001[Music] [Applause] I can see [Laughter] this world. [Music] All right. Good evening and welcome to the district 230 school board meeting of August 28th, 2025. And it's now 7:00. So please consume the role. Member Sari >> here. >> Member Dalton >> here. Member Scodro >> here. Member Jabber >> here. >> Member Kelly >> here. >> Member Casmir >> here. Me >> here. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you everyone. Welcome on the first day of the first time for this new year that we have students in the audience. So we always appreciate that that is why we are here. Going to go a little off script for a quick
002second because we pride ourselves on being a 230 family. And I'm going to give a shout out now to Francis Sari who's been long part of our 230 community. And we have a new addition to the 230 family. [Applause] >> Thank you. >> Typically, we get a little baby gift that represents 230. So that's what it was. So thank you very much. >> Um at this point we have superintendents open opening remarks. >> Yeah. I'll keep the brief uh library stuff as uh was previously noted. This is our first I think we officially completed our 10th day of school visit today. Um so really great opening of school. I think all three buildings are reported out. Um institute days went very well. Our teachers were back in some good information some time to get to
003get ready for the upcoming school year. Um each of one of the buildings had great freshman and transfer first days a couple weeks ago. a little smaller freshman classes I think at all three schools. But it was a great energy and outstanding um way to welcome them to our district 230 family. Uh and then our teachers and and and other folks have opened up virtually everything. It was wandering around Saturday watching girls play football, a little swimming, a little uh tennis and uh it's nice to see kind of our buildings back full of kids having having a good experience. So um great start to the year and we look to keep them on. >> Thank you. Next, do we have any amendments to the agenda? >> All right. Well, we've been waiting for our new
004school board representatives. Do we have a particular order? [Music] >> All right. There we go. >> Uh, good evening everyone. It's my pleasure to introduce one of the most energetic and creative chargers I have had the honor to work with over the last several years. Mo Wong might be best described as a permanent fixture at SA. She is always here from sunrise to off sunset. Mo is actively involved in numerous activities including but not limited to marching band principles advisory snow all year student council cover national society superintendent advisory winter guard to name just a few. She is a bright active honors and AP student but is also creative particularly in visual arts and is currently enrolled in our capstone course in AP studio art. She is energetic always willing to share her point of
005view on a variety of topics but most of all she's advocate for all charges working hard to make sure that the voices of all students are heard. It's my pleasure to introduce Amos Lonzo S High School student board representative Wong. [Applause] >> Good evening everyone. My name is Owong. I hope many of you remember me from the last time we saw each other. Thank you for having me here. I'm extremely grateful to give to be given this opportunity of speaking in front of the board of education. I'm excited to work with all of you and make 230 an even better place than it already is. Before I continue, please excuse what I'm wearing. This isn't how I usually present myself. Um, what I have on is for today's um, color guard rehearsal. Color guard is
006kicking off the year with an exciting marching band season. I encourage everyone to come watch our hard work at the 50 45th annual marching band jamberee or come join us at our first football game which happens tomorrow. The start of the school year has been full of energy and charge of pride. We start off the year by welcoming our freshman on their first day of school. Our cheerleading squad, dance team, and marching chargers join in on welcoming and performed during assembly for the newest Chargers. It was thrilling to witness all these new Chargers experience firsthand the dedication and hard work of our students. Student council has been working extremely hard this summer in order to prepare for this year's event under the sea. We are excited to have our stack hallways filled with celebration of
007marine life and to see our students participate in aquatic spirit days. To further further celebrate our students um the compliment compliment compliment um we have our annual homecoming parade on September 19th that highlights the students involvement with our school and to continue to and to continue the motivation of charger to engage throughout the week. Lastly, I'd like to have the opportunity to let you know that a salons stat high school has very natural high natural and metro area rankings in 2025 2026 US News and World Report best high schools in Illinois. It's such an honor to be given this recognition for our establishment. I am extremely proud to tell call myself a charger knowing that everyone here at this school goes above and beyond. Thank you all for everything you've done for our school to
008make it as great as it is. I am so thrilled to be working alongside with the board of education. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. It is my honor tonight to present to you co-president of student council at Baser J. Andrew High School, Shelby Aler. Shelby is not only a super strong academic student, meaning NHS, very active in leadership of Snowball. She's also a track and field student, which you're going to see is a bit of a theme tonight for Andrew High School. I'm super proud of Shelby because one of the areas that stands out to our student body, our staff, as well as our community is her kindness and her empathy. She's a wonderful human and an amazing people. I'd like to introduce to you Shelby Oliver. Good evening. My name is Shelby Oliver
009and I'm honored to have been selected to present before you as board representative and one of Raj J. Andrew student council presidents for the 2025 2026 school year. This summer, 16 senior leaders representing our entire school brainstormed the class of 2026's theme of success for the year. Together, the senior leaders created with every spark we leave our mark. We came up with this quote for all students to leave their unique mark on the Andrew community. From practicing countless hours in the marching band or competing in their favorite sport through IHSA events, we believe each student's interests are important and leave lasting legacies here at starting in August, we announce our theme schoolwide during assemblies in the new student to inspire the same upbringing attitude throughout our building. Regarding our freshman class of 2029's early dates
010as T- Bowls, teachers, student ambassadors, and senior leaders presented a warm welcome with cheers ringing throughout our hallways as they began their first chapter as major students. The day was filled with many engaging opportunities to learn with new students being able to navigate their schedules, visit clubs or activities, and of course concluded the day with the iconic TV LTS chant, they will never get sick of hearing, at least hopefully. To commemorate our class of 2026 going into the last year of Andrew, the senior leaders hosted our annual senior sunrise. Preparing a fresh breakfast accompanied with a beautiful sky, over 250 of our senior class attended the morning celebration. It was an exciting yet early 5:30 morning seniors will never forget. Finally, concluding our festivities in August, Major hosted annual Black Night, an event commemorating the
011beginning of our 2025 fall athletic programs. From hosting individual scrimmages to uniting under one parade of athletes, the night successfully honored and celebrated our array of fall athletics. As the year continues, Andrew hopes to keep up creating sparks we have established in our first month of school. Thank you. Good evening everyone. It is an absolute pleasure to introduce Carl High School's student council president for the 2526 year, Zena Hassan. Zena is truly an outstanding superstar senior who represents the very best of our great school and our great community. She's highly involved in service clubs like Interact and Besting Club where she kind of homes those students. She works in the classroom. She's been a part of our track team in the past and uh she's obviously part of our student council. And one of my
012favorite parts of each month is being able to engage with our student council students and in particular Zena who just has a very particular way of absorbing a conversation, thinking on her perspective, sharing it, communicating it um not just with their peers but with principal, school and other school administration. So I know one of those attributes, those traits with of Zena are going to come out uh tonight and future nights as part of her being our student council rep for the 25 2025. So we further ado introduce you. [Applause] Good evening. My name is Zena Hassan and I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here tonight. As the new school year has kicked off, Samberg has been full of fresh starts for students and staff. To start off at
013the beginning of August, we had a meet the building night. We gave our newest Eagles the opportunity to explore Samberg, give them the rundown of our new expectations and activities that they will have opportunity to be a part of their first high school year. On the freshman's first day of school, we were greeted with friendly faces and had the opportunity during their lunch hours to go to the club fair to see all of the extracurriculars and athletics that are offered at Sanford. Moving on to read more recent events. Last Friday, the seniors attended the senior sunrise to initiate the beginning of an end to their last year of high school. Football season also kicked off the same day with a scrimmage game of the theme just to impress. Having a fun and fancy theme for
014this football game encouraged more Stanford spirit and exciting energy to come out on the stands. There were many club informational meetings for both new and existing students who wanted to learn more about the overwhelmingly endless possibilities we have at Stanford. This included joining the theater, speech programs, the samber newspaper, German club, medical club, friendship connection, yearbook club, interact club, and student council. We also have some changing and new expectations for this school year. There is now a new attendance policy in which students can only have a total of seven excused absences. After the eighth absence, it will be marked as an unexcused absence and a student can only receive a maximum of 75% on an assignment that was given the day of the absence. This is only avoided if there's a documentation given of the
015student having a health issue or attending a college visit. We also have an ongoing issue of too many students being in the hallways at once, which could cause stress for both teachers and students navigating to their next destination. To solve this, during the middle portion of classes, the classroom doors lock automatically in order to make sure that students stay in class and are ready to learn. For what's coming up, Samber will be hosting a senior parent night where college applications and financial aid will be discussed. As the school year progresses, there will be more fun and exciting events to look forward to. Thank you so much for your time and it has been a great opportunity to be working with all of you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next, we have our student and
016staff spotlight. [Music] All right. It is my honor to present stack junior life uh forward recognition. Stack is never short of incredible student leaders. Many of the leaders not only in our school but also in our community. On occasion we have students whose leadership impacts beyond our school boundaries. In Kuia's case, she is making a national impact. Kuia spent time in Washington DC this summer as one of just 12 Sandy Promise National Youth Advisory Board members. The National Youth Advisory Award is a select group of high school students drawn from the St. Promise clubs across the United States. This is the group that founded Say Something Initiative. Board members are chosen through a competitive application process. Students are chosen for their commitment to preventing violence and self harm in their schools and communities. They serve
