Crete Monee School District 201u COTW Meeting 4/8/2025

001Testing one, two, three. Testing one, two, three. All right. I would like to call this meeting to order for Creep Moni 2011 U School District. Today is Tuesday, April the 8th, 2025. It's 6:30 or 18:30 military time. This is the committee of the whole. Can I have roll call, please? Mr. Secretary. Yes. Uh let's do uh Mr. Albert here. Mr. Ggo is a here. Uh Mr. Swalish here, Miss Zit Sers here, Miss Wolffoke here, and President Brown here. Thank you. Let us stand for the pledge of allegiance led by board secretary Mr. Ghagos followed by a mission statement statement led by our vice president board member Dr. Hall. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty

002and justice for all. And our mission statement is to engage and empower our students to positively impact their community and future. Thank you both. Do we have any public comments? Okay, we do have a reason to go into close session both at the beginning and at the end and we are going into close session for the reason to the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees specific individuals have can I have a motion to do as such read so moved Second. Moved by Nelson, second by Bill. Roll call, please. Or any questions. Mr. Albert, I. Mr. Gos is an I. Mr. Salish. I Miss Zumbers. I Miss Wolk. I Dr. Hall. I President Brown. Hi. All right. Okay, we're going to be going into close session. How long? 45 minutes. And we

003will be coming back. But this meeting, we will not take any action, but we will continue on with our agenda as laid out. Okay. I'd like to resume our committee as a whole meeting. We're picking up with any board updates. Yeah, I had one. Mhm. So, Saturday, um, our choir director, Mr. Alphantis invited Vander Cook College of Music to come here and work with our students um our choir students and they came and he brought two sections. So I wasn't really I'm not really familiar but he brought they came up and sang as a choir and then they brought up another group with part of their choir and they sang. And then after those two sessions went on in between we had two of our students sing solos. And then our students came up, our

004choir and sang. And then they did Vander Cook and our kids did one together. And so he was they were here for I I four or five hours teaching and then uh going through and working on a couple songs together and doing it. I got to be honest, it was the first first year. It was fantastic just to see and two students from Vanderook are our students that graduated. One was Daniel from two years ago and I forgot the young lady who I think graduated two years ago. So, two of our cre warrior students were at Vanderook in their choir. It's fantastic. That was awesome. So, it was good. It was about an hour long, but it was the first year that they were invited. So, Mr. Alphantis said he was going to invite them

005next year. Again, it's a good stepping stone for any one of our uh art, you know, um performing in any whether it's choir or show choir or band or whatever. We had band members there, too. Wow. It was good. Wow. Only thing could have made it better if you had a solo. Yeah. Not me. Yeah. Wow. Good. Good. That's good. Good information. And taking our kids to another level. On uh April 2nd, um the civil leaders went down to Springfield. Um I don't know how many actually went. I think there was four. I thought that was Danzel. Uh yeah, group. Yeah. Yeah. Um they spent the day down there. Uh Lamont said that he was going to give me show me photos. He didn't. I thought we got some photos. I thought he sent them.

006You did. It was just like two photos. He said he got a whole He's like I have a whole bunch of them. A whole photo album, huh? Yeah. Um but uh yeah, that was uh really cool to find out that uh I wish I could have gone with them. Like that would have been cool. Yeah. I think they met Pat I think that was the Patrick Joyce's office, right? Was it Patrick Joy? They they they met. Yeah. Yeah. Patrick Joyce was there. Uh they went to the um the governor's mansion, but uh JB wasn't there. There was somebody I don't know. It was a good opportunity for them. Yeah, that's what they told me that he wasn't there. All right. That was cool. That was cool. No. Um, so, uh, my board update, there's something

007different. I just don't want to wait, so I'm going to say it now. And I need the public to know because, as you know, the election is over and with the election, it was stated, and I want to make it clear that I don't support Hispanic students because I abstained from a vote on a resolution. And it was said that some board members also felt that way. I mean, whether it's true or not, it doesn't matter. But I want to make it clear that even my 22-year-old daughter can explain that a resolution isn't worth the paper that it's written on. We already had a policy in place and the only thing that I wanted was to have that policy put into the resolution and state what it is that we already support. So, I support

008all students and I always have supported all students and I will continue to support all students. I've been a counselor to students at Kelly High School, which was 95% Hispanic when they were when the Dreamers uh act first came into place. I was with them, supporting them, giving them ideas on how to support. I still keep in touch with students from uh from that school, students from Rosa Parks that that were Hispanic. on and on and on. I could go on about the different students that are Hispanic or groups of Hispanics or events that I've attended. I do not look at Hispanic students any different than I look at any other student in this um that I've ever worked with or that goes to any school or that I've supported. So, that is a false

009narrative. I I did not support. Yes, I did not vote uh for or against the resolution because I didn't think there was a real need for it. And when given the opportunity, nobody could explain to me or the other members why the resolution was needed. But it was suggested that if we're going to have a resolution, why don't we just point out our policy and the strengths of our policy and what we already do versus writing a resolution. and that and I stand by it. I still believe in it. I think that if we were to point out our policy and take those pieces and do it, I can hey, I'm fine with it. I didn't think it needed to be a resolution. And again, when I ran even when I run it past my

010daughter, she without me saying anything, she's like, why do a resolution? What's the point of a resolution in this case? People can disagree, but I feel like we already have stuff and we just need to the policy is what we are governed by and what we follow. Yeah. And like I said, I agree with you. I I just it was redundant in my opinion. I just thought it was saying the same exact thing. That's it. That's that's the way we have policies. We follow them and Okay. Yeah. I have a No, go ahead. Is this on the same topic? No. Okay. Um would you like to rock paper scissors for those? Okay. Um I just wanted to like the choir had a big event this weekend. A lot of the um instrumentalists had their final

011concerts at Merit this last weekend and they were all phenomenal. So, yay. Kudos to the instrumentalists and the vocal instrumentalists. That was it. Okay, thanks. So, last month I attended the COSBA National Convention, COSBA Consortium of State School Board Association. Oh, wow. Which Illinois is a part of. We're all in the Cosba network. And so I along with um President Brown was there. And um I just wanted to say thank you to Cheryl for all your help with registration and the lodging and all my little one-off questions. Um but I I being a novice to the board um I'm still soaking in a lot of information. So it was really inspiring just to hear the different things that people are doing across the country. And so it incited a lot of thought for me and

012a lot of ideas. I'm like I wonder about what we do at our board, you know. So, I just want to encourage everyone u I don't know necessarily the policy per se about when we attend these conferences and when we don't. But I definitely want to encourage everyone to take advantage of these opportunities so that we never stop learning. We never get to a point where, oh, I've been to a million of these. I don't have nothing to gain from it. And I'm not trying to put words in their mouths. I'm just saying um when we are not present and I don't know I know it's a budget thing as well but when we're not present I just don't want us to have the impression that oh we got it figured out there's nothing new

013that we could be doing nothing new we could be learning you know and so I just thought it was a great opportunity to go um I met a lot of people if nothing else the networking that happens at these conferences is definitely worth the trip and so I just want to Thank you for letting me go. Um, one of my most memorable highlights was the workshop that I attended that talked about what's the culture of your school board. And I'm like, I mean, I know what the U united, but I don't know what all of us are we all would we all have the same answer. If someone asked us all independently, how would you describe the culture of CM 2011U school board? What would we say? and are we all really here with the

014same intentions of what it means to be a board member here? So, that was my take-home message, excuse me, about being inspired to make sure that the things that I'm doing and the reasons why I'm here truly is aligned and then how do we define ourselves as a board and that's from top down. So, okay. And that concludes my report. Very good. Good job. Well spoken. Well spoken. Anybody else? Thank you. Yeah. So now, now I know the real reason when I first showed up, you had been there a day before me and we sat down and we talked a little bit. You asked me the question, what's our culture? Like, geez, where did that come from? Now I know. So but uh very good very good uh conference and I'll share some things at

