Crete Monee School District 201u COTW Meeting 11/7/22

001testing one two testing two let's get started here I hereby call this meeting to order a roll call please I'll give you the heads up next time Brown is here is Galbraith here Dr Hall here Mr sawales here Mrs Walters vice president Rue here president Albury here please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all foreign would you please read our mission statement sure our mission is to empower each student to positively impact the world for a bright new future thank you Cheryl is there any uh public no public comment tonight good okay uh next up then is board updates um it's open for all board members but we have

002one specific 2022 iasb resolutions that bill is going to cover so last year uh president albrecha asked me to be the iasb delegate so I went to the meeting last year the conference and it was a pretty interesting process but there are resolutions that different districts will submit and then we'll go in front of this in this room and it took about last year I think there were and it took us about three and a half hours to get through this year I'm going to do that as well do the same thing as VR represented as a delegate but this year there's only eight so they had eight others that they decided not to that was just informational they brought out but there was only going to be eight resolutions this year there was only

003a couple of them that I thought were pretty interesting the first one of the ones that I was they were talking about is alternative fuel for school buses um it was a good it's it's a good idea for the future but I ASB doesn't isn't going to adopt it because there's too many unanswered questions meaning we're getting reimbursed I think it's 80 for our transportation but there's going to be infrastructure changes you're gonna have charging stations electric buses stuff like that so too many costs that will outweigh the benefit at this point one of the other ones the other two I thought kind of went hand in hand a little bit um a capital Grant fund and school safety so a district Glen Ellen 41 and Mercer wants a capital Grant fund for for infrastructure

004projects for the districts to go back to the general assembly and izb to allow us school districts to get more money when we're doing capital projects the other one was another fund that uh Grays Lake Community Heist uh Community High School 127 in Lake Forest they want to do it for school safety so they're trying to Advocate the general assembly in Springfield to give us money but allocate a fund so that if we need to upgrade metal detectors or anything in school safety that can can go into that fund it's not there yet per se specifically but that's kind of the idea so those are three of the out of the eight that I think are pretty important so iesb Illinois Association of school boards acts as a lobbying Organization for all the school districts

005so these resolutions if they pass then it kind of directs our lobbying efforts to go to the legislature to lobby for these yes and it'll take time so every time they pass one it doesn't happen immediately so then they'll go down to Springfield and they'll start lobbying to see if they can get it passed for sure so it could take a year it could take a year and a half two years okay but it's a starting point okay well thank you for representing us any questions from other board members any other board updates excuse me it's not so much of an update it's just something I would like to share once I truly dissect this document that I've been looking at I say it a little bit but vice president Rupp and Dr cochliness and

006and Ken about a document I came across it's a report it's called the James Coleman report and he pretty much coined the phrase of what we know as the achievement Gap this is a report he came out play back in the 60s middle 60s and it's a 750 page report and I'm on page like seven a lot of data driven a lot of statistics and things of that nature but it has a lot to do with you know this is what he found so much money was not really the driving force to bring and closely achievement Gap but it was more and a couple other things but it was really family driven what the family could do in and of themselves to help close that achievement Gap so more to follow I'd like to share

007my findings that they're doing a you know quick Instagram so I had a 30 hour Train drive and I just came across it you know I did a lot of reflection during those 30 hours and I came across that document but I I had a little I'm a little further than that but yeah okay I've just been a little humorous on that but I like to share it okay in the near future okay sounds good all right any other board updates okay if not then I will turn it over to Dr Dr Kara for superintendent updates yes well I just wanted to take this opportunity to recognize four of our board members last week we attended the Three Rivers ISB recognition dinner and that's held annually through ISB and during this time we were really

008proud of our four board members that did receive some recognition we had president Nelson Albrecht receive established board leader certificate vice president Cheryl Roop also received established board leader certificate uh Mr Maurice Brown board secretary also received a established board leader and Miss uh Janine Galbraith received a distinguished board leader she got the larger certificate so anyway just wanted to thank you board members for all your work and we'll be handing those out later at the end of today that's all I have um oh now what it means in order to get that how what do you do together well you can certainly add into this but it's receiving and participating in workshops and various other kinds of professional development and attending dinners such as the one we went to and supporting your colleagues and

009just being really um attuned to what is going on in the community about what it means to be a board member with legislation and so forth so it's uh certainly something to be proud of and it's based on ours how many hours of educational um classes Etc that you take so it's not like just going to dinner also of course you staying we take a lot of classes on Zoom or the person and at the iasb if you sign up for early conference ones they they give you points for those because they're actually a concentrated class versus so you can go into anything so um to all of my fellow board members congratulations because those Don't Come Easy those hours you have to figure out how to get them into your life so congratulations to

010everybody who got one of those it is a lot of work yeah and we have our triple I conference coming up in the next week and we'll be going down to the city uh to have at least three or four days of non-stop workshops and I know all of our board members attend all of the sessions because we're all talking about them afterwards so I'll be curious to see how that works we will be presenting our district will be showcased for the equity immersion piece I'll be doing a 30 minute piece Dr Nakia Hall will be there she's sponsoring that so I'll be participating with her as a panelist so please make sure that you stop by so we can stop by and ask a lot of questions you can to see how we're doing

