001Unit School District Board of Education meeting for January 23 2023 can I have a roll call please Mr Cerrone here Mr Doyle here Mr Gatewood president Miss Johnson president Mr cloaker Ms simultan president miss Swanson Francis will stand for the pledge of God and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty foreign 4.1 is an opportunity for the board to acknowledge and congratulate our pride while Award winners I'd ask the board to please join me out front to congratulate this evening's recipients and then 4.2 is follow athletic recognition so we'll stay out as this is an opportunity for the board to recognize our fall student athletes as well Dominic is yeah I actually don't know I told her I'm sure you could evening everyone we are going to start
002with our January Pride recognition program winners tonight the Board of Education acknowledges Pride winners for the month of January 2023 Pride stands for proudly recognizing individuals demonstrating Excellence the Board of Education implemented this program in the fall of 2015 to recognize promote and celebrate the many contributions made by teachers and employees across our district teachers of the month is sponsored by Allied First Bank we recognize what our teachers do day in and day out for the continued growth and success for our students awardees as your name is called please come forward to be congratulated by the board and Dr sparlin and then stay here and we'll do a quick photo congratulations to the following teachers for having been recognized as the January teachers of the month Katie blue grade four Boulder Hill Elementary thank you
003Mike Linden science teacher Bernard Junior High [Applause] Megan Mann grade two wheatlands Elementary [Applause] and Dana Miles grade one Old Post Elementary [Applause] at this time we'd like to invite up our building administrators to come join our awardees in the board of education for a photo yeah get on up there you go probably gonna have to switch up a big group all right what's up [Music] come on you guys ready come on guys scoot over [Applause] congratulations teachers our next awardees this evening are our employees of the month co-sponsored by Chick-fil-A and Huntington Learning Center this award is given in honor of our employees who go above and beyond and are always willing to lend a hand awardees as her name is called please come forward to be congratulated and then stay there for the
004photo Rob Manna building engineer South Berry Elementary [Applause] and Trisha Tunney teaching assistant lrc computer Grant Park [Applause] bring it over here [Laughter] and we'll invite any Grand Park administrators to come forward and we'll do another photo [Applause] yeah thank you congratulations Trisha [Applause] we'd like to thank our generous District partners for this program Allied First Bank Chick-fil-A Huntington Learning Center and Culver's of Oswego for helping to make this program a success and we'd like to thank all of those who take time to nominate individuals for this award okay moving on to our students the board of education is proud tonight to acknowledge the award-winning efforts of our students who participated in Fall Sports this school year and have received State recognition at the Illinois High School Association state championship competitions students at Freddy's called
005please come forward to be congratulated by our board and superintendent Dr sparlin Chloe Diner swimming and Diving third place 200 yards thank you next is Katie graceik from swimming and Diving second place 500 yard freestyle and fifth place 200 yards next is Katie mom swimming and Diving fifth place diving [Applause] and Parker Knoll 8th Place cross country Allstate thank you okay we're gonna if there's any coaches here this evening assistant coaches or building administrators that would like to join the athletes for this photo we invite you up come on up don't be shy [Applause] we'll take our photo and then if you could hold I think we have some parents eager for a photo too all right hang on one sec let's give our parents an opportunity and one fine rental of Applause here congratulations
006guys understand [Music] ouch did you hear that no I didn't no I heard the response yeah foreign public comment on behalf of the Board of Education I'd like to thank the public for attending tonight's meeting we value the feedback we receive from our residents and encourage everyone to take an active interest in their public school system residents interested in speaking to the board this evening are asked to have completed a comment card and presented it to the secretary to the board when the secretary calls your name I ask that you come to the microphone state your name for the public record and provide your feedback please note that comments are limited to five minutes per person and that no discussion of personnel matters or responses to questions are permitted the board does not participate in
007discussion during public session and follow and please um follow up to your questions or concerns will be addressed by Administration through the contact information provided on the comment card thank you Michelle Traeger hi Michelle Trager four kids in the district I just wanted to speak because you're going to be reviewing your SEL plan tonight and I know it's like a Five-Year Plan it's a work in progress so there was a couple things on there that I kind of wanted to make sure you're considering when you're going through it one of those things was that the safety plan that is practiced and implemented and I noticed one of the things on there was post-incident recovery and I really want you to make sure that you are considering that when following through on that phase of the
008plan I can tell you I have two students who are currently in seventh grade they're at plank last year at the end of their sixth grade year there was the message everybody had to go into lockdown um this was not a drill I heard afterwards my daughters were very scared as were other students fearing that there was an intruder teachers did what they were supposed to do students did what they were supposed to do based on what they had practiced so that is the good news um the reason that this happened was that two girls were in a fight I think one of them had a knife and in an effort to keep more students from joining in The Fray and to keep them from live streaming it apparently the lockdown was issued um if
009you look at basic biology you'll know that cortisol levels when you believe your life is in danger possibly Skyrocket and they don't come down for several hours but in this instance there was no kind of post-incident recovery no processing no anything afterwards just like okay it's all clear continue on about your day as normal and it was interesting one of my daughters asked me oh if we meaning the students had killed an intruder if it was an intruder um what would happen and I said are you meaning would you guys get in trouble she said no will we just go on with our day as normal and then then I totally got where her question was coming from um I would also say you know one of the things on on the SEL plan is
010um regarding Aaron's law and regarding the presentations that Mutual ground comes in to do which are necessary but I would also advise to consider even in that a little bit of of processing afterwards again um one of my daughters had that for seventh grade health first semester and it's uh a lot of kind of intense information and it's like okay there's 41 minutes you got to cram it in as much as you can and here's the ways you could be assaulted and here's how you can protect yourself and the bell rings and then you go to class go to your next class and again there's no sort of processing after that and we purport to be a trauma-informed district so I would like to see that actually implemented throughout this SEL plan um as it's
011being developed through the I think it's 2026 on the plan um and I would just also share my son is older now but when he was in third grade so sometimes your behavioral emotional management is overlapping with these other things they had a drill in third grade and the students were to you know gather closely up against the wall underneath codes well when you have a student with sensory and neurodiversity issues he was making some noises well then he's got to have a consequence because he wasn't safe well did you know it was a drill yes did anyone practice with him ahead of time no okay so you want to take away his recess thinking that's going to make it better next time let's role play let's practice and so I just want to make
012sure as we're as we're going through that plan um that we're taking all of our students into account with that and I think the way it's laid out certainly there's flexibility there for our students who do have those needs and then you know of course I'm always going to remind you when we talk about SEL to consider that we have over 800 students in our districts with a fetal alcohol Spectrum Disorder most of whom are undiagnosed and 90 of whom have a coexisting mental health issue so we want to make sure that we're able to serve those students because they're part of our general Ed population and we often don't even know it so um thank you for listening to that and thank you for considering those ideas when you're reviewing that plan tonight Mrs
013Hamilton I I know we don't respond but I think it's very important to say that when it comes to being a trauma-informed district we're at the very earlier stages of that we aren't fully trauma informed so I just want to make sure that we understand that with that comes a very heavy label and um I our Administration can speak to it more but I don't I want to make sure we don't portray Something That We're Not So Margaret hardigan good morning or good afternoon I'm sorry I'm Margaret hartigan I'm a TA in the district I'm also a taxpayer and a parent of several students in the district um four million four hundred forty one thousand ninety six dollars and sixty one cents are you going to listen now good evening president simelton and the District
014board members you may recall that I was here in early December pleading that you raised the TA rates due to the hemorrhaging of funds in the district to cover empty positions at that time superintendent Starlin stated that he would give a report at the meeting this meeting regarding the amounts being spent on ta's teacher subbing his Tas and for contracted Tas I'm hopeful that will occur despite not being a specific agenda item in the meantime I've gone through the agendas available online and searched every Bill listing from the fiscal year line by line I've also done a comparison of what the district has spent on teachers subbing stas at just the school I'm assigned to and can tell you that the figures will shock you since the start of the fiscal year the district has
