Committee of the Whole: July 21, 2025

001I call this committee of the whole meeting to order on Monday, July 21st, 2025 at 6 PM. If we could please take a roll call. >> Stacy Zalt >> here. >> Darling >> here. >> Jason Janzik >> here. >> Julie Jetty is absent. Mindy Hartman >> here. >> Bridget Stanlin >> here. >> Katherine Potter >> here. Thank you. Next up is the acceptance of the agenda. Items for discussion may be added to the agenda at the start of the meeting at the request of the superintendent or any board member upon majority approval of those members present. Does any board member have an item to add tonight? Hearing none. Uh next up we have public participation. Uh the only ones that signed up are our speakers for tonight. So I'll skip that part. Uh next up

002we have the approval of the previous meeting minutes. The approval of the minutes from the June 23rd, 2025 meeting. Does any committee member have any changes to the minutes? Hearing none, if we could add those to consent. Items for discussion. First up, we have the HYA superintendent and search presentation. Um, with us today from HYA is Jane Westerhold and Dr. Ken Art. you'd like to step up. >> Oops. >> Always forget to do that. But anyway, thank you for inviting us. We really appreciate this opportunity. Um tonight Ken Art and I are both here representing HYA um an executive search firm that's that's been around for a very long time. So we know that you're going to have a lot of questions. You've all had the proposal and opportunities to read that. So we'll go

003kind of quickly through the slide deck and make sure that you have plenty of time to ask questions. So I'll just give a little overview of the firm and then Ken is going to take you through the process. So, do we have a clicker or >> Okay, thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. So, we really do have a great understanding of stakeholders and what a school district needs. There's not one community that we ever encounter that doesn't want to hear voices from the community. It's really important and and especially in a community like this. I mean, I believe from what I know about Kerry, it's really a tight-knit community. So we would want to make sure that uh we definitely talk to you about that if we are fortunate enough to work with you. You know

004this is the most important job you're ever going to have as a board of education. You can move to the next slide. So we we really will be your trusted partner. We hold your hand the entire way. Um, you can call any of our references. We respond by email quickly or text or calls. We are truly your partner through this process. It's the board that selects a superintendent and who you want to interview after we supply some recommendations, but really it is your search and we're here to assist you in every way possible. Next slide. So, HYA, I'm going to give you a little background about the firm. We can go to the next slide. We've been in existence for over 35 years. Uh, we've done over 2,000 searches as a firm. Uh, right now

005we have over 135 associates across the country and we've done all kinds of districts, small districts, rural district, large urban districts, suburban districts. We we do it all. But the beauty of being such a large company across the nation is that when we're doing a superintendent search and after we have gathered input from the district, the first thing we'd like to do is send it out to all 135 associates, say, "Do you know anyone that really is a good match for this particular district?" So, so that's how we get a lot of our uh recruiting efforts. We really do pride oursel on recruiting. Um, and I'm sure Ken will tell you later tonight that 75% of the superintendents who are hired where we've assisted boards have been recruited and not just applying because they saw

006it on a website. This is we really want to make sure that your needs are met and that your districts meet. You know, we do this because we believe in our hearts that it's most important that school districts and the children that you serve have the best leader and and that's why we do it. You know, we're retired superintendent and you know, this is really important to us and it's our purpose. We're we're not becoming millionaires in this by any stretch of the imagination. It's just we really enjoy the work and want to assist school boards in doing such. Um, we are a femaleowned company and I think that that's unique to our particular firm. We also have a back office that's fully staffed so we can give support from all different avenues. >> Ken,

007would you like to begin sharing how our process works? >> I certainly be glad to. And again, just to introduce myself, I'm Ken Art. retired superintendent from district 300 Alangquin Dundee and I certainly know Carrie uh living in this area for over 12 12 years. We moved now to Mount Prospect to be closer to eight grandchildren. So so that's the reason why we no longer live in El Gangland. But again, as Jay mentioned, we work only with and for the board. We do not have our slate of special candidates uh for you. We look at for candidates based upon the information we receive from our in from our surveys. So this is why we we really emphasize recruitment. So ads are important but passive uh ads are not going to find the superintendent we think

008that you're looking for. It's the recruitment. In fact, 75% of the persons that we slayed are because of our recruiting efforts. So really once after we interview the board, but then we will be interviewing uh other persons within the the district 26 including staff members, union leaders, parents, obviously students. But after we hear from all the board members individually, we'll have a pretty good sense as to what you're looking for in terms of the next superintendent because after all, you were elected by the community and you have the pulse of the community. So once we get done with all seven board member interviews, we start recruiting. We start making calls saying, "Are you interested in Carrie? This is what they're looking for and this is why we think you might be a good fit." So

009that's the engage phase. We interview as many people as possible that the board wants us to interview either through individual interviews or through focus groups and we also do an online survey. So in the end, everybody will have an opportunity to say, you know what, we were at least asked our opinion. We were invited to the table to help select the next superintendent. But when we do these interviews or focus groups, we also remind those present that no, this is not going to be an election. You're not going to have a chance to okay, this is my favorite candidate. No, it's strictly the board's decision. And that's why the board is asking us to do this work for you. This is not an election. And we always mention that because everybody said, "Well, can we

010see the final candidates?" Well, only if the board agrees, but we would not recommend that at this time. So again, we we recruit as much as possible. And then after we are done recruiting, we will then present a slate of five to maybe seven candidates for the board to interview. And we will walk the board through every single process. We will share everything we know about what we feel are the top candidates for district 26. And then it's up to the board to say, "Okay, Ken and Jane, you've you've given us some really good quality people." Or, "No, we want you to go back to the drawing board." Or, "No, we want you to add somebody that we think would be a good person for 26." So again, this is a partnership. We will never

011tell you who to hire. It is only the board's decision, but we will keep working for the board until the board is satisfied with their number one candidate. I should also mention in during the engage phase we have found out if there is a silver lining with the pandemic it's zoom it's through virtual interviews uh we will have better participation with the community at large or with parents if we first of all are part of an organized meeting that they're are going to have or we invite people through a virtual meeting uh because people right now they they they really don't want to go to the school library or media center and spend 45 minutes looking at Jane and I asking uh asking them those questions we get better participation also during these uh virtual

012interviews we will give our email to persons and sometimes people they don't really want to share their thoughts in public but they will share it with us by email and so again this is information that we all compile for our leadership profile report it's basically a summary of all the interviews that we conducted where it gives you a good picture in terms of what your community is looking for in their next superintendent. And that's also a recruiting tool. We use that to help us find the right persons because they will tell us more about the district. We'll tell them tell the candidates please look at our leadership profile report because everything is there and if you're interested please apply. And so again, we will work with the board as fast as you want us to

013or as slow as you want us to. Uh this is a prime time to look for your next superintendent. Um you you are not pressured for time. You have a very fine interim. Uh you have a very stable community. It's a very desirable community. Let me tell you that we should we will not have any problem finding uh top qualified uh candidates. The only thing if you select us uh we will then say okay do you want to do a confidential search or an open search. You will get more experienced superintendent if it's a confidential search because no superintendent wants to put his or her job on the line if it's becomes public that they're looking. And we we're seeing that more and more. Whereas, if it's an assistant superintendent or uh a principal, they

014have nothing to lose, everything to gain. But if you're looking for an experienced superintendent to be your next superintendent, we would recommend it be a confidential search. And then after that first interview, it's everything's open. But if the superintendent that you are looking for is not comfortable in coming here then he or she they have not lost anything because once it's known as we well know that you're looking your your image in that community and with the board has has suffered because people know you are not interested anymore. So I'm I'm talking too much. Lastly, uh we will always be with the board and the superintendent as much as you want. That's a transession transition phase. the community engagement. Once again, we will look at all the the district documents, especially your strategic plan. Once

015again, we will interview every board member individually. We will compile that information. We will do as many interviews as you would like us to do and help us identify those focus groups. Those focus groups basically are going to be your parents. It could be students. we would recommend us letting you interview some students, select students, uh or any community group that's you know that's a significant group in our community really want you to have an opportunity to meet with them and ask those questions. Moving on. So again, we are your ambassadors. Uh we will listen. We will always be supporting the board in this process. And again, we will also clarify any questions that come up that are way out of the norm. And usually the one is we want to be able to select

016our next no. You have an elected school board. You will not have that opportunity unless the board wants us, but I would not recommend it. >> Uh and again, uh we work until the job is done. People say, "Well, well, when do you stop?" We don't stop until the job is done. We will interview uh persons any time of the day including weekends. A lot of times Sunday afternoons is the best time for be doesn't bother us. Most of the interviews that we do however are virtual but again based upon the board input we will do as many in person that you feel would be appropriate. So again why YHA? Well, 75% of the people that are selected by boards have been recruited by HIV. As you can see through this uh uh chart, we

017are the nation's leader in terms of superintendent searches. Uh we have been for the last three years, but it's actually more than the last three years. This just gives you an idea in terms of how many searches that we have done. If you select HYA, you're looking at your team. It's we are not the substitutes. Okay? So if you will select us, you're going to see us all the time throughout this process. We will give you a board portal which you can access 247. So you can see all the candidates that have applied and all the information that we have gathered. And so you can review that information as much as you want, but especially just before the board starts to interview those those final candidates. That's where you're going to find it going to

018be most useful for you. you know, and again, I talked about the confidentiality. Uh, again, if you select us, we will walk you through every single step of the process. And again, I just mentioned that we would recommend this be a confidential search if you want to have an experienced superintendent. If that is not a priority, then that's not going to be a consideration. But we will walk you through every single step. And we will also look for dates that works well for the board and for the community. And we think we could easily have this all wrapped up by the middle of December, if not earlier. Then that person would have more than sufficient time to learn about district 26 to work with the interim. And it might even go faster. But once again,

019I have to add because of the holidays, sometimes what we think's going to work, it just doesn't work because people are very busy and families come first. So, at the latest it would be January, but I think we could easily have this search wrapped up in December. Do you have any questions for us? Maybe before we open it up, I just I want to mention that because you just did a lot of work recently with your strategic plan and gathering feedback and input from the community, um we would want to talk to the board in the planning meeting to see how far you want to go into the stakeholder involvement. You you may not want to go as as far as typically because you have a lot of feedback that you've just recently. So that's

020an option too. I just wanted to mention that because I mean according to what we've learned on your website, there was a lot of involvement and stakeholder feedback for your uh strategic plan. >> Could you walk us through uh again briefly just the the the the narrowing down to the finalist? Right. You're going to come you're going to present us maybe with a group of seven. We would do an initial interview with that group of seven. Hypothetically, we would get it down to two or three would be another round of interviews. Is that is that how that that would work? >> That would be our recommendation. And those interviews when you narrow it down to two or three, those are a different type of interview than the first round. They're very um specific to the

021candidate. you might have heard something in the first interview that I'd really like to learn more about this or something that the candidate might have indicated on um credentials that that you're really interested in. So, you'll tailor those interviews to the individuals, two or three of them, whichever you decide. And then at that point, would there be would it just be the board and the candidate or would there be another round with say a te the a group of teachers and the candidate and then they would come see the board? Have you done things like that in the past in that final round? Not not with the seven but with the two or three. >> We have um but as Ken indicated occasionally if you have a slate and they're all existing superintendent they might

022not be interested in doing that. it's there's potential that they could pull out of this search because somebody isn't going to be successful and then they have to go back to their own board. Um we've done it we've done it many times and you know we we do have um you know signed agreements of confidentiality when we have those groups >> and honestly I not aware that we've had too many um breaches of confidentiality but it it's potentially something that could happen and you know your community better than your staff and >> and can they keep a secret? Um, so in terms of that, could that be a game time decision or do we have to set that in stone when we sign the contract? Is that something where it's like, oh, we have three

023newbies in October that are moving up from an associate suit position. We're going to bring the teachers in into that final round. We're able to make those adjustments. >> We can make those adjustments along the way. >> All right. And then u Thank you. One last question. It has to deal with questions. Uh, would you be able to help us with the questions or is that something that you'll have created that? Okay. >> Yes. And in fact, what we'll do is have um a a total meeting devoted to the board's interviewing process. Okay. And we will provide you with sample questions based on what we've heard in the community. Sure. So they're tailored for Carrie and not just generic questions, right? >> And we'll we'll cover finance curriculum. I mean, we'll put all the different

024areas, public relation, the govern. We'll have it all in there in questions. >> Great. >> In those categories. >> Awesome. Thank you so much. In fact, I might add, uh, the questions that we ask for the screening are based upon the leadership profile report or what we heard from the community and the board. So, for some communities, curriculum development is a major focus, reading or math or whatever. In other communities, it's finances. And so, we will make sure that we screen candidates based upon what are the hot topics in that community. And then, we will obviously share those questions with you. And so this is why we sc this is why we think these are the top five or seven people because they were the strongest candidates that answer these questions that are uh very

025uh important for 26. >> I have a question. So the background check is not part of your standard um the standard service. Um >> there's a difference um President Darling about the background check. So there are two kinds. So before we interview candidates, we are going to do our background check on what we can find available to us. Reference checks. Um we know a lot of people. Well, I've been with HA for 20 years and you've been with 10 plus. we we know a lot of people that can tell us things and and they're often people that they don't list on their references. So So we'll find information out that way about the candidates, but we recommend when it gets down to the final candidate, at least the final candidate. Sometimes all some boards select

026all three. The the due diligence that we do with an outside company, it's very invasive. It's everything. I mean, it's their finance. It's their university degrees and credentials. It's uh whether or not they um were arrested for um smoking weed in college, which is irrelevant these days, I guess. But I mean, it's that detailed. And that's why we recommend it because we always want to make sure that the board is never embarrassed or we're never embarrassed. So, we we do recommend that. And if if you select us, we can always talk about that and negotiate that as well. And you don't have to make that decision right away. >> Okay, perfect. I assumed it would be just the final few that we can >> researches we've done, the board has asked to do the background,

