001I call this regular board of education meeting to order on Monday, March 16th, 2026 at 6 pm. If we could all please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of America. Thank you. If we could please get a roll call. >> Stacy Salt is absent. Julie Jetty >> here. >> Katherine Potter is absent. Mindy Hartman is absent. Jason Jansik >> here. >> Darling here. Bridget Sandlin. >> Okay. Next up we have the reason you're all here tonight. The community input the school highlight. Tonight it's the Oaknull Early Childhood Center. Mrs. Baker, good evening everybody. Thank you so much to all of our parents who came out tonight. Um I'm so glad the weather actually was we were able to get here with the weather this morning. We weren't sure, but
002we have a group of friends here who is they're very excited to perform for you. Last week we had our music programs and our kindergarten friends got their first taste of what it was like to be up on the risers and performing for a very very large group of people and they did an awesome job. Um before we get started tonight, I would like to give a big shout out to Mr. Ethan Gonzalez. He is our music teacher. Um this is Ethan's first year with us. It's his first year teaching. He's right out of school and I have to say he has done an exceptional job with our friends. Um the programs last week were amazing. They were filled with singing and dancing and just lots and lots of excitement from kids. Lots of engagement
003and he's done an awesome job. So without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Gonzalez. >> Thank you so much. So I'm very excited to present to you some of the songs that uh were in the concert last week. Unfortunately, we will not be doing the folk dancing portion of the concert, but these amazing students did folk dancing. I taught three folk dances uh to them and each class performed one of them and they did an amazing job and blew me away. Uh folk dancing has really taught these students fundamentals in music making and collaboration um within their class. uh they are learning how to count in time for the first time and also um uh memorize uh familiar uh patterns. Um so it is a great thing that I incorporated folk
004dancing in their concert. So for the songs that they are going to sing, the first song is called Don't Sit Still and it's a song about the different ways that we naturally move to music. The second song is actually a song mostly sung in Spanish and it is a song called Losco Lotes de la Prima Vera which translates to the colors of spring and it is a song about the different colors that we sing that we see uh when spring season hits. And then the next song is a song about it is a song called We Got It Done. And it is a song about feeling accomplished, about working really hard on something for for a while. And then we end this little program with the Oaknull School song. I hope you enjoy. >> Thank
005you, Mr. Gonzalez. You did a great job. >> Thank you. Thank you. All right. and the night was not going to be exciting as that was. Uh I don't know if we're expectations are a little bit high now. Um next we have foyer requests. There were no foyer requests this month. Uh next we have board member commentary. Uh first up, Mr. Janzi. >> Uh just a couple things. Mr. Gonzalez on your way out. Thanks again. Great job. Those kids were loving it. So and we were loving it too. Great job. Keep Thank you. Um also couple shouts other shouts. Mrs. Rankin, uh the eighth grade teacher, um for taking I think over 50 kids to the Washington DC last week. She's probably at home taking a nap cuz she earned that. Uh and all the
006other chaperones, my daughter was on that trip. Uh they had a a wonderful time and thank you for all her work in creating those opportunities for the kids to create lifelong memories and those moments. Uh and just a reminder to vote tomorrow in the primary. That is all. >> Thank you. Uh Mrs. Jetty, uh nothing tonight. Okay, Mrs. Sandlin. >> Yep. I just want to uh say thank you to that performance. It was so good. Every kid participated. Like there wasn't that shy one back there. Every single one of them hands up. It was awesome. So, thank you. >> Thank you. And I'll just say everybody enjoy spring break. Uh have fun. Just not too much fun. You got to come back. All right. Next up, we have the superintendent update. Dr. Thomas, >> thank
007you. I just want to say first of all, uh, thank you to all the parents and all those children who came out tonight. We had, as everybody knows, a really unexpected snow day today. Um, it was really difficult even calling a snow day when it was just raining outside of my window. So, um, but the National Weather Service did issue a blizzard warning um, and asked that we keep all vehicles off the road, let emergency vehicles only be out there, which is why we did that. So, thank you to everybody who was involved in that. There are a lot of people who need to be contacted to make sure uh everything goes out and we let our parents know as soon as possible and our staff. Um a couple quick things. Um administrative hiring. We
