001I call this committee the whole meeting to order on Tuesday, February 17th, 2026 at 6 PM. If we could please take a roll call. >> Julie Jetty is absent. Jason Jansik is absent. Mindy Hartman is absent. Uh Stacy Salt >> here. >> Darling >> here. >> Bridget Sandlin. >> Katherine Potter >> here. Next up, we have the acceptance of the agenda. Items for discussion may be added to the agenda at the start of the meeting at the request of the superintendent or any board member upon majority approval of those members present. Does any board member have an item to add? Hearing none. Next up is community input. Doesn't look like we have anybody signed up today. So we'll skip to the approval of the previous meeting minutes. The approval of the minutes from the January
00220th 20 26 meeting. Does any committee member does any board member have any changes to the minutes? Hearing none. If we could put those on consent. Our topics for discussion tonight. First up are the review of bills. Are there any questions for Mr. Shepard? Hearing none. Uh, next up we have the construction bid approval for summer 2026. Mr. Shepard and Mr. Martin. >> Yes. Okay. So, we were hoping to have the uh bid documents for the upcoming construction season ready for the board to review. Um, we did hold the bid opening last week. We had uh three bids that were submitted. Uh, and the lowest bid uh was submitted by uh Tyler Lane Construction. Um, at this point in time, we are still uh vetting their their bid um and going through all of the
003different requirements that they were required to uh answer to. Um we um will be prepared to make a recommendation next week, but we want to make sure that uh we have all of the materials uh uh as the board has requested ready for you. So we'll be bringing to uh that to you next week um for discussion and approval. Uh the bids were actually fairly close together, the three bids that we received. Uh and just so the board is aware, the low bid uh came in at just under uh or just over $10.6 6 million, but that is for a complete uh renovation of of Deer Path uh and then also work at Three Oaks uh as well uh to to finish off that building uh from its most recent renovation which happened I believe
004five six years ago now. >> Perfect. >> Next up we have the facility usage fees. Mr. Shepard, Mr. M. So I will also I will also take this one and Mr. Martin can jump on in if uh there are any questions. We've provided the board tonight uh two documents. Uh first the the current facility usage fee uh uh structure that we use uh and then our proposed uh rental fee. We are raising the rates for the custodial services. I I believe just a just a rental. Um we are are raising it uh I want to say by about $5 and then we're also um adding in some charges for snow plowing. Um currently if uh we have people here on the weekend and uh there's snow uh the district has been paying for the snow
005removal and salting. Uh we feel that uh if uh people are going to use the facility on the weekend that they should help cover the cost of snow removal and salting. uh because otherwise we wouldn't necessarily have a snow removal crew here on say a Saturday morning. We'd wait until the latest possible time to be ready for for for Monday. So uh unless there are questions, uh we uh do have the proposed facility usage fees here for board review and uh uh the current uh fees, but we are uh recommending some um minor increases. And then moving forward in the future, we're going to need to look at um possibly escalating these fees a little bit more. uh keeping in mind that we have renovated facilities and we want to make sure we're um maintaining
006them. >> I have a question. The snow plowing um and salting the 250 is that like the whole weekend like or per school um cuz like I know like we're here all winter so like 250 for junior high, 250 for Deer Path. How's that work? Uh, so every visit just for salting for the Kerry Junior High is $700. >> Yeah. >> So that's every visit. So if it continuously snows over the weekend, so every time the guys have to come out would be another $700. So the proposed 250 for a an event um would offset that and some of the custodian fees because they get paid as well. Uh I split the um the snow salting and snow removal uh into two parts. The custodians take care of everything close to the buildings and the
007entrances. And then the parking lots, paths, main sidewalks by Crystal Lake Road. That's part of the uh services provided by Arctic Snow and Salt Removal. And um that's just Kerry Jr. And then Deer Path is another one that gets used over the weekend. Yeah. >> So, that one is uh every time they come out for salting, I believe it's just under $500. So, it's it's it's merely just a little extra to help to make sure it it really wouldn't offset much. It's just uh something to help offset some of those charges. >> I get that. I was just curious. So, like it snows Saturday. We're playing basketball at the junior high at Deer Path. Deer Path is paying the fees. Junior high is paying the fee. There's 500. Snows again on Sunday, it's another 500.
