Committee of the Whole: September 22, 2025

001I call this committee of the whole meeting to order on Monday, September 22nd, 2025 at 6 PM. If we could please take a roll call. Katherine Potter here. Mindy Hartman >> here. Darling >> here, >> Stacy Salt, Julie Jenny >> here, >> Jason Janzik, and Bridget Sandlin >> here. If we could note, Jason Janzik will be uh joining us a few minutes late. Uh, next up we have the 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 tonight? Hearing none. Next up is community input. It doesn't look like anybody signed up and there's nobody here that wants to speak. So, we'll skip that

002whole paragraph. Uh, next up we have the approval of previous meeting minutes. Uh, the approval of the minutes from the August 11th, 2025 meeting. Does any committee member have any changes to the minutes? Hearing none, we'll put those to the consent agenda, please. Next up are our discussion topics. First up, we have the review of bills. Are there any questions for Mr. Shepard regarding the bills? Hearing none, we could put those to the consent agenda, please. Next up, we have the treasurer's report. Mr. Shepard. >> So, good evening. This is going to be a brief report. At least I'm going to try to make it a brief report. Uh, when we were preparing for the presentation tonight, we actually found an error. Um, and we will provide updated graphics for you for next week for

003the board meeting. But I do want to take a moment to go through and highlight some of the things that uh are in this report. I will highlight where the error is at so you can uh keep track of that when we provide the updated document for for next week. So when we look at our our revenues uh I don't put too much stock on the the actual projections for uh the revenues this early in the fiscal year. Uh just based on what we see uh property tax payments are coming in strong. Uh the state revenues is an area of concern but we have gotten our EBF funding. We have not gotten any funding yet for for transportation. Uh that usually comes uh later this month uh sometimes in in early October, but overall we're

004I think we're in a good spot with our current revenues. And I think you'll see this even out as we go through the year. Uh with the expenditures, uh this is where the error uh occurred. And you will notice there's a big orange bar there uh by where it's it's noted as salaries. We did not spend $2.6 6 million in salaries for the month of August. That that figure should have been more like $290,000 uh for salaries. Uh we were able to trace back a journal entry uh that inadvertently got charged to the wrong account. Uh that journal entry was was supposed to record capital uh construction project cost uh which is why it was about 1.9 million that was added to a salary account instead. Uh so that will be changed uh for next

005week. Uh the other uh expenditure numbers all are in line with where we expect. Uh so keeping that in mind uh even with that uh large error in the salary account, you'll see our month uh and fund balance is still projected to be fairly strong even taking into account that error uh which from my vantage point is a positive because if we were to have spent that money and to be in the position that uh the model thinks we were going to be in uh I'll take that any day of the week. Uh so again when we look at how this year compared to the prior year uh you can see uh the big increase the 610% increase in salaries. Again we know that that is not the the case. Uh the largest area that

006uh differed from the prior year was the capital improvement uh construction projects that we had paid for uh in the month of August. Uh and again uh how we're comparing to our budget. I think we are are are going to end up fairly close to where our budget is just based on two months worth of of data. Uh again this will come into a clearer picture as we move uh through the the fiscal year. Uh but there are no alarms uh being sounded here. Uh same thing with debt service and capital projects. uh and we will get to the total amount that we spent for capital projects in just a minute. So the cash flow slide uh with that error uh included it says that the the model projects that we're going to have about

007a $64,000 uh deficit. Um which for that error is is pretty impressive that it's only $64,000 of a deficit. A couple things of note with our our cash flow. uh the operation maintenance uh keep in mind we were budgeting for a fairly hefty uh deficit in that fund. So that's not entirely unexpected. The transportation fund, we will not run a $951,000 deficit. And here's why. Um every year we journal out the bus lease that goes to debt service, but it's initially charged to transportation at the beginning of the year. So right now the system thinks that it's being taken out of two locations. it's being taken to taken out of debt service and it's being projected to come out of fund 40. As a result, that deficit is inflated. It also assumes that we're going

008to spend every dollar of the 300,000 that we budgeted for contracted services. And thus far, we are running um lower in that amount than we were in the past. So, uh, as we go through the fiscal year and we take care of that board approved, uh, fund transfer, uh, you will see these numbers come back, uh, to reality. Uh, but overall, uh, our budget has gotten off to a strong start. Uh, we have quite a few in the the way of investments. So, you'd see an ever growing list of investments. Uh we spoke to our adviser uh today and we're going to be investing uh some of our excess funds uh at least on a short-term basis to try to capitalize on interest rates before they really start to go down. Uh we're still seeing

009interest rates in the the high threes to lower fours. Uh so we hope to place some some more investments this week. For capital improvement, uh we issued a little over $1.3 million in construction payments. uh and uh we earned about $48,000 uh in interest. You can see we still have a a fairly healthy balance uh to fund capital improvement projects into uh next summer. Uh and finally, one other mention of note, we had a meeting with uh the the uh regional business managers from Mckenry County uh for other school districts on Friday. Uh and we are going to continue to push the idea that uh uh the county put forward towards the voters. This idea of a countywide facility sales tax uh designed to help fund uh capital improvements or or funding our facilities going

010into the future. Keep in mind that source of income if we had it right now would bring in an estimated $1.5 million annually uh if that sales tax were in place. Uh and of course that would negate uh uh having to do fund balance transfers from the education fund uh to fund capital improvements going forward after the referendum. So um don't be shocked if I continually mention the the the need for that uh facility uh sales tax countywide. And with that, I'd be happy to take any questions uh knowing full well that the updated report uh will be in your packet next week. My only question is you have some of the investments highlighted in yellow. Is that just showing us what went on last month? Correct. >> Yes. >> Um I know we don't

011get a lot of money from Lake County, but have their tax bills been released to the people? They're not like Cook County. >> Uh we have not had any delays with either Mckenry or Lake County. Uh thankfully they are not taking after the example that Cook County has set for the rest of the state. >> Hearing no other questions. If we can move that to discussion since the slide will be changing. Um and then just we could just briefly update so the public can see that. Next up we have the uh allied facilities solar proposal. Mr. Shepard and Mr. Martin. So, in ju in just a minute, I'm going to ask that uh our representatives from allied facilities come up uh and talk about this updated proposal. Just a little bit of a background. Um

012about a couple weeks ago, I got a phone call from uh Doug uh saying that that there's some very time-sensitive uh items that the the board needs to to take care of that could result in uh further savings uh for uh the district in the future. Um, in the uh also in the last uh couple weeks since the the board last had a discussion on this topic, Allied has had uh some engineers on staff to take a look at uh uh the the roofs, in particular the roof here at Kerry Junior High. Uh and the numbers they're going to discuss with you tonight are uh what they uh they they're firm that these are the numbers that the uh the project would cost. Uh so the hope is tonight that they will go through this

013proposal. uh the the board has the option to uh approve one, two, or all three of the the projects. We wanted to make sure that the the prices were listed out for you. Um but we would be asking for approval uh in some way, shape, or form next week. Uh and uh our representatives from Allied will walk us through the the presentation and the reason why uh it is fairly timesensitive. So I'll ask that our our reps come up to the the microphone. All right, thank you very much. It's great to be back again. Um, we're getting to be a household name here, which is good. So, yeah, we'll just have a few slides to go over and then, uh, please any questions. Um, we'd love to answer them, make sure everyone understands exactly what,

014uh, what the project entails. Oh, there we go. So, a few of the first slides will be review slides. Um, again, just to make sure that uh the group sees how how it would be installed on the roof. Um, so you can just look to the next one, David. Yeah, please. Um the update with this is that uh depending on which project or projects we choose that would increase the amount of the inflation reduction act money that the district would receive. Uh so you can go to the next one please. And again just want to show the pictures of how it's installed. No drilling into the roof. Um especially the new roofs. Um it's placed, it's covered, it's protected um while it's ballasted down with the blocks as you can kind of see there. And

015then inverters are we typically try to either get them inside or on the side of the building. You kind of see that. Um and then again we'll go through it is domestic. We did these prices with um the first slide will be non-domemestic but we did domestic content because I know the board was very interested in that last time we met. Uh so the prices have been updated using all domestic uh content. And then again we can kind of go through we incorporated the um the uh the software so you get yeah dashboard thank you dashboard to kind of show uh the school you can work with the again put in the curriculum and show the public of how how well it's doing just one more picture there. So this is you want you want

016to talk this one >> it's not allowed to talk about the money anymore. Um so this this first solution is the is without domestic content. Um and what's interesting between the two options is although this one has an initial lower first cost, it actually takes longer to hit a break even point and has less energy savings. Um, and I'll explain that when we get to the domestic content. But so you see each uh building's broken down. One of the requests last time that we were here is to show when the uh project would be cash positive. And so you could see that on the far right there where it's uh year 9, year 10, year 9 average all together. It's it's year 10. And so a couple things that that this includes. Um do we