015our ne next meeting including get getting an autograph book from one of the speakers there but very good conference again just the we used to have the national conference which encompassed all of the states then back in 2020 2021 some issues came up where it divided the states so basically half of the states is with the The other half is with COSPA for the most part. So, I wish we can all get along and be one one big body again. But that's just not going to happen anytime soon. But very good conference nonetheless. All right. Any other board updates? Oh, one more thing. Thank you, uh, Dr. Perkins. In your absence, you was doing your civil duty and jury duty. We had our kids meeting, you know, and that was very good. Hopefully, you can

016present something to the board. And I told Kelly and the members at the last meeting a couple weeks ago, we need to update the board in a manner to let the board know exactly kind of what we're doing, how much gain we have, the the progress is just awesome. All the hard leg work because I think it's going to be a big hit to implement some of the things and talking to Dr. Kong. I want to hit you up and talk to you about this too, okay? because we may be soliciting the board to change a policy or implement some changes with a policy in some manner. I'll talk to you about it. Okay. My suggestions to help this initiative move forward with the kids. So if not next week sooner sooner than later. Okay.

017We will talk maybe have a meeting between Dr. Kogese you and and Kelly. Okay. I get that. All right. Thank you. That's all I have. Administrative updates. Since we've gotten back from spring break, everyone is continuing to do well um getting all those uh things done at the school level. Um it's been busy out in the buildings as we've gone out and taken a look at things. So, um we've winding things down. We've got seven weeks to do. So, we have a lot of push and a lot of um things to accomplish in that next seven weeks. But, uh everyone's doing well. Okay. That's good news. Yeah, it's pretty much moving forward. Okay. All right. Next up on the policy. Oh. Oh, excuse me. That's okay. So, um this was just a an item that

018was brought up on board policy 760 on residency. And I guess um I even included a few things in here. Um I guess there was a question that was brought up from uh one of our board members to have us maybe take a look at that. And the question was really looking at are we interested is the board interested in changing the board policy to allow uh employees to um have their children attend the school district tuition free and so there are a few districts out there that do allow that. Are we going to ask questions? Yes, of course. What was the impetus behind this question? just because we've had and let me just from my perspective um we've had a lot of questions about residency, who is a resident, how much money is going

019out for paying for people that are um unhoused or um a numerous other things. And then we're talking about working in a working on tightening budget constraints. So my I guess my question is what's the impetus to to bring in like like where did this come from? I guess you want me to Yes, please do. This is your idea. the IHSA IHSA states that if you have a um a staff member who has a student and they so basically we've always I think we've always had it where you where your kid can come to school in the district um from and a lot of places have that your kid if you work in a district your kid can come to school because you're paid per pupil um so IHSA says if you have a because

020kids schools will get in trouble for having kids come and parents want their kid to come to school with them and play at the school that they are at and the coaches and the came together and said hey what if our kid we lived outside the district but coached in the district we need to have a rule where our kid can come to school to the school we're at and the IHSA said that's fine as long as you have a policy. So that so we um I asked her do we have a policy and originally I was told we do have a policy but then when she looked further oh she being Dr. Yeah, not not to disrespect you. Um, when we look fur when she looked further, it was we did not have a

021policy. So, my I asked her to bring it up because we there are staff members who would like to bring their kids here and they do play on the sports and but the policy has to affect all kids which makes sense and and it's no problem. Um, so that's where the where the this came from. How does the funding differential between from other students like we have talked about before we came up with was if there's a spare student and the way it works is if there's a spare student who we have to who has a disability and they have to go outside that I guess we get a certain money from that which is different than um if we have a student that's housed in within our system and they are self-contained um is

022my understanding. If they're self-contained, we're all we're going to get there. There are number that accounted for within our district is my understanding. So So there's two things. One private school, you can do that. So for example for our our district 2015 Prince was a wonderful player and they do it because they're private they're private school they're not public they're not a public school right so for me personally if you want to do that that's a private school thing so I think if you want to go to a school I just think public school is public school. That's where that's at. The second part of that is we worked hard on the residency. And then we just had a section of that's been going on for a long time and and we closed that by

023allowing them to be here until they're kids. that no more new kids from that area are going to come in because their tax hours go to another school or even from their own family. So if they if those families had another child, that child goes to another school, right? We're not even grandfathering in those children. The other thing is with the budget constraints, we have to maintain our residency because if we have another issue where we have to pull in a service to do that, It's got to be fair because one of them people could say, one of those families could say, "Well, that person doesn't live here. Why are they here?" So, you could have that argument. And I know we've worked really hard on trying to give the taxpayers, you know, they're like

024I said from the beginning, it's not about it's it's about our taxpaying children first. So, every taxpayer in this district and their children, what and then anything after that. But I just think we worked really hard on the residency to maintain that level of you're a resident here then your kids here bringing an outside uh staff member. I just so I I do have one question one one I don't know if it's a question or a statement the the taxpayer and I don't care what y'all decide at this point. I mean that if somebody wants to come they're going to find a way. um the taxpayer thing, right? That might work in nutri or something like that where the base of your money comes from tax dollars. We have a small percent small a much

025smaller percentage of the base of our money coming from tax dollars versus Lincoln 60% of our property tax revenue property taxes from grants from uh from title funds, right? We're not getting much about 12% federal. I'm wrong. I take that back. We get 70 70% right for sure that I think I think Jason going to talk on the property. So I think if I'm correcting in the 65 to 67% range is a ballpark that their property tax that's why most people associate their tax bill like Jason's got a presentation here. Most people will come in here, maybe they don't come to see you, but when they get their tax bill, there's at least a half. No, I I get I get that because they're referencing you get the most. No, I I get that. So,

026what I'm what I was looking at was another comparing it to another district that I looked at and I did not and I spoke before I looked at our district to see how much. So I I can't bill, correct me if wrong, two years ago, I think they gave a re they gave an amount back because they had a surplus. I'm telling you, that's an audit. No, and I get I get that because it was during co and they got their transportation money from the year before and they didn't have to spend any on transport. And one of the other biggest things is we are a tiffheavy district, right? Neighborville and places like that are not tiff heavy. They have businesses paying it to the district. I just for a clarification if that teacher felt

027strongly about our athletic programs and wanted them here move into the district. Well, one, could they move into the district? Is there what is that a barrier? But two, could they pay the out of out of district tuition like we suggested for some of those parents that No, they can't. That's not been a practice for us. No. Okay. Well, then that's or I was just looking if like they wanted to foot the the bill. That would be something different. I know those families, few of those families offered to do that, right? I just wanted to Yeah. So, is it doesn't sound like I guess we have it up for a vote next week, but I'm not sure there's the support for it. But I don't Yeah, I I I I think there's a lot of

028gaps. There's definitely some pros and cons. You know, I did a little research on it. Got some pros and cons, but I'm not going to go into a lot of details here, but there's definitely some pros and cons. And I heard a lot of the cons and I heard a lot of the pros, but but I would personally would want a little bit more information. I see you use an example. I think Northbrook. Um there are some districts that do that. Typically districts will do that if they're trying to attract employees. That's not been an issue for us particularly. And then I heard specifically uh you know sports who maybe have a athlete out there that's the and that particular athlete parent work for the district and there's a chance that we can use a

029good athlete but I think it need to encompass not only the athlete athletic portion but students in general that's what we're going to get you know we're going to we want this if we open it up it'll be students in general but from the monetary portion of it. There's still some gaps that we need to figure that out if we want to move forward. And it was just to make it legal for per the IHSA. That's the because what was the ISA was that policy predicated on sports driving it? Yeah, because the IHSA only focuses on Oh, sports. Okay. Well, not just sports, but certain activities as well. But that's that was why. Yeah. because they have that and to make it you know and and one thing I'll just say the cons and again

030predicated on we have had a lot of public relations issues a lot of button heads with the residency over the many years as Jamie alluded to and one of the cons here it says uh equity and fairness concerns and definitely impact fundings but again some pros were stronger community ties uh boasting local enrollment, employees moral moral or morale and job satisi uh satisfication. So there's definitely some pros and cons with it, but I don't think hearing it right now there's a consensus to move forward on a vote on this heard two people. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. It was just me and yeah, that's what I'm like there are lots of other voices, but I'm saying there's opportunity work that way. I have to make No, I'm just kidding. I actually don't.

