001e e e Fulk present Hil Nolan Nolan yes papis here buy Here Gorman here first off we need a motion and second to allow member hemp Hill to join the meeting remotely per policy two call 220 she is traveling for work second aief yes vulk yes Nolan yes pepis yes fuli yes Gorman yes yes motion is carried next we need a motion in second to approve tonight's agenda second Fulk yes Hil yes Nolan yes papis yes buy yes aif yes Gorman yes the motion is carried please join us in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for all like to welcome everyone for coming out tonight and those joining at home also um on our YouTube channel
002welcome Dr same yep thank you everybody for coming out looks like we've got a a good crowd out there so thank you guys for coming to the board appreciate it all right first up we have Mrs jurgenson fromion um she'll be reviewing the audit reports well good evening uh my name is Sheran jurgenson I'm one of the Auditors um audit Partners at exasan uh I'll just spend a few minutes going through the results of the audit for both Central as well as Northern cane so starting off with Central uh everything went very well uh we are actually here at an October board meeting instead of later in the year so we were able to get everything done and filed um a lot sooner than we did last year which is great uh Dana had just
003everything ready for us and was able to answer all of our questions and was available and so it just helps as well as getting the information we need from outside parties which unfortunately can delay the process as well so all of that came together nicely this year um just going into the audit report the first thing is the opinion uh your audit is on the regulatory basis of accounting which is allowed in the state of Illinois and so it's an unmodified opinion uh which basically says that based on the testing we did we feel the financial statements are free from Material misstatement it talks in there about internal controls and I probably say it every year but internal controls are very important and so while we don't give an opinion on them we do spend
004a lot of time looking at them not only to make sure that you have good written policies and procedures but that the people that are processing the receipts and accounts payable payroll Etc that they're actually following those we make sure that there's not one person that has too much control that there's proper approval and review processes in place and so there was no issues with any of those um walkthroughs and testing that we did this year for those areas in the audit report on page nine just gives a quick review or a overview of the Year you'll see that overall overall there was a decrease of about $1.5 million across all the funds you'll see the majority of that is due to the Ed fund which decreased about 1.3 and then onm decreased almost about
005$3 million and then the rest of them had positive increases to the fund balance for the year uh the next section of the audit report is the financial statements and there's really no changes there was no uh new standards this year for the first time in a long time so the wording is pretty much standard to what you've seen in the past couple years just gives you a lot more detail on your long-term debt fixed assets the pensions um and just various other information in there um on page uh starting on page 42 uh that is the report for a separate audit that we need to do for your federal grants and it's called a single audit and so as part of that this year we tested uh Your Child Nutrition grants as well as
006the eser monies that came in this year and so uh we're not only looking at the transactions and testing those to make sure they comply with the grant but also just all the various compliance requirements that the federal government has on those grants uh so we had no issues with those there was no findings nothing to report as part of that audit so overall the audit went very well there's no management letter so no internal control deficiencies or any findings uh there was also no uncorrected misstatements there was journal entries that we made but they all came from Dana um that we made because sometimes just takes a little bit more time to get those that information so we did those as part of the off but overall the financials were in great shape uh
007then moving on to Northern cane uh very similar uh the opinion is the same and uh same with your internal controls no issues there uh there were um no uh findings no internal controls deficiencies for Northern cane on page seven you'll see the summary of the revenues and expenses for Northern cane uh pretty much much broke even for the year there was a $9,000 increase in fund balance this year for them so that's just a quick overview for Northern cane I also point out for uh Central well for both of them we do file the AFR with the state uh for Central they calculate a financial profile it's on a scale of 0 to four uh this year you are at a 3.65 um you actually have fours in all the in five categories that
008there are the only one that is the three is your revenues to uh or your expenditures to revenue ratio unfortunately sometimes it takes a dip if you're spending down reserves or if you saved for a project and then that's being used during the year so but other than that everything else was out of four so overall just good news to report but I will answer any questions if you have any this remains consistent with past years yeah correct questions thank you very much okay thank you we move on to public comment U we ask that you keep it to around three minutes just so everyone else can have a chance to speak also uh first up is Sharon h good evening my name is Sharon haggy and we've had kids in the district since 2012
009we currently have three daughters at pkms and our son Gavin is a junior at Central High School over one year ago on September 26th 2023 our son Gavin suffered what we now believe to be the first of several saccer related injuries that resulted in a concussion since suffering from this traumatic brain injury he has had daily headaches which bury in severity but never disappear alongside ongoing sensitivities to light and sound he has been under the care of a neurologist since last November and continues to see him at least once a week Gavin is not yet able to comfortably tolerate a full day at school and has missed over 105 days since the end of September 2023 his junior soccer season just wrapped up with Gavin unable to play soccer for the first time since he
010was four years old it's been a long difficult year different than any of us imagined for him but we are so incredibly proud how how he has handled everything and continues to handle things both at home and at school he went to summer school and works really hard on his schoolwork so that he doesn't fall even farther behind he wants to be in school every day there are so many teachers and CHS staff who have been wonderful at accommodating and supporting Gavin as he navigates the long term effects of his brain injury but unfortunately the district itself has not as we know parking spots at CHS are very limited and unfortunately Gavin was not one of the few Juniors selected for a parking pass at an appointment in August he told his neurologist that he
011would be unable to drive himself to and from school this year and his doctor urged us to get Gavin a temporary handicapped parking placard from the state of Illinois this way Gavin headaches and symptoms wouldn't be exacerbated every time he was on the bus he would be able to listen to his symptoms and arrive at school late or leave school early when his headaches were too severe and or the bright lights and loud noises that are constant in a high school setting became too much versus having to rely on parent availability or suffering through a bus ride Gavin has had a legally obtained temporary handicap parking placard valid in the state of Illinois since August 20th yet District 301 still refuses to let him park in the parking lot because he was not lucky enough
