001I call this regular board of education meeting to order on Tuesday, May 27th, 2025 at 6 PM. If we could all please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you. If we could do a roll call, please. Julie Jetty here. Mindy Hartman, here. Darling, here. Katherine Potter here. Bridget Sandlin here. Jason Jansik here. Stacy Salt here. Okay, next up we have uh the speech tournament participants. Mrs. Lucish or not? Mrs. Lucish is under the weather today. So, we have Mrs. Kramer. Hello everyone. All right, so this year our district held its annual speech tournament on August 12th. We had about 70 students
002joining us this year, ranging from 4th to 8th grade, which was phenomenal. On top of that, we also had several students do speeches um that were bilingual done in both Spanish and English. And that's something we're very proud of and excited to continue in the future. We also just want to give a huge shout out to our students who participated in this event. It takes a lot of courage to stand up in front of an audience, memorize a speech, and act and be in the moment. And our students actually did so well this year that we ran out of first place medals. We had to order more. So, that is such a celebration. Uh we also wanted to thank all of our volunteers um who helped run the event. It would not be possible without
003them. Um they came here on their own time on a Saturday morning. So, thank you to our volunteers for helping. And a very big thank you to the district, the board of education, Kerry Grove speech team, and NHS members for all of their support for this tournament. And today we have some wonderful members who um or students who are here to showcase some of the speeches that they performed. And first up we have our duet of Jordan Williams and Karen Connory doing Green Eggs and Ham. Hi, I'm Karen Connory and we will be doing an excerpt of Green Eggs and Ham and I will be playing the role of Samyan. Hola, mere is Karen Connory Sam Verro Veron. Hi, my name is Jordan Williams and I will be playing the role of the grumpy guy
004from the book Green Eggs and Ham. Hola, mereord. I am Sam. Sam, I am Do you like green eggs and ham? No. [Music] Would you like them here or would you like them there or would you like them anywhere? [Music] Eat them. Eat them. Here they are. You may lick them. You will see. You may lick them in a tree. [Music] Say in the dark. Here. In the dark. Would you? Could you? In the dark. A train. A train. A train. A train. Would you could you on a train? [Music] Would you could you with a goat? which you could chew on a bow. [Music] You do not like them. So you say, "Try them. Try them." And you may try them and you may. I say one. much veras. Gracias. All right, thank you
005Jordan and Karen. Next we have Phineas Carter and Evan Kraock. What are we doing here? Just tell me what in the heck are we doing here? Okay, that's just about the hundth time you've asked me that. Just be quiet and keep the fire going. This is nuts. This is so totally nuts. I said a vacation and here we are about to freeze to death in the North Pole. Come on, Madison. We always take those boring vacations to the beach. The mountains. Beaches are good. You don't freeze to death on beaches. Mountains are nice. No polar bears. This is the stinking North Pole, you idiot. You said, "Look, and for extreme vacations, thrills, excitement, danger, all in one vacation package. Didn't say anything about frostbite and killer seals. We could die up here." Yeah, but think
006of all the great pictures we'll get. of death. Death is not a good picture, roster. It's all out of focus and I've heard it hurts. Give me a candy bar. We're out. We ran out two days ago. We're out of sandwiches. We're out of luck. Fingernails. Ate the last one yesterday. The fire is going now. What do we got left to burn? Ice. All we've got left to burn is ice. Go ahead, Mr. Floor. Try it. Hey, at least we still got our igloo, which is now melting. Whoever told you to start a fire in England? Seemed like a good idea. Look, we got to go for help. The tour company's coming for us in 5 days. They don't be out here for a whole week. Hey, at least you won't starve. We'll face to
007death first. Okay, you're going to go, Gray. Let's go get help. I'm stuck. What's the matter? I crawled into the seu. Why can't I crawl out? The hole is smaller cuz the whole thing is sinking, dummy. So, give me a push. Where? Out? I mean to push. Push. Come on, honey. Try and help a little. I can't help if I'm stuck. Suck it in or something. I can't. That hurt. What do you see? Snow. What else? More snow. Good grief. What do you think I'd see? Walmart? There's nothing but snow out here. But the North Pole is snow. Come on out and see for yourself. Give me a hand, man. You're heavy. Frozen ice. Can't see anything. It's all white. Nothing but white. White whiteness. I started out curious. Then I went to confused and
008then it concerned and scared. And now I'm in a sit full terror. Gorgeous, isn't it? What? Snow on snow on snow. Nothing but ice and snow for as far as the eye can see. This This is what I call living. I'm standing here in a state of complete and utter panic. And you're describing the landscape. I can't take it anymore. Oscar, I've decided to die. You don't seem to share my enthusiasm. Madison, don't talk to me. I'm trying to die. You can't die. We have 5 days of vacation left. Don't you know it's not polite to talk to the dead? Go play on a nice burger. I'm busy dying. Would it make a difference if I told you there's a polar bear coming our direction? You got me into the stupid death causing vacation. Don't
009think I'm going to believe any more of your stories. He's very big and he looks hungry. Look at my mouth, Oscar. I'm not laughing. No haha. Just the frowning mouth of a man trying his best to freeze to death. Now leave me alone. Go eat some snow. And he's getting closer. Go away. That really stinks. It's polar bear. Comes from eating seals. I'm not listening. What's that smell? Polar bear. Like I said, comes from eating seals. That is a polar bear. This is completely grown. Fully sized travel channel polar bear. Tell me I'm dreaming. You're dreaming. You're lying. I know. He's sort of beautiful, isn't he? I mean, and a look at this tasty kid who's about to become my happy meal sort of way. He's getting closer. They can't see well. They go by
010smell. He can smell bigger than a brunch. We got to get back in the start making friends while I start crawling. Yo, Bear. Nice bear. How's it going? You in yet? The hole's even smaller. I can't get in. You got to get in. Yo, big bear. Really? Big bear. Anyone ever tell you you got great eyes? Hurry up. Yo, bear. You ever try rump roast? I mean, look at me. Skinny, chewed. You'd hate it. I can't be microwaved. But this this is gourmet eating. Girl, go ahead, take a bite. You'll be hooked. Just one little nibble right here. See what happens when you put things off. Dinner time's over. Get ready. Coming through. We're full. Want to bet is stuck again. Hold. I'm busy. Holy idiot. Hold. Oh, my shoes. He's nibbling on my shoes.