015paid 4 million four hundred forty one dollars I'm sorry 4 million four hundred forty one thousand ninety six dollars and sixty one cents in Contract Services across the district let that sink in 4 million four hundred forty one thousand ninety six dollars sixty one cents that includes 257 42803 specifically on contract teacher assistance the figure is likely higher as over 379 thousand dollars includes Contract Services with no details as to what the expense is for and an additional 113 72404 lists the expenses from a company where the district contracts both Tas and teachers but the invoices don't designate which amount is for which also it's my understanding that the bulk of our dhh Professional Services contract expenses of a hundred and forty thousand eight sixty one sixty two is for TAS who know and are
016skilled in sign language in reality we've likely spent more than five hundred thousand for contract DA's Additionally the district has spent over 686 thousand dollars on contract nurses and CNAs the CNAs are typically in ta positions but it's being billed to Health Services that's another position in the same support Personnel Union as the Tas well over a million dollars because of salaries of the supporting positions of Tas and nurses are not competitive and we are unable to retrain retain or attract Personnel in these positions I mentioned that I researched the amount of funds spent on teachers subbing as Tas at the school I'm assigned to well during the first semester alone oea teachers have subbed in a TA position at my school for 1020.58 hours that does not include the I believe it's six permanent
017Subs that we have in the building that are assigned as Tas regularly 1020.58 hours costs our district in excess of fifty four thousand dollars just last week two more sped Tas at my school gave their notice one is leaving to make 27 an hour with insurance as a TA elsewhere the district will continue to lose valuable staff members which will result in even more money being spent second semester on contract Tas if you don't act soon and raise the rates of these vital staff members when I spoke last time I reported that a contract ta at our school had refused to assist a student in the restroom she had ultimately quit because the job was too much for her to handle we now have a CNA assigned as a TA with a medically fragile student
018this contract employee spends her day on her phone and only interacts with the student when and if medically necessary this is not what Tas do this is not what our job description says there's another CNA working as a TA in another building who only interacts with her student when that student needs restroom assistance otherwise she too sits on her phone all day the rest of the rest of the district Tas have to work extra to cover for the slack why is the district allowing this why are you allowing the overpaid contract Tas to do little work while dumping more responsibility on those of us who are severely underpaid it continues to lead to a hostile work environment if you think this is hearsay and it's not really happening you would be wrong I've seen it
019firsthand I've seen firsthand what's happening to my school not only that but this morning alone I was asked to sub as a one-on-one with a student in our building the contract ta that was assigned to cover her for the day informed RPA that she didn't want to work with her she claimed she couldn't handle all the walking with no medical recognition no no nothing on fire so they pulled me why are we at a point where these overpaid contract Tas can now pick and choose the duties they want or don't want the students and teachers I normally work with had to suffer for the day because a contract person didn't want to work her assigned duties and the district gave into that I'm shocked and disappointed on a side note in reviewing the bill listing
020since the start of the fiscal year I found that 88 companies we have contracted services for like for things like Transportation tutoring psych Services Tas nurses OTS speech bats and more there are 24 of those that have exceeded the twenty thousand dollar limit in which an RFP or a bit is required not one of those 24 companies were on the Patrick list provided by the finance department at the meeting on January 9th not one the district spent 547 thousand dollars alone on one contract company and they didn't appear on the list it's not like that's even close to the twenty thousand dollar limit it's 27 times the contract limit thank you for your time I appreciate it very much in closing I hope you realize that we're all fighting to keep our jobs and all
021you guys are doing is fighting to push us all away I think all right item 6.1 is a presentation on social emotional learning uh by Dr Kristen Paul who is our director of social emotional learning so Dr Paul we welcome you to the the board the floor is yours good evening everyone my name is social emotional learning for the district I'm joined by Dr Heather Kincaid the associate superintendent assistant superintendent of student services and staff sir uh tonight I'm going to give you an overview of our work since last year up until this calendar year with social emotional learning I'll explain the indicators and the current success as well as make connections to our student learning and finance as well as talk about the future as well you can see here on this document here
022we have identified SEL curriculum for Early Childhood through eighth grade we are in process of working with our high school teacher developing an SEL implementation plan for the future in addition you'll see here that we are in the process with a K-12 SEL design committee comprised of administration and staff from all of our buildings working on interventions and strategies tier one through three with a rollout for next year in addition we'll be continuing to work on our educational programming with science of suicide we this year for the first time I rolled that up into our ninth grade class and we partner with a organization called a lesson's mission and they support us in that work in addition we are working on continuing to implement social emotional learning in our freshman seminar classes at both high
023schools focusing on the first SEL standard which has a lot to do with self-management time management organization in addition also we are continuing to review our Illinois youth survey data and identify correlation to our curriculum and identify areas of need that will continue we do that every other year and the Illinois survey will happen again in 2024. in addition on this document you will also see that we have several items that relate to restorative practices and the work that we have done in developing starting the plan to develop an implementation plan for restorative practices for next fiscal year in addition all the buildings taught expected behaviors using the behavioral Matrix as their guide and that was reviewed again after the winter break to reinforce expected behaviors in addition the behavioral design committee is reviewing behavioral
024data and identifying Trends and practices that they can be helping support our leaders and teachers in the classroom and providing additional training in regards to Safety and Security to support our our staff in regards to anything that might occur during the day you can also see there's a reference to the district threat assessment team and some training that we're doing extensively to make sure that we can best support our staff and our uh next year for the annual report you will see a couple things highlighted from the SEL tiered interventions that I mentioned earlier again the work of the K-12 SEL design committee we'll roll that out next year with targeted professional development support our leaders and staff in addition we'll continue to review our mental health programming needs and identify areas for continual support
025in addition we'll continue with our restorative practice implementation plan and provide continual training for both our leaders and staff and we'll also continue to provide safety training with post-crisis and unification support for all of our buildings leaders and students highlights as far as the connection to finance and some other areas you can see social emotional learning does help students have an increase in staff a sense of well-being and belonging we know that social emotional learning creates protective factors for students and staff which strengthens overall mental health which yields greater result overall with satisfaction and belonging um in regards to student learning um just a couple things to share here that I provide a weekly social emotional learning strategies for administration to use in their buildings and also I helped to model at one of our
026high schools teaching social emotional learning specifically on time management and study skills prior to students taking vital exams at Oswego High School this past fall as far as support for student learning I am so excited to I continue the work and student focus groups that is a drive and a focus for our SEL design committee to gain the voices of our students and I've been meeting with all different student groups throughout the district and really Gathering their feedback to be able to identify some Trends to best support they're learning in the classroom in addition I continue to provide professional development for all of our levels leaders and staff we have several Community Partnerships from Alyssa's Mission which I mentioned before that's a long-standing partner for us as well as partnering with an organization called referral
027GPS which has helped provide us with training with a risk to harm assessment screener called Columbia screener as well as access to local mental health providers in addition we've also continued our partnership with family counseling services they provide one-on-one counseling for students across the district as well as small group counseling for students at both high schools and that concludes my presentation thank you so much Dr Paul do you have any questions on regards to the presentation I I just have one um I I like that you're working with our student team and I think that that's great and I'm happy to hear about all of these things I was wondering about at the high school level where we're at in terms of beyond the I know that there's a pretty robust suicide for uh prevention