012to be picked in the parking lottery for 40 school days Gavin has had to take the bus or rely on us for rides I see at least eight empty handicap spots in the student lot and along the drive every single day when I drive him to school or pick him up we have hired an attorney to fight for what Gavin is legally entitled to have and the district is fighting back we've submitted extensive paperwork from his neurologist explaining the medical reasons why Gavin should not take a bus and should have the flexibility to drive himself to and from school as his symptoms dictate we have filed formal complaints against Dr Esther mongan and District 301 with the Illinois attorney the Illinois attorney general disability rights Bureau and the Illinois Department of Justice and office of
013civil rights for violating disability rights we've spoken with the Illinois disability leaon Secretary of State the K County Sheriff's department and the Great Lakes Ada office from our conversations with these officials we believe that Gavin's rights are being violated and Ada law is being broken by our district Gavin and I have been interviewed by nbc5 investigates and his story will be featured on the NBC 5 News everyone but Dr Mangan and District 301 seem to recognize how wrong their decision is to deny Gavin his legal right to utilize any handicap spot in the CHS student lot at our 504 meeting just this morning District staff confirmed that this decision to deny gav the use of his handicap spot is coming from Dr mongan I do not understand why she and the district would choose to
014use taxpayer money to fight against a valid handicap parking placard and against a kid who has suffered so much already versus following the law and doing what is right Gavin can literally Park in any handicap spot in the entire state of Illinois but somehow cannot park at his own Public High School I hope that by sharing Gavin's story we encourage the district to do their due diligence on how to follow Ada law for all students teachers and families within our boundaries I also hope that this situation among so many others encourages our school board to look and listen closely to the members of our community about why we do not trust or support the leadership of Dr mongan I believe the reason so many teachers and community members described the environment in District 301 as
015taxic starts at the to please keep this in mind when Dr manan's contract is up for Renewal and please seek input from the community and bring in others to interview for this very important position I would like to thank the entire 301 Community for all of their support for Gavin during our fight for what is right we truly have no words for how your support and encouragement have kept us going especially these last two months we are fighting for Gavin and also for every other student teacher and member of this community whose rights under Ada law are being denied past present and future thank you for your time thanks [Applause] Sher next up we have Virginia Romano good evening everyone um thanks for hearing me for what it's worth I guess because it everything seems
016to go in one ear and out the other it's like we're just here to talk and at least it's going on record because otherwise it just seems like you guys have your ears plugged and just La don't hear us at all so anyway um yeah I'm just here to uh reiterate my discuss and I have been um with what has been going on either with the referendum and then the things that are getting dug up through uh foer requests and things like that so um anyway uh what did I want to say the um yeah I've been canvasing the area I'm in Burlington Township so I've been canvasing the area and pretty much I think the silence is not acquiescence is pretty much all I can really say to the referendum and other things that
017are going on in the district so I that's about all I have to say thank thank you thanks vir all right Micheline Welch good evening the like Public Enemy Number One standing up here tonight but I wanted to take a moment to address the removal of critical details from our District's monthly enrollment report for years these reports have provided our community with a transparent and consistent snapshot of student growth and changes broken down by grade level by school including students that are out of District not housed in 301 and these details are invaluable for tracking Trends and should be helping inform decisions on resource allocation Staffing and facility planning this is a detailed report from 2012 it's been produced every month that we've had kids in school every year and the last one was May
0182024 and it's been replaced with one that's just a summary of these details with the current removal of those specifics we lose an important tool for accountability and effective planning I'm curious how a board of education can make clear decisions with less information than they've had at hand consistently every month mon for over a decade further the analysis provided by rspn Associates was never intended to be a one-off review it was meant to guide ongoing evaluations of our District's progress and potential growth by incorporating their projections alongside the detailed data the community has seen every month for more than a decade we can better understand where we stand in relation to expected growth allowing for more strategic decision making restoring the detailed breakdown by grade level in the monthly enrollment report and add ing RP's
019projections as a comparative are essential to maintaining transparency I made a foyer request to obtain the details of the data we've seen every month for more than a decade and that request was denied leading me to file my third complaint with the Public Access Controller at the Attorney General's office as a taxpayer and particularly as a parent it's unfathomable to me that this is where I find myself while I stand here in urg the board and administration to keep these details in place as part of your commitment to making datadriven decisions and transparency unfortunately I find myself joining the Greater Community in the feeling that it's all for not and the words that I speak are falling on deaf ears even as I stand here before you the steps to rebuild trust with this community
020and increase transparency are so simple it is on you to take those steps forward towards the community the people you're supposed to represent in serve Why won't you take them thank you thanks Micheline sherel hello everybody thank you for letting me speak tonight my name is Sher musil I'm a fourth grade teacher at hbt elementary and have been for quite a while um I made making a statement tonight concerning the issue of compensation for teachers who have earned academic degrees prior to being hired by the district this issue has been before you before with me but apparently it's back in your hands again with a new staff member from the perspective of a classroom teacher there does seem to be some inequity regarding the concept of encouraging teachers to attain Advanced degrees after being hired
021by the district while at the same time failing to acknowledge and compensate teachers who have accumulated specific knowledge and background and skills in the form of an advanced degree or a Content degree that was attained before being hired every Elementary building has a cadra of teachers who have been encouraged to follow the course of obtaining an advanced degree in reading and Technology specifically at the elementary level and they work very hard to do so many of those teachers are incredibly valuable to our faculty because they can act as a resource for other teachers who have questions or need guidance regarding our reading curriculum or the science of reading or other reading questions this is a very positive benefit for that school's faculty and the district as a whole but consider the teacher who has earned