017as the national voice of Sandy Promises Safe Promise Clubs alongside their club advisors. Kuia now brings her voice, SAG's voice, and districts 230's voice to the forefront of our nation's work to combat violence everywhere. In Washington this summer, Korea met with national legislator teams to discuss funding for school safety programs, school staff training, and other resources to promote safe schools everywhere. Please join me in thanking and congratulating Kua on being named to the National Youth Advisory Board of the Sandy Promise Organization. [Applause] Thank you for your work. >> He's always running around. >> He's running around. >> We'll see how much she's up on the track right now. all the same exercise. Okay. uh each year millions of high school students take the ACT test and try to you know earn scores that colleges and
018universities and scholarships and all college and things that go along with any high school career pursuing a career in higher education and uh this guy behind me Neil Patel as well as fellow T30 students who performance uh earned the highest of scores on that national uh ACT score a pretty safe round of applause. Another guy when you look at the percentile ranking of where a score of 36 lands actually says 100 on the line which is like there ain't nothing better than this one and that is absolutely true. Uh and that's really true of all familiar face. He's our super rep finance committee. I mean his ability to he doesn't even need the napkins together before he throws a question out finance. So um you know similar to Zena Neil just represents the best um
019example of his achievement here is just one example how he embodies those things. So once again congratulations [Applause] As you heard from Dr. Smith, scoring 36 is a feat by any chance, but getting three in one high school year is certainly unprecedented. I am very proud and honored tonight to share with you our experience [Music] school. Kicking us off first is Hoy [Applause] study philosophy. Um so working through the college process right now. Uh, next is Kennedy Peters. Kenny is looking to study finance. So, Kennedy's looking through the college process also right now. This is that time for our seniors. And last but not least is Ashley Z. Ashton is interested in pursuing engineering for his next phase of journey at Stanford High School. We are super honored and excited to congratulate the Smarties of
020the Smarties, not only in the state of Illinois, but uh nationwide. Congratulations to all of you. Congratulations. >> Also with me tonight, I'm honored to bring up um our track coaches as well as uh Kayen Wolf. If you recall, we recognized um some grad folks uh earlier this summer um and we wanted to make sure that we included Cait. He was not available at that time. But uh without further ado, I'm going to go choose uh Twin Collar and Josh Fred Bogle here with us tonight to present David Wolf with to you his um IHSA state award. [Applause] Hi. Hi, I'm Holler and then SC Coach Andrew. Uh, this is Coach Bri right here. And then the man of the hour, Kate Wolf. Um, so Kane is now a three-year state qualifier. He's a senior,
021so he's qualified every single year at track, which is a very, very impressive feat. Uh, this year specifically 800. Uh, coming out of sectionals, he was seated 11th, I believe, and top nine is all state. Uh he had a really really tough prelim race for a really really good heat. He got sixth in his heat which is typically not good enough to make finals but it just so happened that his heat was which was really good and ended up being uh 10th place heading into the state finals. So he needed to prove by one more spot uh to get that all state and once again the 800 is just an absolute gauntlet in the state of Illinois. uh he was in a pack with probably about eight other guys coming off the last turn. So
022he had been moved and came being the third year state ball player that he is the tough kid that he is uh passed all of those guys and got six. So he improved his standing on each of his races and we are very very proud of him to beat all state and get sixth place and this year he has a little bit of unfinished business and he wants to improve that and maybe also get relay as well. So, uh, huge congratulations to Coach Rival, coach or Ken Wolf, uh, for that awesome accomplishment and see what happens this year. Thank you. >> Also tonight is um, some adults at Yo High School that I would like to recognize, starting with Miss Lipishia. The Pisha is a familiar uh name and face product. [Music] Um the Pisha
023is the recipient of uh it is my honor to recognize her, our dedicated college and career counselor as the recipient of the 2025 inclusion assets and success service award from the Illinois Association for College Admission Counseling. was established in 2015. This award honors individuals who've been instrumental in expanding access to postsecary opportunities for historically under reppresented students. So in her years at Andrew, Licia has made significant impact for our students. She has led efforts to support first generational students, you know, pursuing postsecary opportunities and serves on the capacity of not only as the college career center, but is our sponsor for our black student union, helping foster a culture of belonging and empowerment for our T- holds. Lisha exemplifies her mission from ITA through her unwavering dedication to access and student success. We're incredibly proud
024of her accomplishments and congratulate her on this welldeserved stage recognition. Congratulations. >> Congratulations. >> With me tonight, one more uh recognition. I'm honored tonight to present to you another faith, Mrs. Hugh. I'm proud to recognize our director of guidance as the recipient of the 2025 greater impact award from the Illinois School Counseling Association. That is ISCA. We have to get all the acronyms down. ISCA honors leaders across the state who demonstrate exceptional advocacy and support for students. And Michelle, Mrs. View truly embodies that mission. a proud T230 alum from Stamber with over how many years I say 20 but yes 20 years I wasn't sure if you want to say it out loud 20 years in education Michelle has spent the last six years at where she has been instrumental transforming our guidance department strengthening
025student services and positively impacting every student staff member and family she serves she oversees our counseling customers as well as social workers and numerous support staff with a positive attitude and an unwavering commitment to excellence. Michelle's vision visionary leader who works collectively and creatively to find resources and opportunities that support our communities. We're fortunate to have Michelle at our school and I'm incredibly proud of her. Congratulations to you on a welldeserved honor. [Applause] Thank you so much. Next on the agenda is our curriculum spotlight. Dr. Good evening. Uh District 230 has a long tradition of hiring and retaining excellent staff. It's our goal to continue to attract and retain diverse candidates reflective of our communities. In early August, we held an induction day for our newly hired teachers to acclimate them to the district and
026included student representatives from each of the schools to welcome the new hireers to share from their perspective as they look forward to the new school year. Tonight, we celebrate those new staff members joining our D230 panel. [Music] District 230 is excited to welcome a new group of teachers to our schools. These educators are bringing fresh energy, different experiences, and a shared commitment to helping our students succeed. [Applause] So before teaching, I was actually a chemist at a dental lab. After doing that for 2 years, I realized I missed the education part of science. So I decided to start tuning high school kids back into that and that's what I found teaching high school teaching my mid30s and very very >> I worked in theology for about a year and I really like it and I
027think when was science fun and it was when I was in high school so I went back to be a teacher. So uh my teaching practice is primarily informed by my experiences in life both as a construction worker as well as an artist traveling to foreign therapy to study. I've been in the ESL world for the past 15 years. So I've been a language teacher and I'm looking forward to switching to German and helping students to learn foreign language. >> I love the classroom. I've always loved showing museums. Um, I love high school myself. Teaching just used to be in a way that other groups do not. I chose to go to school counseling because throughout my high school career, I've seen friends and other students that stay who struggled whether that be mentally, academically,
028or finding their way after high school. So, I wanted to be one of those people to help them find their way. The induction program begins with the districtwide introduction to our instructional framework led by the assistant superintendent of curriculum and the associate principles of curriculum. This session ensures that every new teacher understands the foundation of teaching and learning in district 230 including our instructional priorities, student engagement strategies and shared expectations for high quality instruction. In addition to the training, the new teachers also have the opportunity to hear advice from our students. Uh one piece of advice for teachers is to uh interact with your students just to make a better environment for the classroom days and stuff like that. Um we love to see our teachers also take their day outside class and your club
029activities outside. One piece of advice for teachers would be to make sure your students are okay checking on them and definitely have the time in a environment. I am very much a student centered teacher. I don't want to be off lecturing the whole time. I want to be working with students doing hands- on activities and discovering things with them. The main component of my team style is to um create a safe environment for students to make mistakes and definitely support them and be like their biggest leader. I think it'll be a lot of fun. Um, I I've learned a lot of new like coral skills and singing skills over the last couple years that I've been implementing in my previous position. I'm really excited to get started on now. Love to build relationships with my
030students. I feel like that's the number one thing that I prioritize as a teacher. I think that students and connecting with them allows them to feel safe in the classroom. It allows them to take academic risks like participate in class. How I go about my teaching to make sure my students are effectively learning is to definitely build a good rapport with them, have access to make and communicate with one another cuz we can't talk each other in English. How are you dealing with? I actually went to Samber. I graduated in 2019 and I'm super excited to go back and learn from all the incredible staff there. I know that I'm super supportive and I'm very very excited to be re-entering that environment again. The thing I'm looking forward to most is meeting all the students
031and staff to make some start. Um, I'm looking forward to meeting my students and working with them and also to just being back in districts with their kids and come back years now. So, I'm really excited about this opportunity. By the end of the program, our teachers are well prepared to step into their classrooms and make positive contributions to our student population. We are thrilled to welcome them to District 230 and look forward to the positive impact they are going to make on our students for years to come. [Music] I thought that was tremendous um how many alumni we had on that. So that's phenomenal. >> Very very impressive. Thank you. >> How many days is their orientation? >> Uh one day orientation uh at the district level, one day they go to their buildings.