011sounds good let me just a real quick a question now none of us attended the National Conference college right so not this year no because we do not get credit for that right oh you did oh it was was yeah ah okay you felt very sorry but we do not get credit for it right at the end of this year they didn't yeah I don't think it's an iasb does not recommend that we go is that no oh really wow is that is that in our package to attend something like that or no well they should be sending something out if they haven't about that National one but I think it's in Illinois I think I know the Casbah is it called one was in Atlanta that was similar to cube which is um and

012so I know I believe that they're planning a national one for Illinois and then they'll start going other places but if I'm not mistaking there's more than half the states maybe 30 plus states have joined the new others have left Nationals and they're trying to decide what they're going to do but that sucks I don't know all the details of it that's usually held in the spring yeah yeah that's usually held in the spring and that's something I mean I could you can call yeah if you or or Dr coglinis can bring back to the board if there's further educational steps we can take that have the few leaps in bounds in the triple I would be definitely interested and I'm sure they'll talk a lot more about it at triple I they'll probably immerse

013us with what's going on and I've been getting emails already I've been giving you so you have yeah check your school emails I've already been seen that that in Cube and nsba is beginning in April in Orlando I know that I remember it because there like sending you eight million of them so yeah and SBA they opened it up to it used to be if you were a member your state was a member but now they're trying to they've opened it up to even if your state is not a member you can still come to their National because they lost so many states yeah but definitely you get different perspectives from schools you know it's good this is the triple I is it's a very good conference but you're dealing with here locally with State

014schools within Illinois obviously you have more of a broader scope at a national I I just enjoy those national conferences with people from different states presenting and sharing things like that so definitely have some values National okay not knocking triple I not not at all so all right that's all I had thank you okay um next up under personnel and culture I'll let turn it over loud okay thank you I just have a couple of items um both are fairly brief the first one is a discussion on criminal history background checks prior to the pandemic I was in the process of putting together a proposal to kind of change how we did some of that particularly when it came to volunteers and visitors obviously that's been a couple years needs to be updated I was

015asked earlier this week to take a second look at that and so it will be forthcoming I just wanted to kind of let you guys know that that was on the radar it will uh we'll have a couple recommendations regarding board policy with regard to that and also some more detail about what we'll do in lieu of what we're doing now currently we require all volunteers to be fully fingerprinted and go through a full figure different criminal history check before they can go on a field trip or do anything with our students and I think there's been some desire to find another approach that might be a little less time intensive so we're going to work on that so I just want to pass that along today um any questions on that one I should

016ask about you I didn't give you much okay so the other again no surprises there have been three different moas that I have forwarded in the FYI over the past few weeks and I just wanted to run them back because there's uh I believe hopefully two of them will be bringing here next week and then one will probably come in December the first one has to do with streaming courses for MEC this is to help us with the fact that we can't always find the teachers that we want at MEC so we have some high school teachers who are willing to stream their current classroom environment into MEC and this would just be the terms under which we would do that and it's fairly straightforward and mirrors a lot of what we've already done for

017streaming in the past so it has been in the FYI and if anybody has any questions about that I'd be happy to answer them but that one should be coming forward next Tuesday hey real quick in the FYI you that wasn't in there the payment for packing and the internal stuff it was it was a prior week okay this one was this one was earlier so uh the you mentioned the payment for packing we haven't really talked as much about this one but um in the past when we have had a large-scale uh project above enclosure whatever reason we have a lot of people having to pack up classrooms and I mean absolutely everything to move out we have set out some terms with uh cmea about how that will happen and so again uh

018that MOA we did present it to cmea but they haven't had a chance to respond yet so we we won't bring that until they've had a chance to respond it's very similar to what we've done in the past but it just spells out the terms under which we're going to require staff members to pack and you know a small amount of compensation for some of that effort so this will be only in the buildings affected by the projects taking place and that's because just so everybody knows that's because we're removing the flooring so they got to move everything out which makes sense so yes yeah just so everybody knows everything has to come out including here at central office so although we're not getting paid back I have a question though um what about the

019Acme employees that have to pack Acme employees typically are hourly workers so if they have to do additional work then they'll be compensated for that if Acme still has other terms they'd like to discuss we certainly are open to that we have a meeting coming up with them on Thursday with Acme leadership but in the past they haven't uh they haven't asked for any special terms or anything for that okay I'm just curious what if they go over the allotted hours I don't know if it's 40 hours a week or whatever and they work 30 then does that mean they have to they they'd have to stop at 40 hours so that we're wearing overtime because they're an hourly employee now if we had him work over 40 hours they would get paid overtime okay

020so that would just happen it would just happen if they went they worked more than 40 hours they would even get away okay and we're gonna make that known I guess yes okay thank you if I may go back to B1 their discussion on criminal history background checks sure and I know you not our security person so what type of oversight do we have in place to your best of your knowledge for ensuring that those who come in public that have some contact with our kids they don't have to be physical but you know come in for example reading reading to our kids do those people need to and mentoring and things of that nature that those people need to have a background check or as long as they are in the presence of a

021staff member that's okay so what's the protocol for that well you hit on one of the things where we draw the line which is whether they're being overseen or supervised by a staff member okay um typically if they're overseen by a staff member we consider that a visitor and a visitor would present an ID that would be put through an ID scanner which goes to the raptorwear system and will at least check the offender databases and make sure there's nothing uh you know nothing to be found there and then of course they would remain escorted as they go through their day if someone is alone with students that's where we draw the line and say that they would have to have the criminal history background checked for the fingerprints got it okay so visitors can