022her degree in a science field as part of her education in the process of becoming a teacher as I have in the course of my career I have developed units concerning the Natural Sciences in tandem with and supplemental to the district science curriculum units that are used by other teachers and enjoyed immensely by my students as an introduction to fields of study in biology botney anology physics chemistry you name it so is the benefit to the school district definably less because my degree wasn't obtained in the process of certifying to become a teacher rather than obtained after being accepted to work as a faculty member an objective clearly objective policy maker would have to say actually no we do have a huge push for stem programs and steam programs in our district and having a
023science background I'm finding I'm one of very few in our building I have worked in District 301 for almost 20 years and I think Perhaps it is time for the district to reconsider some policy as it seeks to Build a Better Stronger Staffing system one that the district should be encouraging applications from teachers with degrees in important subject matter areas like math physics science in general or psychology so and I want to speak to that as well we are not retaining teachers well in our district uh Mr Nolan Dr Nolan knows this firsthand his daughter's first fourth grade teachers are both gone it does seem to be like an issue in our district in the last eight years at hbt and this is just in one grade level we've had one at least one a
024year sometimes two teachers in our grade level leave every year why is this and why is it so hard to attract a pool of applicants which I have also witnessed for eight years of sitting in on interviews every every single year maybe we should abandon our Antiquated system and think about how to retain staff and also attract those new applicants maybe respecting and compensating their backgrounds and master's degrees would help as in districts such as barington shamberg and many many many districts I hope hope the board has seen and examined the data that shows who has left the district and the exact precise reasons why maybe recognizing expertise in different fields such as my Master's in science another person's letter in Psychology that was written to you math and others would help us grow as
025a whole as a community and is a group of teachers that could help each other and support each other in all these fields our staff is fantastic at hbt and their hard work shows every day I would just like to include more applicants of diverse backgrounds to add to what we already have thank you for your time thanks sure our next update Chatman all right uh there is a a data sheet being passed around so let you guys all get that in your hands before I start uh but I'm going to be addressing retention and a statement on retention from September's board meeting uh Dr Mangan discussed that the state includes when teachers move schools within their District impacting or lowering a District's retention number uh this is inaccurate as you see on your data
026sheet there is a statement on how it is calculated from ISB the data is based on how or on teachers staying and leaving a district not a school further in this issue is our retention rate overall compared to surrounding districts which you can see on that data sheet surrounding districts all sit around a 92% retention rate meaning 8% of teachers leave year to year meanwhile our District's retention rate is 84% meaning 16% of teachers leave our districts year to year so our retention problem is twice as bad as districts around us our retention rate is even lower than CPS uh which historically has issues keeping staff this is alarming especially since we're in a teaching shortage right now too we can't afford to lose our existing staff so as a board you you should ask
027yourself why is retention so low uh a pattern we're seeing over the years is that teachers are overworked and overwhelmed our workloads are high we don't have enough support or even time to get things done Staffing is another issue uh we've seen a high turnover rate in special education specifically over the years we're once again asking that you try to hire those five positions that we requested numerous times and post those so that we can help our most vulnerable students and support our existing staff and keep them here there will be candidates graduating college in December which can help increase our chances of hiring someone this year and helping our students and staff as soon as possible on top of that we've heard concerns on on valuing and listening to staff too many decisions are
028made without our input or our input is sought after the fact for example the teacher vacancy Grant the district's four goals the blueprints at the design dive with any of our input sought on this prior no as board members I would highly recommend you request the sac District committee survey results that we shared with Dr Mangan last May so you uh can see how people feel when it comes to input in this District especially those who sit on committies this District does at times step over dollars to pick up pennies too case in point is the fact that we are the only District in the area and as far as I'm aware in Northern Illinois that doesn't recogn I someone's Ms in education on the salary schedule if their Bachelors isn't in education instead we
029pay them thousand dollars less signaling to them that we feel they are somehow less than their colleagues why would you stay you wouldn't from our understanding over the past five years 19 Educators have been in this situation and only five remain including two new hires the board you received an email today from one of the new hires about this and there desire to leave if not compensated appropriately you just heard from a veteran teacher tonight who is impacted tell me how would you feel if you were in their shoes would you want to work for a company that sends that message to their employees adding on to furthering your education with Advanced degrees CA even had to take the district to arbitration over the district wanting to determine how accredited universities run their Blended masters
030programs let me rephrase that our district wants to tell the university how to run their programs a part of our settlement agreement with the arbitrator is that programs that are new this year can't have interference from the district which is how it should have been from the start the district can't call the University and tell them how to operate what our district did just doesn't happen in other districts our instructors have even stated how strict our District's contract was with their University and how that impacted trying to find instructors to run our course courses it just seems other districts don't put these roadblocks in place trying to control every little thing including trying to further your education for the betterment of our students in your own teaching again I ask you why would you stay
031these are all contributing factors among other things to retention issues so I'll end with this as a board of education our retention rate should be concerning to you you should be discussing this not just uh privately but publicly we are requesting retention of staff is placed on the November board meeting's agenda for you to talk about publicly the staff the community and the students deserve to hear how you will go about fixing this massive problem we need to hear how you plan to retain our staff thank you than right last is PK perk thank you good evening uh my name is PK um I prepared uh several comments and suggestions for uh for the board today but before I jump into my prepared remarks um my uh sympathies to to you and your family and
