001e e e all right call the meeting to order please it is 7 p.m. no no they meting order people all right we're going to start off with uh I just called the order start with the our B hearing and we're going to do a roll call please isight ad here Andrey herey here Greger here Lisa Sher here Tyson here all right if you all stand with me we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liberty Justice for perfect thank you like to welcome our two visitors here thank you for joining us tonight we thought we were going to get uh skunk tonight but we appreciate you guys showing up all right
002um and then we're going to go right into our public hearing concerning the intent of the board to issue up to $15 million worth of Public Funding bonds yeah um these funds are going to be used to construct the high school we're doing them in up to $15 million increments because that allows us to take advantage of Arbitrage um we sold 10 million previously this will be a 15 million and we'll be doing this again next year and the year following um the key here is that we're doing this to with the cash flow of the construction project and to keep the bond and interest Levy flat uh no increase in the taxes there so um we'll be ready for another large scale project like the high school in 20 years so at this point
003in time it's just to hear any public comments on the sale of these bonds perfect do we hear any public comments ladies all right no one calling in other public comments all right any comments or questions from the board all right that concludes our public binding hearing would anybody like to make a motion to adjourn I'll make the motion Thank you Lisa second I'll second Andrew second roll call please Adam hon yes Andre Cory yes Kelly yes yes yes yes perfect our me adjourned at 7:02 pm. and with that we're going to call the regular session in order it is also 7:02 p.m. and make sure nobody snuck out in the last 10 seconds roll call please here yes yes here here here Perfect all right another chance to make public comments you two want
004to say anything we're all here for the same thing a perfect perfect give you the chance though all right any correspondents not seeing correspondents we have to worry about that all right we'll move right on to our business which we're start off with our consent agenda Mr gr if you yeah you've got your minutes in your finances um you'll note that there is an activity fund reports that they finally got done that will be July August and September activity funds we'll go back to them just once a month but um link finally got the reports set for us on that so it's a huge step forward still a few more steps forward we need but um you now have all the financials that we had prior to our financial conversion so that's a good thing
005um we got an a resignation abriel Mueller our transportation secretary we're sad to see her go uh however we understand and we believe that she'll stay on as a substitute driver as needed so um she's just going another way and Madison strob is who we are hiring for first grade teacher we had a teacher that was on maternity leave come back and then decide that they needed to be with their family um with that we posted the position and Madison strob would have liked to have been here tonight to meet you all however she is meeting families at Eagle Vi at parent teacher conferences and we felt that was a lot more important yes um so really all we've got is a a vacancy we would like to post for a transportation office um as
006a director we're looking for a transport ation director with that um Administration recommends the board approve the consent agenda as presented okay any questions from the board comments suggestions hearing none may may like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda is presented I'll make the motion thank you Tyson do I second I'll second thank you Kelly roll call please and yes Mo yeser yes Mr yes yes yes perfect all right move on to our Communications reports and presentations and I think we have a presentations from Mr schmel thank you welcome that would be me would you push those time you get seven they longer to go thank you for the opportunity to be here we're here to present the audit of the financial statements of the school district for the year end of
007June 30 2024 they're in draft form subject only to our delivery to the board and so there's nothing unusual about the fact that you're getting a draft uh I'm just going to walk through a couple of items I do do however have to make two quick comments one is that first meeting you had was a flat two minutes I got to tell you I go to a lot of boards I don't see many two-minute meetings so Kudos on the efficiency U the other is U I heard the comment that they were only here for one thing I'm assuming that's the audit thank you thank you thank you that's it with in between them and seeing their children and you can see how many chose this but that's okay and it was great to see an
008old friend as well so you have before you the audit we have performed the audit uh we've done so in accordance with General accepted auditing standards and governmental auditing standards as well as the specific requirements of the Illinois U education department because these are regulatory statements issued in compliance with the Illinois Department of Education and their requirements for audited financial statements to school districts in common Parliament that makes them effectively cash based statements as opposed to acral based statements because ultimately the department of education's view is that you have fiduciary responsibility over receipts and dispersements and that's really what this audit encompasses we had uh the complete cooperation of your staff we had no difficulties there were no disputes over accounting issues no disagreements over over access to accounting records for auditing purposes no disputes
009or disagreements over the financial statement presentation or conclusions we reached in all ways the audit was performed in a very much textbook fashion which course it should be done in the textbook fashion for school district so that seems especially appropriate um as a result of our audit work you will receive a you have are receiving a what's called a clean opinion now it is a clean opinion on the regulatory basis so if you really got into the weeds and read the report you would see that it's not a clean opinion under a generally accepted Accounting Standards Gap basis Financial for cruel but in terms of the regulatory basis it is absolutely a clean a pinion um I'm going to touch on a few items U with regard to your first your state of assets liabilities
010and and fund Equity the biggest single item for you all the biggest single item for you all was the bond activity for this year if you look at your cash balances for the year ended June 30 2024 versus 23 you would see that your cash is up some $8.8 million that was the first thing that certainly smack PR us into face as Auditors and we audited that obviously but it's specifically as a result of the bond issue and the activities around that so let's talk about your bond issues and and Gro already alluded to some of that but you had three bonds issues outstanding beginning the year ended June 30 2024 you had the 2014 Bond the 20177 bond and the 2020 Bond those three Bond issues you made your payments as scheduled those payments