028and identification portion of our health programs but how do we address eating disorders in the nutrition curriculum in there is that part of the social emotional um umbrella for this as well when we're looking at those aspects of Mental Health well that's definitely a topic I can ask them more about and see how we can best support preventive strategies it's a great idea thank you for sharing that thank you I have four questions so sorry but I'll try and go through them quick where is our um and I hate bringing this topic up but but it's where we're at where is our rate of suicide compared to national state Norms I'll start with that question I'll start with the heavy one Mr question I can tell you that according to the CDC students ages 10
029through 24 there are 10.5 per 100 000 student deaths in regards to Suicide which is actually lower than any other age group comparatively we are doing some things as you heard me mention earlier with signs of suicide 6th and 8th grade as well as ninth grade to provide exposure to our students to you know prevention things that they can be doing and following up immediately given how they respond to a risk assessment using the Columbia screener that I mentioned before we also have as a district something called Illinois safe to help a way for students or Community to self-report or report if they're concerned about a peer that's making some concerning statements as well as securely which is something that monitors students kind of like access on our Chrome system for Google and sends reports
030immediately to the administration as well as us at the district level to respond immediately to and what about our risk of harms compared to national state norms we did um we know that a third of these responses are in the high risk category which means the students are recommended for immediate treatment or evaluation but we have also looked at the trend data and that is comparable from year to year so the last three years we've kind of helped study about a third of the students having a high risk some of those students are needing additional support year after year which might flag them into that one-third category a third of the 250. where is our support staff in terms of numbers and needs for the social emotional needs of our students where are we at
031with Staffing and support staff to identify who they were and also to indicate if they would like a building administrator to follow up with them on their social emotional learning needs that was really powerful and having the leaders come back and say oh my gosh I didn't know that that person actually had some areas that they needed some support with our leaders were just thanks to the HR department and formed this past month about First Step Health which allows for that one-on-one virtual counseling for free of charge for staff and that has been recommended to staff as needed as well as the EAP program which also provides additional assistance to staff my last question then I'll yield the floor here uh and this our student ambassador certainly if they want to weigh in I'm not
032putting them on the spot but if you want to weigh in you can but you don't have to but um are the students calling for more social emotional support do we have student voice indicating they're calling for this also okay yeah um so just so I'm a painter leader which is like in the Freshman seminar so I see freshmen every day during fourth period and um I see a lot of social emotional learning with the freshmen um and although I don't have a guided study and I've never had a guided study which is like the study hall on the other side of your lunch um I haven't seen social emotional learning in grades other than freshmen which I know like freshman year you said you focused on but um I think that if we can
033reach more than just a freshman although freshman year can be overwhelming it can be overwhelming for everyone so um if the education of social emotional learning gets to everyone that would be how yes um I guess like the first question this might seem silly because you might have mentioned it but just to clarify you said you were working with some certain student group to get some insight uh do you have any like specific examples of what kinds of student groups you're working with two colors tomorrow um I'm meeting with the student athletes called salt I believe at OE on Wednesday um specifically at the high school also the ISA MSA um also meeting with students and I got these recommendations of High School principles as well as contractor care about FPL I guess I just
034kind of asked that because I knew about um Isa and hate Freight OE because I'm an especially student so that was exciting so feels that we're really struggling in that area not us in general like us we go alone I think it's across the country right and so what I would really love to see and I wouldn't even know where to begin but what I do believe is there is a direct tie to student outcome right so how do we take all of the Endeavors that we are undertaking and somehow I don't I don't know if it's been done yet Faith Dr McCain you'd have to weigh in but um how are we moving the needle how are we showing that the things that we are choosing to put our time which is money and
035then our actual financials against is actually moving the needle um we had a teaching and learning committee meeting recently and while there are some definite bright spots in some of our assessments you know we're still we're lagging behind and struggling and I think post pandemic if there is such a thing um how are the things that we are doing hitting our targets we want to do and I'd really like to see that this is like all the Tactical stuff right this is what we did now how do we juxtapose that to assessments to social emotional health which which our student ambassadors have really taught me a lot over the last couple years which is I you know some students don't feel good if they're not doing well in certain classes and other students are like
036if I get a c like I'm doing great and then social emotional health is am I getting along with my friends today and or are my friends fighting or are you know there's so many do I have a safe adult at our at my school and and so forth so there I would love to I mean like I would love to see this like Oswego formula equals this plus this plus this plus this what are those components that we in Oswego put into our social emotional health quotient if you will um and I see a lot of the Tactical stuff but how do we start to tie those to things um so I strongly believe in it um I don't you know there's lots of conspiracy theories out there I believe so strongly in teaching
037our our students how how to deal with a bad grade or how to deal with it when they get in a fight with a friend or because when that happens they're not learning and then we see that in the assessments right so so that's all important but there's so many other components of that social emotional health and then how do we build that formula so we can start seeing those outcomes I would love if we could put a little bit of focus on that so I had a question around restorative practices so I'm looking here and it says District leadership team is trained in restorative practices for educators and begins to develop a multi-year implementation plan so I I get it that you know um as the head goes so goes the body so you
038have to train leadership first and now you're moving to having discussions regarding a multi-year restorative practice implementation plan for leaders and staff has started in training the schedule for second semester so the question is um I know we have restorative practice practitioners in some of our buildings um how does that tie into what you're doing and um how do we you know make this systemic um in nature right because that's where we want to be having restorative practice practitioners in every building if that's the goal um help me understand is that the goal what are we doing well thank you for the question that's something that we've wrestled with as an apartment as well and we've actually pulled together a secondary restorative Practice Group so they were sort of practice practitioners that are actually identified
039already at two of our Junior highs and both of our high schools myself and Mr bowel facilitate that conversation along with several administrators actually administrators from every building and we are identifying what we believe to be restorative practices and what that might look like we're in the process of of drafting that for 308 to present to Executive Council coming up I am recommending to Dr Kincaid that all of our building leaders complete a restorative practice module through the IPA the Illinois principles Association this your weekend or over the summer with cohort conversations after they complete each one to be able to be able to help out the things that they're learning how that relates to their building and then in the committee work that I'm working on with Mr Bell and I in this day
040of restorative practice Educators which Sudan's a part of Shannon Dan some of our other level directors to talk about what the implementation plan will look like for next year but empowering our leaders to help facilitate that work at each of their buildings because we know we can't do the work alone it's a collective effort to really Empower our leaders our teachers and our students to really understand what that looks like so that we can have really restorative and supportive conversations and relationships throughout thank you great excuse me I have a it's a well it's a question um it's actually a piggyback on post-incident recovery um there are several instances that I know of recently you know and over the course of time where not when there's a school-wide incident where something happens and the students
041have to be supported through that season but more of an more of an individualized a a student or a subset of students experience some type of trauma and now they didn't have to have be re integrated back into the school system I was reading through it and I didn't see anything specifically but what type of supports do we provide for those students to ensure that they can successfully assimilate uh because before you know social emotional health for them may have not been an issue and now after this trigger they may not even understand what they're experiencing and so there could be something that's well proactively or if there's anything to support them a great point and it's something that we're continuing to discuss and what that support looks like I can tell you right now