032uh your son Gavin for uh the difficulties endures result of his injury and uh I would encourage the the board and superintendent to consider uh making an exception in this case to avoid um all of the complications that will undoubtably arise if uh if the hegu family um pursues their their current strategy um I was listening to the people that uh came up here before me and I'm gonna reframe my comments uh in terms of what I heard from each previous presenter and and what I heard was distrust a lot of distrust and um I think that's toxic I think that's that's you know it's something that we need to work to change um when we consider the biggest issue for next month which is the referendum for the new high school and and by
033the way I happen to think it's a good plan I don't think it's a perfect plan I think it's a good plan I think it solves multiple problems I think you did a good job thinking it through right I think the communication recently over the past couple months from the district the Friday facts and Tuesday tidbits and other information was great I think that it's wonderful that you arrang two design drives which I attended both of them um I wish more people in the community came to participate um so you know I'm inclined to support the referendum um but I wanted to convey that a lot of the opposition in the community stems from that feeling of distrust that General feeling of distrust right the people who are overtly opposed and also many of the
034people who are undecided they're hesitating because of distrust and you know the way to overcome that distrust which does not happen overnight it takes a long time but the way to overcome that the way to win over the community on the next referendum or whatever we pursue in future years for the betterment of the community the way to gain that support is to build trust at every opportunity and and so you have a lot of examples from my predecessors in terms of things to consider um and and so I'm going to go through a few a few things that I prepared as well the first thing is that um you know last month in September uh Mr Chapman came up and um part of his presentation was to uh ask for uh your support in
035hiring five or so additional special education teachers it was a very modest request in comparison to uh his estimate of a 90 teacher shortage in the district uh which you may or may not agree with but it was a modest request in comparison to the problem that he stated and I would encourage you to reconsider consider uh and approve those additional Educators it's a it's a very small expense in comparison to other expenditures that the district is undertaking um it will certainly serve those students with special needs better and it also will iate the stress on Main classroom teachers which will help to improve overall teacher satisfaction secondly um I want to Second Mr Chapman's comment to um take up the issue of teacher satisfaction uh and the survey results at the next board meeting
036um every board member should read all those verbatim comments and understand the sentiment coming from the staff um it's important that you engage the superintendent and the union together to outline and execute a plan to improve teacher satisfaction and retention third at the end of the September board meeting uh superintendent mang Yen commented that there were a number of foyer requests and that uh if that Trend continued she may need to add a staff member to support fulfilling those requests reasonable um that led into a discussion between the superintendent and some of the board members about potentially charging for foyer requests I see that there's a discussion topic on that later in the agenda um I am hopeful that the board will not pursue the idea of charging for foyer requests as it would be
037illegal except in very limited circumstances and the board will be exposing itself in the district to um legal challenge um revenues from those limited allowable circumstances would likely be minimal and offset by additional administrative burden to track and justify those charges or defend them legally and um even if all that is resolved even even if it's not the intent right if the intent is just simply to pay for the the process um but even if it's not the intent it could appear to the community at large and this goes back to the trust issue that the board and the administration are trying to discourage the public from making foyer requests and I think that that's totally wrong um and so you know the board should be asking how can we make more information available to
038the public online so that some of those foyer requests which are ordinary types of things don't need to be made as foyer requests how can we leverage technology to you know make the process of fing requests more efficient so we don't have to manually scan and redact sensitive information there's lots of software that can do that um so those are the types of questions the board should be doing the principle should be how can we be more open and transparent with the community how can we facilitate information sharing how can we build trust in every interaction um we're at five minutes already so we have to wrap it up I will wrap up on teacher retention uh last time Mr faul asked the superintendent to explain how the retention metric doesn't necessarily convey the nuances
039of people moving around within the district I thought that was an aute question actually um Mr Chapman has refuted that today um I I think generally what I would say is that um when we think about the way the board interacts in these meetings right it's very mechanical there doesn't seem to be much substantive discussion among among the board when issues are introduced so we don't know exactly what you're thinking you know do you ascribe to the principle of Foya or are you trying to you know limit the information to the community nobody knows so you know people are making their own assumptions and those are usually going to be the worst assumptions we don't hear you communicating what you're thinking we don't hear you communicating guardrails the superintendent about what you want her to
040do and you don't react when people from the community raise an important issue in the public forum you don't react during the same board meeting you also don't take it up at the subsequent board meeting after you have time to think about it and form a position and and I think that that does not create trust right so my advice to you is you know people care they're coming up here because they care they're raising important issues they're expressing you what people in the community are thinking and please do take up those issues please respond to them during your time in the meeting or please take them up at a Subs board meeting thank you thank you move on action reports motion second requir to discuss and approve the consent agenda some second I'm included
041in your um packet is the revenue expenditure report reports currently revenues are at 29. 53% compared to 27.9 a year ago expenditures are at 22.4 compared to 1754 a year ago um this past month we received impact fees for $93,700 for 12 home starts um transition fees came in for 3605 this month um bills payable for both Northern cane and Central are typical there is one construction invoice in there for sh um there's multip voices but a payment to shes mcnut for a little over $2 million um earlier this afternoon or this evening Miss jurgenson reported out the audit reports um basically everything in my memo is everything that she already reported out for Northern cane um all of our investments were fully collateralized there were no negative findings um no cash overdrafts um for
042Central revenues exceeded expenditures in all the funds except for the Ed in O andm and then in Northern cane um all the same positive things uh revenues came in over expenditures and then the actual expenditures exceeded the budgeted amounts just for timing purposes questions for data H yes Nolan yes pepis yes buy yes aif yes Hulk yes Gorman yes the motion is carried Motion in second to discuss and approve the skills USA leadership conference overnight trip to poror Illinois that occurred October 17th through 19th second we got through all that I didn't want to jump again um our skills USA team had a or some not our team I apologize some members of our skills USA group had the opportunity to attend a conference down in Poria through some various grants as we kind of