011amounted to $3,390 th000 as required by the bond issues as well as a relatively insignificant 60,000 or so 61,000 interest expense that was the cost Associated cash cost associated with your Bonds in 2024 now you also issued Bonds in 20 24 to the tune of 9,995,000 uh why you couldn't get all the way up to 10 million and making our life a little easier I don't know but 9,995,000 was the bond issue and so you had an interest payment no principal payments but an interest payment in 24 for that as well and that was another uh 223,000 that was paid in interest in 2024 on that outstanding any bond there was no principal paid on that bond in 2024 now as was alluded to a minute ago the 2014 2017 and 2020 bonds will all
012be paid off final payments will be made this year so you will have $2,120 th000 of principal payments to completely satisfy those Bonds in fiscal year 25 and they'll be off the books entirely you will then start principal pay payments on the 2023 bond that first principal payment is due in 2025 that first principal payment will be in in the amount of uh 1,115 th000 there's another 200,000 interest so you'll see about a million3 paid out in 24 for that Bond the requirements in 25 for the then existing bond indebtedness will be dramatically less for cash flow basis although as the meeting covered earlier there'll be additional bonds issued so you won't enjoy that holiday for long the the only other thing to mention which of course I'm sure you all know that 2014 bonds
013had interest rates that ranged from 1 to 2.8% to 2017 bonds had interest rates that were all in the twos 2.1 the 2.6 the 2020 bonds you actually got a 1.01% interest rate somebody wanted that extra basis point apparently so 1.1 as opposed to the current bond issue for 2020 the one issued in 2024 which is a 2023 Bond of 4.04% so clearly your cost of borrowings has gone up dramatically with the rest of the market now the flip side of that is we will see some additional interest income that you'll recognize this year in particular so you are getting some of that back but net net you're going to have significantly higher bond interest going forward now with that 9,995,000 you then embarked on the beginnings of a substantial Capital improvement process and so
014these audited financial statements reflect that as well these audited financial statements reflect the fact that you spent $350,000 on a parking lot that was capitalized in 2024 that you spent some almost $60,000 on a bathroom privacy installation or set of installations for 2024 you spent another 2 almost $90,000 on the roof you had uh firewall expenditures which you know when I started this AO a long time ago firewall meant something different but uh this year you spent no gr $98,000 on the firewall which is protection on an IT basis uh the other expenditure was you have almost a million5 that was spent on the high school renovation process project so that's ongoing so you had Capital expenditures other than those that were expensed because some of your items that were spent were expensed rather than
015capitalized total capitalized items $2,293 th000 so you're well along the way of spending those bond issue monies that you got so that is your statement of assets um if there's any questions I'll pause otherwise I'm going to launch into the uh statement of revenues and expenses just for a bit and I'm only going to touch on the high points because the reality is this is a 69 page report um and culating a minute and a half a page we'll be out of here in an hour and a half easy so on the revenues and expenses if you look at it on a fund basis this year for the first time that we've seen in several years you had a an excess of dispersements over receipts in your education fund you actually had an excess of
016dispersements and over receipts of some $680,000 now that sounds like a lot however your budget because this was all planned for your budget provided for a deficit in the education fund of some $590,000 so you were about 85 sorry actually $95,000 off of your budget in the education fund importantly all of that was on the revenue side your Revenue news came in under budget by about by $134,000 in the education fund and I mention that specifically because you were a little worse than budget in total by 95,000 but you were under budget for expenditures the expenditures which is that item that you have the most control over were significantly less than budget and it was the $134,000 shortfall in revenues that caused you to be a little different than what you thought you would be
017most of that was in Title One low income dollars that just didn't come in as you might have otherwise thought um overall overall revenues and again I'm just going to gloss on a couple of high points overall revenues from local sources for the school district in this school year year were [Music] 2,960 sorry yes last year they were 21 mil5 so you're up a million4 roughly in revenues from local sources and that came principally from two places the first place it came from is real estate taxes your real estate taxes that you collected this year of 17.9 million were up substantially over what they had been in the previous year at 167 so that additional amount flowed into your local Source Revenue the other big increase is the flip side of what we talked about
018with the bonds your interest earnings this year were in excess of $900,000 last year they were around $600,000 so your your investment of monies was diligent and generated an additional 300,000 what you had last year now some of that is rate some of that is the immediate investment of the bond proceeds that you received to generate interest from that so now I'm going to touch on just a couple other items and then I'm happy to take any questions um I'm going to make you though turn to page 58 the good news is I'm skipping all the other 57 Pages you don't need to talk about I said 58 is that not right 56 I apologize 56 56 is your imrf responsibilities which is to say your pension obligations for your teachers and I'm just going
019to talk about this for a minute because it doesn't appropriately doesn't appear on your statement of assets and liabilities but it is in point of fact nevertheless a real liability of the district so on page 56 about 2/3 of the way down in the far left colum you will see a number of $534,000 that $534,000 represents the excess of obligations you have on a Actuarial basis over the amount of investment assets that you have to apply to that so right now you are underfunded by $534,000 now on the one hand old school $534,000 is a lot of money on the other hand that leaves you literally better than 96% funded overall and now I want to take just a minute to walk you through the historical set of perspective so you feel better about about
020that half millionar of underfunded if you go all the way over to 2014 which is the far right column you see that you were underfunded at that point by $533,000 if you go along four years later in 2017 you were actually overfunded and the way this report Works state of elar produces it negative numbers means you're overfunded because they never think anybody's going to be overfunded so that negative number of 117,000 says in 2017 you were overfunded 2018 you then had a liability of a milon 387 well what happened what happened is if you run your your eye up those numbers you see about Midway through that column A $600,000 6976 the market fell out of bed in 2018 and as a consequence the baked in Investments that the actuary Actuarial Table say you should