031So Alex, anybody else want to talk about it? with a non-resident um are we responsible for the transportation and all those I would think so the parent I mean cuz usually if they work here they would bring it and they should understand that we're not responsible and that would be that could be in the put in the policy okay I'm not in favor so oh and and what employees are we talking about? Are we just talking about teachers and administrators? Every employee. Any any employee? Any and every employ. So that's seven 700 employees. Would it only be open for I mean we could write I'm sorry. We could write it for whoever we however we want. But I mean um what about because we got a great manufacturing area. So could somebody who's not involved

032in sports then we would have we would do the same for them even though they're not IHSA involved that that IHSA was what brought it up. Right. Correct. I just didn't know if it was going to be a limiting factor that they had to be involved in an IHSA sponsored activity or if like I would think we have to open up the door for all the kids of employees no matter if they play sports or not. Yeah. And that's why I just wanted to know if the the idea was for it to be across the board or only open for IHSA participants. Perfect. Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate that. Yeah. So, the consensus of the board, I see we heard from two. Alex, you want to comment? I I just did. Oh, I'm

033sorry. I was asking I was asking if uh uh who what employees does this apply to? And and if it's everybody, that's a lot of people. Um, so I mean I don't know how the real estate market is. I don't know how easy it is to move into district. Um, but I mean I got here so Okay. It's not impossible. We all got here somehow. Okay. All right. Anybody else? Opportunity. All right. So, uh, we'll have to drop it. you get more information, but if you could, I don't know if we just want to drop it and just or just try to just kind of table it or just kind of have more information, get more information. I don't want to just if there's good opportunities there to take advantage, you know, with some of

034the concerns, have answers on funding, having answers on perception and PR relationships and things like that. I don't think we have those answers at this point to move forward with a vote. This is something that can always be brought up. Should we ever be in a better financial situation or things change or we trying to attract more teachers? Correct. Is this something that we could bring up at another point in time? This isn't like the end of it forever. That's why I want it to be the end, but I don't know if we ready to just move it to next week. I I I don't feel good. But I think it may end up failing as a vote and then that seemed like we just put that to the side. That's it. So I am

035always encouraging ideas to come up and move forward in some way, but I don't know if we have enough data to really justify implementing this as a policy. I mean, it could always be brought up in old business later on down the line. We can talk about it. Yeah. Down the line. So, okay. We have Mr. Okrazinski. I think he's up for two presentations. Short-term facility plan and uh the timely conversation of understanding your tax bill. Why was he so quiet when we was talking about that? Uh good evening, President Brown, members of the board of education, Dr. Coglin. I'm here uh excuse me uh to present an updated um plan for uh updated financials for our short-term facility plan. Um go ahead and dig into this. Um this is the slide actually the entire

036presentation is uh pretty familiar to you guys. Um just got some updated information based on last month when I presented. So if you take a look here, uh this is just a reminder. Um we have uh contract balances remember remaining from our summer work of the summer 2024. Um those numbers haven't changed. Um what has changed is work projected to take place during the summer of 2025. If you remember on the previous presentation, we had uh replacing doors and exterior doors and windows at our elementary schools. As it was pointed out to me last month, the only projects that have been approved are the roofing project at Creed Elementary, the sportslex, and then also the addition and re uh the addition of classrooms at the middle school. So, I took out the door exterior doors

037and the windows at the elementary school to help give us a better picture of where we stand with the approved projects. So, uh, one change that did come from the summer of 2025 is we are actually going to start work on the middle school this summer. Um, if you guys can remember, the plan for the middle school was to add seven additional classrooms, four smaller workspaces. Um, believe they're currently being used for like PT, uh, small group instruction. And then in the addition that was added in around 2015, I believe we were going to wall off a little bit of the rotunda and make that a teacher space uh where meeting space for teachers to work on our plan period. Um after meeting with um the contractors, we decided to go ahead and get started

038on that project this summer. Wow. So you guys will see a line item. No u no alteration to cost. I just took the the cost estimates for those that portion of the project and moving them up into summer of 2025. So really excited to show that we're getting started with that project in addition to completing the sports flex. Um then for this Oh, sorry. No, we just Yeah. Yeah. Subliminally clapping, right? She got me doing it, too. Maybe I'll be doing it by hand. As long as you're not dancing. Okay. So, Jason, the work will get started, but it still won't be will it be completed this year or those those rooms will be ready. Those small rooms, just those small six rooms will be completed for the start of school. We've already spoke with

039principal Cos. She's working with, you know, the summer school. We're not going to shut it down. She's got summer school in separate area. But those rooms will be ready to be utilized. And then we'll continue with our plan to add the classroom throughout the year and be ready for August of 2022. So that's a year that's a year ahead, right? The small areas. Yeah, the small area we get started. That's great. All right. Yeah. So good. Okay. And then um as I noted uh as I mentioned the summer of 2026 the only approved project at that point the squirlex in the high school would be done and then we would finish the uh classroom additions at the middle school. So that does change the financials and if you just bear with me as we go

040through the project um it's going to look a lot more favorable now that we took the door the exterior doors and the windows out. Um these slides are also familiar. Uh the one big change, well not big change, but I did uh up the contingency to 10% um for the roofing project at Creed Elementary. Um and then I removed the exterior doors and windows from the other elementary schools. Also removed from Tala Elementary. Then when I came to the middle school, um I did up the contingency for the middle school project of 7 and a half which I previously presented to 10%. And then you guys can see the work on uh summer 2025 that's been shifted over to the left where previously it was off and uh aligned with summer college. Just a quick

041question Jason the the stuff at the middle school is going to take you know that middle area I think they're taking out and put classrooms on top. Yes sir. So do they know when do you know when just a idea if you don't know I I understand because it's off the cusp question but how long will that take do they know will the time frame of May to August be enough? No, actually what we're planning on doing is we uh they plan on doing the demon demolition work over Christmas breaking and securing it and then they will work through you know through the year um you know a lot of students are there have it all safe and secure and principal Chrisos knows all that and so be aware that's good okay because I know

042that's going to be an undertaking trying to take all that out put the classrooms on top of each other there okay yeah so Jason and and I really commend you and I think Bill was working on this too behind the scenes that that was one of the things I was going to suggest that is it possible to delay some of these big gun jobs with the roofs and the windows and something like that that's not really a safety issue it's more of a efficiency and also bill I know the PMS and the money set aides for PM is dear to your heart I and I'm with you on that too but I would definitely like a priority PMS that we can really say this is how much we want to spend and if it's only

043$800,000 this coming up year whatever we because you know we're running look like we're going to have a projected deficit over the next couple years right from your presentation the last time around. So anywhere we can capture some money, some revenues and all of these unexpected things that may be coming forward from a federal point of view, we we can be looking at some dire. So when we talked I, you know, we had met prior, but Jason and his team did a good job. So we originally with Ken figured two million in the debt, two million in uh going to the fund and then two million for prevented maintenance, but they've done a great job. Okay. Narrowing that 2 million down to a number which then put more money into our operating which is which

044is good. So that's what we were talking about is and Jason and his team seem done a good job just coming up with pulling that out because I think Kennedy put that on the long term like three years down the road or four years with the windows and doors and I go listen our payback is the middle school and the sport like the making sure that is done exactly the way we want it. This is something we can again pro project down the road and we will in a future facility. But they did a great job, Jason and his team, pulling that, looking at it, and then coming up with a better preventive maintenance that was more realistic to be able to fund. And that was exactly what you, you know, this is great. This

045is great. This is, uh, dear to my heart. So, uh, it was, it was because I was always like, where could the revenue come from? and how not totally eliminated these big guns jobs and and projects that we need to do with the roofs and the doors and all of that, but do we have to do it like right now? Okay. Do we have to do it like right now? Because they were not like, you know, if they life safeties, if we capture some of this with the life safeties, we got to do that. And we we had discussed that if there was something major like I think at Tawa a couple years ago, there was a door that was bad and we replace it, right? kind of like we're doing with elementary roof, right?

