank you board for letting me uh be in front of you tonight this is an informational item I know Dr Sparling you referenced that it was for action but it's it's an informational item for tonight um so we want to make sure that you have uh the information in front of you I would caution you this is a working draft there have been already changes that have taken place since you received this that's part of a result of policy committee and some of the things that we're doing there in terms of that work so I just want to kind of highlight that in terms of tonight's information we're going to kind of provide you with a rationale for why we

140do what we do and what and why this is important or what we have to accomplish we're going to talk a little bit about the communication and the acknowledgment that students and parents need to have with regards to the student rights and responsibilities code highlighted some some summary of changes now these are high level changes it's not nitty-gritty and down to the the detail but wanted to put some of those changes in front of you and from that 30 000 foot View and then kind of conclude with some key takeaways well you can kind of look to take away from tonight but also things that may be changing further in the future um we used a variety of stakeholders in the development of this draft part of that is uh is our responsibility that is

141handed to us in board policy as well as school code um so we've utilized student voice parents members of the community building leaders and District leaders and kind of the drafting of of the existing document that exists with regards to the acknowledgment every year this is a required sign up for students and parents to be able to state that they have seen this they've gone through it with their with their students with their children um I've learned a lot in taking this position since July about what we need to do and how we need to do it and so what we found this year is utilizing the e-format or e-form format for for digital sign off through the through the Tyler portal has been successful for us we want to have more success with that

142we want to make sure that we can get more and more signatures accounted for and that the buildings are able to follow up on those early on in the fall and so we're not still going into the spring chasing some of those signatures in those sign ups okay so with the conversion of PowerSchool this will be available in terms of an e-format or sign off so we will we will be able to utilize the same kind of tools to communicate that as I said this is a working draft um there there have been some additional changes so I want to make sure that you you understand that the next time that this comes around you will see those changes reflected in the summary before there's any action requested of you um overview of kind of

143the summary of changes I believe you received in a board memo as well as it's listed here I don't know that I need to read all of these in detail but one of the I wanted to highlight a couple of things in each of the sections in terms of that section one one of the things that's not necessarily outlined here but I think is important and as part of our key takeaways is the definition between policy procedure and practice and these are things that sometimes I think get interchanged very frequently in our language that we use and we need to make sure that we understand when we're talking about policy procedure and practice what that means for us you as the board set policy um that is the principle of action so that's done through

144our policy manuals that's done through our press adoption it's done through all of those things that you you take action on to make sure we're adhering to your school code um that that is that principle of action um in terms of procedure the district then establishes procedure so the official way that we do things and then our practice is everyone practices that actual application and so when we talk about board policy when we talk about administrative procedures when we talk about practice we really want to be cognizant for all of those that are engaging in this process as to what that definition is and so that's been added to section one it's not reflected uh in detail up there but it is there um in terms of section uh three just kind of highlighting some

145additional information that has been added with regards to student directory information with regards to FERPA and isra and how we respond to records requests and making sure that that's a little bit more clear section four there's been some updates with regards to obviously e-learning and remote learning and so those changes were reflected accordingly section uh five the biggest impact here has been the change of first day exclusion it is in school code and guidance from isby that October 15th is the exclusion day for any of those child children that do not have the necessary health records on file or have not had their up-to-date physicals and those types of things traditionally we are allowed to go to October 15th for that exclusion the district has operated on a first day exclusion policy or let me

146let me use the policy word the first day of exclusion procedure and so I want to make sure that we highlight that we did move that back we are looking at a September 15th deadline um this has multiple layers of effect it does significantly impact getting kids in school rather than excluding them on the first day that's critical you know number one especially for some of our most needy populations that definitely need to be here while we're trying to sort out some of those things that they that they need to be here the second is the burden that a first day exclusion puts on our health offices is drastically reduced because they need to make sure that they have the records and documentation that kids need when they're here such as those care plans and

147those other items that are necessary and then they can shift to focus on those exclusionary criteria and so that's been updated in terms of language here and uh access Emily Hanlon from our health services department to be able to kind of provide some guidance in terms of attendance we we wanted to update some additional language we created some documentation for pre-planned absences and so that's been linked in here as well that's new for us this year we wanted to make sure that if kids were going to be gone for extended periods of time whether that was for a religious holiday whether that was for an extended leave due to a family concern that it was accounted for in that kind of pre-planned absence so we weren't asking where does that kid those phone calls that