017have scope on here? Is there a slide or not? >> Uh okay. So just to to cover a couple of the of the components when we talk about the dashboard. Um basically there's software that comes with the installation of this system that shows the production of energy. And uh I am happy to report we did just get a uh some information from Prairie Ridge where we installed on their high school last year and they are going to produce 12% more energy than what we had um told them they were going to produce. Um they also have decided to do the other three buildings which is great news for us. Um >> dashboard is there's show we do show. >> Okay. Um, but the way that this dashboard works is it's collecting all this data from

018the solar system and putting it into more of a graphic format. So students, community members are able to see what this is producing. And a lot of times it's put into a context of number of trees saved, number of cars taken off the road, things of that that nature. The plan was to tie all three if if you chose all three buildings was to put this into the junior high um but then tie the production of all three buildings so it's all three are visible and then you have the option to take this and create a link and put it onto your website too so the community can see what you're doing to be sustainable and the energy that you're producing. But this is the option that is meeting the uh fiak requirements that are

019currently out there as it relates to the ITC uh credit. The Yeah, it is 50%. No, it's not. One mistake on that slide. >> Go back just >> Oh, he went forward. Okay. I was like, wait a minute. That's >> Go back one day, please. >> Go back one. >> Yeah. Yeah, >> if you'll see the ITC credit uh where it says 40% direct pay uh that's based on the the fiak option. Now the next slide please. This is if you go with domestic content. So what's interesting and the why and the reason that the math works out the way it does is the domestic content is more expensive to purchase upfront. However, the additional 10% that you're getting from the ITC is on the entire project. So, it's not just on the material, it's

020on the labor, it's on everything. So, because of that reason, at the end of the day, you actually do get more money back uh which also hits your cash positive uh threshold quicker, which then gives you more energy savings over the period of time. uh rough order magnitude a lot of acronyms. Sorry, there's so many. >> Yeah, there are a lot. >> Good question. >> Very different. Yes, it does. You're right. >> Yes, please. So I'm assuming that uh we've got the cost after incentives and then we have the total lifetime benefit. So that'll be the savings that we're realizing from year 10 on. Right. >> Correct. >> Why would it change with the fiak compared to the domestic content? >> Because you're hitting that threshold quicker. So if you look back at the fiak

021where it says collectively as the project the year cash positive is 10. The year cash positive with this is nine. So essentially that creates an extra year of energy savings that the district is benefiting from as opposed to just helping you break neutral. >> Right. But the other two are still nine and nine and their numbers are higher in lifetime benefit than they are in the >> it's it's for all three projects put together. Okay. >> And if you if you looked at a at a cash flow, it would be a little bit it's even more granular as far as what that's going to be. >> Thank you. >> Uh, next slide, please. >> Next slide. So this slide also incorporates the roofing project. And one of the benefits, the huge benefit of doing this

022as part of the solar project is there's components of the roof that we are actually able to tie into the cost of the solar. So, we're then able to submit that solar portion as a larger number for the ITC credit, which gets you that 50% on a portion of the rope cost. It ends up being about a third of the of the rope cost. Uh so you'll see I think it's 320,000 that would be attributed to the ITC uh rebate that actually comes back to the district making that roofing project as inexpensive as possible. Um and we have had an opportunity to have our engineers look at the roof, feel good about its uh structure. It is based on a um an overlay, which my understanding is that we've looked at this. This is also

023uh doable. Uh some of the things that we do that's a little bit different when we're doing the the roofing projects is we actually do 3D modeling of the roof ahead of time and then we do it post. It's really a cool toy that we recently purchased that allows us to do this, but it literally measures every single thing on that roof down to 2 millimeters. It's incredibly accurate. So, from that, drawings are obviously as accurate as they can be and there's minimal room for us to make a mistake on that. And that information would be given to data they have. >> Correct. I have a question about um the roof thing. >> Yes. >> Um >> are you is Allied the roofing contractor? >> We would be overseeing all of it and we we

024bid out the roofing work. So it's very similar to um it's kind of like a design build approach to the roofing. So, we actually have multiple bids just like we would from subcontractors and we do all the design and we oversee all the installation. >> It would be a roofing company that would actually be installing it though. We would oversee the project. >> Okay. Cuz that was I was like, "Oh, >> yeah. >> I would not be up there with a hammer. >> You master one thing, you know, and then get really good at that." And I um Okay. Because I didn't And that would just be on Kerry Junior High. Correct. Correct. That's the only one that needs a new roof. And we've done a lot of roofs. Just so you know, we did

025six roofs at District 59. Uh I we do roofs every summer. >> Okay. >> Yeah. We concentrated on the buildings with the newer roofs, the Brier Gate, Oak, and then this one I know was scheduled for a new roof. >> That's why we looked at the >> Yeah, that caught me. It caught me off. I knew we I know that we've been in discussions for a couple years now about the roof here. Um but I didn't I didn't know that you would um that you that Allied was a capable of handling that. So thank you. I guess it just like caught me off guard and I just needed clarification. >> Sure. So just to clarify oop sorry just just to clarify Mrs. Potter's question. We will contract to you and then you will contract out.

026You will not bring the bids to us. We will not have that open or the sealed bid. >> We don't have to go with the lowest. And then prevailing wage and everything else that's going to keep the inflatable zoo off the front of our properties will happen. Okay. >> I could tell you that the contractors are union. >> Okay. >> Great. >> So that's that's a definite >> Thank you. The nice thing also is by us doing both pieces of that, you have one person who's responsible for every component of the if there's ever a warranty issue, you don't have anybody pointing fingers at, oh, it was the solar company, oh, it was the roofing contractor. So, that there's a little bit of benefit with that as well. >> How does this work with the

027installation of the new HVAC and stuff that we've been having problems with? >> Yeah. So, we we've looked at that. At one point there was the thought that we were going to have to uh basically cut a hole in the in the roof and and lower this stuff in. Uh but based on the uh advice that we've gotten from our engineers, that is not the case. That uh um a new roof could go on uh this summer and if we did HVAC work next summer in addition to this, great. If not, the HVAC work could uh um be a part of when this building is completely renovated the following summer. So, um, it it's that the HVAC work, we have flexibility with when we can do it. We don't need to do it before the

028the roof is done. >> Okay. So, I guess I have um as I expressed before the meeting, I have a concern with not putting the roofing out to bid because it is part of our board policy that we are supposed to put jobs that size out to bid. Um so that portion of it, I mean, I understand why. I understand not, you know, you want everybody to be on the same page and working together, but I feel like we're bypassing something that we're supposed to be doing as a board. Um, so for me, that's kind of it's concerning. It's also concerning to me because the roof will come out of our referendum money where this rest of this project comes out of a whole completely different funding. So, we're mixing our funding here and it

029gets murky. >> So, two things. We do competitively bid it out. We have no problem showing you all the bids, >> right? It's not a problem. >> So, we actually go >> the advantage that this has versus the traditional public procurement. You go out to bid and you get three bids. You have to pick one of them. You cannot negotiate. It's just whoever the lowest is is the one who gets it. we are not held to that same criteria. So, we're able to negotiate. We're able to solicit other people to bid it. So, you're not just locked into this lowest responsible bidder component. >> Um, and then as far as the uh project separation, we would create a schedule of values in our billing that would very clearly delineate the two so that you would

030be able to reconcile uh the accounting portion of that. And that would have been one of our prerequisites. Uh if uh the board does decide that that we have a clear billing procedure so that there is no no questions about what is coming from uh from what fund. >> I thought this started off with there are some timing components we need to be aware or time changes. Can we touch on those? I don't think I've heard them yet. >> Yeah. U so those relate to the ITC uh rebates and grants that have been um sunset, guess is a nice term to put with the big beautiful bill. Um those are all going away. So there's additional rebates within Illinois that deal with SREx. Uh the inverters, uh there's a rebate on those as well that

031come from KMED. Those are going to remain, but the sign the 50% direct pay is going away. And part of the challenge is the domestic content. While things have changed over the last two years where there's a lot more production of domestic content um in the United States now, there's not tons of it. So the earlier that these projects can get approved and that product can get ordered, the better because it's going to be hard to get some stuff for sure because there's a lot of people. I think there's I think the the term I heard is the level compared to the applications or not applications but people try to do certain things is 10 times greater. And my my follow-up question to that is did we get I know the last time you guys

032were here there was questions on how much of the work had to be completed or where you had to be in the project to qualify for those credits. Are we you know if this gets approved next week are we on time? If we had to wait a month, does that completely miss the timeline or are we still in it? >> So the criteria is construction has to start before July 4th. So we are at the mercy of of when product would get here. Um, which I don't foresee a problem with that now, but I I have no clue if a month's going to matter or not. So when we last spoke, you had mentioned there was an October 1st uh deadline. What was what was the October 1st deadline for? It had the I believe

033it was something to do with the domestic product. So the there's uh one of the suppliers of the panels uh that we've been communicating with. They have uh 2 megawws of panels that were purchased for a large community solar project that um they weren't able to get completed in time. The panels weren't ready in time. And so that organization went a different route and got some other product. These panels are now available and they've kind of held them for us because um if you did all three buildings here, it's about one megawatt and district 155 has also they're doing about 1.1 megawatts with us. So that's part of the domestic content trying to lock that equipment in as quickly as possible. Um would we be paying Allied uh any sort of administrative fee for overseeing

034the roofing project? >> So you would be paying um yes short answer is yes. It' also be the design fee uh for that. >> All all told it's ends up being about um 20% or so above the actual cost which the difference in our actually it's 25. The difference is when we're doing them, there's no change orders on top of it. So if we miss something in that design process or we miss something in our specifications or there's an issue with the subcontractor for any reason, that's a burden that we take on. So we don't come back to you and say, "Oh, there's more installation that needs to be replaced than we thought." Or, "We didn't realize we have to raise the the curb for this mechanical unit. That's going to be this additional cost."