032Um, and then there was the they mentioned in the video they have like a professional development um that Charles and Anita both co-run. Um, it's more or less elected, but I think you had almost 100 if not all. Yeah. So, so those three days, but the first day is a little bit of elected, but they did most if not all the show. >> I think they also exemplified how teaching is a calling of the people that were in other professions that felt there was a higher calling to work with kids and inspire those how they've been inspired. So, thank you. All right. Anything else? We have next committee reports. We'll start with education. Okay. Uh the education committee met on August 6th, uh 7:00 p.m. at the district administration center. Uh meeting began with an
033update on our strategic framework with a work highlighting that 96.8% of freshmen were on track for graduation. Uh the discussion then shifted to advanced placement um testing performance. Uh we learned that 39.5% of the class of 2025 scored a three or higher on at least one AP exam. Uh in addition, 75% of all students who took an AP test this past year scored a three or higher. Uh the committee reviewed the 2025 to 2026 assessment calendar, which includes key dates for the preac, ACT suite, AP exams, and other standardized tests. A discussion on policies covered a five-year review of several administrative procedures. Additionally, updates on state and federal legislation were provided, noting that proposed cell phone bill did not pass and that the dual credit quality act did pass. A significant portion of the meeting
034was dedicated to the process of adding a new world language, specifically Arabic. It was noted that this requires a multi-year commitment and the decision-m process is guided by student interest postsecary implications and financial considerations. A major challenge identified was the difficulty in hiring a teacher with the correct certification. Uh to ensure the program's viability, a minimum of 20 students would need to commit to a 4-year sequence. The committee also discussed the possibility of campaign enrollment using a lottery system to ensure fairness and deciding between an L2 program for beginners or uh heritage for native speakers as a curriculum. Uh the new language program was also discussed with a potential proposed social studies course called history of modern middle east western Asia and North Africa. Uh following the discussion, several members of the public provided comments
035on the topic of adding Arabic as a world language. Um we're all grateful for that participation and our next committee meeting is scheduled for September 3rd, 2025 and we adjourned at 8:49. >> Anyone have any questions? >> All right, next student support number 12. >> Hello. Uh at support the committee reviewed updates on the strategic frameworks attendance and goals. Mr. Orano reported that the district's five absenteeism rate for 2024 25 is 19.1% with 80.9% of students meeting the attendance a small improvement over the prior year and better than state and national averages. Your year your two priority will focus on implementing and monitoring the new attendance policy, developing intervention frameworks and strengthening communication including monthly multilingual outreach and automated automated access notifications. Discipline data showing mixed results with attendance related referrals falling below target and
036disruption nuisance safety categories remain constant. Year two actions include adjusting the discipline goal based on the revision of discipline character categories and creating a tiered response and incentive system for student. An overview of the student sport and development department was provided including outline of departmental responsibilities for safety and security special services guidance and responsibility of the responsibilities of the assistant superintendent. Planned efforts for the school year include refining the threat assessment process, enhancing special education programming, expanding professional learning, and continuing MTSS and EL program development. Dr. Carr described the district's upgraded parent student handbook that is now available on the district website in multiple languages. The handbook is organized based on the Illinois principles association model student handbook and align federal ongoing legislative and board policy changes. Additional updates addressed state and federal legislation in
037board policy reviews. Dr. Noli highlighted the release of federal grant funds and provided updates on state bills that he has been monitoring. Policy reviews were largely routine with most requiring no changes beyond legal reference updates or clarity improvements ensuring continued compliance with state guidance in district government's practices. Next meeting will be September 9th at 7 p.m. >> Any questions? Okay. Next Monday, building finance on August 18th. Some at 7:00 p.m. at the center was added to our committee to we discussed our summer projects at all three schools which include seal coding parking lots. We're finishing finishing termination courts and replacing all the lights with LED fixtures. um want to see more before and after the totals of candy canox. The district completed all projects under the estimated total cost. Additionally, the district will receive more
038than 3 million evidence based funding this year exceeding initial expectations. Jeff Een Jeffer, assistant superintendent for business and finance will present potent budget later in the meeting. Um the fund is disagreements over whether to purchase a property at 163rd place to discuss and productive options presented by Dr. Molting are also available regarding the world grove property at 1615 South Point Avenue. Most community members recommended that the district retain the property and question is necessary to purchase the long8 property grow is approximately 36 acres and houses are houses are maintenance and facilities apartments. The new appraisal report from appraisal associates value of property of $2,675,000 an increase of $105,000 from the appraisal reported at the June board meeting. A member of the public addressed the committee during public comment noting that park population had 75,000 residents
039according to the new appraisal district received. If accurate this will represent increase of approximately 17,000 residents compared to the current population which park the committee also reviewed the southwest co-op on the settlement agreement with T-Mobile. principles gave us updates on school on school transportation and there is road construction on southwest highway standard high school between 1:31st and 133rd and finally we review numerous policies that will be voted down at today's meeting the meeting at 8:39 p.m. Our next meeting is scheduled for September 15th, 2025 at the Avenue Center. >> I have a question. Sorry. Can you please repeat what you said that the majority of the members said regarding the whole growth? Please you repeat that we were properly. I I I don't want to disagree with you, but I was also at that meeting
040and I had a number of people that were sitting right next to me that also spoke and I believe that the majority of the people at that meeting agreed with the purchase of the new property. So I I I don't want to disagree with you, but I will because I don't believe that that is what the majority No, I say I think I I despite disagreements the majority the majority did agree to purchase a new property but grow with the current property the the majority I think as the board obtain you have to sell it to purchase a new property. So you know there were there were questions about whether we should purchase the property I mean retain the property or sell it. It will last months but the majority were in agreement with what
041we had stated was to purchase the new property and sell property. Again, if I'm incorrect, the others who were there can correct me, but I believe that's what I know the three people sitting next to me all said that. So, >> I can hear what Secretary and could you possibly um just um u provide the um number for the new appraisal. Could you repeat that part, please? >> Thank you. And I agree with the resting on that and I think we are continuing discussion um as we've discussed in Dr. Alton's updates and next steps and we appreciate and value the members of the public and the people on the committee and then as a board we will go forward and make decisions and make a vote to see which way that goes and that's part
042of our responsibility as the elected officials. And I would just say I also believe as the member territory stated um from that discussion. >> All right. Any more questions? The teachers association with our new president. >> Good evening and welcome back everyone. Uh I know our teachers getting back in the swing of things as we connect our new students. We plan for our first units and we get back in the excitement that a new school year brings that includes all the activities athletic events that come with it including tomorrow night football games. And if you're expecting a prediction from me on Amber Anderson tomorrow night as we start on our attendance matters initiative that went through a thorough collaboration with our teachers. It seems to be off to a good start. communication on our attendance
043policy has been thorough and the hope is that our students continue to value the importance of on time attendance as this year progresses. Before I end, I want to reiterate the commitment of our teachers to maintain positive relationships with our students. I do that we are always here to help and make our network. This Labor Day weekend, we remember the sacrifices this nation's workers make to better all of us. We enjoy back to family and friends. Thanks for your time. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next, sometimes the podium lost me. I see Christy, our president for RBS. Thank you. >> All right. Where are you speaking again? I don't like it. >> Good evening. Thank you very much for having me tonight. Well, as Dr. said earlier, um we are two weeks into the new
044school year and um there are quite a few new ESPs joining the district which association is very happy about to have them um as part of the um association and of the district employee pool. Um, as we settle into a new school year routine, ESP Association is working hard to contribute to making uh the school year, the beginning of the school year a success as we support the administration, um, the staff, the families, and of course the students. Uh, we look forward to all of the upcoming activities that will soon be upon us, the sports, the co-curriculars, etc. And we are glad to be part of all of it. Uh we also look forward to all of the exciting things that of course come with the new school year and uh we are very happy