148are automated those letters that are automated we had some explanation behind that from a truancy and chronic absenteeism perspective pulling and harassment we've done a lot of work this this year on the investigation process and training our our building leaders on how to investigate those things and put in some clear systems and practices in place and so that language has been updated there there's also been additional language that was provided through that student voice around sexual harassment there was a lot of work that was done last year and not all of that language was that was added into these rights and responsibilities and so that has been included in this draft as well student conduct is required that we provide annual guidelines for use of Behavioral interventions with students with disabilities and so that has

149now been linked in here and updated accordingly and that was also provided for feedback at the CAC March 22nd Title IX there's been some additional updating of those procedures making sure that we're compliant with those federal regulations and guidelines this has been a I would dare to say a labor of love with this because it's really an education to help people understand what sexual harassment is what sexual assault is how that plays into the educational environment and what our responsibility is to investigate those claims some additional related discipline on loss of privileges rather than use of social suspension and some of those things that were much more punitive it's really about what are you entitled to how are we allowing you to access those things and so they're submit some language updated there and then

150there's some additional language that's been added around electronic devices on our transportation this has been a back and forth um kind of collaboration if you will helping to understand when a electronic device use on our transportation our student transportation is appropriate when it's not there is an expectation that those electronic devices are turned off and put away you know during the school day specifically at our k through eight grade levels and so how does that translate to our transportation use that's been updated suspension and explosion guidelines minimal changes that are in line with policy that will continue to be updated as we get through those policies and then ultimately code of conduct Athletics and extracurriculars there was some language added around parking passes minimal language changes but I know that there's been ongoing conversation about

151those being Privileges and understanding that impact with financial eligibility and some of those things so I foresee additional changes to come highlighted some key takeaways for you um wanted to make sure again this is a working document it will change we have another policy committee on Thursday of this week I believe and so I will tell you that although I'm the one sitting up here in front of you this has not been my work this has been the work of many many people all the way from our students to community members to our our staff specifically our administrators the policy committee anyone and everyone that has helped to make this better than it was the year before Ursula absolutely I can't forget Ursula Ali pointed out you so um I would say Ursula is critical

152in keeping us organized and making sure that we don't make any mistakes um so uh Maureen our board attorney has also put eyes on it and will continue to do so to make sure we're compliant with all of those pieces and parts so I did want to say thank you to all of those folks um obviously I have Divine defined policy procedure in practice we've proposed that movement away from first day exclusion to better serve kids and reduce the load and the burden on our health offices um provided guidance from that pre-planned absences so we can better account for students when they're not showing up to our buildings every each and every day and then updated language around harassment and consent as kind of some carryover from the work that was done with students last

153year my question um section five um delaying it to September 15th that was I really appreciate that I don't know how many calls I made get your child not just not just well no no it's just we so many kids you know would have been absent that first day um it's just yeah but that's no it wasn't me I didn't meet her safe um yeah it doesn't eliminate me either I don't believe you but well and the key takeaway is that this is the phase three that's going through policy committee now and then we'll go through administrative procedures so that is one of the things that we're talking about in policy we just wanted to make sure that our students right some responsibilities was in line if we had a proper approval to move forward

154on that okay okay all right you know my preference here on that one so um go ahead I just um I know they excluded themselves but we didn't leave last until I don't know 10 o'clock it was 11. was it well listen I walked out we were exhausted but I mean we've been putting in what we schedule like a two-hour meeting and Ursula feeds us and it ends up being like three sometimes four it's been crazy it's my departing gift I think it's invaluable Valley said I just want to say I really have to say this it is so incredibly important to have two administrators who are so absolutely honed in on our students experiences and putting students first When developing what you see is has been such an honor to be a part of

155this but also when you see policy procedure practice as we have gone through the policies of this district line by line which I don't know that anybody's ever done it this way and then you have the subject matter experts in the room that are able to determine where we can make changes across these three pillars has been absolutely a game changer for our district I don't think anybody can possibly understand the lift that we've asked of these two administrators of Ursula to I don't know how you're keeping track of all this but we literally go through and have gone through every policy and said is this really a policy and some of these haven't been reviewed since 2007 and having them create an administrative manual on the side and having our students rights and responsibilities