027third party background check on the top three candidates. And I'll give you the reason why. It's sleep insurance. So, one of the top candidates we just recently did, it was discovered that he falsified his academic credentials. He said he had a doctor. He did not have a doctor and nobody would have known though it unless you'd have done the third party background check. We also had another candidate oh about two years ago where they had serious financial problems. Nobody would have known that unless we did the background check and that was all the board needed to know and they made the better decision. I have a question. You might have already answered it, but what attributes can you give me example of what may differ between what Kerry district would want as a superintendent compared

028to another district? Like what what kinds of things what might differ? >> Well, every district is very unique. I'm everybody has a lot of pride in their own district and their things that they're proud of. Um, but you know, I would say what what has attracted me to to Kerry and thinking that it would be a very desirable place, you you've come a long way. I mean, there there's been so much growth. There's been growth in the finance area. I mean, you're in a much better position than you used to be. Um, your student achievement levels are on the way up. Um, so as we look just superficially what we can find out, there are a lot of things about Carrie that that are really great. Um, I'll give you an example of a district

029that Ken and I just finished doing recently. their superintendent had to leave because of a a medical situation and they were really having a lot of challenges because there was a lot of movement and so people weren't necessarily disqualified in some of their positions and they were moving on. But what what that meant then is when we looked for the candidate, we needed somebody that was really experienced because they had a lot of challenges in the district. Um, sometimes it's different when there's a brand new board of education. Um, if if you have a brand new board that was just elected in April, they've never done a superintendent search, they're going to need a different kind of um individual. So, every district is really different. And, you know, districts that have a board that works

030together well is is something that's very attractive. The first thing candidates always say, "What's the board like? What's the board like? Do they get along? Do they um they always want to know that because honestly superintendents don't want to go to a dysfunctional district and and there are a lot of dysfunctional districts. I'm sorry to say which is one of the reasons we love this work. So we can help districts, you know, sometimes it's the board, sometimes it's the superintendent, sometimes it's a variety of things. So and they are all very different searches. So, we tailor it to meet the needs of of your district. >> Well, I'm the most dysfunctional here, I think. Um the um I said it um the recruitment is there um I might be not misunderstanding this but is there

031any kind of guarantee that from the company that uh anybody that we were to choose wouldn't be recruited out from under us? Well, if it's another search firm doing that, there would be potential for that. >> It wouldn't be, >> but we would not >> you would not put the same individual in your search that we would put in another search. >> So, if we I I guess like hypothetically, if we were to hire somebody and it's three three-year contract, you wouldn't be coming to them >> year two. No, anything like that. >> No, it's it's a strong rule we have in our company. We don't do that. And if you're not happy after the first year and or the person leaves or the person's asked to leave and the majority of the board is

032still in place that hired that individual, we'll redo the search and the only cost you would have to pay would be the due diligence for the background check on a new candidate. But no, we do not recruit candidates. And I mean, we have a really good um data system to track people that we have worked with boards on. And and they stay in their jobs. I mean, I was recruited for by HYA when I had my first superintendent position and I stayed there the whole time. Um it was great. >> Okay. But um we we we don't I mean really Ken and I would never recruit somebody before at least five years. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you. Thank you very much for coming out and presenting to us today.

033>> Well, thank you for the opportunity. And if any of you think of anything that you wish you would have asked us or I feel free to email us. We check our email regularly and we'll be happy to get back to you. >> Start. >> Thank you. >> Well, best of luck to you during this process. >> Thank you for your time. Okay, next up we have the solar energy presentation with Allied Facility Partners. Mr. Shepard. >> Yes. So, we are pleased to bring the board this presentation. Uh, I know since I've been here, one of the the questions that the board has always asked is what potential do we have with with solar and uh uh our our facilities and how can we best maximize our our energy? Um, and we know that uh,

034Comm recently had the kindness to raise rates uh, on everyone in Illinois. Uh, and so we thought this is the perfect opportunity, especially now that our buildings are undergoing renovations that uh, we uh, look to see what is available out there for uh, solar and what that could bring to the district. And tonight we're pleased to uh, uh, have here Allied Facility Partners uh, with uh, Doug McMahon and Kevin K. I believe Kevin is a Kerry native. Uh so he's a resident here. Uh and they are here to discuss uh the possible benefits of solar energy and how we can best utilize the facilities that we have. Uh and perhaps before you go in your presentation, if you just talk a little bit about uh Allied Facility Partners. Uh when we first met, uh they

035said that they are here to assist school districts in however we would like, as little of a way as possible or in as much of a way as possible. Uh so we thought that this would be a great avenue to begin a possible partnership with this firm. Uh and they got a a nice recommendation from district 155 who I believe you are also working on a solar panel project uh with with them as well. So uh the floor is yours gentlemen. Um hi my name is Doug McMahon. I'm the CEO of Alli Facility Partners and uh as Mr. Shepard said we do and provide services around construction strictly for the public sector with a focus in the K through 12. Um everything started with the focus on energy which is mostly mechanical lighting roofing solar

036things of that nature. Uh then we branched out and we've done additions, renovations and and all kinds of anything construction we've done. Uh we have um we are located here in Illinois. I actually live in Crystal Lake, so I'm nearby. And as as uh Mr. Shepard mentioned, Kevin here is very nearby. As a matter of fact, one of our project managers, I think his backyard >> is right Yeah. Right across the golf course right there. So yeah, here. But I think we have a very unique approach as we any kind of a project that we do and solar being I think the one that um the information that you get a lot of times is a little bit am I is that better? Sorry. Um, I think the information that you get sometimes is somewhat

037dubious and we want to be very very careful in in being able to tell you that when we're putting things together and we're talking about savings and we're talking about these different rebates and programs that you're getting very very good information so that whatever decision it was the best decision for your district and we can get in the weeds on on how we get that information and and how it works and we'll explain some of that um through here. Uh we did the uh PR solar rooftop project uh last summer and I want to share this because I think it was it was a really really cool compliment. um the facility director. I I was meeting with uh Troy and um Kevin Werner, their business manager, when they were telling us they were going to

038select us to do this project. And I, you know, we had given them references and I told him, I said, "The one thing I will tell you is if you have an issue anywhere, you call and we're going to take care of it. You're you're not going to I wish I could tell you that there's never problems in construction, but there are." And his response was what I loved. He said, 'I believe you and let me tell you why. He goes, I've talked to your references and that's exactly what they said to me. I'm like, man, that's awesome. That's that's as much as you want. But that's a little bit of background of Allied. Good. Thank you. As uh Dave mentioned, I'm Kevin Korn. Um used to live across the field next to our PM,

039but I'm now closer to Three Oaks School. Um but uh now kids are in high school now at Kerry Grove. Um but it's been fun before that. So uh but yeah, still living here here since 2005. So um we can get So what we're going to do is we're just going to kind of go through we say as a rough order of magnitude of of what we looked at. Uh we looked at all five locations including potentially the new bus uh transportation center. So that's kind of cool. And we have pictures of that so you guys kind of see how it lays out. And if you have any questions, please I'd love to have a discussion. We can talk through it. Um there's only about 150 slides to go, so that'll be good. Um but

040uh so kind of when when we were approached by the administration to kind of look into this again as as Dave mentioned with the referendum passing, uh which is good. Um let's continue to to improve the the buildings as much as we can. So it kind of coincides with the carry forward uh strategic uh plan and fiscal responsibility. So, like I mentioned, we'll review the sites. Something that's really nice right now with the inflation reduction act, um, just running the numbers for these buildings in these locations, uh, Carrie 26, you guys are eligible for $1.9 million in incentive in funding just from the IRA. And unfortunately, that is time bound because it is going away with the uh, current administration, but we have time to do that. So, um, so that's good news. And the

041other funding sources that are available to the district are the KMED incentives. Yes, they raise rates, but they also are are handing out incentives for school districts. Uh Illinois Shines um piece, which provides uh money. And then depending how how you guys want to work the the the financing um potential referendum dollars to kind of stretch those. So you can go to the next one. So I just want to kind of give you a little background of the rooftop. Some people there's things out there that like h we don't want it drilled into the roof and penetration. So that don't worry about that. That does not that does not happen. We don't want that either. So we will collaborate with district roofing contractors um before, during, and after the install to make sure that warranties

042are not going to be affected. I know we have a lot of new roofs going on our buildings here. Um I don't want to, you know, I I'm part of that referendum, so I don't want to have to deal with that. So, the roofs will be protected, the warranties will be um carried on, and again, the contractor will be involved in the process. And I I don't I don't know if you guys can see pictures on your laptops there, but a few different examples of how it's installed. So, they put down layers of sheathing on the roof to protect it so the ballast that holds down the panels won't scratch it. They won't dig into the roof uh membrane at all. And then, um so that's you can kind of see in those pictures some

043different options of how it's done. I think the one on the bottom right is actually Prairie Ridge. Um, and then the inverters, uh, which convert the solar energy to electricity. Those are generally on the side, either inside the building or on the side of the building, fastened, like a brick or something like that. So, and that's for easy access if something should happen to an inverter. And again, no penetration's going through the through the roof at all. Um there are uh again the the products are 25-year warranties. That's inverters and the panels. The panels are bfacial. What that means is that not only will they absorb sunlight from the top, they'll get reflections off the bottom of the roof. So you get it birectional bfacial solar. So you generate a little bit more energy. So

044that's nice. Uh US manufactured. That's good. That also help with the IRA dollars that you can receive. And then the other piece that almost every district has done that we've worked with um over the years is they incorporate the solar into the curriculum um through STEM. It could be through math class, science class. So that's pretty cool, too. We've come in and presented to the classes um at times just to say, "Hey, this is how it's working. This is what's going on." And then there's also um dashboards that schools will put up either in the front entrance way or in the cafeteria. So if parents or public comes into the school, oh, it's just sitting there in the corner and like, oh, what's that? Oh, that's our seller that's generating right now. So, it's really

045cool. I'll get I'll show you guys some of those dashboards a little bit farther down. So, that's another picture there. You guys kind of see how it stall, but starting with the we'll kind of get into the into the buildings now. Starting here, the Kerry Junior High. So we focused on is developing a an array that is will satisfy a lot of the demand but not all of it because as the as we go through the referendum here um you guys are going to be making improvements to these buildings, right? New HVAC, new lights. So that's all going to require less energy as as we go with better equipment. So at Kerry Junior High here, the offset is 51%. So 50% of the utility electrical use is going to be gone. It'll be taken care

046of with the solar lower utility bills as Dave mentioned before which is great. And then the carbon reduction of course be 1%. Some people um really like that which is important. And then uh you can kind of see on the right hand side as we go through the buildings economic value and then at the end we'll give an economic summary which would be a little bit easier. Uh, but you can see that the cost of the district after all the incentives that Carrie qualifies for would be 257,000 to do to do the all these panels on the roof here. It is best to do the panels on a new roof. Um, not one that needs to be replaced in five years. That would uh we wouldn't even recommend it to be honest with you. So,

047it's best to do them with roofs. So, we do these projects. A lot of districts will do either the roof at the same time or just after or or just before and we can again we coordinate that with the roofing company and with David and then um or they decide to do LED conversion at the same time to get the best bang of that utility savings. So and if you guys have any questions please just just ask. And then deer path just down the hill. That one is about 69% of the utility bill will be taken care of with the solar panels. And that one would be after incentives $140,000 just 141 roughly um to to install on the on the roof. Uh three oaks, the one close to my house, um 75% of that

048would be offset. And these numbers come from I should back up real quick. Um they've me uh provided us with utility bills. We typically like to look for the last um year of utility bills and we our people smarter than me will calculate the savings with what the production will be on the panels and that's how you get to that offset to figure out the size that you want to put up and then how much it'll save. >> Real quick, uh there's a lot of open roof space on three oaks. Can we add to that to get to 100 plus on the offset? Yeah, you can. So again, what we wanted to make sure those before we do the referendum work that the new HVAC I think is going in that building um LED lighting.

049Uh but yes, Jason, you can add to these at any time and we can change these. Again, this is kind of what we call a rough order of magnitude. >> Yep. >> So if the district was to say, "Hey, Kev, Doug, let's let's go through and let's let's do this." Then we would really narrow down that scope. >> Great. Thank you. Can I throw I want to throw something out there. He loves it when I get in the weeds on this stuff. So, um I I want to explain a little bit about this uh percentage of offset and how this actually works out fiscally. If if you're looking at your total production for the entire year and you actually offset that by 100%. What ends up happening is any electricity that is being used by

050the district, you're going to get the full financial benefit from that. And what I mean is the utility companies charge a supply rate which is just based on usage but then they have a demand rate as well. So your blended rate is probably 11 to 12 cents. And the way it works with KMED specifically is any energy you're using live com doesn't know what you're using. They don't track that. So you're getting that full blended rate benefit if the if the demand rate is tied to supply, which in a lot of cases it is. But what happens is in the summer when you're producing a lot of energy that you're not using, that then goes back onto the grid. So the energy production that goes back onto the grid, Kameed only gives you the supply

051side of that benefit. You do not get the demand side. So, the benefit of creating a um a panel system that isn't oversized is to make sure that you're able to use all of the electricity that it's being produced with minimal that is that is going back onto the grid. So, those are part of the financial things that we'll try to figure out as we're looking at system sizes and capability. So, we want to try to help push it to the limit without Yeah. going over. >> Great question. Thank you. >> And then Briergate again, 68% covered. And uh also the locations on the roofs. I don't know if if if that's if some of you are kind of wondering why you chose certain spots. It's where there's the most um open space without equipment.

