001Community Unit School District Board of Education meeting for December 5th 2022 can I have a roll call please Mr Cerrone here Miss Doyle here Mr Gatewood Miss Johnson Mr cloaker President Miss Hamilton present Miss Swanson you stand for pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all so can I have a motion to move the recognition of the pride winners to after the public truth and Taxation hearing motion to move uh item 4.1 Pride winners to after the after item five public hearing on um the um public truth in taxation hearing hi Milton hi Miss Swanson aye Mr ploger aye Miss Doyle Miss Johnson Mr Cerrone aye Mr Gatewood uh motion passes 7-0 5.1 public truth
002and Taxation hearing we will now hold a truth in taxation public hearing for the 2022 Levy we will therefore have two opportunities for public comment tonight the first opportunity will be during this public hearing on the 2022 Levy if you wish to make a comment about the 2022 Levy please make it during the public comment portion of this hearing if you wish to make a comment about some other matter unrelated to the public hearing you may do so during the second opportunity for public comment please make sure that you note it on the comment card during which portion you wish to speak so this is the public hearing convened by the Board of Education and Community Unit School District 308 regarding our requirement for a truth and Taxation public hearing for the 2022 Levy at
003this time I will ask each member of the Board of Education the district's attorney and the district administrators who will speak to identify themselves for the record at this time I would like to ask our administrators to give any additional information and updates on the truth and Taxation public hearing requirements and the 2022 Levy Dr pesky will now give his update on the 2022 Levy thank you as you may recall last meeting we reviewed our Levy presentation in detail but today I just wanted to point out a few illustrative points just so that the public understands exactly what we're doing first of all the levy is what we're asking the county for it's not what we're going to get it's what we're asking them for based on estimates because right now the county doesn't even
004know what their actual assessments are so we have to we have to ask for app to ask for a levy amount the levy what we ask for is typically based on what was extended the previous year so an example of that at this time last year I asked the board of education for to adopt a levy that uh that was about 112 million dollars the year before we got 106. so that was 4.99 it was just below the five percent uh truth and Taxation limit so we didn't have to hold this hearing um and last year while we asked for 112 million we were only legally uh we were only legally qualified for 110 so when the county finished their calculations in uh February March and April they actually determine that no you don't qualify
005for 112 you only qualify for 110. so that's what we got so this year one of the one of the things is um our CPI has been very low the last 24 years anywhere from 0.7 to 2 percent uh this year the CPI is actually at seven percent but according to the property tax extension limitation law we're limited to five percent um to to extend the levy that we got last year so the 110 million dollars were only legally able to get uh five five percent more this year which would be about a hundred instead of 110 it would be 115 million dollars that that in and of itself puts us over the five percent limit where we have to go to a truth and Taxation hearing to let the public know that the economy
006did the economy CPI went up the district is asking for more than five percent um but on top of that there's a little little caveat too if you drive down Wolf's Crossing Road you'll notice all the developments happening down on Eola and by Douglas and in between all of that new property also needs to get added into our eav is that property valued right now like did our property or our eav increased by five million dollars 20 million dollars or a hundred million it depends on how much those developments were built out and are being lived in so for the next few years the county offices are going to be determining how much of those new property that new property is going to contribute to our eav so we build not only the five percent
007because of CPI but we also build in a little bit what we call ballooning the levy we ask for more than what we know we're going to get just in case our estimates are wrong I only planned on there being about 20 million dollars of New Growth so that put our Levy up to about six percent but just in case I was wrong I I'm balloon the levy up to say that what if there's a hundred million dollars in growth and so I'm going to ask the county or file a levy for 121 million dollars knowing that I'll probably only get about 117 million so there was an article that just came out from wspy and I wanted to correct a few things in that article if I could uh number one they started off
008the article saying that this is the second straight year that we've asked for uh nine and a half percent Levy that's not accurate last year we asked for a 4.99 this year we're asking for a 9.58 so it's only been one year that we've done this the last time the district had to actually do a truth and Taxation hearing was in 2010 because uh that's when CPI there were some issues there there was a lot of growth a lot of development so they actually ballooned the levy by 20 percent in 2010 and they didn't get 20 percent more than the previous year but they asked for it they only got what they were legally Legally qualified for so the last time that we asked for more than a five percent uh Levy was in 2010
009um but one one thing we did do is the the the district between 2012 and 2016 they did hold the levy flat and what that means is in 2012 the district qualified for 88 million dollars from the levy well the next year they qualified our Levy goes up about four to five million dollars a year so 88 million it should have gone up to about 93 million the next year and it did then based on CPI it should have gone up to 94.5 million but instead of asking for 94.5 million the district only asked for 93 million they held it flat to what it was the previous year they didn't ask for what they could have legally gotten then the next year they did it again they would have qualified for 95 million but they
010actually only asked for 93 million and then a third year in a row they could have qualified for an additional 96 million but they only asked for 93 million the issue with the issue with the levy is in the issue with not levying or adding the levy to that is you qualify for what you got the previous year based on the true assessed value of all the properties in the district and at the time in 2016 the properties were worth 96 million dollars but the district only asked for 93 so that's what we call in the finance World they left three million dollars on the table you would think that's just for that year but that actually the levy is based on what you got the previous year and then it's multiplied by CPI every
011year after that so in reality we lost on 3 million that year now you multiply that by CPI but yeah you know that was 93 million multiplied by CPI where it could have been 96 million multiplied by CPI so that that has a cumulative compounding effect So based on the three years of not living the full amount the district actually is not realized 35 million dollars in revenue from 2013 to today and every year we will be 5 million dollars less being collected from the taxpayers five million dollars every year because of not leviting the full amount so I hope that that makes sense and that's that information it was a little bit a little misrepresented in the article that came out from wspi but I'll I'll call Mark and find out uh if uh
012he can clarify that with me so that's that's very sobering when you're thinking about 35 36 million dollars that we could have had in our coffers to do so many things for our district and for our students but because the the levee was held flat we work we have missed that opportunity and will continue to miss that opportunity every year to the tune of about six million dollars correct I I think the other point that brings up as well is I think in the article here it seems kind of alarmist it says that we're going to generate 11 million dollars in additional Revenue it's kind of misleading the the truth of the matter is what what the district or the community needs to look at is our tax rate our our tax rate for Education
013last year was about 4.8 percent this year it'll be 4.7 percent so the taxes are going down a percent but the amount of money we're collecting is more so it's a little bit more but the tax rate is less so um I think the thing to compare is what is our tax rate compared to other surrounding school districts and you'll find that our tax rate our operational tax rate is pretty good uh the one thing that adds to and makes Oswego a little bit more uh in terms of the tax rate is we do have our long-term borrowing which adds an additional 1.6 percent so our tax rate goes from 4.6 plus that 1.6 so we're up into the six and a half percent uh margins on our taxes for education and again that 1.6
014percent borrowed tax rate is set to come down in 2027 a little bit then in 2030 and then it'll be paid off in 2034 and then we'll be back to a normal operating tax rate of 4.6 4.6 but that was the referendum that was the referendum 20 years ago 2004 450 million 600 million correct so that's that's a good quarter of the the tax rate correct correct and that was authorized by the community to issue those bonds but there was a tax implication to that we need to pay those bonds off yeah although it's a good history lesson yes the community but let us not forget that that also involved State legislation to allow districts to go that far in into debt and but you're right I mean there was there was the community asked
015they went to legislators in the area and asked them to pass that so that we could do this and that's a piece that's left out many times yeah in the community and I'm not blaming I'm not blaming um our um our our legislator at the time um you know I mean uh listen uh and Tom cross asked what what do you want from us what what can we do to help you and and there was enormous growth at the time there was not a real plan they're um there was just Reckless abandon with growth uh and and that's what needed to get done and um what what sometimes doesn't get realized though is that um just because something happens doesn't mean it goes away uh and we continue to pay and that is why we
016feel the pinch the one thing you brought up neighboring districts that I wish I could see is you know it's interesting to me when I read that article and I read that headline and to be honest with you I don't blame people for reading the headline and getting ticked off right I don't blame people I read the headline I get ticked off and there's nobody walking around saying oh I want a levy I mean I mean my alarm went off at 5am this morning I didn't say yeah good I get to get up this morning at 5am so there's nobody walking around saying oh can I please Levy this year right um that that's that's there's nobody doing that right um but it's interesting to me that when Yorkville Levy's above five percent they don't
017quite get the same headline as Oswego and that's very fascinating to me and as I tell people what's not being said is almost as imperative and interesting as what is being said and that's fascinating so it's not about whether we Levy or not that's that's very interesting and I'll ask this question because I know you're going to get this and I was going to ask later but I'll ask right now so if we don't lebby can we balance our budget without cuts no I think in our last Model we looked and if we did not Levy we were about 0.6 million dollars in cuts for next year if we don't collect the full Levy if we don't love you can I can we build that 20 fund Reserve by 2026 without cuts absolutely not if
018we don't Levy can we build a general maintenance fund which is has nothing in it right now without cuts absolutely not okay so nobody wakes up and says can I please Levy Nobody Does that the real question is do we love you or do we cut that's the question I think a better title for this article would have been the state of Illinois considers larger tax levies because of CPI it's not just Oswego yeah so one of the things I was thinking about when we talked about um the opportunity lost for that 35 million dollars was in like 2015 2016 that's when our Board of seats were full of people because we were cutting um teachers we were cutting uh all sorts of things because we didn't have that 35 million dollars and I remember
019over like the next two or three or four years we had to cut 25 million dollars wait what's this four it was four years of pain yeah four years of pain um because we didn't have the money to do the things I mean we were cutting Junior High Sports and we were cutting Administration stration staff we were cutting teachers because we didn't Levy we were raising class sizes we were increasing our fees there was there was four years of less that we went through and those things have not gone away no like like there are times where like I still feel these things today and and like I could see those as being the residual and fingerprints of those cuts from those four years it's not like we have gotten out of the woods and
020and information yeah go ahead no I just if I may say so Jared to your point of what we're not talking about but I'd like to bring up one tonight which is the role of public education in our community and those that value it and those that don't and I think um you know when I vote tonight I'm voting on it because I truly and whole wholly believe in public education and preserving democracy like in you know it from the local level up and so you can't be disappointed in the fact that we have busting issues of the fact that our buildings are are um crumbling or the fact that we don't have air conditioning one day or the fact that we don't have um or that we have high turnover all of that stuff
021matters and all of that stuff at the end of the day you know if you want to say something about it on social media or or somewhere else that's great but then you've got to come with a solution right and so that's what I think people are forgetting and then the compounding interest of not loving over time has such a crucial and negatively dramatic impact on all of these things and so I think that's incredibly important and then one other question I have is and maybe it's me but who who is no longer on the board because we're now a six-member board so did I say yes in the article they talk about a six-member board they forgot about number seven okay okay so we are still a seven member board yes yes we are
022okay thank you very much for that clarification and and and just and you know I was gonna talk about this later but I mean as long as we're on this topic um you know they're they're projecting a surplus in the state budget this year and next year but everybody's warning that in the third year there's a deficit coming and I mean we have to prepare for that and and when we did those projections with ebf without ebf you're talking about four million dollars yeah right so I I hey again nobody wakes up in the morning and says please can I love you today no one says that there's no one running around saying that but let's have the real conversation you want to cut or you want to Levy hey if you want to cut
023come with your list so I appreciate the one thing I do like about these hearings is we have another opportunity to address the impact of levying which is an important part of what we do so I appreciate the input from the board and and asking the questions to kind of pushing the administration to really find out financially on a local Revenue Source why are we where we are I think we're getting closer to really understanding that but at this point in the hearing too unless there's anything else I think just turning it over to the community see if anybody has any questions or comments about the levy okay so we moved to 5.2 public comment on tax levy is there anyone who would like to make public comment on the tax levy okay let me
024read this and now the board asks members of the public to comment on the 2022 Levy 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 the comments are limited to three minutes per person and that neither the board nor Administration will be answering any questions during this time thank you for your comments foreign I'm also a Township Trustee so we're doing our Levy right now as well and so my question is and whether you can answer this right now or not but um so I have my spreadsheets for Township and they broke it down and like they get gave an example here of a home worth 278 thousand dollars and then they break it down for
