001all right it is seven o'clock we'll call the meeting to order welcome everyone to the November edition of this Columbia School boarding meeting we'll start off with a roll call vote please Kimberly Adam here Tammy hi here Andrea Corey Here Andrew um Greg Meyer sure uniform everybody would stay with me and recite the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States for all thank you welcome visitors tonight we've got a good group of you out there thank you for your participation and everybody styling in or conferencing from home thank you for taking the time to join us this evening do you have any public comments no well I fear one of you guys would have a public comment tonight so I was so excited all right correspondence is going around
002a lot of nice thank you cards from the kids that's I think it's board member appreciation day so this is the one day of the year that anybody appreciates us probably so so we thank them very much for that move right on to our agenda items the first is our consent agenda Mr great if you'd walk us through that please yeah um all of our reports as they normally are we've got some resignations namely a cook and a volleyball coach we still have vacancies for paraprofessionals and for a volleyball coach um and then we've got two non-certified class advancements so our drivers get paid after years of service and so they get to move to the higher rate so that's good for them um nothing of the only big importance there Personnel issues are down
003because of it being November so Administration recommends the board approved the consent agenda is presented perfect any questions discussions concerns they would like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented I'll make that motion thank you Scott throw your second I'll second Ary seconds a roll call please yeah perfect thank you very much all right items seven is our Communications report and presentations uh enrollment report is in the packet will then go on to our Minister unless anybody any questions on those we've gone to our administrative reports and we'll start with our building report hi that's Tom Miller for all of the board members I believe this one wasn't here before so thank you very much for having us here we have had an exciting start to this school year we're rocking
004and rolling with bringing back fun and memories and projects and Hands-On activities and yeah first so in October we decided to do some fun pumpkin decorating contests and because we had a new Facebook page we wanted to encourage parents to make sure that they're going to the correct one and Miss land graphs out of this world pumpkin received the most likes on our Facebook page miss spivey's a hot air balloon pumpkin was the one that the staff had voted or staff members had voted for from central office and anybody that did not have an advisory and then on the bottom is Miss Haven's pumpkin that's followed the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory theme but the kids really love that they love being able to dress up this year they were super excited to do that
005and and there we are as office team as Hocus Pocus having some fun so the month of October was a memorable one and they really appreciated being able to do all those extra fun things they were very creative every single pumpkin so if you haven't been able to go back and look at our Facebook page there was 30 of them that were spectacular I don't know how I could have chose that but they did the next group on the left it was Miss atwell's class their Spanish B Class created sugar skulls and they invited Mr Elliott and myself to come and make one so we had a competition as to which which sugar school the kids liked more I won and then and then the Spanish a made flowers and they were really proud of
006those and then miss Alexander is going to talk about things that were happening in the fifth grade I'm Becky Alexander I do teach fifth grade you can see on the top some pictures of our chocolate party our first novel of the year is Charlie and the Chocolate party so our Chocolate Factory so we always have a party at the end and watch the movie and they get to go through a buffet line with a chocolate fountain and we you know enjoyed that we asked them all not to be like Augustus Gloop and make themselves sick but they um they do a really good job and they have a lot of fun I have notes for the bottom because at the bottom are science classes science is not my thing I taught it the first year
007I was at the middle school and moved to math and have been happy ever since but the science lab that they are doing in the bottom pictures is chemical changes and Metric measuring so they were measuring the distance a cap shot off of a film canister so they're using measuring tapes water and Alka-Seltzer so they love to go outside anytime they can make something explode like that they did some experiments at home similar to that with Alka-Seltzer and soda is that right and Mentos and soda Mentos and sodas so they love that kind of stuff and the fifth grade science teachers especially would like to thank and recognize that the PTA has given them the grant again this year for their fifth grade stargazing night so I think they've done it two years now this
008will be the third year so it's a really a big deal and the kids love it so they wanted to acknowledge and thank the PT is that what night is that what night is that I missed it last time yes we will make sure that you know the date there were a lot of pictures submitted from um teachers and we have so many at any day you can come into the classrooms and see all the great activities that all of the grades are doing Escape rooms and projects and it's a really great place to come visit so our next one the community really reached out and thanked us for bringing back the Veterans Day breakfast and ceremony our basketball girls helped clean up the tables and serve our community members we had over 125 veterans
009236 students I mean total between the students and the veterans there that day on the entire staff pitched in to help from parking to serving to creating the missing man table it was just a really great day Kim Johnson's sister Kelly McCoy came in and was our guest speaker and yeah the the kids all were wonderful they dressed in red white and blue and the staff clapped as every veteran came in my dad came in hold my hand so we we had a great time and so it's nice to be able to get back to some normalcy and do things like that for the community thank you very much thank you a lot going on and the next Stars assistant superintendent's report um so just a couple shout outs I want to start with um