156they have taken input from so many different stakeholders I don't know how you're keeping it straight they have also minimized the amount of legal counsel so Maureen's not having to sit in every meeting for four to five hours and they have and Dr Kincaid has communicated it so that we make sure that we utilize that so I just can't explain what a beautiful this situation has been it has been holistic it has been students first focused it has had an equity lens it has had a it has been such a heavy lift and Ali and myself have have been a part of that and been able to bring in perspective from the board from being a parent from being a sports parent from all of these things I am so proud of this work and

157I think it's going to be the best um position we've been in in a very long time so to the two of you to Ursula I thank you for the amount of work you've done on behalf of this entire School community can I ask one question and I'm sorry I apologize because I didn't send this one so if you know objective how much of a driving force is sorry I'm a school code and and coming from press how much of a driving force is that behind some of this I think it's a um it's a significant driving force because we're Bound by certain parameters that I don't think sometimes is communicated in a language that people understand and so I would hope that I have the opportunity uh to continue to create this document or

158update this document to be much more student-friendly language to be much more able to be received from all of our kids we're expecting them to kind of sign off on it and understand the pieces and parts that are here and that's also the parents in the community some of the changes that I was able to update before I even spoke to anyone and put it out there were conversations that I had had with parents that had come through not necessarily in the form of a complaint but more of uh hey can you help me understand why this happened at the building hey can you help me understand why this investigation went this way or you know what really was the the the the rule that was broken and and why is that excluding my student

159so those are things that I was able through those conversations to try and add in here prior to putting it out there but again this was not a a me effort in any way shape form the policy updates in the Press adoption has been I don't say an awesome process but it's been a it's been a really informative process and I think that it's it's powerful for those that are responsible for enforcing policy to understand how you're creating it and why we're creating it and what we're Bound by so it is a driving force but I think we can continue to evolve and make it more palatable for those that are receiving it and allowing for that feedback from them right I think the Press alignment has really driven the policy and given us also

160examples of different administrative procedures I think that's a gap that we've seen um holistically within multiple departments across our admin team so we've then started to bridge those gaps I think one of the great takeaways of our community advisory Forum was really then focusing on what Mr Bell's talking about is how are we going to use this document as a guiding principle for the presentations to our students because we know that more than likely as uh board member Johnson mentioned nobody always reads cover to cover of our policy manual I'm gonna go on Limb and say it's pretty similar for our kids and our rights and responsibilities so the focus then becomes is how are students taking away that information that is most impactful for them so it's the lens of the policy with as

161Jeremy mentioned this is a working document we had great conversations and I know that they've happened in other board committees about financial eligibility we anticipate some additional changes first day exclusion student voice really is coming through in certain sections based on their feedback but the focus for next year is our last section and then how are we engaging our students in this information and takeaways I think the other lens that we used Ally let me know if you agree is transparency with parents and explaining and understanding policies and student rights and some things we had to keep in policy but some things we're like can we at least reiterate it in student rights and responsibilities because parents won't read our policy and so the admin have also done a great job of linking documents and

162the other great opportunity we've had this year is that we have really passed off to other subject experts so we are taking three policies to the teaching and learning committee to let that committee talk that out and understand that that those have been um policies that we have heard a lot from parents about Hallmark being one of them and the inconsistencies and so if we're going to have a policy for that in our policy manual we really need to let all those voices be heard about that policy so um I have really appreciated what has gone to equity and teaching and learning and it really is the most holistic I believe approach we've taken in a long time Dr Kincaid just said something that prompted a question based on what you said so you have

163policies procedures but then you have practices so in the in the in the rollout of this will we help them to understand the differentiation between what a procedure and then a practice I don't know I mean I couldn't even tell you if I could articulate it so like you know will we make sure that we explain that when we're rolling it out and what it looks like from building the building because it does not look the same from one building to the next especially contextualizing it like you know I don't know if I could and and to me I the reason why I'm asking the question I think this is important is that I don't want you all to do all of this work but then we don't contextualize and operationalize everything that you're doing

164because it's so valuable and so I just it just made me think about the rollout and understanding the difference between three do you want the honest answer yes there is not a working administrative procedure manual in the district right now which is why you see a lot of the inconsistencies and so what Dr Kincaid and Mr Bella been doing is we do have the opportunity to buy press's version but they have been creating their own on the same side that we may still want because what press gives us is what is called an exhibit for all of these things so it's already pre-made they don't have to turn around and make all of these forms and documents so that might be an ask in the future we do get a percentage off but I just