011This might work. Got it. If my head pops off. Hands. Take my hands. Sweet of you. Stop that. My legs. He's standing on my legs. Hey, you advertised my rub roast. Come on. Wiggle. Wiggle. Oh, my back. He's clawing on my back. Ah, prime rib there. Why couldn't we get a vegetarian polar bear? So, now what? At our current rate of melt, this little ice cube hosi end is worth another day. Yeah. Bear. We better hope he has a dentist appointment tomorrow. I just hope we make it out here alive. Yeah. And if we do, yeah, I've got the greatest idea for a vacation. Me, too. A volcano? What? You were not going to have a volcano. You're not. Or a hot air balloon. Nobody's ever crossed the entire Mojave Desert in a hot air
012balloon. Get away from me. Underwater. We can learn to hold our breaths for a while. What are you doing? Oh. Hey, Bear. We launch nighttime. I'm conf. I'm slipping. I'm slipping. You've already slipped, buddy. And Mr. Polar bear. It's no. Thank you, Phineas and Evan. That was fantastic. All right. Next, we have our solo, Emma Salt, performing Alexander Ori espantoso Malo. Hi, I'm Emma Saul and I will be doing Alexander in the terrible horrible no good very bad day in Spanish. Alexandria or Rosso and espanol elsewhere. for espantoso oro Anthony the aentes. for Australia Gibson and Audrey Elliot decl Fore! Foreign! Foreign! Fore Dickens Lego. LDS. Philip Parker Albert. A Australia. Thank you, Emma. Can we get one more round of applause for our amazing presenters? Well done, everyone. Very impressive. Thank you so much
013for sharing your speeches with us this evening. Thank you. For those of you that came for um or with our speech students, you are more than welcome to stay, but at this time also, you are more than welcome to leave. Okay, next up we have public participation. There was no one signed up tonight. Was there anyone in the audience that wanted to comment? Hearing none, we'll move on to the next item which is uh board items. There were two foyer requests for this month. Foyer responses can be found on board docs. Next up, we have board member comments. Uh, anything tonight, Mrs. Hartman? Well, I know they're not in the room, but thank you to Jordan, Karen, Phineas, Evan, and Emma. Those were amazing speech turn presentations. Um, and it was really nice to know
014that some of the Spanish that I learned years and years and years ago still in there. I understood some of that and I liked it. So, otherwise, good luck to everyone else. Three and a half more days on the students. I'm sure the energy is crazy. I'm sure you will make it and then we'll be off to a good summer. So, if we don't see you before then, teacher, staff, I hope you guys are having a great I don't know, I hope you have great adventures planned and otherwise we'll see you back in uh August. Thank you, Mr. Janzic. Sure. I just want to echo what Miss Hartman said about the students here. It's always great we walk in the in the room, it's been a long month. I think a lot of educators and
015professionals would agree that it's been a May is a a year in a month. Um, but it was great to have their energy in here, uh, and to kick us off on the right foot. Uh, just want to give a special shout out to Miss Beimis and the 24-hour run, and I think it was over 170 runners, uh, this past weekend, or I'm sorry, the Thursday and Friday. Uh, and if you were nice and warm in your house on Thursday, I believe it was 3940 degrees on Thursday night as they were running. Um, they did a great job doing that. And um it was really cool to see the the kids come together and push through some adversity and it was awesome. Also shout out to Miss A and Miss Z with the musical. Um
016the Frozen Jr. was phenomenal. All the performers there. We we are very talented. Uh we have a bunch of very talented students which was awesome. Um field days this this past week was great. It was great to see the pictures on the socials of all the craziness happening in the field days. Um, and then a special thank you and good luck to all of our retirees in the district, uh, as they head on out here in the coming weeks. And, uh, thank you for everything you've done for our students and our community. And we wish you nothing but the best in the next chapter. Thanks. Thank you, Mrs. Jetty. Yes. I just wanted to say thank you to all of our staff, our teachers, our paras, our admins for another successful year. and hopefully um
017people have a nice summer. I would just like to encourage parents, I know this is a rough time of year as um May is a long month for parents with so much going on, but as your children settle into summer, please help them um learn bike safety and scooter safety. Um especially these motorized scooters, they're um I see kids in my subdivision just in the middle of the street weaving out and stuff and it's very hard for cars sometimes to see them. So, and I also wanted to say thank you to all of our bus drivers for another successful year. Um and um I'm looking forward to next fall when we welcome everybody back in. Thank you, Mrs. Potter. Thank you. Um, wow. Everybody's said everything. So, I just I guess I want to um
018congratulate the uh Kerry Junior High Dragons who will be graduating and get being promoted to high school. And um that's all. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Sandlin. Um yeah, I just want to reiterate the students were awesome. I was so impressed with that. Very cool. Um, I also want to thank u Miss Rivera and Mr. Fitz Simmons for having me uh for the technology committee meeting. I asked a lot of questions. Sorry about that. Um, probably more to come. Um, also thank Mr. Nass uh for our tour of Briergate last Friday. That was really great to see and I'm excited to see after the renovations are done. And have a great summer everyone. You Mrs. Saul? Um, yeah. I'll take a second uh to thank actually Julie here. Um Emma was very nervous about her
019speech and uh Julie's been a judge for years and took time out of her life, her busy life to tell Emma what to expect and where the judges would be and uh Emma was really appreciative and clearly she wasn't like she clearly paid off cuz she did a great job. So uh so thanks Julie cuz Emma really needed that and she loved it. Um, also I know I don't think it's it's not a school sponsored event, but um I was lucky enough to be a running buddy for Girls on the Run, and I know a lot of people do it. Uh, someone asked me to run with their kid. Um, but I just want to say that I was so impressed with the staff that was cheering on the kids. Um, it's early Sunday morning
020and there were staff members all around all all on the route cheering on the kids and Miss Sel put a bunch of colors and sprink sparkles in my hair. So, she was amazing and I just think that's really cool that even staff members that didn't have kid running, I saw them on the route and just supporting their students. So, that was really cool. Um, and I know a couple months ago I mentioned uh doing one book, one school, and apparently the right people were in that room that night and uh we just did it and I want to send a huge shout out to them because that was a lot of work. Um, and it was last minute work. Um, and I know the books got delivered kind of late and it was a huge
021hustle for Three Oaks. Um, I know a lot of families who enjoyed it and I'm so glad it was brought back. We were so busy. Like Julie said, May is crazy. It's like worse than December. But we made time for it every single night and my kids loved seeing all the teachers pop up. And who was it going to be? So, um, thanks for everybody who put that together because it was a random thing I'd mentioned and I just can't believe it happened and it was awesome. And I know everybody that participated that I know loved it. Um, and one last thing I didn't see on socials, Jason brought up socials from field day. Uh, probably the best part of field field day was Olaf getting dunked in the dunk tank uh from Three Oaks.