022include board members right it's uh you know you know what does it include board members I would take a visitor do we not take a visitor sold a protocol if we were to come I just came across our email just today I believe about looking for men to come in and read I believe our president did that that you have to go through when I read I just presented my ID okay and then I was escorted as a visitor as a visitor okay okay I just want to know you know a standard so everybody's is on one Accord with this yeah I I uh every single detail s and it'll be it'll be very uniform throughout the day yeah very consistent some standard bus you want to make it or not but let it be

023some type of standard right right thank you and you still had one more I had one more in my way MOA which I moved to the bottom of my file so forgive me uh that has to do with internal substitution and the way that we're that works is when we are unable to secure a substitute teacher for a classroom particularly at secondary level we ask teachers to cover a class during their plan period and we pay the teachers to do that we pay them at the extended day rate for a classroom period they are required by contract to do that 10 times per year at our request once that 10 times is reached they can then decline if they choose and uh we have a large number of Staff members who do go well beyond

024what's required we have we have some that say no and some just say no once in a while because they need the time you know once in a while um and there are those who refuse after 10. however because at this point and I did send out some data on substitute teachers in our district and that data is pretty consistent across school districts right now regarding how many we need versus how many we have and so we have a lot of times we have classes that are uncovered and what does happen with a lot of that it varies from building to building but um I was speaking to one administrator one building who might have a few classes in a large group instruction area by themselves and be supervising those groups of students well we

025haven't had a lot of major issues come out of that but obviously not a lot of educational value is going on when that takes place so what we were proposing for this year because of the Intensive shortage was to alter the structure that we would use to pay the cmea members who agreed to substitute during their plan periods so for the first 15 occurrences we would pay the rate that is in the contract once we got to 16 times we would double that rate and once we got to 51 times we would triple that using last year's numbers we put it through there weren't a large number but there's a twofold reason for doing that one is obviously to incentivize it the other is interestingly enough it might reduce the sum of the absences if

026I have a chance of making a little extra money being there today so there's a couple of reasons that we wanted to put forward with that now the union has been given this we have not yet we've asked for response sometime this week and I know they are looking at this so once they finally respond I did just want to talk about this with the board so you know what we're pushing putting forward so basically that's the gist of it it would still not require any more times for people to substitute it would just incentivize them to go beyond what is required and I did talk to the business manager about this and the business manager was not afraid of of the numbers that I showed him so will all three of you I'm sorry

027all three of these mlus be on the agenda next week I'm hopeful that the internal substitution one will be I the streaming one will be I am not yet sure about the payment for packing uh we'll see if we get that one back as well if they all three are back we'll put all three of them on okay Lyle I do have a question um a Facebook post that I saw regarding the pay for guest teachers being raised and there were many guest teachers who commented asking if they were going to get that right then and I don't know if anybody addressed that or not but there were quite a few who said does that mean those of us who are already guest teachers not new wasn't only not okay stop was it only for

028new guest teachers or were all of our guest teachers getting that I would assume that it would be but they were asking the question and I don't know if anybody addressed an answer to them or not we we did there was an incorrect number that was put in there that was corrected and I did ask that our substitute uh our set finder coordinator reach out to our guest teachers to explain what that what that number was the number that was published was for retired teachers and so a new a new sub or a substitute teacher who is not a retired teacher would not get that rate but it was pretty clear it was for retired teachers it just had an erroneous rate with it and people questioned that rate because it was significantly higher than

029what they had seen I'm going to I'm going to double check but I am almost positive that everybody was by the SubFinder coordinator it may not hit everybody but I know she was reaching out okay any other questions comments on personal and culture okay Lionel thank you next up is business and I'll turn it over to Mr surma for the next two hours yeah well I've only been here 25 minutes I hear you want to be here for a little longer at least so you know um you can do that Don hopefully we'll go through these other ones really quick um good evening board Dr Cara and the public and also our guests that are here um let me share just a couple of things Don is pulling up a presentation which is the last

030agenda item that I have but let me just share a couple of things um number one under business is the establishment of December 13 2022 is a day for the truth and Taxation hearing for the 22 tax levy so that will be on the agenda next week we'll be I'll be giving the tax levy presentation through through some taxation so that's an annual thing we have to do the levy is due to the county clerk's office by the last Tuesday of the month so then it'll be approved the following week hopefully which is December 20th and then I can get it to the county number two is a resolution authorizing the submission of an application for the property tax relief pool fund again this is something that we've done annually that is part of the

031property tax relief Grant this is this is just a resolution that will be on the agenda next week that authorizes me to submit that application I believe and I'll have it as part of my Levy presentation also that I'll talk about this in detail I believe that we'll be eligible for it this year so that we will be able to a big testation but what this resolution does it just tells me to uh put in the application um number three four and five are accepting and approving the base bid for the 2023 renovation work that's going to take place at CSK Balmoral and Crete as I shared with the board we did those bids early this year we did get them out I did come back and so uh the low bid was RL sohole

032on this the reason we did it early enough is so that we can start ordering supplies and equipment things like chillers our rooftop units all of that that need to be done so that will be on the agenda for next week also to approve those just so you know item number three has different amounts it's off by by a thousand bucks but just oh I see that yep I see that so I'll we'll take care next week yep hey Ken yeah it's Ariel's Soul general contractor good or bad probably good but they seem to consistently be the lowest bidder which is good because we haven't had any problems with them doing work right right no I've been very happy with that Mr Brown um I will I will share that in this last round we