045to be part of D230 and thank you all so much for your continued support of the ASP association. Uh we look forward to a great school year and I wish you all as well a happy and safe uh Labor Day weekend and September is here. There you go. That's all you do. And then >> you started so positive. Really? >> Merry Christmas. [Music] >> All right. Next water. Our district 230 foundation update. >> Just two quick updates. um report that the foundation's 20th anniversary online auction netted the foundation just over $3,300. So, I want to send a special thanks to the local businesses and organizations that donated items. And of course, a big thank you to all the biders who generously gave this online auction happen. Um and then finally, um the foundation board voted
046to induct eight alumni into Legacy Hall. Uh that celebration and induction ceremony is set for November 7th. Um and details on all the inductees will be coming soon, but in the meantime, please mark your calendars for Friday, November. Thank you so much and thank you continued work. All right. Next are public comments. And for those of you who haven't been here before public comments, this is a statement I make every month. Okay. Um, per board policy 2230, we ask that you state the board stating your name and the reason for your comment. Each person will be allotted no more than 5 minutes with a maximum of 30 minutes total for public comment. It shouldn't be a problem. We have two speakers tonight. Please be respectful when addressing the board as well as being respectful of
047the speaker who has the podium. Disruptions will not be tolerated. While the board appreciates your participation, please understand that the board does not actively engage in dialogue during public comment. We take all matters seriously and if there is a specific question or comment that requires followup, the appropriate board member or administrator will follow up with you. So, thank you for that. At this time, I'd like to um ask R.J. Mali and I apologize if I mispronounced your first name. >> Good evening. My name is Ali and I have three kids at the school. One year at STAG, two in 118. And tonight I'm here to discuss a question include Arabic as a world language. I was personally lucky enough to take four years of formal air high school because I went to a private high
048school that offered it and it resonated with me and meant that I can read and write my family's native language. Cook County has about 48,000 native Arabic speakers such as myself. And for this reason, I'm hoping that we can work together to get Arabic as a world language attempts to advance in many fields, including literature, philosophy, science, medicine, mathematics, and art. How incredible would it be to learn the language these pioneers uh spoke and wrote it? The benefits of learning Arabic are many. Starting with a high demand for Arabic speakers and many local agencies due to the demographic in Arabic that we live in, government agencies, global businesses, and maternal skill. Learning Arabic also opens their mind to learning more about the Middle East, which fosters collaboration, understanding, life skills that all of our students
049need. Arabic on a college application also helps students stand out from their peers since it is a language that is not easily taught across the country. But when it is, it demonstrates a tremendous amount of attention to detail and cognitive ability due to the nature of the language itself. I want to know this to the board, but I do want to say on record for many of users, it's important for us to teach our kids the language. With so many of us as being second, third or fourth generation is speaking English primarily in our homes, we turn to weekend evening schools to ensure that our kids do learn the language. These schools are typically weight listed year after year and I guarantee that the demand is there to learn even for all four years. All
050three of my daughters have been every school since the age of three. And this is a reality for not just my family, but for many of the community members that we live in or many of the community that we live in. Many of our kids non friends are interested in learning as well as they have aspirations to learn something different and unique. We just need to ask them. I'm hoping that we can come together as a community to make this work. Thank you. And I know you don't want to mess up your last name right. Okay. Thank you. >> She's natural. >> Good evening everyone. cuz I'm here to speak as a world language class as well and it's been around is a proper way to pronounce it but we say Maria we change the
051way we pronounce our names which kind of takes away from our culture um I serve as a trustee of Minnesota which is home of two of the three high schools in district 230 but I'm here today as mother of four future students in this district in Arabic we Say mama hello. It's a simple word to say it. You roll the R and you push push the H from deep in your throat. Even that one word a student structures their voice, their mind and their grow which is beneficial to just simply learn how to pronounce their name, their classmates, their colleagues, uh future colleagues and community members. Arabic is one of the oldest living languages spoken by over 400 million million people throughout the world. But it's important to remember this. Arabic is a language, not
052a religion. Just like Spanish, French or German, it opens the door to culture, history, and human connections. The fear some may have that language that language automatically resides to something else. It's just a way of communication, connecting people. We really enjoy Arabic culture in our everyday lives. It's food, its music, it's poetry, it's art. If I play an AR song right now, I guarantee I'll start seeing people tap their feet and want to go and dance. That joy, that connection is universal. Earlier today, I told my seventh grade daughter that I'm going to a meeting that will discuss adding Arabic to the future of high school. And I was surprised to see her eyes. And when I asked her why she was so excited, she said, "Then I don't have to do all these tutoring
053hours after school and I could learn it with my friends." Cuz her friends are always asking her different words in Arabic. I think that's pretty cool cuz I don't do the same thing growing up. I know that feeling firsthand. As I was saying, the sacrifice of learning a language inside a school, the long hours, the weight list, the extra classes, tired kids, it's not exciting. And it's not the same as when they're doing it in a classroom setting, in a structured environment in the middle of their school day. There's something different of when they learn something at school versus feeling like it's an obstacle fighting them to try to go when they just want to relax after school and learn new things. But by bringing everyone into the classroom with students to learn a way
054that is exciting, inclusive, and alongside their classmates, I understand that not everyone needs to see the need for this sort of way, and that's okay. But I ask you to see this as not adding an opportunity. Another language never limits a child. It only expands them. It helps them understand the world and one another. At the end of the day, this is about preparing our children to be open-minded, successful, and connected in a global world. Thank you graciously for your time and everything District 230 does to enrich the lives of our students. Thank you. [Applause] >> Okay. Next, may we have a motion to approve the consignment? I move that the school board approve the consent agenda items as presented. Second. Do >> we have any questions? >> I complet Dalton. >> Yes. >> Member
055Sodro. >> Yes. Member Jerber. >> Yes. >> Member Kelly. >> Yes. >> Member Casmir. >> Yes. Our assistant superintendent on our topic. our one our FY26 tenative budget for giving anformational presentation. >> Thank you. Uh good evening board of education. Um wanted to put um some slides together to go over the fiscal year 26 tenative budget. Uh this presentation is very similar to what we looked at last week is a a building finance committee. So some of this is going to be redundant. Um we go to the next slide. Uh I do believe that it's an important slide. It shows the district's miss uh vision and mission statements. I believe these are uh important things to keep in front of us as we look to allocate resources that we have and decide what type of
056expenditures we are to spend on. So I think it's important to keep these in front of us as we do this this time. Uh go ahead. Next slide. The the timeline here is only about half of what the budget cycle encompasses. Uh typically in a fiscal year, the spring is when budget season starts. Uh so this only kind of shows the the second half of that. Uh in June, uh the board um was presented with the fiscal year 26 budget calendar at the building finance committee meeting. Uh June 26th, the board approved that budget calendar, setting the rest of the budget cycle here in the fall. On August 11th, a legal notice was published in a newspaper setting a public hearing for September. August 13th, the tenure budget was placed on display for 30 days
057per code. Uh August 18th, like I said, this tenant budget was presented to building finance committee. And tonight we are presenting the the tenant budget to the board of ed. Um at the next meeting in uh September, we're going to hold a public hearing to review the tenative budget and then that evening the budget will be adopted by the board of education. Shortly thereafter, we'll take the budget and and submit it to the appropriate um uh public entities uh per uh per next slide. Before we get into kind of the money and the revenues and expenses and how that all works out, I wanted to take a second and go over kind of a fundamental aspect of what the budget is and how we look at things uh in the business office. The Illinois State
058Board of Education prescribes nine different funds that we have to have fit all of our revenues in and all of our expenditures in. And you can see them listed here. They are numbered per code 10 through 90. Uh and then on the right hand side you'll see what type of activities each of those funds um has to really uh deal with. We have uh ex uh educational programs obviously in the education fund uh improvements and operations and facilities and and all that and so on and so forth. So as you as you we look at different figures and go through things like fund balance, it's important to know that when we talk about a fund balance, it's actually an accumulation of other fund balances within that. So we're going to look at uh the operating
059funds in a moment and that's a a total of four of these line items. Um these these funds are not like your your checking account at home where you just have money going in and money come out. It's actually we keep track of all different revenues and then expenditures and then each of those funds we try to balance uh throughout the year. So as we as we look at the the figures here going forward with revenue and expenses I want to point out that we're only looking at the operating funds like I said. So that would be the education fund the operations and maintenance fund transportation fund and then the IRF social security fund. So, first we will look at uh the the revenue highlights here. You'll see there's a couple black uh lines in