022I think we need to play a reel of that cuz that was the highlight of my year and my field day was watching Mr. block kick water at kids to trying to distract them from getting dunked and Olaf's little carrot just getting wetter and wetter and wetter and the look of fear on his face every time a kid stepped up to that dunk tank was hilarious. So maybe we need a reel of that. I've got one if you want it. So have a good summer. Uh and I'll just go last uh pretty much what everybody said up here. Thank you. I want to also thank the CESPA team that were part of the negotiations. Um, amazing. It you guys, it was some really good teamwork and collaboration. I appreciate that. Um, and then, uh, looking
023forward to graduation this Friday. So, everyone have a nice, safe summer. Next up, we have the superintendence update. Dr. White. Well, you all have said everything I was going to say, but I'll quickly No, I'll quickly just repeat things. one, I want to say um congratulations and job well done once again to um those all of the students who participated in the speech um competition, but especially um those young men and ladies who joined us this evening. Um also on the agenda this evening, we have the SESPA collective bargaining agreement for the board to recommended approval. I want to take a moment to thank Miss Susoka and um the CESPA president and her entire team for a collaborative negotiation process and for being here this evening. Um I've done a lot of negotiations and I
024would say again that was the most collaborative and I won't say enjoyable because negotiations are never enjoyable but you all were great to be with and have those conversations with. So I do appreciate that. Thank you. Um, also this evening we have Miss Evet Ria and Mrs. Kramer will share some exciting news about our um, English learner data from access. That's all I'm going to say. Um, I want to thank all those educators that have been involved with working with our English learners, especially Mrs. Kramer and her leadership because I know a lot of work went into supporting our students and making some amazing growth this year. So, thank you. Um, field day was last Friday at all three elementary schools. Um, thank you to the PE teacher, staff, parent, volunteers, and our students. Um,
025field day when I was a principal was always that day you like were like, "No, can we just get past it?" But it always ended up being the most enjoyable day and it looked like all our kids and and our staff were having lots of fun. Um, this year we have quite a large class of retirees. We have a total of 14 educators retiring from Kerry D26 this year. I hope the last three and a half days of their career here in Kerry is as memorable as memorable as the many years they have spent educating our future. Just want to thank them for all that they have given to supporting our students achieve academic success. Um, speaking about another event that makes me nervous each year, but it always comes out um, quite well and
026entertaining and rewarding for our students. I want to thank Mrs. Bean for the 24-hour run. I can't imagine putting that many students overnight on a football field. Um, but it was highly organized and went off um, without a hitch. So, thank you for that. Um, we do have eighth grade graduation um, on the football field this coming Friday. And then on June 2nd, I want to close by inviting the board to the end of year lunch celebration on June the 2nd. Thank you to Mr. Brian Daroo and Mrs. Sue Hoffman for organizing another great event. Yes, there will be a DJ as I requested. So, I'm very excited once again and there will be a Whitney Houston playlist. Other than that, that's all I have. Thank you, Ellen. Thank you. Next up, we have the
027curriculum update. Miss Rivera trying to follow after that Whitney Houston comment. Um, okay. In reference to June 2nd with the last day of school, digital report cards will go live on June 2nd. As a reminder, that's at 3 p.m. that uh Mr. Fitz Simmons will do his magic and make the report cards go live. We'll be sending out a reminder to our community, our parents. Uh, how to access those digital report cards. Once again, you'll have the option to download, print um the report cards or leave them digital. Additionally, I'd like to just bring to the attention of the community, there'll be a letter that goes out um later this week. There will be um we are enhancing our fifth grade math curriculum. Um, as you know, we've been working to uh revisit and see
028how we can really embrace and demonstrate the diamond within our curriculum. And so, one of the things we're doing um and shifting within our curriculum, fifth grade math, is we're bringing advanced math down to the fifth grade level. So, there will be current incoming fifth graders who based on not just eligibility of giftedness, but also there's a criteria for high achievement. If they fall within that criteria, they will be able to access sixth grade math at the fifth grade level to help prepare them for when they go into junior high accelerated. So, it is not something where students have to just be labeled as gifted. We want to make sure we are honoring and meeting the needs of all of our students. So, we have a criteria that we use from the junior high, what
029they've been using for their advanced placement courses. We brought that down to uh fifth grade to help us identify who those students are um to help better prepare them for those advanced courses in junior high and high school beyond. Um so more information regarding that will be coming out to our families. And then I'm going to wrap up with two recognitions. Um thanks for not stealing our thunder. The first recognition um is going to go to Brierggate Three Oaks and Deer Path for the second year in a row now. They have been named the PLTW distinguished launch schools. Uh so they received this award last year and then again this year for the 2425 school year. This is a recognition awarded to schools that demonstrate strong and consistent commitment to high quality STEM learning. And
030so I just want to take a moment to recognize our staff, our students, and also Lynn for making sure that she uh sorry, Lynn Williams, our uh steam coordinator for submitting in she had to collect all the information and submit that application and to demonstrate that we've been doing what we needed to do to be recognized. So, thank you to everyone at play. Um the next celebration, I am going to ask Miss Kramer to come on up. I'm going to try not to say much, but what I want to lead with is a thank you. A thank you to every single staff member. A thank you to Miss Kramer. There has been ongoing conversations with how do we support our students who are newcomers or English language learners. And we'll just address the elephant in
031the room. It's been a challenge. It's been stretching us to figure out how can we best serve our students. And so while yes, we've had a lot of conversations around how do we support and how do we serve, there comes the time now where we get to celebrate the hard work that has been at play here. So whether it has been an administrator, whether it has been a teacher, whether it's been paras, whomever, the nurse, everybody under the sun in Kerry 26 has had a hand in this celebration and your leadership, Mrs. Kramer, there's no one else I could imagine doing this work with. You are passionate about multilingual education and it shows through not just in your passion but in your knowledge as well. So I want to say thank you to you. So