042that the student services team identifies with each student what that support looks like it'll be different for every student some of them will need that check-in checkout with their counselor or trusted adult some students will need some additional support outside of school some recommendations might need to be made but it's a really valid point that there sometimes are greater needs that come out of a situation and it's one that we talk about as a department and how we can best support at the building level to have protocol process procedures so that everyone is kind of following that same level of support for all kids got it uh we've had some instances over this past semester where we've had to um bring in both students teachers of other adults feel comfortable with that reaction either as
043uh check out for a check-in foreign so SEL it'll be like instructional right so certain people can educate students on like what kinds of like coping mechanisms or like mental health issues that are prominent like within the age group things like that we're ready to start those conversations actually come okay so with that knowledge um I'm actually kind of nervous to say this because I know SEO is a really big thing and I think it was like like you said it's going to be different for the high school level and I know that certain practices help for like slightly younger kids um and I'm I'm simply saying this from like the perspective of other students I know who have more experience with SEO than I do it's kind of more of what I've heard um
044I see how like instructional instructionally isn't effective for a lot of students and I would say that most students either don't want to receive it or can't receive it just with the capacity's attention span or just general interest things like that um because of the fact that it's provided in kind of like a learning fashion um and of course like learning is great learning is so important but when we're talking about things that aren't you know necessarily like math or English and it's more about your personhood and how you kind of deal with that as you grow older having it taught to you doesn't feel as realistic so I'll just bring in an example in my film class every morning we do like a journal and she mixes in really personal questions about yourself and
045she doesn't read them but she makes us in really personal questions with like really funny questions every morning so one would be like a would you rather and the next one will be like make a goal for yourself about something you don't feel very confident about and it's like in the beginning I kind of like had been raised on this ideology that SEL is like very like instructional so I didn't really see that as a type of SEO and now it's like it's crucial to my day you know like I love it I feel like I've become like actually a better person out of that and I've realized now that it's a kind of SEO you know I'm learning about myself by myself but with the guidance of someone else rather than it being taught
046to me so maybe especially for students that aren't able to be as receptive to just you know straight like learning from it allowing them to grow on their own might be a bit more helpful but I know you're working on that I just wanted to give that insight as those conversations are coming up [Music] [Applause] um I just wanted to add on a little bit to what Anya said so I think that SEO is so specific to each person which I know we've all kind of touched on um and that each person's needs are different and so when you have a like one set curriculum for students to learn that doesn't really go through their heads because you may say that this is what you need to do if you need to cope with something
047like cope with a problem but that's not going to work for every student and when you're not displaying that I think and as Anya mentioned like if you're not displaying that through the environments you can create then people like students aren't going to receive that in the way that you want them to um in our freshman seminars we've kind of strayed away from the Powerpoints that we're given and we either create our own with um maybe coping skills that we have experienced and used in our high school careers as well as we've done a lot of like discussion based things and we've really like created an environment where students feel safe to like talk about maybe the things that they're going through and then in response people who have experienced that in maybe a more
048recent time than some of the adults that it provides a space where like we can connect and create new solutions for the problems that we're going through thank you and Caitlyn you deliver also that social emotional health component in so many ways I just learned of a new one tonight with the freshmen but also you do it through bionic and talk and so forth and it's such a crucial part of um everybody knows I'm a huge Ambassador for that program and but it happens so organically there because it's peer-to-peer and it's something that it's easier to learn in that way than it is to have a teacher instructing on it or so forth so and one thing I'm real quick which both of you have said has really struck me because I know um and
049I don't think we have this class here in our district but I teach American studies and so it's actually English and U.S history combined into one and it's interesting to me because um what you're saying really speaks to me because I try and hide a lot of these components if you will inside the instruction because I think and you can correct me if I'm wrong because I actually enjoy when people correct me but I think it's almost gets to the point where it's gimmicky for students if they know you're coming at them right and it's almost like you hide things and I've had students come up to me and say oh it's kind of it's kind of different Mr cloger like I don't know like uh I feel like I can talk about these things
050and I'm kind of just like I just kind of smile and Nod right and then I think it's almost like but if I if I really told you what I was doing it would almost be like oh no I don't do that right it's almost like gimmicky right yeah because you can't like learn about how to take care of yourself right like it makes sense like conceptually like if you teach someone how to cope like they're gonna cope but it's like for some reason it doesn't work right if you kind of just let it like like organically happen like you mentioned right it just kind of it feels really natural like I feel really proud of like the progress I've made in the journal when in reality my film teacher probably knew that I was
051going to improve on those things anyway because of the fact that like we're people we get better but she really like kick-started that with a little Journal thing you know and it was hidden and I was like this isn't gonna go well and it went great I've never had something ingrained into a class like that before and it was like super awesome although I will say I do answer and although I'm discouraged sometimes when I do answer and then my students are surprised when I answer and I'm like well you wrote the least I can do is respond right but I also one other thing that you I that I really love that you've said here which is that don't just include the freshmen having uh the teacher being a teacher of seniors it is
052amazing how many seniors I have who have quite a bit of anxiety listen I get it they're excited to get out of here right like let's be honest right but there is that component of anxiety because you're you're changing like this is a huge change and it's a massive change and you're not coming back right and um so there is there are those components in there and again I think again don't be gimmicky right because if you go up and say oh please how can I help then that's not gonna work right but there I think there is that piece where if you can make those connections I think those connections still matter right sorry I'm not trying to just have a conversation with them but if those connections those connections I think still matter
053right um and if they can be had I think those students still need that anxiety level lowered as well so I appreciate that because I really connected to a lot of what you said have we have we included any of this like student piece as we create new curriculum so you yeah so see what they both uh said already the student ambassadors um is actually actually the same as what the high school students are reporting um overall and you're right on target uh environment is key um it needs to be organic like we're mentioning it needs to happen naturally but we need to provide that Literacy for our staff to understand how like understand what it is and how to do that and that precaution development will come because we're very cognizant of the student
054voice that's being shared right now right and I 100 agree but I think what's missing in professional development across the board is student voice I agree okay man so I you know I think it's worth a student Institute day when you're signing up for things that you didn't maybe want to go to just sit down with a bunch of kids and have the conversation and work something out of it some kind of curriculum which but and then my my only other question was Miss trigger comes all the time and I I have to ask as we and she's right as we start looking at stuff like this what else are we addressing or not addressing in regards to scl or well I mean scl is is I mean I think fasd fits in there somewhere
055collaborate with other departments at the district level and also at the building level from our special education department to teaching and learning to student services and find ways we can integrate the things that we're talking about on a larger scale and being really targeted and intentional I took some good notes on what I heard even tonight about you know even proactively how can we prepare students for what might be you know coming down the down the way as far as far as like safety drills and whatnot so it's good feedback for me this is my first board meeting being here in person yeah thank you so much and I just want to say 10 year olds know it's gimmicky too because my son always comes home when they ugh we talked about emotions today they