060there. Uh anything to the left of those lines is our um amount received per uh last year's actuals. So, you can see it says projected fiscal year 25. That's what we've recorded as a district for last year. Those numbers are not audited yet. We're actually being audited this week. So, those are just kind of the the actuals. um that we've received. You'll also notice on the far left we have a number of of categories or sources as we say of where money comes into the district. We have property taxes, we have state aid, federal aid, and then a number of fees below. In the middle to um between the two black columns are the changes from fiscal year 25. So we have what we we received in this case last year the change that's going
061to be um applied for the budget and then on the far right hand side you actually see the dollars that we're budgeting uh tenatively for fiscal year uh 26. If we kind of go through some of the highlights here we'll see that property taxes are are estimated to increase about 4.1%. Uh again from the levy discussions I'm sure you've had in the past there are two main components of that CPI and then new property. Uh we saw CDPI come in right around that 3.4%. We also get some new property as well. So that kind of uh totals at at 4.1% uh for uh property taxes evidence based evidence-based funding. We saw a pretty decent increase this year compared to last. Uh we have a couple slides dedicated to that going forward. We'll take a look
062and and uh kind of I'll try to explain what that uh what that means. Um right now we have a decrease in our federal aid investment income. Uh those are pretty fluid type of of sources. We've seen many have ups and downs throughout the the spring and summer here. So we'll try to get that as to um as as final as we can before we meet in September. And then we had a decrease in other revenue. We had a transfer last year in these funds that we're not going to have this year. So we're not going to record or budget for that. So that's why we had a decrease in our other revenue. If we look at our kind of some revenue highlights, you'll see that the transportation re reimbursement for the state. Last year
063we received 6.8 billion in state revenue for transportation. This year we're estimating 9.6. That's a pretty big jump, but as a reminder that just means last year's expenses were much higher. The reimbursement process goes that we spend money in one year. The next money we report, we claim what we spent, they give a prorated um amount back to us. So while that's good, we're receiving that money. That really means we just spent more money the prior year and then we continue that cycle going forward. Uh again, our evidence-based funding uh dollars. The base funding minimum is the amount we received in last year. So it's 9.1 million per evidence-based funding. We as a district will never receive less than that as long as the general assembly funds evidence-based funding. Since 2018, they have always funded
064the uh evidence-based funding. And in conversations with people down the state, they said even a global pandmic didn't stop them funding the evidence based funding. So that's obviously good news going forward. So we'll never be more than that 9.1 million. On top of that, each year we have a fund, I'm sorry, a tier funding amount. And for fiscal year 26, we are slated to be 3.4 tier funding. So what does that mean? means our gross state contribution is 12.6 million. We fast forward that will never be less than 12.6 million. So that's a big big uh hike we need to receive this year. Um and that's that's really due to this next bullet which is our final percent accuracy. Last year we were at 82% roughly which puts us at a tier 2 school district
065and that net us about 454,000 in tier money. For this year, we are at a final percent of adequacy at 69.4%. That places us as a tier 1 school. And again, that is at $3.4 million. Another revenue highlight, we are looking to transfer 1.5 million from the on&m fund to the capital projects fund to help support all those projects we had in our long-term capital projects um list. Can I ask a quick question? Sure. Uh so so this good news about funding from the state we think is going to keep going years ahead as far as yes when we received this money um I contacted the state and basically in writing got the answer that yes the base funding minimum is something that each district will get as we go forward as long as long
066as the general assembly funds ads at 100%. So as soon as soon as Google's in tier one, then they're going on tier one. So no, what would happen is if we did move, let's say our accuracy, the point of the accuracy is to get everyone as close to 100% as possible. Basically, and we'll get to that in in the next slide, meaning your local uh resources can support or um fulfill your advocacy. they they believe you have a a amount of expenditures each district should have and the local sources should uh fund that to a certain degree. So the um the base funding minimum would not change if we went to a tier one. What would happen is our tier amount would go down probably to I think almost nothing maybe 10,000 you know some
067some number that wouldn't be because the tier money then would go to another district that would try to push their advocacy up to u to number that's that's greater than where they were and one last question so last year balanced budget we moved 5 million from the capital projects fund to OEM >> so Yeah, the the transfer was to support projects and not all of that was spent. >> So, we just swapped some back. >> So, what we did is we left in the capital project fund. We ended the year, I believe it was right around $3 million. We had about $900,000 of expenses in July and August. We we're looking to put a million and a half back into there to bring it back to about 3.5 million. And then that's the budget that
068we look over with Mr. Con and Mr. Keing to kind of get these projects out. Thank you. All right. If we go to the next slide, the next two slides are two snips from an Illinois State Board Bed presentation. Um, I'm not trying to teach this to you because I don't fully understand it all myself, but I do know there are 34 factors that go into the EDF formula. It's a very long complicated formula. I think that's on purpose, but that's what I wanted to just point out to you is that the math equation at the bottom there. The um the state, like I said, provides an adequacy target based on a number of factors. That's the the denominator of this equation. And then there are local resources that are uh totaled up and that
069becomes the numerator. And then when you do that math, we get the final percentage adequacy. If we go to the next slide, there's a lot of places where this data come from. It's not just data we provide the state or that the the um other districts provide. It is a a number of of ones here from the Illinois Department of Revenue. They take some of those factors that they see either on a countywide or a regionwide uh and place those into the formula. There's wage analysis data from the Texas uh University of Texas&M that they use. We also have Department of Health Services. We have Isby. There's a lot of data that goes in there. So it's not like we had some weird thing that happened just in our district that made this happen. There's
070some regional and some other things that that went on of these 34 factors to make this formula where it is. So that's revenue. If we go on to the expense side of the lender, we're still working on finalizing salaries. We have um you know a number of salaries that since we put this together a couple weeks ago, we've updated our budget. So that would be something we'll present um next month. We have uh increases in our um benefits and supply line items uh included as well. We have additional capital projects compared to last year just looking at these four funds. Again, again, it's 10, 20, 40, and 50. So that's why the increase is there. And then also in the other objects, we have that $ 1.5 million transfer that's going from OM to the
071capital projects. So that will be recorded as an operating expense. If you take the total revenue, which I didn't mention in the last slide, it was um 185.9 is our estimated revenue in these operating funds. And you look at our total expenses of 184.3. We're sitting right now at a tenative surplus of 1.5 million for this year. Um the next slide will show the next steps. We have a public hearing which is slated again for September 18th. Uh our final budget will be adopted on that same evening and then again we'll go ahead and finalize things in the post and submit too. Any questions on the December 26 budget? >> Yeah. So we have a million and a half surplus, but that's including that additional 3 million that we're now getting from the state. That's
072what we had not anticipated until recently. So did we then? So obviously if we didn't get that, we would have been in a deficit position or did we actually add some additional expense items that we would not have had if we didn't know we were getting this additional money? >> Sure. I think two things were happen. one, we would have received obviously the $3 million less. That would have probably prompted us not to transfer over from O andM to capital projects at $1.5 million. So if you take the surplus minus the transfer that didn't happen, we would have been right at a balanced budget or shortly um a small deficit, but we would have worked with that. So yeah, we were pretty close when this young. I remember we were talking about that at the
073end of last school year that the budget was going to be extremely tight for this year. So obviously that extra money obviously now gives us a little bit of bre and just to be just to be kind of crystal clear EVF which is the evidence based funding we don't get those numbers until early August. So any activities done in the spring and the summer planning that that money was not anticipated at all. So, um, but as as we update our financial projection models and our budgets, obviously we'll include that going forward and that'll kind of tell our new story with our EDM. Thank you. >> I had one question when we're looking at the expenditures um from the time building and finance till tonight's meeting. In the news they're talking about health care premiums >>
074and how that number is projected to go up significantly. How do we come up with our benefit number um because that number doesn't really come to us at this time of year. >> Sure. So um we have an estimate in there now. In the next probably week and a half we will be getting our renewal figures from our broker. uh those will be for our next uh cycle which starts in January. So the first kind of six months of our fiscal year we're on our old plan with our old figures. The first uh 6 months of of 2025 which will be the second 6 months of our fiscal year will have those new figures. So there's a bit of known and a bit of unknown when we look at our health insurance benefit. >> So