032on that note, we do have a video to share with you and then uh Miss Kramer will go into the details. Alrighty. So, I'm here today to celebrate and discuss our Access 2425 scores. Um, so today is just going to be a refresher of understanding what the Access test is and why we give it. um continue to have conversations about the different levels of English language proficiency and then look at our amazing access data from this past school year. Um but before we do that, we want to celebrate who we are. So we are Kerry School District 26. Uh we are have a total of 385 identified English language learners in preK through 8th grade. We have a total of 344 total English language learners um that took the test, the access test this year
033in kindergarten through 8th grade and we represent over 27 different languages. So Carrie might be a smaller community but we are very very diverse. So as a refresher uh the access is federally required. Um, it is an English language proficiency test given to students who are identified as English learners in kindergarten through 12th grade. Our students in kindergarten take the test one on-one with a certified EEL resource teacher. Um, and that's all done on paper. And our students in first through 8th grade take the test on their iPads online. And the whole purpose of this English language proficiency exam is to determine our placement for our students for the following year to determine if they qualify for full-time ELEL services, part-time EL services, or if they don't qualify at all and they've exited out. We
034always give this test once a year in January. It is a statemanded test. It's also federally required if you are a WEDA state, which we are. Um, and it's anchored in our English language development standards. And so this is what our multilingual teachers focus very very heavily on when they're working with our students. And they scaffold and support our uh classroom teachers in then implementing these within their own classrooms. Uh the access test focuses on the four domains of um language. So that would be listening, speaking, reading, and writing. And those scores average out to give a total composite overall score. And so we blew it out of the water this year with access. This is the best we've ever done in Kerry history. Um this year we had 24 students exit out of access.
035We um doubled the state average for the access rate of exits. Um last year we had 11 students that exited access. This year we had 24. So a huge celebration to that. So well done to our students, our staff, um everybody that's been involved with our students. It truly does take a village. Um, we had 178 students who scored between a 1.0 and a 3.4. And what that means is these students receive fulltime ELEL services. So, what that means is they will work with a ELE certified teacher for two hours or more per week where they're focusing on tier one um content and uh frontloading uh vocabulary, academic support, and then our students who need additional language support will then work with our staff during that win time. And so, last year we had 201
036full-time students. This year we have 178. Um then we have our students who we consider what are called part-time students. So those are students who score between 3.5 and a 4.7. You need a 4.8 to exit. And so these students are receiving that part-time English language support, meaning that they're working with a certified EL teacher for an hour and a half a week or more if the stu if we see that the student might need some extra language support. These students are really getting just extra support in that tier one instruction. So what that might look like is the e resource teacher is in the classroom working with the students during small groupoup instruction or interactive practice. It might also look like if needed if a student needs a little extra support specifically in language
037development where our e teachers might work with the student once or twice a week during our win time. Last year we had 119 students um part-time and this year we have 128. We want to see the 128. We want to see our numbers go up because it means students transferred from full-time to part-time services. So again, well done to our students. Even our students who did not exit or receive that 4.0 4.8 composite score still made incredible growth which you'll see in a couple minutes. And so as a reminder because I always talk about these numbers and it's like well what do these numbers actually mean? And so when we're talking about language and language proficiency specifically for English, we use something called WEDA. And the WEDA scores are one from a five. And the
038level one is entering. So that's our students. They just have very general language. As they go up in English language proficiency, their language becomes much more technical, much more abstract, much more academic. We move from basic vocabulary to something we call tier 2. tier three vocabulary, which is very specific to a content area. And so our students move from entering to emerging, developing, expanding. Then to exit, they need a 4.8. So they're still they're still gaining English language proficiency, but at a 4.8, they no longer qualify for EL services. And then we continue to build their language proficiency. If a student exits, so if they have a 4.8 eight or above, we monitor the student for two years because we want to make sure that the student is still successful even though they're not receiving
039language supports. So, we monitor them three times per year. Um, we work with classroom teachers, our EL resource teachers, work with the classroom teachers. We go over observations. If there are any concerns, that's where we problem solve as a collaborative team. And then if we need to, we will look at the student and say, "Okay, maybe we need to continue to give them some extra language development." because again when they exit they're not at that level six reaching yet. They haven't reached full English proficiency. They still have a little ways to go. Um so far in all the time I've been here we've never had to reenroll a student in the EL program. They've been very successful um once they've um tested out of English language services. But we always want to make sure that
040we are continuing to monitor our students. So we monitor them for at least two years. So this is a lot of numbers but this is the uh general findings that we have of our level distribution this year. So again um it varies from levels 1 through six. To exit a student has to have a 4.8. The bolden number is the number that we currently have. So where are students tested? How many students we currently have in that specific domain. and the uh number in parenthesis are numbers that we started with at the beginning of the year. So when you look the biggest finding that we see is that our students at the lower levels like a 1.1 to 1.9 2.0 to 2.9 those numbers were very large at the beginning of the year now they