025us and say if we do zero percent Levy the taxpayers get a 42 Township is way less money um we get a 42 Cent credit or if we do a one percent increase we get we raise the taxes by 13 cents for this one taxpayer and then two percent it's 68 cents and so forth so do you guys have this breakdown and then also like we were also able to tell um they were able to tell us already that if we didn't so if we don't increase our Levy we would lose out on new construction right now it's around 10 000 but they had a number and I I know it's still estimates but do you have these numbers and do you have a breakdown or do you guys get to see how that looks
026for the taxpayers yeah Donna and what I would say is if you look at our meetings last month is that okay so we're not answering any questions during this time and so you he will need to get back with you or you need to you will need to connect with each other okay all right thanks all right thank you very much okay so at this time we will close the public hearing if there are no there is one oh there's one more oh oh come on up start of the moment name is Scott Pugsley and actually I was going to address this gentleman right over here to make comments one of them right about asking a question right so I guess and then Donna asked a question and you said well we're not answering questions
027so I guess and I don't really have a question to ask if you're not going to answer the question but I figure I'm going to do it anyway no 4.99 is that a tax levy so the question is do we have a tax levy or not is the 4.99 a tax levy or is the increase over the 4.99 and if you can give your name to um Ursula she will make sure you get the answer to that question okay and I'll definitely follow up with you on that one sorry okay now we're if there are no oh come on um yep Kevin Johnson uh senior vice president for a financial services company and and I understand the levy process I've been with companies before we've had to reduce budgets by 500 million dollars so I
028would like to provide assistance and looking at your spreadsheet we had to decide things you can't do understanding that the taxpayers have already been hit with is that accommodated with another understanding what you're going to Levy I hear what you're saying year over year but every year is not the same So within the company we have to look at the economic situation of America regardless of what happened last year or four years ago before Michael or what might happen next we're in the midst trying to understand the recession that's coming and those have to be in the thoughts for anything that you do there might be schools that don't get built because people can afford to do those things companies can't get the things that they need because they might not exist because you have
029to understand all of these items look at all the items on your list and start prioritizing I know you guys know this but sometimes you got to do things that are on probable in order to not impact the taxpayer who's already eating a packet and will further be impacted by can't continue to ask them for mistakes made in the past you just can't do it but if you I would love the opportunity to sit down with whomever has to make these decisions to share my experiences throughout the last five to ten years and how we had to go through and make some hard decisions in order to meet that budget without impacting the minimal amount of the public that we had it's possible but you just can't look at it year over year it doesn't
030work that way your home budget doesn't work then the other budget so just like the opportunity to sit down like there might be some frivolous items need to be on the list can't afford to be on the list and this economic time so you have to look at things economically not year over year it still work that way thank you Mr Johnson if you'll just see Ursula for your information be happy what's going to make a regular public comments great thank you all right is that everyone so at this time we will close the public hearing we'll move back to 4.1 recognition of Pride winners all right item 4.1 is to recognize our teachers and staff as part of our pride program so I'd ask the board to please join me up front as we
031honor our recipients for the month of November and December given the two short months with breaks in November and December we did combine so tonight is our November December Pride recognition program winners tonight we acknowledge our pride winners 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 the teachers of the month are sponsored by Allied First Bank this recognizes what our teachers do day in and day out for the continued growth and success of our students awardees as your name is called please come forward to be congratulated by the board and Dr sparlin congratulations to the following teachers for having been recognized as the November December teachers of
032the month Stephanie Allen interventionist at Oswego East High School [Applause] Beth pergodich English teacher at Oswego High School [Applause] Caitlin Willman interventionist at Grant Park Elementary [Applause] and Julie Wolfe speech and language pathologist at Will's Crossing [Applause] we congratulate each of you teachers and at this time we're going to invite any of our building administrators that are present here this evening to come forward and join our awardees and the board for a photo foreign thank you all congratulations [Applause] our our next awardees this evening are the employees of the month which are co-sponsored by Chick-fil-A and Huntington Learning Center this award is given an appreciation of our employees who go above and beyond and are always willing to lend a hand awardees of your name is called please come forward to be congratulated tonight for
033our November December employees of the month we present Kelly Budd principal of Lakewood Creek Elementary [Applause] and also Nicole Weaver school psychologist at Fox Chase Elementary [Applause] and again at this time we'll invite any building administrators present this evening to join their employees in the board for a photo foreign congratulations to all of our winners this evening and we thank our generous District Partners Allied First Bank Chick-fil-A Huntington Learning Center and Culver's for helping to make this program such a success we'd also like to thank each person who nominated individuals this month thank you oh Ursula do we have any noise okay okay bye okay is that high volume or no regular okay okay 6.1 public comment on behalf of the Board of Education I would like to thank the public for attending tonight's meeting
034we 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 discussion during public comment follow up to your questions or concerns will be addressed by Administration through the contact information provided on the comment card thank you Kevin Johnson I just had a comment came to my
035attention that there was a book removed from the curriculum To Kill a Mockingbird and as I watched over the pandemic over the last couple of years and watched this community be torn apart by differences of opinion and some of the things that were being discussed around whether this book should be in the curriculum or not it saddened me to understand the reasons for why I think that we're Sheltering our children a bit um I'm a father within a mixed family and I'm responsible for the way my kids behave and teach them my philosophies about life there's no word in any book that's going to destroy that they need to understand American history The Good the Bad the Ugly to understand how we've progressed we can't hide that from them it wasn't hidden from me and
036I think it benefited Me overall I manage a team of 300 plus people all disciplines all countries and the things I learned in school from the variety of things that we read not always good but I learned to think for myself over time and decide for me what was best it's not like these kids are not going to learn these things outside of the school system at least here it can be controlled now I would say you know things of the sexual nature and things that are age inappropriate that needs to be addressed but as for things that these kids hear every day we give these kids phones like it was no tomorrow they could call up anything they want to see in here we can't hide things from them it's not necessary that's the
037parent's job is to control what the kids how the kids learn from what they read and so they can be able to ask questions about the history of this country so I would ask that when decisions like that are made that we understand the things that we went through you know if any of you that are close to my age I'm 56. so there's things that I learned going to school things that were said probably now couldn't be said but I'm better for it I believe that they would be better for it I think we shelter them way too much way too much they don't learn the things they need to learn they have no idea to handle adversity as don't take that from them that's all I got Lisa the Alicia hi my name
038is Lisa di Alessio and I'd like to thank the Board of Education and Dr sparlin for listening to my taxpayer concerns this evening the information that follows is from a post on Facebook's SOS and 308 platform dated October 27th 2022 and was originally sent to the board of education and Dr sparlin on September 25th 2022. the post states that there are 59 teaching assistant vacancies in the district and due to the shortage st-308 is placing district teachers in the TA positions during their lunches and planned periods these teachers are being paid their hourly rates which range from 31 22 an hour to 77.70 an hour to sub as Tas please note the district ta's hourly rates range from 14.50 an hour to 1556 an hour because the district still can't fill all the vacant ta
039positions they are also using contract companies to acquire Tas the district is currently paying the TA Contracting Company people 2.0 over 49 500 a year for one contract ta which equals an hourly rate to the district of 40.71 an hour if SD 308 were to continue using district teachers sub Tas through the end of the school year they will have spent over a half million of hard to earned taxpayer dollars from just two schools in the district I'd like to ask the taxpayers would you like to see over a half million of your tax dollars spent on District teacher sub Tas and contract Tas or would you like to see that money help mitigate student fees activity fees and parking fees if SD 308 is so wasteful in their spending why would any taxpayer want
040to support future referendums the solution is simple raise the starting ta salary to a rate that is lucrative enough to prevent current Tas from resigning and to attract employees from other Industries whose hourly rates are lower than the starting salary the district would be offering Tas Dr sparlin at the last board meeting you stated and I quote when you compare salaries even school districts that have higher salaries are still having issue of filling the teacher assistant positions end quote what you did not mention is sd308 starting today salary it's 14.50 an hour the lowest starting rate of the area districts and although other districts have slightly higher rates Lions Township High School has a starting hourly rate of 18.89 an hour and as of Wednesday November 29th has only one spotier vacancy versus Oswego East
04198 by vacancies in Oswego High School's 10 ta spot vacancies the district is currently paying its teachers a minimum of 31.22 an hour to sub for TAS of November 21st Oswego East had four contract Tas whose combined annual salary is costing the district more than 198 thousand dollars this school year if you were to pay Tas twenty dollars an hour you'd be saving the district over three hundred and one thousand dollars from us we go east alone at the last board meeting Dr putsky spoke of a 20 000 contract agreement and vendor partnership spending threshold what actions are taken once that threshold is hit if checks and balances were in place the district would have seen all of the different ta contracts that were Acquired and the cost to the district at that meeting the
042board members were not aware of all of the TA contracts the district had secured the following companies have or are currently being paid for contract sub Tas AHS Global edu Healthcare Maxim Healthcare people 2.0 and the Stepping Stones group I'd like the board to follow up with me on the answer to this question exactly how much money has the district spent as of today on contract and District teacher sub Tas I asked that SD 308 set the precedent for area school districts to follow and that it increased ta salaries to a rate that will attract and retain Tas if that rate doesn't work then raise it again I firmly believe that all of the district ta jobs will be filled at a rate lower than the current flow rate of 31.22 an hour the amount
043currently paid to district teachers Subs thank you [Applause] Bernice llamas hello my name is Bernie Sama I was at TA um at oehs for almost five years I truly enjoyed working with the students and staff at Oe I actually miss it very much it was very rewarding last winter my former co-worker and I don Engel was here as well um both made both resigned because we found a job with a higher hourly rate um if ta salaries were raised I would um definitely reconsider returning to a job that I love thank you for your time Michelle Klein hi my name is Michelle Klein an Oswego resident for almost 10 years now with three children I'm here to read an excerpt from a book currently in our Oswego 308 District Library and I'm also asking the
044district to put this and other such books in a secured adult section 18 and older or with parental consent as it currently is labeled under young adult I'd like to remind everyone listening that a young adult is in fact a minor the name of the book is called push it's a novel by Sapphire hurt now again I think my daddy he stink the white drip off his dick lick it lick it I hate that but then I feel the hot sauce hot Cha-Cha feeling when he be me I get so confused I hate him but my be popping he say that big mama your is popping I hate myself when I feel good that's from page 50. page 99 daddy sick me disgusts me but still he sucks me up I nausea in my stomach
045but hot tight in my and I think I want it back the smell of the bedroom the hurt the he slap my face till it sting and my ears sing separate songs from each other call me names put my in and out in and out I come he bite me hard a hump a hump he slammed his hips into me hard I scream pain he come he slap my thighs like Cowboys do horses on TV shiver orgasm in me his body shaking grab me calling me fat mama big hole you love it say you love it I wanna say I don't I want to say I'm a child but my popping like recent frying pan he slam me again his dick soft he starts sucking my titty then my body take me over again like
046shocks after earthquakes shiver me I come again my body into mine I hate it coming afterward I go bathroom I smear on my face this is in the high school for minors to read and I know there are plenty other that are labeled under young adult can you please look into the books that are being approved into our district thank you Margie hardigan good evening president simelton and the District board members my name is haraji hardigan and I'm a resident and taxpayer in the district since 2006. on top of being a taxpayer I hit the trifecta I am also a special needs parent and an employee of the district as a special ed teaching assistant my youngest daughter is a junior at OE she is physically challenged along with a host of other issues the
047reason for my visit here today is that as a special needs teaching assistant I can tell you that we are severely underpaid and understaffed I'm here asking that the school board members do something to change this I am also here to represent the special needs Community which is the largest minority group in the nation her children are suffering our children's IEPs are being violated and they deserve better currently the district is hiring contract people from outside agencies at much higher rates than our employees make we had a contract ta at OE that refused to assist with toileting duties for her student she didn't take the time to find out how to help her student be successful this mostly nonverbal student was troubled by this ta who didn't make an effort to make her more feel
048more comfortable so the student acted out this contract ta who was making at least ten dollars more an hour than every other TA in this District quit last week because she couldn't handle the magnitude of the job she lasted just a few short weeks at the same time the district is using teachers to fill in for our vacant ta positions not sick calls not personal leave unfilled positions our pay is so minimal that no one is interested in taking the job teachers are suffering subbing an average of 28 class periods a day at our school alone they are by contract making 31 to almost 80 an hour they're working through planned periods and lunches to fill the vacancies however oftentimes they are not present the entire class period and are working on their own clothes
049their own class work rather than assisting students in the classroom while they're filling the late the legal obligation that the district has to have staff members in the room they don't even engage with the students if the district paid a higher wage in order to attract Tas and entertain the ones that we have those Tas would be creating relationships with the students they would know what their IEP accommodations are and would make sure that they are met they would be trying their best to help the students achieve their Highest Potential I'd like to tell you about my first year that I transferred here to OE I was assigned as a one-on-one with an autistic freshman student who turned out to be a very difficult student to work with it took him a long time to