021earn fell short and so because you lost 600,000 your share of the market loss for the state that took you from an overfunded basis of 177 to underfunded of a million 387 you then proceeded to chip away at it and you can see by 2020 you were overfunded by 525,000 and the next year you were overfunded by a million 578 so you're in really good shape and what that means practically is year in and year out you have to send less money up to the state to meet your Actuarial requ requirements for imrf So being overfunded simply saves you budgetary dollars for the next several years as you have to send up L and then you see in 2022 you're back to being underfunded by a million 170 if you're feeling a little whiplashed um
022and you're underfunded because again if you run your eye up in 2022 the market cratered and you see that you had a loss of a, 900,000 in your share of the Investment Portfolio which drove you to be underfunded by a million 170 this year you're underfunded by $534,000 the market being positive as it has been I'm not in the the business of crystal balls but I would expect that next year when we come back we should see a small overfunded or a tiny little underfunded balance because your imrf fund is really in good shape so that was a long way around to tell you that you're okay in this fund but I wanted you to understand that even though you're currently underfunded you're well on the way to being overfunded and from a budgetary perspective
023that should be positive now I have just one more thing to cover and that is as a part of our audit we're required not only to audit the assets liabilities revenues and expenses of the school district but also to specifically audit the federal monies that you receive the receipt of those Federal monies and the dispersement of those Federal monies in accordance with the provisions of the specific grants that those monies are tied to and we're required to report that and this document does report that by individual program and by program cluster group but what I want to to your attention to is Page 66 because 66 is the financial statement findings that we're required to report to the federal government as a result of our audit efforts and you will see that that almost entirely
024blank page says None So that is a happy thing and if you turn to page 68 which is federal award findings and questioned costs which is if we found anything within the specific provisions of the grants both in terms of the overall operation of the district and in terms of the receipt and expenditure of those monies appropriately and you will see again that that says None So in this case none is a good thing um and other than mentioning that nuns were always a good thing when I was in grade school uh these nuns are better because I'm an auditor and I really have nothing else for this board unless you have any questions than me on 65 material weakness identified and that's still yes and it looks like that's still steming from our theft
025issue we had a few years ago but you're saying that there's no there's no Financial loss and but are we still we still don't have the financial controls I thought we did so to be and thank you for for mentioning that I I was going to not dwell on it we are required to treat you as a high-risk audit because there was a material weakness in the previous year regarding that incident and so that's what that is it's just leftover and that's why I focused on this year if you look at page 67 67 is a discussion of that whole situation uh uh which Andrea did a nice job helping us uh ultimately craft but you will see in status the first line of the status says this finding is considered resolved at June 30
0262024 so that's as clean a bill of health as we can give but we're required to put it in as this happened and is it cleaned up or not because there have been cases where we have to report we had it last year it's still an issue and so we have to repeat the finding but that's not the case here okay so you're you're saying we do have the accounting controls in place currently to prevent this from occurring in the future I'm saying that to you and this report is saying it to the world okay anyone else perfect thank you very much for all your time [Music] enjoy you come back I have other meetings I'll get I need all the help I can get I'm sure you're probably not used to getting Applause so
027that's that's a good I'm not used to Applause thank you Mr commercial thank you very much you thank you appreciate it right we'll move right along to our communication reports and presentations and next is the enrollment report which is in your packet and we'll go on to our building reports got goer here today goer welcome all right [Music] ask you ask what are you going to ask them you want coffee muffins did we bring them coffee or hot chocolate you want hot chocolate or muffins okay so coffee crew wanted to come show you guys what they do here you want to take your card around this way sorry the wheels don't work well Mom here you want to do muffins no you want to go to Mom he like a that's a thank you so
028much all right so coffee crew delivers in my classroom we deliver every Friday morning to the teachers mu I would love a hot chocolate you want to pass out muffins so very much go ask them so as they're passing that out bumer classroom teacher who does an amazing job with our students thank you so she features this on Friday says highlight of and the district office we make sure we're so what they do is every Friday they take uh orders on Thursday and on Friday morning the kiddos get it all ready to go and they deliver it um we also do this at uh the middle school so it's also featured there the teachers love it they actually do it daily at the middle school cuz those teachers really need that at the middle school
029right the teachers want it too but you know thank you so miss fmer can you share you know it's obviously it's great for teachers and it's great for the staff and all of that but can you share what it does for our students so year to it kind of teach we started punch card so the students just work on I have some Lally just do the motor punch the holes in the cards um they get to have conversations with um just staff adults in the building um what all do we do they you been following directions like filling our orders we some years it's colorcoded some years it's you know I use as simple as just shapes I have some strong readers this year so they get to help with the orders that way lots
030of different skills um they they started doing um baking last year to I got a text from Miss bumer I think I was at CCO and there was an oven that we needed so she said we need an oven so they started making so that adds to that you know following recipes that life skills thank you it to our audience too well we ran out of muffins um but we wanted to just feature and again we have students who um are non so they'll use their AC devices we have students who um maybe physically can't do some things our speech and language staff have provided ways that if you want to put some pictures of I think we have it um pictures that have provided ways to we can hook up to the the curig