035So there's none of that. So um that's all calculated out. >> Thank you. >> Great question though. Thank you question. >> I am >> any other questions on that piece of it? Okay. >> Yeah. So then uh going back to kind of the environmental impact and we could share this on the on the dashboard um is again this is kind of the some some people love this stuff. I for one do um but it kind of goes through how many cell phones would be charged you know the pounds of burn or coal that that would that we would save and then homes that would be kind of covered with the if you were to do the project. It's kind of neat but yeah that would be this is another sample. I believe this is taken

036from Prairie Ridg's um site. So this is that dashboard that we were talking about. It could go on a monitor in the entrance of it could go in the cafeteria, go in the entrance of of the administration building or of the entrance of the school. So it just constantly monitors and monitors and updates um the system throughout the day kind of sharing with the public or it can even go on the website of how how it's doing. And then this is the one that David or the internal team would have that would track the actual um mechanism components, the content of the system. So the panels, the inverters, uh if they're working, if one is is kind of slower than the other, David would know and then he can contact us to to fix it

037um if it's showing up. So this is what David would have access to um 24 hours a day. What is the additional fee for the uh monitoring dashboard aspect? It's >> about 22 25,000. >> So the the dashboard so the monitor and dashboard that's going to be just at uh the middle school is the plan. The information from the other two buildings are going to be brought into that system. So yeah together >> would in this scenario is this plat monitoring platform is it a um ongoing costs associated with it? >> There is a subscription fee with the company that actually provides the dashboard and monitor. I want to say it's about $1,200 a year. >> Okay. And then is it broken is it broken down by school or you're just seeing I mean I

038guess I'm not understanding that part. It would be here >> correct >> but could you see the each individual >> could you scroll down? Yeah. So you can Yeah, you can scroll down each individual building. >> Okay. >> Yes. Yeah. So it's like hypothetically if you were if we did this and Oaknull got I don't know shades on their windows you would see some kind of energy you would see some kind of difference or something. I'm I'm saying like >> so what it's going to monitor is how much energy the system itself is producing not necessarily how much is using. >> So >> okay >> so it's going to show you what that solar array on that roof is producing at all times. So obviously in the winter time it'll be a lower production. Summertime

039it'll be much higher. So it's not going to be impacted as much by what you're doing inside the school but it's just a way to kind of share with students in the community hey this is the amount of energy that we are producing with this system that we are utilizing. We and we've sized these systems so that the schools will be able to use all the energy that it's producing. >> Okay. >> Yeah. There are system that would track all of it though if you wanted to. >> Okay. >> All the consumption all the use. We weren't doing You guys were proposing not to You You guys came to us with the proposal of not putting way too much >> correct >> on there because what we're not getting a big check for that. Okay.

040>> Yeah. So, anything that is produced and used by the school district, you're going to benefit probably I think we use 10 and a half cents a kilowatt. Anything that goes back onto the grid, you're going to benefit maybe seven. So it just it takes anything. So anything that you're you size the system anything above that usage the ROI on that instead of being 10 years becomes 15 years 16 years. So we could do that. We just financial. >> And then is there a financial reason to have it all um at one school instead of at each school? it it just saves the the monitors uh the actual monitors and some of the computer software and some wiring that's that's required. So it would jump it's almost it's almost 20 something thousand per building. It

041would probably be closer to 18 the each building to have the other two to have the full system display like you're going to have you would have to >> you can do it. Yes, >> you can do it. But it is the Yeah. >> I was wondering why the Yeah, I guess I'm curious why it's being suggested only to have it here. >> You can incorporate it in curriculum for the elementary as well. Right. That's not a problem. It's just we for me to monitor on all see issued with the system. The other part of it the dash access on everybody's computer. So if you go on to district 455's website right now search just solar it goes right to solar >> and you can see as far as two screens previously and so all

042the kids will be able to get that right on the table as long as far as having a permanent install of the monitor school as far as seeing the curriculum that be available. >> Okay. >> Not really, but yeah, I I appreciate >> two different programs. So, one's for me to monitor it, make sure it's working correctly. The other program is for everybody to see what it's safe the school electricity s the primary difference is the elementary schools wouldn't have what we call a forward facing portal meaning you don't walk in and you see a big monitor and everything's being produced and you can you know touch and play with it that would be available in car so we can add those together to schools that's the primary difference there's still a little benefit from

043on the information that's being recorded and tracked um at all three schools. >> I understand a technical question. I apologize if this was covered earlier while I was not here. Um is it possible for us to shift you talked about 7 cents a kilowatt hour going back if we were to go back to the market. Is it possible to move um the energy produced at these three buildings to one specific building and let let's say we make junior high completely sustainable and and it's produced with the junior high roof and the Oaknull roof and the Briergate roof and so junior high is completely off the grid and it's just run by the solar. Is that do we have the ability to do that or is that >> Yeah, because you got to tap right in.

044What you'll see going around a lot, you'll see community solar projects. And what's happening in that situation is people are getting that energy, but COMMED's only crediting seven cents. >> Gotcha. >> So, it's got to be able to tie directly into the building because it's it's literally bypassing the meter that that come. So, there's a different meter that actually gets installed for any energy that goes back on the grid. >> Okay? >> So, they don't know how much you produce and are using. They just know how much you put back on. >> Okay, understood. I'm just trying to figure out a way to like if if we could use it all to for our most expensive building and >> I don't >> take that off the payroll. >> They they frown upon that. >> Yeah.

045>> All right. Thank you for the clarification. >> That's really that's the update. Yes. >> Maybe I asked this the last time, but I if we're still hooked up with Kameed, right? Yes. So, I mean, even if Brigade is 100% being fueled by these solar panels, if for some reason they break down or something, >> we still >> you still have power. >> Yes. >> Yeah. An easy way to look. >> They didn't want gener generators. >> Well, that's that's the way to look at a solar system because it's like a a natural generator. >> Okay. >> So, that's exactly what it's doing is it's powering the school through the power that it's producing like a generator would. And if it goes down for any reason, then the combat system is still there doing its

046thing. >> Okay. >> Mr. Shepard, we I believe and I don't know if that is still the case now, we have like we don't pay directly. We have like an intermediary where we did it one time. >> So, so our energy provider is constellation, right? Um and of course they get their energy from KMED. um it's the the driver, but no, we we've been able to uh we secured our rates through Constellation. Um we were working with an energy broker. However, Mr. Martin was able to secure a better deal uh directly with Constellation or the electricity rate. >> Perfect. And thank you for doing that. Um this does not violate any contract that we've entered in with them. It's just >> the contract starts. >> Okay. We It's not not going to be like you're

047going to use this for a year and then if you go solar we're going to come after you for the difference kind of thing. Okay. >> And that's it. Great. Thank you. And so just final thoughts from from my end. you know, um we've come a long way with uh this discussion and I know it uh seems like we're really trying to to move it ahead fairly quickly. Um no thanks to the the federal government for for taking away some of this stuff uh very soon. Uh however, um tonight the numbers that were presented we are fairly confident in that those are uh the numbers. Um, I know one of the questions has been asked before is is can we afford this type of of project? I believe when we tally up the entire solar

048project, it's about $3.3 million. Uh, not accounting for the roof because that's coming from something completely separate. Uh, that 3.5 million we would be able to cover and I look at it uh uh like our ever growing uh investment uh list in the treasurer's report. uh this essentially is a long-term uh investment and in some cases depending on what interest rates do the rate of return on this investment could be far greater uh than what we would see in uh the the interest market. So um think about it in that regard as this being a a long-term investment much like you would see uh in our investment report. So the the the funds are there. Uh we're just looking for direction from the board on whether we want to do one, two, or the the