041decreased. That's what we want to see. That means that our students are gaining English language proficiency and they're moving up levels. Uh one huge celebration is if we look at the amount of students at their composite scores on the right hand side in the gray column we have at least if not more at least 20 students who have moved up in per each level. That's like the minimum number we have around an average of 30. Um so again our students just completely knocked it out of the water. Our teachers knocked it out of the water. Um supporting our students um it was a team effort. We continue to average around the 3.0 0 to 3.9 level, which is pretty typical. Um, and so with that, we're going to continue to focus on the main areas
042that our students need support with, which is speaking and writing. Um, so we'll continue to really focus on speaking and writing during our language development time, during our win time. Really making sure that we're having purposeful oracy instruction during our small group instruction. Um, and then continuing our collaborative learning structures where students actually have the opportunity to speak and utilize the language and actively engage in language during the class. And so we'll continue to um support our staff with that with Empower 26, professional learning opportunities during school improvement days, teacher institute days, um, and then of course offering any other professional learnings that are available for our staff. And the very exciting page with the confetti um just shows our trajectory from 2022. So in 2022 we had four students who exited. Um in 2025
043we had 24. The state average is a 6.2% exit rate. Um we're currently at a 14.3%. So we doubled it. Um so well done to our students. Fantastic work. Again, well done to our staff um for their hard work and we are truly going to continue what we're doing. We have made moves as a district um through our instructional framework and our carry 26 lesson delivery model. And when we have a very strategically planned academic curriculum and academic lesson structure, it allows us to purposely plan for language, it allows us to support our teachers in how to plan for language and it allows us to specifically differentiate for our students English language proficiency levels. And so, um, we're going to continue what we're doing because it's clearly working and, um, we are just so proud
044of our students and, um, a big thank you to our teachers and staff as well. It truly takes a village and everyone has to be on board for this to happen. And, um, that's what happened. So, we're going to continue the work that's been working. And with that, are there any questions? This is this is phenomenal work. This is really well done. Um just to look at these access numbers is it just blows me away. Um that we almost have a third of our kids in that lower right hand quadrant you know for the composite is awesome. Um so congratulations. This is great. The question I have for you is of those 91 students are those students who are also still testing on the monitor side or is are these the kids that are currently
045like they've exited but they're still monitoring so they're still testing? That's a So are you referring to this slide? Uh yes, the 76 and the 15. So the 76 and 15, these are actually students who um just took it this year. So these are not students who have been monitored in the past. These are even awesome, right? Even more. Yeah. So we have students currently who are considered what we call year one monitors, which means they exited access last year. So those would be those 14 students. So that does not include those 14 students who exited last year. That's phenomenal. Yeah. Thank you. Congratulations to to your team there. They did a great job. They did. No, no question. But uh congratulations also go upward too. So congratulations Miss Rivera on leading the team that
046has gotten us there and Miss Kramer and everyone who is working with you. I realize it's not just the English language department. It is all of our it's everyone in our building. So good work everyone. It's really nice to see some some scores moving in a great direction. Thank you. You Hey, next up we have the committee of the whole update. Um at the committee of the whole we discussed uh we did a review of the bills uh treasures report the administrative non-union salary compensation for 2526 was discussed the vision 2030 resolution was discussed the UFly phonics and I ready benchmark assessment presentation D26 policy manual review section 5 and D26 policy manual review section six were all completed. Next up, we have the consent agenda. Included are those items that are routine in nature.
047Should any board member wish to remove an item from the consent agenda, the item will be discussed at the end of section 8. 7.1 is close session minutes from the April 21, 2025 committee of the whole meeting. 7.2 are open and close session minutes from the April 28th, 2025 regular board of education meeting. 7.3 are the open and close session minutes from November 11th, 2024, December 16th, 2024, February 18th, 2024, and March 10th, 2025. I think it was February 18th, 2025. Correct. And March 10th, 2025 meetings. Monthly bills and payroll. The total bills and payroll for the approval are in the amount of 2,630,2831. 7.5 is the treasur's report. 7.6 resignation dismissal retirements. 7.7 is employment. 7.8 are the destruction of closed meeting audio recordings. 7.9 are the disposal of assets. 7.10 is the administrator
048carryover vacation days. 7.11 are the safe is the safe school resolution. 7.12 is the color portraits contract renewal for 2526. 7.13 is the treasures bond fiscal year 26. 7.14 is the vision 2030 resolution. 7.15 is the UFly phonics curriculum and 7.16 are policies 5120 and 6270. That's going to be a mouthful. May I have a motion to approve the following? 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 10 7.11 7.12 7.13 7.14 7.15 and 7.16 as presented. Excellent counting. So So moved. Oh, second. Any discussion? Um I just wanted to um make two things that Mrs. Potter had brought to our attention. um in the minutes um for the April 28th meeting will correct the um adjournment um cuz Miss Tucci had left and so it had her marked there. So we will
049make that correction and get the person um the correct person there noted. And then um I just wanted to bring light we did um do an update just to provide clarity um 7.15 the youth life um phonics curriculum. this in the um consent agenda is only adopting those materials as our phonics program or the adopted curriculum and then the I ready component of that presentation will come as an action item because of the cost. Okay, perfect. Um I'm going to add one comment on the administrator carryover vacation days. I see a lot of people carrying over the maximum days. Take your vacations, enjoy yourself, take some time off, be, you know, well-rested, well vacationed, or even just people who take a mental health day for the fun of it, you're going to be happier, too.