010I'm going to start with the top left picture um it's from Eagleview so Kristen and Aaron are both our speech language Pathologists and they um I believe started last year but with our younger students at Eagleview um they did I don't know if you've ever seen like the touch pads we have a larger one at the playground over there so that students that have are non-verbal can communicate with other students so they actually created um bracelets or they were on their trick-or-treat bags that was practicing trick-or-treating and so the kids could either say it or if they wanted to use their makeshift touchpad they could use that and they got too trick-or-treat and so um I've been lucky enough that they invited me the last two years to come over and do a table and
011it's just it's so cute to see them but it's really um a cool thing that they do to try and make sure that all of our kids are always feeling included and supported and having fun no matter better things that they excel in or things that they struggle with so give those two a shout out bottom right picture is Jan our school nurse here at Parkview I just want to give her a shout out so as you know last month you approved the hiring of our high school nurse which the high school office is ecstatic about Jill and Rachel are thrilled that as secretaries they no longer are playing school nurse um but Jan was huge in helping me come up with some interview questions but then also now since Jenny has been hired she's
012been meeting with her going over some things with her making sure that she's you know aware of how we do things in Colombia but being there to support her and answer any questions that she may have um the bottom picture is from the middle school so this year each grade level is divided up and taken a quarter in our eighth grade team had the first quarter assembly and it was amazing um to walk into the gym and see that many kids and there's all kinds of different games they had a relay game that they did um at the end of it I got turned into a mummy which was kind of fun but I was a little nervous about breaking out of all that toilet paper that had been wrapped around me um they had
013all kinds of games they um you know played a rock paper scissor game it was just very cool but to see the kids that engaged that excited and all together again I think is Don and Becky both pointed out it's just we're getting back to that normalcy that incorporating that fun that hard work in the classroom is paid off with some excitement and some fun um so in that gym when I walked in that day and saw how excited the kids were it really just gave me chills to see how exciting it was it was very cool and then the top picture is actually the new Gaga pit at the middle middle school and I want to give a shout out to actually our two new shop teachers art and Jaren who between them and
014the construction class at the high school they brought the materials over and they built the Gaga pit for the middle schoolers to play with it was something that was originally turned into the PTA about raising funds and people had donated and so instead of buying a pre-made one the the Middle School used the money that they received for that to purchase the materials and then got those two teachers quickly jumped on board said we will do it it was a little interesting all the materials though got dropped off at the shop at the high school and so the class also got a workout and They Carried all of the materials to the back of the Middle School um but I know it's I hear it's a hot commodity it's used quite often to the point
015that the grass inside of the Gaga pit has all been worn out and now needs to be turfed so when you start seeing that the ptas hopefully raising some money or the Middle School's doing some fundraisers to give themselves a master of turf but I said just wanted to thank those two give those two gentlemen a shout out that they found a way to get our high schoolers involved in something that called the kids will be able to benefit from so very excited about those um and then so just kind of some things we've been working on so um currently working on um defining our RTI plan you guys have heard a lot about PBIS and that's our RTI how we approach behavior in the district and our academic RTI plan we've had one um
016but it looks very different in each building and with turnover over the last several years with our students needs being different because of covid and because of just different levels where they've come in and having to reach that we're working right now on really kind of redefining and Firming up that plan for RTI um the bottom wanted to teach like a pirate we is our new book study we just started this week so um I know it seems a little odd when you read teach like a pirate but it's really about if you think about the characteristics of of a pirate that they're passionate that they're adventurous that they take risks um with their stuff that's really what it's all about and part of it is a hook to get you in which is what
017this teacher is all about how you hook kids in and then you almost trick them into learning so we have 39 teachers that are involved in the teach like a pirate book study this um this time um the growth map we're getting ready the first of December to do our next round of Benchmark testing and so I am excited that either at the December or the January board meeting I'll be able to bring data and kind of look at where our students growth is not only from the start of this year to now but from last year at this point to this year and really kind of see hopefully that growth that we're making in post covid kind of you know all the data kind of reset itself then and then the top one is
018our teacher evaluation system so every year we have a committee made up of a mixture of teachers and administrators that meet to kind of go over our teacher evaluation system um for the most part right we make some tweaks make some decisions on how it's been done I've approached this group and so we are going to explore the option of drastically changing our evaluation system right we talked about the purpose of an evaluation is to get feedback on where you have areas of growth and so we're looking at possibly doing an action research type option that would allow teachers to grow right now when teachers get evaluated you get a anywhere basically from a one to a four one I is needs Improvement of four is that you're excellent what is I'm excellent yay it's
019a nice pad on the back right but that doesn't lead you anywhere to grow same with the proficient which is where um we kind of tell teachers according to the system is where you should land most of the time it's hard to live in excellent but proficient is where you know you kind of day-to-day live um but again what does that tell me how do I set growth how do I take chances how do I take risks and and push and improve things for our students um so that's something that is the committee we're going to look at and see if that's feasible for our district and then um if we decide to go that route we would implement it starting next year so those are the kind of four big things that I'm looking