049whole project uh as presented. Um with the hope of having a the contract for the board to approve uh next week. >> I just have one question on it. I I agree this is like taking investment money and making another investment. But um so when we look at the like when we looked at the treasur's report tonight and we saw the graph and tailed off at the end of the year and that final value of um a fund balance of 20 million. Okay. That would be updated to be like 16.5 million, right? >> Yes. Yeah, cuz we're cuz we're drawing down on those funds that we have in one section that are are currently accounted for as as an asset. Yes. >> Okay. Okay. Just so when we see a different number there, we know

050where the transfer money went. >> Correct. And you bring up a good point that by the end of the year, uh the community shouldn't be shocked if it looks like we've been deficit spending. Um it's because we've been drawing down on those bonds uh that we uh had issued u this past January. >> Okay. Thank you. U one other thing of note is the um on that point the rebates the ITC funds would come back to you within a year as well as the comet inverter rebate. Those come back very quickly. The only one that is stretched out over a period of time is the Illinois Shines program or the SREx and that's over a 20-year period. So the majority of that money is actually going to be coming back to you very quickly. question

051that's not even relevant to us talking about this contract, but um >> gotta be curious. Yeah. >> What is the typical degradation rate that you see of these panels? Like right now, like you said, PR like they're producing 12% more energy than they than than you anticipated, right? >> But we know that as time goes that's going to go down. So what are you seeing in >> 05%. It's very very small and that is actually calculated into the energy savings that we've put together. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Mr. Shepard, does you does your take on what we can spend is it all three projects or is is does it favor one more than the other in terms of just budgeting? So, from a budget perspective, I I wouldn't bring forward a recommendation of doing

052all three buildings if I didn't think we could could do it and it was sustainable. I believe that the funds are there. Um, I also think that the the long-term savings that we would see uh with our our energy bill specifically from this building would make it worth it. Plus, with the funds coming back uh you know, the following year, that also helps offset uh uh the cost. Um my recommendation to the board would be at this time uh going with the the full package. Um I do uh appreciate the idea of having one group uh overseeing specifically the the roof and solar panels to make sure everything is going according to plan. Um I should also mention that in our capital improvement plan, I believe we estimated that a new roof and HVAC equipment

053would cost uh $4 million uh for this building alone. Uh so the uh the estimate for the the roof repair here at uh I believe 1.9 uh was uh was very very appealing. Um I also do appreciate the fact that this price for this project would be locked in. If there's something uh unforeseen that that happens that is a risk that Allied Allied takes. Um there are certain projects where um I I would not go forward with that model, but this is the type of project that I think what Allied has to offer is worth the board considering. >> Okay. >> Oh, go ahead. >> Are you sure? Because I'm really going to go >> You go first. >> Toss him a toss him a tough one and then see if you could come back

054to me. Okay. Uh thank you. Uh Mr. Mr. Shepard, do you have any a ballpark as to how much we we spend uh with Constellation annually? Or maybe Mr. Martin, do you know what our annual expenses are for electricity? Ballparkish for the district. Okay. For the year. Okay. And that's I mean that's going to go up 20% supposedly like 18 to 20% is what the prediction is, right? >> It's unpart, >> right? Okay. So some let's half it and go 8 to 10%, right? And we're not making anything. We're not making 8 to 10% on any of our investments that we would be spilling. >> No, we'll certainly earn it. >> Just want to make sure that we're we're clear about that. Right. So this would be a net positive for the use of our

055money in terms of instead of city earning 4%, we could offset it for 8 to 10%. >> Correct. And the the electricity bill for this building alone I I want to say was $220,000. That was before the the the rate increase. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Miss Powder. >> Oh, well, >> I had a whole different question about constellation, but um not going to go there on this one. Um I did see that the um the Okay, so allied the number here I'm I'm stuck on the roof because only because it caught me off guard. Sure. >> Okay. >> Um the warranty would come from the installer. Is that are you understanding this too? Like the warranty and all of that stuff would be coming from the installer. >> It it both. >>

056So So it's kind of Yeah. >> So you're all the warranties. Well, usually the warranty So you have a we always do a two-year warranty on everything that we do. That's that's workmanship and everything. So, if you go and get a roofing project done, there's usually a one-year warranty on the workmanship and then the manufacturer provides the 20-year warranty on the product. So, that that doesn't change um except that you're actually getting an extra year from us. >> Okay. It's just it's a different process. So, it's it's caught me off guard. the um 1 million922 that number is that that's set in stone >> that's it will not go above that if we can find ways that we that to make it less expensive without cutting corners of course then we will >> okay >>

057so we're making some assumptions um the only thing we haven't done is we haven't done the infrared scanning to the level that we'd like to do so that tells us about how much insul in insulation that we're going to have to replace. So, we've we've gauged this a little bit high. So, we kind of expect that number to actually come down, but not it's not going to go up. >> None of these will go up. >> Is there like >> Okay. Is there like um Okay. It's it's great because our um I think the last capital needs report that we had est prior to the referendum uh we had a much higher number on that roof. So if if we did then that would be a deal on the number that you're offering up. To

058put in perspective, the uh Crystal Lake 47 has a roof that they were told would be 8 to9 million to replace and that you could not do an overlay. And that was incorrect. And so we actually fully vetted it, did core samples, everything, and you can. And the cost of that roof is now going to be 2.5 million instead of 8 to nine. I think 8 to9 was a ridiculous number to begin with personally, but even for a complete tear off, but normally overlays are um a little bit more than half the cost of completely tearing it off and you get the same warranty. It's >> Well, I'm going to trust Mr. Shepard on that if you're comfortable with this. Um, but I am interested in if any um which projects uh the district will

059otherwise have to delay in order to fund the solar system. At this time, >> we wouldn't have to delay any of our our our projects. As mentioned, uh the funding source for this would be as we have investments mature, uh that would help fund the the the solar system. Um, again, it goes back to the idea that we're we're taking money from investing it at 4% and now moving it and investing it uh in a return that's going to be higher. Um, the roof uh budget uh would of course be coming from uh uh the the referendum bonds that uh were issued. We knew that was going to to happen one way or the other. Uh but be if the board approves this project, it's not uh going to delay any of the other projects

060that we have uh coming up uh over the the next couple months or this upcoming summer. >> And then um thank you. And then my final question is is do do you anticipate anybody any kind of um interruption to the learning process going on inside the buildings? Um will it be done? Can it be completed over the summer? Uh will >> most of it so all of the the solar work at the other two buildings would be completed. The roofing work would be completed during the summer as well. Uh then we would do all of the call the noisy stuff, the crane lifts and stuff to get the panels and racks on the roof when there's are no students here probably still within the summer and start that work. So, you're not going to have

061because you're not fastening anything to the uh roof, you're not going to have pounding and stuff. It's literally people walking on the roof. That may be taking place during the school year, but it's it's very common that that's >> But like no like haz construction equipment hazard, noise, interruptions, that kind of thing. >> No. And and we that schedule would be done with David's input as well. >> Okay. We work we work directly with with David as we put together the project. >> Thank you. Thank you for coming tonight. >> So for me, I'm leaning now more towards wanting you to do the roof um just because um not only is it um less money than what we projected, but we are also getting that ITC which reimbured to us within a year afterward. That

062saves us an additional $300,000. So now we're at 1.6 six, which I know you'll come down even more because you're going to really >> um and the second thing I like about the company that Allied is that you use skilled union labor for this work on even of your subcontractors. And I think that's extremely important for a project of this scope um that we're making sure we're getting the best skilled labor doing the work. >> Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. I guess I just I didn't realize that this wasn't a tear off though. Okay. And in re- roofing my own house, you know, I've always done a complete tear off because you don't know what's on underneath the shingles if you need to replace the substrate of the roof. How are you How do you

063know it? I would think it's the same with a school roof >> that you could just be covering over another problem. >> So, there's definitely going to be areas that we are completely tearing out and replacing. So, and and those are actually found by looking at the insulation. >> Okay. >> So, when we do an infrared scan >> Uhhuh. >> in Coring, that's going to tell us what condition that insulation's in. And there's definitely going to be areas that we're going to be completely replacing, but the vast majority of it is not. So, the only thing that really determines um if you can or can't really do an overlay versus a total tear off is how much of that exists. >> Okay. >> So, if your roofs were in horrible shape and there was lots

064of leaks and and wet insulation all over the place, then you tear it all out. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. >> And I would just I would just mention too that uh uh the last couple roofs we've done, I believe, have been uh uh completely redone, but that's because those roofs were were in much worse shape than this building's uh roof. This roof has held up uh fairly well. Uh and the others definitely um needed to be completely redone. >> Mr. Shepherd, is it possible this week in your free time um to come up with a one-page digestible average citizen cost breakdown graphic type of situation that we could use to go to the community and say, "Look, this 1.9 is going to come from the building referendum. the the remaining money is going to