165think asking them to do a whole nother lift yeah but doing it for but is a lot to ask but I will say they have kept an ongoing document of what is missing and if we buy those exhibits I think it just makes their job a little bit easier um but I think all of those consist inconsistencies you're going to start to see get addressed because we are going to have a working document and I think faith I think you would agree that having those as an administrator is incredibly helpful to contextualizing that across the district what does that mean okay well here's an exhibit of what that means and how you can use it and we're going to talk about three things that are very um still have a lot of I would say

166not a lot of context around in our district homework curriculum when you don't agree with curriculum and stuff like that so we're going to help take that expertise and to support student services I appreciate that forethought that's that's going to be great thank you I I did have section 10 loss of privileges school dances if you could just I didn't understand the summary of where that was going so this was some of the again language we talked about and um there's been the term social suspension that's been utilized in the past we've moved towards that more loss of privileges um and I wanted to make sure I didn't misspeak so that's why I was trying to turn to this document um but there was some request add in uh the overall concept of that when

167we have students that have been engaged in maybe multiple physical altercations that we now have events that may be coming up whether that's prom whether that's a football game or something to that end where we need to limit maybe their contact or access to that for a variety of reasons and so that was highlighted in here in terms of that loss of privileged language if you will but that's really the awesome the gist of it Okay so special circumstances correct limited okay what page are you on sections maybe I didn't uh section what maybe yeah um added language for attendance to school dance as well and lots of privileges that's all yep it's section 10 uh area a number seven it's in red um and it has been in practice in the past but there

168as Mr Bell mentioned earlier we wanted to increase transparency um this is not student is automatically placed on loss of privilege it would be part of a disciplinary procedure and if it is in um in place which a student a parent would know before any type of exclusion it's also for those students that may have failed to serve there's some other disciplinary consequences whether that was an intervention kind of based or hey I want you to serve an after school detention but it's really in an effort to connect and create that relationship with that a staff member or whatever that happens to be if you're not serving those things if you're constantly not in class if you're doing those things that are required a lot of resources time energy and support then there has to

169be an understanding that you may not be able to access some of those fun type privileges those could be school dances those could be again games or some of those things we've also had Community participation at our meetings which are some and it's great to see that people are still coming to those communities or to those um committee meetings so I just wanted to thank our community members that came as well okay thank you thank you so much for your time and yes thank you you should go home with me again on Thursday [Laughter] all right 9.1 action item approval of bills for payment can I have a motion please my left hand doesn't my left flipper doesn't work very well I make a motion to authorize the payment of bills in the amount of

1702 million 373.40 as presented second Mr Saron hi Mr Gatewood hi Miss Johnson I plugger aye Ms simultan I motion passes 6-0 action item 9.2 approval of high school textbooks can I ask you a question about this one yes there was a resource and I put a note in my phone to make sure I asked about it before this came up and then I lost it do you remember which one it was there was uh some of the high school teachers were talking about talking about Newsela yes okay that's all part of a presentation that we priced that out and are offering that okay as long as we're asking questions for the motion I have one also um so what are we doing to follow up with again I brought this up earlier so what

171are we doing follow-up with how content uh junior high teachers are with with social studies curriculum because um from my conversations that I have I I get and I'm really ecstatic that we're using them as a resource but my fear is that it's the only resource so I'm just curious um we're talking about high school social studies what um what's what's the deal at the junior high level so the each of the Departments social studies science math they get together from all of the junior highs and go through that and we have a principle that works with each of those content areas principal Rainier is who works with social studies and they talk about what's going well what's not going well and then bring that feedback back to Shannon leaders our director of junior high

172and if there are if you're hearing concerns that we're not hearing that's a concern and I want to be careful right because obviously their voice should be part of part right and that's awesome right um and I don't want to sit here and paint it as oh I I know them I'm not going to pretend to know the majority of what people think I just maybe as a follow-up hey do you feel like you are the resource I think that would be a good question to ask them if that question is being asked then great and I appreciate that clarifying question was Newsela for the junior high in the high school so we've been using Newsela Newsela for quite some time at the junior Highs but this Edition is for high school okay all right