008are doing a lot of administrative hiring right now and I want to thank the ladies that are sitting in the room right now, Dr. Katchuri and Dr. Bordonaro in particular who have been working with the current cabinet uh working on building the new cabinet. It's taken a lot of time and I know you haven't even started yet, but it's very much appreciated. um and also the work that you're doing with transition uh to the district because there's just a lot uh a lot going on in your current districts and in our district as well and just I really appreciate having gotten to spend time. So, thank you very much. Um and very excited to welcome tonight and we'll talk about this in just a minute Dr. Burke Meyer uh who's going to be uh recommended
009as the assistant superintendent for teaching and learning and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment. Um and then finally just dates. We have a lot of dates coming up. As Miss Darling mentioned, we've got spring break coming up next week. That's going to be uh March 23rd to the 27th. Right after that, we have a long weekend for Easter. Um and it's actually Good Friday 43 and Monday after uh the Easter Sunday 46 are both uh days off of school. So, just so everybody knows that. And then meetings coming up committee the whole for April will be April 20th and the board of education meeting will be April 27th. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next up, we have our teaching and learning update. Miss Rivera, mine as well will be very
010quick. I want to thank the parents and our teachers for completing the five essential parents and educators for completing the five essentials survey. Uh we greatly appreciate the input. Uh as we know that that contributes to our Illinois report card. Also, I testing is in full swing. As you know, yes, we have to come back from spring break. So, please enjoy it because then the other half of testing will occur after spring break. Our schools have already started pre-pring break and then we'll wrap it up at the tail end. Um, this Wednesday is our book study for the anxious generation, our family book study. Uh, 6 p.m. via Zoom. Email will go out tomorrow. Uh as a friendly reminder, it's chapters four through six where we will be focusing on understanding the youth mental health
011crisis and then also connecting it back to um student learning here within Kyrie 26 and what purposeful learning looks like here. Um and then lastly, thank you to Mr. Fitz Simmons and um I'm going to say Miss Victoria, but Miss Beman um and your whole team for what you do behind the scenes with registration. Registration is in full swing. And just as a friendly reminder for the dual language program, Monday, May 4th, correct? Is the deadline for registering for the dual language program. So get registered. >> Thank you. Uh just a committee of the whole update. Um there was a pretty short meeting. We just did a review of the bills and the facility usage fee update which are on the agenda for tonight. Uh next up we have the consent agenda. Included are those
012items that are routine in nature. Should any board member wish to remove an item from the consent agenda. The item will be discussed at the end of section 8. 7.1 are the open session minutes from February 23rd, 2026 regular board of education meeting. 7.2. Our total bills and payroll for approval are in the amount of 1,963,63345. 7.0 resignation dismissal retirement. 7.4 is employment. There's none. Uh 7.5 is destruction of closed meeting audio recordings. 7.6 is the disposal of surplus assets. There were none. And 7.7 are the color portrait contracts for 2026 2027. We have a motion to approve the following. 7.1 7.2 2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 and 7.7. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Any discussion? Hearing none. If we could take a vote, please. >> Julie Jetty, >> yes. >> Jason Jansik, >>
013yes. >> D. Darling, >> yes. >> Bridget Sandlin, >> yes. >> Okay, that motion is approved. Next up, we have uh the approval of the treasures report. Mr. Shepard. >> Yes. Yes. So, just a reminder that we're bringing the treasures report this week. We normally would do this to the committee the whole, but because of the tight time frame, uh, and we're still working our way through uh uh the kinks with uh with Skyward and making sure that data is uh um being sent appropriately to forecast 5, which handles our our projections, which allows us to put together uh this slideshow for you. So, uh I don't have much to say on the treasur report, so we'll go through it fairly quickly. And of course, we'll uh uh stop and pause at the cash flow
014slide, which is the most important slide of the the slide deck. So, when we look at our revenue, again, no major surprises here. Our revenues are coming right in line with where we would expect them to be almost across the board. And in fact, our state revenues actually are above the historical trend line. That's because we we actually started receiving some money for transportation claim items uh this past month. So, that was that was good to see. Our expenses are again right in line with where you would expect them to be. Um I've I've been telling my staff that these treasurers reports are rather boring. Uh but that's the way we would like them. We don't want to see any surprises uh within these reports. Uh expenses are all coming in in line and then