031maker and that student can use a button that will turn on the CU maker so they're a part of the class so it's everyone very inclusive um and I think also M Palmer added another touch to this you guys hear about in inclusion right where we uh our students will go into the gened classroom well she's bringing the gened classro to her and to them and so they help with the students so there's inclusion within a classroom that they feel comfortable in because sometimes it's intimidating to go into a gene class um a lot more students and it's uncomfortable they don't they don't that's not their classroom on a regular basis so she's brought in Jed students to help so they develop those relationships um with the the students that they don't get to see
032all the time so there's just so many communication social academic things going on just with this oh yeah hour less an hour lesson they do you know a day yeah we day we did measuring just working on following the directions um even as simple as like kitchen safety like with the oven like they know yes M told me every step tonight when we were making the hot chocolate like be careful it's hot like just stuff like that just getting them involved um sister syvia was our PTA person last year I did the coffee crew for PTA so jened students got to come in and participate you were a star with us weren't you I want stay in here you want to stay do you guys have any questions for Miss Balmer but first of all
033let's give our guys your um you had these made last year didn't you yes they helped I brought in my Cricket the one day they did your show them your apron your Aon he's like I'm done with my job I'm out of here you show them what's on your over turn around turn around and show them they want to see what's the picture so cute there a lot on there show them your coffee cup here right there yeah we have our coffee cup kind of their logo yeah coffee c a lot of our stuff is donated like cups donated um here in town for Moto so usually we'll just print a sticker or something but we do lots of different things they love it and the money that's generated just kind of funds itself um
034we also have funds available through what they call the step Grant which is actually the money's generated from the high school work Co-op program but as long as we use it for anything with um Independent Living all of those sort of things it goes right back in So when she says I need okay we got it you know cuz it just helps we're starting it at such a young age that they just it'll just continue as they go on to high school because you as you probably have seen our high schoolers do a ton of things too they're selling at the football games they're making t-shirts making apparel all of those sort of things so she's getting the ground work started and it just keeps on goinging so it's very fluid for our kids so
035again thank you so much I also wanted to highlight while we're here car have to go way to go you guys got to go he's the manager yes awesome it doesn't steer well I installed the wheels back and then another highlight just real quick doing what it wants [Laughter] yeah and since Halloween is coming up I also wanted to feature something else that our speech and language um Miss bahek and Mrs misner put together about four years ago um Halloween can be very uh scary for some of our students right um going up to houses looking at wearing their own Halloween costumes can be very uncomfortable um and seeing other Halloween costumes can be very scary um and knowing what to do when you go up to a door so they have decided that they
036are going to teach our students how they practice so we I think on the 31st it actually falls on uh we're going to do it and um we set up we'll have a table district office our principal set up and we have a bunch of tables and they go through and they practice how to say trick or treat or as you can see up in the right hand corner some of our students are non-verbal so those are um core uh core uh pictures that they can use that has trick-or treat on them and things like that so it gets everyone involved um but again it's just a a great way that our our staff looks beyond the school walls and says what can we help with outside of school so kudos to our speech uh
037staff who just continually look at innovative ways to to help our kids so anyway that's it I appreciate you guys coming you know I I just want I just I have to say this that I am feel so blessed that Alex is in the Columbia School District because he he has benefited more than when he was born than we all ever thought he and I just I see a brighter I see a nice a nice future for him thanks to what you all are doing well most of you all are doing story so for most of you so I just really that thank you thank you thank you any questions thanks for letting me share you us I know the hot chocolate hot chocolate isot [Laughter] after definitely and next time you see Mr all
038right move on to our administrative reports and unfortunately somebody has to follow that I know choose to fill but I'm ready if you guys um so we're going to start with our district shoutouts um this month I went directly to the principales and I said give me some some amazing things your staff members are doing and so I have some comments to share from our building principles um our first one is from Mrs Vinnie from Eagle View she shares Mrs KY our kindergarten teacher she's an excellent collaborator and outstanding with children with a wide variety of needs and she's always willing to help out and go the extra mile to support our school she recently took the lead on creating a calming room for students and staff in our building so a big way to
039go to Mrs KY Mr Dugan uh shares and shouts out his RTI teacher Mrs King that would be his choice Mrs King makes connections with all of her students and creates excitement for students going for extra reading support she's also a role model and checks in with the students that are struggling with behaviors as she tries to motivate them to make good choices Mrs King also helps with making our building look nice Mr Dugan is very big on making the building look nice she is our green thumb and she makes sure our flowers and plants stay watered Mrs King brings a positive energy that you just can't teach Mrs Miller from the Middle School uh shares and shouts out Mrs forky her RTI teacher she went above and beyond when helping the teachers admin and
040students with map Benchmark testing this last month she helped test students and organize makeups for those that were absent she also entered scores printed out results for all students to take home we really appreciated her and then Mr Reeves from the high school shares uh that his shout out is Mr gagan Mr gagan is a multitasker he shares he's a wonderful medical assistant I'm assuming helping in different different areas of the school a great mentor to new teachers extremely supportive and encouraging in all classroom management discussions so a big shout out to our amazing staff and our principles that took the time to to give them shout outs that's important um some things that I would like to share I was able to attend the superintendent conference at the end of September I was amazing