050trust me and feel comfortable around me as is typical with many special needs students eventually he realized that I was in his Corner one afternoon in March he got off the bus and was angry about something he entered the building and threw his backrest backpack across the hallway almost hitting a group of students then punched a door and a fire extinguisher case he picked up his backpack and came straight to find me as he knew that I was the one person that would help him calm down before he did something that he that would likely hurt him or others this is the same student who didn't even acknowledge my presence for weeks it took a long time to establish that trust and create the relationship that we had but that's what we do we put
051in the time we get to know our students we figure out how best to help them and that doesn't happen when teachers are just filling a space or when contract Tas are there and don't have a vested interest in the district the school or the students this wasteful spending on contract Tas and teacher subbing as Tas rather than raising the rates of the Tas across the board is hurting students creating a hostile work environment and bringing down morale to an all-time low last week our school lost another ta to a higher paying job I can think of about five more that have left in the recent past and I guarantee you she's not going to be the last on tonight's agenda the finance department has given you a breakdown of contracts please make note that
052these expenditures are through last year I ask you to please ask them for the same report from the start of this fiscal year through the current time you will be shocked at the hemorrhaging of funds this needs to be fixed and note that it doesn't include the ridiculous amount of salary overages being paid to teachers that are subbing as Tas that's contracts only I will add that I have reviewed line by line the last two Bill listings on the current bill listing the district is paying over seventy six thousand dollars to contract Tas through five different companies that includes the bills where the description is actually listed there's another another ninety seven thousand dollars where there is no description of the type of service being contracted at a starting rate of 14.50 an hour for
053TAS seventy six thousand equates to 4.5 full-time employees for an entire year not a bi-monthly Bill listing I challenge this board to a few things first make ques start asking questions and pay attention to what's being spent second instruct the district to pay more wise choices with their spending such as raising the rates of Tas in order to hire people for the empty position and retain their dedicated staff that we do have and last I challenge each and every one of you to come to OE or any other school in this District that has a special program don't just come on a tour actually spend a minimum of a half a day shadowing a special ed ta you will be shocked at what we do and when you realize that the teaching assistant staff starting
054at 1450 that's when you will realize that the teaching assistant staff starting at 1450 deserves a wage adjustment I thank you for your time foreign [Applause] item 7.1 is a budget presentation uh this is one of our annual monthly reports that are provided to the Board of Education through our strategic plan so Dr petsky it's all yours great and again this is uh our Envision 308 strategic plan just an update on the budget element items that we had where we were where we are and where so uh the three uh budget priorities that we have are listed in the dark blue so first is maintaining a balanced budget each year the second point is to build a 20 fund balance uh reserved by 2026 to avoid short-term borrowing and then also explore ways to increase
055private and grant funding the other two in light blue are related to the facilities and we'll talk about those at another time so where we were are indicators of success this time last January we had our goal which was to just to kind of continue to monitor our expenses in revenue and stay current on federal state and local funding sources and at that time we said that our indicators of success were to get more training in the finance department on infinite Visions since we had implemented that system during covid and migrated to that system to really see now that we had a year and a half under our belt with uh with the new system how that was working identify systemic supports for infinite Visions budgeting accounting and monitoring take a look at the continued
056focus on budget assumptions and District priorities and then also to involve the finance and facility committee on a deeper understanding of the levy process budgeting and state evidence-based funding metrics that we use in addition to our our audit so this next slide just kind of talks about some updates on the budget so based on that goal what's happened um I'm happy to say that we've had several finance department people including myself participate in infinite Visions training they actually offer certification so we're certified Finance systems users and we were able to create a host of training for school secretaries and buildings who to kind of better assist their financial responsibilities uh We've also been able to establish a budget manager process with monthly Financial oversight so looking at the bills that are paid and looking at
057the budget managers what they're spending where they are with their budgets and uh offer uh any support that we can in that area that's also reflected in every month we provide the Board of Education with a financial report which has our kind of cumulative spending year to date and that's one of the reports that we monitor in the finance department uh we also are continuing just a deeper focus on budget assumptions and District priorities in our budget planning process as we move forward we've got a standing agenda item with the finance and facility committee so at any meeting we can talk about the budget the levy where we are with those processes The Collection things of that nature and then we've also conducted a historical review of The District's budgets from General state aid and
058the impact that evidence-based funding has had for the district so we've we've been very busy in the finance office and looking forward to moving on so where we're going this next year you'll notice here the goal has changed from where it was in 2021 on monitoring expenses and revenues now we're actually onto a larger expense in Revenue so our 2223 goal this year is to have the HR department and payroll department work together on a position control study as you know we've got a 250 million dollar budget and of that 80 to 85 percent of our budget is salary and benefits so that's about 200 million dollars so um what we're doing is we're right now coordinating that transition of payroll uh it's uh it's been very interesting the coordination there's a huge financial element
059in the payroll operation for the district but because it's 80 to 85 percent of the budget but it's also the Staffing picture so HR with the position control has quite a bit of quite a bit of information that we uh we are getting to the bottom of we've trained hired and trained two new payroll coordinators in infinite vision and that's been happening since uh July August and September and they've been taking on the payroll responsibilities uh We've conducted an operation Department office staffing review and position control so before I go out to the rest of the district to see where we are with those positions we actually have done that for all of our departments so Finance technology um transportation and buildings and grounds uh we've done a staff staff position Control process for that
060so I'll be working with our finance department to see how to bring what we've learned through our own internal position control to the other departments uh we uh we are implementing uh as you remember from the last slide we've established a budget manager process it's one of those things where you don't really bring people together to say hey today we're going to talk about that you know budgeting it's you kind of do it in secession so what we do here in January and February we are going to once again be meeting with all the budget managers to start talking about their spending for this year where they are at mid-year and what they're going to be looking at for their budgets or their needs for next year and that's where we work in these budget
061manager processes and priorities so to make sure that the buildings are aware of or the budget managers are aware of those assumptions kind of right now the budget you know I'm new to the position as well we've been doing a lot of incremental line increases budgeting like one percent per year this is where we start talking about eventually looking at some different items where can we differentiate between something that can be a zero-based budget line item versus something that does have to be incremental maybe it's a school Improvement goal maybe it's a one-time purchase so we'll be taking a look at those different budgeting models with our managers we've also got a continued focus on budget assumptions and District priorities working with all the departments on what those needs are and the big thing too
062is creating more education opportunities so last year we focused on the finance facility committee and we've kind of got that up and running and this year we've had the privilege of working with the community Advisory Board in helping more community members get a deeper understanding of local Revenue state revenue metrics and to help Advocate or educate their their people in the neighborhood so that they can they can help understand where we are financially so that's when it and that is where we're going so that's the budget item the second one is building a fund balance the second goal that we've got so here last year our goal was to explore the current budgeting practices and align our district educational needs here we work with forecast five to build accurate projection models for near and long-term
063revenues we've tied District priorities to those models as we project out our needs and we formalize that cash flow so how do the fund balances that we have on hand affect our cash flow as you know for a school district we basically receive two large Revenue sums in the year and uh yet we we spend money every month twice a month on a regular basis so uh aligning the cash flow and making sure that the fund balance we have is aligned to those projections and as you know we have to borrow money to the tune of about 25 million dollars per year for our cash flow purposes because we do not have the fund balance so we have to borrow money to pay our cash flow until we realize our revenues that's a conversation that
064we've been having quite a bit so what success did we make there well based on that goal we we did work with forecast five and we have really tuned in the five-year projections and we've got a really good understanding of all of the elements in those models we've also continued to tie specific District priorities in operation so our staffing our capital projects our technology projects things that are critical to be addressed and and align those with our revenues and the uh the expenses associated with them in this regard we developed an updated five-year projection with a budget surplus this year of 4.1 million dollars for FY 23 with that four million dollars in Surplus we will see uh an increase from our fund balance from currently 10 to about 12.6 so that's kind of the
065like I said we're looking to get that fund balance up to and uh we'll be at about 12.6 at the end of this year and then finally just working with PMA to develop a little bit more formal cash flow reporting process we're actually doing that this month um to see about as we prepare for tax anticipation warrants in January making sure that we've really dialed in our cash flow when we receive our revenue and when those expenditures are expected so we can limit both the amount of money and the length of time that we borrow our tax anticipation warrants so in terms of fund balance our next goal away from just exploring those budgeting practices and alignment of our educational needs our goal for the fund balance for this year is to provide training and
066professional development for central office staff and administrators on budget implications and considerations based on those projections I don't think people really realize how important that 20 fund balance is to the district so we're expanding the utilization of forecast five they have other modules that we can use that can show District comparisons our district compared to our comparable districts or the state of Illinois in terms of reporting some of the revenue and expenditure uh scenarios that we have and linking that to if we had a fund balance or a higher percentage of a fund balance we also are reviewing District priorities um and as I said earlier we're looking at kind of looking for opportunities to see if there are some zero-based budgeting areas um and then continuing to follow five-year projections to maintain budget surplus
067to build those fund balances the only way that we can build the fund balance is to take in more Revenue than we spend every year and so having that Surplus budget is critical to building that fund balance uh and then utilizing our community advisory committee members to again better understand and educate our about our financial position I think we've made some really good Headway there um now it's a matter of providing them some fastbacks and some one-page resources that can kind of help them focus on the portions of the conversations that they may need while they're working with different community members out there and our last goal is private and grant funding indicators so the goal for 2122 was just to network and educate local community leaders about our financial position and our needs and
068at that point our indicators of success were to identify educational priorities for Grant and private funding opportunities to attempt to connect with the ptas and ptos and booster groups to share District priorities to find out if there were some ways they could contribute to our our needs and then to continue to participate in shared Service Groups so the the progress that we made there we have identified educational priorities to guide Grant and private funding we're actually able to apply for a few grants early uh we've been able to continue to participate in monthly shared services meetings with the village of Oswego the Oswego library in the Park District we have reviewed and renewed our intergovernmental agreement with those groups we've also expanded our relationship with the city of Aurora and I meet monthly with them
069on the different developments and priorities that are happening within the city of Aurora that impact our school district and we've applied for isbe construction maintenance grants digital Equity grants and just recently Heather Kincaid applied for an emergency connect or I'm sorry not the we've also applied for emergency connective funding uh Grant so those three and then Heather has taken the lead on the U.S Department of Education school-based Mental Health Services Grant which we'll find out if we qualify for at the end of the month so so the goal here changes from our Network and network and educate local community leaders to actually identify and apply for appropriate private and grant funding opportunities I'm excited about this as I said we've already applied for four new grants as you saw in the last slide and we're
070going to continue to identify and apply for isbe and other grants identify and expand the number of private Grant funded opportunities educate and more actively participate in purchase cooperatives Omni and sourcewell to help lower some of those expenditures and then also reach out to some of our business and Roundtable groups a lot of the meetings that I attend with the shared services groups they talk about Connections they have with these business roundtables and I think that's something that our business office will start to be a little bit more active in to kind of get a little bit more exposure to other community groups that might have some funding resources as well that's kind of where we've been where we are and where we're going in terms of The Envision 308 plan and uh I I
071believe that in in my opinion I believe that we're making progress and uh we'll continue to monitor these goals as we move forward so I know that's a lot of information but uh just wondering if the board had any questions about the work that we're doing yeah go ahead Jennifer no this is actually Lori Lori go ahead Lori so can you refresh my memory about this time last year what had the do you remember about where you had thought the not used specifically but where we as the district had thought um that we would be at the end of five years I think I'm if I understood correctly you're saying that currently our projections show a fund balance of 10.5 percent at the end of five years believe it was significantly higher last year is