075you will have better numbers when it comes to the actual budget. >> We should. Yeah. Now again, that's the 18th of um September. We have to have this done for finance, building finance by the 15th. We're hoping to be meeting with them in those first two weeks. So, we'll we'll have a a closer number, but obviously I don't think we'll have exactly what that renewal is going to look like. >> Okay. Thank you. M uh just real quickly, does uh health insurance uh premiums going 20 to 25 27%. Does that include group or is that mainly individuals on affordable care act? >> That's the way I have read it. So I didn't know if it included um employers and large groups. >> No, I don't have that answer. >> Okay. >> No, sorry. >> All
076right. Well, I last question. So there's this line on the website says other objects tuition and dues. If we if we bought the 10608 property and move some programs into that building, we assume that that percentage of the yearly budget would decrease a bit. That's what we question. I think it it's I don't know if it's an easy to answer question based on a lot of variable projections that we don't have. So theoretically the less kids that programs that that um that charge tuition for them to go into that line item would go down. But I don't want to leave the assumption that that's not going to have an impact on other areas of the budget either. >> Oh. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. And I just want to say having heard this presentation
077twice more in depth this time, people walked away with great sense of clarity and understanding. So we appreciate the work that you probably done um being with us a short time. So keep it up. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. [Applause] >> All right, next. >> Uh good evening. Uh pretty pretty quick update. As Mr. Jabber said, all of our projects in the summer came in um on time and under budget. Um so now starts our work of focusing on what we want to do next summer and we're going to start to discuss those we can start those discussions when we meet with the admin and our school teams. uh in general feedback on our projects uh from the staff on the flooring and the the lighting has been really positive uh with with uh
078Dr. Ning and Dr. Smith. We got a chance to talk to some of our Sber students who had really good feedback on the lighting, um the dance floor, the flooring in general, the pool, and they they actually the stadium lights too. So, it'll be interesting to see what they say after the first home game. So, uh really positive feedback and good things to report. Any questions? >> Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. Right. Next, we have new business goals and um goals. I have a motion for that. >> The school board adopt the 2025 20 26 E2 series school board July superintendent rules as presented. >> Second. >> All right. Uh do we have any questions? I know that this has taken a lot of work from the from the group. Thank you. Um,
079for those in the audience, we uh look at goals and see what we can do as a as a board and working in conjunction with the superintendent goals. This year, Dr. Milton has do something called thought exchange. So, we were able to put all of our thoughts together and prioritize those. Do we have any other questions or comments? All right, then we'll >> member Saratory. >> Yes. >> Member Dolphin, >> who else? >> Member Sco. >> Yes. Member Faber. Yes. >> Member Kelly. >> Yes. >> Member Fazier. >> Yes. >> Member Zer. >> Yes. Motion passed. Next we had um new business for discussion and something new that a board member presented and that was a board meeting scorecard. Members. Yeah. So, um this is something that we did um in another school district and
080the reason to do it is just continuous self- evaluation for the board. Um continual improvement, accountability, using our time effectively, making sure we're being productive in our meetings, that we're following policy governance norms. It helps us to identify our strengths and weaknesses and it also allows for continual growth. It creates a safe platform to discuss what went well during a meeting and what might have um need some improvements and um being able to do that without getting personal. So um kind of from an arms length ability to do it. It addresses our strengths but also helps us to sort out any kind of issues um early on due to a bit in the butt. And um for myself, I think every board um can always improve. And this is just one very quick technique that
081the president at least that's how we did it. The president um will send it out after a meeting. It's as you can see couple of quick questions and you fill it out and she provides the data to us and um in the past it's been helpful. or something came up and it needed to be fixed. It was fixed in the butt because seven people were interjecting and um it was every meeting. >> Um that would be up to the president but I didn't visit every meeting. >> Okay. So you know me I'm going to be against this. Sorry. Excuse me. Okay. Um number one uh most of the items on here in all honesty are the responsibility of the board president. The board president is responsible to direct the meeting. The board president responsible to
082make sure we stay on agenda. The board president is basically responsible to make sure that we do everything you have on this list. Okay. So I would think as the board president um I don't know if we need people coming back to the president saying you didn't do this right, you didn't do this right. The other thing is I've been in a lot of board meetings over my life. And the last thing we need is a scorecard so that we can sit here and go okay now did everybody talk? Did everybody participate? Some nights somebody's not going to participate. Some nights somebody's not going to talk. Some nights we may go off agenda a little bit. And you know what? Maybe that's okay. Okay. But to to we're going to sit here after the meeting
083and grade ourselves. I'm sorry. And and again, I I will say this. You use it in 118. We're not 118. Okay? You keep trying to bring what you did in 118 230. 230 is not 118. Okay. So, I appreciate what you say. I understand that this is what you're used to, but I also think that you have to understand what goes on in 230. And we've never had to deal with this. We've never had these issues. We never had these concerns. Okay? So, I'm sorry, but I don't believe in this. And I will be totally honest. If we decide to do this, don't send me one because I will not I will not be smart. >> Anybody else have any opinion? >> It's a good score. I think it looks neat, but I I don't
084need more data for elected officials. We don't need data on ourselves and I think this could be used as a judging mechanism you know >> it's done when we finish it or not it's I just don't have time to go home the next day and fill out a Google form. It's a it's already enough we have enough work on our plate deal. So I'm not a big fan of it as well. I'm not >> I guess I'm sorry to hear that we have members who don't want continuous self-improvement. >> No, no, no, no. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Wait. Tony. Tony. Wait. Tony. Do not say that point. Has nothing to do with self improvement. >> All right. everyone's strategy is to articulate. I'm going to continue and then we'll see if
085any other members want to articulate the thoughts improvement is commun communicating with the board president or our members. They could call say you know what what are ways to improve our board meetings, our board committee meetings not member. How about you some thoughts? >> I mean, you know, I'm looking at the survey to me, it just seems like a way to facilitate some collaboration. I don't think that it's, you know, doesn't seem overly burdensome to fill out, you know, and it's it seems to be actively seeking some soliciting feedback um and rather than waiting as member Jabber suggests, you know, for somebody to have to, you know, get irritated enough with something to reach out to to Lyn. So, and I'm willing to get a trap. >> Dton, >> I am neutral on this idea
086of I'm not really not really sure um how this changes outcomes. So I I guess I need to kind of understand like once the board president gets the feedback, how do they utilize that? What can you give an example of something that may have been a negative in general terms that after doing the survey was able to be addressed and corrected situation? >> Sure. Cuz that's I I'm struggling with that. >> Yeah. Um, in one situation they had went out um and there had been oh I mean this there had been some communication during board meetings and some folks weren't paying attention and so it went out and everyone filled it out and a number of members noted that on the scorecard and everyone saw it and I did it. I mentioned it in the
087email and either side member. >> Um I think I mean with Casar it's kind of low uh stakes easy way to just check in and make sure everything's going okay. You know, some people are totally fine uh speaking up for themselves and some people would rather, you know, kind of talk about it later and think about it and mull it over and just way to check in. Takes five minutes. >> Um, as board president, I agree with me and the added burden and with member Sari as board president, I take my role very seriously. I get feedback from people's actions at this meeting. Um I try to communicate in a timely manner right now when I respond to texts and emails to make sure that everyone is involved and we have set the protocols that
088are before us right now and we spent a lot of time in two different meetings with our lawyer and with ourselves at our evaluation meeting and that's what we determined our protocol. So, I think by reiterating that, a lot of that we have in place. I appreciate your attention to this that we looked at that. Um, but if we're if we're not following our agenda and getting sidetracked, that's for me as board president to make sure that we are target. I appreciate everyone taking a look at it. Thank you. All right. Next, we have old business, the world language discussion. I Yes. >> Oh, sorry. >> I'm sorry. Did I miscommunicate this morning? >> I Well, this is on agenda and I know the board wanted to discuss it. I'm assuming based on the education
089committee education committee's feedback. >> Um, we we heard from the feedback Dr. um Aquin and I uh were at the meeting um that you know as we move forward with curriculum review and and uh the vetting process for curriculum but this is something that the board felt like we should be including um that process uh as we said day 10 um we don't have the process up and running yet. Traditionally we wait for our teachers to be in the classroom or our our uh programs to kind of get up and running. Um so that process will start in September. It's not an overnight process so it takes time. uh there's plenty of vetting that goes along with it some of which we have failed uh at least in the preliminary sense of the education committee