046But like I said, I went in there, he had everything all they had everything already broken down and figured out. So, it was very, very good. Good job. Continue, Jason. Uh, moving on to u the high school sports project. Um, some items have been added to this. As with the other projects that have been approved, I up the contingency from 7 and a half to 10%. But in addition to that, I did add the utility work into the the project. So you guys see this middle section here, that's the uh utility work to make sure that we have a function on stadium and concession stand. Those are firm quotes that I have obtained from Burns and Jones to get that work done. And then the other item, thanks to Don over here who's been very

047instrumental in helping map out the technology aspect of the course. You will see that a server has been included for the amount of $88,000 into the concession stand. So we can uh provide ample Wi-Fi for staff and uh everyone uh properly not only at the sports court but also at the baseball and softball field as well. And so this is the list that you came No, to the board. A couple, but some of these items was from that list. The the major utilities I I included those. Now, um you know, I acknowledge the fact that those were overlooked when we had the initial project. And Jamie pointed out that, you know, they are a necessity, so I placed them in here. any any additional things that were on the add-on list, uh those will come

048at, you know, a later date when we uh have a better understanding of where we are with the contingency to complete the project and to do it properly. Oh, okay. Uh I'm just trying to see is it broken down of the ones that was on that list that was $1.9 million, I believe. Is it broken down the ones that was extrapolated from that list? I can send that in. just try it as a separate so I can have a better a better line of sight on those items. Yeah, I can clear that up. Okay, if you don't mind. Okay. Definitely want the electrical work. You know, that pays my rent. You get a discount. You could. Yeah, I I'll take care of you. I'll try for you. All right. Okay. Go ahead, Jason. Sorry to

049interrupt. Um the the bleacher system here uh I see 2,000 home and 1,000 visitor. What is our capacity now or what what what it used to help me out with that? I think it was probably 12 on 12 on the home side maybe home 400. Okay. All right. So it is a substantial growth. Okay. You don't even got standing room only, too. Yeah. Did you say the 88,000 was a technology? Is that that middle 88,000 right there? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Doesn't how many Doesn't matter how many seats you have, Mr. Dr. Hall's going to stand on the sideline. So, that's right. He is should give him his own special spot. The end zone. Yeah. He kind of helped get this thing going get his own. Well, you know, we we we will have a

050a very large press box. So, I'm sure that and not not Dr. Hall. I know he likes to be down by the action, but any other dignitaries that would like to come enjoy the game, you know, the weather conditions that will be a possibility in our long overdue press box. So, you don't have to worry about he has one of those radio voices that he can announce be the announcer. So there's no heat in this box. Great. That's what I No, everything's in there. The contingencies are good because you always have to have them in there. You always have to have those in there. But like I said, everything looks much better. Thank you. I'm glad you got some contingency and not using the contingency up to do non-contingency stuff, right? I I definitely wanted

051to resemble Creep Monique and show that we are who we are and not just a barebones plain old stadium field. Like I liked how you were talking about some of the decals and things of that nature versus somebody just coming saying, "Wait, where are we again?" Not. No, we have to be identifiable. Yes. And I appreciate that. And um I know it's uh been a while since we've had a design team meeting. I'm looking to schedule one of those next Tuesday on the 15th around the same time. So the 15th. You sure it's the 15th? I saw a different date. That is not due to Dr. She's not paying attention anyway. I don't know why I thought it was going. My apology on tax on tax day. Okay. All right. Um, so, uh, this slide

052there's really been no changes to the, uh, revenue sources. These numbers are consistent with what was in the presentation, uh, last month. Uh, the next slide here, since we have taken out the doors in the windows, um, I do want you to see the surplus deficit went from $1,000 to uh, slightly over $5.8 million. So that's how much money we had dedicated to the doors, exterior doors and windows. Uh not to say that we'll, you know, use this. This is here for us. It's it's for us to have knowing that we can do this project and the middle school project. Well, Dr. Gar know that I'm very intentional with my money. I like to save money. So, uh, you guys can trust that regardless beyond these two projects, you know, I'm not going to be

053down this money because I know that we have to make it last long. So, yes, but just give us a buffer uh without the doors and the windows in here as Mr. Wallace pointed out last month. You know, this just addresses the three projects that have been approved in a time frame with Thank you. Totally in agreement. Perfect segways to this wonderful change. Yeah. Yeah. No, looking forward to that. We're going to keep Nelson on there. He's a legend. Get rid of the guy with a fuzzy face. Uh, now you keep me as the the old the oldest person. You know why he said that? Cuz he's going to the tax bill next. Wow. Hey, what is Dr. Coglin doing there? She's not a board member. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. We're going to have

054plumbing. So, as Jason's getting ready for this, I just want to give you some why we're doing a presentation on tax bill. Um part of our transparency to the community is to make sure that we are sharing with them uh our families and members of the community how to understand your tax bill. So much is being questioned about tax dollars, how we're using the money and so forth. And so we wanted to take some time to present uh how to understand the tax bill. And then embedded in this, you'll see today we have a video that we will be able to share with the various villages if they would like to push it out to their constituents to understand the tax bill. Um, and certainly to allow questions um if there's anything pertaining to a

055school district, we are happy to entertain that. Otherwise, you know, to the will county as well. So, um, I'm going to turn this over. So, will we have Alicia doing it? Alicia's not on this. I have the finance avatar now. Oh, the finance. Somebody said Alicia looks like somebody sitting in this room. It does. I I introduced them to Alicia. They said, "But does she talk? Does she talk like the one?" Do you talk like a No, she does not. This is good timing because they're coming out within the next 30 days, I think. Yes, sir. That's why he works to do this so fast. She's a wonderful asset to the business department. I don't want to put her on the spot. I think you have to realize this. You guys would like Come on.

056Come on. Thank you very much again. the second presentation as Dr. K alluded to uh pertains to understanding tax bills. So u before we get started I'd like to share some common terms with you that are mentioned when discussing tax bills. First one being equalized assessed value. The rest of the presentation I'll be referring to that as EA that's the property assessed value multiplied by a state certified equalization factor. Exemptions uh exemptions are reductions in the assessed value that lower your tax bill. Some common homeowners exe common exemptions are your general homeowner homestead exemption, my apologies, commonly referred to as your homeowners exemption. The senior citizen exemption, which also includes a freeze at times. Um, say that say that again. It also what includes a what? Includes a freeze at times. At times I'd have

057to Right. It it's predicated the freeze is predicated on income. The exemption for seniors is only predicated on age. So a freeze, you could get a senior citizen exemption with a freeze that's predicated on income and age. But just a senior exemption is predicated on just age. I sincerely appreciate that. Yeah. Okay. Okay, I'm a senior and I that's why I know I I got calibrated. Okay, I went in there for a freeze. They said, uh, you make much more than our limit is. So, no freeze for me. They froze me in my that spot from talking. Okay. Okay. Uh, the next term I'd like to mention is a levy. That's the total amount of money a taxing district collects from uh property taxes. And then a tax rate is a is used to calculate