052Uh we don't want to make David's life impossible if he has to go up there and change a filter or do something up there and and have panels in the way. So it's it's for ease of use as well. Uh and I don't Brigadeate has a brand new roof I think going on right now. Um so that one is is really nice too. Y uh and then Oaknull again 68% covered. Um so it's just awesome. I mean that utility bill is just you know ticking down. Uh go ahead. And then the transportation center. Um we this one we had a couple ideas. Again I know it's it's not even built yet and we're still waiting for the city to approve it. believe. But uh so this one is kind of cool. You guys can do

053a canopy uh which we've done in the past. Uh schools do that. It protects the buses year round. Little less plowing for David and his crew. Um but the and then it produces energy at, you know, it's just an idea that we had with the canopy. You can still put on the building or you can just ignore it altogether. Um but it's a cool option to have the buses um secured uh from any weather from the top. Uh and then or if the district were to go to electric buses, uh you can charge them uh right there in the parking spot. So, just kind of an option that uh we thought was kind of neat to to look at. Uh especially where the location is, train traffic, route 14. I mean, it's kind of a

054neat little PR piece, I think. So, some of the annual environmental impact, this stuff's kind of This is what my kids are always interested in when we go through this. Uh so if you were to do what we just looked at right now, you would that that would generate enough power to uh do half the homes in Oxford Hills over here. Um 90 million cell phones charged in the year. Uh so it's just kind of really neat environmental impact pieces that are fun to share on dashboards and and with the public. It's just kind of kind of puts a different perspective to how much energy is generated. Now, I mentioned the dashboard that schools use. This is just kind of a sample of one. This is what Prairie Ridge is using right now on their

055monitor. Uh you can add this to the website. Uh we've had schools do that. So, if you go to the website, you can check on how the solar panels are doing for carry. Uh so, this can be changed. You don't have to use these six different options. You can you know, like I mentioned, you can mention that. But this is what they have on the screens in the cafeterias, entranceways, however you want to do that. And it just continuously updates and rotates. uh screens. So, I think it's kind of kind of a cool piece and then the summary >> not showing up. >> It's not showing up over there, but we got it. So, I think and everyone has it on their laptop, but this is just a kind of a cleaner way to look

056at uh the five bulk locations. And then the ROM cost is what would that would be the cost to install it. Um, and then as you kind of go along, you'll see the electrical offset average of 61% districtwide. And then you'll see the full dollar amounts for all the incentives that 26 uh is eligible for that you would get if you were to do this size these these particular buildings. So the out-ofpocket cost for the district after you receive the incentives would would be $415,000 to do all that solar. So that's pretty pretty key. And then the lifetime benefit the district would get 5.3 over $5.3 million the district would would get. >> So that's above and beyond. So essentially if you looked at it you would say it's $10 million um offset total. So

057that's 5.3 million. And >> so it looked like a lot of the Oh, it looked like a lot of the cost reduction is coming from the IRA that you said is going away. What is the actual timeline on that? So the 2026 is is the end. >> Okay. >> Um there's there are some things that are still being determined. Um as far as they're they're kind of giving a uh a timeline that says you have to have a certain amount of work implemented, but they haven't defined what that means. So does it mean buying the equipment or do they actually want to see installation done? Um but it is going away. The the SRExs are here for now. Um the inverter rebates are the downside to the IRA going away is it would take an

058act of Congress to bring it back. Um disappointing. There was it's a similar program in geothermal and they didn't get rid of that. They just hacked it solar for some reason. Um, so speaking of that, I I want to make sure again that we're we're very transparent with with this option and and the dollars and so forth. And again, they make fun of me because I get in the leads and all the numbers horribly. Um, but the smart inverter rebate and the ITC credit, those funds would come back to you uh within about 12 to 16 months from installation. The Illinois Shines um funds are actually distributed over a 20-year period. So, it's I think it's 109,000 year one. and it and it kind of peels down a little bit. Um, what I did was

059I looked at that uh dollar value the 4775 and confirmed it with uh Mr. Shepard as well. If you had that money and you invested it the way that schools can typically invest, which is limited, but you can uh the historical average is about 3%. So, if you compared taking that money and investing it in some way and you mirrored it to how the rebates work and all of that, it would be you would make about 1.7 million on it compared to 5.3. So, it is a huge delta if you're looking at it from a financial perspective. And there are other solutions if uh funds aren't available there. There's lease options out there. A power purchase agreement is is what that's known as. Um, and it comes off sounding appealing because it doesn't require any

060out of pocket. Um, you're basically, it's almost like a commodity purchase where you're agreeing to buy the energy that's produced by the system at a reduced rate from what you currently pay for your electricity, but at the end of the day, instead of 5.3 million, it's about one. And the reason is you now have a finance company that's involved. So they're making their bit of money. It's no longer considered a public purchase. So it's a private purchase. So there's going to be tax that's going to be added on. And all of this gets added into um the overall rate that they provide you. So, it's and again, if you took that money and you invested it and you did a PPA, you're at 2.7 million, which is still about half of what this can actually

061produce. Um, I won't go any deeper unless you ask me to. >> Can we Oh, can we talk uh warranties real quick because we occasionally get hail here, right? And so what happens or what's the and I don't know if this has happened in PR since you've installed them, but like what's the process there? If there's damage, who's financially liable for that? I mean, we're putting a lot of glass up on roofs right now. So like what would that look like in a hail stom? Is that it's something that that our insurance would take care of? Is that something that you would take care of? What does that look like? >> So usually it's going to be something that insurance takes care of. Um what we do try to um include when we're doing a

062project is um it and it depends on how you how you want to hand it from a facility management perspective, but we typically want to include at least annually coming out and checking all the connections, making sure all that works. Um a couple times coming out and cleaning them. It's not there's not much to do to it, which is great. Um but in that instance, yeah, it would probably be it's an insurance claim. And typically, uh, Jason, it's been, um, panels like I I did a I did a big project out at W Platville and, um, it's been hailed on a lot with P-sized golf ball. It's been fine. But this last storm I I I don't know if you guys remember like, um, last month they got softball size hail that did do some

063damage and, uh, that's that's being taken care of through the insurance. So, I guess that leads me to ask, would that be a uh would that be something we need to look into? A property insurance hike perhaps then if they're having to cover this as a potential liability. >> Uh that would be something that if we decide to go this route, we would discuss with our insurance carrier. Um, I do know being that we are part of Click, they do have uh schools within that conglomerate that do have uh solar panels. Um, and I don't uh I I don't believe it would have that big of an impact on our in insurance rates, but it would be something that we would explore uh if the the board uh if there was consensus among the board

064to move forward with this. >> I have a question about um the ITC. So, you're saying that would take about 20 years to >> not the ITC the uh >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Illinois shine. >> Sorry, my my mistake. >> How long do these panels last? What do they wear out? Are they good forever? >> They are not. They are uh warrantied for 25 years. And the way that um that we calculated the energy production is there's a degradation and we we usually air on the side of caution and make that a little bit higher and it is like 0.05% >> per year. So it's a very small it's negligible amount but it does decrease over time. Um but you can get really good production out of them about 30 years. >> 30 years.

065Okay. Um, and so they're not secured to the roof. How are they secured then? >> The term is ballasted. So what that means is you have a metal rack that the panel sits in >> and it's basically a heavy block, >> okay? >> That sits on top of that rack. Um, and in that one picture, um, it's kind of grooved out and it sits on top of it. And they're heavy. They're 50 lb blocks. Um, when we do an engineering study of the roof, that is actually what we're calculating more so than the panels. The panels are very light. >> Yeah, they're really light. >> It's more of the ballast of the blocks. And actually on PR, I think we did we did have to have some mechanically fast because they had a sloped roof

066that they really wanted to put them on. So, we did um and again, we worked with the roofing contractor that the district really liked and it it was I think it was $10,000 in roofing cost or something. It was pretty nominal. >> So, since those blocks are so heavy, they don't need to be secured themselves. >> Correct. Correct. >> Oh, okay. >> Correct. And then I guess my other question because you said you would not recommend unless it was a new or newer roof. When was the last time because roofing replacements are very expensive. So I just would want to see when was the last time we replaced roofs on each of these facility. >> Sure. So as they alluded to, Oaknull was the most recent one. Briergate is having a new roof put on

067uh right now. Kerry Junior High. If we were to go this route, we'd probably look at redoing the roof uh this upcoming summer. We'd push that uh one summer up. Uh Deer Path has already had a new roof uh put on. Uh and my Oaknull, we put on a roof uh uh two years ago. So, uh by the end of this our referendum project, all of the roofs will um be either brand new or new. >> Would you consider two years new though? Oh. >> Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. Yeah. Typical roof warranty is about 30 years. And although I've never seen a case study about this, I would be really curious to know what the longevity of extension of a roof is if it has a solar system above it because it's

068not getting hit nearly as hard as one that's exposed fully. But I haven't seen a case on it constantly so it's not degrading. >> Okay. Uh this is a techie nerd question. I love it. Let's go. >> Let's go. That doesn't have anything to do with numbers. Um, >> okay. >> It snows, >> right? Are these things heated or do they just melt because they're black? How does that work? >> Yeah. So, great. But, so they're they're they're at a pitch uh for starters, so the snow does slide off. And yes, they do generate heat when they when the the sun hits it. The black melts it. So, it has never, believe it or not, been an issue. Even when we get the heart attack snow of 12 inches, you know, when it's wet and

069heavy, it's it slides off typically. But it is speaking of now I'm gonna get a little nerdy. Um, it is kind of cool though when you look at the dashboard and you can see when the snow has hit and then like the next day, right? So that's kind of cool. That's the nerd in me. That's what I like. But >> I just have a question. >> I could tell you had a question. You're just waiting. >> I do have a question. And I feel like I should know the answer. And so it's one of those where I'm like, "Oh no, am I going to be silly asking the question?" Um, when there's a power outage, do they serve as then a generator? >> They do not, but they will still be providing power. >> Okay.

070So the the inverters, so if you look at some of the numbers, and it gets a little bit confusing, you'll see something that says um 571 kilowatt DC, but then you see a production and it's a larger number. It's converting it from DC to AC. Um so that energy is literally going straight into the school. Um, so if power is cut from KMED, this this thing's still going, which is nice. And we can do backup generators and you can do uh battery storage. Um, I'm just I've I've ran the numbers and I can just tell you people can spend it how they want, but I think financially it's not an awesome idea. But >> but we can do it and we have time. >> We can do it if you want. >> We'll do whatever

071you tell us to do. >> Yeah, >> but we'll give you the info first. >> We would work for you. >> Yeah. So, >> that wasn't silly at all. >> No, you're a good question. Yeah, you did. >> I have a couple questions. Um, so it was good to see that you have on here the 25-y year warranty on the panels and the inverters, >> which is un that's not it's normally 10 to 15, right? >> Right. Correct. >> Um, so that was good to see. Um, are there batteries involved? Like >> and if so, are those warranted? Are there backup batteries or anything like that? Nothing. So, okay. And then as far as to this eventually when the panels die or whatever there's a disposal process that has to be followed. So how um

072do you guys handle that or is there a cost for that? >> So there's there's uh I'll let you because you've been asked. >> Yeah, I've been asked this before. So there are uh companies at least two that I know of in Wisconsin that do recycle them already. So, uh, they I'm sure there is a cost to take them down and to get them, but we can hand we can help you with that obviously, but there are companies that do recycle the panels. >> Okay. I'm just thinking that's another cost to keep far far out. I probably won't be around >> 30 plus years. Yes. But it's a it's a good question. I mean, people people are curious. So, >> so any kids listening, remember that. >> That's right. when they're in our position. Um,

073there might be a few a few more, Dave. I think I added a couple more kind of cool ones at the end. Uh, that one's kind of boring, but uh, so one of them is is the uh, the curve. Um, I forget who asked the question, but it shows about the where the where the peak demand is now for the for the district. And then once you add solar, that just it literally just goes way down into a valley. So that's pretty that's kind of a cool little piece too to share um to you know it's the utility savings are are very good right there. Yeah. So the blue line is the current demand and then you'll see the the green line is the solar production. So it goes way over the demand and then

074the light blue is is would be the new uh demand. So that's where you get a lot of those savings that Doug mentioned. One one of the other things that um that we would do as part of this is do a uh current energy use index baseline of the buildings. And what that kind of tells us is what is the energy reduction potential of the building. Now that could be through lighting, it could be through mechanical systems and building automation systems. But it does give us a good idea of what that capability is. So then that gets factored into the system sizes and so forth that that makes recommendations so that you know if you do these things to reduce energy consumption, you're not going to all of a sudden be overproducing energy and not

075getting the full financial benefit from it. And then we can help you figure out what those ways are to get to that >> that uh level of savings as well. And then the last slide, Dave, is is more for uh internal um you don't need. So this this monitoring platform is what David would have um access to. And what this does is it just tracks the inverters, tracks the panels, check tracks the production. So if all of a sudden the production's down, it'll say like inverter potentially inverter 2 at Kerry Junior High is not receiving. So then that would give David an update like okay, something's either needs to be reset or something's going on. So, this is the one that the the platform that that David and and and maybe Dave or whoever would

076have access to that's it. >> Yes. Um, how you kind of talked about it a little bit if the IRA is ending 2026 and how quick do we have to move to get the benefits and then financially is this project dependent on us receiving those benefits? >> Uh, the benefits would definitely make it uh um easier for us to to implement. Um, I I would say that uh depending on what the board decides that uh we do have some funds that we could put towards this effort, whether it uh uh are some of our referendum dollars or whether it uh uh is uh devoting a fund transfer from one of our funds that's uh got excess in it uh to using some of our investments that are maturing over the next couple months. So, uh