056see through it thank you thank you so much thank you both all right item 7.1 is my superintendent report so good evening board uh Thursday January 19th we held our third meeting of the community advisory committee uh each of the items we discussed at our meeting were submitted by the committee members we had three items on the agenda the first one was in regards to Communications uh specifically how we communicate with Community family staff and students I asked the group to be thinking about how while we communicate the different modalities that we communicate across the community as well as what ideas people may have had to improve our Communications to our stakeholders and Mrs commutas presented in the answer to many questions during that presentation our second agenda item was in regards to Community Partnerships
057Mrs comedus and Mr Miller talked about the many Partnerships we have with the school with the school district and within the community and how both are mutually beneficial and then our third item was in regards to talking about curriculum time line and renewals in the process that we go through with this and Mrs dog Quest presented and answered questions from the agenda on that day our second my second item is at our last board meeting I talked about the transportation updates that we made over winter break to address some of the issues that we were seeing for a semester I had I had stated that we are currently monitoring ridership and route times uh Mr dearman provided us some information from the first week and the second week from after after break in regards to
058those ridership numbers principals are also sharing information with us as we as they are seeing different issues and transportation is making those appropriate valuations and those changes as as we as we're moving forward well they're doing the best we can or their circumstances that we find ourselves in still with the driver shortage and finally I just wanted to highlight one athletic achievement that was brought to my attention and then I also read about in the paper last week which was very exciting uh with the OHS girls bowling team when he Breedlove from OHS Bowl the perfect game in the final game of a conference a dual meet against Romeoville and what's awesome what's very impressive is to go with that perfect game her overall series was in 806 which included a games of 269 237
059and 300 which is the fifth highest individual three-game series ever thrown in the state of Illinois so uh that was quite a that was quite a record that she uh that she broke and she put herself into that into those uh the kind of Hall of Fame there so big congratulations Delaney and those are my three items that I wanted to report out on this evening so thank you thank you Dr sparlin we were thinking we would move our 7.5 student ambassador report up here okay okay sorry to Spring that on you like that okay so last week we had the pleasure of introducing the new people in the ssac into our meetings and it was really great to hear all the voices and their opinions any and I were just talking after that meeting
060and we're really excited to um see how far we go this year because it was the discussions you had during that meeting were already so wonderful we engaged a lot in discussions and emphasized the purpose of our committee which is to amplify student voice provide avenues for students to use their voice and to strengthen that two-way communication between the Board of Education faculty and other students um the student advisory committee also had the wonderful opportunity to work with Miss dollquist Mr Gatewood and Dr sparlin for the mission statement that's currently a work in progress with mystalk was guidance we engage in group discussions on certain verbiage within that mission statement that reflect not only the goals of our district but what our students seek in the district invariably we decided on the word motivate after
061a lot of discussion um because we thought that it emblazoned that desire of our district to help students not only better themselves but encourage them to pursue their goals as best as they can in the capacities that they can it's a positive way to show that uh this our students want preparation for our futures with the assistance of this District so that one day they could go out into the real world on their own and succeed in the ways they desire to so I think we learned a lot about not only our committee members but also what this new committee will be capable of with this discussion so that was very exciting and we thank you so much for the opportunity to let us engage in that discussion I'm gonna pass this down so you
062can see this you all were your pictures are in the ISP Journal so our students were a part of a presentation that took place at the triple I conference um our our dish our district is one that other districts want to model their student voice um initiatives after and so we've been asked to participate at another event in in May if you you all don't know about that yeah but I'm telling you now so we're going to start to get more and more invitations to go more and more places to talk about our our initiatives in student voice so the way they spoke I know it was amazing you all were amazing and thank you for that opportunity That's so exciting and I think Dr Waller would be you know communicating with the group and
063she'll probably bring it to your next meeting yeah and I know that we're going to be talking with possibly some other districts about promoting student ambassadors and student voice inset districts and inside schools so that's been really exciting I guess like on that note thank you all again for kind of putting this into like a spotlight I guess the idea that student voice is so important in our district because when Dr sparlin told me like you know maybe other districts would want to try this this and get some insight from you guys on that like I don't know it feels like it's really coming to life you know because if students are like one of the biggest parts of a district you know it's really nice to see that other districts are starting to see
064that as well in the way that our district is working to achieve that so thank you thank you so much I appreciate you saying that because when we talked at our first meeting last year we talked about Vision right and that was one of the things in part in the vision was to be a model across the state and not only have you presented you know to the school boards in November but now we also have other school districts calling us wanting to have conversation other students of other school districts having conversations with our students on what we're doing so really is very exciting so congratulations truly was the buzz at the conference I have a question one of the things the other things you talked about with what you wanted to accomplish a student
065ambassador and I know Caitlin um this my question might be a little bit more for Anya but was building the a bridge between Administration and students how do you feel that obviously with Dr sparlin and with Dr Waller obviously Mr Gatewood but even beyond the people that you work with day-to-day are you seeing that needle move I think I'm hoping to see it move I know we had that with the um the surveys last year and this year because of the fact that it's the second year in a row that it's happening I've already had more people even people I don't know come up to me and talk to me about that with the fact that we've been focusing on it like advancing the types of voices in our committee and how we're working on
066current like mental health issues I do know that that's not been one of the biggest things that we've tackled this year but it's one of the biggest aspects of why we made the committee so I think actually I think we're actually moving towards that by having a bigger committee now I think we can broaden our Outreach a lot more I think we can start setting up different ways to have students come to us to speak out on the things that they care about because when we administer the surveys it's the people who wanted to take the surveys that were able to take it and a big part of this committee is going out to the people that maybe don't know that they have every right to come forward and speak about their experience as well
067so I think indirectly yes I think I have seen that needle move whether it be people coming up to me or just the opportunities that we have now to help that needle move with a bigger committee I encourage you because I truly believe relationships will help our students positively affect our student outcomes and I think those relationships between our Educators and our students the more we bridge that Gap and show that there's not it's not such a big expense so I look forward to hearing more about that thank you yes because it's not that you we're what people are looking at and looking for is not just anecdotal information but they are looking for evidence-based information which why power in the foundation that you guys are are using is is helping immensely because when you
068call us to action you're calling us to action because you have evidence that something um is is is has there's an issue and that there's a solution to it and it's up to us it's our responsibility to take the action it's your responsibility just to bring us the information and we'll definitely be doing better coming meetings now that we've all gotten comfortable with the new committee and we definitely have some goal outline goals outlined for mental health and subtopics for that so hopefully we'll be seeing that quite soon yes and don't forget the red velvet cake in the I will not trust me I will not all right we're going to move on to 7.2 board committee reports so so so we're going to have a conversation board even though you know like we we
069say that this is a we we meet in the public but it's a meeting how do you say Dr sprawling it's a public it's not a problem right but it's a meeting done in the public right right and so let's talk about our committee reports because one of the things that we have been saying for many months is that we wanted to shorten as much as we can um our meeting so that our community can get on with their evening and um we wanted to make sure that we whatever uh suggestions that were on the table and available to us that we would consider them and so in December I sent you all there was an uh an email sent out from Ursula and it outlined a suggestion which was in order to um avoid