058bills based on the funding needs of local tax. So uh what determines your property taxes? Those are generally determined by two key factors. The property EAB uh which represents your property share of total tax base and then the tax rate which is determined by the tax district school public service entities that fall within that particular tax code. How's your property's equalize assess value determined? Uh the township township assessor determines your property's market value based on property characteristics, recent sales of similar homes in the area, and a study of sales over the past three years. The assessed value is onethird of the market value determined by them. If the supervisor of assessment applies the equalization factor, the total assessed value is then multiplied by that factor. Then once you arrive at your equalized assessed value, any

059exemptions that you qualify for are then deducted from your assessed value. So an example of that would be if your home is worth $240,000 in market value, a third of that is $80,000 assessed before exemptions. And if you have a homestead exemption, that would take your EAV down from $80,000 to $72,000 and your tax rate will be applied to that EA for you individually. When it comes to t calculating the tax bill, each property falls within a tax code area which includes various tax districts. As we mentioned before, that's school district, municipalities, and other uh taxing bodies. Each school, each local tax district determines the levy amount in dollars according to how much they need to operate. So when we prepare our levy, that's a flat amount. Uh you know, we levy for either CPI

060or max 5% which we did this year. Tax rate is determining by using the uh formula below. Take the total amount of the taxing district need. You divide that by the total assessed value. And that's how you compute your tax rate. Uh the tax bill is then determined by multiplying the EAB by the tax rate. And I have a slide here. Uh the next slide I have an example. I reached out to the will county treasur's office and they were kind enough to present provide this to us. So on the left hand side you see a key and then on the right hand side you see the sample tax bill. Um there's a contact information for Will Countyy's treasurer's office. Um, in the upper right hand corner is your PIN number, also referred to as

061your property index or property identification number, I'm sorry. Any important information, if you have back taxes sold or anything like that, you'll find that below your PIN number. Um, mailing address of where the bill is mailed to, that's number four. And what I'd like to turn your attention to is the se uh section five and section six because this is the most important part. So in this particular example, we have tax code 3043 and then in tax code 3043, you see all the taxing district that make up 3043. Then you see the prior year rate and the prior year tax and then um to the right of that you see the current year rate and the current year tax to provide you with a comparison as a taxpayer. In the section here on the right

062hand side, you'll see a breakdown of the assessed value. Here's the state equaliz factor equalization factor which is at one. And then here, no exemptions were applied in this example, but if they were, they would be deducted from the equalized value. Then that would give you that equalized value. Multiply your tax rate gives you the total tax amount due. which you can also see down here and uh by number eight and divided in half for the first and second installment. Um the bottom portion is the coupon payment portion um which just reinforces some of the information that we had above. This is a great example of a tax bill provided by Will County Treasurer. Any questions? Yeah, I would love to own this home. $3,000 in taxes, right? thought about that when I put the

063So, why do property taxes change? Uh, the main drivers and changes in property taxes are the properties assessed value, uh, local government spending exemptions that apply to your property and the total assessed value across the tax area. Um, of which, you know, the district is really only responsible for the second one, the local government spending. That's what we factor out of our control. um resources. I want to thank Miss Mary Tamez, the predecessor, and Miss Sandra Herd, the Mon assessor. They did they were not able to be in attendance this evening, but I did meet with them um to go over the presentation to kind of speak with uh the contents of it. And they said, you know, the most important thing is transparency. So I provided their email addresses in case anyone watching this

064or viewing a presentation has any questions regarding the equaliz assessed value of their homes. Um and it's pleasure working with them on many occasions. Uh usually great coming to the meetings. It's just they had conflicting appointments this evening and as Dr. Cara alluded to. So without any further ado, I'm going to uh show you guys a video that will be available and pushed out VR communication to help the public understand uh how the tax bill is calculated. [Music] Have you ever looked at your property tax bill and felt overwhelmed by all the numbers and terms? Well, you're not alone. That's why we at the Creep Mooney 2011U School District created this short video to break it all down in a simple way. By the end, you'll have a clear understanding of what goes into calculating

065your tax bill. In this video, here's what we'll cover. What determines your property taxes, how your property's assessed value is determined, common terms on your tax bill, how your tax rate is calculated, how your tax bill is determined, and why property taxes change. To begin, what determines your property taxes? Your property tax bill is based on two key factors. Your property's equaliz assessed value or EAV. This represents your property's share of the total tax base. The tax rate. This is determined by the funding needs of local taxing districts such as schools, municipalities, and other public services. Next, we'll cover how your property's assessed value is determined. Your township assessor determines your property's market value based on your property's characteristics, recent sales of similar homes in your area, and a study of sales over the past

0663 years. To find your assessed value, the assessor takes onethird of your market value, then subtracts any exemptions you qualify for. For example, if your home has a market value of $150,000, your assessed value would be about $50,000 before exemptions. Here are some common terms found on your tax bill. First, as we mentioned before, there is the equalize assessed value or EAV. This is your assessed value multiplied by a state certified equalization factor to ensure fairness. There are exemptions. These are reductions in your assessed value that lower your tax bill. Common exemptions include general homestead exemption which is for homeowners, senior citizen exemption or veterans and disabled persons exemptions. There is also the term levy. The levy is the total amount of money a taxing district collects from property taxes. Next, there is the tax

067rate. This is the percentage used to calculate your tax bill based on the funding needs of local governments. This leads us to how your tax rate is calculated. Each property falls within a tax code area which includes various local taxing districts. Your tax rate is determined using this formula. Total amount taxing districts need divided by total assessed value of the area equals your tax rate. Next, there is the issue of how your tax bill is determined. Here's how that's done. Once your EAV or equalized assessed value is determined, your tax bill is calculated using this formula. Equalized assessed value times your tax rate equals your tax bill. For example, if your home's EAV is $50,000 and the tax rate is 6.704%. Your tax bill would be $50,000 time 6.704% which equals $3,352. Finally, let's talk

068about why property taxes change. Your tax bill may increase or decrease due to changes in your property's assessed value, changes in local government spending, changes in exemptions that apply to your property, or changes in the total assessed value across your tax area. For example, even if your home's assessed value decreases, your tax bill may still increase if local taxing bodies require more funding. Understanding your property tax bill is important because it directly affects your finances. Thank you for watching this video on understanding your property tax bill brought to you by the Creep Moni 2011U School District. Knowing how your tax bill is calculated can help you make informed decisions about your property and finances. stay informed and don't hesitate to ask questions. [Music] So once again, this is about communication to our community. This is

069something we're trying to do um at the district level to really bring a transparency. Um this video will be available on our intranet that we're working on underneath my finances for staff members to look at. It will also include a chatbot on there that will help um staff members ask questions of it if it needs to. Is there anybody sending that video out to the villages so they can share with the res? Yes, that's why I said I was going to Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. No, that that's the timing of this. I thought you said the internet. Oh, no. I meant to the villages because we want to be good partners in this. I uh was at a meeting with the Creek uh group uh this last week and I told them I would share

070this with this and again just so you know this is all done with AI. Jason wrote the script and the AI then was generated. The voice that you are hearing is an AI generated voice and so it has a nice professional appeal to it. So we can change this if we found mistakes in this we could go in there change the script change the avatar and have it redone immediately. So anyway, so this is again a progressive way that we're going through the district to really showcase the work that we're doing here um to the community. Is part of the um concern or maybe my question is because it's coming from us and not the villages. Is it because there's a misconception to the public that the school board is the reason for their tax

071bill change? I'm just trying to figure out is that why so majority of people if they don't understand it will come here they years ago would come here and be very frustrated and if you don't get stopped on the side you know people will be concerned and the reality is the school district is the largest portion let's call it 65%. Well, the other 35% is made up of the village, the township, the fire uh fire district library. So there's uh roads uh roads township. Is that roads and bridges or is that separate from the township? I think that's so there's different and they don't understand it. So this is actually pretty informative and know that. Now there are some other numbers like how do they come up with the tax rate? That would be questions