072that correct uh it was it was 10 last year we were looking at it was a it was a little bit lower because we were only expected to have about a 2.6 million dollar Surplus so it was about 11 and a half percent and we ended up coming out with a 4.1 million dollar Surplus so we're at a 12.6 what you might be thinking about is at the end of 2026 based on our evidence-based funding projection models we are only projected to be at about 17.6 at the end of five years but that's if our evidence-based conservative evidence-based assumptions stay the same what we're hoping and uh what we're hoping is that the state of Illinois will fund evidence-based funding to a higher degree uh last year they they funded it 300 million dollars more
073to which uh us our school district uh ended up realizing instead of the 4 million dollars we were expecting we realized nine million dollars and this next year there's talk about them funding it at about 500 million dollars so if the evidence-based funding model is funded a little bit more adequately then we will see that 20 percent at the end of five years [Music] the reason I'm asking is a little bit different I think um so let me just explain a little bit why I'm asking um I'm seeing that some of the extra spending we're doing is closing the gap in these extra funds um so what I'm asking this question for is to see if my my general understanding is that we're actually lowering um the increase of five thousands it's not that the
074fund balance is necessarily getting lower but the amount of the increase is lessening is that I sense and is that an accurate representation um I'd I'd have to look into that one I'm not exactly sure what numbers you're you're looking at to see the lower the lower percentages okay yeah so yeah if you could please because my concern is that I'm hearing that and then in the next section I'm hearing um that there's interest in expanding and purchasing more services to better understand our forecast without her listening so I just want to make sure I'm understanding that that's the the recommendation that you have is that we purchase more services to explore why our fund balance isn't is that accurate that that the purchase services are to help us understand why our sun balance isn't
075growing no um the there are already modules that we own through forecast five they're they're modules that we have um that we will be we will be implementing it's not an additional cost outside of the forecast five model that we use and when I said that we're looking at purchase Services what we're looking at doing is maybe consolidating and we'll actually have a conversation about that later today with our vendors and contracts we're going to be looking for opportunities to consolidate our purchasing and lower our lower how much we're spending on some products and services so that we can realize a higher cost savings or realize a higher uh fund balance as a result of the savings from those services okay so let me just thank you for that that makes total sense um so
076I I guess my final thought is is it accurate for me for me to understand that the the five year projections that had been given out maybe like fall of 21. um right when we were beginning to see some of those as their funds those projections had us up around the 50 million Mark in 2025 2026 after the five years from that point right that's the case we're not looking at these 50 million dollar surpluses in our forecast right now yeah I'd have to pull those up and find out but they they did change uh last year my first year I went on the assumptions of previous CFOs and data that was in there and this year we fine-tuned it and I feel more confident in the projections that are reflected in our current five-year
077models okay yeah thank you for that that's what I want to make sure that we're stressing especially to members of the community that are still learning how this all works um that these things do change pretty significantly year after year um I appreciate that thanks yep thanks Laura a couple of things that I just want to clarify so you said the budget was 250 million right is that correctly approximately I'm I'm don't worry I'm not gonna ask for the last penny but 80 of the budget is um basically celery celery benefits so I mean we're service industry um it's not I'm always fascinated and always interested in with um uh you know having having been up there and sat up there uh under the bright lights um in the midst of of cuts over four
078years I'm always I'm always fascinated and interested when um I hear about um efficiencies right um because I've I've I've said this before right like if we were really wanting to be efficient right if we really wanted to be efficient we would look at the one thing in Illinois that makes us a unicorn there's one thing in the state of Illinois that makes us a unicorn right it's not pensions there's other states with pensions um it's not uh property taxes believe it or not there's actually a state with higher property taxes than us there are other states with higher property taxes but there's one thing that makes the state of Illinois a unicorn so I'll say it again and that is and it causes problems by the way with with labor and that is the
079state of Illinois is the only state that has school districts that are Unified pre-k through eight hey you know where I'm going with this don't you buddy and also 9 through 12. that's what makes us a unicorn and it causes issues and problems and that's fine and dandy and that's great to talk about uh to go down the path of cuts but if we really hey if we really wanted to put our money where our mouth was right we would say hey why do we have how many school districts are there is it 800 800 plus school districts right in the state of Illinois but the problem is it doesn't matter whether you're red or blue as soon as you start talking about taking away my local school district oh I get upset I get
080mad there's your inefficiency and so you can point the fingers at your neighbors all you want but when you have let's see was it two school districts in Newark good old Norseman the Newark Norseman I remember them I used to play them in basketball every year um and they have two superintendents no offense Dr sparlin make more than you and I'm pretty sure we can fit all of their students easily in one of our schools right there's your inefficiency um but good luck with that because Newark loves their small gym and they love their school um I also believe we have no money in our maintenance fund is that correct so if we were funding our maintenance fund I don't know with anything but let's say we were we were we were funding our maintenance
081fund properly would we have a surplus uh no no we would not have a surplus no we would not have a surplus we would not have a surplus if we were and that cost us money and it's also interesting that when we point finger at neighbor or the kid down the street and we say hey we're going to make cuts what's interesting is that's usually our most vulnerable student who paid the price and so I'm interested I'm always fascinated I'm always interested when the the people that hey you you want to do this you want to do that but realize when you're under the bright lights and you're making those cuts and you ask those questions and boy you ask those questions let me tell you you really ask those questions because you want to
082know because you don't want to hit your most vulnerable let me tell you there's no way around it that's who ends up getting hurt and when you say hey we're gonna have to figure out how to do with or without and all that stuff what usually happens is we know that usually means we're going to say hey teachers Tas show up with your own stuff and figure it out yourself and that's not fun either so 250 million dollars eighty percent of it goes towards the service part because we're a service industry no money in our maintenance fund and if we were actually funding that we'd have a deficit budget that costs us money by the way because we're not servicing our facilities properly so things are going to go out quicker than they should and
083I'm here to tell you I was going to wait to talk about this but I'll say it now six legislators Republican and Democrat you're right they said hey good news on ebf this year you're probably looking at 500 million that's great news probably 300 million the year after that but we don't know what we're going to do the year after that because the state is looking at 800 million dollar deficit and this district is dependent on ebf and a levy because we have how much in the maintenance fund zero dollars so have fun cut List have fun with that Dominic yeah I have a question and a comment for Dr sparlin if I'm not go ahead be at the end of all of these Envision 308 uh presentations there is a uh line chart or
084whatever you want to call it a bar that basically says where we're at who comes up with that we're making progress we've attained it we're holding we're progressing where does that come from that would come from uh conversations at the cabinet level but that's uh what that is uh Ms Johnson is uh what we felt um but what we're asking there is what the board feels based on the goals for the year and the presentation and the information that's provided because ultimately uh it's it's you who decides where that Arrow falls on that continuum okay and this isn't really um with regard for Dr peske's presentations tonight but in general Dr sparlin I'd really like to see you sit down with um your presenters your Administration you know we continue to get these three Envision
085308 updates and frankly I just think it I don't know it's the best use of our time um Finance doesn't just happen in December curriculum doesn't just happen in July for example and so just a suggestion and maybe somebody else has another suggestion or maybe the rest of the board is fine with this but I would just really rather see a one chart and here's where here's the highlights for finance here's the highlights for curriculum here's the highlights for something else all of this lives on the website and I I just to be read too is just I don't feel as an efficient use of our time we are in the EDU Business of Education I would like to see all of this driven towards our goals and our student outcomes and the efficiencies that
086we're creating against those and how we are actually um economically efficient with our taxpayers dollars so I'd really like to see a different um presentation of Envision 308 this is we've all read this ahead of time it's available for the community ahead of time it lives on the website so I'd really like to see this look different moving forward if if other board members agree and I believe that Mrs Doyle and I have asked at least for a while if we can see our goals tied to finance and um connect the dots for if we're using money efficiently so I'd like to see that moving forward I agree with Jen I especially about um the the length of the presentation this is all information that we do have available publicly and to ourselves um and
087that's because piggyback off of her question to Dr sparlin and just asked is there a rubric that's used to determine regression holding study and making progress and if not if is there some way to kind of more objectively evaluate that that we could could get a better support uh yeah Mr Doyle no there's not there's not a rubric that is something that we could uh look into this is what we presented when we created the Strategic plan and uh but as you know they can we can always change at the uh for whatever the board would like to see opportunity to Ping our community members and the taxpayers to see how they feel about the progress that we're making I think it I think it will keep us more accountable and um kind of hold
088the mirror up are there any other questions from the presentation Dr petsky just gave all right hearing none we'll move on to item 7.2 hold on wait can I can I make a motion to move 8.4 up since our student ambassadors have been sitting here for almost two hours and have a lot of AP tests tomorrow second yeah he talked about that okay thank you so much you're welcome um so a couple we have to actually vote oh sorry yeah yeah we have to actually vote on it so someone secondly Mr Gatewood Miss Doyle I Miss Johnson let's just throne yes Miss simulton aye Mr ploger aye Ms Swanson hi motion passes seven zero kid 8.4 student ambassador report thank you um so a couple of weeks ago some of our ssac members um were
089lucky enough to accompany our district members as panelists for the joint annual conference with the Illinois Association of school boards um we learned a lot of things at the conference but the first thing we noticed was the amazing number of District leaders across the state that were so committed to increasing student voice in their respective schools we even talked to another student ambassador who is having some conflicts within her own school doing student Advocacy she was trying to build her own committee so being there and being able to speak with people who held similar and different titles than us and had very different experiences with the concepts of student voice and their learning environments shine light on the weight of being there and the weight of the responsibility that we were holding so I think
090that was one of the biggest things that we realized going to that joint annual conference at the conference itself we discussed the importance of teacher to student communication student to student representation and administration to student connections which is the biggest part of our job as student ambassadors specifically as we work to bridge the gap between our students and our board or even between the students themselves within School culture which is something we're trying to to work on this year I hope that we were able to instill an ideology of unity between these building blocks of our learning environment among our audience especially in a time where there's a lot of Divisions between our community with differing ideas which was mentioned earlier between our students between faculty and I think I just kind of wanted to
091be there with our ssac to represent how student voice is one of the pieces to kind of putting back together the puzzle of our community that's kind of Fallen apart in the past couple of years um I think another thing that we talked about a lot was the importance of Shining Light on student voice emotional correctness two-way communication and empathy um and empathy is especially important because we're representing not just our voice but the voices of those whose backgrounds experiences and opportunities within sd308 varies so greatly from ours as do their needs and concerns in ways that we may not experience but we desire to understand and represent here in these meetings and within our committee meetings as well we're thankful for the opportunity to have attended the conference to share our experiences and to
092listen to the experiences of so many other people who share our goals of amplifying student voice in Illinois districts and Across the Nation as well so adding on to what Anya said the triple I conference was an incredible opportunity to share our voice and our experiences and represent not only ourselves but an incredible diverse student body that our district has um so now on to our committee on the 22nd our application for the ssac closed and we want to congratulate everyone who applied there was a huge number of candidates who were very diverse and had a strong range of perspectives that were useful in many ways then we had interviews that took place on November 30th and we're pretty certain on the finalities of the candidates who we're going to select all the application applicants
093however brought a really good perspective and that really showed us that there is a desire to amplify student voice in our district and it really showed that students do want to have their voices heard it was really difficult to narrow who we went down on our committee but we know that the people regardless of if they make it or not that they will use their voices um in order to help everyone in our district now only themselves we really look forward to meeting everyone who joins our like all the new members um and we want to use their perspectives along it with the perspectives we already have to address the various facets of mental health and their sub issues in the coming months very good yeah that's thank you um yes so we got so
094much so much great feedback from um the conference from the organizers of the exceptional job that you all did and they wondered um do they do you realize what you've done like where you've placed not just yourself but the district as well as all students in the state of Illinois and Beyond they said that you all could already and prepared to get a job tomorrow um and you you did us so proud you did us so proud and we're we're just elated and be look forward to more invitations and we had one of the students who came was a graduate she's at DePaul University and she came and she's she was a part of the panel as well and so much great feedback on how she was able to take the experience that she had