050So, otherwise, I'm still going to vote to approve it, but take some days off. Any other comments? Dr. White, do were we going to make the um policy sticks 270 plural? I was sitting I was sitting here thinking like there's one more thing. Yes. Um also when you look at policy 6270 we um added the positions of social worker and psychologist. We will make those plural. So it will read social workers and psychologist. Thank you. Yep. Okay. I'm going to read this again because these are amended now. Yep. Here we go again. Go. May I have a motion to approve the following amended 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7 7.11 7.12 7.13 7.14 7.15 and 17 716 as amended. So moved. Second. Any further discussion hearing? None. If we
051could take a vote, please. Mindy Hartman, yes. Darling, yes. Katherine Potter, yes. Bridget Stanlin, yes. Jason Jansik, yes. Stacy Salt, yes. Julie Jetty, yes. Okay, that motion is approved. Next up, we have the approval of the new 2025 20 through 2028 collective bargaining agreement between the board of education and the Kerry Education Support Personnel Association, SESPA, IEA, NEA, Dr. White. Sure. So, I again I just want to reiterate um that we had a successful um negotiation process. We started in February and wrapped up um earlier this month um on a three-year agreement with our um SESPA IEA NEA group. Um I appreciate Miss Susoka's um leadership on this. it was her first time leading the group and she did a great job. Um, and we just um, not only through negotiations, it's been a joy
052working with you um, over the past 2 years and I look forward to the continued growth of all of the individuals that you all represent within SESPA. So, thank you. Okay. May I have a motion to approve the new 2025 through 2028 collective bargaining agreement between the board of education and the Kerry Education Support Personnel Association SESPA IE NEA as presented. So moved. Second. Any discussion? Thank you for being here all of you and to the negotiating team for working on this everybody. Congratulations to both parties. Thank you for being here tonight. We're really happy to have a deal done, especially before the end of the year and before we have other turnovers. That's hard work on everyone. I know it was a late night meeting on that last one. I'm sorry I couldn't make
053it, but I genuinely appreciate the good work and certainly value everything that everyone in SESPA brings to our team. Absolutely. And I appre, you know, appreciate your work all year long. I know it's not an easy job. Thank you. If there's no further discussion, if we could take a vote, please. Darling, yes. Katherine Potter, yes. Bridget Sandlin, yes. Jason Jansik, yes. Stacy Salt, yes. Julie Jetty, yes. Mindy Hartman, yes. And that motion is approved. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Hey, next up we have the approval of administrative non-UN pay increase of 3.55% for the 2025 2026 school year. Dr. White. Yep. Just so just to reiterate briefly what we discussed at the committee of the whole meeting um since I've been here the recommendation has always been to align with the average of um average
054increase um when we look at our largest um employee group which is our largest um collective bargaining agreement group as well CA um and so I'm recommending to the board this evening um pass um a 3.55% administrative non-UN pay increase. Um again, just to notate, this does not include the assistant superintendent as um their contracts um were renegotiated at the towards the end of last year into the beginning of this year. So, it would not include them. Normally, it has in the past. So, I just wanted to notate that. May I have a motion to approve the administrative non-UN pay increase of 3.55% for the 2025 to 2026 school year as presented. So moved second. Any discussion hearing? None. If we could take a vote, please. Katherine Powder, yes. Bridget Sandlin, yes. Jason Jansik, yes.
055Stacy Salt, yes. Julie Jetty, yes. Mindy Herman, yes. Darling, yes. The motion is approved. Next up, we have the approval of I Ready benchmark assessment. Miss Rivera, yes. The teaching and learning department is making the recommendation to replace the STAR assessment, which we currently have for benchmark um with the I Ready benchmark assessment. It's not only just the benchmark assessment, but it'll also come with the personalized learning platform um to help support really honing in on the specific needs of our children in hopes then it actually will hopefully lighten the load of our educators that we have two systems that'll be able to communicate to each other. The personalized learning and then the assessment piece will communicate. Um the total cost is 126,830 with50 but that includes a onetime PD fee of 34500. So after
056this uh first year once PD is uh has been completed it will be a 92,330 um which also then we have the other components where we were going through the software um which you have that information. So, okay. May I have a motion to approve the I Ready benchmark assessment as presented? So moved. Second. You can have it, please. Any discussion? Mr. Vera, one quick question. Um the after the test the communication with the parents is so much more robust that we talked about last week, right? Are we going to be reaching out proactively to the parents saying, "Hey, we are experiencing we are going to be moving away from STAR and into um I Ready and and being making sure that they're they're aware of what's going on and just letting them know that
057it's going to be a whole different ballgame from here on out." Yes. So similar to having professional development for our staff scheduled in one of the things that then we'll also look at doing whether it's a listening session or wheational session or a Zoom session. Um I'd also like to get something up on the website providing links to inform them. But yes, we'll make sure to communicate with our families and provide a platform maybe even through one of our uh parent university uh class sessions that we'll have for our parents next year. we'll be able to do something specifically on what does the report tell you because they actually have a parent platform as well. So, we'd love to be able to walk parents through that so that way they know how to navigate. Great.