041to reconnect with with other superintendents and kind of see um where the vision is for Illinois the big thing we learned is that they are working on their Vision 2030 which they're going to share at the school board member conference in November um number one on their list was school safety um with everything going on in the world that has been for the past two years a huge focus with uh the state and education teacher retention um that's also how are we going to help our teachers want to stay and maintain in the school buildings and and keep them wanting to come back Colombia is amazing and truly um top-notch when it comes to that so we definitely are doing good things here um the state also wants to continue to improve post-sec secondary transitions
042so when they graduate high school how are we prepping them for vocational areas how are we prepping them for um college or university work if that's their chosen path um and the last thing which has definitely been with all of our work on school Improvement plans something we've been talking about student achievement State Testing all of those things um the state really wants to start relooking at this and seeing how we're sharing the accountability for student achievement um our Illinois report card that is going to be coming out probably probably in the next two weeks um so I will be sharing and presenting on the school report card next month with where we are with summative designations and test scores um that were taken last year um I'm super excited this kind of goes with
043what Mrs goer was doing with her students we have some student involvement with our a program we are extremely excited I've been working with Mr Burch um as I pointed out Mr Dugan does Love The Green Thumb um and he's pointed out that he loves some Landscaping help so Mr B um is teaching a landscaping unit with some high school students they are going to be designing um some different um blueprints per se for our Landscaping projects they will be submitted um to Administration to which then we will select um a plan for the front of the district office and the front of Park View um and those students will be coming and help manage take care of plant we're super excited um in fact I even went to a pancake breakfast with Mr bur
044just the other uh week and that was an amazing thing as well they're doing great things um we also are going to be planting some trees hopefully there have been some businesses that are working with Mr Birch the area right behind the Middle School um four to five trees is kind of his goal to plant um a year to help fill up some of that green space it is not going to uh mess up anything that is already there it's just going to add to the to the back and grow and into different things and opportunities for the students Mr Grody and I have talked um a couple of times on the retaining wall that is behind the middle school that's a conversation it's a little challenging when you're mowing because there's parts of of
045green in that wall so I have talked to Mr birch as well to see if he had any ideas um I also was very clear because I've been part of these a projects before and I said these have to be feasible and we have to be able to maintain them um with the people that we have on staff so all of that has been discussed and we're really excited about what's to come um curriculum as I mentioned last month we are working K8 Ela just to make sure that our new program rooted in Reading is working for all classrooms and we're going to continue to have these discussions middle school has reached out and they need some support with the ELA program um so we're going to start having some committee meetings and looking at
046different resources really excited to um partner with Waterloo I have um a lunch with a curriculum coordinator in waterl in two weeks they're kind of implementing Ela not kind of if they are and so some of their pilots and what we're looking at we're going to co- collaborate and see what we can come up with and how we can maybe navigate that together um social studies is also on the docket I'm going to start having committee meetings on the 29th and 30th to start navigating that with teachers as some of you know parent teacher conferences started today um and then they will also be next week on Wednesday and I saved what I I say the best is for last but it's all been pretty awesome right we're having a job fa um we are
047wanting to get some substitutes and I'm really excited to try this normally a district would do this in the summer um it would be easier but we are in need of substitutes um I'm hearing my principes I'm hearing my teachers say we need some additional support um other districts have done this so I with the support of some technology individuals in this District are going to be promoting this um Marlo Rose from the city is meeting with me next week and we're going to um work on some PR within the community and then I'm als I also reached out to the Republic times um to see if they can maybe help with getting that in the newspaper um as far as the substitute opportunities it's endless um it can be for transportation cafeteria classroom we're
048looking for it all um we're going to have an Roe representative here to do on on the spot license question answers and then we'll have department heads so special ed will be here to answer questions for parir of professionals kitchen will be here to answer um any questions on substitutes for the cafeteria um I think it'll be a a great a great day um I'm excited to see it and our motto is become an eagle today we're excited excited to see what happens that's all I have any questions Dr K you're welcome and welome to our superintendent report all right um October is a principal month actually the third week of October is the school administrator week and October 25th is um principal day declared by the governor and so when you see your administrators
049give them a shout out for that uh thinking about the leadership of schools and whatnot when you see the children today giving us our coffee and doing you know real service you know exchanging the money the the ordering the making and it to us when you talk about our a program looking at doing landscape design and installations when you look at real life problems that are are are able to be solved in our educational organization I I don't know if there's anything that's better than that um but there is then everything else I guess so I just want to say to the principles that October 25th is their day and we've got some great schools it really is uh nice I've got two audits reports to give you real quickly mine will be much shorter
050but uh the Roe comes in for their yearly audit and they check all of our Personnel files and everything and there was just a handful of small little tiny issues that we always will have because there's so many eyes to not so many te's to cross they come in they check things and then we get them fixed next year they'll come back and they'll check things again uh imrf also came in and did the audit I believe their last time they were here doing an audit was in 17 or 18 18 it was around that time but they came in and did another audit and there were only a few small issues the imrf audit was very well timed because as we did the financial software conversion our payroll people and uh accounts payables got