015uh salaries and benefits are slightly lower and we know the reason why that is with the salary acrals that will happen over the summer. When we look at our fund balance, uh you can see we're tracking very closely to the the previous year uh with just a slight uptick. Uh this slide is helpful again because you can see the percentage change from the uh prior year monthto date to the current year monthto date and just how each year uh varies so significantly depending on when we pay certain bills and when we take in certain types of of income. Uh but again it no major surprises here or with our our uh bond and uh uh construction costs. Uh this slide looks at how our budget is doing compared to our projections. And again we're coming
016in right in line with where we would expect. You'll notice the one red item on there is other objects. Uh that is because of the rising cost of of of goods and services mostly in um utilities that we're we're seeing. Uh which is why we see that uh cost going up. uh for debt service and capital projects. The item of note here is you'll notice there's a lot of red on this, but uh that is taking into account all of our construction projects. Uh it is saying that uh um we are going to uh run roughly a $9.9 million deficit compared to the revenue that we take in. Keep in mind, we don't get revenue uh for construction projects. That's all coming from the bonds that we currently hold. Uh if we did have a
017devoted revenue stream, you would see that deficit not be so large. Hint hint hint. Facility sales tax. Uh our cash flow slide. Uh you'll see again not much change from last month. We're still projecting a slight surplus of about $760,000 in our operating funds. Uh we do anticipate this is going to continue to come down, but we are anticipating running a slight uh surplus. And you can see how our various operating funds are are um acting in this current budget year. And finally, we made some additional investments uh in the month of February. Uh we do have a large amount that is currently liquid in this uh account, but that is because we know we're going to have some upcoming costs uh for our solar project uh which is really getting up and and moving.
018And uh we're going to start to see the results of that very soon. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. One question on the transportation claim that you got money from. Is the percentage that that the state is giving us on that claim less than last year? >> It it is. Um however, it is more than what I budgeted. Um I was anticipating a a 20% cut in transportation funding and we we came in um less of of that. So, it was more of like a 5 to 7% cut rather than a 20%. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Mr. Shepard. I'm guessing the the 1.5 million that are coming due at the end of the week that we're going to turn that liquid to start paying for the stuff or are we
019going to >> At this point, I think we're going to be able to reinvest that what we have liquid on hand, I think, is going to cover uh what we currently owe for any upcoming costs. Um, so I'm going to try to continue to invest these funds uh for as long as possible until we absolutely need them. >> Awesome. Awesome. Just one quick clarification too on that slide. Second second CD down has a purchase date and a maturity date that are the same. I'm guessing that's a typo. The east CD third coast at 3.57%. >> Yes. Gotcha. >> It is. We will uh we will make sure that's correct in our next month. Thank you. >> Okay. I'd just like to note that board member Hartman has joined at 6:24 p.m. If there's no further
020question for Mr. Shepard, may I have a motion to approve the treasures report as presented? >> So moved. >> Okay. >> Any discussion? Hearing none, if we could take a vote, please. >> Jason Jansik, >> yes. >> Darling, >> yes. >> Bridget Sandlin, >> yes. >> Julie Jetty, >> yes. Okay, that motion is approved. >> Next up, we have the approval of the 2026 2027 facility usage fee. Mr. Shepard. >> Yes. So, as we discussed at the committee of the whole, uh we are holding off on any type of facility rate increase for the the usage of our gyms. Uh so, we are advocating that the facility rate stays the same for this upcoming fiscal year. Uh the only thing that we are requesting the board approve uh with their with the facility usage fees
021tonight is uh u an added cost for snow removal. Uh that would only be charged if uh the organization that's using the facility happens to be using it on a day where we have to have uh snow removal occur on that particular day. Um that was something that uh uh our friends in CBA uh said that they would be supportive of. Uh so we are are going to use the extra time that we have to work out an arrangement with CBA and some of our other partners and uh the the goal would be to bring back the facility usage fee increases for the following year sometime in December for the board's approval. But for now we're uh requesting that the rates stay the same. >> Thank you. May I have a motion to approve the