008>> Correct. >> Okay. I just wanted to make sure that I understood cuz I feel like I'm going to get asked. >> Yeah. Cuz then um otherwise like uh right now for the other schools that there aren't any activities on the weekends and I verified that for all of February. So I told the snow company to wait uh if anything happens after Friday night at 10:00 so that the building should be totally empty by then. wait until Sunday night or early early early Monday morning before school starts that next week so that they come one time for like say one two inches of snow even if it comes at different times over the weekend versus just coming continuously when nobody's in the buildings >> right I totally get it I was just curious and then
009I was actually just curious of one more thing so I don't I'm not against raising the rates but I was curious what is um by bringing by raising it a little bit, are you making like an a significant amount more money by raising it that little bit? Like what percent of of the >> So like the uh normal like say you add them both together, it's $80 an hour like uh then the proposed would be $90 per hour. So that extra amount as far as like how much it contributes to the to the total fund, I don't know, is that like 8% >> a little bit, right? >> 8% and then a little bit of those snow and salting fees. So then it would just make sure that there's some there to reinvest >> Yeah.
010into maintaining like either the basketball back stops or the floor or painting or sometimes the the cages on the on the clocks or different devices might get damaged, the outlets, things like that. >> Yeah. >> So, with with the the current fee structure, facility usage fees, I believe, have brought in uh around $200,000 uh for the on&m fund fund 20. Uh we did look at how our rates compare with with neighboring districts. Um this does bring it up to par with what other places are charging. So we're not we're not like ahead of the pack with how we're not pricing people out, but we're also not uh providing them with such a bargain that we're flooding our our facilities with people that want to use them. >> I get that. Just a question. >> No,
011for sure. >> A question too. So it says during winter months which is from what are you deeming like December like mid December to mid-Marchch? >> No the uh the current contract for like snow and salting it starts in October. >> Okay. >> And then I believe it goes all the way to April just in case. >> So this fee would be charged for any event from October through April >> if it snows. Yes. >> Only if it snows. Yeah. Yeah. It's not just a like um uh >> feed add like per visit or per use. It's only if it snows. >> Okay, great. Thank you. Um, is our snow removal, if this is approved by the board, is the snow removal company, do they get notified um if there's a program going on here
012or um will they be just like told, hey, no one's here. don't plow it till Sunday night >> before the weekends like or even any snow event like uh I communicate directly with their representative from Arctic to make sure we have a plan or when they are going to be visiting to get things done if it happens after the school school day you know before night or for a plan for the next day. So yeah, I was I'm in constant contact with uh our representative Tom from Arctic like every every time there's any kind of precipitation. >> Okay. Thank you. This is I think this is really smart. I like it. Yeah. >> Um it offsets cost >> and so I like it. Thank you. >> Sure. >> Thank you, Mr. Martin. >> You got
013it. >> Uh next up we have the uh staffing plan. Dr. Thomas, >> thank you. So I uh have been working with the admin team and uh with the principles with the buildings with the um staff to take a look at our staffing plan for this year. So um going into next year and the one thing that we have been trying to do all year is keep as much as we can things even things level um just trying to keep things moving forward all the good things moving forward not make any big changes. So I think the staffing plan actually really reflects that as well. Um the outcomes that we're looking at is to provide an overview of the current enrollment across the district and also to ensure that staff is aligned to support the
014district in meeting its strategic plan goals. So strategic plan goals, I won't review those in detail, but the areas are student success, district learning culture, exceptional staff, strategic partnerships, and fiscal responsibility. So, we're always trying to match what we're looking for in our strategic plan with the staffing, the programs, and all of the things that our students are going to need to be successful. And uh again, in line with the goals, one of the things we look at is the enrollment trends. So, this is information from the Casarda study that was done uh back I believe in 2023. Uh they take a look a very deep dive into uh what they predict enrollment trends will be. We did this um with other districts in the county um particularly in region 4 and uh it's very