070redundancy in our conversations and then also to document for our community and for our board the committee reports we were asking that when you go to your meeting that you um would let's see what when you go to your meeting that you would ask a couple of questions I don't remember exactly what the questions were they're in your there's there's an email that was just recently sent to you I'll just pull one out right now it was what was discussed yes what actions did you take yep what are the next steps right and that before you left every meeting that you would ask those three questions and then you would forward that information on to Ursula so that in when board docs comes out you would be able to read that and when we come
071to the meeting the only question I'll be asking of you is are there any questions so that's the kind of way that's how we want to go forward which will help in many ways to shorten that that portion of our meaning so what are your thoughts on that well obviously I brought up the uh the issue today um one of the concerns that I have is that especially regarding policy um is that our role as a board is to set policy and if we are not actively discussing it then I'm not sure we're doing our due diligence now with that being said we have a very heavy lift coming up because we just got the draft of our new policy manual which is massive and we are chunking it as a committee and taking on
072different parts of it we will have action items we will have information items and then action items but this committee has put a ton of work into it and so it's incredibly important to highlight for our community for our constituents when we're changing or making or addressing policy we need to really that needs to have the floor here because it's one of the main things of what we do so that was what I really wanted to have this discussion to let the community know that we are changing how we do it but I also am a big believer in pre-work and putting all of those documents online for everybody to read and see but I do believe that with regards to policy specifically we're going to have to have some especially soon some meetings coming
073up where we're going to have some pretty robust conversations um uh Dr Kincaid will tell you Ali will tell you that um having iasb do this workshop with us there's a lot of things we missed there's a lot of things we needed to address and it's going to be really important for everybody to see what those things are so that was where I you know I really wanted to address this from a board issue and regarding teaching and learning can I dress that before you get a teacher so I think that in so what was happening in the past is that the the board committee report we would talk about all of those changes and then the same thing that we had will come up in the information sometimes in the same meeting and then
074we would have the discussion again so I agree with you we absolutely have to have the conversation but we don't have to have the conversation in both places we can have the conversation when in information as opposed to going over it especially if it's within the same meeting and we're of course not saying don't bring it up because there's there's I think the committee report can give context to it to the decisions that was that were being made but we may not have to walk through every single one if we're especially in when we're going to do it in information as well what I my concern is that while I enjoy the the change that we're doing with the Committees I want to make sure that we remain sensitive to the fact that we made
075changes and not everyone in the community agreed with those changes and I don't want their voices to get lost and so if we're now saying we're only going to talk about the I just want to make sure we're sensitive and cognizant of the changes that we've made this year are a lot and so we don't throw anything or push anything under the rug and that we have this discussion in open versus behind the scenes yeah can I interject that real quick to back that up so I mean I I obviously did I voted against the change right so I mean just being transparent um and so I'm fine with the change except for one small problem I have with it and that is that we have actually had quite a bit of community members show
076up to these meetings and and make comments and one of the things I don't want lost in all of this is their voice so I want our community voice to still be a part of that and so one of the things that I've brought in uh when when we report out from our committee is hey this is these are these are the issues that our community members brought into that meeting and I don't want that voice lost so and and I'm not saying I'm not I'm not I'm not saying anyone's suggesting that that's that's not accusatory I'm just making sure and reiterating that that that piece doesn't get lost and I want to make sure that that our community knows that they're going to show up they're going to voice that and that that that
077piece will continue that that's all that's all I'm saying absolutely and I feel like we haven't heard a lot as much about what goes on in the community advisory committee so I'd love to hear a little bit more of that and then with with regards to teaching and learning like especially our last meeting when we reviewed data that those outcomes those student outcomes are why we're all sitting here and so I struggle with how much to I think it's really important to talk about that stuff as a committee so everybody knows what is happening with um with our student outcomes so and that can that be put data be put in oh yeah we can't go over that data in a meeting yeah and we can pre-work it but we have to let the community
078know where that stuff is going to be so they know as much as I would love the entire Community to be watching the board meetings and be fully engaged we know that nobody can really put that much time into a board meeting so I just want to make sure everybody knows where that stuff is Shifting to yeah and I think I think for the sake of transparency you know one of the reasons that we were discussing is that this actually documents it versus before it would be a comment which someone would have to go back and listen to whatever we were saying because it's by far by no means is it trying to remove the voice it's actually trying to document the voice so that you can even see it no I agree that was
079that was you stole my my point oh that's actually yeah I mean it does increase transparency and it does not limit discussion um Jen and I had a little bit of back and forth which was maybe something to consider you know the administrators are leading these meetings and they have they might they might be the best Suited to prepare to deliver a summary that is actually documented on you know yeah well the documentation part yes the documentation part what we what I'm hoping to avoid is a lot of us just don't have bandwidth today to scramble for updates and everything and so it's not fair to Ursula to be like chasing board members and stuff so I talked to Mrs dalquist today and and Dominic and we really need to build into the agendas moving
080forward the last 15 minutes of committee meetings to write those so that Ursula doesn't have to chase people and um honestly we were so we were both in meetings today texting back and forth trying to get something done we just we don't have capacity for more of of that work yeah I mean basically what happened is yeah two there was a Tuesday night meeting I was I had another Tuesday night meeting yeah um for both for the district and then Wednesday I had uh work you know another and not a school district meeting and Thursday I had a district meeting you know at work so I mean so yeah it was yeah it was just uh that was that was very yeah and the whole time I was thinking about trying to get this stuff
081sure I know you were and I think even so at the end of every meeting with the administrator present these three questions are going to be answered and asked ask asked and answered and then just push it on out to Ursula and then she'll get it in board Docs I think we're good and then obviously we're going to have the conversations and information a lot of times or um and then how can we how do we communicate this out like too so Teresa is there something that we could put somewhere to let our community know that you know we're doing uh where they can find the information yeah so we already have the meeting summaries that get prepared after each meeting so I can just include a link there to the full stop full write-ups
082of each of those by repeating dates yep and then Ursula you are already on that document right so as we update it weekly and then we'll just add Teresa to it and then everybody has access to it perfect do you guys like to do give your teaching and learning report sure it's going to be short and sweet um so we did an in-depth review of The Fast Bridge the winter fast bridge data we are cautiously optimistic about the shrinking gender gap between boys and girls possibly due to the literacy framework and that is a very general overview in some grade levels we don't see that Gap closing as fast so that's a very general overview um Faithful is the community going to have access to the data we can make that as part of the
083minutes that we always put out we use our events and put those out in the minute perfect Administration will continue to work with the schools where that Gap exists and is growing or is um still larger than we'd like it to be as well they are also exploring successes that other schools are experiencing to see how we can apply it across the district we are seeing less gains at the upper in the upper grades where there are fewer interventionists and left less differentiation for high achieving students and we will continue to seek ways to improve tier one especially for those higher students and as a board I ask you as I'm sure the administration will um agree and I I don't know if Mrs Jones left but I know she would agree as well to
084support interventionists with our budget this was the first year that fast Bridge was given to all ninth graders is that correct and Mrs dalquist highlighted why it's critical to address any Trends or apps we see and close them before we get to the higher grades because it is much more challenging to close those grades in the upper school I inquired about the use of phonics as a teaching method at the elementary level as there are some false narratives that sometimes that I have heard that and frankly I was wondering that we don't utilize phonics instruction Dr Harmon was at our meeting this week which was great to hear her and she shared that phonics is actually embedded in all of our instruction and that it is not meant to replace any read aloud or comprehensive