051a deep dive into some of the rules and rs on what it takes to be a retired person what it takes to get the the pensions and all of the details there again there were only a a small handful of issues and it was a great learning experience for all involved you know because audits are kind of like going to the doctor you you find out what is ailing you you fix it and then you move on better and healthier than you were before um special meeting we've got a bond meeting on the 28th at 6: p.m. uh that will be our special meeting it's a Monday I believe Monday and uh after this session today we'll have Clos session we will have one action item after closed session but that's my superintendent report thank
052you very much all right move on to our items for Action the first one is approval of the 2024 teacher and administrative salary and benefit report yeah we're going to do that next month um this month we got our activity fund reports from link finally after 3 months and uh we will but next month have the teacher and administrative salary and benefits report so that got tabled table that all right and next is the approval of the 2024 annual Finance report as presented it was a clean bill of health administration recommends the board approved the 2024 annual financial report also known as the AFR as presented any questions comments concerns hearing none would anybody like to make a motion to approve the annual financial report as presented everybody at wants I'll make the motion Thank
053you Lisa do I a second I'll second I think Andrew beat you out sorry Andrew seconds roll call please yes yes yes pleas issue marer yes Tyson search yes next item is the approval bid to purchase a 2025 chevet a Silverado 2500 double custom four-wheel drive is that the DBL double custom I just wrote down what they provided for us um if a custom's good I drive a Kia Soul so it's yeah um we we uh had in our budget a uh uh truck purchase for our maintenance department we posted a a bid and we had nobody respond so I went back to the bid changed the dates and I hand delivered the the bid paper to the three dealers here in town we got one response uh Administration recommends that the board approved the
054standard cab bid of 52557 for the purchase of a 2025 Chevrolet Silverado um double custom four-wheel drive truck as presented this one does not have a flex capacitor it's probably a good thing just for clarification it's not as standard it's a double cab right it is not a crew cab there is not four doors it is a a two-o there he provided two bids he provided a bid for a two-door truck and a four-door truck the four-door truck was $2,000 more than this bid price and so I I the only advantage to having the four-door truck would be that our football team would but they ride in the bus anyway so this would be the twoo did the paper get in there cuz there were two bids on the no they they provided for all
055these are double cab as far bids theid M which means there's four doors can you have a double cab with just two doors yeah can't put the seat no the double cab actually it's with the GM models okay I don't know I'm just asking it it does say absolutely because there's double cab and there screw cab they're both four doors it's just the double cab is shorter this one's a double cab we are going the crew cab was $2,000 more 2,000 and some more and so there really wasn't a need to go with the crew cap in my opinion so this is the the double cap okay I mean I just yeah you said regular capab it's not it's it is a four-door it's just the smaller of the four-doors I don't see that as
056a problem because anytime people are doing maintenance it's not uncommon to have more than two people Andor you need gear that doesn't go in the back of the truck it's really you know there is there is a benefit and it's not much more expensive so okay I just wanted to clarify because it's you said regular cab and this is we're approving a double cab well that's where you got the double I will bring the I will bring the the bid that they gave us to them and with the purchase order we will purchase it if you approve okay any discussion would anybody like to make a motion to buy a pickup truck I'll make the motion thank you Adam second second Kelly second all right roll call please Andy yes KY yes yes yes yes
057yes thank you sorry and I will comment they did give us a really good price even though we didn't have a whole lot of competition on the bid I I was pleased with the amount of the bid I think they was high they did really good job on that so purchased them this year so I could get for this price yeah they so thank you Weber Chevrolet for tax breakes so well there's more than tax breaks there's just customer discounts that aren't available it's okay it's good it's a very fair price yeah definitely I was pleased with that so anyway all right cool we bought a pickup truck so next item is approval of our second reading for board policies price ISU 116 I think we have some well there was the um Adam had
058mentioned at the last that the the Title Nine grievance procedure needs to be looked at because the there's parental rights that was a concern um as I read through them I found those more in the uniform grievance procedure which was policy 2260 where it they're striking out the sentence that says that we will notify parents should someone be a complaintant and so I I figured that was what the the issue was um I talked talked to our lawyers and they indicated that with bullying complaints which this could kind of be construed as we do contact our parents and so he they saw no issues with making that modification on that one sentence of that Adam I'll let you talk more about the your concerns yeah if I mean that kind of speaks to the to
059the Crux of it is the policy recommendation from the state for IB or whoever it is was that basically the languages this as that the school school district will notify the parents they remove that part from the verbiage and that's what I was you know had concern with I was like why would you why would you intentionally remove the you know notification of parents um so and it's because they're not requiring the administration to do that anymore and so by keeping that sentence in we would be expected to do that right but that would be your decision not the state's decision because the state would say that you don't have to we don't have to notify the parents so and I mean in the current process is that we notify the parents so this will
060be removing that notification requirement and I think it's best that we do notify parents if I agree people are bullying or filing complaints or other things of that nature so so with that one sentence being um not moved Administration would make the recommendation that you approve the policies with that modification um during the discussion as presented okay any other discussion regarding your press policies right would any like to make a motion to approve the second reading of the board policy press issue 116 with the exception of the parent rental notification I you Adam second I'll second Tyson a roll call please Greer yes yes tyon search yes yes Andy yes yes perfect thank you all so much that concludes our items for Action in our regular session here next item is our discussion items we'll