065be coming from our maturing bonds and and here's why this is a good deal that that we can go forth and and sell it to the community if if we decide to pass it. We can tell that story as board members saying this is a good thing and here's where the referendum money is being used and here's where maturing uh bonds are being used based upon the expenses or the planned expenses >> success of other districts that are using around us. >> Yeah. we have the ability to do that and reference the Prairie Ridge project for sure uh among others. So is that possible to put together um >> digestible because we want to eat it afterwards. >> Well, we can we can put something to together that highlights highlights this and I'm almost envisioning

066a uh not like a one-page wonder on our our website um that uh the public can go to that they can see uh we're working on this. This is where the funding is coming from. uh this is the the roofing project. It's coming from the bond uh finances uh and so forth. It could be an evolving project, but we can put together a couple blurbs for for next week. Uh that would be good talking points for the board. >> Fantastic. Or you could work your Canva magic. I I heard you're like a magician when >> I am not that that would have to be Mr. No, that would actually have to be Miss Rivera here. No, I just just so we have a reference point because if the questions start coming in, we want to

067make sure that our our stories are universal on that and we'd appreciate it because this is an important project and I think it it takes us continues to move us forward, but we just want to make sure that we have our stories and our our numbers correct. So, thank you. >> Okay, >> perfect. If there's no other questions, we'll let these gentlemen go for the evening. >> Okay. Thank you. Appreciate this. Oh. Have a good night. >> Okay, next up we have the December board of education meeting ch uh date change. Dr. Thomas, >> so this is a very brief item. So once the um calendar is set for the schools for the year, Mrs. Dorler goes back and uh works with band and music and looks at the school calendars to make sure that

068we don't have any conflicts with board's schedule. And actually, we do this year with the um band concerts that are happening on December 15th. Those are uh the normal Monday night. So, we're looking to make a change in the board's calendar to move that board meeting to December 18th, which is a Thursday. Um Briergate is a school that is planned uh to present that night, and I did check with Mr. Ness, and he said that was absolutely fine, that what they would be doing would be able to be done on Thursday. It is the Thursday, the last day before uh winter break. um is Friday is the last day of school before winter break. So, this will be the Thursday night before, but uh they didn't have any issues with that. So, we're just looking

069for consensus from the board that it's okay to move that and if it is, then uh Mrs. Dorf will update the schedule online. Can I comment just as a parent like I I am very I love when we bring the kids in. That is probably the best thing we have like last year that was such a great change. It's nice to see like the positivity from all of our buildings. Um, as a parent, I would probably be losing my mind if I also had a band concert and then had to bring my kid here on the 18th. Like, December's crazy. It's hard enough to find everyone. Do we really need the kids here in December is my question. I'm fine with the meeting change, but I don't know if I think it's fair to put

070it on any of the parents to bring their kids here that week. >> We I mean, there are months that don't have uh student presentation, so we could look to change that and uh talk to Ryergate about that. You make a great point, Mindy. >> Okay. I think I think I heard a consensus down here. Um I appreciate this as um this change. It works for me because I have to be at that band concert. So, um I'm I have no problem with this and I agree with Mindy as well. >> Sounds like we're pretty much in agreement with that. Putting that on consent. Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next up, we have a review of policy 7180, the prevention of and response to bullying, intimidation, and harassment. So 7180, we don't have

071any changes to it for tonight, but we are required to review it annually, and we did just look at this very recently. It was in the April of 2025 press packet that came out. It was approved on June 30th of 2025, which is just prior to our current school year. So, we're we are required to review it um annually. The changes that were done that were approved in June were were relatively minor. It was a there was a change back in Title 9, which is some of the language that was reflected at that time when the uh board approved that policy. We're not recommending any changes to the policy. We believe that the most updated version and what is in there right now is still correct. Um, but as I said, the board is required

072to annually review this policy. And we don't know if it's coming up on a future press packet, it could. We don't know. But since we weren't sure and we just didn't want to miss it, we added it in here just for discussion if anybody had questions. >> I I do have one question. For this year, would the non-discrimination coordinator and title n coordinator be Mrs. Dum? >> Uh, those are both me. I believe >> they're both I mean they are still both new right now and superintendent. Okay. >> Yes. >> All right. Thank you. >> And we did clarify that with the attorney because when the law reverted back to the previous title n the titles of all the different coordinators and all those things changed. Um Mr. Daru is also one of the investigators

073on different things. So that there are two of us on those. But then I'm the I have to look at the exact titles because one of the titles Oh, there we go. So non-discrimination coordinator and title n coordinator and complaint manager are all me and then uh complaint manager is also Mr. Daru. So depending on the issue or the type of investigation either one of us or both of us together can do that. >> Okay. I just wasn't sure if the sped director needed to be because I bet perhaps >> um no it it used to be under the previous Title 9 until it reverted back that the complaint manager could not be the same as the person who supervised the whole thing but that's changed. So the non-discrimination coordinator and Title N coordinator can

074also be the one of the complaint managers. >> Thank you for clarification. When we do have a new superintendent next year, we would actually move that superintendent into two of those spots. >> Yeah. >> Perfect. I I had a question and it's under the um paragraph titled bullying prevention response plan. Um and it's number 11. So I guess that would be what we see as page four or five. And um I guess my question is is that the every 2-year review is of this policy is a little bit more in depth and is that what resulted in um the disproportionality and discipline committee um meeting that we had last year. Is that like cuz this one is saying, "Oh, well, we'll review this as a board uh re-evaluate this every two years." And um was

075that disproportionality thing uh where we really dove into these specifics like A through E, was that a result of the every two-year review? >> The disproportionality is reviewed every year by Isby. So that's actually separate, but it just happens to have overlap with what's in this policy. So that would be redone every year anyway. And then when we do the action planning for it, it's a yearly action plan for that as well. >> But it they are related because the topics >> are >> they are like totally the same. >> The same. Yeah. >> Okay. Is there any other questions? Are we all going to be putting this on consent? >> Put that on consent, please. Uh, last but not least, we have our last links dual language data overview by Mrs. Kramer. All right,

076it is connecting on my side. Well, I'm happy to be here tonight because we've got some really exciting news to share um about our dual language program, our students, their growth. Um, everything that we're seeing is exactly what we want to see. So, we'll give this a second to display. Um, but let's see. Come on. But as while we wait for it to display, um, tonight we're going to go over the last links espanol Spanish proficiency exam. And so, um, before we even start with the presentation, I want to make it very clear that this is a proficiency exam. It's not an achievement exam. And we're going to talk a little bit more about what that means because proficiency, language proficiency and academic achievement are two very different things. Language proficiency leads to academic achievement

077um but it's not a um achievement test that we're looking at here. Um and so when we're thinking about dual language, just as a refresher, um we really want to remember our goals of dual language, which is um our three pillars of dual language. So we have bilingualism and biiteracy which talks about students being able to read, write, speak and listen in both English and Spanish in our case. Um we talk about grade level academic achievement. So we want students to be achieving academic standards um in both Spanish and English by the end of 8th grade. And then that ccultural competence. So having the students develop that positive appreciation of um cultural differences, demonstrating those uh cross-cultural attitudes and um behaviors. And so one very important piece of a dual language program is that assessment

078and accountability. And so we really want to be looking at our student data and in both domains of language. So that means looking at their listening progress, speaking, reading, and writing. And so in the past we've always had access. That is a federal requirement. Um that's not even an Illinois law. It's literally a federal requirement. And that's where we're looking at students English language proficiency. That's given to any student who's identified um by the state of Illinois as an English language learner. They do not because they've never had more than one language exposed to them um at birth. Um and so because of that um they're considered fully proficient per the state law. Good question. Um, we never had anything prior to this. Um, but now we have our Spanish language proficiency assessment, Last Links

079Espanol, which we took in May of 2025. And, um, as a reminder, um, just about the research of just language development overall. Um, it's very difficult for our students to show academic achievement if they don't have the language. Um so the proficiency of students in all four domains of language um that directly impacts student achievement. If one cannot understand what they're learning, they're not going to be able to demonstrate the academic knowledge, the skills that they need. Um additionally, uh it takes at least 7 to 10 years for our identified English learners to begin to close the gap. And when we talk about closing the gap, we're talking about our multilingual learners performing at the same or exceeding peers um that are monilingual on a standardized test. So it takes our identified English language learners

0807 to 10 years. It takes our dominant English speakers, so our students who grew up in an English-speaking household, an additional 1 to two years on top of that. Um so language takes a very very long time to develop. um which is why we really need to have that patience and look at their trajectories, which we'll talk about. Um, additionally, in kindergarten through third grade, we're typically going to see students stronger in one language than the other. Um, that's because we have to develop our first language before we can develop our second language. And so again, that's why it's so essential that we're looking at their progress towards academic achievement um and their growth through their trajectories um because that's what's going to give us the information of are they on the right path? And