085strategies but that is actually a a uh complementary to all of that but that in fact we do have it embedded in all of our instruction the only other thing I would add is uh we went over the math and that was uh particularly for junior high we had a new curriculum the expectation was you would see a decrease in performance with a new curriculum you know initially to spoke to Trend um we're seeing an increase um in math and kind of right away so I just that was interesting well and we also know that after the curriculum review last year I know I struggled with it um it's a lot of money to invest but it is a different way of math instruction lots of word problems and um yeah we talked about that
086it's going to take some time for that to click I don't know what the word is but there needs to be a lot of you know professional development for the teachers to understand how to teach it and so forth but from where what I gather Faith please jump in here we do see that there's kind of some short-term frustration but long-term gains and benefits that will come from that and so it is it is tough at the beginning to deal with you know we don't ever want to see those results but that we do believe that there is a you know something better on the horizon frustrations from the teachers or from the student perspective well maybe I think yes um to both of those as you try something new and then we also knew
087as we piloted those materials because you haven't increased the challenge incrementally through those to then switch as eighth grade when the curriculum that we purchased was assuming that sixth grade and seventh grade was also on those pieces so you make a jump higher skills when you haven't had the scaffolding of the grade levels before that and then any time that you try a brand new tool there is some some learning in some pieces from both staff Administration students before you get into the rhythm of these are the parts that I really like now I understand how to use the technology pieces with that so some of growth and adjustment to a new tool and I'm glad we you bring this up about fast bridge and so forth I was uh fortunate I was gonna wait
088till board member comments on this piece but I'll bring it up now since this came up I was uh uh fortunate to be invited to Boulder Hill one of Boulder Hill's staff meetings since our last um uh board meeting and it was interesting because fast Bridge came up and I listened to a very um uh professional and a very um um in I don't want to say intense in a negative way but I mean the teachers were very invested that's what I wanted invested uh conversation about their data and what was interesting to me is they definitely feel outside pressures uh when it comes to their data and I think it's it's important for everybody to understand um up here and all stakeholders to understand that yes I mean obviously we want high standards and
089we obviously but we need to understand that some of these programs look differently and some of our schools look differently and students are entering different uh at different levels and so some of our programs will see that aggressive growth actually in those later um Elementary grade levels based off of the program and some of them we will see are aggressive growth earlier and we need to understand that we have different programs in this District we have diverse schools in this District um and so we can't just always sit here and look and say what about this school as opposed to this school without having that holistic conversation and that's important I think when we're we're coming to the table and we set we set the tone um and and I hope all stakeholders realize that
090as well I I'm always um happy when people are educating themselves on on everything that's going on and I hope that continues but that means having the whole picture um and and you know you know this if anyone who's gone to any of these schools whether it be Long Beach or Boulder Hill and myself having experience at Long Beach and also at Hunt Club um loved both of those experiences but they are different schools and that's what's that's what makes our district great is having that diversity um but but they do feel those pressures and they see it and and I saw that um saw that come out question you said outside pressures can you define that for me us uh yeah I mean I don't I I literally asked I mean I literally asked
091I said you do know that we do understand that um we we know that certain programs we will see aggressive growth in fourth and fifth grade right and and the answer was they don't they don't know that everybody understands that but it's not just us the community also the community as well they hear they hear things right they feel it um and and I think everybody in education hears and and feels things right now um but and and I'll just say it also like for there's the administration also and and I said uh and I will say I said well I I don't think that's everybody I think that we understand we have diverse schools we have yes we expect growth we expect results I mean I'm not saying that that's not the case right
092and we expect on our side to to give you the tools that you need um I myself am disappointed sometimes in the fact that we cannot give all the tools um that they need and I am somebody who will absolutely put myself out there I don't care and point out that those tools aren't being provided um because it's a two-way street it's it's an open conversation and it needs to be a holistic conversation and it needs to be an honest conversation and um but thank you for asking that because yeah it's those are the pressures they feel thank you one of the things that's very hard about presenting teaching and learning in an update is that the results are so nuanced it is not just about decreasing the gap between genders it is not just
093about decreasing the gap between black and white students it is not about just decreasing um the gaps the the academic gaps between grade levels it is schools and teachers and administrations and what's going on in the world we had two schools that had interruptions I mean there's so much about it and so what is very hard and I think Dominic and I probably questioned faith and Dr Harmon and um and also um Mrs looters and Dan arts and were there as well was okay but what are you doing about uh elementary math in grade four because this is happening and then wait a second but what you know our black students have declined since fall grade three in this school in this school and it's really hard to change at an organizational level without the
094finances behind it so when we talk about very real decisions that we make and what we choose to spend our money on and not choose to spend our money on this is what we're really here for you know so we're not here for a parking lot as much as we all would love to put one in this is what we're here for and when you look at these results it's hard not to say we better be throwing a lot of money at this right because we need to meet our students needs um so while the update is there are some positives there's also some worries too you know some things that we didn't expect to see so I encourage everybody to go look at those and um understand that at the end of the day
095when we make financial decisions it's it's to change these results the can you disaggregate the data to the school to each School level and is there a school Improvement plan that is this information included in their school and Proven Plan okay yes and by grade level and by school and then I may have been referencing me when you're talking about because I did email all of our elementary principles detailed things of here's grade level that looks really great can you identify why it's the outlier or ooh I looked at this and I had questions you know do you know what you're wanting to do to improve because one of the things that you want to do is identify celebrations and have it spread as well as get in and dig into the data and it
096could be that there is a teacher out for a long time on the leave it could have been you know in getting into all of those pieces and what we're really excited about with the data this year is we're beginning to have Trend data and trending is really when you can identify here are the systemic things that are working and how do we push that out there but it comes through not by the aggregate by looking into all the different grade levels even different demographic groups and then how does that tie into school Improvement plans they're watching their fast bridge data they have data Dives the elementary schools after the fall benchmarking and again about halfway through and then after the winter benchmarking and halfway so processes and place to have grade levels as well
097as the school Improvement team dive into that data and ask those questions probably like what you just saw but I do I do want to stress and reiterate very invested to say the least I was very impressed with how invested our teachers are over there in their Style okay moving on 7.3 board member comments does anyone have any I I actually do and I'm sorry yeah and I and I know you know the answers to these doctors Barling but hopefully again it's just an opportunity so that I can because I've been Fielding this so you can help me put this to rest right which is do we need and I'll just give them to you all at once because I know you know they're coming uh do we need to adjust anything due to the
098primary election here in Oswego is Oswego East and other locations prepared to deal with the added traffic and where to direct people is there any added expense to us any disruption to our students and I actually did some work on the last one which is is there any place outside Chicago in Oswego dealing with this I think there are actually uh although I did read that Kankakee is not having a primary election for the first time in 29 years but I'll let you take that over just because I've had that question come in and so I said I would ask it and get a definitive answer for anyone who was wandering the answer is no yes no no thank you at the end you're most welcome no we did we did speak with the regional