015interesting. They look at everything from housing to you know ages of people that are residents, how many residents, what the trends have been with people moving in and out um and they come up with a plan. The lines you see there, the red in the middle is if everything stays as expected and your enrollment is as expected. The line at the top is if enrollment is a little bit more than expected or predicted and the line below is a little bit uh less than what is expected or predicted. We typically trend at that middle line or just above. Actually, right now our enrollment we're anticipating for next year is 2460 students. So, we're actually trending very close to the upper line right now uh with our with our students. So, not that much uh growth
016into next year, but um it's interesting that we are trending just a little bit at the higher edge. I'm always amazed at this study because how close it actually trends even a couple years out to where uh we really land. Um I'm going to go through each one of the schools. Um again what you'll see on most of these starting with Oaknull is most of the time now Oaknull doesn't have any changes for their programs for next year but um most of the time when you see a change it's typically because of a the just grades rolling up to the next grade. So, if you have a large first grade and it's rolling up to second grade, you're going to need to add uh to the second grade and things like that. Oaknull, right now
017we're uh looking at level staffing across the board and all the programs. You'll see the average class sizes there. Um just a note about some of those smaller ones, ECE uh in particular. Uh the ECE programs always start quite low and through the end of the year, they can only have up to 10 students. Those are classrooms that have only students with special needs who are that are three to five years old. But as students turn three, they become eligible for the program. So that program enrollment increases across time every single year. And that's we're trending pretty close to how we normally do there. Briergate is next. Briergate has some movement and again these are due to larger class sizes. So when you see the first grade classes, these are actual kindergarten students who will
018be rolling up to first grade coming out of Oaknull going up to Briergate. Um, and so right now there's 77 students in first grade. They will roll up to second grade. So we'll be back to three teachers in first grade, but we need to add that additional teacher up to the second grade to keep those numbers uh in check. And same thing is happening down in fourth grade and fifth grade. So we're down one in fourth grade, but that larger class is rolling up to fifth grade. Deer Path has um one group that's actually coming down a bit. So you see that rolling situation again in first and second grade and then in fifth grade uh you'll see that we're down one. Currently there's a larger class and there are four teachers uh in fifth
019grade but the class of 77 is coming up to fifth so we're going to three. That is one that we're keeping an eye on. It is a little bit larger number. Um and we'll talk a little bit more about how we do a watch on these um a little toward the end of the presentation. Three Oaks uh also has uh just one class changing actually that's the third grade and that one is going from three sections down to two. So there's a minus one there for uh staffing and then Kerry Junior High stays level across the board. So financial implications we put on here every grade that is changing the amount of money we use is the amount that it would cost for um a new teacher including salary and benefits. That's why we use
020the 55,000. So overall across the district, we would be going down two FTEEs, so two teachers. Um we're not anticipating any riffs or anything like that because we have many more teachers than that who will be retiring. Um so there would be no teachers released based on uh the enrollment trend going down. Not the enrollment trend, but the the number of teachers. Next steps that we have uh are finalizing. This is actually almost done. Uh Mr. Daroo's been working on this uh with the admin team. We're going to work on this again with the principles tomorrow. Finalizing the open positions list. So as we um have retirees, we as we have people who have resigned from the district um have we we have grades that are rolling up like if it's a second grade we
021need to add a section to. These are all considered open positions. So these all get posted and then we go through the process of transferring teachers. So we start with um teachers first get the opportunity to voluntarily transfer to a position that's open once the voluntary transfer process is done. Then we look at involuntary transfers where we move stu move students move teachers or make placements based on what's in the best interest of the students. Um after we finish that process then we post outside of the district and we work on hiring for any unfilled positions. Um we do have ongoing review of special education staffing needs by building. Um this is done because the biggest time of movement in special education is essentially from now through uh really about the middle of May. A