095here and how she's applying it to her schooling and her environments and college is is such a key to how we're developing you as leaders and so you're doing such a great job and I just wanted to say thank you for everything you you did great super proud of you [Applause] now you can sneak out and take your APS yeah you can sneak out don't forget to take some goodies in the back all right moving on to item 7.2 was a presentation on Dual and articulated credit that was requested earlier in the year tonight we have Mr Dan artson executive director of high school instruction and K-12 assessments to present welcome Mr Johnson [Music] on each one of these the first one with articulated credit and um really college credit for courses taking that High
096School primarily taught by our high school teachers curriculum is really determined through the curriculum to really determine through in coordination with with valleys and valleys Works between the high school and colleges or local colleges and universities to ensure that our curriculum and professional development needs are met so that way articulated credit can be verified at the next level there you go it worked there we go all right um you might ask how was college credit earned or documented on the student transcript it's a little bit different than the others with articulated credit students must apply for this to be to be granted at the next level specifically at waubonsee community college students must earn a b or higher in these courses and it will appear as an e or equivalency credit at the on the
097waubonsie Community College transcript you see there at the bottom where the transferability between waubons and Community College and other four-year institutions is is really dependent on where the student applies afterwards and that really falls on the student to make sure that that credit is going to be applied for that uh following labonzi Community College a couple of notes there that you must apply for this within two years of graduation of high school and then from there well Bonzi requires a student to actually complete a waubonsie community college course before the equivalency credit is granted on the transcript there is a little bit of a loophole for this too which I can explain later after we go through some dual credit courses this slide here just provides detail and and the hyperlink is is directly to
098a page of our of our course catalog and it lays out all the available options for students to have articulated credit uh through SD 308 dual credits the next option dual credit uh college courses that are taken by high schools Juniors and seniors uh students are are really enrolled both in high school and college at this point courses can be from all departments which is different than articulated credit articulated credit primarily focuses on CTE courses this is this can come from any Department in our course catalog the curriculum is determined by the college or higher institution and we must follow that whether that be textbooks any other related material it must be followed in order to receive a dual credit also mentioned on there who teaches a dual credit course these can be college level
099instructors or it can be high school instructors with their proper credentialing and then again as stated before credit is earned at both the college and high school level and it's reflected both on the high school transcript and college transcript and what's nice about this a successful completion of the course as you see up there uh this will basically transfer to any college or university in the state of Illinois this has kind of gone back and forth over the last couple of years I was actually at a conference on Friday that discussed this and this is the current practice and hopefully this stays this way but this has kind of gone back and forth over some years but this is the current practice and again I provided the link here with the to the course catalog
100of the 15 courses of dual credit Offerman sd308 the final one we're going to discuss tonight advanced placement and AP courses is run through college board High School teachers can instruct this they do AP workshops that basically provide professional development to ensure that the course is being taught taught in the manner in which college board requires and then the curriculum is term determined through AP uh in college board and is reviewed on an annual basis how college credit is earned through AP courses so AP courses a student can take an AP course and not and not earn college credit there's a couple of ways that happens one they cannot they can choose not to take the the test the AP exam which we obviously encourage students to take the AP exam and they also have
101to score a three or higher on that exam in order for it to count towards college credit and you can see up here that the transcript itself only reflects the the course taken so if it was an AP um AP European History For example it would only reflect AP European History in the grade it doesn't reflect the actual um score they receive in the test that goes through college board and then again here's a snapshot of the 36 courses that we have here through AP and our course catalog and then the final slide here gives a breakdown of the financial cost to our students from articulated credit through dual credit and advanced placement courses pending any questions you have I will yeah do we do we know what our course load for dual credit compared
102to neighboring districts that are not outside of obasi community college so I mean like in this case no offense but I I don't care what 204 is offering is because I know they're working through so I'm just curious what our offerings are compared to other districts inside um Avanti do we know where like are we pretty much offering the same thing that everybody else is in wabashi do we have more do we have less do we not know yeah and I it's a great question and I have some data like you said from 204 and things like that and if you're not interested in hearing that that's fine you know there's I mean that's fine but if you have that that's great in addition but I I just I know that we're dealing with wavanci
103so sure um you know I think for the most part um and having not reviewed each and every course catalog offering in the area uh for the most part we fall in line pretty well saying that um you have to remember like Yorkville what feeds into waubonsee as well Yorkville has ivic that they also send students to as well correct which is a huge feather in their cap to have that capability correct right if you're talking about playing field uh playing field numbers look better than ours on paper because they offer 25 dual credit courses um but saying that most of those courses are at Wilco right so which is again something that they can offer that we don't have that capability right now all right which would be nice to have something like that
104but when it comes to just offering the courses within our own kind of purview we fall very much in line with the others having 15 to 16 is kind of common throughout the area can I can I jump into one District that I know personally sure here's the here's the big difference when you pull up the Dual credit offerings here and this has been the bane of my existence for since 20 whatever when we started to try to get this is for instance if you look at our bio West Aurora has a dual credit bio they also have an AP Bio that's not how we run it sure we run it as AP so AP courses are your top 10 kids dual credit is for kids who are trying a college class want to get
105the science credit need to see or better to get the credit so you can get four credits right now at West Aurora for the intro to buy all four more for the human biology but that's not how we're running it in this District which has been an issue for years we're running it as AP Bio sure and then how are the kids getting their credit so so that's my question here is I and then that's where I was going with this it's not comparable so so that's my question that's where I was going with this is this because of priorities that have been set in the past where we have been saying hey we're all on board as you allude to to AP and this is what we want to stress is is that why
106we're where we're at or is it because we just haven't I'm not trying to blame anyone okay but for whatever reason you know Community unit District 308 just haven't been in sync and haven't been able to maybe maximize to the best of the ability well let me offer or is it both let me offer a little different take here so yeah sure AP courses do not require any special credentialing to teach that 100 dual credit requires that that's a master's degree in content correct it does not so not in all areas some in some places it's just 18 hours right and that's one yeah I can read for you exactly what that does because I prepare this is a qualified master's degree or any master's degree with 18 graduate credits toward that desired discipline so
107there's a listing of you can have any master's degree but then you have to have very specified courses correct so in West Aurora for example I didn't know the instructor for that course I have three that are qualified to teach that course and they're qualified to teach the course and I'm absolutely happy to look into what qualifications we have for our instructors to do so I would love to run a dual credit biology course I would love it I don't know if we have anyone right now that has those credentials to teach that here AP biology I don't have to have someone with those specified credentials right right but when this is way before your time I mean we're talking going back to 2013 this is way before your time right I this was this
108was when we first brought it online in West Aurora we tried to bring it here and there was just a myriad of why we can't instead of how do we get it done and and now with everything else that's going on we're still I don't like what I don't want to see what I don't want to see continue because I'm out of here in three months I get 10 more meetings but what I don't want to see is us continue down this path of let's force a kid into AP that really I just want to know if I'm ready for college I really just want to take a course like I I find it so hard to believe that West Aurora can run so many dual credit classes and we can't so so that's why
109I'm trying to figure out right is it is it really because we don't have the staff that has the Masters plus the 18 or and because I'm curious because like for instance I know in the district I teach in very and you know this very generous when it comes to hey we want you to continue your education right so I don't know is is your District very generous when it comes to that because then perhaps we might be talking about something else and then that comes back to budget but or you know I don't know is is that really is that really an issue here or is it again is there some kind of miscommunication where we're not you know we could be maximizing this and we're not that's what I'm trying to get at
110here because I agree with you and I'm just as frustrated but what I want to know is what is what is the hindrance yeah I mean and to the point of everyone here uh as the stated him I wasn't here in 2013 yeah for this but moving forward I can assure you that this is something that is a priority for me as well and I think even talking to our hscc today which is a high school curriculum Council about this um having the understanding that we need to develop more courses for students to take as a dual credit option um having the conference that I was at on Friday at glenbard South High School from the Chicagoland area brought various groups in with that to discuss it and we're not alone in the barriers of
111offering dual credit to some capacity because of the credentialing necessary there are other districts that have gone through and said okay to incentivize this we've paid for them to have their master's degree or 18 credit hours in the specific area that was needed but then they signed a contract of five years to stay with the district and right those were discussed at the conference the other day too it's not an SD 308 issue necessarily it it does have to do with broadening our Focus maybe but at the same time having that capability to offer those classes here and that's an important piece because the thing is once those teachers because that goes back to my piece where I said you have three different types of districts right you've got your Elementary your high school and
112your unified districts and we have to be aware that once we have these teachers who have the ability to teach these dual credit classes they can go to and we get poached I'm sure we get poached of these teachers to go to these high school districts which are more lucrative because those are the districts that pay higher so that's an important piece that how are we going to keep them it's not going to be free that's also going to cost money I don't know how else to tell people that I don't I mean I don't know what to tell you and the high school districts pay more money I I mean look it up okay thank you all right thank you yes go ahead go ahead Eugene oh Jesse please excuse my ignorance but this
113is you're presenting what we would like to offer what we currently offer that's question number one this is what we currently offer that's what I thought so question number two is do you have uh statistics that list the demographic of students percentage and demographic of students who are currently enrolled in each of the programs I do not this time but I would absolutely be happy to do that yes all right perfect and then according and then uh this side I guess I'm thinking about the process for enrolling students in each of these areas um because once I see the demographics my next question is going to be how do people how do students elect and or you know are recommended to get involved and so that's that's the um the next question so whenever you
114whenever we get that information I would say just to include those processes as well sure and I can appreciate that and uh while it's not the data you're looking for I can offer you some dual credit enrollments overall from the past few years and I'll just give a brief overshot going back to 2019 2020 uh for Oswego East we had 488 dual credit enrollments that numbers increased by 100 this school year to 587. OHS from 1920 uh had 474 enrollments and that's an 80 crease or 80 uh 80 Mark enrollment to 567 this school year so we are making gains in this for dual credit enrollments um but to your point yes I can look at uh demographics of these enrollments and then how we're going about um offering these courses to students largely these
115are conversations with counselors and things like that too but we can um absolutely offer that uh in Greater capacity just the awareness campaign if nothing else can I so go ahead Eugene no he looks done so all right so way back in the day I went to Dale and graduate 2014 maybe 20 something practically the way you used to be able to get credit for yep so I didn't see that on your list here anywhere I know way if you scored so high on the end exam you could apply and he got like Iowa something credit from some College Iowa State yeah yeah I'll have to look into that to be honest with you I just followed the course catalog right now as I stated yeah look into Project Lead the Way and specifically put
116that online some of these are naturally a part of that um but and that might be encompassing in some of those numbers but I can get you specifics on pltw yeah I think well I think that's when we don't push but we should because Project Lead the Way is it is it is growing right I mean because stem is growing but I don't think I think I knew about it because I knew about it in our district I don't think that our school district necessarily was pushing that if you got this certain score on the test you actually got three college credits okay for the class so that might be something to look into too sure because I imagine it's the same guy teaching it okay thank you all right moving on to 8.1 superintendent
117report well good evening board uh November 16th we had our second meeting at the community advisory committee uh we began the meeting with a review of what we talked about from the the previous meeting with a little 308 history then we asked uh asked it or we answered questions that the committee had from the first meeting Dr petsky covered the levy and shared our five-year projections and Mrs dalquist presented and what we're doing to improve academic achievement and then we shared a draft mission statement with the committee and did a multi-group activity to gain feedback from that committee on the draft mission statement and we'll be doing the same activity with the student advisory committee so uh with in hopes of landing on a final mission statement that we can bring back to the board