090of of you know interest um uh the curriculum piece uh how can I postsecondary opportunities uh and staff so we we heard that that's something that we are going to continue to pursue and we plan to do so through the curriculum process >> and I appreciate that all the um attention to detail Dr. Hen when you and Dr. Dr. Milton presented at the education meeting. That was an amazing presentation. You did a lot of work to prepare for that and I think as Dr. Milton said, you continue to listen to people and as um member Catherine mentioned when we talked about the vetting process of new course that took time to do something to make sure we could meet all of the criteria that Dr. Milton has mentioned before something comes forward. So, thank you
091for that. Anyway, just one comment. So I'm going to go for um just just one comment not being at the education committee meeting but hearing all the information regarding it and reading whatever I did and plus also knowing the process over the years of how we put together whether we have new classes or not. I think it it really now becomes um obviously their process to make determinations as to as to what is necessary. Can we do it? Can we do it? why can't we do it? Why can't we do it? And then based upon the information that is developed and what they present to us, I think then from our perspective um you know we then pretty much rely on on them as the experts in this process to then come back to us
092and say this is what we think we ought to do based upon these facts. So, you know, I think that, you know, we have very capable people able to make those decisions and give us appropriate feedback and and make a determination is as to where we go from here. So, again, I appreciate how you guys process everything and I know that there is a very detailed process to do this. So, we'll we'll wait and see what >> I think I I mean I completely agree that that's a detailed process. um what is the first step in the process and according to the teachers contract they we engage with our world language department our advisory >> um and they are part of the process um when it when it's relatable to their burden right um so
093we have other programs of study other core issues that we're that we're looking at so it will be the same for each and every one of those whether social studies English PE etc uh as this board recalls it just uh well not a year about 6 months ago no over a year ago now time applies when Mhm. >> Starting in the new school year. Um but we added uh two portions to PD just a short while ago. So that process include the PD department P division chairs looking at this the the uh opportunity for students. Um this would be officiating the the virtual training courses. Um and you know making sure we have instructors that have the certifications. All those things were part of the process. Uh and sometimes we make the recommendation um based
094on having everything in enrollment. We need to have a vetting process that has a high confidence rate rating that it'll be successful. So that's really the start of it is to make sure we work with a more language department and kind of go through the steps as that kind of talks the number of emails and the number of speakers which we take seriously. Um I'm hoping this happens. I'm hoping we can vote on it this year. Um, that's the goal. I've been asking about this for quite some time. Ever since I got on, I talked to former President Melissa about it. I talked to Pat Wood about it, Kate. Murphy, Chris, Lynn. Um, so this is not this not something new that that just came up. I mentioned to you back with Dr. Hoffman and
095yourself in April 24, late May 24. Um, I'm just hoping the process does get started. That way, we can hopefully bring it up to the vote sometime soon. Well, as as I say, the process is starting as as we direct and the board speaks as as a group and and we heard from the board of the education committee. So, I I understand your point, but but I do respond to the board and the board has heard that as Dr. Hman and I projected it or presented, excuse me, at the education. So, uh, I we have faith to do our jobs. We we've had, uh, a lot of faith in doing our jobs to to Mr. Sery's point, uh, to the best of our ability for a large number of years, 23 m. So, I appreciate
096that. Uh, but we will go through the process. We'll bring forward ideas and concepts for all of our programs and all of our students that are in the best interest of our district based on uh, that study. So, we'll go ahead and do that. And if I could just say, all right, I'm going to ban you two from sitting behind that hole because now I'm going to call out Adam for a second. So I appreciate that you are part of the education committee. You were able to articulate the process that you were part of with the course that is is coming forward as member Casmir mentioned. So I look forward as Dr. U. Milty mentioned with the contract with the curriculum advisory and all those steps how different things are are moved along. So I
097appreciate your participation that night and your continued participation with that as well. >> Thank you. >> I just want just one short comment just to highlight conversation I had with Dr. Milstein that might there's clearly interest in the in the community and as uh member Sarah Tori said obviously we trust people in the school board is not going to be one teaching the classes or hiring the people or mentoring the teachers. you know, we have to leave that up to you guys, too. Uh, but there is a good amount of interest in this. And I'm just kind of openly saying this, you know, I I wonder if there's anything that we can do to sort of uh invite and lay down a good welcome act for someone starting a new a new position, a brand
098new position. I think what the board can do is support the administration so that we trust the administration that they have spoken forward at both the education committee and tonight and and that is our role as board members. >> Exactly. We are not the administration. We do not have the responsibility of running the dayto-day operations of this district. And we need as a board to understand that. We need to let them do their job. And since this board has sat down, there have been many times when it appears that you guys want to run the district. Please let the administration run the district. That's not our job. and we will keep deferring back to our board goals to make sure um similar to this footart but that we stay on task with that and to
099remember what our role is. So thank you. All right at this time superintendent updates for the board. >> Yes, as the board knows uh as you just recently approved your board's goals. I will be in the future updating on the progress of the goals. But since I just found out that there are goals, I don't have that progress yet. But I do want to take the opportunity to go back a little bit and just kind of um report on the the what I think is mostly successes from our previous year as we outlined uh within our school framework strategic framework on those 15 indicators. So five of those indicators of course were areas of focus. We spent a lot of time, effort and energy really addressing some areas but I wanted to report uh on
100all of them. Um again more success some areas that we know we need to continue to improve. You heard some of them earlier. Um, and I do want to just reiterate the freshman on track progress. Um, absolutely incredible. I I thank um all the folks there in the front row and a couple of the folks back in the corners are on us. Um, the the staff, the administration did an exceptional job. This is a remarkable uh increase um and at a level that most schools in the state of Illinois can only agree about. So, I'm very proud of that metric. Um, we did see I think a nice increase in our grade point average. our class of 2025 graduated with 76% of them at the at the uh 2.8 or higher GPA unweighted which is
101almost 22 2% increase. We're also very optimistic cuz our freshman numbers came in very high as well and we know that that's a base year for our freshman. So we're hopeful that as they metriculate we'll continue to keep this very high uh graduation rate we ended the year at 94.6 exactly the same as the previous year. So uh which is also a very strong number throughout the state of Illinois. We did increase our pass rate um a smidgeish about a quarter of a percent from previous years. So again, that's the progress that our students are successful on getting credits for the courses that they obtain. Um ACT is an interesting story. I'll try not to make it a long one. Um it's a little bit of a ready fire situation we're facing at the state
102level. So our students took the test, as you know, in April of last year. Uh we did receive the results. So we know what the students were able to attain in terms of their thresholds about a week ago, Dr. Humpin, that the the state communicated us to the actual cut score. So what we thought we knew as the summer ended was revised yet again on this close period uh just a week ago. Um so we're rolling through those numbers and we'll report um at either the education committee or when the school report card gets reported. Um but they completely revamped the uh the system. um something that we needed to uh we need to recalibrate our numbers from last year. >> So that's for this year the recalibration >> that is for this year's school
103report based on last year. >> Yeah. So last week this time we find out we had the ACT. Now we have to find out how they're going to score on our report. So I will have to get back to you on that once we get that. Uh, one area in this um, category of student success that we were a little bit um, saddened to see was a decline in early college course work. Um, we believe a majority of this has to do with dual credit opportunities and enrollment in those courses. As you heard earlier in our report, our AP numbers went up, which is part of that metric. U, but we need to really uh, look at dual credit more from the opportunity lens than students interests. Um, it's just become a hard uh, harder
104and never to get courses that uh, we can get credit for for our teachers to teach. So, we're working on that. That's an area that we'd like to see go down. Uh, we talked a lot about projects. Again, not the increase we wanted, but it's an increase. So, that's a little bit of a positive. Um, but we're hoping for much more of a jump. Uh, and we do hope our attendance policies, practices, and in kind of a year two at the attendance matters campaign, uh, resonates. I will tell you, um, people know, um, in in kids, we we met with all three student advisories. Uh, and one thing, even though there wasn't necessarily all positives from the kids in terms of consequences, but like I like to say, kids don't like eating vegetables, but we
105still make them. Um, if I can comment on that, I loved that the student representative mentioned that in your speech, everybody else the highlights. I like how she said that positively and articulately. So it is clear that everyone knows that >> everybody knows that although Mr. say she probably miss some point >> um but uh over couple of these efforts uh in year two we'll reach some some progress moving forward. Uh discipline was an area that we weren't totally happy with and our discipline excuse me disruption nuisance and safety referrals uh stayed exactly the same from the prior year. uh but we did see an increase or actually a decline I suppose in our uh attendance referrals and that would be a decline in terms of more students were uh in received attendance based referrals