022lot of IEP placements are being made. A lot of IEP meetings are happening in that period of time. So there's uh some shifting and changing that goes on as students are added to the IEP rosters or uh are taken from the IEP rosters. Um so we'll be keeping an eye on that. There could be some shifts in positions. Um we're not anticipating the staffing necessarily to go up or down, but shifting positions. So, if we have a larger group for social work, say at Three Oaks, and we need to shift some social work time over there and that sort of thing, that we will do. Um, usually we try to get that done before the end of the school year. And then the final thing is monitoring the class sizes. So, that's something, as the
023board knows, we do throughout the spring and in the summer. In the summer, it's a I want to say it's weekly. It is a weekly, Jack. It's almost daily. um because especially as mid July to late July hits, we start seeing a lot of movement, a lot of students enrolling either in our district or enrolling in other districts and leaving our district. So, we'll see a lot of that at that point. And if the board has any questions, I'm happy to answer those. Dr. Thomas, I just had a question about the um Kerry Junior High. It's um saying the presentation is saying the total student number would be estimate 9002 and that seemed really high. Uh the last enrollment update I believe was like 785 or something around that number. Are we like ant are
024we anticipating more enrollment or >> I believe they're currently I don't have the numbers for this current year with me right now but I believe they're in the 800s right now and um the with the group going out being smaller than the group coming in that's where we see the enrollment go up. >> Okay. >> We can double check though. No, it's I'm just wondering because that would be a huge increase as well, but there are also three additional programs in addition to the gened. So I understand. Thank you. >> The top of our heads, do we know how many retirements we have actually accepted in for next year? Okay, thank you. Um, is there a does class size recommendations uh vary per grade? >> It varies based on groups of grades. So like kindergarten
025through 2 grade uh 3rd through 5ifth and sixth through 8 are all slightly different ranges. >> Okay. And um do you have recommendations for those groups? like what do you >> It's actually in a uh a board exhibit. >> Um I don't have that with me right now, but it's in a board exhibit that the board actually sets what the recommendation is for that. >> Right. Is that different from your recommendation though? >> No, it doesn't. Okay. >> But what we do when we see that somebody is getting close or going over what the recommended uh ratio is, what we do is we take a look at um uh who's involved in that group of students. Do we have a lot of students with high needs? Is it a relatively easy group? is it um
026uh you know do we have this size group and we all have all brand new teachers like we take a look at a lot of those things um to see what the trends are um with that and then year to year and then make decisions based on that. There's also a process for um teachers if uh they have a concern that they can request that we if we haven't automatically reviewed it, they can also request to have us review it. And then what we do is teachers make the request uh the principal and the superintendent um review the information, sit down and talk to the teacher or teachers who have made that request and then so we have all the information and then we make a recommendation based on that. That actually happened this year
027in first grade at Brierggate. Um, we saw the numbers over the summer increasing right before school was starting. We got three more students and it kicked up those numbers would have been in first grade. I think it was 25 or six >> or maybe it was 26, 26 and 27 in the three classes. And at that point, we ended up uh agreeing yes, we need to add one more teacher here, which brought the numbers way down, which in first grade the recommendation I think is only up to 22 students if I'm not mistaken. So, it it really did bring it right back down in line uh with where other um grade levels were across the district. Yeah. With that particular grade level. >> Great. Thank you, >> Dr. Thomas. About class size, I'm going to
028move this because that's weird talking that way. Um about class size, does the state recommend any particular size? Do they break it down by grade um like that or is it totally up to the board? >> I I'm not aware. Uh, Mr. Rivera, do you know does this I don't I don't know that I don't think that they do, but does the state do you know if they have any specific recommendations they make for class sizes? I I don't know of any. >> Okay. >> Um, we usually have looked at that based on uh the grades of the students, the younger students looking at smaller class sizes for them and then slightly older uh students would have, you know, larger class sizes. And keep in mind too, all those class sizes are just an average.