072for the assessor more than it would be us because we don't determine that just making them understand the bill a little bit more I think is because people look at it and say my taxes went up because of you correct marginally because of us but not completely because thank you Jason Jason what I one this is a very minute issue that I saw that presentation so you had to determine your taxes was the assessed value times the percentage, but it's actually you said the tax rate is a percentage. It's actually a decimal. It's the tax rate. Yeah, it's a tax rate. It's a decimal, not a percentage. So, some people could be confused and say, okay, here's my assessed value. Let me multiply. They don't know how to may not know how to change a

073percentage over to decimal. They might multiply, hey, something's not right. Here is a assessed value and I multiply by 15% and I'll say 15 6% is like 0.06. Yeah, just move the decimal point over two points. I saw it on there. I look math score. Yeah. On here. Yeah. On here it shows the rate as a decimal but you had the rate tax rate as a percentage. That's all. That's all. Okay. Good job. We don't have is at the end of hours. Four hours of note. Um but we want to grant students out of interest follow that hours of service. So you mean it's a specific case. So it's not every student has they have to have a specific And it is on a case by case basis on the case by case basis. Who

074prompts that case to be evaluated? Is it a parent will say, "Hey, my student's not going to meet it." Is it an office thing where a teacher or somebody says, "Hey, there's no way this student can meet it." My question is, who prompts the case by case to be evaluated and at what point? So, we have an coordinator who works with those. So, these are individuals that know Go ahead. Oh, okay. So, to further that then in the best case scenario, you would know that freshman year. It wouldn't be waited until the senior year to then decide that. I'm trying to understand the process and the timing of when is that exception given. And I think we can get that exception at any time. Um, but it could be decided as early as any. So

075my question was even if a parent says recommend that they have that part of an that will create a reason of that that a student that comes to our district in their senior 28 hours. Good. In the policy now. Okay. Did you mention that it's a state requirement though? So then would it matter where they came from? I guess I'm trying to understand why does it need to be prrated if it was already a state requirement? It's just part of it's part of our policy also. So even though it's in that we're doing that we're giving it. So it's not a state requirement as of yet. It is not yet. We did um start hours this year for seven hours for all of our giving to the community all year set of programs in the

076high school where they also did this year. So seniors only need seven, juniors only need 14. And do the students know that? Because my son's a junior. He thinks he has to get all 25. Right now he thinks that. And so I'm going really No, I didn't say that. But what I am saying he thought that 25 was applicable to all students regardless of your grade. Is that just us not knowing or has that been clear? Is that okay? It breaks it down for them. Okay. I was just wondering what falls under uh this community service like what kind of things what kind of projects have they done? I know. And sometimes hours So, you're bringing this to the board for approval. We're going to have the language change in policy for next week. The

077second page is we had some language that was took out that was old but no longer appeal I think it was a open So with that language changes Notific. They have kind of Not enough. language other parents that If if a seat was vacant mid year, do we transition that student that's next on the list to that vacant position? Yes. So, as soon as it is dropped from the CFK list and there is an open spot, we contact that family, you know, within a few days of knowing that that seat is open and that parent has a right to take that seat. Um, and sometimes, you know, they're waiting on siblings to get in or it's a set of twins and we only have one seat open, but we always offer that seat to the

078next family that is up. Okay. Good deal. Thank you. Thanks. Uh, another thing for the CSK, uh, because I have a preschooler, uh, next year will be a kindergartener. Yeah. Uh, and we were thinking about, uh, putting in for the CSK lottery. Yeah. Uh, the only thing that, um, our reservation is right now she is in a like a bilingual preschool, right? So all her classmates and the teachers, they all speak Spanish, right? So if uh she were to go to CSK, even though they have a Spanish class, it's like one day a week. Yes. So it's not really that intensive, but like uh we do we do a good enough job of advertising the CSK opportunity within the Spanish speaking community? probably not. So, um if we could get like applications, paper applications and

079just give them out to our families, our families, right? Because um you know, not everybody is on uh is on the website and stuff like that. So, um, because if it if it does happen that that they win the lottery and they go into CSK, there will be a lot more Spanish speakers in an IB program and like it it would make I think the school better. Um, but that's just I'm biased. So, no. Yes, we can we can certainly do um improve our communication. Um we do have uh recently we had our uh kindergarten we are moving up this year and we'll talk about this uh based on Mr. Brown's comment um today. We are moving up 175 students this year out of our ELC program. That is the largest number that we've had

080in 10 years that we have 175 students from our ELC going into our kindergarten classrooms. Um, and so there are opportunities to make sure um that all of our families are aware of all of the schools, but we did just have an event um with uh Miss Chesta and all of the principles were here. Yes, you were at that event. Yes. And so, uh, it is a way for families to come in and meet their principles and one at least one of the kindergarten teachers were here. Um, and so we did communicate that out to families, but we we could make sure that we up that communication. Yeah. And this this is exactly what I was talking with with Chesta and with uh Brian that uh if we could um offer offer or or make

081aware just just make aware to uh the parents that um that speak Spanish because they may not uh they might not even know that this is an opportunity for their kids to go to an IB elementary school. Yes, and I will tell you that we have um upped our communication on social media and really trying to reach families. Again, if you're a member of the district, you know that it exists. And so we've been working with the communication team and especially on that recent rec recent event um here at ELC we tried to get outreach to families who um if you don't have a student in the district already um communications team worked in making sure that information got out to the community to say even if your um student isn't enrolled in ELC please

082come and see us and um get ready for we have our kindergarten screening coming up and uh invited them to that event. Awesome. Thank you, Dr. Perkins. Okay. Given that we have move through all the way to number eight right now, do we have any old business? Hearing none. Do we have any new business? Okay. Did you say new business? New business. I have one. Um, this is the idea of the mascot. Earlier uh in the newsletter, we had uh shared with you where we're going getting ready for homecoming for next year. Um, I had tasked the business department earlier this year to start thinking about uh how we want to go forward with creating some costumes for our kids when they go to the homecoming, but also costumes of characters that could go out

083into the schools to visit the ELC building, go out to other schools just to um, you know, really get the kids excited. So, um, we asked the um, the company that we're working with to give us some ideas. um as you know, you know, restricted because of uh some of the legislation that is out there to refrain from any um reference to Native Americans in any way. So, we are playing around with what a warrior looks like. Um we did share some costume designs with you. Uh we shared um a little I think he looks like a Spartan actually and then we had the wolf. So, we I know some of you kind of wanted to kind of discuss that a little bit as we move forward to see if we're going in the right

084direction or if you want to maybe tweak it a little bit. Um, so I open it up for some thoughts on that before we move forward. I did not like the designs. We're not the Spartans. Okay. Uh, we're not the wolves. We're the Warriors. Yeah. So, I do like the blue skin though. Yeah, the blue skin is something we can work with. Yeah, because we trying to think of something that's very um uh neutral. Yeah. You know, so Okay. So, that's something we can work with. I mean, there's always the option of going an amorphous creature like Big Red where it's just a costume, nothing very specific about what it is. Nebraska big red. It's just like a a face, but like moving away from any human representation would probably be good, but then additionally

085some most of the animals don't make a lot of sense because then you'll be like we've already got a hus like the a wolf then your mascot is the wolf or like if it's a dog then it's like a husky, a saluki, a bulldog. a bulldog or I don't know a shiu like I don't I don't know if anybody is one of those but the designs are kind of the ones we have are kind of the ones that we saw don't make a ton of sense but also I don't know what does so so I guess so I think the we need to get narrowed down because what we're going to do eventually is we're going to have get two ideas that you guys are comfortable with and then send it out to the students