033really only had two contractors Bid And the reason for that is because part of the requirement to turn in that bid is that if you were the low bid you had to have shop drawings done within five days the reason for that is because we wanted to make sure with the shop drawings and Bill Bill knows what this means is that to have the shop drawing so that we could order the equipment right away we didn't want any delay in that so there were a lot of contractors that said to us okay no we don't want to because they can't turn around that fast time frame solo can go ahead Bill I'm sorry time frame is too short time frame is very short but we wanted that and so we had two that uh I

034know on the first bid there was about a I think it's about about a 600 000 difference uh the second one was a little closer and it was only about three or four hundred thousand now if you now the addition is done by CCC Holdings right yeah so they are also holding at the high school edition right okay so that's a different company so you said a couple of days it was only two bidders yes and what type of contingency do you have in place this is hypothetical but yet it's real that if you have wine Soul bitter your intentions is to at least get three bits so we can have something to compare it to right right do you would you go out and rebid do you allow yourself to have time to rebid

035it because a lot of these beds are time sensitive right so from a board perspective if we noted typically you go out based on x amount of dollars to go out and get three bids and you come back to us with one bidder right so do we expect to can you you know at least give us something say you know what that sounds reasonable or do some research and say you know what I I don't know well one of the things I'll compare the bid result the little bit that we get with the budget that has been put together okay okay and for the most part I will tell you on the very on the first two the ones at CSK in Balmoral um came in pretty good close to the estimate uh that we

036had uh okay so that was good and I'm talking construction costs I'm not talking with contingencies or architectural fees or other you know straight construction cost is what this one is the second one the third one I should say with the one at Crete actually came in about a million dollars higher or so however a lot of that is flooring and asbestos abatement that we're going to do there it was supposed to be in year three so that money is there and allocated we're just moving it from year three over to year two and it's true so I'm pretty comfortable with the no yeah you know RL Soho they don't know how many people are Bid that's correct this is all still bit Yeah so so I'm pretty good with them so I wouldn't recommend

037going back out at all I think this is time sensitive I think the numbers are good and I think too that our our house RL Soho has performed well for us too so when you open when you have your bid opening are is that live is that Zoom it has to be a public opening are they here on site when you're on site it happens you know in our in the Board conference room up in front there and you're you're allowed to anyone can come for that including the contractor so they are there also now in comparison I will tell you we had two bits for that if you go down under number six which is the base bid for the asbestos abatement so is that a mandatory walkthrough it was a mandatory walkthrough okay

038and we wanted that so that there were again because of the scope of this we wanted to make sure the contractors were aware of that so we didn't get any goofy pricing and all that stuff so they knew the square footage so again we had nine I think overall we had we had 11 contractors walk through and I think Keith we had how many submit seven six that's good sample good sample so that was good so so again I you know again it just has to do a lot with your skull that's all okay less yeah yeah yes there was right just last question are you looking to are you asking for a performance bond in any of these bids there are performance Bonds on these uh I believe it's ten percent is what the

039performance behind is really yes okay on all of them great okay thank you um let me turn number six and also on the back on the back of your agenda number seven which is the flooring for uh will be on also the agenda for next week for the board meeting next week six is the Asheville of asbestos uh abatement now again keep in mind that at balmoran Creek we're only doing a couple rooms but here at ELC we're doing the administrative offices and then the other side is the flooring again that price has come in pretty well I'll share this in my presentation it came in at about uh half maybe about 50 40 or 50 percent of what I had estimated so I'm a little again just for clarification's sake I thought we were

040looking to expand about two million dollars for a bit asbestos mitigation it was about 2.9 as you'll see in my presentation it's down to I I'm actually about 2 million now but overall okay so what is this point 13 113 000 that's of course it doesn't include look like all of our schools but no a great deal of them right so at service around at belmoral and actually includes two rooms just two rooms okay which is the multi which is a cafeteria I believe and like the serving room the same thing at Crete just two rooms there that's it so that's all we need at Balmoral no no no no no no oh there's a lot more okay there's a lot more I'll just say we wanted to do those rooms because when we do

041the other rooms at over the summer we need to move the furniture into these other rooms in peace and then the the ELC and the administrative officers that's just the administrative offices get it that are being done so okay I would look at it in a number and say man you got a good deal here yeah well not that good yeah not that good um and then at number seven is the flooring so that's the flooring that will go on on this uh we had three bidders on that and Superior floorings who actually was the one that did the flooring um in our current administrative offices they won the bid on that one all one also um Cheryl when you do the agenda I items three through seven those should be out as separate items

042to vote on not part of the consent agenda my last item that I want to share with the board and talk to the board about and also share with the public is about capital projects and kind of looking forward as we start looking ahead at capital projects so um our executive team kind of put some things together and want to share where kind of a recommendation where we think we should go next you know you know part of um being successful is just like planning forward having a vision of how we're going to go forward and if we want to do things two or three years from now we need to start planning those now and that and so that's the purpose of this we're kind of in the middle right now or kind of

043over the hump on our short-term facility plan so this is kind of an extension of this so I'm going to share with you some things again I'll share with the public that this is on our website on the in board books so they'll be able to pull this up I'm going to talk about a few items everything in red here I'm going to talk about again about asbestos abatement I'm going to talk about additional classrooms at the middle school talk about outdoor athletic facilities at our high school district office relocation Early Learning Center expansion and also Outdoor Learning Centers in that I want to share with everybody this is really a high level view I'm not going to get into a lot of detail but it's just a high level view of a vision where