061start with our facility study I've got one thing I just want to bring up and see if the board would be interested we have an opportunity um regarding a scoreboard in the new gymnasium we're looking at scoreboards it so happens that there is a gentleman that has moved to town and he's moving his company here uh digital scoreboards and we've been in communication with them at one of our football games he brought out a sample digital scoreboard um because he's moving his company here he's looking at giving us a quite a nice price we would end up being a showcase for him when he would bring customers in um if if we are looking at going in that direction what I like about his product is is it's not just the scoreboard but it's the
062technology that goes along with it he's got a curriculum that you can create a class that would learn how to operate said scoreboard um in that class of operating said scoreboard there are colleges that give scholarships to people that can operate scoreboards and things of that nature but it also is for making video um commercials and then they would be able to go out and sell the commercials it's kind of a business class um the idea behind having a scoreboard I I know that we've got a lot of projects going on and people say why would you spend money on a scoreboard you have a scoreboard the scoreboard with the ad sales and with the curriculum that goes with it provides a nice opportunity where you buy the scoreboard and it pays itself off through
063the ad revenues um this is something that I would be interested in in bringing back to the board for your consideration should you um direct me to do so thoughts considerations opinions is this just for the football field is it for the auditorium is it for the new gym what is it for what this would be right now would be because the new Gym's not there yet it would be for the football field the multi-purpose field sorry and for the uh gymnasium because then the ads that are created would be able to play both inside and outside and so if you get an ad with the district it would be at the multi-purpose field which would include the track the soccer the football and then it would also be during volleyball and basketball um then
064the next decision would need to be made when you build when we build the new gym do we move the scoreboards that are in the current gym into the new gym and then replace the old scoreboards back or do we get new scoreboards for the new gym as well and have new scoreboards there but that's a question that could be thought of down the line with respect to curriculum uh he's this this business in town is offering to provide curriculum to teach students how to run scoreboards that they could then go on to college and perhaps get a job at College doing that um uh who would teach the class yeah that's going to be something we're going to need to figure out so right now what would happen is the company would do a
065lot of that work and they would um assist us in the selling of the ads and then there'd be a split of the revenue on that until we have the class made up but uh you know I've already started talking to the Roe as far as would that be a business class or would that be a graphics class what would that be what would the certification be um It's relatively new in the state and so um as far as the class is concerned and Illinois having its Oddities around their certification processes and whatnot um those would be issues we'd have to figure out I believe it St marketing and media how they categorized it so that would fall under their business yeah my experience is and I hate to say this but when you find
066the right person for the class then you start arguing what you need the certification for because you want what the class is and what the person can be certified for to to meet and so there's I mean I agree it is a marketing class but if I get somebody that might be more artistically inclined or have the credit hours I could get that certification then yeah there's wiggle rooms as far as turning that credit into this or that um is there a ballpark range on cost or there is I don't have that offand but I if you guys are interested with that we can bring it back to the next board meeting and get a more thorough discussion of this but it is about the time where they're starting to ask what kind of scoreboard
067are we looking at for the new gym because they've got a structure and space out and do the wirings and whatnot well we definitely have to look at the numbers it has to make sense for us to do it okay I'm certainly interested in supporting somebody local want to give us a discount and I love the idea of the curriculum for the kids so I'm 100% would be I will have that on the agenda for next month perfect it seems like a win on all all different fronts so again depend on the numbers I guess perfect anything else regarding um we construction had our meeting today uh we actually took some time after the meeting today and walked the looked at the foundations that they're putting up um it seems like it's going in excruciatingly
068slow and I I I feel your pain uh I I keep I've turned to now saying it's we we will be walking through those front doors in August so yes they're moving slow and they'll move a lot faster later but and today they did say yeah no we will be walking through those doors in August so so I would like to clarify they're not moving slow it's just you don't see the progress I got say I I was I'm very happy with the progress I think they're moving at a great pace and they're doing a really good job they our compaction rates are way above where they should be all our test results are coming back they're doing a great job um and you know we were kind of talking about the scoreboard a minute
069ago and this is something new to Illinois when we started this project we did a new kind of a deal also where we we hired this owner's rep to look out for our interest and then we also have our construction manager at risk so we limit our liability to the to the district that model is working out so well I mean and you can comment on it also but I I I'm just amazed how well this is working out for something that really has not been done before in the school environment that we're in we're we're catching mistakes we're we're ahead of everything we're doing a schedule I mean we're down to the day this is coming in this day this is coming in that day and uh you know it was it was very
070nice to see we got footings already in place we have peers that are going the rebar is done they were digging I mean we're taking the fill out we're putting it on the hill so when we do the gym we can bring it back down and use that instead of getting rid of the fill buying fill we're storing excess products and I mean it's just it just going really really well so sorry to brag on this but but uh I'm I am very impressed with with the work that these folks are doing so yeah and on top of that even having discussions about items with long lead times we're talking about stuff that's being you know scheduled to be delivered in April and it's staying on you know on the discussion list even you know