081so when we think of language proficiency, we can think of it as an iceberg on the surface. That's the first piece or part of language development we see. That's called our social language. That's our basic interpersonal communive skills, BICS. And that is simple language of hi, how are you? Let's have a conversation. May I use the bathroom? How do you get to the nurse's office from here? That takes on average one to three years depending on the student. It might take one, might take two, might take three. It all depends on the students. What we don't see all the time with our icebergs or with our students is that academic language. We might see a student, we might be like, "Wow, they are really proficient in English or they're really proficient in Spanish." But we're

082really going to know if they're proficient if they have the academic language. And so we call that kalp. That is the cognitive academic language proficiency. That takes an additional 5 to seven years to develop. So students have to develop social language before they can develop academic language. And so what we know about language development is that conversational fluency that social language we use it every day. It's developed through conversation. It develops quickly one to three years. This is why we see our kids when they're so tiny and they're cute little toddlers and they just start picking up language non-stop and they're talking and talking and talking. It's usually not academic. It's all social, which is great, but then they come to school and they can learn the academic language. If a student a student who's

083in a dual language program is going to have social language in one language or the other when they get here, however, they're not going to have social language in the other. So, we really have to look at then, okay, what language are they going to take? really those seven to 10 years to develop their social and their academic language. Um academic language proficiency. So that's talking about our kelp. Um this is what we use to be successful in school. These are our technical words. We develop them through academic text. Um and they are essential to our success. Um this is the language that we see on academic achievement tests. When students are exposed to I Ready or I AR, this is the language that they are exposed to is that high academic language. And so

084research continues to show that our students are going to learn language much quicker at a lower language proficiency level and then more slowly at a higher language proficiency level. And that's because we start off with social language which develops in 1 to three years and then we eventually get to academic language which takes an additional 5 to seven years. Research also shows that younger students are going to advance more quickly in their language development than older students do. That's just due to the neuroplasticity of the brain. That's just biological. And so we want to make sure that our students are learning language through content and literacy by pro being provided multiple structured opportunities to use oral and written language for a wide variety of purposes across the curriculum. And that is what our dual language

085curriculum is built on. And you're going to see our highest scores are in speaking and writing and that's because that's our heavy heavy heavy focus. I also want to remind you we did a presentation I think two years ago on holistic biiteracy and how we have our brain. We call it our conceptual reservoir. We can think of it as one big pond and we get information in our first language which is our L1. So that's one of our waterfalls and we get it in our second language which is our other waterfall, our L2. And all that comes together to build what we know. So when we think of language, we're never truly thinking of it separately in our brains. Everything that we know is combined regardless of the language. And so what is known and

086understood and one language contributes to what we know and understand in the other. All right, that's the background knowledge. Now we can get into the fun. So, um, Lost Link is it's a researchbased assessment, um, focusing specifically on Spanish language proficiency. It's taken in grades K through 12. That means that the highest score that we want our students to get, they're expected to get it in 12th grade. That is senior year of high school. We are only a K through 8 district. So when we're looking at our scores, we need to remember the end expectation for advanced proficiency is when they're in 12th grade, when they're in high school. We don't have them for four of those years. >> Correct. >> Yep. Our dominant Spanish speakers and our dominant English speakers. Yep. It's given to

087everyone. Good question, >> Miss Kramer. that level of proficiency that you were talking about. Sorry, >> I'm right here even though I'm behind you. Um, that is at level five, correct? Is that so? >> Correct. Yep. And we're going to get into those. Okay. >> Yep. Good question. Good question. Um, so this is an authentic language proficiency assessment. It's normed in the US and Latin America. So, what's kind of cool about our norms or averages is that we're actually looking at our students not only based on students who are in the United States, but students who are in Latin America. So, it really um elevates and enriches the program. And again, it was taken in May of 2025. It is very similar testing to Access. We take it on the iPads. Um it's four domains.

088Um reading, writing, listening, and speaking. We complete it over multiple days. So, students do not take more than one domain in a day. Um that's too much of a cognitive load. Um it is completed in grade level chunks. So there's a K1 test, a 23 test, four five test, and then 68 test. As the students grow up in the grade level, the test is going to become um more complicated when it comes to language proficiency because as students grow older, they are expected to have more language proficiency. Um and then additionally, what we can get from this data is information on students literacy, comprehension, oral language, productive language, and then their overall scores. Today we're really just going to focus on the four domains of language um because that's truly the foundation of dual language.

089All right. So the Spanish language proficiency assessment. So again, these levels are overall proficiency. They are not endofear academic achievement. And I think that's the hardest thing when we're wrapping our minds around looking at this data is that this data we need to really be looking at from a 12th grade right way in the future. our future students um and thinking about their graduate portraits. So there are five proficiency levels, levels one through three, beginning, early intermediate, intermediate. These are our emerging um levels. So students aren't quite proficient yet, but they are emerging towards proficiency. Our students who are level four are considered proficient and then level five is considered above proficient. In 12th grade, we would love our students to be at a level four or level five. Ideally, a level five, but to

090be proficient in a language is pretty impressive as well. So, when we break down what it means to be proficient, um, any student who's at a level one means that they're just beginning. So, they're in the beginning stages. They're developing the ability to communicate in the language. In this case, we're focused specifically on Spanish and only Spanish. Level two is the early intermediate. So this is where our students are beginning to develop the ability to communicate for different purposes. That academic language, that social language we talked about, there are going to be errors that are made and they're going to interfere with communication. So our students are going to be trying at this stage. Some of what they say will be accurate. Some of what they say will not make sense and we would have

091to ask for clarification. Uh level three is intermediate. So this is where our students are continuing to develop the ability to communicate for academic and social language. Students may make some errors at this stage that interfere with communication but overall they can communicate pretty clearly. Then we have students who are at a level four that they communicate very effectively for social language, academic language and they may make a few errors but overall not a ton. And then level five they are above proficient so they can communicate effectively for social and academic language. It'd be very rare if they made errors, but they make may make a few because we're all human beings. And so that's kind of what that means. And so the way you're going to see the data today is I broke it

092down by a table view and then a bar graph view because just like our students, we all learn very differently and I process data differently than other students process data. And so I wanted to make sure that we were meeting the needs of all of the learners within um the room. So let's break it down. So when we look at our Spanish K8 speaking proficiencies, um we can see that a majority of our students in kindergarten through 2 grade hover around levels three and four. Um and then a majority of our students in grades three through eight bump all the way up to a level four, which is super super impressive. That means that they're proficient in Spanish for speaking. Um, if we break it down in the bar graph view, we can see that

09370% of our third graders scored proficient in speaking, which is very impressive for being in third grade. And 65% of our fourth and fifth graders scored proficient in speaking. Again, as the test or as the grade levels go up, the test gets more challenging. >> Can I interrupt to ask a simple question? I can't remember the district timeline. Um which one of our grade levels K through five K obviously but um has grade level five who took the test last year could they have started in dual language in kindergarten or when could they have that's what I would try and understand. >> Yes. So our dual language program so we graduated our first ever dual language cohort last school year. >> That's so our students who are in eighth grade this year were the seventh

094graders last year on this data. >> And so we're at the everyone who's on this graph has had the opportunity to take it. It was the roll up. I've got it completely backwards because it's Monday. So, everyone on here has has had the opportunity if they were in our district to be dual language. >> Correct. >> The whole time and they will pro proceed all the way through eighth grade if they stick. >> Correct. We may have some students who might have moved in um whether it's from um another country or if they were in another dual language program within another district and then that's when we get confirmation from the other district. Do our do our families commit to this program K to 12 or do they only commit to it K to8 because

095for me it's like I want to see the end like >> yeah good question >> I'm putting my student my child in you know >> so it's a K so we ask for a K5 commitment because we know how long language development takes ideally we would love for you to go all the way through 8th grade the way that Kerry Grove works their dual language program they have something called a language trajectory path and so what that means is that they um will our students will take a placement test um or our eighth graders I should say will take a placement test and then um based off of that the um Spanish teachers at car or at D155 will grade that placement test and then put them in an appropriate level of Spanish and then

096they bring those results back to us to kind of see like would you agree with this? So last year a majority of our students were recommended for level three Spanish um which is a junior level class. >> Okay, that's awesome. Yeah. So, um, and you know, a big shout out to Carrie Grow because they've been very collaborative with us. Um, D47 also feeds into 155. So, their dual language program follows the same process that ours does as well with those language trajectories. Um, at D155, >> what percentage of students would you say continue this through? >> Um, so as far as I'm aware, all of our students were either placed into level two or level three Spanish, and all of the students went into that. >> Thank you. Yeah, good questions. >> I have a

097tough question. >> Yeah, >> so it in our second, third, fourth, and fifth grade classes >> in the English speakaking class. >> Yep. >> We no longer have 20 kids in those classes. Correct. uh in second, third, fourth. Let's see. Our current numbers I'm thinking of our current cohort. Our fourth grade is a little below 20 per section, but our second, third, our second and third grade all are above 20. I think they're at 21 to 23. >> Okay. But fifth and sixth aren't they're lower, aren't they? >> Fifth and sixth combined, fifth grade is at 51. No, not 51. 48, I believe. I'd have to look at the data. >> Okay. If you go back to the the kindergarten, okay, where you've got 20 and 20, okay, 20 20 Spanish speaking kids, 20 English

098speaking kids, and you look at those percentages for kindergarten, the the level three and four, aren't those your Spanish-sp speakaking kids >> and the level one is your English- speakaking kids? >> It depends. It depends on the kids. So we what we would have to do is really disagregate the data and actually like do a full tally. Um so we could disagregate that data. Typically the way our data looks and the way our classes are made up is it's made up of something called 1/3 which is what's best practice. So it's made up of a third um dominant Spanish speaking students meaning that Spanish is really the only language that they know. The other third is made up of students who come in as something called simultaneous bilingual, meaning that they have English and Spanish.