043further our exploration into CTE programs uh they went down there uh throughout the kind of convention and the conference they also competed in a few things like t-shirt design and different things within the business realm uh came back with a few award rewards for the nine kids and ended up going so uh it was a it was a good opportunity for that group and the EXP expanding of those opportunities for our kids any questions for Mr jisy all right Nolan yes Papas yes vuli yes aif yes ful yes Hil yes Gorman yes the motion is carried next Motion in second to discuss and approve the boys golf ight trip to the CATE competition in Bloomington Illinois that occurred October 17th through 19th second So Yesterday our boy or Saturday I'm sorry this past weekend our
044boys golf team brought home their first uh first state trophy uh after leaving normal um great group of kids proud of our coaches uh who are down there a big thank you to Dr M for coming down there and supporting those kids uh watching them bring home their best finish in school history and uh the first state trophy for as a team for that golf program yeah great awesome pepis yes buy yes aif yes ful yes Hil yes Nolan yes Gorman yes motion is carried motion and second to discuss and approve the softball team's overnight trip to Dustin Florida for the Florida softball beach bash event March 29th to April 5th second all right last year our baseball team did this uh successfully I know coach Morrow he's been in the business for a while
045and uh trusting him with this this adventure as well uh it will be funded by parents through fundraising and things of that nature and requesting the opportunity for him to take that group down there over our spring break this year to compete in some games down there as it's becoming increasingly more difficult trying to find some of that stuff around here are the boys going to alternate with the girls is that how this is going to work uh yeah the plan was originally I know in the past but as we come here the plan was to kind of do an every other year thing just to you know lessen the burden on parents and things of that nature and then just give time to kind of prep and plan um I do know not on
046softball or or baseball but any of you have kids in travel Sports you know trying to keep kids interested in different High School experiences when they travel all over the country I'm not saying we're travel sports but we have coaches that want to provide that opportunity again at at no cost to the district to to have these opportunities as team bonding um looking looking to give that option if we trust those coaches to do so thank yes aif yes Fulk yes Hil yes Nolan yes papis yes Gman yes motion is carried thanks Ted thank you need a motion second are required to discuss and approve authorizing an auction for electricity service and the execution of an agreement within approved parameters so move second so kind of similar to what we uh brought a few months
047back about our gas service we're up for electricity um so we're asking as I talked about last month for the board's approval for the rate our vendor um put together um a a soft um auction to kind of get a range of what we thought the prices would be um so we kind of have that range and we just want to get you guys to authorize us to be able to do that live auction tomorrow both day and I question that auction uh range is um is that lower than like what you would pay or we would pay if we continued with whatever the status quo is so we so we have we had to renew it because it was a it was a finite time frame of what we had so we had to
048renew it and energy prices are slightly higher so this range will be slightly higher and then it'll be from a a one to fiveyear term is this three year one that we recently that we finish yes yes that was the first time we had done it was three years ago correct and how would be fair better um the last round the last round excellent we we came out great as we could see from the way the rates are now rates are substantially higher so we're going to pay a premium but I think this auction this reverse auction process I think gets us the best the best opportunity and the best rates going longer probably makes more it depends we've kind of been tossing around those ideas there's some some pros and cons to that because
049then those rates do go up every year so trying to weigh those options and working with our our vendor to kind of try to predict that kind of time frame where where we could um possibly flatten out you know versus um seeing those giant rate increases towards the tail end of that term so that'll be something we'll be having a group discussion about after we get the final rates in tomorrow and it's and it's fluctuate so that was kind of what we talked about last month it's changes daily so that's why we're asking for the approval of the of the range and then we'll actually do the the live auction tomorrow do you have the option of doing three years or definitely doing five no we have the option we have the option to do
050from one to five yep yep questions anything El a yes yes Hil yes Nolan yes papis yes vby yes Gorman yes motion is carried any you didn't hear me we're going to move on information items director prob up again getting into steps has Ted first so she must have got the chocolate um so good evening again update time um updates are getting shorter and and less um high school that's our our big one that we're still wrapping that up working on finalizing hvc controls and that stuff we'll have some owner training um that stuff will be going on in the next week or so to kind of wrap that up working on all the closeout documents with King County and with the Roe and then if you've been by the high school we got the
051Landscaping done finally so we got our bio Swale in there to keep everybody happy and filter all that water and material that goes through that parking lot um so that's done so we should be in in pretty good shape there um the other thing I was going to talk about we completed our health life safety inspections with the Roe this past month a little earlier than usual usually we don't do them until November or December again our teachers our administrators do an awesome job the inspections go well the Roe thinks we do a great job you know our buildings are in great shape and that those went very well so I just wanted to give those kudos to to all of our buildings for for making that an easy process again this year it has
052been every year but I just wanted to make sure I mention that and that's all I have thank you right Athletics and activities director Dusky is going to give us an update all right good evening and I I know I kind of spoiled some of it but just uh as we hard to believe we're already transitioning out of fall into winter for a lot of our Sports our activities we were finally able to secure some uh NHS sponsors so that program is up and running and uh we've had a lot of great things going on the activity side I know at at some of like uh I know for example the CT literacy night we had a lot of our service member kids NHS kids there gaining some hours kind of giving back to the
053community so it's been great to see from that end again our our participation in our clubs and not just Sports is increasing as I know we're growing but we really have some sponsors doing some great jobs trying to get a lot more kids involved is because as you know kids that are involved in something you know they tend to have better grades and they tend to want to show up to school a little more so uh kudos to our to our club and activity sponsors there uh from an athletic standpoint I highlighted uh boys golf at the high school taking home third at state cross country has their regionals coming up this Saturday uh soccer has their first round of regionals Wednesday at Sycamore volleyball is next week at Sycamore um our girls golf team