0222026 2027 facility usage fee as presented? Good. >> Any discussion >> hearing? None. If we could take a vote, please. >> Yes. >> That motion is approved. Next up, we have item 8.3, the approval of the new assistant superintendent of teaching and learning to begin July 1st, 2026. Dr. Thomas, >> I am very excited to announce that uh Shane Burkemeer, Dr. Dr. Shane Burkmeer is being recommended for the assistant superintendent of teaching and learning uh for next year. Uh just to give a little bit of background, it uh the interview process actually involved the screening of 38 applicants with the first round of interviews with seven candidates and a final interview of three candidates. Um so it was quite a large pool of very talented people and Dr. Burkemeyer absolutely did a great job. So
023we're very excited to have her. Just a little about her background. Uh Dr. Dr. Burkemeer received her bachelor's degree in early childhood education from Indiana University and she completed her master's degree as well as her doctorate in educational administration from Aurora University just this last fall. Congratulations. Um her work experience she actually started her career as a teacher and if her name or her face seemed familiar that's because she worked at both Maplewood and at Deer Path early in her teaching career. So it is great to have her back. Um, in addition, she was an assistant principal in Huntley, later became the executive director of curriculum for Central Community Unit School District 301 and uh is currently serving as the director of teaching and learning and assessment in Palatine District 15. Uh, so it is
024my pleasure to recommend Dr. Shane Burkemeer for the position of assistant superintendent of teaching and learning for Kerry School District 26 starting July 1st, 2026. >> May I have a motion to approve Dr. Shane Burke Meyer contract to become the next sup assistant superintendent of teaching and learning beginning July 1st 2026 as presented. >> So moved. >> Any discussion hearing? None. If we could take a vote, please. >> Jason Jansik, >> yes. >> Darling, yes. >> Bridget Sandlin. >> Julie Jetty, yes. Mindy Hartman, >> yes. Okay, that motion is approved. Okay. Dr. Burkemire, did you want to say anything or >> Perfect. Thank you. Next up, we have the approval of the resolution for non-renewal of probationary teachers not in their final year of probation. Dr. Thomas. >> So, every year uh we if we
025have teachers that we are not renewing, we need to bring a resolution to the board regarding that. This resolution is for a probationary teacher is not in their final year of probation. So that is first or second year teachers. Um and I believe I need to read the resolution if that's okay. Um the resolution says whereas the board of education of Kerry Community Consolidated School District number 26, Mckenry and Lake counties, Illinois employed the teachers listed on exhibit one as probationary teachers who are not in their final year probationary employment during the 2025 2026 school term. And whereas the board of education has determined that the employment of teachers listed on exhibit 1 will not be renewed and they shall be honorably dismissed at the end of the 2025 2026 school term and not employed
026for the 2026 2027 school term pursuant to section 24-11 of the school code of Illinois 105 ILCS 524-11. Now therefore be resolved by the board of education of Kerry Community Consolidated School District number 26, Mckenry and Lake County, Illinois as follows. Section one, that the teachers listed on exhibit one are hereby honorably dismissed effective at uh the end of the 25206 school term and not employed as teachers during the school district for in the school district uh for the 2026 2027 school term. Section two, that the president and secretary of the board of education are hereby authorized and directed to give each teacher written notice of non-renewal in the form of the attached uh in the form attached hereto as exhibit 2 and incorporated herein by this reference by certified mail return receipt requested by
027April 15, 2026. Section three that the superintendent or designate will also deliver a copy of said notice to the teacher by electronic mail. and section four that this resolution will be in full force and effect forth with upon its adoption. Um we will fill in the information about uh who the board member who moved to adopt and uh who seconded it. Um and we'll take a roll call as well. There is one teacher listed for um for honorable dismissal. Okay. Okay. May I have a motion to approve the resolution for non-renewal of probationary teachers not in their final year of probation as presented? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Any discussion? Hearing none. If we could take a vote, please. >> Darling, >> yes. >> Bridget Sandlin, >> yes. >> Julie Jetty, >> yes. >>
028Mindy Hartman, >> yes. >> Jason Jansik, >> yes. Okay, >> that motion is approved. Uh, new topics for discussion. There are none. Uh, may I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> So moved. >> We're not. >> All right. Second. >> All in favor? >> Yes. This meeting adjourns at 6:31