099Um, and that those levels are pretty even. And then the other third is um our students who are mainly dominant English speakers. And so when I when we think about a 50/50 program, when we're thinking about those students who come in as something called simultaneous bilingual, those students have to get tested um to see if they're considered EL. then that one-third is to consider not e. >> Okay, >> does that make sense? >> Can I add on to that? >> I'd also um encourage not to box kids with languages. I think it's uh slippery slope to make the assumption that by the end of the year those numbers are only reflective of your native Spanish speakers and the other ones are only reflective of your native English speakers because remember this is an assessment that

100we gave at the very end of the school year. So the students have had a year to be immersed in this language. And so I would say let's give credit to our hard-speaking English side students who do pick up languages rather quickly. We have some students who are going to pick up language quickly. We may have some native Spanish speakers who maybe not may not be good test takers and actually be on the flip side. So I would just caution to make the assumption or bias assumption right that one number reflects a certain population over the other. >> Okay. Okay, good questions. Um, when we're looking at our Spanish speaking data for sixth through 8th, 64% of our sixth and seventh graders scored proficient in speaking and 73% of our eighth graders scored proficient or

101above proficient in speaking. So, um, again, we want our students to be proficient or above proficient in 12th grade. 73% of our students are already there. So, very exciting news, Miss Kramer. >> Yeah. How do you forgive me though for real? Um, how do you test proficiency in speaking? >> Great question. So, um, so the way it's done is our students are grouped up. So, what we do is we actually split our cohort um, in half because we want to make sure that there is an appropriate amount of space about 5T between each student. And we have microphones that plug in or yeah, microphones that plug into their um, their iPads and they have headphones on them. and the um the test is going to ask them for a prompt. So they might say um

102at a younger level, what do you see in the picture? Use three words to describe um the picture. So for example, one of the examples I remember that when we were proctoring in first grade was a boat, right? And I was like, okay, what is this? A boat. And then it says describe the boat in three words. And they might say blue, water, um and floats. And then it's going to say, um, create a sentence about the boat in the water. And so then they're going to actually have to create a sentence. So it it raises the rigor each question. And then it's all recorded on the iPads. So the people who grade the test, um, they're part of the data recognition company. Um, that's who Lost Links partners with. Um, they actually have a

103scoring rubric then that they follow that gives a student a score. >> That's really cool, >> isn't it? Yeah. So, it's the exact same process as access testing. So, for our English learners, the English learners do the exact same thing. They plug into a microphone. It'll ask them to read data. It'll ask them to describe a picture. Um, again, it depends on the grade level and the tier that the student is placed in. Um, but then again, they're recorded and they're given an actual rubric that they're graded off of by another human being. >> That's very cool. >> It's really cool. Thank you. So, if we're looking at our listening, um, so that's really involving anything that has to do with comprehension. Um, a majority of our students in kindergarten through fourth grade hover around

104levels two and three, um, overall proficiency. And then our students bump um to mainly a level four when they're in grades seven through eight. Um, I will say I was very impressed with our listening scores. Um, the students said that that was the most challenging part of the test for them. Um, and when listening to the sample questions, um, it is a very, it is very in-depth. It is not basic. Um, so our students really did a great job with this. And when we zoom it in even further, >> but the level one really stays consistently high there, >> which it can. So we notice, but as the grade levels go up, the academic language becomes more technical, more complex. And so we see that in our sixth graders. Yeah. 40% of our sixth graders

105are still at level one, which would make sense because now they're given a new test. They're given the six through eight test. They're not given the four or five tests or the 2, three test or the K1 test, but then they bump up significantly in seventh through 8th grade. So, while yes, it's still the same listening test by title, the rigor of that assessment and the difficulty of that assessment is going to continue to increase with the grade level as well. So, in kindergarten, they're probably not going to use words like the beaker. Yeah. >> Right. The beaker in the picture or whatever it might be or the photosynthesis. >> As the grades get older, that's the type of language they're going to start to see. So yes, it's still we're saying one, but one

106for that grade level with content language that would be applicable to that grade level. So I wouldn't view it as like level one for everybody sees the same thing. It's going to be different what they see or what they hear based on their grade level and the content in that level. So what we'll notice on the next slide is that our students, like our kindergarteners, 52% of them scored at a level three or they were proficient already in listening. That's because the language is not as complex yet. Um, but as the levels go up and they become older and older and older, right? They have more that that's when more academic language develop. So that's when the test is going to provide that higher rigor. If we look at our 68 data, um, 60% of

107our eighth graders scored proficient or above proficient in listening. So again, that's what we would expect for the for them to be in 12th grade. 60% of our students are already there. Um, and again, the listening piece, I will say, um, as someone who is not a native Spanish speaker or who as just someone who's learned other languages, listening is probably the hardest domain to do. Um, because depending on where you're at, the um, words that you're utilizing are different, just like we used words differently in the South than we do here in the Midwest and in the Northeast. Um, when we look at our reading, this is really interesting data. A majority of our students in K through six hover more at that one to two proficiency level, but then in eighth grade, our

108students bump up very, very high um to that levels three and that level four proficiency level. Um, so again, that goes to show when we're thinking about reading and we're thinking about the type of language, it's going to be academic language. It's not going to be social language. academic language takes at least an additional five years on top of the one to three that it takes for social language. So we would expect our students in eighth grade to then really start increasing in reading because they finally met that threshold. Um and so this is super exciting. This is just a credit to um the district and uh implementing systematic phonics because 82% of our kindergarteners scored early intermediate or intermediate in reading. um reading in the younger levels, that K1 level is um m mainly

109phonics because our students haven't learned to read yet. So, but they're learning, right? They're building those foundations. So, a lot of that are those foundational skills. So, that is a huge testament to um the district's work and our educators work on implementing that systematic phonics. So, that's a huge celebration. Um, and then our students in fifth grade scored on average compared to all the national norms in academic reading, which is really impressive because again those norms are not just from the US, but they're from Latin America. So, really exciting stuff. Um, when we look at our sixth through 8th graders, um, we see that our students in eighth grade scored on average compared to national norms in reading. Um, focusing specifically on areas of social, intercultural, and instructional communication. So, that's pretty in-depth. So, um,

110bravo to them. That is a big deal. And then when we look at writing, this is the slide that I'm actually most excited about personally. Um, a majority of our students in K6 hover around levels one and two. That we would expect, but then a majority of our students bump up to those levels four and five once they reach 8th grade. Writing, just as a nation, is an area that we all need to continue to develop and work on. The fact that our students are scoring so high in writing in a completely different language for some of them or new language is even more impressive. And so when we look at our kindergarten through fifth graders, our third, fourth, and fifth graders all scored above average compared to the national norms in academic writing. Again,

111that's norms not just in the US, but through Latin America. And then when we break it down to our sixth through eighth graders, 77% of our eighth graders scored proficient or above proficient in writing. Again, they're expected to be doing that when they get to 12th grade. And our students in seventh grade scored above average compared to the national norms in writing, specifically in the areas of math, science, and technical subjects. Um, what's even more fascinating in my opinion about the seventh grade specifically, is that our students get math and science instruction in English. So the fact that they are scoring above average means that they're our dual language program is strong and they've learned those skills at the younger age to make connections between languages automatically. So that's pretty cool. And then when we

112just look at our overall proficiency, um a majority of our students K through five hover levels one and two. Again, we're going to expect that language takes a long time to develop. It is a marathon, not a sprint. Um but then when we see uh our students uh in grades six through eight bump up to those levels three, those level four, um which is super exciting again because we're expecting them to be at level four and five by 12th grade. Um if we look at just our overall proficiency when it comes to kindergarten through fifth grade, um our students um who were proficient or above grew 38% from kindergarten through fifth grade. And then our students scored proficient who scored proficient in fourth grade that was doubled in fifth grade. So that kind of shows