173can I have a motion please I make a motion to approve the purchase of a high school social studies textbooks as presented second Miss Swanson aye Mr Cerrone aye Ms simultan aye Mr Gatewood aye Ms Johnson aye Mr cloger aye motion passes 6-0 action item 9.3 approval of Oswego High School East High School Stadium scoreboard can I have a motion please I make a motion to approve the installation of The oehs Stadium scoreboard second okay and then I do have a question on this one too so uh how quickly will we be able to have a policy for who is in charge of monitoring scoreboards where's Jeremy so there is a okay so there is a policy but the admin procedure would be where that information would be present right now it's a collaboration between

174operations and Communications um when we reviewed the policy um there were some very um Antiquated information within that policy so we are removing uh some of the specifics and then that would be part of the administrative procedure but in terms of this process both Communications and operations are working collaboratively ultimately the approval will go through uh Communications and point of clarification you said monitoring scoreboards not the physical equipment but the ads that will be within it correct right thank you and correct and so and to clarify also so when we roll this out we'll have everything we need in place from a policy standpoint is that correct so the current policy is um sufficient okay accomplish this we are recommending some changes to the policy to in the long run put more checks and balances

175into um not only projects like this but um advertisement and that area across the board so beyond just Athletics as well as an administrative procedure so the appropriate administrators are seeing what is happening right so where's the money go that go to Athletics or does it go to the building or does it go to the district right that's another question but um I didn't give that one I just want to make sure that people that are you know given this task of of doing this I I also want to look out for their protection as well so that if something slips by and just somebody didn't know or whatever the case may be I want those people protected and and this is how it's going to work so that everybody's on the same page I

176hope that makes sense yeah the policy that this falls under is Section 8 which is Communications um so uh Teresa has very much been involved in this process so far but through the policy review she reviewed it also and is uh recommending some changes but then a much stronger administrative procedure once that is approved then we will have to do some work with our buildings not only administrative but also some of our club and activity sponsors and things of that nature so we do have some work uh to do ahead of us in preparation for next year but right now the policy as is does allow us to move forward up and into Ali's Point um I don't need the answer now um it's not going to affect my vote but I at some point

177that Revenue stream stream Street two that's exactly what they're going to focus on the administrative procedure and I did ask when that will be rolled out and you said um when did I asked when all the um uh staff will receive this administrative manual and when they will sign off on it so that it does affect the new school year that's fine I just wanna I just want it when you get it that's all it's definitely been a very I would say Lively conversation because there's been some inequities about where money goes when it's brought in and who uses it and who doesn't and all of that so they are definitely addressing it and I feel very confident that you will see that over time that the board will see not only the policy do

178what the policy is supposed to do and not list some specifics that were very Antiquated in there but the administrative procedure will have very clear guidelines of who can do what when so I make a motion to approve the installation correct vote we're at the voting level second miss simultane I miss Swanson aye Mr pluger aye Ms Johnson aye Mr Saron aye Mr Gatewood aye motion passes 6-0 action item 9.4 approval of chemical Supply purchase I make a motion to approve the utilization of our existing partnership with Source well cooperative for various custodial and maintenance supplies second Mr ploger aye Ms Johnson aye Mr Cerrone aye Mr Gatewood aye Ms Swanson hi hi Miss simulton aye motion passes 6-0 action item 9.5 approval of Oswego East High School in Oswego High School tennis court bid

179can I have a motion please I make a motion to award the base bid for Oswego East High School and Oswego High School tennis courts to Abby Paving in the amount of one million 641 thousand 775 dollars second Mr Gatewood aye Miss Johnson aye Mr pluger aye Mr Cerrone aye Ms Swanson aye Miss Simon I promotion passes 6-0 action item 9.6 wait I wasn't here last week are these both eight Lane tracks this is oh well 7.6 yeah right are we on tracks track beds yeah yeah so they're both eight Lane tracks right so they can host sectionals both high schools okay approval of Oswego East High School and Oswego High School track bid can have a motion please I make a motion to award Schroeder Asphalt Services in the amount of 952 92.50 which

180would include acceptance of both Oswego High School and Oswego East High School base beds and the Oswego East High School alternate alternates one two and three second Johnson aye Mr cloger aye Mr mistleton aye Mr Gatewood aye Miss Swanson motion passes 6-0 action item 9.7 approval of food service contract extension can I have a motion please I make a motion to approve the emergency contract extension for the 2023-2024 school year and to raise lunch rates by 40 cents to keep Pace with a paid lunch Equity tool second Miss Johnson aye Ms Swanson no Mr Cerrone aye Mr Hamilton aye Mr Gatewood aye Mr ploger aye motion passes five one action item 9.8 approval of 2023-24 building comp administrator contracts can I have a motion please I would like um just to make a comment before