118for stuff for approval and next next month in our last meeting the question of Outsourcing certain positions such as our teaching assistance was brought up and I do want the board to know that we are working on creating a document that outlines the positions that we're currently Outsourcing what we're paying for those Services we're also looking at districts in the surrounding area what they pay for the same positions and what vacancies that they have uh and what for what they're paying and we will provide an informational report on January 23rd for the for the board tonight is our last meeting of 2022 I would like to wish the board and anyone viewing from home a happy holiday season as we enter the last few weeks of the first semester and with this that said and
119thinking about the holiday season coming up our district is fortunate to have local programs that are helping our students and Families in Need and many of these programs rely heavily on the involvement of donations from our SD 308 Community to help them fulfill uh the needs of the local families so I've been told that there are numerous Children and Families uh left needing sponsors this year so I want to highlight a couple of ways people can help Community cares that's a program that helps bring cheer to local families and you can have the opportunity to sign up to sponsor a family or consider volunteering your time on December 5th 17th to help sorting gifts or making deliveries and then Toys for Tots now through December 9th at all of our 308 five are five 308
120Junior highs we're collecting toys are donated for Toys for Tots sponsored by the Marine Corps and the Oswego fire department and you can donate any unwrapped uh toy for a child for ages 1 through 13 it's a cost of ten dollars or more and any of our Junior highs between now and then so that is my report for this evening so thank you Mrs Hamilton you very much 8.2 board member comments do you have any board member comments tonight all right I'll make them quick uh a lot of these are very talked about but six legislators from iasb uh I'll talk about three highlights um so sat in listened to about six legislators from two different parties talk about what the um the financial shape of the state looks like as far as education is
121concerned and they said that ebf was probably going to be funded this year even perhaps 500 up to 500 million I'll remind people that um to fund it properly it really needed 740 million a year so it's still not going to get what it fully it needs fully funded um it probably will get the minimum next year but again uh if you're you're looking three years out you're looking at a deficit the state's looking at an 800 million dollar deficit at that point um so keep that in mind um when it comes to our district uh I sat in on 204's portrait of a graduate uh District I teach in they did something similar called portrait of a learner it's very fascinating and interesting um the district our neighboring District deals with a great deal
122of misinformation that is that is piped out there uh and it was a great opportunity to bring students and also many uh Community leaders uh from a very large District together and it was an opportunity a great opportunity for them to um bring people together to make sure that they could weather through some very difficult things such as redrawing lines which is always difficult and tool for when that happens and uh helped them when it came to dealing with misinformation when it came to such topics such as that so um it's a great it's a great opportunity however again I go back to our budget it's probably something we can't afford but they were very interested in our student ambassador piece and I think there's an opportunity there because that's something they want to pursue
123great having a district next door that's also doing that and it's a learning opportunity and a nice exchange there um I sat in about making meetings matter I'll be brutally honest with you uh hands down we pretty much have the longest meetings of anyone without question um I'm someone who doesn't want to diminish discussion I know each of us is passionate about all these topics which I think is good one huge suggestion that I came out of there because I'll be honest with you I didn't I didn't like the idea of diminishing questions or diminishing discussions but one huge suggestion was again to send questions we have early uh so as to move the meeting along I mean we've all had the same you know board trainings um you know we should all be opening
124those packets as soon as possible so that we're here and we have those questions it doesn't mean questions don't come up as we're having good discussions I get that they do um they're going to and that's great also but um I really think having um those questions ahead of time helps the meeting go quicker maybe that's something we could start with if we are all doing that that's great awesome um but if we're not that's definitely a suggestion that you know would help move the meeting long those are my three I had I have yes go ahead Jen I just wanted to reiterate what was already said in the room because I think it is worth saying I'm so incredibly proud of the presentation that was made by by our student board members both current
125and uh former they eloquently Amplified their voice and showed how student boys create a high degree of agency for students by students someone in each of the four sessions that I participate in participated in after the 308 session all mention the presentation that was given by our student leaders I thought it was so incredibly impressive I believe that the failure to include student voice is one of the reasons that public education remains stagnant so I'm proud that we're leading the way including student voice holds Educators administrators and board members accountable while ensuring a learner-centered education system not a school-centered education system and creating this Democratic space in our district for students leads to authentic inclusivity of all students but let's not stop here I want to challenge our administrative leaders and our Educators to seek
126ways to engage students in meaningful decision making from the classroom to our boardroom I also just want to say that there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that I don't think a lot of our community members see that the board is also working on I want to ensure our taxpayers our community constituencies that many of the of many of the board members have been digging into the finances of our district digging into contracts relationships with vendors why we have some relationships with vendors without contracts when they were initiated when they've been renewed when they are up for Renewal and when they are being Auto renewed we are asking why we're asking how they're being vetted and we are questioning every step along the way we are definitely working to make this information more
127available to all taxpayers and the board so that we can make better informed and responsible financial decisions that are directly tied to board goals and student outcomes and I think sometimes people don't realize that that is going on behind the scenes but we have definitely been doing that at least since I've been on the board that's all that I wanted share this evening thank you thank you are there any other board comments at this time all right moving on to 8.3 board committee reports we'll start with the equity committee [Music] so we had an equity committee meeting on December 1st we discussed the equity Journey which is um what do you how do you describe that that's a a new feature on the Illinois state report card okay and kind of uh what are what's
128important dig more into the numbers look at our numbers um what we noticed was uh large gaps in Readiness going into kindergarten first that's gaps between uh you know um with children with low income um special needs um people of color and English learners [Music] um we need to one of the things that we need to concentrate on is getting these children interventions early and in order to do that we need interventionists and we need better practice or not better practices but uh um training on mtss uh tier one tier two practices um oh students need access one of the other things that we need to work on is access to AP and honors classes there's a gap in participation in those classes um by whom what do you mean by home by whom yeah
129which groups aren't participating sure I think I'll I'll throw a a helpline here so when we look at the uh opportunity Gap we do have a higher percentage of our white and Asian students taking more advanced classes than students from demographic groups uh such as Hispanic or black we also see that our low-income students are not accessing those classes as high levels so we talked about what needs to happen at elementary and Junior High especially in classes around Math and Science that's where we see lower levels and more of an opportunity Gap there so looking at what we're doing with math vocabulary looking what we're doing with math instruction but also making sure that we are pushing our students of color and our low income and even our English Learners as they get their English
130up to where they should be having access to math and science classes and that's where one of the area areas that we see the biggest opportunity Gap okay thank you you guys just confirm thank you yes or what I was hoping when I was asking Dan the question so um so things are being done that's great but I think I would want to just stay updated on where we are so that it's not episodic but it's uh cultural the things that we're doing to ensure that we have Equity across the board and uh systemically yeah okay thank you for that because I I was also thinking about your question um Eugene also about how how are the students how do they get to participate in the process um that that something that I'd like I'd
131like an answer to something about you know counselor referral or counselor uh I don't know how the counselors the role that they play in it but again just the process of it I think that it's something that we just have to look at overall to ensure that you know the access is Equitable across the board thank you there's certainly lots of work to be done um one of the the next uh topic that we discussed was um the suspensions and student discipline and the disparities in that and how the how academic performance and um your you know how you feel in your belongings your academic performance actually um makes you feel more welcome so a lot of a lot of the behavior issues that we're seeing is primarily driven by a lack of academic performance
132and so we need to make sure that we're addressing those issues early um there's a disparity with children with IEPs versus uh not we talked about how [Music] um you it's hard to empathize when there's disabilities that you can't see as well as those that you can um low income again success matters to behavior so there's a disparity between children with low income the rest of the population there was a huge disparity with black males with suspensions and um so practices we need to uh we can just de-escalation diversity a better overall education and early Provide support to help kids uh with their behavior moving forward so once they're you know they had a suspension that we helped them and we we target them to get better better supports the only thing I'll add is
133I know that correct me if I'm wrong the report card's moving more towards a College and Career Readiness kind of of indicators and so forth and that's what it'll reflect and would like to see again going back to this conversation about um dual dual credit classes and kind of seeing some of those numbers and seeing if those options because I do agree with Ali I think that sometimes you know AP gets pushed and some of those dual credit options okay and now policy oh sorry go ahead you mentioned there was uh disparities in regards to black males and that uh was there any discussion in regards to root cause um or in is there any I guess assessments being done to identify root cause as opposed to uh simply just identifying yes we talked at
134the meeting there is of course more work to be done but one of the things that uh you know we've identified is we have some students that don't feel that they have a trusted adult or a person that they identify with at school part of that is to increase hiring of diverse staff so that see staff they see themselves represented more often in our staff but also the work that we're doing for and with staff on identifying our own bias and looking at our own learning styles versus learning about other learning styles so that when our climate for learning when we're talking about differentiating instruction and amplifying student voice it's not the aggregate of student voice it's knowing our impact on each of the students that are in the classroom and in our school district
135and knowing more and getting their voice about what matters to them out of the learning environment it's it's our belief that by amplifying a student voice then you really know your impact and that's what causes change within a system it's important to get in and look at data but until you know the stories of the human beings that are walking through the doors we cannot best identify our instructional practices or make relationships with those students I know we say it all the time but if students don't feel loved when they come in or they don't feel like they've been connected to the best instructional practices in the world aren't going to be as impactful and so we can give my presentation now but I I said in at the triple I conference I set in
136on Joliet um Joliet District 86 where um they talked about their educational Equity it was phenomenal and just some of the things the practices that they're putting in place but I'll give up an update later Ellie I just like I hate to compare districts but do we have any kind of mentoring program right now like a like Boys to Men or anything set up through there are different schools that have Watchdog types of things where parent dads are coming in and working with students or you know building relationships especially at our elementary schools where we don't have many male staff members and and teachers so they're providing those types of of Role Models um so there are those things can be a fun project for Dr Waller for sure what are the dude what are
137the names of the two programs at the high schools for mentoring each high school has a mentoring program from outside doesn't matter if and since you're asking about community like we used to men for a long time they just you know like they come in during the school day when the kids are in the building like honestly at the end of the day you have to get kids when you have them and like I have said that a hundred thousand times once they leave your door they're gone like when you have them you have to connect I just think some kind of mentoring program would be something to look into there are some that exist if we don't want to start our own sure all right policy and legislative committee report anything oh so much
138oh goodness I'm gonna abbreviate uh we had a really long meeting and it was a lot of stuff it was it was oh my God what's his name uh uh I want to say Andrew Nate Nick Nick that's right so the guy from this new press plus yeah so many questions about almost we went through I don't I don't even know how many questions do you 100 maybe more um just over all the sections of policy and just questions about whether we do this and whether we don't do that and whether we plan on doing this and whether we plan on not doing that and at the end of the day they have lots of stuff to look at that we're like oh we should check that out we haven't looked at that for a
139long long time yeah so it'll be fun it'd be awesome work that we keep saying we're putting on you is that what's happening uh I don't I think the meeting yeah I mean like it was you know this for that person this for that person she has she's got a long list of questions in her little book that she keeps that we could be here all night going over that meeting but at the end of the day um there'll be a lot of things coming forward to the board and a lot of things that maybe we should take a look at in our own policies that I know we didn't really we didn't change anything we just kind of you know asked some questions about what was best practice and you know argued over we
140wanted lower amounts for money and they wanted higher and um Jen anything to add really point out and thank um mattress and Cade and Ursula they are really taking the onus of this project on over the next year it is it's going to be overwhelming but the end goal and the end product will be pretty amazing so I want to thank the both of them and I want to thank the board for approving this because I think that's going to be a game changer but great job Ali oh I didn't do much that's how Ursula is a word Smith I don't know if you knew this about her but for sure yeah thank you very good um okay now we go on to 9.1 the consent agenda oh you know what um oh did I
141miss something did I have a was there a teaching and learning I had one on the 15th I don't think okay maybe we had a meeting since then another committee that hasn't met yet okay Finance right well they yeah they can't happen I mean okay all right 9.1 consent agenda are there any questions on the consent agenda okay can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda please make a motion to prove it oh go go ahead go ahead yep if you want yeah Jared please oh they asked they asked me to sorry I didn't know go ahead I make a motion to approve all items under consent including 9.1 minutes from the Board of Education meeting on November 14 2022 open and closed session and 9.2 to acknowledge the foia request received by