113that that fourth fifth grade becomes that threshold for when academic language starts to really get secured for our students in their brain. And then we look at grades six through eight. Um 60% of our sixth graders scored an overall level of intermediate or proficient or above proficient. And 77% of our eighth graders scored an overall level of intermediate or proficient. Um so our students are scoring well above um what would be expected which is a huge celebration to our students um a huge celebration to our staff and um our parents our community everyone for working together. I think that this just goes to show that you know language truly does take time and it's so exciting that we actually have a K8 cohort now that's gone through that we can truly see this. Um what's

114even more exciting is that was our first ever dual language group and we've learned a lot along the along the way. Um, so I'm very excited to see where our students are who are in the lower grades and where they're going to continue to um go. >> If I can add one one more thing uh just to kind of drive this home. I know we just talked about numbers and we talked about data, but what we're really talking about are students. We're talking about children who without the dual language program would not be going through an educational system were on the outside on the other end. They're coming out biiterate in two languages which down the road when they are no longer our little babies but they are in society they will be biiterate and

115they will be in a workforce where they can bring that to the table in any interview. Correct? Especially if they continue that throughout high school. So yes, we talked about numbers, but we're also talking about the impact on a child's life as an adult in the future in their own career or just whatever the opportunities that we have now provided them by helping them become biiterate but then also bicultural because the students who are in the program are learning about the two different cultures. And so really we are creating these well-rounded students um because now it's just normal. Two languages, two cultures, different people. This just is. And so that's the beauty of the dual program. So yes, numbers, but it is so much more than that. So thank you to Carrie 26 for having

116a dual program. Absolutely. Um so just some key findings. So our students highest score uh or domain is speaking which is great because that is really where we have focused super heavily on when it comes to professional development is speaking and writing. Those are strategies are very heavily embedded into our dual language curriculum that our teachers have written. Um the domain we can continue to grow the most in is reading which is also super exciting um because that means that that's our professional learning goal this year. So, when we have our dual language meetings, we have our school improvement days, our teacher institute days, um that's what our staff's going to be doing is working on uh reading strategies that we can then embed into our dual language curriculum to continue to raise that domain.

117Um and then again, the research, it proves it's correct, right? The higher the grade level, the more proficient the students become. That's exactly what our research says. And so, we're going to continue to follow the instructional framework because it's working. We're going to continue to follow the lesson delivery model because it's working. We're going to continue with systematic phonics in Spanish and English because it's working. Um, we're going to create that professional learning focus specifically on the area of reading. Um, and then embed those reading strategies into our units. And then something super exciting which we'll see next year when we go over the data is um, we've developed student growth goals. And so these student growth goals, they are based off of the loss links expected score gain um for regression and standard errors

118document. Basically what that means is there is a formula that says if a student is at an overall proficiency of two and this is their scaled score, this is where we would expect them to be a year from now. And so what's super exciting is now that we have initial data, we're able to make these growth goals and then next year when our students take the test in May of 2026 and we get the results back um in the fall, we're going to be able to see did we meet our growth goals and if we did celebrate and if we didn't, okay, where do we need to embed more professional learning for our staff? Where do we need to adjust our dual language units? So, it allows for that collaborative, reflective conversation based off of

119the needs of our current students. And um just so you know, um our um parents are going to be going through this training or have the opportunity. So, there will be a parent university that'll be offered on October 8th. The eblast will be going out tomorrow because we didn't want to overpower I Ready, right? So, make sure you come to I Ready if you haven't signed up. Um but we'll be going and that's then where we'll be explaining this is how you read the results. These are the trends that we're seeing in the district. So, if you notice your students at a lower level right now, it's part of the process. Trust, you got to trust the data, trust the research studies. Um, and then we'll kind of just explain um just their overall scores

120and how they can continue to promote Spanish uh language proficiency within the household. So, with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Can I say one thing? I would like to commend you, Miss Lauren Kramer. We were at a multilingual conference this uh today say this morning seems so long ago um today and we got to listen to four um well-known speakers regarding the dual program multilingual education uh the TBET TPI program and as we were sitting at this round table discussing it was very evident very quickly when we have to do turn-in talks um we have a lot of the best practices of what they were suggesting and recommending in place, right? And that is kudos to you uh for putting that into place in our program when they talked about early literacy

121instruction. And one of the speakers actually came to our table and we didn't know he was a speaker. He was I think just doing recon work and like feeling the the feelers and she was just going like this is what we have and what's going on and it was just um positively reassuring what we have going on here in Carrie. So thank you. >> Thank you. He was from Harvard, so he was pretty nice and cool. By the way, just saying it was pretty impressive. >> I don't have a question. I was going to say thank you for your presentation. They have been getting better every year. They and I can tell that you are clearly an enthusiast for the data that goes with it. So your enthusiasm is very easily felt. Um I'm really

122glad to see that this is the the what you have been promising us for years is what we are seeing in the data. So that's really nice to see that shake out. And thank you, Miss Rivera, for reminding us that these are also all of our students and they're more than just their numbers. >> I just had a couple of uh questions. Um >> yeah, >> I know we were kind of late to the getting less links and all that. I know there were other districts that had it before us, etc. >> Yeah. >> Have we had any feedback from district 155? Like are they seeing comparatively students coming from schools that started this earlier and that had a jump on it with their dual program? Are they see like are we coming in question?

123Yes. So when I talked with D155 um last year and when we were in the placement process of our old eighth graders are now freshmen um they had said that our students where they scored were exactly where they're seeing their the D47 students score. um they were super actually very excited about our students being in level three. Um the biggest conversation then that we had was is level three appropriate for this student because it is a junior level class. They're coming in as a freshman. You know, we want to make sure that we're providing them an education where they're going to be successful. Um but yeah, all the feedback we got from them has been super positive. Um I'm very excited now that our old eighth graders are currently there um and they've been in

124school for almost two months to have a conversation with Corey who's the um head of the language department um and be able to get some more feedback and like what are you seeing and where are you seeing that you know our kids are coming in strong and where are you seeing a need where we can continue to grow our program. >> Perfect. And then I would just just like to end it. Um Mrs. Kramer, I absolutely treasure you on this staff only because you have advocated for these students for so long >> and to see you so excited and so passionate about this for our district. >> It means everything. >> Well, thank you. Thank you and I appreciate all of your support. Um, we just continue to make headway and our our kids are

125doing amazing and a huge shout out to our uh educators as well because they're the ones with the boots on the ground doing the hard hard work. >> I appreciate it because you're the voice that they need. >> Well, thank you. Do any of our um sixth, seventh, and eighth grade uh dual language students are they also um excelled in the in math? Are they doing the geometry and the algebra? Okay. >> Yeah. So, actually, one of the things that we did not anticipate when we were rolling up to the junior high, which is a good problem to have, is um so we offer two classes in Spanish. We offer English language arts, Spanish language arts and social studies. Well, >> we have students who have qualified for uh advanced English language arts. And so,

126the conversation then has to become you could stay in the dual language program, but do you want to be in advanced English language arts? and just get your Spanish during social studies time or do you want to stay in dual language and then the dual language language arts and get your Spanish and your English language arts? And so that's a conversation that we have with parents. Um we call each one of them um and then they talk with their students and we've actually had students, it's about a 50-50 split. Some of our students say, "No, I want to stay in dual language arts." And other students say, "I'd like to try advanced ELA." Um and then we have several students who have actually qualified for advanced math. um especially this year, which is super exciting.

127And so that's something that we're going to need to look at the schedule for next year. Because of that, um the times that the advanced math is, they might not necessarily get their social studies in Spanish because it's the same time as advanced math. So that's something we need to look at for next year, but it's a great problem to have. So we'll take it. >> And then you'd have students being in uh junior level math and junior junior level uh Spanish as freshmen. >> Yeah. And I would even uh encourage the thought process, right, is that when students are at the junior high in an ELA SLA classroom, to me that is an advanced class. You are doing junior high work in English and in Spanish, not just one monolingual language, right? And so

128in that sense, to me, I also view that as a different form of an advanced type of coursework going on. >> Yeah. Miss Kramer, uh Dr. Thomas and I were just reminiscing at here at the end of of your presentation of the uh revolving door when we first started the the dual language program uh with these eighth graders are now freshmen at Kerry Grove, right? And um I just want to pile on with all the praise uh that that has been spread about. I really appreciate that you're quick to defer to your teachers uh and to your team. Uh but you have brought a level of stability after early ons of tumult let's just call it that several years of leadership changes um and that you know these scores are proof that with the right

129leader pointing in the right direction and a great team behind them we could really accomplish great things. So thank you for bringing some stability uh to this program and thank you for being a steady leader for your team. >> Well thank you. I appreciate the kind words. Means a lot. Anything else? Any other questions? >> Thank you. >> And with that, may I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Yes. Okay, >> this meeting adjourns at 7:43 p.m. Have a nice evening, everyone.