044we want to go and then we could take it from there so let me talk about asbestos abatement I've shared this with the board in the public and our last meeting that we had we are going to be doing asbestos abatement at Balmoral Creek CSK the Illinois Center administrative offices I had estimated the cost before at about 2.9 billion million not billion million no look it had some of our looking at some of our estimates uh I know really uh I think it's going to come in more at about two million dollars we're looking at completing that project by August of 23 it'll be done a little bit sooner that but again August of 23 all of that will be done at that point all of our asbestos will be have taken out of all

045of our facilities in that most of the asbestos that we're talking about or almost all of it is in the flooring nowhere else other other asbestos abatement has happened while we've taken out pipes or redone HVAC all of that has been taken out this is all really flooring and can that 2 million has already funded with the prior bond issue it is funded with the prior bond issue dish have an opportunity I can take some of that money out of sr2 that I've allocated to okay so there's a couple of things yes and that there is again some of this abatement money contract is already in the contracts that you're going to be approving and the base bids and all of that stuff we don't have to do any of that stuff anymore that's all

046we'll be in there so it's just for me and you know this is going to sound bad but you know it's just juggling some fun around and using it what's best for the district okay additional classrooms at Cleveland Middle School we've had a lot of discussion about this and so one of the things I decided to do is I decided to go back to 2015 when the original contract took place of the addition at the middle school when that was approved that was November 12 to 15 I actually went back I actually pulled the minutes and there were two alternate bids on that contract two out of the like eight or nine but alternative in number six was to ward two an alternate 56 of two additional classrooms on the northwest corner for 264 thousand

047that was to be defeated uh one to four with two members absent and then there was an alternate bid seven for two more additional classrooms on the Southeast corner of of the middle school for 300 000 that was defeated two to three with two members absent okay now please tell I'm not here to discuss it I just wanted to give some historical background of this and then to say well maybe I'll take a look at this because we know that our estimate if we were to put on a net eight classroom which is about 10 million dollars and so this is a drawing that you see this is directly from dla Architects that did the addition over at our Middle School this was the condition that took place so they were going to put two

048classrooms here this was the alternate bid number I think this was and this is alternate bid number seven putting two more classrooms one on top of the other over there get to school for more classrooms so I asked our architect to price that out and what they said was it'll cost us about 3.6 million dollars now to put those classrooms on okay from 575 to 3.6 again I'm not here to dispute these numbers I'm just saying this may be a viable option okay now I'm going to turn this over and again I think we can complete this by 2024 in August I'm going to turn this over to Dr Kara if you want to talk about this and I know Ms krikos is here also to talk a little bit about this so Dr Karen

049I'm going to turn it over here yeah I think you know the question that Mr sawales as well as many of you also asked is is that enough is that going to be adequate um so we want to make sure miss creasa was here to address any questions as well but in looking at this we wanted to go back to look at the four whether we have more that might be needed later on because we know we have a lot of teachers that are still on carts we recognize that we wanted to give us ourselves some time maybe a year to review curriculum offerings structures Staffing as you know we do have Staffing shortages that are coming in we're not even sure that we'll be able to staff all those classrooms in the near future

050so those are some things I think we want to take a look at but we do recognize that four would be certainly helpful in kind of offsetting some of the Middle School needs now miss criso is here if anyone wanted to ask some questions um for her I don't know if anyone has any questions or not but yes and I was curious after the last meeting how many teachers still are on carts and not in a classroom hi everyone um on cart we have five language acquisition teachers on cart that's Spanish they teach foreign language it's a requirement as part of IB it's a year-long requirement it's not a semester type class it's full-on part of the core one reading intervention teacher on a cart deals with our lowest readers in sixth grade our honors

051math teacher in eighth grade one of our honors Math teachers has to take up the library one period today because we don't have a classroom to offer him to have his geometry class in I have three teachers who work in connections that's a trimester based class and it kind of picks up a lot of the different state mandates that we get financial literacy units that type of thing research units they cover a lot of the pieces that don't fit into a particular area that's another three on cart in our special education department I have five instructional spaces that are dedicated to instructional level classes not multi-needs multi-needs has their own two spaces if I have five instructional spaces only to service our special ed population four of those teachers are fully on cart they don't

052have a classroom to their name they don't even have an office space to their name the other teachers who are on cart have office spots dedicated to like have a phone and all that to work on so in essence when you're asking me how many are on cart at any given point in time you're talking about you know eight to eight to ten teachers who could be on car at any point in time now I mean you know the rooms we'll take what we can get to start with I mean honestly you know when you look at it and I think of a cost comparison it really just boggles my mind but you know we can't go back in history and clearly we do need additional spaces um you know we have a lot of

053program needs that fall into the IB category with you know eight core classes that are required by the nyp for us to have in place so that we can at least make sure that we're providing a full middle years program to our students we're back up for reevaluation in the next year or two here so we're starting our self-study year next year and we'll be back on reevaluation track with IB the following year so in the past when it's come down to requirements for the program those eight core classes must be taught and they must be taught at all three grade levels in the nyp so when we look at spaces that does require some dedicated locations for things like foreign language or things like reading intervention or things like honors geometry and it runs

054the gamut it's not just my high needs High needs kids or my kids who are struggling readers but everybody is affected by it all the kids and um and your staff your middle school staff is fantastic they have made do with what we have been given and they have done it very commendably and if that's the one thing I can share with you right now is I'm super proud of my staff for doing what they have we've come up with some creative scheduling we've come up with some ways to work around the the the space issues that we encounter but it is it's a daily struggle sometimes to just even find a space to work with a group of kids who might need intervention or might need some enrichment so sometimes that becomes more of