077there's there's options that we have although the incentives would definitely be the preferable route. you're um like a quick approval and a quick movement, right, to get these all in on time. >> Yeah. But I mean the what's interesting about solar is the complication is not in installing the system. It's in all the rebates and all those programs >> looked at our house. I guess >> you know that's that's the part that's a little bit tedious. >> Yeah. Um, so obviously the sooner the better because we don't know what the criteria is going to be that they set. The good thing is if you're doing the roofs over the summer, this is still work that can be done during school. The only the only hesitation or the only thing that we would um make sure

078that we do is you have crane lifts and stuff to get product up there. We would obviously do that far outside of school hours, whether it was weekends or or second shift type work. And so then the timeline if you have the roofs done next summer is plenty of time to do it. I think we did uh Prairie Ridg's roof um I think it took us six weeks. >> Yes. >> Yeah. It goes pretty quick. >> Yeah. >> I have a couple more questions. Um, so since we're um using U made in the US, um are we seeing any um manufacturing delays or anything like that like we are with some of the things? We won't have to deal with tariffs. >> Not knock I would not yet. No, we haven't had any delays. Um

079it's been uh a actually was been a little quicker. A lot of them are coming out of Georgia. >> Um I don't know why Georgia, but that's where some of them are being produced. Uh so it I we have not experienced that. >> Okay. And then my last question is this is producing energy. So we're having this in close proximity. Say it's the overhang at the bus depot. >> Mhm. >> The transportation center. Um there's no health concerns or anything like that is I mean this is in close proximity to energy. So I just want to make sure that there's zero. Yeah. Okay. And then as a requirement with the fire department, it does have they have access to the locked area, automatic shut offs. Um, so yeah, there's a lot of safety that are

080in place. Good question. >> For anybody that doesn't know, I mean, it's, you know, >> yeah, like uh you can I I've gone up and I've touched them and nothing is >> okay. >> It's been okay. >> It's like sticking your tongue. >> I'm curious. It's cool, right? >> I'm curious. Okay, >> good to know that about you. But as far as like the inverters, that's typically locked up and so if someone was to get up on the roof, they >> okay, >> there won't be any issues. >> Perfect. >> Would you be um in order to take advantage I suppose of the inflation reduction act? Um my understanding is is the the project would have to be the service on the project would have to be started July 4th, 2026. So is that right?

081And then would you ex if that's right then do you expect a lot of people to be trying to get these solar panels like a run on them? >> Oh, there's there's going to be um I think a lot of movement on it. Um I think the benefit if you're if you're only trying to do it during the summer period, I think that's going to be a little more challenging. Um but the actual complete in service is um by the end of 2026. What they've said is they want to see construction progressing no later than July 4th of 2026. What we're trying to figure out is what does that mean exactly? How's that defined? Does it mean putting product on the roofs? Does it mean you've purchased it and it's on its way or it

082just got here? Um, that's the piece that is I think it's being decided by the IRS which again I don't government works how they work. Um, but I do expect there to be um a lot of people trying to get this done sooner rather than later. So that that's probably one of the bigger motivators to get moving quicker is to start locking stuff in and kind of getting orders in the queue. Um but if if we're installing a fair portion of them after the summer, that's plenty of time. >> Okay. And then um Mr. Sheffford, when would the board need to make a decision if we were going to do a solar project or not? When would you be looking for a decision from the board? So, if there's consensus for the from the board

083that we could start this process and continue working with with Allied after tonight's meeting, that would be great. Otherwise, my my thought would be I'd bring this back as a discussion item next week after you've had the week to to digest all of the information and we could have uh a further discussion. But I wouldn't imagine uh that I would like to have the the course set one way or the other uh by the end of August so that we have adequate time uh to uh start planning for this process. Uh being that we know that uh um most of our roofs will have been completed and we'll just be waiting on this one uh next summer. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh final question, excuse me. Um the contractors you said you use contractors to

084do the installation. Is that right? >> Electrical. Yeah. >> Is that are they um skilled labor or >> They are union. Okay. >> That is nice when you're working with wires >> and in a building that has a lot of children in it. Well, and I I will tell you that when we did um district 155s, the day after they approved it, the contract was voyed by the local union to make sure that we were using you. I mean, it's a big deal. Um so, but yes, absolutely. >> Okay, that's good to know. >> Thank you for coming. >> Yep. Withing and the roofing contractor will be involved. >> Okay. >> Yeah. 95% of what we do is union contractors. I mean, that's kind of how it works here. >> Thank you. >> It's just

085nice to hear because you have to pay prevailing wages anyway, so you may as well get used skilled labor. >> That is true. That is true. >> Yep. >> If any other questions come up in the meantime, feel I feel free to reach out. I can run over here real quick and and answer them. >> Perfect. >> Thank you for coming out and presenting. >> Thank you. Appreciate your time. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thanks. Thank you. >> Okay. Next up, we have the review of bills. Did anyone have any questions for Mr. Shepard? >> I had one real quick question. Um, Mr. Shepard, the Kerry Baseball Federation $2,000 for mowing. That's that was our final payment to them. Or are we still paying them to mow? I believe it's still Maplewood. >> So,

086that's a good question. We had that question pop up uh from another board member. Uh and uh the baseball is responsible for mowing the back field here, the back two baseball fields and surrounding area. So uh they we are still paying them for that portion. Um we are responsible for the the lawn at Maplewood. However, Len is doing that and we we actually get a cheaper rate through Lenon and I believe they're only mowing it every other week, every two weeks. Um, also it should be noted that if there's any uh concerns with the facility over at the Maplewood property, um, we have not been maintaining it. So, if there's windows that have been busted, doors been broken into, um, those have been taken care of by the the village. So, the only thing that

087we've been doing is the the bare minimum with the lawn care over there. >> All right. Thank you for clarifying that. I appreciate it. Okay, >> if there were no other questions, uh, next up is the treasures report. Mr. Shepard. It appears I have been kicked off. So it is it is not uh connecting. So um while we had tried to get this connected what I was going to do with the treasures report was something a little different uh this time around being that this is for the month of June um I was just going to show you the overall picture of how we felt that we ended up the school year. So, he's going to show you the cash flow slide and is it ready? Okay. So this is the this is the slide

088that I felt was probably the most important to show. uh being that we ended fiscal year 25 and um I had been saying for over the past three months that we were going to start to see uh things narrow uh and overall I think the district ended up in in solid financial form. Uh we are projecting a slightly over $ 1.1 uh million dollar surplus. I think this is going to come down even more as our auditors look at the year-end expenses. uh we had some uh year-end expenses such as with contracted uh services with transportation of students that we received those invoices in late June. They were for fiscal year 25 um but they were paid in July. The auditors will actually take those expenses and move them uh into uh the prior fiscal

089year which would be fiscal year 25. Uh but overall was very pleased with uh how our budget held up uh this past fiscal year. Uh you'll see in the operating fund summary uh that the education fund finished very strong. Uh that is always good uh good to see. Um operation maintenance it shows a hefty deficit run. You have to remember that we did a fund transfer uh with the amended budget. So that's reflected uh within that amount. So the actual uh deficit was uh about $70,000. And considering all of the maintenance headaches that we had earlier in the fall with the uh the chiller here at at this building and some other issues, uh that's pretty uh pretty good. Uh transportation, if you think back to the month of May, it showed a very hefty

090uh deficit. Uh when we got the numbers that came in at the end of the fiscal year, it was like why the why the the turnaround? And that was really because of all of the the routes that transportation had started to bring back in-house rather than relying on contracted services. Uh the the the model was also uh taking a a fund transfer that we took for the uh the lease payment and multiplying that uh um out over time as well. So it inflated the the deficit. um IMRF social security uh ran a deficit but again I've been trying to run a deficit in that fund for the past four years. Uh so we finally achieved that goal. I think we have one more year of running a deficit within that fund and then we will

091have to look at how we allocate uh our property property tax base. Um so I show you this because I think again it it shows that the the district is in on solid financial ground. Um it does show that we do have some flexibility to weather a lot of the uncertainty that we'll talk about in August when we present uh the the final uh budget for FY26. Uh and another question that I I feel is why not include debt and capital in this slide. It's because it skews it. Uh it would show the $14 million in bonds that we issued as revenue and it would show that we ran a very hefty surplus. uh and just like the next couple years, it'll show that we're running deficits because we're spending those funds uh down over

092time. So, it's always good to look at the operating funds uh as a measure of the the health of of the district. Uh so, overall uh a lot of our projections came in spot-on. Our revenue projections came in uh right where we thought they were were going to. Uh and uh in a lot of cases, we were able to to hold down expenditures when when we needed to. Uh and I'm I'm very pleased with how fiscal year 25 uh shook out. One final note uh are the investments. Uh we did uh make some additional I believe one investment purchase in the month of June and it was I believe a shorter term investment because the short-term rates right now are still pretty good in the the the mid low to mid four and uh four

093percentage range. Um we uh had uh quite a few of our investments mature in the month of July which will be reflected next month. Uh based on the options available again it it it was beneficial to do uh some shorter term investments. I believe the highest uh uh interest rate we got uh this past month uh is almost 4.8% uh on some of those uh short-term investments. So, we're going to keep on doing that knowing that we have uh a nice investment ladder here uh and things spaced out. And with that, I'd be happy to uh answer any questions. The July payout of 1.1 million as of the 11th, that is that is just July or is that are we adding that on to the 51 for the the investments? I'm sorry. back on the

094investments. It says July payout is at 1.18 uh and counting as of September. >> So yeah, very very good question that the uh that is the capital improvement uh section. Uh the July payout, what I mean by that, that is the amount that we're going to be taking out in the month of July uh to pay off for our capital improvement projects this summer. And as of 7-Eleven, that's when I did the report. So that number is undoubtedly high. >> Okay. I just saw because we earned interest 51,000 last month and then it jumped to 1.1 million. I'm like, "Wait a minute. The payout I didn't know if the investments were paying out or >> No, no, no. >> That was the intent there was to uh uh inform the board where we're at because

095we're finally dipping into those uh referendum funds as we see uh the work being completed at Brigate and the other school." >> Awesome. Thank you. If you keep lading investments and they're all short-term, you're going to need a second slide for for the capital spends is what I'm hearing. Otherwise, I don't have questions. This is all great news. If there's no other questions, we'll move on to the next item, which is the resolution approving the petition to annex parcel 191 116002. Mr. Shepard. Uh so I I promised the board we are getting ever closer to actually uh breaking ground with this project. I I joke with uh uh Mr. Martin that come September, whether it's me and him out there with shovels, we will be breaking ground at some point uh this fall. Uh so

096as we went through the the zoning process and specifically with the the uh process to get that property on uh tax exemption status through the the county, it was discovered that of the two parcels we purchased, remember there's a large parcel and then a very tiny sliver on the very western portion of the property. Uh it was discovered uh by the county that uh uh that portion of the property was never annexed into the village of Kerry uh way back when when it was subdivided. I I I mean I have to say it was probably in the mid 90s when uh uh when Ald went in. Um that's when that property should have been annexed in uh to uh the village. Uh because it was not annexed in um the village cannot approve our zoning

097which they are set to do based on the recommendation from the the zoning committee. Um, if we did not uh seek annexation, what essentially we'd end up having to do is for this project, we'd because some of it would be on unincorporated land, we would probably have to do a a dual track where we'd have to talk with the county and we'd have to talk with the village. It just makes it cleaner if the entire parcel is part of the village of of Kerry. So, um we have we were advised by our legal team that uh uh we create the petition to to annex that particular parcel and that the board take action on it first. Uh which we intend to bring to the board next week. You would approve this petition. It will be

098submitted to the village. Uh they will have it on their agenda for the August 5th meeting at which point in time they will approve not only the petition to annex but also our zoning changes uh for that property. In the meantime, um we are working on the bid packet. Uh we are we have every intent to bring to the board a recommendation uh for uh construction contractor at the August board meeting. That is the the goal and I think we're going to be able to to meet that. So u this is more of a a formality and making sure that everything is is is clean when it comes to um approvals that we need to to keep this project rolling. Um, so we would um we would recommend that the board approve this petition to

099annex next week at your meeting. >> Sounds like a fantastic idea because dealing with the city and the county at the same time sounds like a terrible idea. >> Um, I I should also mention too that uh uh that the village I believe at their August 5th meeting is also going to have to take action on their portion of that strip because uh they also they own the bottom half of that strip where their water tower sits. So they are also going to have to uh fix that as well. >> It just came out that the water tower of Kerry is not actually annexed into Kerry. >> Just a small portion of that that that property. >> Sounds like someone's in trouble 30 years ago for not doing good recordkeeping. Okay, next up we have

100the STAR assessment data results. Miss Rivera, >> I think it's very much accurate to say that we have had a lot going on the past two years here in Kerry when it comes to our instruction, specifically our instructional framework, our curriculum mapping. Our teachers have been doing a lot and today I get the opportunity Thank you. Today I get the opportunity to share the fruit of everyone's hard work and truly the slides today are a celebration. Let me start with that. Our outcomes today are going to be to talk about our data from the 2425 uh school year, what our district goal was, what the data represents. This is our final year with the star assessment. Just want to put that out there up front. Um and then I will wrap up the presentation with

101next steps regarding um our district goal for 2526 action steps and accountability and truly the results of that are that are detailed on this slide. Um, I wish wish Miss Jenny was here because oftentimes she'll ask the question about accountability, right? What's the data? What's the accountability piece? How will we know if our curriculum maps are working? How will we know if X, Y, and Z is actually helping our students? And this presentation is that. Oh, got it. Um, so as a reminder, STAR 360, it is a computer adaptive uh assessment. It is nationally normed and it's available to assess students K through eight. What is listed right there are the assessments that our students take. The purpose of our benchmarking and collecting uh assessment data serves multiple purposes. Um as a district, we use

102assessments to monitor our student progress. We use it to inform our instruction and our intervention, whether that be that initial tier one instruction or that tier 2 win time that's embedded within our curricular day. We do use data to evaluate the effectiveness of our curriculum and instruction. So again, are the curriculum maps working? Are they demonstrating student growth? Um data is also used to ensure that when we make decisions that it's rooted in data and not just what we think is a good idea or or going whatever is blowing in the wind. We want things to be rooted in data and it is also a way to prepare for state assessments. The reality is we have the AR assessment. It is a part of our Illinois report card. Um, it is not what we center

103everything on, but it is a factor within our education, public education. All right, we ready? I'm excited. All right, as a reminder, as a district, our final year, we are wrapping up with having our proficiency level set at the 30th percentile. For years now, we have said, let's line up 100 students, and if that student is at number 30 out of 100, we want 80% of our student population to be at that mark. That is what we have said. Come this coming school year, we are bumping that number to 40. 40 based on research is more aligned with what will help project um student performance with I assessments and demonstrating grade level proficiency. And you'll even see in the data that we are ready for that next bump. Our kids are ready for that challenge.