142the district second this tutorial I miss Swanson hi Mr Cerrone aye Miss simulton aye Mr Gatewood Miss Johnson Mr cloger aye motion passes 7-0 item 10.1 is uh information on financial statements does the board have any questions on what has been provided right and if I could I'll just uh intervene here and say that I know that uh board member Jennifer Johnson has been asking about a variance report so uh this uh to help accommodate this month when I put in the financial statements was our actual financial statement for the FY 22 school year November and I also included the FY 22 or I'm sorry the fy21 financial statement from last year so that way board members can uh can take a look at where we were this time last year just some insights that
143I said uh for board member Johnson that I would present our Revenue at this time in November last year we were at 44 it recognizing our revenues and this year we're at 46 percent so we're right on target with our revenues and last year our expenditures at this point were 27 of what was budgeted versus this year currently we're at 17 point three percent budgeted and I think a lot of the information that the board members are interested in with the variance reports really is a mixture of what's presented on these Financial reports and then in the next month when we alternate what what is happening on the bills for payment and how do those relate to the financial statements and I think the big the big uh connection piece there is what we're doing
144with our contracts and vendors that I'll talk about later this evening so if there was any other questions Jennifer yeah I was going to say I know you and I will probably have some other conversations about what you see there but uh it'll it'll just make the board a little bit more informed as well based on our conversations exactly and why if we're spending 10 million dollars more this time this year or this time than we did last year why are we doing that and also to help people understand how um where dollars fall and and in a specific month and a year and why we have to budget the way we do so I appreciate this thank you all right item 10.2 is a continued discussion on vendor and contracts and the work that's
145been done since our last conversation Dr pesky uh board member Gatewood and I meant to talk about this after our last conversation with the board and he really helped to put it in perspective and so what what we presented for the board we actually separated the two documents out rather than mixing all of the vendors and contracts together we separated out one page that has just the contracts that were in excess of twenty thousand dollars and um what I wanted the board members to realize here when uh board member Gatewood myself spoke is there's definitely an identified process through board policy on what we do with the contracts so anything that's over 25 000 and based on the updated policy now anything over twenty thousand dollars goes through a request for perform a request for
146proposal process where we request bids to ensure that we're getting the best financial [Music] um uh representation and the best contract for the services or equipment and things that we're looking for and then when a contract ends the district then once again releases a request for proposal and solicits bids and the only exception to that is the technology goods and services but what we make a point of doing as you see with the cyber security contract is why we don't have an official RFP we still require large purchases to go through at least a several vendor review and process to make sure that we're balancing quality cost and with technology compatibility so with that done there's definitely a process for the contracts and we've updated the contract list to show you the names of the
147contracts the Departments who are overseeing those contracts the start and end dates and the the uh uh amount of of those contracts so with that said what board member Gatewood myself did then is we took the remaining vendors and the vendors what we've listed for you there represents any company that we've paid more than twenty thousand dollars um with and that doesn't necessarily mean we've paid one lump sum of 20 000. it could be we've paid five times throughout the year you know four thousand dollars a time and now that we've reached that twenty thousand dollar Mark what we hear the board asking for is putting a putting a process like we do with contracts on the expenditures that could cumulatively total twenty thousand dollars or more so the finance department the business office is
148monitoring um our vendors and vendors where we are reaching that twenty thousand dollar limit We'll be asking ourselves wait what kind of purchasing are we doing through these vendors can we leverage uh kind of a efficiency of scale or the volume of our purchasing to get better purchase prices or another question is should we enter into a contractual arrangement to get these goods or services and and actually go through an RFP process or um the third one is just consider consolidating our power to make sure that we're and perhaps even limiting the vendors that we're going with if there is a difference in the cost between the vendors so we've presented that for the board tonight I think it's a very interesting way to take a look at some of the purchasing in addition to
149our bills of payment our financial reports I think this adds another element of uh discretion that the board can look at to help make financial decisions as we move forward so with that I present to you our two artifacts and open up for any questions or comments that the board might have about vendors or contracts just some my one questions on page three I look at Amazon at 304. are you on the contracts I'm looking at the vendor contracts 20 000. and it just says amazon.com 304 931 supplies yeah and that's where we can take a look at that um at those amounts what are we buying from Amazon is it office chairs is it pencils is it paper is it you know some of these have large uh you know uh they've got a
150variety of things we do have uh we do have a agreement with Amazon a purchasing agreement educational purchasing agreement to get um reduced prices so that's something we can maintain and take a look at is now dig a Little Deeper what what are we buying through Amazon right but so so forgive me and you say that but then I look at the bills for payment and I see different prices per month for paper and and it's all Amazon but this month they charge this and the next month they charge this and sometimes we bought this much and sometimes we bought that much do you know what I mean like I that's what I thought the same thing Ally all right yeah and when we talked about that last month that's one thing we'll specifically be
151taking a look at is who through Amazon are they getting their paper from and are we paying that 36 to 41 dollars per case of paper or are they paying 47 for a case of paper as long as they're as long as they're within that window of spending you know 36 and 41 dollars per case um I liken it to my kids who get a hold of my credit card because they need it for something and they go to the mall and instead of spending the fifty dollars they spend 300 right like it's easy to spend other people's money you know what I mean so like when I look at this like cringe I just I and there are we are for the most part I think that when teachers buy supplies for their classroom
152they're very cost effective like they look for the sales and they look for the and I don't know that we do that on a big scale I think we just we need paper and we just order it and whatever we order it we order it do you know what I mean like I think there's there's some small tweaks that we could make in a big system that would make a big difference yeah and I think this gives us a granularity to take a look at what some of those purchases are and uh and what we we should be monitoring so we'll uh we'll break we'll be breaking that down further and are the teachers or Department chairs or whoever's responsible for procuring this stuff are they do they have a budget to work with them
153like are they assessing from their Educators yeah I'm glad you brought that up glad you brought that up Jennifer that's where I talk about we've identified a budget manager process and now we're implementing that budget manager process as we do our budgeting they're not spending money on things that they didn't plan for when we set up their budgets it's for the supplies the materials the contracts it's things that are identified that they need to be purchasing um to the point that the board's asking are we getting the best deal on the identified budgeted items that we're purchasing we're not um for instance a building might have a paper budget or a supply budget for paper for three thousand dollars but they buy eight times a year that's because they're Limited in the amount of sport
154storage space they have for the the paper so they only buy like five boxes of paper at a time so they've got it budgeted um and uh the big thing that we're going to look out for is can we get a better deal on paper by ordering more or are they getting are they getting a guaranteed price doesn't matter if they buy a thousand boxes or eight boxes they're paying 36 bucks a box continue on one thing and this is very specific but you can't not use specifically Dr pepsky but no one can tell me in a district this size with the amount of land and buildings we have that we don't have enough room to store paper so we should be buying it in bulk and and from what I understood as I heard
155that it's just that nobody wanted to have to manage that process so I just want to make sure we're digging into why because I definitely think that people are making good decisions but I think we could be making better decisions and forecasting and understanding what we need and then working within that all right item 10.3 is an intergovernmental agreement update on the high school student resource officers uh Dr Kincaid um we are bringing an updated IGA with availability of Oswego tonight um this is an extension of what we approved earlier in the year there is no substantial change to language but what you'll see is some changes to exhibit a specifically the addition of Section 3 and section four section three is about body Morton cameras and section four is access to live streaming security
156uh video the draft IGA has been reviewed by whitlaw OPD in the village of oswego's the body worn camera was passed into legislation in February 2021 it is part of 50 ilcs 706 which is the law enforcement officer worn body camera act it does not become student record when activated unless requested and received by the school district um what we're going to do is go tonight for just information action right when we return from break uh Aurora Police Department is already live with body worn cameras tentatively OPD is going live on December 12th but that is still currently in the works it must be completed by 2025 but both of those police departments to are understanding are going earlier in the process the second part so section four the access to live streaming that would
157be one station it would be secured within OPD they would be providing the hardware we in essence would be providing secure software it would be controlled the access and information is part of the IGA hence why we want to update the IGA and it would allow very select members of OPD access to our cameras in an emergency situation only it would be behind locked doors and would not be open to all members of OPD so we are bringing these two updates which has been a collaboration between our district and OPD and then once we work through and finalize these changes to the IGA with the village of Oswego we will be moving to our other four municipalities with Aurora Police Department Plainfield Police Department Montgomery and Kendall County to do similar updates to their igas
158can I ask a quick question I know I know this wasn't a change but I'm curious how much um do we know how much um sros are paid comparatively in say Yorkville West Aurora Indian Prairie Valley View Plainfield like districts that are near us do we know yep so we looked into the similar igas which in the their Board of Education board docs all of the igas including our own the pricing of the sros is tied to the essentially the Union contract sure of that Village so even you mentioned like Indian Prairie they have two separate igas one with Naperville and one with Aurora so it's not driven by the school district the cost of the sros I'm aware it's driven yep by the do we have the do we know though I we did
159not we can um reach out to the corresponding police departments yeah I would like to know I would like to know what we're paying compared to the others and my other is is Plainfield still offering a part-time SRO for free to Murphy is that still happening yes so we received the services of the SRO at Murphy once a week on Fridays and the officer comes and works with our students with our staff so yes typically it's here all day once a week on Fridays still still waiting for the media to cover that one but yeah that it's like I said stuff you don't read that's interesting still hasn't made the Press thank you is there current policy in place um that states when video is included in a student record so there is um there's
160different um specifically it's most tied to if the video is utilized to issue student discipline um so video can be potentially available but not considered part of the student record unless it was specifically used to issue student discipline okay so I guess my question I'm just trying to figure out do we need to update policy around this this new camera feed and are there additional implications because it because the camera feed is coming from an SRO um I don't know the answer but I'm just speaking out loud what I'm thinking and so I know we need some type of policy or an update to that current policy or maybe it does include this but I just I don't know how I feel about it coming from the SRO and if that matters but I just
161wanted to say it out loud yeah Eugene this is Maureen um I believe your current policy on Student Records covers it and and Heather accurately stated that essentially typically any of your surveillance camera video is is surveillance for safety purposes for law enforcement purposes it is not considered a student record unless and and Heather mentioned the main uh situation under which it is both understate and federal law there's also some others when it may be and here in that uh number one in section three on page 10 uh the last sentence that was added says any such film or video which would come from the police officer will not become an educational record if not requested and received by the school district because until the school district receives it it's not your record so only
162after you have it would you even consider whether or not it's an educational record of a specific student and again at that point your policy kicks in got it okay it makes sense all right action item 11.1 approval bills for payment can I have a motion please I make them I make a motion to authorize the payment of bills in the amount of 2 million three hundred sixty thousand one hundred four dollars and nine cents presented second whoa it's all you Mr Cerrone yes Mr Gatewood hi Miss Johnson Mr Plover aye Miss Swanson aye Ms Doyle hi Miss Hamilton aye motion passes 7-0 action item 11.2 approval of cyber security contract with dark Trace um you know I I have uh yeah just a couple more questions yeah I've got uh Brent kyger and Kevin
163McDonald here I know that there were some questions about this uh so we included a memo with the board I uh board agenda item and we would be more happy to take some questions yeah and I'm sorry I uh maybe should have included this question um I saw that there was uh you know one of the things that you discussed was that it was going to be a a three-year period and then you'd uh reassess um your needs so when I looked at the two different contracts I was um I saw one was two years and one was three years so how does technically uh contract for car tracers okay and the Ford is the services that they would provide intervention if you will okay and so our plan was to understand the capabilities not
164only of the software Hardware solution Based Services said the software provided depending on Staffing of our comfortable level or our comfort level with the software that's why some of that was considered applicable means um I have one more question if that's I'm sorry Dominic I'll let you finish no I I I lost my train of thought I had another question yeah go ahead go ahead Eugene yep my question is really I guess it will be I don't know if I wanted directed to Dr sparlet or Dr petsky but well I guess I can direct it so is there another option let's say is this the best option is there a another plan B I'm just thinking about total budget we got 514 000 is there a another way that we can uh perhaps do the