058Thank you. Any further discussion? Hearing none, if we could take a vote, please. Bridget Sandlin, yes. Jason Jansik, yes. Stacy Salt, yes. Julie Jetty, yes. Mindy Hartman, yes. Darling, yes. Katherine Potter, no. Okay, that motion is approved. Uh, next up we have employee exit interview review. I'm assuming Mr. Daroo will be doing that. If you you can't I can't. Okay. Say I can get up too. Sorry guys. Just one minute. I thought Dave presented so much that it would just pop right up, but it's not just me. Everybody was taking a break. I didn't see that. Yeah. Mhm. All right, so we're underway. Okay, so we'll jump right in. Um, this is a review of our exit interview data. um as we collected just this spring. Um just for a quick refresher, our purpose of
059collecting our exit data, we want to collect data from our departing employees to better our current employment practices and look for inconsistencies in staff experiences so that we can address them. Um this year we had about 30 employees so far um that this survey was sent out to and we got about 75% of them back. So that's the goal that we've kind of set forward was to get you know 2/3 75% back. So I was pleased to see that we did get the majority of our exit interviews back. So some topics that we do address with our exit interviews um we look at or we ask their reasons for leaving or their reason for leaving the district. We look at supervisor decorum. Um we also look at our district compensation package um salary and benefits
060and then overall positive and negative aspects of the district. Did I get lost again? Yes. All right. See if Dave can save me again. Ghostbusters. Thank I'll have Yeah, sure. All right. I'll just announce a slide change when I change slides. So, if everybody wants to have follow along with me. Um, so those are the four reasons that we or the four uh topics that we try to address. There's many questions that they're asked. It's probably about um 20 to 30 questions that they're asked um just in various styles, multiple choice and essay answers and things like that. But that gets to the gist of what we talk about with our exit interview. I just want to mention too, every employee gets the opportunity if they would like to to schedule an in-person meeting when
061they do when they do exit the district as well. So if they want to come in and sit down and talk to me, um they are able to. they're able to bring any type of representative they want. So, it's a very open situation. I've done them over the phone, in person, and then obviously the most responses that I get back are through this exit interview survey. So, for the next slide, we'll look at the first big piece of data. Um, this is the reasons for leaving the district. So, this is a multiple choice question that they're given. Um, they can select other and type in an answer if they'd like to, but this breaks it down into multiple categories that we can look at. So last year when we looked at this, the number one
062reason for leaving the district was the type of work or the work um environment just the type of um industry that we're in. This time uh it has changed. It has gone back to compensation. In the past for multiple um times it has been compensation is the number one reason for leaving the district and it has returned. So uh it's almost 19%. Pass that number one. there are a three-way tie for number two between culture, retirement, and family circumstances. Um, and then we do have a couple other smaller pieces there. I do suspect kind of as we look to more challenging economic times that compensation will be the biggest driver um probably for at least the next year or so. So, that's the reality that we're in. Mr. Daru, can I interrupt you? Yeah. Do
063they elab this is a like um can they elaborate on lack of recognition like kind of important? there are some pieces that they can discuss later on and actually Yep. Um so breaking down that compensation and benefits data for the next slide. Um they are asked the question how do you feel about your salary and employee benefits? And then they're given four choices poor, fair, good, and excellent. Uh you can see base salary by far is rated as poor. Our medical plan uh is rated as good which is a solid answer. Uh dental also predominantly good. vision predominantly good and paid time off uh predominantly good. So I think we're in line with most of those pieces with the salary needing some work. Uh for the next slide, employees are asked are there other benefits
064that should be offered? This is a good one for us. Uh typically 70 almost 75% of the time the answer is no. A quarter of the time the answer is yes. They are asked a follow-up question. If your answer is yes, what would you like to see offered? Some of the responses are things like child care, um, senior care, full board contribution to retirement plans such as TRS or IMRF. The district districtwide is currently at half. Some districts are at zero, half, all of it. So, that's something that is requested pretty often. Um, and then just different various types of PTO. So, we've been asked for um mental health leave, more parental leave, things like that. So those are the other kind of benefits that we do get requested of sometime but for the majority
065of the employees which is good the answer is no they're satisfied with what we offer so that's encouraging. Uh for the next slide supervisor feedback um this is one of my favorite slides because this is mostly positive which is indicative of the leadership in the um district and then in the building. So the question is asked what do you think of your building leadership in regard to the following. So demonstrating fair and equal treatment almost always that's great providing recognition on the job a split between almost always and sometimes develop cooperation and teamwork again predominantly uh almost always encourage listen to others almost always resolve complaints and problems and follow policies and uh practices again almost always I did take a look back at the data before this these numbers have actually increased since we've
066implemented um assistant principles at the buildings so I think having that extra admin in the building is helping push these numbers up, which is a good thing. Uh, for the next slide, morale and communications. How would you rate the following in relation to your job? Um, kind of a mixed bag here. Cooperation within your department, excellent. Communications, excellent. Communications within the district as a whole, a little bit more mixed. Good to fair. Communications between you and your supervisor, again, predominantly excellent. I like to think that having an extra admin in the building helps with that communication. um with the rest of the staff. Morale mostly good. There is a section of poor there. Job satisfaction good to fair. Training you received good to fair. And then growth potential um mostly good but then also another
067mix. With growth potential as I think further about that I do understand the employees vantage point. We are a smaller district. So with that comes more constraint on moving up in the ladder in the district. we only have so many assistant principal, principal roles, administrative roles for someone say a teacher to try to move up. We just don't have as many um opportunities I guess is what I would say as a much larger district would have. So I do understand that constraint looking at the employees point of view from that. Um the next slide we do ask uh just two point blank questions. They're both answered here. So the employees are asked uh would you recommend working in carry 26 to others? 75% said yes. Then they are asked were you satisfied with your time
068working in Kerry and 88% said yes as well. So that's a good thing. Uh next slide we've got um just some sampling of responses that we get. This is an open-ended question to employees in the district. What did you like most about your position in the district? And I won't read all them. This is just a um sampling of what I get back. Literally just copied and paste it into the PowerPoint. Um so you can kind of see predominantly I think people in this line of work just enjoy the staff and enjoy the student interactions. They enjoy changing lives. They enjoy being part of the community. So those um sentiments are echoed here on the slide. Um next one, what did you like least about your position in the district? Um so I think the
069predominant answer here is typically salary like we saw you know most people leaving for that reason. So things like salary and time needed people feel overworked. Um you know there's a comment in the middle about they didn't like being on a cart sharing an office with a printer leading to kind of tight spaces within some of our buildings. Um and then kind of a a longer answer down below about compensation and turnover. Okay for the next slide. Um, this one got a good chuckle out of me. What does your new job offer that your current position does not? The number one answer is naps. So, you can see 15% of the answers were from retirees in the district. So, I can't compete with free naps for the rest of your life. I'm sorry. Um, but
070that was a good one. Um otherwise the things that uh came up frequently proximity to home larger grain grade grad band improved compensation and benefits growth leadership potential increase in pay better salary retirement and closeness to family and friends. Okay, so the last slide here just takeaways and things to kind of look further into for areas of strength for the district. I think that most of our benefits um are addressing the needs of our staff. So, it looks like, you know, when they when asked if there's anything else we could offer, most people said no. And most of our benefits um and our compensation package is rated well. Our health um and new admin initiatives are being received positively. I have gotten good feedback from the health coach position that we implemented two years ago.