029So, for example, the junior high is a place where you might have one math class that has 20 kids and you might have another math class that's a very advanced class and has 32 or 33 students. Uh, but sometimes if you don't have the 32 or 33, if you said, okay, 24 is the absolute cutoff, that's all we're doing, then you have students who might not be able to take that level of math class because it's not enough to make another section. So, to make sure that students get the class they need, that's always the primary thing that we're looking at. So you may have one class that's a little bit above or another class that's a little bit below the range, but the average comes out. Okay. >> Um >> I know we had
030I know that when uh we were dealing with COVID in the schools and and the distancing that it was really important that we kept that class size low >> and I just I'm just wondering if if it's up to us to change that or what. That's so I'm curious about who's is it our guidance? Did we come up with those numbers or >> based on my yes based on my experience within previous school district and other educators? It's a conversation that takes place at the district. The state doesn't give an explicit guidance of this is the class size that you should have because it's based off of your um it's based off of finances. It's based off of enrollment. It's based off of the nuances that exist in the district. And so it's a district
031decided decision is where that lands. Okay. Yeah. I'm not in no way am I suggesting this, but I I was in 30 kids in my classes, you know. I'm in no way suggesting that um that it was different then. Um but I would be interested in knowing if we could pull any of the information to find out maybe what it was prior to us saying We need to have these classes safer, distance them. I just out of curiosity, >> the class size ranges as they are have been that way for quite a long time and they really didn't go into place until after 2010 when we had major uh staffing cuts at that point and very large class sizes where nearly every class was 30 students or above um based on the finances of the
032district being so dire. Um, and after that, as we kind of came out of that, that's when we went to first we added back all the specials and then we worked on really lowering those class sizes into a more manageable range. I would say we're a little bit on the lower end right now. That's not a bad thing for our kids or for our staff for that matter. But it is it is again just a range. It's just a recommendation. Um, but that I do know that was the genesis of when we started having that class size range was post 2010 when we were rebuilding the district. I like that. Thanks for sharing that because I don't why would I know that what's going on in 2010 and the reason. So, I appreciate that. >>
033I know I know this board had the conversation about wanting to keep the class sizes lower because of the additional behaviors that our staff was seeing in the classrooms, etc., and making it more manageable for our staff. So, um that's my recollection of it since I've been here. So these ones that are at like 25 um over 25, this is the watch and wait and see if more kids enroll, Dr. Thomas. >> Right. Because in any grade level, you know, for example, I think, um I know Deer Path fifth grade is there. I believe there's a couple classes at Three Oaks that are right about that same spot. Um so those are ones we watch because we do have a lot of movement. We even sometimes have a lot of movement just over winter break.
034Um but into the summer we can be up and down a hundred different kids. Um so it just depends on which grades those kids are moving in and out of. It always seems to come in groups. You know we just had the largest group just blossom uh in first grade this year at Briergate. Other years um you know fifth grade at Briergate could go down seven kids in two weeks and we just don't know until we get a little further into the summer. >> Thank you Dr. Thomas. If there's no other questions, uh, we'll move on to the technology plan. Miss Rivera, Mr. Fitz Simmons. Mr. Fitz Simmons is going to walk us through the T plan for today. Um, it is essentially, you're going to see it's a mirror of what came last year.