165same thing because I'm not questioning whether or not we need it I'm just trying to figure out how to prioritize it for today um you know if you know I've I've dealt with in my previous role as a chief technology officer um this is a it's it's a fast evolving area and one that one that we have not had the financial resources to adequately address um and so even when I first got here this was one of the first things that was brought to my attention about the need for um you know the need for uh some uh steps and processes and to get a hold of potential cyber security threats so in terms of is there a is is it a priority absolutely is there something we can do for less money um the
166other solutions that we've looked at in my experience the other solutions that I've dealt with are all between 200 to 220 000 So based on the a little bit more comprehensive nature of this having that uh the automation uh having the AI aspect to look at our traffic and then to also have the human component to help us with the mediation is is key and the other place where this became a priority for me or where I knew that this was something we should be doing is the cost of cyber security liability insurance is skyrocketing because the number of attacks and potential of breaches is much larger than they used to be and it's it's a matter of the the inconvenience how our tolerance for the risk I know we've got our insurance company we've
167got all of our other districts telling us that this is something they're investing time energy and effort into and if we if we don't do this it puts us kind of behind the behind the curve in terms of what our neighbor districts have in place and are doing all right so let me follow up to that which neighbor District or which district in general did we look at talk to collaborate with with this or did we just listen to the salesman I mean did you actually go out and talk to another school district who has this product and who is using it and Julie attack the first week it was implemented so we did talk to the neighboring districts uh that had the dark Trace product so only Juliet yeah Julia was the one the
168nearest reference for the dark Teresa component the the issue with the issue is we're it's kind of a good place to be I I think that they vetted the solutions pretty well it's I know in other districts that I've worked in we kind of lock ourselves into another solution and to migrate from where we were to what we want is is difficult to do so there's some districts that I'm sure would like to have this but they're they've already implemented another cyber security solution whether that be a professional Service Company or another um another software solution it's hard to migrate from one to the other and this one I feel gives us the best of both worlds it gives us the hardware it gives us the Automation in getting to know a large amount of
169traffic and data but then also it that one extra piece with Fortis gives us that that human component too to help make sense of the traffic that it's seeing um yeah I remember I if I recall there were a couple dates on those uh the bids were through 12 8 and 12 12 or something like that um so If This Were to be delayed what what risk are we at for pricing we have no indicators that the pricing would substantially increase uh If This Were to be delayed our risk honestly is more than likely just an attack on the district the sooner we get the product in place the sooner we're protected and then Dr petsky made a comment earlier that helped me but I kind of wanted a little more elaboration on that is
170um he said some districts would like to go to this but they already have something in place and so going to this I don't know if that makes it right but who's gonna I'd like to go to that but I just I don't well no I'm I'm asking um so basically you're saying that would be a an older solution might have been 200 to 220 000 a year um this is a Next Generation solution would be about 250 000 a year correct all right is this so are we not doing that 200 000 a year um solution I mean is that we are we that far behind we guess it's kind of my friends in place it's like a five-step there's like a five-step component process that they presented last time and we're doing we're
171doing two of those steps um but we we really need this to implement the last three steps um for cyber security to make sure that we have the the levels of protection from the multiple types of threats that could attack could could impact the district so when I when I asked the question you know are we going to be above are we going to be is this beyond my concern was that we were going to be overspending um the 200 plus the 250. Yeah well yeah I thought that we were yeah kind of doing something yeah the 200 plus 250. so we were already doing that and then we're adding another 250 000 a year so does that make sense so that was my concern was that we were going um too high um in
172the capabilities I mean we might have been able to do a little bit less but if we're going to do it last for 200 or do a better for 250 then yeah and I I don't think it's fair to say it's not that we're spending 200 here and then 250 here it's it's kind of no I'm saying that we're not doing the the kind of the older technology oh right right we are not so it's so it's not 450. right right right do you see what I'm saying say that again Eugene we're not already we're not already spending a two uh 200 000 on something and so we're not adding the like 450 on to something that already exists it's 200 000. got it got it got it so so the only reason that we're
173that it would be ahead is because we waited yeah we'll we'll get a better technological resolution one that's a little bit more evolved and advanced because we're behind we're behind yeah we have not had the financial resources this is our budget and now we do um and uh and we've we've allocated those funds and the these uh Kevin and Brent looked at different solutions and I'm confident with what they found as well that was my next question so it is already built into the projected budget yeah yes right that I got okay is that it so can I have a motion please I make a motion to approve the cyber security contract with dark Trace pending final attorney review second this tutorial no Miss Swanson no Mr siron yes Miss simultane yes Mr Gatewood Mr
174Gatewood Eugene all right um yeah Miss Johnson no Mr pluger no emotion fails for two four three four three no wait who didn't was it Lori did I get Lori yeah four three no I wouldn't know okay all right action item 11.3 approval of cyber security contract with Fortis can I have a motion please can I make a motion oh wait we've got more some more discussion so given that yeah this one's pretty much irrelevant yeah so what is the takeaway the takeaway here is if we were to pass the second it would be worse what is the takeaway no from cyber security what is our plan what direction would the board have for Kevin and Brent moving forward knowing that we have uh we have a lot we have a large cyber security footprint
175risk um so what what would you like us to do go back and talk to other companies see about getting the price lowered see about getting I'd say more comprehensive coverage but the fact of the matter is that was the most comprehensive coverage right there um I can I can offer mine I'm sorry I can't see because I'm about to talk because I'm on the phone but um I'm gonna look for a product that has um a better overall success rate and also uh better pricing better what is a higher quality product with a different price tag okay now based upon what you all know so far what you know can you accomplish that so so then what do we do if those two things can't be accomplished because we're just leaving ourselves open then
176you find somebody who can [Music] you want to elaborate on that one I'm happy to do that in a further discussion otherwise but I mean it's it's a little bit more um involved and I think we want to put you during action items okay all right so then do we need to go through this vote on 11.3 you could postpone it indefinitely and then and then it just dies um and or and or vote on it but yeah as someone said obviously the vote should be no so I would recommend vote on tabling it indefinitely okay I make a motion oh can I have a motion to um postpone 11.3 approval of cyber security contracts with Fortis in postpone it indefinitely I make a motion to postpone item 11.3 approval of cyber Security Contracts at
177Fortis until further discussion second Miss Hamilton no Miss Swanson all right Mr Gatewood Miss Doyle add motion to table I Miss Johnson Mr Cerrone aye Mr ploger no so motion passes five two okay action item 11.4 approval of property tax appeal intervention can I have a motion please I just want one we just took out the legal firm that is the only change to this uh we also changed my title to the superintendent or designee so it's uh Dr sparlin superintendent and the attorney is just a general attorney perfect thank you I make a motion to approve the resolution for the property tax appeal intervention as presented second Mr cloaker aye Ms Johnson aye Mr Cerrone aye Mr Gatewood Miss Swanson Ms Doyle hi Miss simultan I motion passes 7-0 action item 11.5 adoption of
1782022 tax levy can have a motion please I make a motion to approve the 2022 tax levy as presented um real quick before we vote so Dr sparlin do you have some general specifics on what we'll have to do or won't be able to do if we not pass this Levy um yeah I yes I do yes I do um I appreciate you asking the question Jared um really if you think about it not not uh passing the webv would really virtually wipe out a lot of the work we've done over the last six years in regards to getting our school district on a better Financial footing every as we as we talked about earlier this evening uh you know some years ago there was a decision not too Levy for a few years we
179heard this evening what the impact of that was and um and we we also I think we also already answered this question a little bit through some of that conversation earlier um there's a there's a lot of there's a lot of reasons uh you know why we need to Levy you know and I think it all really I think they all really uh kind of circle around the reason why we need a fund balance and why we need to grow that fund balance one so we kind of already mentioned that a few minutes ago but um you know our current fund balance doesn't allow us to make payroll uh during this during during the school year so we have to the result is our us half new issue tax anticipation warrants or taws and what
180we're doing there is essentially borrowing money and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to borrow money to make payroll and over the course of many years that that equates to equates to millions of dollars so you know that's been a pact practice in 308 for uh many years and it's a practice that needs to stop and it can stop if we grow our fund balance to the appropriate level um uh we talked about ebf you had mentioned that earlier if ebf isn't funded at the minimal levels or let's say it's probated or not funded in the in the future it's very important to have a fund balance so that we can draw down from that fund balance and and instead of making Cuts because we've already gone through the cut process for a
181number of years and we know what we went through and what we did and we we should use this phrase there's no more meat on the bone we've really cut down as far as we can uh anything else really truly affects kids and um I think the third issue I think the third item would be um we also every five years or so in our district we issued that service extension bonds and uh to pay for our much needed capital projects and uh that's a this is a practice in our school district that really needs to stop it's been something we've done for many many years um and to to be able to get to that point again we need to build a fund Mount you can't do both at the same time though so
182right now we've issued The Debt Service extension bonds that we have monies to pay for over the next few years and while we do that we need to build the fund balance up so when we're when the when these monies when these monies that we have from the dsub are done we don't have to do it again for another five years because we'll have the fund balance and we'll be able to allocate the Monies to our capital projects that we need to to do it operationally and in Dr pesky's five-year projections we have started allocating the monies towards it as we start to build the fund balance but we can only do that because we've already sold at that service extension bonds I don't I think I I was probably a whole lot more of
183an answer to the question you just asked but those are three things that come to mind right off the bat when it comes to not letting or webbing thank you and if I could clarify just one point there uh your question what if we don't Levy I think there's a little confusion there if we don't Levy if if this doesn't pass tonight I can't file it with County clerks to give us the authority to collect taxes from the community I think the question is the question you're really asking me is yeah sir what is the amount we should leverage right right we don't Levy that's a problem right yeah right right right right right I mean listen at the end of the day I'm I'm never going to vote to increase taxes and I was
184part of that 2013-2014 2015 that said they wouldn't and I I realized all of the conversations that are going on here but when you say you leave money on the table I see I can't text people out of their homes so it's a difference of opinion it's to be sure I don't want to tax them I don't want to tax them either I don't want to argue about it I don't want to argue I want to know what the cuts are though I'm going to stand up for people who I am also standing up for people I want to know what the cuts are then I mean did you ask Dr sparlin for a list of cuts I did not well because that okay so what have we learned then I'm not arguing with you
185I'm asking what we learned because like you didn't have to sit up there underneath bright lights and cut meat down to the bone I did okay from that and so that's why that's why I'm frustrated and that's why I get upset about this because it's not just nobody woke up today and said oh let's let's let's do this nobody did that okay so so like so like what what are we cutting then tell me I don't have that conversation of course not we'll leave somebody else well it's not that I'm going to leave it to somebody else last thing you could do before we cut we could create preventative maintenance right that would save hundreds of thousand dollars these sub buns for the chillers and the heaters we could expand the erlin screenings and cut
186down on some of the the IEP needs that we have we could turn off the lights for God's sakes we could turn off the lights and save 20 to 25 like there's a million things we can do but at the end of the day I'm not going to ask people for a 9.58 increase knowing that I won't get that but I'm not going to do it okay well I mean but but why not like so those things cut well I mean like the best legit so will those things cut I mean hey I'd rather cut than do that so would that work let's return the buses we're not using there's a hundred things we could do it it depends on how much money that realizes I mean if it depends on how much you want
187to Levy if we if we hold John Dr petsky the answer is no yeah we already answered the question earlier it doesn't allow us to to increase our fund balance it doesn't allow us to have the monies for the capital projects you don't pass you don't pass the levy then we go into a death an automatic deficit situation for our operational budget and those other things can't be done yeah I I just like like if I had ideas on how to save the district money I wouldn't just sit with it I would be putting it as an information item on the board I don't understand that process four years we've been talking about all these things all right can I have a motion please I made a motion oh oh okay sorry Mr Gatewood hi
188Miss Doyle hi Mr cloaker aye Mr Cerrone aye Ms Swanson no Miss Johnson hi Miss simulton aye motion passes six one um action item 11.6 approval of student information system can I have a motion please I make a motion to approve the contract with PowerSchool student information system for a 42-month term as prevented second Mr Cerrone aye Ms Johnson hi Mr pluger aye Mr Gatewood Miss Doyle Miss Swanson Miss Hamilton um I motion passes six one um action item 11.70. I'm sorry I'm sorry 7-0 oh you said no no oh okay um 11.7 action item 11.7 approval building administrator contract can have a motion please I make a motion to approve the building administrator contract as presented second Miss Johnson Mr Gatewood hi Mr Cerrone aye Mr pluger aye Ms Swanson no Miss Doyle hi
189Ms simultan aye motion passes six one action item 11.8 approval of personnel report can I have a motion please I make a motion to approve the Personnel report as presented second Miss Doyle hi Mr pluger aye Mr Gatewood hi Miss Swanson no Mr Cerrone aye Ms simultan aye Miss Johnson abstain emotion passes five yes one abstention one no can I have motion to adjourn and make a motion to adjourn second