086at the high school and the middle school and let them vote on it. Um, so I think we've got whether we want to go to a person, whether it's, you know, if you think about the locals, we've got knights, uh, spark, well, warriors. I think you have to change a name. If you're going to do a mascot, you have to change the name. A warrior is everything about what you think about Native American. Think about everything you think of history. And I understand they've taken that, you know, they've taken that in a negative light, but honestly, you know, and I know the sports teams were honoring that, right? So you have a guy out there and he's dressed in something and it always reminds him of history of a warrior, but to be honest with

087you, we can't use it. So at that point, you cannot come up with a warrior. Let's not go changing the name of My point is you can't come up with a with a mascot without changing it is a warrior, right? And every warrior you've ever thought of in your in your mind as a little kid all the way up to now is what is a Native American chief? someone a warrior that no that and that's how I look at it. When I think of warrior I think of Native American. Okay. I generally think it's depicted as an indigenous correct. That's exactly what I think as a kid. What is what is the name of the basketball team? Warriors. What is it? Golden State Warriors. Golden State Warriors. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was going to

088ask is that I know that Warrior as a mascot is I don't want to say it's common, but I don't want to insult anyone, but did we just go online and look at images for Warriors and just copy it? I'm just asking. Yeah, but I I know the Warriors for this district was connected to uh Indian. Yeah, but I guess that's my point. You know, I mean, we used to have we used to have the emblem and everything with an Indian headdress type thing and all those references have been removed. Okay. Right. But the warrior still exists. So Jason, you were about to say something. And now we just use a Don't we use like a the arrow head? Arrowhead, but that's all we've got. So Jason, you want to jump in on this? And

089then we've got Andrea Powell wave over there. She's been working on this project as well. So she's got some more information if we have it. But literally, we need some direction. Uh, and I think that's why we don't have a mascot here, obviously. Can I just say one thing? I just looked up what the Golden State Warrior is. It's just a guy. And it's not a guy. It's not even a human. Well, yeah. Yeah. I don't know what that is. It's kind of like a yeti maybe. So, like that's not a human. I think that's what So, like they've even moved away from Warrior as being any kind of human emblem. Um, I I don't know what it is. I'm not saying that's a good idea. I'm just saying I looked up warrior mascots now.

090I mean they have many that are not of native native Americans. So you don't need we don't need uh to connect it to the native. There are warriors everywhere like uh samurai warriors. Um, what was the other one that I thought of? Like uh uh code of arms or um just anything. It it doesn't have Now the arrow head if you want to stay with the arrow head. The warrior could be an archer um you know the the the arrowhead. We can keep that um and and expand on that and make it an archer. Kind of like like Robin Hood kind of deal. I mean, it's just a guy in a green suit, right? Jason, did you have to chime in on this or No. Um, no. I was just going to comment that, you

091know, we did look at the Golden State Warriors. That was the first thing. And it seems that their logo is depicted of the Golden State Bridge, you know, where they're at with San Francisco. We also saw a great example of a uh like a muscular all blue person with a gold coat. But after I mean a gold cape and gold accessories after we consulted with the cast the mascot designer and I just want to say people that design mascot costumes take this very seriously. Sure. Um this has been about a Andrea correct me if I'm wrong maybe a six-month process. We've met with the student government leadership at uh Cremon High School to get their feedback along with Mr. Mueller in the athletic department and in consulting with the costume company um that particular design

092with the muscular body that the Golden State Warriors did use is not adaptive to students of different sizes. So, um these costumes uh probably this costume is going to be in excess of probably about $5,000. um that's how good and nice quality it will be. Um to do it right and to have it for students to students to students and passed down through the years. Um we didn't feel like that was a viable option because it was made more so designed for the individual person that was using it, not something that could be used and passed down through class through class and then used out the district. Uh, so another idea that I had, uh, and this might just be a nothing idea, but a skeleton, a skeleton, uh, archer. Um, is that kid friendly?

093Like little kid. Imagine showing up to like the ELC. I'm I'm just like to be like just as a as a So you remember Karate Kid the first one the where they had the I know what you're saying. I'm just thinking like is it we there I don't think they're allowed to have Halloween parties so they call them fall parties and they can't dress up and stuff like that. So I would agree with you on that. I there's not many things we can do. Like when we were kids, we drove, we went to school in our in our costumes and it was called a Halloween co, you know, party and it was fun, but it's not fun anymore. It's a fall party or whatever it's called, but I think Jamie's right on that. What's that?

094Do we need a physical mascot? That's what I was seems like we we're trying to come up with a solution in search of a problem, right? We're creating a problem for to try to create a solution. So, and I don't think we need a master. There are schools that have like the Stanford trees, right? So, maybe we could do just the arrow head. Yeah. What about a walking arrowhead? What about a I mean, if we want something, can we like a like a walking? I mean, I'm just Jason, did you experiment with it? Yeah, that uh I can let Andrea speak to that one. We did try it. All this working y'all talking about we don't need a mascot. I'm so sorry. No, no. Everything you guys said was actually brought to the table. None

095of this is like outrageous. It turns out Can you come to the microphone, please? So, because they need to hear you. Too late. I'm sorry. On the spot. I apologize. Okay. Trust me, it's been months. We literally started this in October and we've had maybe 10 to 12 meetings each being 45 minutes to an hour. So, um, a lot of the concepts that you guys have brought up were brought on the brought to the table. But there are a lot of limitations with the mascots and making it a costume that's uniform from anyone that can be in it. So, that way you don't know the person. You you can't you don't have to worry about the limitations of the person that's inside of the costume. And I do want to just say that the costume

096design um company that we went with because we tried out four different ones um they actually have 30 years of experience. They actually designed the costume for the Chicago Bears and other like you know not for just football teams but large organizations. So he's been very um specific in every detail of what has come to what you see now. Um, but we did speak to non like stuff that was neutral, stuff, stuff that would be acceptable for preschool all the way through the seniors. We want to make sure it represents something that actually speaks to our mission statement and our visions. So, I don't know how deep you want me to go into it because I know you know you have the floor, but just let me know and I can tell you, but everything

097you said, we all said you want me to keep you want. Okay. So, Arrowhead was the number one choice. That was in honesty. We said we're going to change it into a spear, right? because it it made it we were trying to be Native American adjacent, right? So because of the nature of this community, Native American, the history is present. We don't want to erase that. We don't want to eliminate it. And we wanted to stay with them warrior. So when we did the spirit, it looks like a Christmas tree. And it was very, it was to the point where if someone were to maneuver in it, they would have to be very stiff and not like fun and huggable and loving and things like that. So that's what threw that out the vote. Um,

098next was we Google warrior, whoever just said that, and samurai, knights, Vikings, all of these names came up, but it all tied to a historical reference. So, that's what we I think everyone initially was on board for, we have to have a human because it's a warrior. Um, the gentleman that's that's working with us through the mascot company, he actually said, I think you would be safer with an animal. So, what we did with the animal concept was we went with all of the animals that you think about when it comes to Native Americans. So we were like buffalo, coyote, eagle, wolf, like everything that was a Native American adjacent animal. We went through that list and then we looked into what do they represent to that culture. So each animal has its own symbolism.