104So, kindergarten CBMs, beginning with our youngest kinder learners, it's important to remember that each year brings a new cohort of students with varying preschool language and learning experiences. And despite this, we do continue to see upward trends in achievement, which speaks to the strong tier 1 instruction um in the early supports here in Kerry 26. 68% of our students were proficient in letter names, which is up from 55% in the spring of 2023. This is huge because letter um names they're able to recognize and say okay that's A that's B that's C that's D. And while that is important there is another one that's even more important which is letter sounds. Often times at least me as a parent I always thought start with letter names but the actuality is we should be starting with

105letter sounds because the letter names are deceiving when it comes to reading. the sounds are more reflective of showing them how to read, how to write, how to understand and be able to break down the words, right? And so the letter sounds when we look at that 69% met that benchmark for letter sounds, which is a huge increase from 49% just two years ago. And again, I know it's different cohorts, but what we're noticing here um is that there's this foundational formic awareness and early reading success that's happening. And so, yes, COVID happened, but yes, our kids are starting to we're starting to see that upward trend again with students being able to identify those letter sounds, letter names. Um, in addition to the the numeral recognition, 79% of students demonstrated proficiency, which were up

106from 67% in spring of 2023. This is Oh, go ahead. Does that I forgot. Does that include the kindergarters at Three Oaks? >> Yes, this is all all the Yes. All the data here is reflective of all of our carry 26 students. The only data that would be separate is we'll get to the point where we look at the Spanish dual assessment and that is specifically only for those students who test in Spanish. But everything else since we have district goals, we are providing you with then district data. So this is important because this what this means is that if our students are starting at these higher levels in kindergarten, that's a strong foundation as they transition into first grade. So then we're going to go ahead and shift over and look at um first

107through 8th grade reading scores. I just want to preface and say this is not accidental. Our scores are not accidental. they are as a result of the diligent work of implementing uh developing and then implementing our instructional framework. Two years ago, we started that process. Last year was the first year that we fully implemented it along with our ELA curriculum maps and we sought teacher input and we revised and we tweaked them. They are set to go for this coming year. So last year was the first year that our teachers were all functioning off of one curriculum map guiding their instruction. So if you were in first grade at Briergate or Three Oaks um or Deer Path, you are receiving that same quality education and no longer, right? The goal is that when we were

108in the strategic planning meetings, we had students that would say, "Oh, well, we we knew that when we came to the junior high, some kids got some stuff, some kids got the other stuff." We knew based off of, you know, background experience or what school they were at. And the hope is to eliminate that now. Um, so there's been a lot of intention with the implementation of our curriculum maps, the gradual release model that our teachers have been doing, the implementation of a targeted wind time that also has been new. Our teams have grown in their collaboration as well. Um, in all of this, I just want to take a moment before we go to the next slide, um, is to recognize that none of this would be possible without our educators here in Kerry

10926. So this is just my plug right now to give a special shout out to all of our educators whether it is teachers, interventionists, paras, you name it. If you are a carry 26 employee, you had a hand in this and I just want to say thank you and thank you to the board for all that you adopted along the way and trusting the process. So here we go. Looking at district-wide performance over time, we see a compelling story of teacher and student progress. In 2021, 63% of our students were reading at or above that 30th percentile. Today, in 2025, we have 76% of our student population who are reading at or above that 30th percentile. That's a 13 point increase. And this surpasses previous academic performance levels. We are at our highest currently right

110now. Again, I can't emphasize enough how this success though reflects the collective work of our Kerry team here and the dedication that they have to our students. When we look at individual grade levels in 2025, uh 70% of first graders and 80% of second graders scored at or above the 30th percentile. And that's a notable jump for second grade's previous years, which rose 10 points from 2024. So again, we are increasing the amount of students who are performing at that 30th percentile or higher. Again, I'm going to attribute this to the strong focus on foundational literacy, the alignment to our curriculum maps, the consistent use of phonics instruction. That was another big one for our teachers last year in K2. The implementation of either UFly and or Benchmark, that was something else that was different.

111Different classrooms were using different phonics instruction and we aligned that. We piloted two programs. We selected one uh both of them were quality. We're going to go with UFly moving forward in this coming school year and then benchmark the other one we were piloting will be used as a tier 2 intervention. So they both won. It was just which one was in tier one and which one's going to be in tier two. It was a win-win at the end. And we know that when students start strong, it builds their confidence and it sets them up for long-term success. Which then now brings us to the next slide. I'd like to just pinpoint the red bar. The red bar is reflective of 2025. Across grades three through eight, our students continue to show upward momentum in

112reading, achieving their highest performance level this past spring of 2025. What this tells us again is that what we are doing is working. We just have to trust the process. And that for me is probably one of the hardest parts is trusting the process because we put yes, patience is key. And that is not always my strongest suit because it's like we're working so hard. I want to see the results now. But that's not how our little brains, the students, not ours meaning, but like the kids, their brains need that time to grow. I did not just call us little brains. I just want to clarify. I did not say that our students need that time to grow. And so these results all point to the strength of our upper grade level teams also in

113preparing students for high school success. I want to point that out. It's not just about our youngest grade levels, but then it's also about those upper grade levels preparing them for high school and whatever dreams come after high school. Cohort data because I know that's something that we have talked about before and you' said please please include cohort data. So, here's the cohort data. Um, cohort A, after a dip in sixth grade 2023 at 56%, this group actually rebounded pretty impressively to 76% by 8th grade, which is a 20 point gain in just those two years. Cohort B, another celebration, started at 62% in third grade. They held steady through sixth grade. Then they leaped to 76% in seventh, which is their strongest performance yet. Cohort C, we're seeing a similar story. Um, they've maintained

114consistently high scores between 64 to 74 over time. This group has shown that stable and strong proficiency year after year. So, we haven't seen maybe that high jump, but what we are seeing that as the content gets harder, they're keeping up with that pace. They're not falling down below. Cohort D, early foundational work is paying off. So rising from 61% to 73 over 5 years. Any questions regarding the ELA data before we transition? >> Just real quick, and this isn't meant to be a criticism, but it it seems as that transition is happening up until this year from fifth grade to sixth grade. There is that dip, right? Are we seeing more vertical articulation happening between the fifth and sixth graders in this past year with cohort C than we had in the past? Is

115that one of the goals? I just just a question that I had cuz it's a noticeable dip. >> Absolutely. >> Making that transition from the, you know, from there to here. >> So, could you walk us through like what happened and and what how you alleviated that? >> Yeah, absolutely. So, one of the most um obvious ones that I'm going to say obvious to me in my world, right, are going to be the curriculum maps. Prior to this, we did not have curriculum mapping that built from kindergarten to first, first to second, second to third, right? If we go on to our ELA teaching and learning site, not only do we have standards listed, but we also have progression standards that we share with the staff. So that way when they say okay we're working

116on standard let's say main idea my students perform is at the sixth grade level but they can't perform at the sixth grade level what do I do the progression standard puts the main idea standard from kindergarten to 8th grade and they can look at the exact same standard and say okay the student is not performing at grade level let's drop down to see what are they supposed to do maybe in fourth grade and let's build upon it or maybe we have to bump them up so let's look to see what they're doing in eighth grade and builds upwards. So now all of a sudden we're still working on the same standard, but we're differentiating to meet their needs. And then the curriculum curriculum maps help ensure that they're talking and speaking the same language and

117that they're all using the same reference point, right? Um also we developed the standards by trimester. The standards by trimester are also built upon each other as well. So there's that cohesion across grade level to grade level to grade level. In addition to that, we made it a point this past year uh Melissa Lucas used the institute daytime to have the vertical articulation and she had teachers come together during that time to talk and discuss the curriculum apps together all in one place. So you had first grade and second grade and third grade in the same space able to have those conversations. We also again had people on staff on the committees to share those communications as well. So not just from fifth to sixth but through all the grade levels we try to improve

118our vertical articulation through our systems through our communication and then through our curriculum as well. Absolutely. Any other questions regarding ELA before we pivot to math? Right. That's what I thought. Yeah, you should have seen me when I was putting this together. I was just like, why don't you shout it out to the world? Um, okay. So, we're going to go ahead and pivot to math. At the district level, this slide shows a clear and encouraging trend as well. In 2021, we had 70% of our students meeting or exceeding that 30th percentile benchmark, which has grown steadily year after year to reach the 80 80% of our students hitting that bench benchmark, which this was our district goal. Our district goal was to have 80% of our student population performing at the 30th percentile or

119higher. We have achieved our goal. So, that right there, I just take a moment to soak that in. The goal has been achieved. What that tells us now though is we do have to look at the discrepancy between what star tells us and what I tells us. They are two very different stories, right? And so that's where then the conversations about math have started to transpire with our math committee and their full transparency about what they felt needed to be included into the curriculum as a result of it being taken out as a result of CO. Not any one person's fault. COVID happened. That's when SAVIS was adopted. Certain things were taken out because we're all just trying to figure out how to survive COVID and teach. So now we have to go back and

120revisit and see is the rigor of our math curriculum meeting the rigor of grade level expectations. Right? And that's the part where we need to delve into now. So while this is a celebration, it tells us we need to check the rigor of our curriculum. We need to bump up from 30th percentile to the 40th percentile, right? And we do need to look at the type of assessment that we're using. Is it as rigorous of a predictor to IA? And we've already identified that star is not. Moving on, we look at first through second grade. You'll notice that first grade showed consistent growth from 2021 to 2024, peaking at a 92. However, in 2025, we did see that slight decline to 83%. Um, which we'll want to we'll monitor that closely. Still a celebration though,

121let me point out like yes, we did go from 92 to 83, but that is still hitting the benchmark of having 80% of our student population. That means tier one instruction is working. That's that's the MTSS model that you want 80% of your student population to be performing at grade level. And they are um according to Star, second grade hovered in the mid70s to high7s range from 21 to 2023 with a strong close in 2025 at 83% maintaining that previous year's performance level in 2024. Moving forward, looking at third through 8th grade, again we do see a lot of positive momentum and movement across the board. All of the grade levels showed varying upward trends over the years with 8th grade in particular rising from 66% in spring 2024 to 70% spring 2025. So they

122ended with an 11point gain. Um again suggesting that our upper grade math instruction is preparing our students for high school. Well, fourth grade showed some variability in student performance over the past several re years uh ranging from 66 to 82. And then this kind of fluctuation can oftentimes point to the fact that we need to look at our curriculum, right? We do need to look at the consistency and take a closer look at that alignment of our curriculum, the alignment to standards, the alignment to what we just talked about uh grade level progression um and ensuring that it's building upon each other and that articulation between our teachers. um we want to make sure that our instruction and our data is reflective both you know on our benchmark as it is on on the IR.

123So we need to look at our curriculum as it aligns with our state standards and assessment expectations which we know that already. We we've identified that as as a need for this coming school year. So we'll pivot to cohort data. Cohort A can I interrupt you? Sorry. Always. >> Thank you. always >> um dur during the this I'm looking at this were the grades one and two were they um piloting a different program? >> No. Okay. I I'm I'm then I'm sorry I interrupted you. I thought that they I thought cuz their percentages are, you know, higher and I thought that they that they may have been like doing, you know, piloting a different program or trying. >> Are you talking about grades three through eight or one through two? >> One and two. Okay.