020at and working on right now all right superintendent report we will have a closed session tonight um no action afterwards so nothing being done other than discussion um snow we had snow like last weekend and I was so thankful that I it's so nice as a superintendent to wake up and see snow and not be a school day you can actually appreciate it and enjoy it a little bit more snow days are never popular but it did put on my radar that I want to inform everyone we have five emergency dates built into our calendar we'll we'll use them if needed um and if we use all of them there's some people that are saying we're going to have a terrible terrible year of snow um woolly worms being extra furry and a lot of
021other people telling me the the Persimmons there are shovels all over the place and I don't know what any of that means other than if we run out of our emergency days we'll keep you posted uh remote learning is not something we want to go back to in-person instruction is key we also need to keep everybody safe and in school so just we have those five emergency days and um we use them silly season's also upon us uh the Halloween kind of starts It Off going around the buildings and watching the the little ones do the trick-or-treatings the older ones enjoying it it's fun it's exciting to see people excited and um that does carry over into the instruction as you saw with the labs and things of that age you know you do have
022to hook the kids it's hard to keep a bunch of people attention there when if there's a funny social media thing so you got to teach a math do they want to learn math now they don't want to learn math so you got to teach a man you know it goes through all the difficulties that teachers have in actually educating the kids and and the engagement and the life lessons are huge having the kids build and I say kids the young the young adults build stuff for the younger younger adults is just a wonderful opportunity for them to be able to later on say hey we built that Gaga pit you know and those opportunities are just so rich and so rewarding it's it's fun to see everybody having fun with the learning it's it's
023good to get you back to normal and so with that um everything else I'm going to talk about is an action item so okay awesome thank you very much we'll go right into action items then so the first is the letter A approval of the resolution authorizing the estimated aggregate tax level for the year 2022. yeah and this is a two-stage process you'll approve hopefully the resolution as it's recommended um and then next month you'll actually approve the levy and that we will submit it to the County Board uh we are allowed to without a hearing to go up to and not to exceed five percent we're doing that again um does that mean we're raising taxes by five percent no as you saw last year when we raised it by five percent we actually
024dropped the tax rate 60 cents um it has to do with your eav uh the city had more to do with dropping the tax rate than we did it's the Tiff that comes on economic development happens the property becomes more valuable and then when the Tiff comes off that valued property can spread apart the tax rate and so that Tiff coming off dropped our tax rate the recommendation here is that we do what we have always done um which is extend for the five percent limit Administration recommends that you approve this resolution as presented I will address any questions concerns but we will not need a hearing no questions here questions all right will that be brave enough to make a motion to approve the aggregate tax levy as presented I'll make that motion thank
025you Scott the second perfect roll call please yes Andrew and Corey yes Greg Myers yes Scott Middle Camp aye Lisa Schumacher yes Tyson search yes okay our last item for Action is B it was approval of the years of service record this is another one of those yearly processes the faculty and staff had have had a chance to review the years of service record and the administrator recommends the board approves it um as presented questions maybe like to make a motion to approve the years of service record Tyson a second take me seconds all right uh everybody in favor hi any posts any pretensions all right motion carries all right on to our discussion items the first is our facility study um that's where a lot of work's been going on they've met with the
026faculty and staff I think we talked a little bit about that last month and that next month we're hoping to have a presentation of uh the projects um and and what's needed there I will tell you that we are also looking at a construction management where we have a request for qualifications that we're sending out Mr Hamilton and Mr Myers are on that subcommittee and um basically what we're doing is when you have a very large project that's going to possibly be multi-million dollars having a construction manager is a you can either pay the architect or you can hire another company having an outside company that's a flat fee um has some advantages to it it also brings in some other eyes onto the project and so the recommendation will be that we um put
027out this request for qualifications and review those Mr Hamilton and Mr Myers would do the initial vetting of those and then we would bring it for the whole board for approval do you two have anything you want to add to the process no not really other than just kind of reiterate what you were saying about bringing these folks in is is us taking the opportunity you know there needs to be oversight regardless um you know it's it's who's gonna who's gonna do that oversight is it going to be somebody internal which we don't really feel we have the resources staff or expertise to do is it going to be one of the Architects or the you know one of the companies you know that we already have and is that the right rate and is
028is there a separation of I guess interests um I mean it's not necessarily that you can't do it it's just is there a better representation of interest there and getting this you know I guess third party or independent service is what we want to look at whether you know doing the full evaluation as to whether that's in our best interest to have that neutral parties provide that role in a project that would be this you know that valuable as well as you know in time and money just the duration of it because it's going to be longer than any any one person can be able to volunteer to take as an additional duty so there's just you know there's some value in having somebody that doesn't have a financial interest doesn't have doesn't have any