055a detriment to the children than you would imagine because the teacher has nowhere to work with them in a private location sometimes because every room is being used every period what else can I share so I do have a question yes I didn't I didn't know I didn't go back to the 15 notes like Mr summer did but my understanding was for the longest time you guys needed eight classrooms so if you got eight classrooms today would that satisfy 100 your needs percent but it would be more like in the 80 range it wouldn't be 100 of my needs what would four classrooms do would be halfway there maybe it depends on how how I structure I'd have to move people so the minute you say that there's four additional classrooms like we pod the

056kids you know so all the kids are close by by their team so it would just mean some moving up people around some seeing if we can you know how we can double up because we always double up on all the spaces anyway so we would end up doubling up on the spaces we'd have a little less movement with some kids having to cross the building we'd have less movement with teachers having to cross the building for periods um so you know we'd be you know close to halfway there if you will so back in 15 this wouldn't have satisfied your issue anyways no we asked them to build a rectangle I mean we talked about the fact that the building itself while it's beautiful it's a lovely Edition it doesn't service the needs of

057the building it I mean we have a lovely Amphitheater that is just that a lovely Amphitheater it doesn't service our needs I have an aging I mean even if we're talking about facility itself we have an aging you know gym area our bleachers could probably stand to be replaced somewhere down the line and if we're talking about expanding the Athletics program to be able to feed into the high school I don't have gym space to be able to add additional programming in the after hours because our games and our matches actually take up the gym space four days a week typically and so I mean I just left there we were still finishing up basketball matches at home we have two to a time two at a time so yeah we've out we we've outgrown

058the space in essence and when you look at what the high school has compared to us we're three-fourths the size of the high school and they have so much more space and square footage per kid than than we're dealing with and and so that's really ultimately I think you know we've been pretty reasonable in waiting I want to say that the staff have been pretty patient but these are also you know it affects how you program it affects how you're able to execute um activities for kids I mean there's I can't never have the entire student body together anymore because three grade levels don't fit in the gym in a way that works in a safe way for the kids so so moving forward I think you'd mentioned before Dr Cara the teacher shortage is

059real yeah yeah and to get back to where we were feasible in a realistic thought process could never happen may never happen again right to get back to where we were so if you look at the programming what could you find I mean are four or eight classrooms gonna satisfy then I guess I wonder why would it not like help me out why why okay it'll help I'm just trying to see what's the difference with less students now than before we're only about I mean my enrollment right now is at 9.50 I want to say I'm only about a little bit under less than 100 Kids less than that from what you had in 2015. yeah okay yeah well 2015 remember this the kids hadn't come over yet we hadn't even merged both buildings so

060we were only seventh and eighth grade at the time that's true and so we bought 300 we bought 350 I think it was almost 380 kids that first year I can't remember specifically and we built 11 classrooms in essence 11 rooms that those kids could be in so already the number was not we were already too high we were at like a 36 kids per room average for core classrooms yeah that's not including you built three design tech labs which we use because it's part of IB we built an art room which we use because it's a requirement of IB there's an Arts requirement um so those rooms were part of some of those rooms were part of the new extension however they're dedicated to those programs they teach six periods a day in that

061particular content so Design Tech is six periods a day of design you went from having the um students at CSK who was six to eight which was a small amount but you went you brought them over bought the Sixth Grade Center over and they made it okay so 375 380 kids that first year came in and we had technically 11 classrooms so like I said that's about 36 kids per room when you talk about just core classrooms so we were already tight coming in the window so that's why we were pushing for those four rooms back then um yeah and that would have just helped ease the pain but it wouldn't have solved your issues I think I think had that done had that been done we would have still had a little bit of

062growth issue but not um I think it would have eased a lot of it for everyone including the children the adults everybody yeah so I mean look we're going to be very happy with whatever you can give us I understand that there's only a finite pot of money for everyone to share and honestly you know while I can appreciate the other programming needs this has been an issue for us since we opened the doors of the six eight middle school so I mean whatever decision you make will abide by but whatever you can do to help alleviate that it would be for us the best thing for the children and for the adults who work there so I ask that you do think about that I'm happy to answer any more questions if you have

063any no I I again thank you so much because I do recall a couple times who came to the board for the same issue bringing your flight to us and and I thank you for giving me a walk down several months ago sharing with me you know your concerns and so I did bring it to the board and and it looks as if the board don't want to move forward somewhere sooner than later best the next opportunity we possibly could get to to revisit this absolutely really appreciate appreciate the board bringing us back up business manager and Dr Kara and her team at least given another shot at this so you try to try to get it right you know those numbers are boggling you know but again I don't want to look back I

064want to move forward and try to make things right thank you okay thanks thank you um let me talk also then the next the next project I want to touch on is the athletic facilities over at the high school so this would be phase one which would be a new multi-purpose stadium for a football track and soccer as you can see it would be located our current stadium is about right over here so it'll be located on the grass area which is what we call the practice area right now between the parking lot of the high school and the current area so that would be constructed as part of this right now we have a preliminary number of 14.5 million dollars for that again it would satisfy football tracking and soccer it would be a