124>> Yeah. Yeah. No, >> that red bar, the percentage. >> Yeah. No, I I SAVIS is the curriculum for Savvision is a math curriculum for kindergarten to 8th grade. So there was no difference in that. What does differ um is the rigor of the math from earlier grade levels to when you start getting to the higher grade levels, it becomes more complex. Um you have more uh deeper analytical thinking and reasoning that takes place, right? There is that transition. Um and I would also imagine the types of questions that they're seeing on the assessment as well. But it also could be that this group, this cohort is maybe coming in with some stronger skills than prior groups. That could be it too without doing a deep dive into like a a research. It sounds like

125a great dissertation topic to research each of these grade levels. That would be a way to be able to discover like what are the nuances that made it so different. But the curriculum was the same. >> Thank you. >> Of course. Any other questions before I continue with cohort data? No. Okay. So, going back to the cohort data, um, when we look at cohort A, which started in fourth grade in 2021, they did grow from 66% to 77% by 8th grade. So, that is a celebration. Cohort B also made a 14 point gain from third grade to 7th grade. Celebration again. And then cohort C stands out jumping from 74% in second grade to 82% in fourth grade and then remaining strong through sixth grade. And then cohort D has also maintained consistent proficiency levels

126over the years from first grade to fifth grade. So again, all of this is a celebration, but it all points to the fact that if we're achieving our goal according to STAR, then we need to bump the rigor up, which this is exactly what our teachers had identified. So it goes handinhand what the data is telling us with what our teachers have said as well. So I'm going to go ahead and pivot now to dual language Spanish math. So this data is reflective of our students who are in the dual language program. We do have a 50/50 dual language program which means half the student population are native English speakers, half the student population are native Spanish speakers. Both of those populations take this assessment in Spanish. Whether that is your first language or your

127second language or your third or fourth. >> Before you pivot >> get no get deeper into the numbers, can you just remind us when they get math instruction in English versus math instruction in Spanish? Of course. Um I think Oh, in my head I told myself to add it to the slide, but apparently I did not. So math instruction at the dual language level occurs in Spanish, grades K 1 2. When they get to third grade, math instruction switches over to English, and then from third to 8th grade, the content is in English. So when you see the scores they're receiving the con they're receiving their instruction in Spanish they're testing in Spanish it goes hand in hand then you see in third grade their instruction now switches over to English and they are getting

128still tested in Spanish right there's the test itself remains in they get tested Spanish math and English math they take both what changes is the instruction language K2 2 is in Spanish, 38 is in English. So we begin with first grade at 70% of that student population in 2022 uh was demonstrating proficiency and by the time we reach 8th grade in 2025 that number has climbed to 80%. This upwards trend is very encouraging especially when we look at the strong gains from fourth through 8th grade. However, let's point out the fact that we do notice, right, second and third grade is a bit lower. So, it's important to put that into context. Lauren would be so upset if I did not remind you. Does anybody know how long it takes on average for kids to

129learn an additional language? It's on there. Five to seven years. Yes. So, it takes five to seven years. So if we are testing in a language that is not our native language, that assessment is not just testing our content knowledge, it's testing our language knowledge. So it makes sense that those lower grade levels, the numbers are going to be lower. But what we want to see in a successful dual language program is that as the years move forward that those numbers start to trend upwards. And if you look at our data, it does. This reflects that our students are not only learning math skills, but they're also continuing to increase their ability to access and apply that learning in a second language, which is demonstrating that our dual language programs are working. It's the trust

130the process theory again. So now we'll pivot to the cohort data. Cohort A grew from 52% in fifth grade to 80% by 8th grade. Coh cohort B also made a 38 point gain from only 39% of the fourth graders demonstrating proficiency in Spanish math to 77% by seventh grade. Cohort C made a remarkable jump as well from 44% in third grade to 84% by sixth grade demonstrating grade level proficiency in math. Again, these results are powerful and they speak to the effectiveness of sustained bilingual instruction. And again, it applies the 5 to sevenyear rule. Sometimes it can be longer depending on the student. Sometimes it can be sh shorter, but on average it takes 5 to seven years. >> Quick reminder, cohort A, that is our first cohort that has rolled dual language all the

131way up to eighth grade. Right. So, we've hit our goal with our first group that's gotten it with fidelity all the way through. That's cool. >> Cue the balloons and the confetti. Yes, 100%. Yes, absolutely. And so they demonstrated that proficiency in English and Spanish, right? And remember Lauren said here uh in her wonderful presentation, she was actually over here, not over there, over here where she gave I don't know if you remember um the assessment where it was like they had to name the colors and the fruits in one language and then the colors and the fruits in another language and it was the results of the two tests that really give you the whole picture. It wasn't one or the other. And our data is doing that right now for our students in

132the dual language program. When any other questions regarding math data before I pivot to next steps and wrap up the slideshow. No, you see why I was excited. All right. So, next steps. Um, as we look ahead again, it's evident that we need to shift our 30th percentile goal to the 40th percentile. This will be shared with our staff come back in uh institute day that we I'm going to celebrate with this data as well on institute day so they can see the fruit of their hard work but then let them know we are ready for that next rigorous level. Um so we will be shifting that uh grade level expectation. In addition, part of our carry 26 instructional framework is to use a combination of benchmark assessments, which it currently or has been STAR,

133progress monitoring tools, which we really haven't. It's been a hodgepodge of different things. We've used STAR as progress monitoring in addition to benchmark, which essentially our students became starred out, if that makes sense. Um, and then also classroombased formative assessments. And it's hard to do class B classroom based formative assessments if you don't have curriculum maps. Now that we have curriculum maps, we can start to develop those. That's that's the next goal. Um, so with that said, we try to triangulate our data from at least three different sources in order to better identify our student strengths in order to pinpoint those areas of growth and then also to make informed decisions about their instructional supports, whether it's to advance them or the interventions, meaning we need to close a gap. All those data points because

134we recognize here in Kerry 26, you cannot just use one data point to paint a picture of a student. We are complex human beings. Our little ones are complex human beings all the way to eighth grade. They're very complex human beings. So, we need multiple data points. Our first step towards this goal, as you can see, are the first two bullet bullets. We developed and implemented our standards aligned curriculum maps for both ELA and math. ELA is set. They are ready to go. They are on the website for our staff. Math ones, the drafts are all ready to go. I wish you could see it. It's beautiful. Um, and we will be collecting feedback from staff this coming year to finalize them. Um, now the next thing we're going to do is switch up our

135benchmark assessment. Our benchmark assessment will serve as our benchmark to help triangulate, but it also has, if you recall, that student learning platform that speaks directly to the benchmark assessment that will be able to be used as a progress monitoring tool. So that way they don't get I readied out if that makes sense. So we now have a benchmark, a clear benchmark. We have a clear progress monitoring tool and then we will begin to work with our teachers on developing classroombased assessments if they have not done so already. We have many teams that have actually already to have already done that. And then our last slide of next steps has to do with targeted professional development uh and intervention intervention materials for our staff supporting our educators and analyzing student data through I Ready professional

136development. I have been working with the I Ready team and that has been a big focus for us is how do we ensure that our teachers are knowing how to go onto the platform to pull data, analyze data, talk about the data. How are we ensuring that our administrative team is also looking at the data? It's a top down. So, our PD I I did include it in the uh weekend review at some point um a list of the different PDs that are coming to a district near us and they are robust and they hit the ground with the very first institute day. Um we'll continue with our instructional coaching models and our EL newcomer specialist support really targeting the needs especially at the junior high. That's where we're going to have our EL newcomer

137specialist based is out of the junior high. will be available for all educators in Kerry 26. But we know that some of the biggest struggles are when you have a student who comes in new to the country. They're at the junior high. They're supposed to learn junior high material, but yet hi, I don't speak the language. So, what do you do? So, they are going to be based here to help and support our teachers because we heard that there was a need. So, we're going to provide that support. And then we'll continue to work with our support staff, our resource teachers to push in to the classrooms to support to ensure there's alignment uh with the instruction between tier 1 and tier 2. And then we also have our newly designed carry 26 MTSS process

138which is also on our teaching and learning staff site. And so that will go into effect this year as well. really trying to um streamline our MTSS process to ensure that we are meeting the needs of all of our students on the diamond. So then the last slide is for questions but also just a caveat a reminder is that as we increase this is a celebration let's take it in do the happy dance and all the things but I'm going to remind you of what I am about to say right now next year okay but I wanted to put it in the slides this year as we increase our proficiency from 30 to 40 as we shift to a more rigorous assessment system from star to I ready. We should anticipate a change in how

139our data is going to look. This is it's going to it has the potential of initially appearing lower. But that does not mean because students are performing any less or lower. It means that we have bumped the rigor up to a whole new level and we need to give them the grace and the patience and the time to get there. Right? And so I just wanted to remind you that we will be holding our students to a higher and more accurate standard of grade level readiness for next year. And so these are two very different fundamental tools and we can't compare them apples to apples. I'm going to bring that slide back next year. Okay. Any questions I can answer at this time and congratulations on all your hard work. I think we'll all second

140the uh congratulations to the entire team. This is everyone who's touched it has this is celebratory for everybody. This is a good day. So, thank you. >> You are >> Is this something that's going to get told on our socials so we could amplify the celebrations? >> This is total bragging rights material. Yes, 100%. I will work with Jess uh Neil who is our social media. Well, she's all things. What's her official title? >> Social media extraordinaire. >> The social media extraordinaire. We will work with her to for sure get that out there. It's >> it's an opportunity for us to tell our own narrative and our own story and >> to highlight the work of our students at the end of the day and the hard work of our educators as well. >> So,

141yes. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh, next up we have the recording of meetings update. Dr. Thomas and Miss Rivera. >> So, we put together some information for you. We talked about last month we are making a shift from using Zoom uh schoolwide to using Google Meet because we have that available to us for free in our Google Suite and Zoom came at a a hefty cost. Um the exception to that is we're taking a look at we use right now Zoom to record these meetings and uh to be able to bring that to the audience uh at home and uh we the Zoom subscription overall expired at the end of June. However, we did find that the particular separate subscription that we have for this for the recording of the meetings uh

142goes until August 11th, which gave us a little bit more time to be able to put together some information to share with the board. Policy 2220 does actually uh have in it that the board will um have all of the meetings recorded and then posted on uh our YouTube channel. So I uh put together I should say we put together a chart of information for some different options that we have moving forward. Um so we looked first of all at you continuing the use of Zoom. We talked a little bit about this last month. Um and we put together um at the board's request information about the financial impact as well as the staff uh impact in terms of time. Um so you'll see that on your chart. Overall, the financial impact of using Zoom

143would be um about just uh just over $5,500 annually. Staff time is uh the tech time that it takes, which includes not only the setup and the takeown of um the equipment and everything, but also the time actually spent at the board meeting. So, we did take a look at the board and committee meeting length over the last year and average that. That's at the bottom of the page there. So, you can see that in total, it comes to about seven hours on average per month. Um the pros there you'll see there's the screen share of the presentations is done. So we when we have a little um blip up on our screen that we're looking at that we can't quite see actually at home they can see the entire presentation without um any any

144of those little uh hiccups that happen. Um it creates an audio only transcript which is helpful when we're doing the transcripts for when Mrs. Dorfer's doing the transcripts of the meeting and it's a familiar platform. No staff training needed. Uh we know how to do that. Some of the cons, the video time to upload can take a while. Uh the information is only accessible in English and we do have all these microphones and things we're using aging equipment um that will at some point need replacing. Uh the subscription, as I said, require uh expires in August. There's a shorter subscription that if we needed a little bit more time that we could do for two months at a time, cost about $50 more a month to do it for short term. Um, but again, if

145we just needed some time but didn't want to commit the entire $3,500 for Zoom for a year, we would have the potential to do that as well. Another option we looked at was live streaming to YouTube directly and then posting to YouTube, which is what we do now. Uh, YouTube does not cost anything. Uh, the staff uh cost would be the same. The big question mark we have here is with equipment. Um, we did check with the village. the village of Kerry uses uh the YouTube platform and they gave us information about the type of equipment that they have and uh essentially what we would need. What's unclear is and I listed the type of equipment there. We have to do more research into what whether or not any of our current equipment would be

146compatible as well as what are the different features that the YouTube platform and the way that we want to record the meetings requires before we can figure out what the SMP 351 device needs as far as add-ons, encoders, software, things like that. Um the the you know the b real benefit here not only the the cost but the uh live closed captioning is actually available and it's available in multiple languages which is helpful. Um this the staff time is still on average seven hours per month. It would also add some more time to Mrs. Dorflur's uh doing the minutes because there would not be audio transcripts available at the minutes. Um and we need the time to research the equipment needs. Um, one thing I put about this is this is just an unfortunate time

147of year to try to be looking at a new technology. It isn't that we can't do it, but the summer is the absolute busiest time for our tech team. every single member of the tech team is engaged every single day getting uh more than 2,000 iPads prepared, updating uh the 400 or so um uh computers that we have, laptops we have, um updating software, updating curricular information and materials that are needed on the iPads, the testing that's going to be new for this year. We also have big projects going on with building renovations as well as the audio enhancement, which is huge and involves a lot of tech. So our our tech team, which is normally kind of straight out in July, is sort of doubled up right now with all of the kind of

148big projects that we have going on, too. So I'm not sure that between now and uh when we would need to put this in place, which would be by August, since this is going to expire August 11th, that we would be ready and have all the information and or all the equipment purchased that we would need to go with uh YouTube starting as soon as next month. Um, we did look at live streaming with Google Meet and Google Meet does not because that's free, but that doesn't support the uh the platform of doing this type of a meeting. We also talked about last month and brought forward um the possibility of not live streaming. So, if we did not live stream, it certainly saves money. There is no cost to doing that and it does

149save the impact on the staff in terms of the time it takes in the meetings. Um, so there's a savings to that. No equipment would need to be placed. Interested community members of course can always still come to a live meeting. I know we don't have a lot of people here um but there would be in the future no ability to watch the live stream and no ability to watch the meetings that are um posted online. On the other hand, we talked about this last month too. There are fewer than five audience members on average viewing live and the people who go back and view it later on live stream view for an average of less than four minutes at a time. So it's it's relatively low use. And then another option we did that

150again would be without live stream would be um no live stream but add an email bulletin. So what there were two ways that we talked about doing that um one that I think would take the least staff time would be to have the uh the minutes that Mrs. Dorfler already takes and uh take those make bullet points and then distribute that information through an email list, post it online on our website um so that we could have direct communication going from the school to the staff which we don't have that right now. People can go and access it um but right now they're not actually accessing it very often, but we could then even have community members if they're interested get added to an email list that we could send that out. We also talked

151about the potential of having um Jessica Neil, who does all of our social media stuff, actually come to the meetings and she could take the notes. Um but in talking about that, that would then add back in the staff time that it's taking right now, as well as it would be one more step. We'd have one person doing minutes and a different person doing notes and there'd be a little more confusion around what information is it that we're taking from the meeting and putting out there publicly instead of just doing a summary of each of the things. Um, the email bulletin again would be created using the minutes and could be sent out directly and I I do think it would increase at least the number of people getting the information. Whether or not they