071still today so that it's not being lost on anyone of future potential delays and how we prevent those and what you know where they fit into the schedule and how it all slides together so having you know having those discussions continually and not just waiting for them to overrun or to run late or be like oh you know we told you back in you know six months ago that this was a long lead time and we said then it was going to be April but now it's going to be May or June you know that's pretty normal for how that usually happens but that's you know the like Greg said the communication is is going really well having the owner owner rep that's you know part-time helps us tremendously with that staying on top of
072the you know avoiding potent avoiding delays or helping to interpret you know the construction lingo to those of us that aren't construction professionals um you know so that we're understand discussion about the doors was interesting you should see me in those meetings when when the you know when they contract The Architects and the engineers and you know the actual Constructors are talking about the project they talk in their language and then you know those of us that are in attendance you know having that liaison if you will to help bridge that Gap is is proving to be very helpful so yeah it's while the public doesn't see a whole lot of physical progress it I can assure you it is happening well in how work me this is the slow part so this is the
073underground work this is the dirt work this is the votings and Foundations and that sort of thing and this goes slow and then all a sudden you're going to see this thing just fly up probably late January early February you're going to see a lot of progress very quickly you're going to say okay it's almost done and then after it gets closed in it's going to slow right back down again because you're not going to see that progress and so just kind of the Natural Evolution of construction but yeah nobody nobody sees electricians and plumbers and stuff doing subgrade work you know burying pipe and doing all the planning and prep for everything to run underneath the building you don't see that but that's what's happening right now so you know it it is a
074lot of work you just don't see tangible difference so any questions or right cool all right our next discussion items is the isba resolutions first reading you've got your packet here um please read through it between now and next month you'll see on the very last page there is a cheat sheet for Mr search as we have our discussions we are going to go through all of these um items there's what 12 six 14 items that you're going to say yes or no on and then one um parliamentary practice procedure so there be some decisions that you'll make next month but if you read through it um questions concerns give me a call but uh we'll have the discussion next month on those any questions in the meantime all right move on to individual board
075member comments anybody have anything for this evening I have something I'd like to comment on talk about it's a Scholastic Book Fair in just regards to parental control over what kids are able to view and buy when they go through and I don't know when the last time anybody went to a book fair um with their kids but I do know that like we just had the Middle School Book Fair and fifth through eighth grade can shop those books and some books that I might deem appropriate for my child to read might not be something that somebody else deems appropriate but at any time kids can walk through and look at whatever they want so what I would like to talk about is how we can give parents control over what their kids are able
076to view and buy and what they're spending their money on because if you know this if you buy something from the book fair you can't return it so if your kid brings something home that you don't approve of you're stuck with it um so I don't know if we can discuss how we can make that possible for parents to have full control over what they're kids are being exposed to or buying or whatever yeah we could probably do that best by maybe having the subcommittee Dr gainy and I had kind of discussed this before because there's that fine line between we want to make sure people have the rights to be able to see what they want to be able to see but then the parents also saying no and whatnot um we're not talking
077about banning books we're not talking about anything like that we're just Shifting the Monkey back on to the parents right um I know that there was this year we because we had the transition in our our library we did not get on the Scholastic Book Fair calendar and so it was not done as it normally is with reading night correct in conjunction which is usually when parents can go in with their kids and do that and so there's a lot of things that we can do to try and tweak this and make it better and so um maybe we'll start a subcommittee you'll be on it sure love committees I think it's a great idea all right and and it's I think it's a very delicate balance I you know when a me as a
078parent like Kelly said we all have different tolerances or you know what what you think is appropriate and inappropriate and you know there's a delicate balance between exposing the kids to these books and that sort of thing and also spend the parents harder money on what they don't want to spend so it's a balance and I think I think anytime we have a chance to get parents more involved in education I think we should do it but uh again I I don't want to discourage reading either so I think a committee is a great idea we can kind of sit down and okay get some ideas and all right resol thank you for bringing it up anyone else where pregant BR I have nothing else for this evening and with that we do have any
079EXE itive session we doing all these or just oh we are doing A and B A and B all right and we're going to go into executive session for the purposes of appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of a specific employee of the public body or legal counsel for the public body including hearing testimony for a complaint lodged against the public body of the public body or against the legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity pursuant to 5 IL cs20 2c1 or also student dis disciplinary cases pursuant to 5Cs 1202 C9 that would a may like to make a motion to adjourn into executive session I'll make the motion thank you Kelly second second seconds roll call please Kelly yes yes Lisa Sher yes Tyson search yes Adam hkin yes Andre
080court right it's 8:10 pm. we're going to Jour to Executive session we do have one item action as result of our executive session if you guys want to rejoin us afterwards you're more than welcome to e e e we just concluded our executive session as a result we do have one action item and it is um least would you like to make a motion I move that this board clarify student number 20242 expulsion to end on December 22nd 2024 instead of the end of the first semester of 2024 2025 school year do I have a second I'll second Andra roll call please Andre Cory yes Kelly Moyer yes Greg Meyer yes L schacher yes Tyson searge yes Adam Henkin yes all right motion carries last item is a motion to adjourn would any be like
081to make a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to thank you Andrew second I'll second second all in favor I any oppos all right concludes our meeting it's 8:26 p.m. thank you very much for joining us