054even though they were few had had a very good year and then of course as you know the football team first time in 10 years U clinching the playoffs but one more regular season game at Huntley that will decide a lot of the SE a lot of the seaing purposes so uh been a very very strong fall looking at to continue in the postseason and then uh hard believe we got a week here before cheer dance and boys bowling officially start and then another two weeks or so girls basketball and then we've got wrestling so uh come down the pipeline there and then finally not to forget about our our Middle School our Middle School girls cross country team was down in uh Bloomington normal which was I found out a block and a half
055you could actually hear the ear horn and the people like cheering from the golf course uh down there they took 14 as a group so I know there's a lot of excitement there and they're now transitioning into uh their second fall season which is basketball and uh cheerleading so that's coming up on the horizon as well and we've actually had the opportunity to uh kind of recognize and give kudos to some of our middle school teams at a few of our high school events as you saw with volleyball um football and we'll find a way to get that cross country team out at something to to recognize them and show them some love there so all all can't thank you enough for all your support uh it was great seeing a lot of you had
056a lot of the lot of the contests a lot of the events able to say hello and uh a lot of good things happening for our community because of that and hopefully that continues so thank you thank you all right next we're move on to AP honor rooll uh Mr pgori wasn't able to make it tonight so I'm going to present for him um so we were awarded for the AP access award a couple of honors um relevant to AP honor rooll we have the AP access award and the AP School honor rooll award um AP access award honor schools that encourage low income and underrepresented minority students to take AP courses um we also received a silver criteria for college board AP school honoral for 2324 school year that's based on three different classifications
057uh College culture college credit and college optimization um there are designations for C criter you have to get at least 50% your students in the College culture we received a 53% um for the silver criteria for college credit you need at least 30% we had a 39% so actually a gold rating there and then College optimization we got a 5% um it's 5% is the criteria we got a 16% of the class U the College culture is actually uh celebrates those that took at least one AP course during their High School career the college credit is actually students who earned college credit by scoring a three or higher on their exams and the college optimization are students who took at least five or more AP exams during their High School career so they should be
058commended a great score of a silver for high school move on to good evening everybody uh at September's board meeting the board had um proposed some questions that they wanted more information on foas and fees and allowables um I'm the active Foya officer for Central 301 and so I gathered some information and put it together a memo for you in your packet um section six of Foya outlines what are the permissible fees um I don't need to read the law to you but I did make a nice little uh table that is at the end of the memo that kind of breaks down some of the things so I'll just I'll kind of go through that breakdown and then answer any questions that you guys have um Foy has broken into two different types there's
059either a commercial foyer request from a company or a private foyer request from a citizen doesn't have to be a citizen of the district just the broken down between private and uh commercial uh for both print material for private and Commercial uh it is allowable to charge 15 cents per page after the first 50 pages and this is to black and white um ink currently our policy which is posted on Central's website is we charge 5 cents uh per page um and that is the same for both private and commercial for personal work time you guys had asked a little bit about like what about the time that's going into foas for private foer requests it is not allowable to charge for the hours the human work hours for Gathering and looking at the data
060and getting the foyers ready to go for commercial foyer request you can charge up to $10 per hour after the initial 8 hours so 9 hours plus we can put uh $10 an hour it needs to be communicated um to the requestor beforehand that that is possible um for private and Commercial there is some uh megabytes that's what that MV stands for so the amount of data that you're giving even if you give them an electronic PDF that you needed to create uh you could charge depending on the size of that PDF to give you an examp example last month we had a fo for some of uh looking at the rars and Road property we were able to find a binder from 2008 and I had to put that binder into a PDF format
061and then send that off that would have crossed over the $100 threshold we did not charge we had not had a conversation about charging but to give you an actual concrete example to the questions that you proposed that was a huge document to create a binder into a digital format which it did not exist um to break this down a little bit there was a little caveat in law that says if you provided both a PDF and paper you can charge for both depending on what the requestor is asking for there is no fee for an electronic when someone wants something in paper if they get it electronically this is the only thing depending on the size that's the allowables that exist by the letter of the law are there any questions that I can
062answer about that yeah um so for us are are we um when when residents of the district or or like even if they're not residents of the district if they're not commercial entities um are we contemplating charging them for the like the FTE time the like the time that we spend so that's not that's not allowable right okay so we're all in agreement that that's not allowable correct so the only issue is just um charging for the uh if it turns out to be um a frequent requester to charge for the cost of the reproduction of the materials it has nothing to do with if they're frequent or not it just depends on the on the element of the request if I were to send them a packet and paper let's say it was 150
063sheets of the community's comments on the referendum after 50 sheets of paper I could charge it is allowable to charge for all the sheets 51 and Beyond the the ma maximum that you could charge is 15 cents currently our district policy is 5 cents a sheet okay I got it so my followup question is so we're thinking this is a something I missed the the September meeting so is this something we're thinking about implementing to increase the amount that we charge uh per page I wouldn't say we're thinking about it we asked to oh I got it okay got it got it okay because I think basically the gist of it was the amount of hours that was spent in in that month was like over 40 hours you know of work on this a
064lot of it on Dr mangan's part which I don't feel is probably a good use of her time in particular and so she brought up the idea of having a Foya office you somebody else can have helped doing that which you know I think is certainly more worth it than you know $5 or $100 I mean it really was just to understand the overall time that is being put into the requests whether there's one or eight I don't think it matters um was just kind of you know what do we need to do to help offset some of the costs and if the offsetting the costs is hiring somebody else to do it at a different hourly rate whatever that would be then maybe that's the offset of the costs yeah it wasn't my cost