152read it, we don't know, but at least it would be out there for people to see. So, these are the different options that we have. Um, what I would say is if if we do want to continue with the live streaming, we may want to really seriously consider whether we want to up Zoom for one more year or at least for another two months. So, we have some time for our tech team to really be able to dive in, make sure we know exactly what type of equipment and what the real costs will be associated with um going with YouTube. If we um decide to go with to no live stream, then we would need to in a future board meeting update policy 2220, which now right now requires us to um record and post,

153which is not a big deal, but just so that we remember that. So, with that, I'll open it up any discussion that the board has or questions that you have. >> I want I something has been killing me since they said it. Um, during the superintendent search presentation, they use Zoom. >> Did everyone else hear that? >> Yes, but I heard it's like a placeholder for any sort of virtual meeting space, not necessarily like Zoom specific. >> Y It's sorry >> that people don't want to show up for interviews. They want to do them at home or people want to be able to ask their questions at home on their time. They don't want to come sit here for 45 minutes. But >> I was like, "Oh man." >> Right. >> I hope but if

154they're reaching out to like the community and stuff, is the community still on Zoom? Are other people >> That's a good question. >> are just using that. That's what I'm I'm just wondering about that. >> I can answer that question. So, we don't have if we got rid of Zoom, we wouldn't have a Zoom account to host to invite someone to come to. If someone else has a Zoom account, you can attend that. You don't need to have a Zoom account to attend their meeting. So, for them, if they were doing Zoom interviews, that's not through our Zoom account. Anybody, >> you wouldn't even need to have like I could never have had Zoom but still attend their Zoom meeting because they're the ones paying for it. Okay. >> If that makes sense. >> No,

155that makes sense. And I like it. Um Okay. I just wanted to be sure that we weren't going to like >> Right. Exactly. Um I'll just listen to what you guys have to say. I have a feeling. So, um my position and I feel like the board, we've had a lot of conversations about transparency. So, I don't feel good about taking away recording meetings in general. I don't have a problem with the idea of recording the meeting and then hosting it on YouTube. So, it's not a live stream. It's come to the meeting if you want to see it live. If you want to see it recorded, then it's there the next day, but then we actually have the transparency and the recorded history of what happened at a board meeting. Is there ever a

156question about it? I don't know. I don't know that anyone's going back and looking at the archives or looking at it for more than 4 minutes, but it is there. meaning we are not attempting to hide something. There's going to be a lifelong record of it. And I think so my vote falls in the I don't care as much about the live streaming as I do about the fidelity of recording it. >> Yeah, I think transparency is an issue. Um and it's important uh especially given the gravity of the search that we're about to to undertake again. um and having that opportunity for the community members not necessarily to sit at home with their bowl of popcorn and watch financial reports for Mr. Shepard, but uh but be able to review that on their own

157time. Um and being able to do that. So, I don't know if that's Mr. Mr. Fitz Simmons, I don't know if that's just getting a camera out here and hitting record and having one of your crew upload it the next morning or what that looks like um combin versus like what we're doing now. But I would agree with Miss Herman that we the live stream isn't as important as the recording. So, it's not quite as simple as just putting a camera in front of um because we have to capture the audio from all 15 or so microphones that we have around the room right now. And just having it come through the speakers and picked up by the camera is not going to work. Uh we have a hard enough time picking up when the

158kids do the presentations, we have a hard enough time picking up their audio and we have a microphone sitting right in front of them. Uh, so it's a little bit more complicated than just putting a camera in front of you guys and hitting record. >> Again, I know I'm like on a different page, but I've thought about this for like the past month, and like my 5-year-old has more hits on his YouTube than some of our board meetings. Uh, Dr. White's videos had triple what we have on our board meetings. And I don't think that it's a lack of transparency, especially if we're putting out a bulletin. Um, we have been transparent and during like I I know during the referendum process that was like a huge process and never once did I have someone

159come up to me and say, "Oh, you're not being transparent." Like I don't hear that. maybe four years ago when things were all crazy with co there was a push for like something like this but I don't hear that in the community that we are not transparent and you talk about like the gravity of being on a superintendent search we're not talking about that in every board meeting what we're discussing in close session about a superintendent search so I don't see how the community is getting information about that from this and I still see it as like a burden on you on Laura on our staff for 4 minutes. I And I know we brought like something was brought up last time about great conversation. Yeah. But nobody's watching it. So like I'm busy. I

160have I I've helped coach sports. I'm a Girl Scout leader and I still show up. When I want to go to the village ones, I show up and like I ask questions and I'm insanely busy, but I also have a desire to like learn. So I feel like there's got to be held accountability on both sides, too. Um like we have Nancy who comes all the time. She's and of course we know um Michelle comes all the time. Like these people want to be involved. We've given four years of this with nobody taking biting it. Nobody taking it. So I just don't know if it's as valid anymore, especially if we have an option to send out the minutes of what is happening because I think someone's more likely to read an email than come

161sit on YouTube. I've missed meetings and I've sat on YouTube and it's not that exciting to watch the playback like and I'm a board member and I don't think I've been on for more than four minutes. So I skim through and get the gist. So I just think it's a burden that's not giving much back. And I think so I'm just I don't think it's not being transparent. I think we should look at other options than continuing to be a burden on I guess time on time. Like you sit there and watch us for hours on end, but nobody else is watching us. So I just it doesn't make sense to me anymore. >> So are you advocating for no live streaming or no recording or both? I think it's like if we can give

162someone a bulletin of minutes, I think someone's more likely to open up their email and read the minutes, read what these bulletins have to say. Um, than sit and watch a video. I don't because if you don't have time to come here, then you don't have time to go sit and watch a video. And it's clearly not >> a burden more on Laura if she's got to do the minutes and send out the emails and all that. Isn't that more of a burden that you were saying you're trying to >> but it's still saying it's a burden then it's still saying it's a burden on staff impact if we're live streaming and posting it to YouTube too. >> I sort of agree with Mindy where the live streaming isn't as much of an issue for

163me as making sure it's posted but posted in a timely manner. Not months or weeks later but like 24 48 hours. That would be like my thought on it. Like I get the live streaming that makes sense. Um but I do I do agree with we should record it. Um my question too though is who is researching the different platforms? You're saying you haven't they haven't del delved into that yet? Um so it's actually all of us have been had a piece of that. Uh Mr. Rivera, Mr. Shepard, uh Mr. Fitzim, we've all actually done pieces of this. Um and the so these were the ones that were the most obvious that were uh platforms either we already had access to or knew how to use or um like with the YouTube we use it

164in part we do use it for the posting part. >> Um the other thing I just also want to say so that the board knows in terms of transparency prior to us live streaming or recording meetings at all we are required to do audio recordings of meetings. So, we have audio recordings of board and committee meetings going back since before I was here probably. Um, so there is even if we didn't record uh visually, we do have to do audio recordings. And so that's what we would do if we weren't going to be uh live streaming or not is kind of it it almost doesn't matter if we're going to video record. It's as easy to live stream is not in a way because we still have to have staff here to do all the

165equipment and microphones and all those kinds of things. Um, but there's if we didn't do any video recording, we are still required to audio record and those tapes have to be kept on file. Again, we didn't have anybody ever knocking our doors down to try to get the audio recordings, but they are there and they are of the entire conversation that happens. Your comment, I I'm going to ask a question off the fly and Mr. Fitz Simmons, if you can't answer it right now, that's totally okay. Um, is there a difference in time or effort if we if we turned the camera off and we were just doing the mic setup and the audio recording? Does that change the burden dramatically or substantially even? >> We would have to find a new solution to record

166the audio. Uh, right now Zoom is handling both the video and the audio transcripts of the meetings. Um, so we'd have to find a new means to do the audio recording uh if we just turned off the camera and kept everything else. >> And Dr. Thomas, was the audio recording is that like the dictaphone for all of us or was there something more robust that was doing the audio recording once upon a time? I don't remember it. >> It was a digital recorder that just like sat right out here in front of um either the superintendent or the board president and it it was sensitive enough to pick everybody up. sort of like you use in close session. So I guess kind of getting an idea of what board members are in favor of keeping

167live streaming and ones that are not. And this way we know how to move forward and to consider continuing to look for other alternate programs or whatever. Um just a general consensus. >> I sorry I was just going to say I think we should extend it for two months Zoom and research and then you know have more that's fine. >> I feel like we should I I think that what I'm hearing is the majority of us feel like some kind of recording should be available. The the full sentence of this policy is the fir is to provide access to board of education meetings. The district will live stream regular board of education meetings etc. So the intention of the board was to provide access and what I'm hearing is is that we want to continue

168that but in what form I'm not sure that the how is really like how what we're supposed to decide on. It's we don't know the the technicalities. So, we don't know the um we we we shouldn't we're not the people like who should figure out like how to do it. We didn't like um we should be really be discussing like um whether it's it's good policy to be doing this, whether um not it's not really ultimately up to us to figure out how. We didn't really we didn't all decide and sit down and say we're going to put it on Zoom and then we're going to you know it's just it's just how admin figured out how we were to do it. So I I do think that um does it meet um is streaming

169the board meetings can we tie it to policy? Yes, because the policy is here. Um, we wrote it and it in the intention was to provide access to the community and then if we're going to tie it to the strategic plan, does it help meet the needs of our community? Is it the way for the board to actively engage families um in the community as vital partners in the educational experience? That was goal four. And then if yes, align resources to provide support. And that's goal five. That's just kind of like how I was looking at it. I I don't know if we're going to be able to figure out what the needs are, what the infrastructure is, what all of that stuff is, but we're into the idea of people being able to understand

170what's happening here. It is people do are super busy. I agree with Miss Salt. People are super busy. They um have a lot going on. But in regards to a bulletin, I'm thinking of this as a separate issue than the actual meeting is I think I personally feel that a bulletin is reactive and I would like to see us be proactive and if we're talking about low attendance at meetings, if we're talking about um low attendance um virtually, if something is going to be emailed out, say, "No, Miss Hartman doesn't want to get any email and but um any more emails, but if something's going to go out, maybe we should be proactive about it and invite people or tell them that this is something that we're talking about and tell instead of telling them

171this is something that we did." That's kind of just where I'm at on this. But um so that's how I feel about the bulletin. But ultimately I'm looking at this from policy strategic plan the the streaming p the I I'm with it doesn't have to be live for me. I would like to see it 24 hours or something 48 max after just to give people that access because then if they are watching a committee of the whole meeting if you're watching then you'll be able to have it be able to come and respond in a timely manner. send your email out, have the board members read it, or make plans to visit the regular board of education meeting or reach out to staff and ask your questions. That I'm for providing that access to our

172families. It's a horrible time on Monday night 6 p.m. >> So, I I just want to echo what what Miss Sandlet said, too. I think that we we we look forward it for a couple months and we put the charge back to the folks here in the district to find what's going to work best for them, but that also allows that transparency that uh I believe the a few of us have talked about already. So I don't even know if it's something as easy as we video like do we have do we have access to Wii video? I don't even know if we do that. It no we don't just based upon the puzzle looks on your faces. um video creation, but it's is there something out there um that look, sorry about that, that

173looks that would that would be efficient and allow for that to still happen um while taking in into consideration the various parts of hardware, software, personnel, things like that. But I think keeping this going uh would be for a couple of months would be the best bet for now I believe especially given the the beginning of the superintendent search. >> I agree. Um I'm just on my end like again also I whether we video it or it's a audio recording or whatever it is to me it's if we look at our regular minutes they're not informative enough. They're not telling us enough about a meeting. So, I am hesitant of making meeting minutes, the sole communication of how our meetings are going. Um, if it's a recording, again, it's not something that we're only having

174behind in available if somebody comes into the office and wants to sit down like they do looking at a curriculum, a new curriculum. It's something that's posted. Um, I think that aspect of it and I know it's like I looked and like there was like an average of like 54 hits per video and I understand that they're in 4-minute increments, but I know when I go to the village of Kerry, I don't watch two hours of their meeting. I know exactly what I look at their agenda. I know exactly where I want to watch with the item I want to watch and I pinpoint it to exactly that point of the meeting and I watch what I want to watch and I'm out. And I think maybe a lot of people's time is just as

175valuable and that's the way they look at meetings, too. Nobody's going to sit down to a two-hour board meeting like this. Um, for me, it's also about transparency. So, we'll take the time, I guess, over the next couple of months and see what you guys come up with. One thing that I would just say and and I specifically um asked for us to check to see if we could do a shorter term Zoom just to make sure that we didn't have a gap with the board wanting to continue to live stream. But it occurs to me now that the other thing we could think about it's not that much money. We could do Zoom for the entire year again at a cost of the Zoom part about $3,500. Um, and then I don't know that

176this would matter to the new superintendent coming in, but if they had a platform or something that they preferred to use or a different way they'd like to do it, then we would be putting this out there for the year and could start a new with whatever platform they would like when they come in if they had an opinion about that. Don't know if they would, but it's just a thought. >> It's also a great interview question, right? >> Sure. >> Since we're on it. >> Yeah. But again, I mean, it'll it's about $700 if we just do the two months, it's $3,500 if we stretch it out for the full year. So, just for expediency and to make it easier on the tech staff. Um, I mean, that might be an idea is go

177ahead and do that for the year. And then we would certainly have plenty of time to research options around um live streaming on YouTube or other options that the superintendent had input. And then if we have equipment needs, we can make sure that those are embedded into the budget to be able to do that. Are we good with that, Mr. Sheepard? Is is that okay? Okay. Okay. Is that the consensus? >> Yes. Okay. >> Thank you. Next up, we have the administrative procedure project. Dr. Thomas. Yeah, I'm not sure. I I took it directly from uh board docs from the agenda on board docs. >> I can copy or save. >> If we had we video this would be no problem. >> Yeah, it it is. I will say it's it's six slides and one