065turf field it would not be grass looking at completion of that in August of 24. and yes that would be for boys and girls yes so those three Sports both male and female yes okay yep um the next one I want to talk about is expanding the programming for Early Learning Center including child care where we would redesign our administrative offices to be used as offices and classrooms for early learning programming and child care hey can can you go back for just a second oh sorry to eruption no that's okay so phase one yes 14 million yes does not include a concession stand does not include a concession stand it's just budgeted estimated at about five million dollars is the building now the building for the concession stand it's it's not just the concession stand

066it would also include bathrooms also includes some rooms that the teams could go in during halftime or pre-game things like that so it's it's bigger than just the concession stand kids are going in locker rooms or no they just go to the end zone just go ES the end zones right now there's nowhere to go so so to do that you're going to have to spend 20 19 million you can't spend 14. there's no sense in doing that without uh again I think as Miss krikos has said there's only so much money I I I honestly don't know you know what I you know what I've tried to do in presenting this is just right you know give everybody a little piece of the pie of trying to satisfy some things I mean you know

067you're bound by the money that either can be borrowed or used or what we have without at least when I feel without putting the district in the financial you know predicament you know as we go forward here so and I and I guess looking at this you definitely want the concessions I'm talking to people out there within Athletics they are definitely more than happy with being able to have the the faces as you put it um to have the football to have the track to have because as our soccer team plays in a retention Pond that is terrible then our football team plays in the stadium that's bad and then knowing that the goal is to build out I mean I definitely know that the concession stand would be a wanted and having an athletic

068complex long term as you had this is phase one then phase two as you explained before you're on the phase it in but I definitely see what Mr swallage is saying with the concessions but I also see the need I wouldn't want to scrap the ability to get them better playing facilities because we can't add a concession stand and I don't think that's what you're saying no no I'm just saying that you're going to build that facility then you will have nowhere for the teams to go you have nowhere for the bathrooms you have nowhere for the for a concession you're going to have Porta porta johns and then we're going to spend 14.5 million or 5 million on concession but then we got to think you know I mean that's where we got to

069think hard about the middle school I mean 3.6 to 10 million we have to we have to keep that I can't spend you know we got to do it right it's the same thing I said about the middle school if we're going to make the decision we got to make the decision that makes sense if you do the research of the programming and figure out what do we need there we don't we want to do it once I mean look at the cost of the middle school it's six over six times the cost on a decision but then again back then it wouldn't have satisfied 100 percent we just have to make sure that I mean 14.5 is a lot for still not having bathroom facilities and it you just got to talk you gotta

070all that's got to be discussed can you can you give a little more without I know you don't have it up there a little more information on the phasing the phasing process because you said phase one phase two how did you look at that uh let's do this let me let me do this let me get through this and let's get through the park because I'm and all that too all right uh with some opportunities come regarding thank you maybe Dr Hall knows this or you can as far as as far as the kids not being able to go into a locker room they meet at opposite hands of the end zone during halftime is that typical or is other schools like that or are we just a soul School in this position right now

071it's typical it is typical yes okay so other schools only school that I know that has a facility where you can run off the field into the locker room at halftime that I that I can think of is for both teams It's Thorn Ridge that's a pretty old facility so that's a good thing I don't know of other places when I think about they they pretty much meet in the end zone right don't have time okay and a Gately Stadium but yeah the whole stadium too okay all right yeah yeah let me get through this and we'll talk about some of that fit phasing and all of that so again let me let me share about uh uh the expanded program for Early Learning Center including Child Care again read designing the the administrative offices

072for more classrooms and rooms also requesting additional funding through our preschool for all grant for additional teachers I'm estimating the additional cost is only going to be about a million dollars after we complete some work here I think I can get that done by August 24. again I'm going to turn this over to Dr Cara to kind of talk a little bit about this and then Miss Chess is here also to answer any questions that we may have may have Dr Karen yeah including this year some of the things that we began to see coming after covid we started seeing some of our little ones coming back I think the first year we weren't seeing so many but all of a sudden people were feeling more safe they were rolling their children there was waiting

073lists and I know talking to Miss Chester she'd say oh my goodness I've got all these children that are waiting to come in the other thing we started noticing this year especially in our kindergarten level we have a lot of children throughout the district that are five years old and in kindergarten and many of our children have not had preschool experiences they need more play-based instruction and we're seeing a lot of discipline problems with our students because they're just not ready they have a difficult time with fidgeting walking around managing um you know some impulsive behaviors a lot of that could be developmental so what we're also thinking that we probably need to start looking at is a transitional kindergarten program that would be for students that would be maybe five years old and instead

074of starting in kindergarten we would have a transitional kindergarten program for them it may be a half day maybe a full day and again more play-based instruction and getting them used to doing school as opposed to just putting right into a traditional kindergarten program so we see a lot of that coming and that has been emerging across the district as we speak so we would be looking for screening them to determine what type of program would be helpful for them this kind of program we would need to probably house at the ELC program because students within that program could just transition nicely into that to receive additional services so we do believe that we will have enough right now to house at least one classroom for that now the other piece that we're looking at

075again as you know we are trying to attract and maintain our teachers in attracting staff we've got Miss Trish that has been going out to all the universities and trying to you know share all the great things that are going on here but what we notice is we have a lot of staff that have little bitty kids here a lot of small children that they're looking for daycare and you know managing you know two two working um parent can be challenging especially for teachers because it's very difficult to you know you can't just call off work you've got sub plans to do and it can be difficult so what we would be thinking also is to open up a daycare center for teachers children that they could have their child come to school and then