099superintendent who in turn spoke with the Illinois State Board of Education in regards to having students in session or you know in attendance when we're with the doing going with the primaries there's no additional expenses we did inquire what the county clerk to ask could we you know is there alternate sites that could be that could be used uh the answer was no they will provide a police officer at each one of the locations parking's been identified uh internal external uh you know entrance and exit to one area one room of the school is it'd be coordinated but provide a signage and things like that for parking so and there won't be any additional costs all right I have one so as we talk about girls doing cool things so OHS and well clearly we
100had conference for wrestling we had 11 placers at OHS and we had eight at OE which is a lot froe they've come a long way and then we also had our first girl what placers uh top eight we had a lot more top three top four but I don't want to single anybody out um but we did have three girls place like for the first time ever so one at oh and two at OE so it was kind of a big deal it's impressive do they have to wear those uniforms as well they're called a singlet special ones to keep their good yeah that's awesome are things together yeah yeah all right 7.4 um Miss comedus is going to give us a update on our Communications and our promise to get back to you about
101opportunities to provide feedback and input regarding uh the search process yes so on the district's homepage now there is a link to a superintendent page superintendent search 2023 page this page is intended to serve as kind of a Gathering site for Milestones as the search continues there is an area for frequently asked questions there's a few places there already there's kind of our Milestone timelines different pieces that'll happen from the announcement of Dr sparlin's retirement you know The rfps Proposal review the different steps that go along with this search there's also a catalog there of any news or Publications that have gone out that were related to the superintendent search we'll continue to add to that and then there's also a link there to questions so if there's any specific questions regarding the process of
102searching hiring the superintendent there's a form there that can be completed and we'll route those questions appropriately through president simelton to get those answers back to the community this is just kind of the initial outline sketch of what this page looks like we did some comparison with what other districts have included and as we continue to survey stakeholders and with the help of the partner that the board chooses for the search additional materials will be added here it is one key component on here to make sure that the public doesn't understand that the board recognizes the importance of the stakeholder input in the selection of this committee so there will be opportunities Avenues tools etc for students staff families and the community to provide input so it's not asking for you to use that question
103box right now to you know give that specific input there will be very formal opportunities to provide that input but if you have questions about how that process will roll out or anything that that question box is available there so there any questions I can answer regards to that first of all great job fantastic do I know that we have a lot of work to do obviously but when depending on what firm we go with they will be conducting um interviews and wow but will we be able to Pivot this to also just like even like an informal survey or yeah okay yeah whatever Avenues you want to utilize to Garner feedback we certainly can house those here I know a number of those places use different tools and stuff so whatever that looks like
104or wherever you land absolutely we can expand on this it's just kind of like kind of like the page we had when we've um you know had the referendums in the past yeah sort of a landing page where we can kind of catalog everything related to this topic so this is excellent I just know that for a lot of families that are working and so forth they may not be or they may not get invited to a an interview or something that I just want to make sure as many people can give us feedback as possible yeah and in comparison with a lot of the other school districts that um have done searches and have sites like this that they do seem to have those types of survey tools available on there for feedback but
105again most of those seem to be originating from the partner chosen to you know conduct the search so as soon as we have that opportunity to meet with that partner then we will definitely expand that thank you yeah yes excellent job thank you so much you're welcome um where it says questions do you have a question it's live now so you can click right on the questions um thing there and then it'll open up a little Google form um they'll come to me initially and then I'll wrap them up in a nice package and pass them on to you can we turn it blue or something so that's exactly yeah something yeah [Music] and the same with the superintendent search on the front page at the bottom can we have like a button or something
106on the home page of the website so there's a superintendent search button it's right next to the covid resources right under the slider that we talk about sorry oh under the Board of Education yeah I was on that that page sorry yeah yeah absolutely we just kind of got this live today it's a work in progress so absolutely we'll link some more stuff there for you and then you're gonna put this in anything that you blast out on your Facebook page so they know where to do it yep absolutely and we'll continue to add to it as more things come up and go out great great love you you're welcome excellent all right 8.1 sent agenda are there any questions on the consent agenda can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda please
107I make a motion to approve all items under consent including 8.1 minutes from the January 9th 2023 Board of Education meeting open and closed session second Miss Doyle I miss Swanson aye Mr Cerrone aye Ms simultan aye Mr Gatewood aye Miss Johnson aye Mr pluger aye motion passes 7-0 9.1 action items of resolution authorizing the issuance of tax anticipation warrants can I have a motion please I make a motion to approve the resolution authorizing the issuance of tax anticipation warrants in anticipation of the collection of taxes levied for the year 2022 by the Board of Education of community Unit School District 308 Kendall Kane and will counties Illinois for educational purposes second and I have two questions on this um how much do we need in our reserves in order to not need these so
108we need about that 20 which is about 52 million dollars and how um if you don't know that's okay because I didn't but much do we have now yeah yep we have about 25 million in reserves which is where this 20 million dollar figure comes from and will we get an update on who buys these yes do you know if you don't have it that's okay you know timeline approximately or not yeah we just reviewed that again with our financial advisor and we're looking at uh selling these by the end of February beginning of March thank you I do have one question as well and I apologize um I'm neurodiverse so I have to answer a lot of questions a lot of times um remember when we over levied okay so we over levied and
109then can you remind me what is happening with that money yeah and uh so what we reported to uh what we reported to the county was that we only needed 33 million but somehow they charged 36 million dollars so what we did is we levied the full amount but then they are abating that um so we're instead of getting 36 million this year we'll get we'll get the 36 million minus the among the money that so the taxpayers will be made whole and then secondly what checks and balances do we have in place for that not to happen again yeah um just I'm in the process right now it's just a matter of every County sends me like I turn in a levy sheet and then they send me a confirmation Levy sheet and I
110sign off on that and make sure that the numbers I give them they've entered them properly into their systems and they give me back that confirmation and then I sign off on those and give them back to them and then yeah following through with the okay thank you and then I and then I measure each County I make sure that the numbers I'm giving because it's a levy for the school district not for each County I'm sure the numbers for every account and working with the counties to make sure that they don't give us the wrong Bill thank you really important because I know that there was a lot of us were frustrated with that and I just want to make sure taxpayers know they'll be made whole but clearly like somehow we got the
111right amount to Will and Kane so yeah do I need to read it again no we made a motion no Mr Cerrone aye Mr Gatewood aye Ms Johnson aye Mr cloger aye Miss Swanson no no Ms Doyle aye Ms simultan I motion passes 6-1 9.2 action item approval of bus trust lease agreement for activity buses can have a motion please I make a motion to approve the five-year activity bus trust lease agreement with Midwest Transit equipment Inc and Santander leasing LLC subject to the school district attorney's review as presented second excuse me Miss Doyle aye Ms Swanson Gatewood aye Ms Johnson aye Mr ploger aye motion passes seven zero nine point three action item approval of bus trust lease agreement can I have a motion please I make a motion to approve the five-year bus
112trust lease agreement for 29 special education vehicles with Midwest Transit equipment Inc and Santander leasing LLC as presented second Miss simulton aye Miss Swanson aye Mr ploger aye Ms Doyle aye Miss Johnson aye Mr Cerrone aye Mr Gatewood aye motion passes seven zero 9.4 action item full of 20 20 calendar can I have a motion please I make a motion to approve the 2023-2024 school year calendar as presented second Mr cloaker aye Miss Johnson no Mr Cerrone aye Mr Gatewood aye Miss Swanson aye Mr Doyle aye Ms simultan aye motion passes 6-1 9.5 action item approval of personnel report can I have a motion please I make a motion to approve the Personnel report as discussed in closed session second Miss Hamilton aye Mr cloger aye Mr Gatewood aye Ms Johnson aye Mr Cerrone aye
113Ms Doyle aye Ms Swanson aye motion passes 7-0 10.1 kind of have a motion to go into closed session I make a motion to enter a closed session under statute 5 ilcs 120-2c1 the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of certain employees and individuals five ilcs 120 C2 Collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedule