001Guess we'll get started here. We're a little bit late. We're just dealing with some house housekeeping things. Um, this will call the meeting into order. Can I have roll call, please? Here. Borman here. Hurst here. Mva here. Papis here. Wson here. And I'll need a motion and a second to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. So for this, before we take a a vote on it, I have a couple things that we're going to change. Under um action reports under the consent agenda, we are going to pull number eight and number nine um out of consent agenda. And then another thing that was brought up is under 13 there's mention of a roll call. We are going to do that roll call within um as we do a roll call for all the items under
002consent agenda. So that will be included in that. And then under 12, there was a question. It is for the 2425 school year. Um and then yeah, one other item. We will not be going into close session at the end of the meeting. So with that, um, all in favor of approval of the agenda, I and will you please join me for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. want to take a moment and say thank you for everybody here tonight and everybody who's attending um through our streaming. And now we will have public comment. Our first one is uh Dick Terrell. Press the button, please. All right. Great. Good light. All right, that's
003good. So, um um it's good to see everybody doing it again. You know, you're settling in. So, I'm here to bring up one very specific thing, and maybe you guys have discussed this or not, or aware of it. I think the school district should look into um buying the old the now closed Cornerstone Church in downtown Plato there. Uh it's a an um and you could put all the three and four year olds that the school district deals with uh in a centralized location. It would free up a couple I don't know how many two three classrooms in every uh grade school building and plus it would centralize that whole function uh those people that those uh students are there for you know for extra help. Uh I think it's just a one in a
004life once in a lifetime uh uh opportunity there. Uh I've been in that building. U you could use it almost immediately as a school. It has you've all seen it. Uh there's a big hall. They never built a um a real church inside of it. There's a big hall and then there's a whole wing of classrooms. Probably got a commercial kitchen. It's not that old. It's probably fairly legal. Uh I just think it would be uh a smart thing to do or at least to look into it. And it's going to free up space in the other grade schools. You know, if you put everybody in there, it's not going to make any difference from a bus situation. And that's I was a bus driver for 15 years. It's all little buses with those kids.
005And you could probably put depending on how big it is. Uh other than the three and four year olds, kids, special needs kids that are really they're never coming in on the regular bus. They got a really whole separate situation. They all go to the different doors at the grade schools. And it's just it sits on 20 acres. Sure be nice to have a brand new building on uh on 20 acres. And I think it would help alleviate a little bit the current problem with the crowding in the great school. It's not going to, you know, not going to make it go away, but it would help it. Plus, you got the economy of scale and then have all that staff in there in one building. Somebody calls in six, not 25% of your staff,
006you know, it's 5% of your staff. And I would think that um it's something to look at. And so I wanted to bring you point that out. I don't know if you guys most of you new on the board have even thought about that or not. But that's a nice building. I'd hate to see it. Uh we could use it. I think I guess that's my comment here. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. PK correct. Good evening. Uh just to pick up uh briefly on that previous gentleman's comment. Uh that Carson Church location is pretty central in terms of where a lot of the population the district is. Uh and it's got a bunch of community access routes. So, uh it might be something worth looking into to see if it's an option to
007alleviate some of the capacity issues that we have. Um I came up here to talk about uh two things. One is retention and culture which you have on your new business agenda. Um and uh I I'd suggest um one thing to do uh particularly over the summer leading into the fall is to uh develop some board reporting on the staffing condition in the district. Um you know where are we seeing gaps uh in in our sort of current staffing uh with attrition? uh where do we see gaps in terms of the pipeline of interviews that we're having over the summer and then what are the mitigation plans right to address those going into the fall. So I think that's something that could be helpful and kind of alleviate stresses that might occur uh as we
008go into August and September. Second thing would be to engage a third party to conduct an employee satisfaction survey on an annual basis. Uh something that's independent staff can feel comfortable expressing their opinions honestly um because they're not going to be personally identified. And then the third thing would be uh it's going to be some time before you might potentially implement that but you could take a look at the uh union's three surveys. One of them was actually a survey intended to provide feedback to the board uh last year and in the verbatims. I think this has been discussed at a board meeting in public comment last year but some of you maybe were not there. Um, the verbatims include a lot of really useful information, insight into what has been driving dissatisfaction among staff
009and some of those things are pretty actionable. Like those are things that you could actually address, right? Uh, going into the fall and I think those would be good signs. So, those are my three suggestions on on retention and culture. The other topic I want to talk about is um the uh district handbook, the student family handbook. Um, it's very comprehensive. uh I read as much of it as I could uh coming into this meeting and it occurred to me that um there are a few topics uh uh picking up on things I've talked about before that we could add as a section in the handbook that I think would um help to inform families who have those uh advanced learners. So one of those things is to include the procedure for or the steps
010for early entrance to kindergarten and first grade. uh legally the district is required to communicate that in some way to all members of the community each year and then putting the handbook would be like the most obvious place to look for that. Um that's one. Second is um when kids are transferring in from other school districts where they're enrolled in advanced programs um what's the protocol right in that transfer process that parents should follow to get them appropriately placed um in in our district mapped correctly. And then um third, how to engage the building based team. So when you have a kid who uh is ahead of the curriculum, but maybe that hasn't been proactively addressed by the the teacher or the administrators as a parent, how do you engage the building based team uh
011to determine if some type of differentiation may be appropriate for your kids? So those are some things that I think would be helpful to include in the handbook and and make it stronger. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. So, go ahead. Hi there. Um, I look at the agenda and there's quite a bit there. So, I'm just hoping that you guys really do have a chance to go over everything. I know sometimes the finances and stuff are very I mean, there's a lot there. So, I guess my thing would be um that if you have people you can reach out to maybe to help you go over some of this stuff because I know most of you have full-time jobs and to to read an agenda over a weekend is kind of rough.
012So, um, anyway, that was just maybe a suggestion because I'm seeing in, uh, such as county board meetings, um, they don't really take a lot of time to look at things and they go and they end up approving something and then later on people may have dug things up that perhaps had they known what what was really there, they may not have approved it. So, it's just a suggestion about that and um that's all and just kind of how do I want to say eagerly awaiting more good things I guess from here and um because I'm I'm seeing things that are getting addressed so I'm excited to see what's going to happen there. So, okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. So, for our action reports, we pulled number eight and nine out
013of the consent agenda and I'll just ask Dana to go over who the committee members are and we might need to ask for volunteers from board members. So, this is an annual thing that we request every year. Um, typically the auditors like to speak to a board member, sometimes two. Um, typically it's just one. Um, so they go over fraud questions or any any concerns that the board may have um about any of our finances. Um, usually we get two volunteers and then one person for the phone call and then I just let them know who who is picked or who wants to be on that. So, and we would need it for Central and Northern Kane and typically in the past whoever volunteered for Central did Northern Kane as well. Um, same similar questions
014for both. Do we have any board members that would like to volunteer to be on? And it it's typically less than a fiveminute phone call from what I've heard. I'm not part of those calls that are directly with you guys. So I'm totally out of it. Um but from what I've heard from prior board members that have done it, it's maybe a fiveinut phone call. Nobody else is volunteering. I'll volunteer. Interested. I'll do it. Okay. Jeff said it as well. Yeah, if Chad wants to, it's fine. Chad and Andy, I think we can you can go ahead and do just a voice through that spending money. So, you can just do a voice to appoint them to that. So, all in favor of Andy and Chad being appointed to the audit committee. I And then
015for the remaining items under the consent agenda, I need a motion in a second. On those second, any questions or comments on those? And can I get a roll call vote, please? Gorman, yes. First, yes. Reva, yes. Papis, yes. Dogen, yes. Wasson, yes. for committee reports for DT. A couple of us were able to attend that, but I'm going to ask Jeff Gorman if he wouldn't mind giving a brief update from that meeting. So, the board had a retreat. Uh Morgan, remember uh probably gosh, six months ago. Um we were the last to see the strategic plan for the district. Administration started it. I went to a group of teachers to look at. They reviewed it all. uh put it together. Um and so DT and CAT passed it around to them a few months
016ago. We started both of those again. Um but DT reviewed that again, went over it with those on the committee. Um looked at goal one, KPI3 specifically. So there's some discussion there. Goal two really didn't have much discussion because it had to do with petitions changing boundaries and so we're kind of you know when it was created the referendum was going on. So obviously that didn't pass. So we'll discuss that as we get closer or once we figure out what's going on with it. Goal three, we discussed. Goal four, um if Kyle wants to add anything about the goals, but just went through it all because any additions, any modifications, Kyle asked that they email to him by the end of June or mid June. Um just so he could finalize it, give it to
017us again so we'll review it. And the idea is to get it all done by August, September, um just to have it set in stone. It's a five-year plan. That also be good for the new superintendent to come in and you know we have this done and ready. So that's pretty much took up the whole time. So I don't know if you want to add anything. Yeah. The goal being is that we really were working on the the KPIs um key performance indicators for various goal things. So we had some some documented things some metrics as we measure and look through through those strategic plan goals. uh we didn't look at necessarily changing the actual goals themselves. Um we are going to be looking at as we talked about at both CAT and DT perhaps
018updating some of the objective measures just because some of those were a little dated given given the current realities. Um and then we will get back to the board and the committees with some of the updates to that. But again, as as Jeff said, hopefully get something in place by certainly September. Um, it's good for for a new district or for a district who's searching for a superintendent to have that strategic plan of where are you trying to go, what's your what's your guiding star for who you who you're wanting to be. It'll it'll help the board have some focus. It will also help focus new people who are who are interested in this district to ensure number one that they're they align. And of course, one could argue that anybody who's looking for a
019job will align themselves, but you do want people to be able to buy into that, right? And buy into the direction. And they may add some things as as I said there. It's written in sandstone, not marble, right? So that things can evolve over time as the district meets certain things. You may say, you know what, this KPI is not really giving us what we are wanting. How can we adjust that? But our goal is uh to put a stake in the ground, right? Here's where we're at. Here's where how we want to move forward. And then you would all taken a a stand say this is what we want to move forward with as the strategic plan for the district. Great. Thank you very much. And then for the community advisory team, um Andy,
020do you want to talk about that? Yeah. U actually um just a little bit of repeating of what we just talked about. We all on May 29th, the community advisory team um met had um I think about 11 of us um there in addition to um Jeff and myself and Dr. Schumacher. A couple of you in the audience were who are on that committee were also there. So thank you for attending. Um again had um some good discussion not only about a few of the specific goals in the strategic plan draft but also excuse me some of those key performance indicators so we know what are we how are we going to measure this stuff. Um so got some good feedback. Um Kyle was able to um circulate um the document then those KPI for
021comments and um as he mentioned um on track to try to finalized towards the end of the summer and that was all we discussed. Great. Thank you very much. Um now we have a special presentation um regarding EF from the EF director uh for an update regarding EF 110 and career tech. Good evening everyone. I'm Terry Ster, the director for Northern Kane County Regional Vocational System. Working with Dr. Schumacher and Dr. Paul. We realized we had a lot of new board members and not everyone knows what Northern Kane is. You've seen us on the board agendas. Uh so we wanted to kind of go through a little bit for you and kind of give some descriptions of what we do. Uh so back in the 1980s, the state of Illinois and the state board of
022education uh started the education for employment systems. Uh there are 54 systems across the state of Illinois. Uh so ours is covering all the districts that feed into Elgen Community College and what we do there is we work with the state of Illinois on all our grants uh and different pieces there and this was all part of um the Perkins legislation that comes from federal dollars. Uh the fiscal agent became 301 back in 2020 after being in U46 since its inception in the late 1980s. uh part of our pieces here, grant management and administrative oversight. So, working with the state of Illinois on our grant application, going through all those both federal and state dollars that we get in every year. Uh that grant cycle is getting ready to open up here uh later this
023month. So, we're excited to have that start again. I also leaz uh with the state board of education. So, we meet with them monthly to go over any changes that the state board of education might have in career tech education. Uh and then working with the community colleges and the universities in area trying to work on getting more dual credit for our students across the area or what are the things that we can work together on rather than working separately on many different things. Uh also run industry advisory boards as part of any career teched program. Uh we think of I say career teched what you probably think when you were in high school as shop classes. Uh but it has greatly evolved since those times. uh covering everything from engineering all the way up
024through healthcare and different pieces like that. Um so in order to run those programs we have and get our grant dollars in, we have to show that we're running advisory boards uh every year and be able to talk about are we doing the things that industry is expecting us to do across the area. Uh another big piece that we're currently in the midst of, I know Mr. Gorman has uh got some information on this, but we're running summer internship programs across the area. This is our fourth summer in a row that we've now run this program. We are at 240 students out in paid internships across the region and nine different career areas. So this has grown from 52 students our first year down to 240 this year. So quite a bit of growth there.
025Uh along with that being able to um go out and represent the region and represent our school districts across the state and across the country with the many different organizations. So Skills USA is one of those. We have a couple different industrial organizations that we belong to as well to go out and have meetings with them to make sure we are uh teaching students the right things in all of those classes. So, federal Perkins dollars, we get approximately $600,000 every year from Perkins dollars and that's split between the four different districts. uh the state of Illinois grants over the course of the last five years, we've grown from just over a million to now just over $2 million in grant dollars uh from the state of Illinois. And that's from working with the districts to
026streamline all of our processes, make sure that all of our students are counted, we're running the right programs, and having all those pieces in place. Uh so overall we've added about $882,000 on our annual uh state grant dollars and we've uh brought in an additional $1.5 million over the last five years for our school districts. Um couple other grants that we have there and then any other expenses that are not covered uh through those grant dollars would then be picked up by local funds working with the districts on those pieces. want to go really quickly through some I'm not going to read all of them but kind of highlight some different programs uh from the different districts pictures here we have the top lefthand picture is uh the welding lab over at Hampshire High School
027in district 300. They're one of only two welding labs in the state of Illinois that are American Welding Society accredited. The other one is over at Elgen High School. So we have the only two in the state that are accredited right here in this region. Uh the bottom picture is the electrical lab over at Dundy Crown High School and they have students working on house wiring, fire alarm wiring, uh and commercial wiring as well. District 301, many of you may have been through the veterary science lab and go from there. That program is a regional program as well. So we have students from U46 and district 300 that come over and attend those classes here in 301. And the bottom picture is our business incubator program. And that program there is really uh kind of
028like a live shark tank for the high school students. So really interesting. If you haven't had a chance to go and see that that in action, it's uh quite the thing to see. Uh District 303, their automotive and their engineering, our big programs there. U46, uh we just had last week the U46 manufacturing teacher was named regional teacher of the year. uh and that covers Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, uh and Iowa. So quite a big area for him to be uh acknowledged as teacher of the year. Probably I would say one of the top five manufacturing teachers in the country uh with that program. And they're the only high school in the state of Illinois and only one of 10 across the country that has a five access CNC mill that students are actually
029working with in their classroom. And then the bottom piece there is their Beacon Academy and they run their own television broadcasting. Uh much like our television broadcasting, but they have a uh a really nice uh offsite truck that they are able to take out and do football games, basketball games. Uh they've gone and done college games across the area. Uh so they've done a really nice job with that program there. So why are all these CT classes important? When we look at the statistics, only about 25% of jobs across the country right now require a bachelor's degree or higher. So when we talk about these pieces, what is the level of education that students need to achieve in order to get to the career goals that they have and how can we help them get
030there? Another big piece there for our what we refer to as either CTE participants. So students that have taken a class here, a class there or CTE concentrators being students that have taken two or more classes within the same strand. So two automotive, two manufacturing, two veterary science, those students across the state a region across the state are achieving higher than their counterparts who are not CT participants or CT concentrators. Uh graduation rates are higher, reading and math proficiency rates are higher. uh post-program placement. The last two pieces here on the chart, post-secary credits and work-based learning. I'll show you a slide here later on that talk about how we're getting students more involved in those pieces and how we're working forward with those. Probably the most important piece though when we talk about graduation
031rates for underrepresented populations of students, African-American students in the state of Illinois are at an 80% graduation rate across the state. If you are a CTE concentrator, you're at 95%. So, showing that students actually have more to buy into when they're in school. Hispanic students go from 85 to 95%. Uh, and then working from there. So, our students are graduating at higher rates in these programs than if they did not have these programs in their buildings. Back in 2022, this is uh actually the end of year five for me. So, I came in right as COVID was hot and heavy and we didn't have a chance to get out and do a whole lot of stuff. Um, but you can see here on the bottom uh two quadrants there uh attain post-secary credits, we were
032under 2% of our students in programs earning college credits. We only had 5.4% of our students getting out and doing work-based learning. So, those internship programs I talked about, that's part of the work-based learning, showing students why they are going out, why are they going to class to learn these things and what's important when they're out there in the field. Um this is last year's numbers. So we've now grown to almost 55% of our students earning dual credit and that's been part of that liaison work with the community colleges is working with them to make sure classes are aligned, making sure that we have pieces that are set there uh to the way they are able to give us credit or give our students credit for those classes. This is going to save our families
033money as students go through in community college or into trade school programs because they've already taken much of that information. and then that workbased learning jumping from 5.4% to almost 10% there uh over the course of the last couple years. So, we've really worked hard on trying to get all of those things in place there and make sure that all of that was happening. Trends um that 35% increase there in uh post-secondary credits over the last couple years uh increase the workbased learning. We're outpacing our counterparts in the southern part of the county. Uh so we continue to work closely with them on how do we work together on things uh but then also how do we want to get ahead and have our students with more opportunities overall. We talked about the summer internship
034program and the numbers we've seen. We have 240 students out in nine career areas this year. So we have manufacturing, healthc care, uh we have automotive, we have engineering. Uh it's just a number of things. anything we can that have students are involved in and we want to find spots for uh we're always looking for companies to go ahead and get involved. Some pictures there. The uh bottom lefthand corner is from the Bartlett Police Department. Uh Bartlett Police Department and the uh Hannover Township Fire Department. Uh our handover park fire department have worked together with us the last two years now for a first responder internship program. This summer we have 20 students. We have 10 with Bartland and Hanover Park and we have 10 with Elgen Fire Department Police Department. So those students were
035really excited there. The picture there, they were getting a briefing before they were going to learn how to search vehicles uh and go from there on that. Uh the middle picture, WT group, they're an engineering firm uh that's here in Hoffman Estates and they've come on, they actually uh pay their students that are there interning. Uh so none of that comes out of our dollars. They're actually paying those students while they're there for the work. And I think they do roughly uh four to six weeks of time there at WT group going out to different sites and learning all the different departments there at WT. And then Booker Hydraulics, they're a company that's here on the north end of Elgen uh off of 90 uh in Randall Road and they produce hydraulic equipment or hydraulic
036control units uh for basically every piece of farm equipment or uh heavy piece of machinery around the world. Uh and they took uh five students there this summer for that. So, we always continue to try to work on finding more of those internship placements. Uh, this year, as the shows here, we had over a thousand students apply for these internships. So, having to sit down and sort through all a thousand applications and who turned in the resumes on time and who did not uh was a little bit of fun this summer. So, but we have some really high quality candidates that are out there now in the field working. And it's uh been really really good to hear the the feedback we get from the students and from the companies on those placements. So, what
037does a lot of this mean? Uh, right now with career teched, if a student was to drop out of high school, the average cost over the course of their lifetime is about $292,000. Meaning that they're going to have lost wages, they're going to need social services, all these different pieces. So, by staying in programs and having higher graduation rates, we can actually calculate uh how many dollars are coming back into the community. So about right now about $2 and half million dollars each year coming back into our communities in wages and a lack of social services being needed across the area. So that's really really key there when we're talking about why it's important for students to have these skill sets moving forward. Uh in the consent agenda item there, you uh had an item
038for the alignment collaborative. They're one of our main partners uh that we work with really really closely here in the region. They're a 501c3 and they help us because my office is myself and our workbased learning specialist Todd Stern. Uh it's a little hard to make sure we get out to 11 different high schools at any one time. So we work really closely with alignment collaborative to help partner on things such as resume writing workshops. Uh senior job fair. We had uh about 600 students attend the senior job fair this past April and many of those students were hired on right there at the job fair. So how do we continue to work on getting students the skill sets they need in these industry areas? but then also then helping find them employment uh with
039those programs. Uh for district 301 specifically, uh last year we had 10 internships that were spots that were promised. We had 24 that were delivered. This summer we promised 15 and we've delivered 34, I think, or I said 32, but I think it went up by two just this past week because we were able to get a couple more placements there for students across the area. I wonder if you had any questions. I just I had one more question with the So you have a massive amount of kids putting in for the internships but a small number comparatively getting those internships. What's the why the the difference in that? A number of spots that companies have and are willing to put out uh for those internship spots. Uh one of the biggest ones so about
040350 or 400 students wanted healthcare and we only had a limited number of spots at the hospital for those healthcare positions. So we actually have 10 student or five students at Good Shepard in Bington. We have five students at Sherman uh here in Elgen for pharmacy technician. We have 10 students that are doing medical rotation. So they'll rotate through 10 different departments uh within Sherman Hospital and we have another uh I'm sorry 12 students for medical rotation, 10 students for medical assistant. So really finding the spots that they're available. The hardest piece there is that the hospital wants to get students in and out before their new residents start July 1. So they only have a limited window and they only want limited number of students per block in any one day. So how do
041we get the students in there from roughly 9 till 1 in the afternoon uh and be able to get those experiences and then work from there? Uh and then working with the hospital to coordinate those schedules and coordinate with the students on those pieces. Uh but we are consistently working to try to find more companies, doctor's offices, whoever to try to take more students in. Um Hoffer Plastics is one of the ones we have for manufacturing. They said that they would take six students. Uh WT Group took two. So it's really just a matter of finding companies that will take students and be able to get them in there and be able to place them out in those pieces. Uh it's a limit uh to the number of spots and also limit to the number
042of dollars we have available as well right now. Thank you. I would say if any board members ever wanted to go and see some of the programs and and check stuff out and see what's going on across the area, I'm more than welcome to to take you out and let you see some of the things or if you want to go see some internships. Uh Mr. Groman, I don't know how much you've heard so far from your daughter coming home on on her experience, but no, she really likes it. So, it's a great opportunity for her. Very excited. She was super excited to get it and super excited to go. So, today was her first day that she did she went up to Alangquin. So, she's on one of the rotation things. So, yeah, she's
043super excited. I think you guys do a fabulous job. They don't work for the district. You know, they kind of work for four districts. I I have Yeah, I have four different bosses with four different superintendents. So, it's uh it can make things a little challenging at times, but it's uh it's about finding those opportunities for students and really um the biggest piece is trying to show them the experience they can have now before they go on to college and spend lots of money to go into an item that I find all of a sudden they don't like uh and they they've wasted all that money going down that path. Uh also, we have students that, you know, have taken programs here that do not need to go to college per se. They can go
044into a trade school or they don't have to go to trade school at all. Uh we've had four students last summer that interned with the Lersio Auto Group. They own Chrysler uh Elgen Chrysler, Elgen Toyota, Elgen Hyundai. They're on 20 and 59. Uh out of those four students, they hired all four last year. So how do we get those students hired on? And one of the students is I thought making just over $20 an hour right now as a second year uh level one technician there. So these are opportunities for our students to really get out there and see what's going on. uh with the medical rotations, yes, they need to go get some extra school work and things like that, but they're able to talk to people about, hey, where did you go to
045school at? Where did you what did you like about this school or that school? And really get some valuable insight from people on where they need to take those next steps at this really is an amazing program. I mean, when you look at what's what's out there and you look at um as Terry even showed within the that diagram of, you know, where how how much college is needed, right? How many programs are needed? And we we've seen certainly over the last, you know, 25 plus years this push towards college. And I I'm a proponent of college, but I'm a bigger proponent of opportunities, right? And are we are we creating opportunities for our students to have multiple choices when they leave um CHS? Right? Some may decide to go to college and and pursue
046some things within a medical career that they need to do that. They may go into an engineering and want to do that, but they're also able to look at other options that are out there and say, "Wow, I I can do really well." Plumbers make a lot of money, right? Um mechanics make a lot of money. underwater welders. Not that we have a lot right here necessarily, but we have a river that runs down here, so I gota assume there's there's chances. Underwater welders make a lot of money. Um, and so the opportunities out there, whether it's anything from healthcare to to law enforcement to engineering to whatever, it's opening up kids' eyes to see like, wow, I this may be something that really interests me. Um, and as as Terry showed, when you look
047at the the graduation rates of students who are participating in this, who may not have been as engaged in school or may have that seeing that excitement, right, to saying this is something that I could do. That's what we want our kids to leave CHS with, right? But that opportunities are available for them. Whether they want to go to the military, the tra trade schools, the workplace, or college, we've prepared them, given them those opportunities forward. We're also working right now on trying to get many of our interns into apprenticeship programs. So, we have a number of companies around the area who are willing to pay for students to go to college uh if they're going to stay for a number of years and work in that trade or work in that business. So, how
048do we show them that those are opportunities and then how do we get out and talk to parents about those opportunities? Uh I myself have two students at home. One's a junior going to be a senior in college here in the fall and one's going to be a senior in high school and the senior in college said she wanted to go into early childhood education. I said, "Great. You need to go to college. You need to get a teaching certificate and that. Go that route." Uh my son said he wants to go work in heavy equipment in the trades and and work on diesel equipment. I said, "And that's all right, too." Uh there are plenty of opportunities out there and plenty of money to be made in that as well. So, just showing students
049and showing families the the important pieces here is the biggest piece. How is this communicated to the students throughout the year? So, multiple different ways. So, every district has their own communication piece. So, they all have their um their course selection guides that are out there. Uh and then those course selection guides will include then uh all the courses that are available. So like we have the manufacturing courses that students can go over to Hampshire or go over to South Elgen and take courses there and they're denoted in the course guide is that they're offered at another location. Uh we also have worked with the community college on offering uh fire science and first responder classes starting in the fall. Um and to give you an idea how big of a step that was, Elgen
050Community College graduated 19 students from their fire science program last year. we have 28 that are starting with them in the fall. So, how do we continue to get students that are involved earlier and get them through programs faster? Uh, and that was the whole purpose of many of these different laws that are out there right now across the state of Illinois with the dual credit quality act and postsecary workforce readiness act. So, how do we continue to build on that? Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Is it appropriate to make a comment about this? Go ahead. Go ahead. You can do it from right there. I think we can hear you. Okay. I drove the welding bus for the last two years in high school. The kids were very pleased with the whole thing. One
051of my neighbors has gone on. He was very happy with the whole program. I think this must have come on board, four years ago have the opportunity to go to the other schools to get what they want. It's worked out well. Most of the kids were happy with the welding program organiz Thank you very much for that. Thanks, Randy. All right, moving on to uh board committees. So, I know we've talked about this a few times. Um all the board members should have the committees in front of them. Right now, we've added kind of a couple tenative ones and I'll go over them just so that everyone here and anyone online can hear this as well. So, for right now, we have the board policy committee. Uh I have Andy and Scott on that committee.
052Uh for our parent teacher advisory committee, I have Morgan on that committee. Um with a vacant spot there. For the district leadership team, it's myself and Jeff. For the community advisory team, it is uh Jeff and Morgan. For the curriculum coordinating council, it's myself. Um it has it as like one member participating, but if there's another member that would like to another board member that would like to, I know that we had had two in the past. Uh the facilities committee, which is Jeff and Andy. And then we were looking at adding a board member to our emergency preparedness committee. And I knew Scott was interested, so I'm just going to put you down. Um, if there's any other board members that are really interested, let me know on that one. And then we had
053talked about in the past, um, and speaking with with, uh, Dr. Schumacher and Dr. Pal that it is there's several districts that do have a finance committee. So, we're looking um as a board and depending on board interest on having a finance committee where where we could have board members that would serve on that uh work with our business manager and to kind of re review our district finances. So, if there's anybody that that would like to discuss that or if anyone's interested in that, please let me know. Um and I can add I will add u members to that. Uh secondly, if and most of these committees have two members on it. If you are if you are very passionate about a committee that there are already two members sitting on, I'm just going
054to ask that we all have a discussion about that or have a discussion with those other members and we can move them around. Um based on what our passions are, maybe even maybe even what our schedules are because um based on the time the times of when they meet and how frequently they meet, it may be more difficult for one member to attend than another. And then the other thing I would ask is as we go through kind of the year and these and these meetings come up, if you can't make one, uh maybe just communicate to the rest of the board, hey, I can't I know Morgan did that recently, she couldn't make our uh cat. So she communicated to the board so that Andy could could fill in and be there. So I
055think that's a good way for us to be able to to attend a meeting that we're not necessarily on and we're communicating to each other as well. So, uh, is there any does anybody have any comments or questions regarding any of the committees? I know that we are missing one board member and so these will change a little bit as as we're kind of moving forward. Um, but if there's any comments or anything, be open to hear it. If we do generate a finance committee, I join that. Okay. So, just to note, Andy and Scott, the uh board policy committee were looking at um getting a meeting probably possibly in uh July, August. We are working on a a new system for our policies through press. Uh in order to do that, we have to
056have a a meeting. Um so, we would need to schedule that, but we'll work on with both of you to find that works. Uh just I need to get a date when when they can come as well. Somebody from the state can come and meet to do that. So, but that'll be a good thing because what we're doing is right now our policies are all online, but they're all PDFs online. Um, so we're moving that to an online uh system that would more easily to update and to keep keep current, but also um allows us to utilize the system that exists regardless instead of the the countless hours that Mandy had been putting in to to keep all of those updated separately. So it'll be a good step that we have to get you guys
057together to first. So and then um our superintendent search process. Uh for those that didn't know or that weren't at the meeting or weren't able to to follow along, we did hire uh school exec connect. Um I don't have any new updates. Do you No, I talked to talked to you. We we talked to them after after the meeting and let them know that they were there uh that they were the the chosen ones and we will wait for their uh final contract. They're also going to assist us um with the principal searches as well. So that'll be helpful as we forward with that. So more to come discuss. So the next thing as we move on to to new business discussion is one of the things that has come up has been looking at
058kind of the non-union salaries within the district um and how are they comparable to other to our surrounding neighbors. Right? When we're looking at hiring whether it's teachers or or in our our non-UN areas. Um, we want to be we want to be relevant and we want to be able to uh attract people to these jobs. So, one thing and Griff and I have talked about is the possibility of doing a comprehensive study for that. Um, you've seen that in your I think you saw the call the proposal within your handbooks. Don White is the one who company does those. Um he's been he he's a retired superintendent. He was in Hinsdale. He was also out um in Troy. Uh he's been around for quite a while. Their group has been working quite a bit
059on these. Um it's it's a good way to get statewide data, regional data, large uh unit district datas because even though we're we're we're small, we're 5,000 kids here. We're not as small as as sometimes I think people like to think we are. even though the houses are far apart between here and West Elgen, right? So, um there this is a larger district than most people realize uh when when they are looking at it landwise and uh student wise. So, this would be an opportunity. It's there for you to look at um in your July meeting. You can put that on if it's something that you want. Griff can put that on there for approval in July, but at least it'll give you some opportunity to look at it. So, I don't know if you
060have any questions about it today, but they can get something done by the start post the start of school by the August meeting. Um, so at least looking forward to next to for the next year. The thing to think about too is, you know, where's the board at in their their readiness to take a look at what where you end on those and in comparable salaries to where people are here. And you know, they will be very good when they say those are there ways to kind of move into that over years. doesn't mean you have to all of a sudden make changes right away, but it will be information will be helpful for you. Thank you. The next one is about um I don't know if this district has normally gone to the triple
061conference and uh Jeff have you gone or have people gone from here. So I don't know if the board as a whole has gone if certain members have gone. Um, we're just wanting to want to start that discussion because registration and um, you probably know more than I do, Dana, in regards to that of how that's happened to pass. Yeah, I think it's it's always open to all the board. Um, some years you get more participation than others. Um, sometimes it's been the same old same old, so then it gets old. Um, for the people that are on the board for a long time like Jeff, it's the same topic. So, um, do you want to talk about what it is? Um, from It's more for boards. It's um a bunch of training. It's a
062bunch of professional development. There are hundreds of different um sessions that you can pick and choose. Sometimes you want to go to two at the same time. So, you got to pick which one's more valuable or split. You go to this one, I'll go to this one. Um it's just a weekend, three days, two days, two or three days of this packed um different topics all the way from um I mean there's some finance, lower level finance ones just to get your feet wet on expenditures and revenues. Um there's bond there's um legislation. There's a bunch of different topics there. So um usually you have to register like really fast to be able to get a hotel near there. Um because there's only like three hotels in that little area and they all book up
063really fast. So that's the importance of figuring out who can go and who wants to go. Um so we can make sure we get that block that day that opens. And some people do go down daily, you know, they just they come and they go. It's kind of up to you. It's um it's at the Sheridan. It's kind of that Sheran Swiss Hotel kind of area right there. Um the triple I is ISA, ISB and then C is so the business officers, the administrators and the school boards associations, hence the triple I that's why it's called that. Um it is as as Dan said, it's definitely very much more beneficial for board members um just because there's a lot of information. You also get the opportunity to network with other board members and you kind
064of it's kind of interesting to hear like oh that's how you know how you're doing it there and um a lot of downstate people attend um I mean it's a weekend right for them but for a lot of up here it depends people go one two days some people stay downtown some people don't um vendors obviously are there just talking about you know vendor things as well because that's always anytime you get anybody together there's vendors um but it's a I mean it's a good kind if you've not been It's very informative and very enlightening, right? Um to learn. It can be a little mind-numbing because there's just there's a lot of workshops, but it's I think it's good. Am I adding? No, they have pre-conference workshops on Friday, so you can go down Thursday
065night just because they start at like 8 a.m. You can go down Friday morning, too, if you're an early riser. Um but yeah, so they have two morning and afternoon, you can do one or two. Uh those are in addition to the conference rate, but those are beneficial. There's like board governance. Um Sometimes there's, you know, a course on leadership, uh, board president, uh, session, you know, there's different things. So, usually there's like nine classes on Friday. Um, individual sessions start Saturday. They have a couple keynote speakers. Um, so in the bigger ballrooms, they'll get together and do that. You know, start out, kick off Saturday, close out Sunday. It's all done by noon on Sunday. But Saturday, you probably squeeze in four or five sessions. Um, but yeah, it's it's super informative. The first
066few years you're on the board, they do repeat a lot of stuff. All the workshops are all repeated every Friday, it seems like, you know, each year. Um but yeah, I'd recommend it just to get just to hear, you know, those sessions that are on Saturday, early Sunday. You know, there are attorneys who put those on and those so those are more of the definite like learning things and then there's other sessions where, you know, there could be a couple board members putting it on from different districts telling their story about what they did to pass a referendum, you know, so they want to share their views on it and so that's beneficial. you know, um, a lot of the board members that come from down south are maybe smaller districts, so it's really good
067for them. You know, we're a little bigger. We've been through more. So, but yeah, it's it's, uh, some good stuff. I went last year. Definitely informative. We went to a couple of different sessions. We had a few three board members I believe who went and we all kind of hit different areas and then we brought it back to the board and talked about the different things that we each learned and the different sessions that we went to. U definitely informative did a thing on expenditures which kind of you know helped me learn a little bit more about you know how Dana's job and like how the money can sit how the money can move around or when it can't move around. uh different laws. Uh we had one that was put on by board members
068on teacher retention bringing back some of those ideas. It was good to hear that we do a lot of what they were talking about. So that was good to hear on that too. So the registration the information is in there so you can take a look in in there and just let Angie know um for Mandy for a couple more days u know if you are interested in going and we can help facilitate that. I'm definitely interested in email and Okay. All righty. So, in your packet tonight is the recommended changes for the 2526 student family handbook. Um, last school year the team did a whole revamp of it. Previously, we had an elementary, middle school, and a high school version. And last year the team worked together to put it all into one document.
069And so there was a lot of revisions in the document last year. Um but for this year there are very few revisions that were putting forth for recommendations. A lot of them have to do with updating um language so that it's consistent with um updated board policies that we've done as well as different regulations and things that we get from the state that require us to um notify parents of certain things. So those have been updated. Um we are recommending to remove the names of administrators within the um the handbook just because obviously we don't know who some of those are going to be for the upcoming school year and so just to have it more of a blanket to where they're not specifically listed um within within the document. Um some minor adjustments to
070like elementary field trip procedures where all of that is moving online for um for signing off on those permission forms. um adding some language related to um food deliveries at the schools because we're getting a lot of um Uber Eats and Door Dash deliveries um to the buildings and so that's not something that really the the building secretaries can't can manage on a daily basis. So um so some language related to that as well as updated language consistent for the doors that have been reumbered at the high school. Um, so everything's consistent there. And then as well as added middle school athletic director contact information since we have that position um, now as well. So those are the recommendations um, for that school year. So any questions right now? Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.
071So, you want to No. Okay. So, the next thing district finance and use of auditor um some of the conversations that we've been having have been looking at looking at finances, right? Finances are always a a question within the district just looking it's a lot of money. Um and people are always interested in kind of how that's happening and what's what is going on with that. Um I I the plan right now and I think that there's been some conversation for July 7th for Dana actually do a presentation for to the board um on sort of the district finances right and and how does it work how does it look what's what's the language what does moving funds what are resolutions different types of things and just into a little bit more detail of that
072um on July 7th the next part of that is that we obviously have auditors that will be coming in the summer as we do every year to do all of the auditing on the books. Now, they'll do a presentation in October time frame after the audit is over, but this also will be an opportunity um is to during that finance time is to also if you have questions about that, like what questions would you want to ask the auditor and this is kind of on top of the audit talking to a board member that's kind of a a question of saying, "Hey, do you have any concerns with fraud? Do you have any concerns with with separation of duties etc etc from a from a board member standpoint, but you may have questions of, hey,
073what does it look like or what are the things how do you feel the district is in in regards to um more specific questions that you may have. Um so at that time after July 7th or before you can actually send some any questions. Um we will answer them on July 7th. We're trying to find a date that the auditor can come in um to be able to have a conversation sort of share some responses to those questions that you may have uh from an auditor perspective um because I think it's important to hear and understand how things are working but also to see that every year the district has to have an audit done and every year um those things are presented the results of those audits are always presented to the board in
074October. So as you are thinking about that um that will be an opportunity to provide some questions ahead of time for the auditor that hopefully sometime not in July the July 20th they're not available but we're looking at that August meeting that that auditor will be able to come in separately from the audit and sort of respond to some of those questions. I was just going to say so there were there's been several questions um asked from the community regarding the district finances. So, I've already spoken with our superintendents and Dana about having some answers to those questions that the community has already asked. Um, so for the board, so the board knows as well. Any questions that you have, um, get them out there, especially if you're hearing them from community members, so that
075way we can address any any of our questions, not just from us, but you know, finance is a big thing for our community. So, thank you. 21st, not the seventh, right? The the seventh is a special meeting. That's to interview potential. Yeah. But they're going to start out the beginning of that would be the start and have presentation. So I'm going to present what I did at CA because that was kind of what I presented to the community. So that's what I was going to basically and maybe tweak it a little bit. But just want a two hour presentation before sitting forward before we sit for two hours doing interviews. All right. So, are there any agenda items that any of the board members would like to add to our next meeting? All right. Now,
076we're going to move into some there were some the uh the parking lot issue. We're going to go into that pretty much right now. So, there were some questions and some things added to our agenda um for tonight's meeting that the board wanted to discuss and talk about. Um one of those things is future plans for the district. Um I know there were a couple board members that had some questions about uh like Scott just said, our parking lot for high school, but if any of the board members would like I know Jeff had brought up a couple questions, so yeah. Yeah. No, I mean we were we obviously space is an issue. You know, passing a referendum three times. So, if that referendum isn't going to go forward, I think we can't just see
077how things go and hope that, you know, people stop registering and our space issue goes away. So, I think, excuse me, even though we have interim superintendent, we can't just wait a year, you know, we got to keep moving forward. And so I wanted to talk and get some views from you guys just to see where you're at and like start the discussion because it's a three-month process to get a referendum out there. So if we're looking at November for a new plan, that means we got a month and a half to decide which probably won't work. So then we're, you know, out to April. But I think it'd be good for the community for us to discuss this um just so they know we're thinking about it. So, um, yeah. So, school and then
078parking lot was an issue. Do we need it? That's a question for everybody to answer, I guess. I know that's I mean, that's a question that's posed a lot within community, especially as students get into high school. My daughter's be a sophomore. That's hot topic amongst the community there is just the limit. there's an event there's the space is an issue and I don't disagree with you like we still have to move forward and that's last year part of that we talked about what is the plan for education all I think I think it's a easily vetted solution as opposed to campus 300 acres. I mean I personally don't know what history is obviously if it's been discussed in the past what the options are space there I think it's something we got a little
079bit of an update in the last facilities committee meeting from Dan Pauly um about um just some of the feasibility issues um or I shouldn't say issues but um couple of the things that are possible um you know just from what our the district civil engineers looked at. Um, I didn't hear a specific cost or price tag, but it looks like they were looking at two specific options. And um, those are things that I would I mean, personally, I'd like to see um um, somebody bring some cost estimates forward because at the end of the day, these are dollars, right, that we've got to choose to spend in one way or another. And I think that's our purview to um, you know, especially if it's non-referendum dollars. How is that being spent? What else could
080we do with that? and um you know what what does that mean? So I'm hopeful that we can um get some more information from our district's consultants um about what this really means. I know there are a couple different options out there and um just give us the information as a board to help make those decisions. I mean clearly it's something that people are looking for. I think we all might have different opinions on how much of a need it is versus a want with you know which is okay but um I think we really just need to understand the finances involved personally. Sure. What's been brought up is the west side you know everybody knows where the high school edition is. So the drive when you pull into the high school there and go
081to HBT. So the west side of that drive so there's parking lot there. So we could either have staff parked there, you know, and make them walk farther to get to school or we have students parked there. But the problem with students is then you have them walking across the road where everybody's coming in which is usually backed up anyway in the morning. Um and it's just not easy as easy as throwing black top down obviously. So yeah, it's the cost is there. We could get quotes. Is it a need want? Um but the bigger picture is where are we going as a district and is this always going to be a high school? you know, you turn a high school into a middle school. Well, you don't need parking in a middle school. So,
082now we got all this black top. Well, hey, we can always put mobiles on it, you know, in 20 years. So, u pluses and minuses to everything. So, you know, it's just something to think about, you know, do we want to put more blacktop in something that may not be a high school forever? And and I think with the hiring of our architects, I think and I know that when we when we hired them, there was a they had kind of told us, hey, it's going to take us a few months to settle in and really understand and know your guys' your district and your needs and what your current facilities need as opposed to what you guys need in the future. I I know that we kind of told them, hey, we'll give you
083a few months. Do we know do we know an update on that? Is there something that we'll go back to them and say, "Hey, by this time, could you give us a little bit of heads up?" Or is there any direction like with with these conversations about, "Hey, the parking lot keeps popping up and that seems to be a relatively small um item in comparison to all the other stuff. Is there something that we can maybe get some feedback from them on?" Yeah, I I I agree, Ryan. I mean we have my understanding is we have one architecture firm working on kind of a capital needs assessment or in other words what are the what's the state of what we have right now then the ar other architecture firm is um looking at um future
084plans and um emerging current and emerging um space needs right so um I'm really hopeful that um we're kind of brought as a board are brought along in that process so we're not just hearing this at the very end So um we understand and are able to make comments and you know we may even be able to share um with these folks that hey this is what we're hearing from the community. Can you add this to the list or can you look at this please? So um so I think you know just in general obviously everybody knows that this is this is kind of my jam the facilities thing but um what I'm what I'm hopeful is that we're going to get a lot of insight from um this planning work that our architects are
085doing. So, we're able to get some recommendations and kind of tease apart those needs and those wants and figure out um you know, if there is something that the district can finance without going to voters, um what's the best use of that money? How do we collectively feel about that? And then if there are wants, you know, um my mind kind of goes towards um does that get included in a potential referendum for um to address space needs? Um right. So, um, whatever that may look like, and I don't know, that's why we've got professionals. But, um, you know, I think if we can start to, um, look at a solution that provides something for everybody in the district, um, I think that could that could make us really successful and it'll show the community
086that we're listening. So, contracts are being trying or written with the lawyers um, between the two. So, I think the goal was to try to have those done in the next month board's meeting, maybe. Um, I know I saw one of them go through. Um, the other one, I'm not 100% sure. And then, um, I think Mr. Poway's, um, plan was in August, September to to bring them in to kind of show you the progress of where they're even thinking and starting and stuff like that. So, I know that we had that one meeting and then he was going to have them meet with IMG and um Sh Mcnut or whoever the other Ericson and that and get them a meeting. So, I'm not sure if that's 100% happened yet on their schedules. Um and
087then from that point they're they'll start moving and grooving. So, thanks Dana to clarify IMEG is the district's mechanical electrical plumbing engineer who we hire directly for projects. Sh McNut or SMC construction services is our construction manager who bids our projects and provides super um supervision for projects and then Ericson Engineering is a um civil engineer who works on land planning and um site planning. They're all excellent companies. I've worked with them all myself in my business and real assets to us. So put put a little bit of um you know reality check on you all. um th this to to try to go to referendum in November with everything that's going on really can't happen. I was actually wondering if there was actually is there actually an election this November. Well, there's another question.
088It's 25. So, next one being 26 November. So, uh but just to just and I know Jeff was just kind of using a point his his and which is valid, right? Like this there's an urgency to this, right? We're not going to just keep waiting. Um the I do think that there is there's going to have to continue to be discussions. It needs to be sort of this this always present conversation of what's going on and looking at things both from an architectural standpoint from facilities. What are we hearing? Where are the where are the the the perceived needs, right? Um and then trying to help prioritize those, right? And that's what the architects will help because they'll at least be able to give some estimates like what does this look like? Well, this is
089probably the estimate of to do XYZ. Um, it doesn't mean everything has to stop between now and next June, right, when your new person's in place. But, um, it does just mean that there's a lot that's that's going on right now. Um, just trying to again kind of get things into into order and bringing on two new boards and there they again things are moving ahead with them. Um, we just need to get those get everything done. Um so if they can come in August or September that'll be a great opportunity to at least say hey here's where's where we're at in the process start providing ongoing feedback right um because they'll they'll and that may be some things that also at uh triple eye conference for those who go is to go to some
090of those those sessions on both referendum planning but also building projects and looking at some of those things. So it's a great opportunity to again talk to other other schools and see other places on how they've done and what has what has been successful. So, um, but again, I think the important part is when you're talking about future plans for the district, there's there's the overarching thing, right? We're a small district. Oh, but we're outgrowing, you know, our elementary schools. Um, in particular, what do we do? Do we just keep adding on, you know, four and fours, right, or two by twos? Um, and the answer in the long term hopefully is no. But, um, we don't have too much room for those anyway, right? Limited in some of your elementary schools for you to
091be able to put any more stuff on there. So, but maybe there's a church for sale, right? I mean, so there's always um and there may be creative looking, right, at at things of how to resolve certain things. So, we just have to continue working on that. Thank you. Yeah. I don't want to steal Dan's thunder, but the track is uh failing. And so again, we only have limited funds and he'll be discussing that, but that's in the millions. So again, we need to look at where we want to spend the money. So I mean, he'll probably be coming in August with that, so more information to come. But um yeah. Yeah. I think it's I think it's great that we're doing a study to um look at the um the track and the stadium
092comprehensively, but I'll be really curious to see what those recommendations again in the price tag are because um again I I can't disagree at all that um redoing that track is a need. Is everything else actually a need? You know, that that's that's the question. Um, and again, like you said, Jeff, is that the best way to spend our resources that we do have? So, but all good stuff. Yeah, I'll be excited to see what the architects come back with as a master plan. I think that's really what um a lot of us are are really wanting right now. But unfortunately, it does take, like Kyle said, it does take some time. It's going to take them time to get used to our district, to understand what our needs are, to look at all of
093our facilities, to look at our growth, and then come back to us with that. And in every presentation, I think every architect said the same thing. It's going to take us months to get a comprehensive plan and a master plan together. So, I'm excited to see that. Um, and I'm I'm expecting that, um, there's going to be options within these plans, right? Um, how do how do you address um grade school space? Um, is it additions? Is it what we've talked about? Is it a new elementary school um in another um manner? You know, you know, kind of almost good, better, best scenarios. And then if it does become a referendum, the mask um you know, workshopping that with the community to too to see where everybody's at and um take everybody's temperature, I think
094is going to be super important. Future plans. The next thing we have is the discussion on retention and culture. Um I know there were some comments and and um some questions regarding this. So uh any any court discussion on retention and culture within not just within the board but also the district itself. Yeah, I brought this up again. I was just a little worried. Uh, you know, I thought there was one person who was supposedly bringing bad culture into the district. Um, now that she's gone, doesn't seem like culture has gotten much better and retention definitely hasn't gotten much better. Seeing that 50% of our administration is gone. Um, other key people have left. Mandy's done in two weeks. You know, I'm glad Angie's here. She's great. But yeah, there's just a lot of lot
095more turnover than I was anticipating. So, I'm just again wondering what the plan is. Um because again, we just can't sit around for a year and wait for things to get better hopeful, you know. So, um I just wanted to know, you know, what your plan is kind of, you know, what we want to try and do over the course of the next months to, you know, hopefully change things a little. Yeah, I I think it starts with us a little bit. I think that as a board we've had we've gone from being relatively quiet in the first, you know, couple meetings that we had to being able to sit down and discuss and and respect each other's opinions, right? Um I think we all come from very different backgrounds, different careers, different families. And
096you know, I think as community members and as board members, it starts with us being able to come together with those varying uh backgrounds and and and having a focus on the kids, right? the focus has to stay on our children. And I think sometimes if we if we lose that focus, then other things can, you know, things can get clouded and and we might have, you know, more of an issue with retention or culture or things like that. Um, that's kind of that's that's my that's kind of where I'm at with it. You know, it's it's I'm brand new to this. I think everybody knows that. I'm brand new board member, brand new president. Um, just really trying to at the end of the day work together with everyone that we have in our
097district with community members, with stakeholders, with our with our teachers, with our administration, with board members, and and find common ground on focusing on the kids, what's going to be best for our kids now, what's best for our kids in the future. Um, and I've been extremely encouraged by our conversation as a board as of late, and I hope that that continues. And I'm hoping that as we as a community really just narrow in on focusing on our kids, I hope that all of us can kind of come together, put aside any differences that we have and just really really keep that focus. Um, that's just kind of my my my two cents on it and what I hope to continue. My take on it is this might be totally off the wall, but if
098there's a perceived retention or culture problem is the what we see is a lot of symptoms of the greater problem and do we actually know what the problem is if there is a problem or is it just perception is not necessarily reality um I realize there's a lot going on consistency and stability is key for this board and the administration and superintendent and sitting through a lot of the superintendent um search firms they had all kind of mentioned these you know the survey the and and getting that feedback from the community. I guess one I mean we'll have that information going forward once these guys hit the ground running here this fall, but I guess what what keeps us from doing our own like I I I think as a board I think we owe
099it to the community. If there's a a perceived culture problem within the staff and that's affecting staff or it's affecting administration and or retention, we can hire the best people in the world and if we can't keep them, it's kind of pointless. So, so to just keep churning, you know, applicants and um and you have no tenure there without addressing actually what the problem is. Do we know what the problem is? That's a question I have. a new board member that's not totally versed at all in the history. It's like what is the problem? Is there a problem or is it, you know, perception versus reality? That would be my suggestion is is because if we don't understand it, how are we going to staff it? We still have to staff the administration. We have
100to staff the superintendent. You know, there's a lot of problems that can fix themselves, but most of them have to be The old saying is you have the problem and right now we're short. You know, I think that plays into that was not to go back to the old item, the previous item, but when you get into these facilities and expansions and growth, it's like there's growth in registration and we can build the biggest beautiful buildings in the world, but if we can't fill them with competent staff and retain them, it's going to be a giant empty building that's going to cost us a lot of money. So, very delicate balance in my opinion between that staff and that culture and that retention and the consistency that we in the community all expect but how
101do we get there and and to just keep going back and I think maybe maybe it's a different look maybe we ask questions we've never asked maybe we hold a town hall that we never before maybe it's our own survey maybe it's meeting with teachers and staff that are still I know through the negotiations and stuff now that shouldn't stop that conversation in my opinion. That's a totally separate issue. Yeah, I'd agree. I think a town hall is good. We haven't had one in a long time. Um to get people I mean we'd have to figure out obviously how to run it, you know, organized. You don't want it chaotic. Um but yeah, I mean what is how do people feel? you know, staff included. Um, you know, it's a fine line. You need competent
102people. You need to hold them accountable. Every every job you have, you're held accountable by your boss. So, you know, um, my boss holds me accountable. I might think they're a jerk. That doesn't mean they're a bad boss. I mean, you know, I have my job to do. So, um, you know, and we need good teachers, good leadership, good administration for the kids. I mean that's ideally like you know you go back to that you need you can't be a free-for-all you know you can't be loved by everybody because then the students aren't going to be taught well you know education is going to decline so yeah I like that idea ch you know in my experience is there's that there's a uh in our business we that there's this boardroom teflon that we have
103to make sure that we constantly break that we can, you know, find ourselves in these boardrooms and conference rooms and we think we know what the problem is and we look out the window and then there's this whole whole other group that that that chuckles because they know that we have no idea. So, I mean, my experience is if you really want to know what the problem is, you got to get out of the boardroom and you got to go find it and you got to ask questions and asking the right questions and you got to give people a comfortable forum to answer those questions. You know, that's the downside to a town hall control staying on topic. Um sometimes just private onetoone small meeting kind of situations with teachers and staff, administration, kind of
104like a coffee, you know. Chad, I um I I do work for a number of municipalities and um a couple of them actually I I think they take it to a whole other level, but um in addition to their regular um village board meetings, they have um a monthly or every other month um I think they call it a community coffee or something. it's posted as a board meeting and it gives an opportunity for that two-way dialogue that's um hard to do in one of our normal meetings. I mean, we do have public comment, but obviously that's one way. Um if we could start to set something up like that, I mean, there's a lot of precedent for how those can work. Um what the ground rules are, how people agree to engage and interact
105with us. I mean, these are things that have been solved before and um I'd love to um start to do it and maybe um I don't think it has to be every month, but if it's on a regular basis and I our community and all of our stakeholders know that they're going to have that opportunity to come talk to us and we are able to respond to them, I think that's going to go a long way. I mean any politician state reply required to I think it behooves us. I agree with you 100% Andy that I think it does the same thing for us. You know what looks like I This is a real preset opportunity in my opinion. We all got to realize that as a community and to have new principles, new superintendent
106and staff and there's that turnover the board that we have to still choose. It's almost 36 months. So I think the opportunity is there. I think away from having smart conversations. So, one of the things to to consider um is there's is a couple things because the conversation has been good, right? And looking at that, um I think to look at as opposed to full board and nobody always wants to be everywhere, right? The reality is is that you you you all are employed with with jobs and families and stuff while you taken on this this responsibility, right? There's there's a a realistic aspect of like sometime just people aren't always available. One of the things that some places will do during times is as opposed to whole boards because you can meet as two
107people, right? And do a rotating type of thing where it's not it's not an official meeting, right? if it's a two person and you kind of pair up um and go and those that can be really beneficial because it's a little different format, right? Because when you're here as a board, you are at the board table and you are a board, right? Um when it's just two of you, you're board members, right? Who are who are listening and able to bring things back. It creates a personal aspect to it, right? To have a conversation, right? Yeah. Not limited by this formality. You have all these different opinions. I think it' be welcoming for the community. I think it be easy for somebody to sit down as two individuals have conversation with whoever shows, you know,
108if it starts immediately orally I think it's if we've never done it, it's one of those that needs to go on the list of things that we think it's part of the we've done a lot of things well and there's some things that this community and district has struggled with some of which might be why we're situation. I mean, I know when we had were doing the referendum, we had the different plans um in different rooms and board members floated between it. So it's like if we if I don't know how it would work, but if you had different topics in this town hall, you could almost do that, you know, and have a board member there and a board member there and you could rotate or float or whatever, you know. Um if a
109board member can't make it, so what, you know, it's like like you said, everybody has their own responsibility. So I mean that's another option, too. You have a couple nights at different schools, so it's more convenient for parents and community members, too. So Yeah, having places taking them to places where people are right is even even again in the district you have a library per se but you know the schools are kind of the community centers of the various neighborhoods right so that's a it's an engaging thing right it's about engagement that that's great going out to meet people rather than having them come to our boardrooms so to speak I think um it seems like a little thing but it it's a big deal makes a difference yeah the just you know to remember
110the difference between you know representative X right is that representative X is his own person right going out but you guys are a board and so that become that it just adds a complexity to the process um and just to be creative right and thinking well what's the best way to try to try to meet that and there you know there's always um there's the initial we want to do what this wants to happen right I don't think it has to be like a monthly type of thing that's probably a little bit much but um I do think as you're looking at something think of what's like timing what would work we can with some, you know, thinking through some processes of what that looks like. You do want to have a structure to it
111and so there's some things to I made some notes and I'll talk to Griff as well and then just figure out, you know, what some of those dates look like. It' be nice. Yeah. Now here in the town halls it sounds like this is kind of more like meeting with the community kind of thing. How do we meet or how do we do it then with teachers and staff? What does that look like? Sometimes we get the culture there. Yeah, I guess procedurally process I think we need to start there as opposed to the community problem. teachers thing. I don't know what it was before I still teachers support staff students. That's what we need to build. So wherever this culture It should this should help with us getting in front of each individual say
112this is what we're at. This is what our plans are. I think the other question is how do we work together on it? not just us doing it, but how do we work together with all of those people to create whatever culture we're looking for or they're looking for as well? Well, I think it also gives you the opportunity to look at as a board what kind what culture do you want within the district, right? What are you wanting to lead? I mean, you don't have the day-to-day operational aspect of doing that, right? But you also can have a vision of, you know, what does that look like? and you're a part of it, but just as the teachers are a part of it, right? Just as the staff is a part of it. And
113um I think Chad, as you said, right, you've been hired new person coming in and you've heard the tenure of of many superintendents and 2.8 years. So through years and and stability, particularly at the building level, is important. And we haven't had that in this district, right? there's been there's been a a lack of of consistency of administrators. Um, and that's that's it's important at the top, right? But it's even it's almost magnified at the building level, right? Because they're the the building principal is the one who is on that dayto-day engaging and interacting with the staff, with the the students, and and honestly with the parents. I mean, um, so and change inconsistencies like this like double-edged sword, too. I mean, there's districts districts close by here that have had tenure superintendent for a
114long long time and that's not necessarily a good thing either. I mean organic change is healthy. It doesn't have to be 2.8 but it doesn't have to be a 20 a good average and and you can you can sustain that organic change amongst leadership and and staff and still have the core of what you want to be because once that table is set, it doesn't matter who comes because the masses are stronger than one. The theory that one person can ruin an entire culture sometimes in my experience is not necessarily always true because that culture is there. It's sometimes it's it's perceived that way and it's like what don't we know? We don't know what we don't know. I think that's where we got to make sure something, right? for getting vaccines for the wrong
115we all magically appear from this board. Right? So when we choose our superintendent, we take into good discussion on those topics. So thank you everybody. Um I think the FOY report is included in the board packet and Now we need a motion and a second to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? And our meeting is adjourned. Thank you all. Thank you everybody for coming.