106than the previous year again uh specific area focus one we'll continue to work on uh we did see an increase however in our co-curricular participation over 2% which is outstanding I will say um anecdotally our fall sports numbers at all three schools are higher than they've been in recent years so we're hopeful that we're going to keep kicking that in a With our kids participation, we also saw an increase in our students uh self assessment if you will and their emotional health which is our panorama survey jumping about 2%. Kids feeling good about their experience, how they feel connected to the community, connected to each other, etc., etc. Um our postsecary placement enrollment has yet to be reported. So that number hasn't necessarily changed. Um we did see a slight decrease in our uh teacher
107retention. It's still my round up is still 95% but it's 94.8 8. Um, so a slight decline um but uh but we did have a little bit of a higher retirement over last year than the year prior to um so we we don't consider that catastrophic drop but it did go down. Uh five essentials remain the same. Uh facility study again we will be rolling that back out in October of this year. Um so that number is the same as last year but we will update that in October once we get that feedback from our stakeholders. And our financial rating of 3.9 out of four will also be updated as the year goes on. That's a metric that we see updated closer to uh November, December. Um so no no update on that but u
108we anticipate those numbers uh we don't have any reason to believe that those numbers will be uh will be produced. So again um I'd say if we wanted to kind of summarize it from last year we made a lot more progress than than we saw some depression in some areas but we did see some uh we saw some progress that we know we could do better at this year. And I got to tell you, we um um we we we I forget, many people do. I forget that the people that you see in this front row with the exception of Mr. K. Sorry to call you out for the old guy kind of thing. Um brand new team last year. So it it is no doubt for me that this team will move much more
109efficiently forward um now that they have one year under develop and and I have all the optimism in the world and even though our principles have been around for a while still think that they're doing an outstanding job leading in the building because we know ideas are great at the district level but if they're not implemented with fidelity at the building level they're just ideas. So uh great team very very optimistic moving forward. Thank you for giving me the time. Certainly we can answer any questions we can. >> Much to be proud of. Thank you so much. All right. Board policies are just everyone for the first three information. Now we have board comments. I'll start with member territory and I'll make sure I rotate those first. >> Okay. So since there is a recommended
110action, so we do need to make a motion. >> Is that new? >> That's first read. >> Voice. First read your voice. >> All right. So we still have to >> Oh, we still have to do a motion. That's first read. I'm sorry. I changed it a little from committees to now. So I apologize for that. So all right, member territory. Thank you. >> I move the school board approve the first reader board policies 2.80 2.120-2 2.130 2.240 E-4 2.22 E-7.140 7.30 8.80 2.120E1 2.22E9 2.24E1 2.24 240 EN2 1.10 1.2 1.30 2.10 2.240 3304.5 4.901 4.180 5.20E2 5.270 7.40 7.90 7.130 7.325 and 8.1 second >> SCO second or member D second. >> Oh, it's okay. Do we have any questions? All right, Lisa. >> All in favor? >> I any good? Okay. All right.
111Next, we will go back to I'll start with member then since member Sar made that you want to make board comments and remember we talked about the difference with new business, old business with board comments. support comments are not up for discussion and that's something we changed. So number two um learning Arabic is more than just picking up another language. If the parent children from the world inherit become increasingly important for million jobs open for people in correct sector region where the United States is deeply involved in places countries economically um politically etc. Understanding language means understanding the people. We have a large number of people in our district. 30% 35% across the district or our area. There are histories of perspectives. Something that is critical in time and global events to shape our daily
112lives. For our younger drivers, learning better builds not only on cultural awareness also future opportunities and this will forever ones and minds to careers in government, business and education. help them grow into leaders who can engage thoughtfully in international issues. We're just not teaching language. We're giving our children the tools to build bridges foster understanding and step confident confidently into a changing world. So as a board member, it it's my responsibility to represent the needs and desires of the community as you relate to education and it's important to me. You can go on this this year and the fail. But it's deeply important to me. It's deeply important. It is because for so many years people have stereotyped us and I think it's a lack of education in our public schools all they're making a
113step in the right we have made a step in the right direction high school slowly other we should be a model of other high schools so this is why I'm very passionate about us. We came out strong to pass people and attend park and township license for our district school units. So we're very involved. We contribute a lot to the district community. A lot 60% of businesses are individuals from different backgrounds. Thank you. Uh >> I just want to thank Dr. and Dr. for the work that they did to prepare it for the last education board meeting. I'm absolutely confident that when we can um carry out the program as Mr. Chabber um you know desires that we will do so you know as long as that we're ready and prepared to do it and
114we make sure that it's going to be successful which is the most important thing is getting in there successfully and that putting the um you know work. So, thank you for your work you guys did to get to me. >> N I just want to say that um I was pleasantly surprised when we got the evidence base funding uh level increase. Um our district has been flat when it's come to that. We've always been at about the same evidence-based funding for it since they've started that model. And um I'm glad to be able to see that. I was very concerned that we were going to be um having to make um difficult decisions even though I do know that uh John Lavel and Dr. Noling had worked on uh trimming some budget items uh for
115this coming year. I'm just thankful that the state of Illinois continues to fund that. this district worked tired to apply for that type of funding and uh this point we're finally getting something that I think I do. So that's all I wanted to say. Thank you. Members go through. >> Sure. I just wanted to congratulate uh administrators, staff, and our students on what sounds like an incredible start to the school year. and I'm wishing you all the very best and of incredible success. I mean, from what we saw tonight, we're in for an amazing year. So, thank you all very much for getting us on a great start and best to you for the rest of the year. Member Kelly, >> um I would like to second uh Mr. G, Mr. M has those comments.
116And I do want to say I have no disrespect with my comments. Uh and Member Sar, thanks for bringing it up because you obviously are possibly hearing some frustration behind the scenes. I haven't known it sent to my face. So, I'll be more careful how I advocate for uh the ideas that I have. >> Madam Secretary, >> first of all, thank you for this. I really not necessary, but I do appreciate it. And I'm sure that uh he will he will wear these. So, uh, and, uh, I'm sure his his father will definitely have him wear the engine once. >> No doubt about that. Um, but thank you for that. And, uh, secondly, um, you know, I just want to again uh, say, Jeff, that um, I I am totally impressed. I mean, in this
117very very very short time you've been here and I I have been with John and Steve before him for such a long time. I I know how difficult that position is, how many hats you have to where how much juggling you have to do and or you just kind of popped right in and and kept the sheet ship moving forward. And uh I just want to tell you that I'm I'm extremely impressed and uh you know, thank you. So, I was always worried when John was told me he was going to leave and actually I the night that we voted on his retirement, I actually voted no. So, uh really just to kind of give John our time. But in all seriousness, you know, after John being here a long time, I I was concerned
118about whoever came and and you just hit the ground running. So, thank you very Thank you. >> I just closed down the motion. Um, in closing, I want to thank everyone because this is my third year now on the board and to see Institute Day this past year and as Dr. Nelson said with a new team really being developed last year and this year that was the best Institute Day I've seen and you could see the mutual respect from the staff to the administration to Adam and Christie coming up and Christie you do have a career in public speaking so don't doubt yourself again. Um, but thank you. One thing I'm not liking about us now videotaping is that you're not at the big table with us because you are the movers of the shakers
119and the movers and the doers. So, thank you for all that you do and we, as member said, are going to have an awesome year. Um, and to see the excitement of students and staff is why we are here. So, thank you for that. So at this point I'm going to make a motion to enter into executive session to consider information regarding the appointment employ compensation discipline performance or dismissal of a specific employee or legal counsel for the public body. to discuss student disciplinary cases, to discuss matters relating to placement of individual students in special education programs, and to consider other matters relating to individual students. To discuss collective negotiating matters or deliberation concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees, and to discuss pending or probable litigation against, affecting, or on behalf
120of the public body, and to discuss the setting, no price of sale or lease of property owned by the public body. All right. Member J2. Okay. All right. Lisa. >> Thank you. Member Sartori. >> Yes. >> Member Dton. >> Yes. >> Member Scild. Yes. >> Member Jabber. >> Yes. >> Member Kelly. >> Yes. >> Member Cassian. >> Yes. >> Member Zer. >> Yes. And Yes. And we are going to go into executive session. And for those watching, we will not come back live, but our results following that meeting will be static on the web page. Thank you.