035Um, and he'll walk you through all of that. there'll be one significant difference which will be all of the items that fall under the category of the referendum. Uh but if you were to remove that portion um items that fall under the referendum it would be very much copy paste from what it was last year. So with that I will turn it over to very slowly Mr. Simmons. There you go. >> I'm going to be working two presentations simultaneously and talking. So, this should be interesting. All right. So, uh we're going to start as we have in the past with a little rationale. So, uh what is pedagogy? And according to uh Michael Fulen uh it's the driving force for educational change. And uh he goes on to say that it's a dynamic partnership uh
036based relationship between teacher and student where both parties co-design the learning experience to achieve what he calls deep learning. Uh he goes on when he talks about uh educational technology. He says that pedagogy is the driver and digital which he way he references technology is the accelerator. So when the district was working on its instructional framework we referenced the work of Liz Cobb and her triple E framework. uh the chart that I provided for you uh in your in your document shows how that work also ties very closely to the work of uh Michael Fen. Uh I'm not going to go through each one of these but um it's it's important to realize I am struggling here. Hang on. It's important to realize that uh you know technology is not optional anymore. It needs to
037be part of the instructional strategies that we have with our students. um you know that they the way our students learn today uh and prepare to move into a technology centric society uh that they need to be exposed to this in a meaningful way that uh helps them with their deep learning. Um, so you know, moving into, you know, uh, what our purchases are going to be to help us with that, we want to, you know, reiterate what we do to keep our students safe because that is important. Um, number one, when we're dealing with technology, uh, want to talk to you about the roll out of the devices, um, what we're going to be, uh, updating for our staff as well as phase four of our infrastructure, uh, up, um, improvements and upgrades. And
038then uh other advances that we will be uh continuing in our classrooms for whole group instruction as well as our continued reselling of our old retired iPad fleet. All right. So, uh the district will continue to use Lighteed to uh monitor and manage our student iPad fleet. It's made up of three components. the MDM which allows us to push out security policies, apps and other management features to our iPads. It will um it also includes light speeded filter which provides content filtering to websites uh both at school and at home anytime they're connected to the internet and light speeded alert uh which alerts our uh building administration and a few key other people in the district anytime questionable or alarming content might be typed into a search browser or a Google document. Um, our teachers
039have access to a tool called Apple Classroom and we protect our students um from anytime you see a website that says sign in with your Google account, we block them from being able to do that to just any website that might be out there or any service that might be out there. We um anytime a student tries it asks me personally for permission and I never grant it unless it is on the SOPA list which is our which is the student online personal protection act and it has been approved uh as a curriculum tool for the district. jumping into jumping into our device roll out. Uh we'll continue uh purchasing new iPads for our kindergarten and fifth grade students. Fifth grade uh students will continue to receive a key folio case with their iPads um
040to make it easier uh to uh type different documents. The way the district is purchasing uh iPads right now is through leasing. Um currently we have two separate leases going. The uh fourth column of this chart is where we are currently. Um those payments are coming due next month. I believe those bills are with uh Mr. Shepard currently. Um they probably are going to get approved next week I believe. Uh this year uh we will be looking to add a third lease to our um uh our to our iPad fleet. It will contain 510 iPads as well as 300 key folio cases and 300 um kindergarten cases, kindergarten safe cases. Um the a subtotal for the device rollouts this year of the previous two leases as well as this year's lease and the kindergarten cases
041is 165,981.39 for our staff this year. Uh we're continuing our five-year refresh cycle. We have 35 staff who are up for refresh this year. Um came in nice and simple this year. Uh it's going to be $35,000 for the 35 laptops. And we're getting into phase four of our infrastructure update, which uh ties in with the deer path renovations this year, the same as we did with Briergate and um Oaknull and Three Oaks last year. Um, these infrastructure updates will uh benefit both the security cameras as well as audio enhancement. I'm not going to read all of these slides on audio enhancement because they're the same as last year. Uh, one thing I did want to um, iterate is there is no recording of anything that is being said into the classroom microphones and there