029personal ownership as as far as the Architects to build it design it you know provide us a proposal if there's something that either needs to change or isn't isn't loved that gives another person with the expertise the ability to to give us advice and counsel so that's that's where we're kind of where we're going with this and and why we're looking at it and just as Mr Brody said going out and asking for people to submit their qualifications to us so we can finish that you know assessment as to whether that's a road we want to go down so when would they start would they start with the with the plans architectural plans and then are they on site every day so it would start they would start early in the process so they would
030help us with some of the review in the in the planning if you will based on them having years of Industry you know experiencing construction of large projects um and then how much they're on site would kind of depend on what we ask for um so just like any other service you can ask for the deluxe model or you can ask for the base level it's how much we ask for and then also I think in the different phases you would see different levels of on-site presence you know during it you know when you're initially kicking off a construction project you're going to want them on site more once you get into okay so maybe a Sheldon and and they've got three months worth of you know finish work to do maybe not in every
031day you know so it would it would vary as the project would go as far as my understanding so we would have um on the construction company or the GC would have their own project managers and this would be basically an owner's rep so that person would be would be um looking like you said attending those ocp meetings and those kinds of things to make sure things are on on track making sure our our concerns are addressed and those kinds of things so yeah right and as Adam said the traditional way is to hire a manager such as an architect which works off a fee so but it's kind of productive so the more they spend the more their fee is the more it costs us so like Adam said there is not necessarily aligned
032with our interests so this is a cost savings matter where they're involved at the very beginning they help us with the plan the proposals the bids and the oversight so it's it'll wind up I'm very confident it'll more than pay for itself so I really view it as a cost savings matter then more than an expense we're trying to save that taxpayer money and make go the farthest we can and make sure there's no waste any questions so quiet in here individual members comments yep we're down to individual board member comments and we have anything we'd like to say tonight I'd like to give a big shout out and a huge thank you to all the employees of cusd number four for all of your hard work that you do it daily and it shows
033by the amount of years of service that we just got done approving so thank you every day for what you do and the kiddos for making our little cards anyone else yeah I'd like to thank the the team Miss Miller and team the the veteran ceremony was was really um you know as she said there was a lot of community feedback it was it was pretty awesome you know I was fortunate enough to be able to take part in it so it was but it was great to see I mean it's not the in years past I know some of the covet had some impact on on how much they could do and couldn't do but bringing it back into the gym and having the actual you know event with a speaker and getting the
034kids engaged and excited and just all that and then seeing all the veterans walking in you know you know the proud parents and family members and friends or whatever their relationship was with the children that asked them to come in um you know it's just it's really in it exciting to see and it's it's encouraging because it's I mean that's the kind of sense of community that it really does build and and it gives the kids an opportunity to not only re see what the veterans do and have that Learning lesson but it gives you know you can see them just walking in just proud as as could be so if thank you for you and I know the team I mean there was I know I saw some of the high school staff and
035you know that was working with parking and I you know people from all over the district that were helping with it so I know it was a big production it took a lot of work so thank you guys for for all of that it was funny because I was at the faculty meeting when Miss Miller was addressing this the faculty and they were talking about and they started talking about this and people and I was sitting in the back kind of just taking notes and you were starting to hear of all the pieces and all the kids that were involved the coaches and everything like that and she just quickly went obviously we're going to need to have another meeting because this is not going to be the you know the faculty meeting needs to
036be so long and and we're going to have the student so yeah they ended up it was it was a bigger production than I think either of us were expecting and it was wonderful well it went very well and was very much appreciated by many of us that's awesome that's great my pleasure I like the excitement I just feel like the whole district has Smiles on their faces and it's just it's a good feeling so thank you all anyone else where prison is Progressive I don't have anything you guys heard me talk enough tonight so I'll spare you that and that concludes pretty much our agenda with the exception of our executive session as Mr Brody alluded we are going to Executive session however there's no action items as a result just a discussion and
037uh so you're all welcome to come back and watch us adjourn I know that's riveting so uh you wouldn't want to deny you that but uh that I will have to read it oh yes that's right so thank you please keep me straight that's awesome all right we're gonna go into the executive session for the purpose of appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of a specific employees of the public body or legal counsel for the public body including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee of the public body or against the legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity 5 LS ilcs 120-2c1 that I'd entertaining that motion to adjourn into executive session thank you Adam second oh second all in favor all right perfect thank you all for joining
038us again we'll be happy to welcome you back into okay we are back in Open session we uh conclude our executive session there's no action items as a result the only thing left to do is adjourn would anybody like to make a motion to adjourn all right [Music] curious thank you very much that concludes our meeting