065the cost of Mr or Mr roadal or Mr to who whoever's putting the effort in the team that works to the team that works to do it we'll say that right okay thank you for clarifying that so uh one one one input that I would give is um if if we if it's necessary for us to uh retain somebody to be a foer officer to address that is fo officer well well somebody else you know but who is not also an educator um then uh that's something we should consider what I would say is increasing the amount we charge per page um to the maximum allowable what I would do is I would crunch the numbers to see like how many pages uh of things that have we had to turn over and what's the
066cost differential between 5 cents and 15 cents and how much does that net I I think this is this is again we have no clue what we've been looking at I think it's silly to charge based on what we have here I think it's silly to do anything yeah and anytime that someone asks for something to be provided to them in electronic format it then you're not charging on the sheets they not I'm not sending any paper I think I think the one example that I gave where uh you know if I sent an email or a letter back to someone with a something that they asked that's little when we created a whole binder that is something that was that could fall into that and I wouldn't say that that's common but clearly it's
067happened just out of curiosity how how long did that take a long time so we have 32 foas that have been given to us for this school year so roughly three and a half months so you're averaging 10 a month I would say some foas uh don't take as long as others but if you just gave it an average of 3 to 5 hours at the low end you're talking about 96 hours into fo what does that look like is and again maybe it's this is just facts like people would be like yeah that's part of what looking into Foy is but just facts someone has to run through if it's request an email communication between the board and Dr Mangan or you know the board and someone else we have to download and search
068the email and then someone that's me has to look through and actually see what is um should be redacted for personal information whether it list a student's name or a teacher's name or something like that um some of these have resulted in hundreds almost a thousand emails that need to be reviewed and then redacted and then reviewed again and so like when I say some some may be an hour or two it might not be the end of the world some are several several several hours and then that's all those different eyes and Manpower um on those as well so I think that 96 hours is a a safe estimate on time that goes into foil that was just yeah I I've served as a Foy officer for government agen I I know how difficult
069that that work is so uh thank you for doing it and uh yeah it it it takes a it's a huge time suck yeah well I think I think I will state the obvious maybe I'll just state for me personally I mean having this conversation being concerned about the amount of time that it takes in in no way shape or form should indicate that I don't believe in the process I think that want to state that as obviously as possible right um but we can all be surprised at the amount of hours that it takes to do these I would never have expected that to be clear um and I think you know in some ways you search the emails you take care of them you put them all together and you just like you
070know you PDF it and you send it out right but that's clearly not the case and again I I don't think any of us would have really known what it takes to do that so I think that's just good information for us to have and I think furthers from my perspective a conversation of exploring you know what other area districts have you somebody like that what does a background have to look like for somebody that would do that you know what would that look like so I think just you know if that's you DRM getting Grady kind of talking about what that might look like if we went in that direction it sounds like that's probably going to be a good use of time and money to some extent but so in previous years how
071many hours did you put in for this is this is this is my first year this is my first year of doing it um interestingly enough I think that we have done some looking at some of the statistics and I think foas are up in the area like in in the whole state um I I think that that's it's just um the nature of the Beast a little bit in that regard so I can't speak to anything um in front of that and and same thing I'm not my I came up here to present to you today because of what you guys said last time exactly last month you said we can we get more information on that and so in that role I put it together it is the nature of the Beast and
072that's what I what it got to be done like we have to have a process that's the process that's the people that are in place I think that you know as you know the district we wear lots of hats you know we are still pretty small in what we do like I am not just the Foya officer and so like when you go to look and you're considering how much time it takes for all of the people that are involved there's only so many of us that are doing that on top of all of the other whether we're in curriculum or we're working on grants or we're working on technology like there's somebody's got their hands in that pot all the time is there software that can help re so we do have software that
073pulls that pulls our stuff down and then helps it so that it I can manipulate the documents it's not necessarily uh a quick fix button and nor would we want to do that because we don't want to make a mistake either I don't want to accidentally send something out that had sensitive information that wasn't you know so you still it you know you have to put your eyes on or on the other Spectrum redacting too much want give as much information as possible yeah yeah this the intent of this discussion was not to dismay people from submitting forers it was again just to get information because it seems like it's up you know we see all the foilers that come through we don't see the work behind those foilers that come through sure obviously there
074is distrust and there's a lot of division in the district so that just brings more and more foilers um that has to be why they're up um I don't know of any any other reason so we have not charged in the past for any fo whatsoever our Rue line is is zero correct we have not had we have not had a situation since I've been foil officer where we have asked where we have charged are there any other questions I can answer for you guys thank you you're welcome thanks go ahead I don't know you know I can get more information I I you know I'll I'll leave this meeting and gather more and maybe maybe Dr M won't make me stand up next month but at least get you some stuff what do think
075even some information about you know even if you think about everything that Grady puts into it how much needs to be done by him how much could even be given to another person and and you know what would that assistance actually look like um if it's going to cut down 5% of work time that doesn't seem worth it but if it's a substantive number to for redistribution of time and efforts on everybody's parts and you know it um building admin Grady then I think it's worth exploring right move on to potential issues of tax exemp bonds so included in the board packet as a memo um so in working alongside with um PMA we have the opportunity to sell some referendum bonds this calendar year um depending on if the referendum passes or not if