042is no way to remotely listen to what a teacher is saying on those microphones. It is simply a connection inside the classroom from the microphone to the speakers. Uh, also included in the um the audio enhancement improvement is a replacement for our intercom systems and um it the the um features for building safety. Um, I know in the past the monitors that are in the hallways has come up and the question of why we needed those as clocks has come up and it is a blessing to us that we have only seen the clock feature of what those monitors do. They are uh emergency signs in cases of tornadoes. They are emergency signs in cases of lockdowns. We don't really want to ever see them used for that. We want them to just be clocks,
043but they are more than just clocks. They are critical pieces of building safety. Oops. So, um, audio enhancement at Deer Path this year is estimated to come in at roughly $354,000 plus another 60,000 for the necessary wiring. And then the switch upgrade that needs to happen for the security cameras and audio enhancement comes in at just um just under $27,000 for an estimated cost of $620,000. $620,513. district will also continue to replace its antiquated Smartboard technology with uh classroom displays um for whole group instruction. Um this year we will be looking at uh roughly 34 displays for Deer Path as well as 22 uh displays at Three Oaks. Now, if you'll remember last year, Three Oaks got 12 uh displays. Um and that is why they are 12 less than um than Deer Path with
044the same school footprint. Uh as far as reselling our fleet, um these are this is a rough list of the iPads that we have available to sell as well as the um the way that Second Life Mac, the company we sell these to, grades our uh device fleet that we send to them. uh they gave us an estimated max potential value of the fleet that we're selling uh back as just under $41,000. So, a summary of all the purchases this year um uh is uh shown here just under $992,000. Uh this is higher than you would normally see because of the audio enhancement features which uh last year came as part of the referendum uh building enhancements uh for um Briergate Oaknull and Three Oaks. This year we're bringing it as part of the technology
045plan. Are there any questions? >> I do have some for the new iPads. Are are you purchasing those? Not because the other ones are you're talking about a lease program, >> right? So, every year we have um a new um new class of kindergarteners come in that we issue iPads to and we replace the um the iPads that the kindergarteners have been you that the fourth graders have been using since kindergarten uh to get them through the rest of their time before they go to district 155. Those are the that would be the new lease for this year that we add on top of the two previous leases. >> Oh, okay. So, they're not per the 300 and some is not a purchase price. It is >> I'm sorry. Let me go back. Um, so
046we're still leasing them, >> correct? >> Okay. and the the subtotal that came in just under 166,000 is the three leases and the additional cases we need for kindergarten. >> Okay. And the um so the devices that we might possibly uh sell, how are you wiping them? Is this company are you getting rid of the hard are you managing them? Yes, they they're all wiped uh and released from our for lack of better word domain uh so that other people can make use of them. So there's no information left on them, no licenses or anything are tied back to the district. >> You'll get like certification of that like they they'll give you a certificate of of whatever not destruction because you're not wiping you're not getting rid of the hard drives. No. Okay. Um
047the the wiping procedure is done by us. They won't take them. >> They won't take them until we've completed that. >> Okay. Um Okay. I feel like I have another one. I'll come back. >> Okay. >> I have a question. So, I know I've brought this up before, but at at some point, I guess, are we having a conversation with District 155? um on if our middle schoolers is it's our job to prepare them for high school. They use Chromebooks in high school. So, are are we ever going to think about maybe getting them going on those Chromebooks when they're ready, those grades, getting them ready for high school? So, I'll go ahead and chime in on that one. That's not uncommon to see an elementary school district having one object, one one item, and
048then the high school having the other, right? Like my children did the same thing, but it was the reverse. They had Chromebooks throughout their elementary experience and then D211 is all iPad. There is an interchangeable feature to this with it being technology, right? iPads are I'm going to go on a guess here and say are not new to our kids and I'm going to go on a whim here and say computers are not new to our kids either. That's a much larger conversation that's not just dictated by D155, but then also goes back to our own finances here that we would have to delve into that conversation. So, while I understand the bigger picture of it, um, our kids are more resilient with technology than what I think sometimes we give them credit for and