071Um she is staying busy and is really helping quite a few employees in the district with just various health issues. So, I think that that's a good thing. You know, like I said, I think the increased scores compared to last year based on the new admin, um the new assistant principles in the building is also encouraging. Most employees are happy with the morale, supervisors, and district leadership, which is a good thing. Um some areas of weakness. I think that we really need to continue to monitor our salary and our compensation there and create some plans to address this long term. You know, that's been it's either been number one or number two for the two years that we've run this. So I think that gives us some cost to dig into that further kind of
072see where we stand with other districts in the McKenney County area and try to you know improve that plan and then I think continue to gather feedback on training and fill in the gaps. I think Mr. Ver has done an excellent job with her team of just asking the question what do you want for training and now they're providing they're getting that feedback and just providing direct training to that. So I think in the future we'll start to see that number come down which is a good thing because I think there's no better way to develop your training than asking the question of what do you need what do you want and then targeting your training to those individuals and with that there any questions I do have a question about the type of work
073slashwork um so and then when reading the following slides it's the amount of work that say a teacher is given and then they have to take some home more weekends. I think that that plays one part of it. The other piece that I see um that's kind of backed up by local and national data is just folks leaving the education sector entirely. That was going to be my that was going to be my next question. They're just getting out. Yes, they're just getting out entirely. They say, "Hey, education's not for me. I'm going to pursue coaching or I'm going to pursue whatever other role they pursue." But just the education field in general is not for them. Okay. And then culture, is it just the environment, the whole environment of the school that they're in?
074Yeah. So, some of the comments that we get back and I do try to put as many comments as I can. I am limited because some of them have very detailed information about a building or a team or a person. Um, but there are, you know, specific pockets that we kind of see within certain buildings or things like that that kind of points to culture that we just need to work on. And Got it. Okay. Target some targeted sunshine. I'm going to call Okay. Thank you. You did um touch a little bit on the benefits and you gave some examples. So, I just kind of want to weave back to uh what Miss Salt had asked. Um do can you give like any kind of examples about what lack of rec recognition or did they
075give how they would prefer? Yeah, so we have worked with a couple different departments in the district um to try to kind of target the morale things like that and kind of help improve the morale. So something that we're working on with uh Dr. Walty from our special services department. She's working with the principles and myself to see what the building offer now that are things like um so we have district level I guess is what I'll call it benefits and compensation. So that's things like uh your paytime off your dental vision health those kind of things. So that's a general benefit that's available to everybody. Next we go down to the building level and say what does Mr. blocks specifically at Three Oaks. What kind of um recognition, morale, communication programs does he have?
076Then we go one layer deeper and see like what the teams have and what we're building is a survey to see how well these things are working per building and then if we can extrapolate that out to the rest of the district. So if Mr. Block has a program that's, you know, I bring pizza into my meeting once a week or I bring in coffee, I he did a coffee bar one morning and made drinks for everybody in the district. Was that wellreceived? Was it cost-effective? Should we try to duplicate that at all of our buildings? So, we're doing that with all of our principles to see what benefits or what um what morale initiatives, I guess is what I would say, are helping and what is not. So, those are things that we're looking
077at now. We're just kind of in the asking questions phase right now. It's with our admin to see what they're doing. So, that way we're not duplicating things. And then we're kind of gonna start to work on bringing that to all the clients next year. Okay. So, it's more like recognizing that you're there and giving them coffee, not like recognizing a professional accomplishment or a goal. Some are I mean, some are committees, some are, you know, that was just one example of what Mr. Block has done. Um, I think they have different programs within the teams just like Mr. Rivera highlighted tonight. um celebrating test scores, c celebrating student achievement. I mean, there's all sorts of celebrations in the buildings. Um we just need to identify what they are first and then see what works
078and what doesn't. Okay. Thank you. Y thank you. This really helpful. I like seeing this report um for us especially. So, thank you for Yeah, we'll continue to do it twice a year. just kind of keep updating the numbers and the data keeps getting more and more concrete every time we do it kind of helps solidify our path forward. Perfect. There were no other comments. I'll move on. Uh next up we have close session for the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees of the public body 5CS120-2C1. May I have a motion to adjurnn to close session? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Take a vote, please. Stacy Zelt, yes. J Julie Jenny, yes. Mindy Hartman, yes. Darling, yes. Katherine Potter, yes. Bridget Sandlin, yes. Jason Jansik, yes. Motion's approved. Open session ends
079at 7:14 p.m. Have a good evening, everyone. Take the ride.