076it doesn't pass it's a mute point this conversation it's it doesn't matter if it does pass though um which is why I'm bringing it as information is to to get the ball rolling so you guys are not caught off guard next month um when or in December actually when we bring this forward for resolution so um if we if the referendum passes we could issue about $ 14.7 million um in December we would need a special board meeting to to be able to get it done by December 31st so we have the proceeds in our hands by December 31st um the IRS limits the amount of Interest earnings on any referendum bonds that you have so um anything above that bond is what they call Arbitrage and so as you have your interest you can
077only earn so much interest it's a protection so you don't just sell a bunch of bonds and then sit on it and let your interest grow so there are limits so there's some exceptions and the small issue exception is the one that that we would qualify for if it's less than1 15 million in a calendar year then you don't have to abide by these Arbitrage rules so essentially working with the timing of the bond um schedule and the construction schedule as we take out bonds so if we were taking just for example 50 million the first year then we could take 15 million this year or 14.7 to get the 15 and then that 15 would be deducted off the 50 for next year to figure out the construction thing and so the bond says
078we we're going to take these out because we're not going to spend all200 million in the first year we're going to do these in stages and it'll the interest will then in three years build up so we would just time the payments and bringing down this Bond over the three years to be able to capitalize on the interest on this and so then with that it' be a quick turnaround after we can't do anything until the results are official so that's where it comes in the beginning of December so if November 5th is election it takes 20 or 30 days to canas um so it'll be in the beginning of December and then we would have to do a quick or special board meeting to approve the parameters resolution what's the downside to this there
079is no downside it's it's just a financial thing it it could get you more interest earnings that you could use for the project um maybe be able to use it for something else that we may not have you know that if we cut down because we didn't have the money for this you know second baseball field that may not be part of the original we might be able to add those kind of features on said there's no cost PMA would charge us anything to start this no no so it's without a referend correct okay thanks I guess we can discuss why it was summarized rather than detailed as it has been in the past decade the board had at some point determined that it really wasn't that useful so we really weren't utilizing as a
080board it takes Mandy roughly two and a half hours every month to do it it's not an easy task to pull so because the board was not using it we decided to just give a summary we also have open as data dashboard that we have it gives us more details but she can't just pull those datas easily can't just like a print no and then it it takes about two two to two and a half hours a month to compile it so with this open architect you have a different software to give you those numbers for your data and for your research to figure out class sizes and what right we have an internal dashboard that we've buil that um allows us to see all the en bind things we see the the movement of
081people Mobility seein our district outside of our district all that that software versus US pulling it from skywards and putting into an Excel spreadsheet basically just for the work yeah right now I do like seeing the breakdown of the different grades myself too I don't know that we necessarily need to see it month to month but maybe being able to see it several times throughout the year to look at it maybe you know once a once a quarter or whatnot might be more benef official by yeah but do you want all the out placement in because that's part of this time consuming what's outplaced who is coming to our district from each building because remember we bring in people from u46 from D300 we send people to u46 D300 um we have placement you have
082kids that are coming from St Charles to here for our programs for special education because we're part of the mid Belling Cooperative so our student en Roman isn't just it's a mixed bag of different but we can show grade level the house stuff EAS it's easy easier much easier yeah I guess that's what we do is we utilize our software and see what we can get out of it right for more detailed view we can report report yep yeah if we took out all non-residents even right so you know I I think just looking it might be the simplest snapshot of who's in these classrooms in these buildings we miss of course some Valley classrooms uh in those you know that are occupied we might have a few you know some are all 301 students
083some are one 30 you know the class that were housing so you just had a footnote on there saying that it doesn't include those I think there's something to that yeah hopefully that'll be easier R it by well we talked about this we did talk about this because we said it's a lot of information and they just kind of like we glanced at it and we move on right and so to your point about utilization of time for the 8 seconds right that we were talking about it I mean you know so I'd be really maybe there's different versions of what's easy enough to select which things you want to include in that spreadsheet maybe different versions of thatch we can likely print off some pretty easily yeah the gra of some we'll at it
084perfect okay we talk next meeting yeah move on the four so uh Freedom of Information so we had Miss Welsh we received a request for the slide presentation and written report given by Ericson engineering at the October 16 2023 board meeting uh will a to comply with the request however there wasn't a written report uh Miss Curts we received a request for surveys and responses from the Special Education Association received by the board or superintendent between January 1st and June 30th of 2024 we a to comply with that request however personal names and contact information were redacted pursuant to for rules and regulations Mr Chapman you received a request for cost for retrofitting pkms CMS and CHS if the ref passes information regarding 2324 and 2425 teacher vacancy Grant including amount rece line budget actual
085expenditures and information regarding how unused funds were redistributed including District policy about how unspent allocations are handled we have to comply with the request Miss wel we received a request for information provided by gilan kellahan Nelson related to the roor RO property in 2006 through 2008 we're able to comply with that request M Martinez we received a request for all meeting minutes dictation contracts and internal Communications between Dr mgan and AR markest was denied uning Burson we invited Miss Martinez to reduce the scope of request we recently received a revised request miss Cameron we received a request for credit card statement details for purchases made by District credit cards for specific invoices between July and September 2024 we a to comply with that request Mr C we received a request for information rela to bid
086and permit documents for high school project from Larson Darby and for shels mcnut we were able to comply with that request and Miss wal we received a request for enrollment information including out of district and nonresident students broken down by school and as of October 1st 2024 we a to comply with this request because we did not receive the information compiled and we cannot submit any information for a specific date through our current software those were the fors we reive for this month any questions any motion second to adour an open session and move to close session for the following exceptions 2c1 2c2 2c1 and 2C 21 move second ful yes Phil yes Nolan yes papis yes buy yes aif yes Gman yes motion is carried thank you again for coming out tonight enjoy the
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