049their ability to navigate both iPad and computer. And it's not uncommon that you have a non-unit district where they're not using the same materials. But again, it would have to be an internal reflection on our own finances and what that looks like for us. >> And I I understand that. I'm just wondering if we've received any feedback from D155 about if our kids that are using >> No, when I meet with them, it's usually about um executive functioning skills is the conversation. It's regarding like standing up and delivering speeches. They don't even touch the topic of technology from the times that I have met with them which is we meet frequently throughout the school year. Um and what they tend to focus on are curriculum aligned topics whether it's writing whether it is public speaking
050is a big one that comes up. um which our junior high has really shifted to supporting that public speaking piece because the kids were struggling in high school when they got there and they weren't able they weren't comfortable with standing up in front of a class and talking and so it's been more so those executive functioning skills or social emotional skills that's been the bigger topic when we get together um as a collective what's come up I've never once had anybody come up and talk about the technology I can pose the question the next time that we're other um just be curious like I mean I know it's I don't know just for me I feel like it's like handing me a handing me this and then handing me a a laptop I'm going to
051>> I mean kids right they have their phones which is a smaller version of an iPad and and again I'm just stating the obvious >> thing because an Apple device is way different than being on a Google device they're not anywhere close to the same >> and I I just Like in my mind, I feel like we're preparing them for high school. So, we want it to be a smooth >> And I think that's also the beauty then of what we have because our kids have access to the Google uh the Google I just aged. I aged myself. They have access to Google features, right? We're not just using iPad uh tools. They have access to Google Suite. So, in that sense, it transfers over. >> Okay. Um, so there are some nuances of what
052we are doing that help support them. So Google Docs, Google Slides, all of Google Suite is >> I I >> is accessible. >> Yeah. I just want I just want to add I think the the skill set that we should be worried about with our students is device agnostic. We need to be teaching them the skills to use technology effectively in their everyday lives as well as their educational process and not worried about what device they're doing it on. >> Touche. Um I will bring the question up though next time that we meet just to ask and just pose and get feedback from them on that one. >> Yeah. I'm just thinking like you can get a Chromebook for a lot cheaper than an iPad too. I mean it's just you know I mean I
053understand it's it's the applications we're using etc. But just a question to pose. Yeah I will. >> Yeah. >> I do have another question. Sorry about the laptop cost for the teachers. So >> basically $1,000 a laptop. Um are do we have like a big purchasing company? Is that and and is that reflective of the current cost of memory right now? And is that expected to like when when are they going to be purchased? >> Uh hopefully next Tuesday. >> Oh, okay. So, so pretty current then. Okay. Because we know memory is going up almost. >> So, yeah, the the laptops are universally more expensive right now than they have been in past because of the different costs of things like the memory. Um, so yeah, they're a little bit more expensive this year than
054they have been in the past, >> but it still falls within the technology budget and our five-year refresh cycle. >> What What kind are is the are they HPs or >> uh we we are purchasing Lenovo currently. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. I I don't even know if it falls within the tech plan or finance, but the there was one recommendation that the auditors uh brought and that was uh security ensuring that that the district's technology was secure. Is all of has all of that been addressed? Is it here in the plan? Do you have everything needed? Does it not have anything to do with the plan? Does it have to do with the whole different office? >> So, a lot of those um those requests that were made by our auditor for
055for uh tax security, we currently already do. Uh and Mr. Fitz Simmons does a very nice job of making sure our network is is secure. Uh the recommendations that were in our report were more universal in nature. Those were uh comments that they were placing in um just about every district's uh report. uh due to the fact that we've seen an increase in the amount of uh tech crimes out there but uh a lot of the suggestions uh um that or we're get Simmons and currently do quite a few of them. >> Thank you. >> There are no other questions. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next up we have close session for the purpose of discussion the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees of the public body 5CS120-2C1. May I
056have a motion to adjurnn to close session? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Any discussion? Hearing none. We can take a vote please. >> Stacy Salt. >> Yes. Yes. >> Darling. Yes. >> Bridget Sandlin. >> Yes. >> Katherine Potter. >> Yes. That motion is approved. Open session ends at 6:48 p.m. into Google.