181I vote on this I shared with the administration that I strongly feel that we do not we have not fully reviewed our building administrator in our School administrator contracts to present a more Equitable pay compensation Matrix and I have asked with the board with my board support that we continue to work on that across the district to make sure that we are making pay Equitable across the district and also I just have in the presentation that the administration gave they talked about a lot of changes moving payroll giving um various title changes and so forth is that part of this motion because I think that should be saved for when a new superintendent is here so I just want to make sure when we're approving this what are we approving the building administrator contracts are

182the building administrator contracts that is what you would be approving okay well I will ask that question on the next one then I make a motion to approve the 2023-2024 building administrator contracts as presented second I have a comment um so uh I know that this is going to be difficult for some and I get all that peace to this one thing though that really jumps out to me is reality versus kind of what we hear right and one of the things that we had asked for or myself at least was was ratios right and it's it's a very nuanced conversation and when we compare ourselves to other districts there's there's things we need to realize like we can look at a West Aurora where you work in a Valley View where I work which

183is much more administrator heavy we can look at a place like Indian Prairie which is not nearly as administrator heavy but then they pay quite a bit um and so when we get into these pieces and I understand your point um Jen and I'm certainly not going to argue with it but um when we get into these these places one thing and for the future and to your point that we need to be cognizant of is that it's difficult to have this conversation with our community because when they say oh look at this District or that District or this District those ratios matter and what what their paid matters and they have different philosophies to your point John by the way um and so I think that's something we need to reflect on um come

184July 1 as a board but the one thing that I do want to say is that I hear now more than ever from from staff is that they are being affected by the turnover like they see it not only their turnover but also the turnover from our assistant principals uh and and turnover from admin there has to be some kind of consistency and I and I want to implore us that when we do me ad talk uh July 1 that we have something in place to make sure that is a part of that I heard that from some of my other board members I hear it from staff and I think it's imperative um that that we talk about that but I also think that you're probably going to hear something about oh you gave

185this percent or whatever the it leaves something out of the conversation right and that is it's a tight labor market what do the other districts look like we have to look at that piece but I'm beyond that um you know sometimes that cumulative number matters also and we need to address a lot of areas in in our staff compensation so I don't want anyone thinking this is the end but do realize that probably in the Press it's going to be real easy to jump on something it's much more nuanced than that and that's what I wanted to say I appreciate that the other thing that I think is also left out of the conversation is the cost of living and Oswego is higher than the cost of living in Naperville and it's also something that

186we have to address right but none of these are consistent sorry go ahead call it a second Miss Swanson no Mr Gatewood aye Miss simulton aye Mr Cerrone aye Miss Johnson aye Mr ploger aye motion passes five one action item 9.9 approval of 2023-24 District administrator contracts can I have a motion please again I asked my question a lot of things were presented in Upstream there was a lot of discussion around moving departments under various administrators I'm not comfortable with that part of it I think that's something that a new superintendent should be fully on board with so is that part of approving these District administrator contracts these are district administrator contracts as listed with the positions and the salaries this is not departmental changes okay so the departmental changes that were presented in Upstream

187are not taking place at this time that would be something we would need to talk about in closed session okay Ally did you have something to say let's call it I make a motion any I'm sorry anyone else make the motion first I make a motion to approve the 2023-2024 district administrator contracts as presented second though and so I'm going to say the one piece right again is um this is this is us trying to um recognize that consistency piece I agree again there are some things that we need to take a look at as a board July 1 but I am hopeful that this will bring a little more consistency that's July 1 correct that's just so wrong aye Miss Johnson abstain Mr ploger aye Mr Gatewood aye Miss Swanson nope Miss simulton aye

188four yays one abstention and one no motion passes action item nine nine ten nine point one zero approval of personnel report can have a motion please I make a motion to approve the Personnel report as presented second simultane aye Mr aye Mr sarone aye Ms Swanson yeah yeah motion passes six zero second can I have a motion to adjourn I make a motion to adjourn all in favor all right motion pass