099The wolf was um most aligned with our vision, our mission statement because we went that deep into like even like strategic goal words and things of that nature and the wolf is what generated all that. So like the loyalty, the pack, the um protective of our environment and our nature. So we looked at the symbolism of each animal in within the Native American culture and climate. So we came down to wolf, coyote, and eagle. Those were the last three that as far as animals. The eagle was kind of ruled out because we have so many birds in the area. Like when we got to the eagle part of it, there was like Hillrest was close and we were very close to how we wanted the eagle to look and it it almost mirrored Hillrest. Um,

100the coyote was a second runner up because coyote is native to this area, but it was thin and frail. And so we thought like as an on the athletic side of things, a wolf would be a little bulkier if you, you know, created in a snap. So if you had a wolf with like a, you know, jersey. Yeah. Jersey that had like the arrow head on it. Is that kind of what we're talking about? Exactly. So his point about the animal was you can you can make it whoever and how you want it to be. So an animal can have like you said a football jersey, a basketball jersey. We talked about accessories like hats, changing the shoes, like we're making the costumes or we would like the costumes to be made so that we

101can add these accessories, but she said we can move forward with in any way and form. That's why you guys see it kind of with just like an open chest and a cape because we can add things like Matt wanted to add gym shoes. I don't know if you guys know who Matt is, but Miss Mueller has a great Nike collection. Um, and the the uh costume designer said yes, we can do that. So that's kind of how we evolved to the wolf. I'm not trying to sell anyone on anything, but we did want to make sure that it was culturally sensitive. It was inclusive. And even the point that he brought up that no one thought about in the room was gender neutrality. Like I can say Wolfy the Warrior and you don't know

102if Wolfie is a girl, Wolfie is a boy, Wolfie is they, them, however you want to reference it. And then he said that um it would be more user friendly for the ELC students. And we have like our Paw program. So he said, "What elements do you already have that's embedded that might speak to your mascot?" we have Russell and other dogs that are in our area that the kids already gravitate to. So, it just kind of helped solidify that thought and that alignment. Um, I do want to say in my last statement is that nothing is concrete on that. That's just a starting point. It can be darker, it can be lighter, more armor or material can be added to it. Um, but we just well Dr. parents was basically saying like, hey, I

103need the board to see what we're working with before we get too close to the end because the goal is to make sure that all community members, students, you know, all stakeholders alike are represented within this mascot. So, inclusivity was important for her to have you guys, you know, involved in it. So, I hope I answered a lot of questions deep you guys went into that. Yes, it was it's been hours that how you went into why you picked the wolf. I mean, I didn't I that was just something that I would, you know, it's thankful that you guys have gone that far to think of why we would and how that would mirror the district. Yeah. So, I mean, I I have the list if you want. I mean, literally, we had poweroints and

104presentations and I kind of like the wolf. I think it was like the protect civilization, the guardianship. Um, then they can, but it makes sense now because remember the the pictures were sent to us with no description, no discussion of why that came up. Right. But when you listen to her talk of why and how they came up with those with decisions makes a lot of sense. You could have came up here 25 minutes ago. I was trying to give you the floor. So I was trying to trying to not jump in. Thanks Jason. I wanted to be an authentic conversation. I didn't want to interrupt. But yes, too late. So are we feel hearing some consensus that Wolfie the Warrior might be okay? I like the name, but I also like the idea of

105us a list of names and students getting to choose the warrior's name. That's a good idea. If we chose the animal, but letting Wolf the Titan loose, let him have whatever his name is. I don't think the board should something should name it. Let the let the So, do I have consent board? Let's stick with the wolf and then when we go out we'll let the the students at both schools maybe have some choice in costumes or colors or something. And then just just as a point of order, wolves are no longer endemic to Illinois. So that would be the only thing if we're talking about like what is here and in our culture and our community and making those connections won't won't happen. So like we'd be more likely an eagle or a coyote

106and that's and wolves are squirrels. I just want to make sure I I think yeah that I think I just want to make sure that we're looking at it because we're using it as part of the reason and I know the cultural ties are something different because the oj boy tribe did does do that but they're they're no longer endemic just so we're yes. So take that out of your about it. So, so when are we trying to when are we trying to solidify this? Oh, go ahead. I thought we were going leaning towards the maybe the wolf, but maybe you know. No, no, that's fine. I just wanted to like we don't have Okay. So, again, what is our goal? When are we trying to solidify this? Put this in a finality on this

107by May. Yes. Okay. And Okay. everything. We need the design so they can start constructing it and creating it. And so, like I said, we need a direction from you. So, we go out and sell it to the kids, the students and let the name and once we have that, we can pass it off hopefully early May that we're ready to go by August. So, do we go around and say, "Yay, nay." What? What do we do? We don't. Okay. But are we saying wolf? Wolf. a wolf for me. Wolf. I don't care. Okay. I don't care either, but sure. That's I'm just gonna The wolf is The wolf is is is fine. I I guess I mean coming from a warrior head in in a dress, you know, headdress. I It It's fine. I

108mean, I guess if it helps, we do have like the um logo on the belt and the cape of the of the wolf. And then we will have like the accessory will be the spear like the actual arrowhead/spear is supposed to be a spirit. My only concern is I've been in this community since 2000. I don't know how people that have been here and gone to the school district how they would feel. Right. Alumni. I'm not alumni. So I I I don't know that I don't know that my opinion is is is as important as that. Yeah. Like changing. Well, you represent them. You're the representation used to have a different I mean I I do but I you know I mean I'm not a creep bony or do we want to put put give

109them some options and let them vote and say their vote weighs this much I don't know survey it's important you know the history of this is is what you said you're not moving away from the history as long as we're not changing the history of that because the history is what how everybody gets to where you're at but I don't know that I can make that yeah we don't want to change the history but and we we don't want to disrespect certain ethnicities as well so it's a balancing act correct I mean I just want to be we got we got a little taste of that when we talked about Talala right yeah so we just got to make sure again that this is not a board decision yeah we agree with it but it's

110the community and and whoever all the stakeholders what is the what is the middle school called now they're supposed to be warriors also Warriors under the warrior umbrella now. Okay. So that so Wolfy the warrior. And what type of mascot do they have over there? What do they We're going to we're trying to make this uniform for all. But what do they have there now? Nothing. It's just nothing. Just the name Warriors. And we are warriors with an arrow. Yeah. Okay. We were trying to I think they were So now we trying to be the Warriors with a wolf. They were something they were a different uh comics. Comets. They come. We made them worious because now that we're creating all those programs and everything that we want just them to flow right in. So

111it's all like, you know, and how many sixth, seventh, eighth graders are looking up to our high schoolers going, I'm want to be there someday, right? So that's kind of why we changed that. What high school did you go to? That's not a good one. TF South. I only say that because we switched mascots recently, so that was like that's a terrible circumstance. It was a lot of push back from to your point community members and things of that nature, but we had the rebels and literally when I went there was a Confederate flag hanging on the wall. Sure. So, um it was the Confed Confederate rebels. So, that's why I said that's probably the worst reference, right? Now we're the Now they're the Red Wolves, which is Yeah, it's just So, for me, I

112went to Andrew. So, the Thunderbolts. So there wasn't real, you know, that was the that was our thing. Yeah. Right. Same thing kind of like the spear thunderbolt somebody in there. Okay. So what do you need from the board? Anything from the board now? You got it? Yeah. Come back. Okay. So what are the options that we're giving the kids to choose from? I think I thought we were saying just the name. We're deciding the animal costumes, right? You said names and costumes. You want them? Yeah. Okay. You mean like a home a home concert or costume like shoes, capes? Oh, accessories. Accessories. Not necessarily his outfit, right? Accessories will also be either gender neutral or or we'll have accessories for both or or for neither. You know what I mean? Or neither. Correct. Same

113thing. We're gonna leave them universal. That's why I'm like I don't understand why we needed costumes with a plural, right? That's what But but okay. Just want to make sure it's all universal. All right. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. You gave us more than we expected, but that was good. That was good. That was good. Very informative. I appreciate it. All right. So, new business, right? Any other new business? was doing this more. All right. Can I have a motion to go into close session? Our second close session for the appointment employment compensation, discipline, performance or dismissal of specific employees, specific individuals. Can I have a motion for what was just read? Move by Bill, second by Jamie. Any questions, comments? If none roll call, please. Mr. Ober here. I Gos is an I.

114Mr. Swallish. Hi. Miss Zumbers. I Miss Wolfful. I Dr. Hall. Nay. President Brown. I motion pass. We will [Music] be before midnight. About an hour and a half. That's That's close. About an hour and a half. always put your cookies.