178is an intro slide and one is a do you have any questions? So it's pretty brief so it's really four slides. Um but this is the press administrative procedures project. They call it app a um this is basically the um uh press plus for policy. This is sort of like press plus for the administrative procedures. So we have talked about this before. Um right now this project um again similar to press plus it provides press updates um and press issues based on changes that are aligned to um the board policy and the procedures that go along with those policies and it clearly identifies and suggests updates for options in an easy to understand format. So right now when you get a press issue it lists in there a whole bunch of things updated policies updated

179procedures updated exhibits. So the procedures are are in there in press just like they uh were for policy. The difference would be with this would be like press plus. Now all of our tailored policies um when they're giving us the updates, they're updating it on the policies that we've specifically tailored. That's exactly what would happen with the procedures. Um so all of the procedures would be up to date. We would go through a very similar process. Um but instead of with a board team, this would be with an administrative team going through each policy or sorry each procedure in each section one by one aligning the procedures to the current press uh not press to our current updated manual. Um then when the press packet is issued just like we do now with the policies

180we would do exactly the same with the procedures. We would update our procedures every, you know, four times a year when the um press packets come out. The administrative team, same, can still accept or reject any customized changes that they're suggesting through press. Um procedures tend to be even a little bit more customized because there tends to be um forms. It tends to be uh specific to our district and and that sort of thing. So that's there'd be a lot of customization done. Um and also presents uh prevents sorry procedures from being outdated. Right now we have a lot of outdated procedures. We have many updated procedures that are done as needed as laws and things are changing and we need them done. But if we looked in our procedure manual, probably half of them

181are 10 years old or older and they're not currently aligned because that is not something that was kept up with over time. So this is something that we we need to update anyway and this would give us a a platform to be able to do that which would allow us to do it in a little more streamlined fashion. and then maintain it much much more easily. Um, so the process for doing the app process, the district has to be a member of press plus. We already are. The district must take action on all press update issues prior to the fall legislative session. So we actually will be doing that tonight. We have uh issue 119 that we will be looking at tonight for approval for next week. Um, in August then there is a meeting

182that happens. The district staff and that would be Mrs. Dorf or myself at least um would attend an August webinar that is required. Then between September and November uh we would have to as a district attend a one-on-one call with the policy services director to review the specifics of what we would want to do with our procedural project. In December of 2025, we would attend or review their orientation meeting and we would have to do a second onetoone call. And the second one to1 call would actually be to set the specific timeline for completing the project which would take which would start in around February and uh finish sometime in the late spring to early summer of 2026. So if we did this by the end of the year we would have all of our

183procedures updated just like we have all of our policies updated. The cost of the project itself is roughly the same as what it's a little bit less actually as what it costs to do the policies. So, there's um some of the publication fees and things are not uh something the district has charged, but there is um half uh it's $7,670 onetime cost, half due upon signing the contract, which will be sometime in the late fall, and the other half would be uh due after we get the first draft of all the updated procedures. There is an annual uh fee. They do not have that finalized yet for next year. That's under review right now. That's information that we would get next month. Um, but they said it's would be similar to the press plus service

184fee of $950 or just a little bit less. So, onetime cost of $7,600 and then about somewhere in the 950 or a little lower range for ongoing into the future. Any questions from there? I will say that um I would highly recommend this. Mrs. Dorfer would also highly recommend this. It's just a lot of work to keep up with procedures. It's uh a lot of work to keep up with policies. Um, but procedures have a tendency to fall behind much more quickly than the policies do and that's kind of what happened. >> Dr. Thomas is um, how is the current AP manual like being used? Is it that binder in the superintendent's office like this? >> Yeah. So, it's a gigantic binder. >> Yeah. >> Um, that has procedures that match not every but nearly

185every policy. Um, and the procedures are well written out for all the steps that you're supposed to take for whatever the situation is. So, >> do currently do principles and how do they access the any of those like procedures in the forms and stuff? How do they access that? And then would this give more up to-date faster information to those administrators? >> So right now now we had at one point binders in every building. I wouldn't swear that we still have those in every single building, but we do have those at the administrative center. Um policies or I'm sorry procedures that need to be um distributed and used regularly. I'm thinking things like discipline procedures and things like that. Those are updated usually at an administrative team and those are sent out to everybody immediately

186so they have access to the ones that are um routinely used and are are critical that we make sure we're following all the correct procedures with um the procedural uh process like this. All of them would be available online. >> So sort of like they are with um the the policies. So everybody would access have access online to those when they're live >> and they'd be up to date. >> Right. >> That's great. I'll I support you in this. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. I think from my end that's a very easy support. Yeah. >> We want our procedures up to date, >> right? >> Okay. Thank you. Am I comfortable with consent? >> Yes. Yes. >> All right. Next up, we have the review of the press policy updates. Dr. Thomas. >> Okay. So,

187there are not a lot of policies in here. Um, there are, I believe, just five. And as I uh looked through all of these, there um there are not a lot of changes. So, if you're looking at your strikethroughs, some of them it's like, okay, where's the change at all? Um it's really hard to tell. So, I'll go through these one by one, and we can um take questions on any of those as we go through. So, the first one is 2:220, Board of Education meeting procedure. Um, this one does not have a lot of change in the actual policy. The real question in this Oh, I'm sorry. I'm looking at two. I'm in the wrong section. 2 220 was for our last was for our video. I'm sorry, for our live streaming. So, let

188me let me move forward to the right section here. The first one is 2 col 80 um board member oath and conduct which also does not have it's the only real updates on page two. um they changed the word code and they added um 2 col 60 in there in the cross references, but there is this section at the bottom that talks about required question one and it just is letting the board know that you have the option um if you wanted to add any additional language in there if a board member was not um following the oath if there were any issues or violations of that. there are things you could add if you wanted to um in terms of you know censoring a board member um or those types of things that's not

189in the policy but it is something that is available um I know uh Mrs. Spotter and I were talking earlier today and actually there's information if there's an issue in 2 col 60 uh about what happened. So I'm not sure that it's really necessary to add anything to this policy. Um but it is something that we wanted to make sure the board was aware of in case there was anything that anyone wanted to add. Yes, I don't have any ads and thankfully I don't have any concerns that anyone's violating their oath either right now. So I don't think we need to to figure out a centure policy at the moment. Okay, the next one is 2 col 130 board superintendent relationship. Again, this is about as small a change as we could have. Um on

190the middle of the first page there, they took out the word general. Honestly, this is one of those that normally would just be a quick change, you know, the the number four to the word for. Um, but I think because they're taking out an actual word as opposed to changing it to something else, they did put this in. But that is literally the only change. 7:40 is non-public school students, including parochial and homeschooled students. Um, and this one it doesn't actually show with the exception of crossing out the adopted date. It doesn't show any of the changes. And so I went back and looked at on uh the press site what the press current policy is versus our policy which is tailored. And the reason that some of the changes don't show up. They were

191things like um on the third page uh they took out the word school for school board but our we don't have it listed as school board. We have board of education. So the strike out of the word school does not show up on our policy because we don't have that word in there. So it it was things like that that make absolutely zero and there were three minor ones like that, but we've changed the wording so that the updates on the press manual actually did not apply to ours. >> Yes. >> Um the next one is 7300 extracurricular activities. Um, and this one I believe it was just the update in the legal reference is the only change. And last but not least, 880 gifts to the district. Again, minor changes. If you look uh

192on number five, there is the addition of uh the words when the gift involves the incorporation of any messages that was added in. And then they cross out the word implemented by a little further down in the legal references. I believe those were the only changes. do I do want to add and those are the only changes but they did um the footnotes were updated and during the webinar they did discuss um the I'm sorry the press memo 119 webinar they did discuss the 880 gifts to the district the the footnote um there's a footnote added that the board should be considering when book before receiving a gift um considering any ex additional costs that they may in incur uh the district may incur uh before receiving a gift and and I think they had

193said something somebody got a statue but then they didn't take into consideration all of the you know concrete and and all of that stuff too and so that was just it's in the footnotes um we can't really see it but that was that was one of the updates so just keep that in mind for all the gifts that we get you guys. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Thank you. And Lauren, last but not least, we should have moved you up in the agenda. The summer construction update. Mr. Martin. Hello. Hello. Well, good evening everybody. So, we got our uh construction update from uh this week here. So, Briergates moving right along. Uh we've been posting and uh and uh providing all the pictures and updates for all the schools on our website. So, I don't

194know if you've got on there and tooken a look at the um the uh updates we've done there, but under the operations tab under construction, we've been posting like updates and pictures for all the schools for everybody to see. In Brierggate, um the new rooms are completed. The roof's due to be completed this week. The security cameras and wiring like 85% done. The audio enhancements over there is going to start like August 4th. Uh the doors and locks are starting this week. Uh whiteboards getting delivered this week, tack boards. Um the casework is getting delivered this week and that that'll get started as well. So the uh rooms will instead of just being open rooms with the ceiling and and lights, we'll have u you know the cabinets and everything actually make it look like

195a a classroom again. >> I have a question. Mhm. >> It's a silly question really, but um I'm kind of laughing thinking about it cuz I I hope it's not true. I've been cornered I guess cornered asked by a few people in the community. Um that the roof at Brigade's not done, but it's rained inside the building because that's not done. >> Can't possibly be true, right? Like >> Well, it it didn't rain in the building. Uh, so there was like a surprise storm like it was last week or week the week before and so there was a few drips that did come through. >> Did it cause damage? >> Uh, no. No damage at all. Like it just basically like dripped down in a few like uh non-essential spots and um anything that did

196get wet, we dried it all off and there was no losses at all. >> Okay. I heard rain in the building so thanks for that. Drips is different than rain, >> right? Yeah, there's a little bit of exaggerations, but true. Yep. How big was that fish? Was this big. All right. Over here at the Kerry Junior High, you might have seen like as you were parking out in the front, uh they did do some patching and then all the striping, uh that real big dip, you know, like as you were coming through the entrance that uh is nice and um and smooth now. So, it's cuz there was like at least an inch and a half, two inches of a drop there right by the entrance, but that got fixed up and uh patched up.

197>> Yes. Yeah. As you're walking in, huh? Um the waxing and the summer cleaning. Uh we're about 90% done like the um what's left is the administration the main hallway here on the ground level and then the learning center because again like you'd mentioned the tech department is taking over the library to take care of all their um iPads and um and computers for the staff and students and then they're going to start distributing those to the schools and then move to the art one of the art rooms so we can uh clean up in the library. And then uh of course at uh this time of the year we've been doing all the uh the yearly fire and safety inspections. And I got a nice report from Andy Ve, our fire inspector from the

198village of Kerry. And he says everything's looking really good. He just had a couple of notes of a few small things, couple batteries here and there and a emergency light, couple of fire extinguishers, but otherwise everything's looking really good. Uh deer path. Um, again, the parking lot striping got done. Uh, we fixed up the fire alarm panel, so it should survive one more year. And again, the safety inspections at Deer Path. >> What is uh the fence that you guys build in the back? Did you guys build that? >> No. So, I put the picture in there to u to bring a little light to it, but that was uh from the uh the garden club that uh >> Cool. >> Yeah. Yeah. And then uh and they made it so it could be removed

199if needed. >> Yeah, I saw that. That's >> Yeah. So, uh, so that was one thing I talked to, um, was it Laura White? Yeah. She was in charge of, uh, taking care of that fencing. We'd worked together. She had some, um, some funds to use and, uh, so like, um, I gave her some advice. She, she took it to a whole another level cuz, yeah, that looks like, uh, like professional. >> Oh, I know. I saw. >> Yeah. Kudos to her. So, the the garden club had actually received a grant, I believe, from the IEA um in the amount of I want to say about $900 uh to go towards their garden club and we still have full access so we can mow and take care of all the landscaping and everything. Okay. Over

200at Oak. So, um since they had summer school there and same at Deer Path, I forgot to mention that. But the cleaning and waxing is almost all done. Um well, Deer Path has more carpet than that. But the as far as the deep cleaning, you know, that's about 90% done cuz they'll be finishing up this week since summer school's over there. And same at Oaknull. Uh Oaknull got nicely waxed. If you've noticed, you know, like the floors and everything, the new company Citywide has been doing an amazing job like getting these floors, you know, like even better, you know, like uh and looking pretty pretty new like around the buildings. Um, as far as the wiring for the um the security upgrades at Oaknull and uh um not Kir Jeene, at Brigade, yeah, at Briergate.

201Yeah. So, the wiring for the security upgrades, Brierggate, Oaknull, and Three Oaks. Again, about 90% done. There's a few spots they can't access at the moment um in Briargate because of our storage situation where we had all the u the rooms blocked off. Uh but, um that's going to get all knocked out uh once the construction is done and things get moved back into those classrooms. Uh again, Oaknull got striped today and a little bit last week and audio enhancements for that school is uh scheduled for the fall like in September. Um Three Oaks, we got the parking lot striping done. Uh I was been working with uh with Kyle Block over there, principal um for some more concrete improvements. Uh so once we got everything striped, he sent me pictures of a few spots

202that uh need attention. We'll be getting those on the schedule to get repaired and safe for everybody. And again, security upgrades about 90% done over there. And we had mentioned this before, the annexation for the U transportation site. So again, it's moving moving forward. And uh we we do have the bids um uh was published last week with uh it was tenatively scheduled because I wasn't 100% sure, but now it is scheduled for August 19th to open those bids. So we'll see what kind of good responses we get from the the local construction companies. Any other questions for any of the other buildings? >> No, I love I love these reports. >> All right. Awesome. >> Yeah. Yeah. And then again, any extra pictures or details, we are posting those on the website. >> Awesome.

203Thank you. >> All right. Thank you guys. Have a good night. >> You too. Okay. Last but not least, may I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Yes. >> Okay. This meeting adjourns at 8:45 p.m. here.