076they could go off to work and then they could come and either see them at noon if they had a break if there was something going on or come and get them right after school we do believe there's not that many schools that do offer that there is one in Naperville that has offered one that I had been to before but it would be something very attractive that not a lot of other districts offer which could make us a little bit more competitive and something we can go out and market and it would be a nice place to house An Early Childhood Center or the daycare center for staff if it wasn't full with staff students we could certainly Outsource it and open it up to other members of the community so we're seeing a

077lot of places that we could use and really expand this Early Childhood Program not only to attract new teachers but to support our staff to let them know we're here to help them as a family help take care of their children while they're working and then also to try to expand our Early Childhood Program and get more screeners out there to get more of our students in because a lot of our kindergartners you know have been struggling in the last couple years so anyway those are some thoughts that we have for really the value of expanding this program and this building could facilitate that uh Miss Chessa would you like to maybe come up and talk a little bit about some of the uh the needs that you're seeing with students that might be on

078the waiting list uh screenings that you're seeing any thoughts on um you know a transitional kindergarten program hello there you go there you go all right here we go good evening everyone so this is really exciting news I love to hear the fact that our district wants to grow ELC we've been working really hard over the years our program has grown tremendously since it started back in the 80s we were in that little spot over at Creed Elementary in the wing that they've completely rehabbed and here we've been here probably about 15 years now and groaned so much that we don't have any other space for classrooms so I talked to Dr Kara recently about what you know while they're doing construction can we add on some offices can we you know so that we

079can take a couple we can get a couple more rooms out of what we have but this is exciting to hear that we would have access to the entire building um right now we have about 213 students enrolled in our program our child find has grown we usually in the beginning of the school year it starts off very small so we have six checkpoints during the year that we do screenings so and we've added on another layer where we do online screenings so our children are coming in we're we're searching we're finding we want more access that they can come to us that we can find them that we can get them screened and find programming so whether they are at risk or they need further testing where they would go into a special education

080classroom we're trying to find them get them in so they can get prepared for kindergarten and we're doing screenings for birth through three so those little ones that are out there that parents aren't quite sure if they're if they're at their age level or they may need extra support we guide them as well um to early intervention so the earlier that we find these these kiddos the better so that's what we found and so getting our program grown is wonderful we have found that with this new online system right now so far in the school year we have 223 parents requesting screenings we have completed 122 of those screenings so far um we have 81 right now in process so I have another screening this week that's in person and we're doing checkpoints so I

081have probably about 15 kiddos coming in um in person and then we have another group that are being screened online so but how many openings do we have we're asking we have 10 spots available for our at-risk students right now now last month I actually filled them and because we did further testing some of our groups of children have moved on into a special education environment so that opened up some availability but on that I just wanted to note that out of all the screening we had probably about 20 parents just drop just stop the process we found that because we didn't have an all-day program that was an issue they didn't want to leave their daycare so now that we have transportation which I have to thank all of you Ken I I just

082it's incredible because it's helped our families get their students into our program some families though are have daycares that are out of the district and we can't they can't benefit from Transportation so they're looking for all-day programming so we're kind of keeping an eye on how many families are dropping because of that or that have started our process and found that they still they need an all-day program so I would like to keep an eye out for future grants there's a PFA a preschool for all expansion grant that is out there and that allows us to have a full day program and it's not if even if we add on one more class we can do a weighted criteria and get to those families that need their children to have a full day program so

083that's an option that I want to look into for the future another possibility of a grant is called prevention initiative and that Grant is to help educate our families so it's reaching those families with birth through three children providing that education that Mom and me type setting class they're not here all day it's home visits it's that education piece so we're starting again we're starting earlier we're reaching those families we get we're getting them connected with the school district and having that opportunity to grow on and build our program so that's that's another option that's out there but again a second Grant so let me add one more piece I forgot is we are looking to build out this program the the benefit at the high school would be the students can come over walk

084over and they can do the pathway program for Education they can come over and do hours at the daycare center or at the ELC program and we could really start building our future teachers as well so it's a it's a cyclical program that really has the benefits from both ends and it's wonderful and that I want to add on to Dr Cara um introduced us to Lewis University this past year and they had grants available to pay for our paraprofessionals in the district to go to school and get their degree and their certifications needed and I just have to let you know that that's incredible because I have a handful of my paraprofessionals that have been here forever that have not had the opportunity to go back to school because they need to work well

085now they can work and go to school at the same time and they can student teach here while they're working and get their certifications then they can we're growing our future teachers here as well so I have I have put in for hire two of our paraprofessionals in their district one in our building one in another building for our two open positions that we have right now it's exciting well I can tell you when I started here in 2015 I thought it was a babysitting facility I had no clue what ELC was and talking to you getting closer to kids and this is Mike Therese dream if you recall way back when he kept saying we need to get more of our kiddos in we need our kindergarten teachers are saying that we need to

086get more of our kiddos in and to me there's nothing better than getting them started early I mean reading to a child when they're in womb even starts that whole process and every time I think about the possibilities that you offer each and every day to all of our kids it's it's marvelous and you talking about all these other things other that no one knows about I mean there's so many opportunities that people just don't know about and we're blessed to have you and your team and I would like nothing better than to see it just keep growing and all the great things that you hear and see about ELC so thank you to you and your staff number one but number two I can't think of any better way than to get them when

087they're young and get them on the right track so absolutely yeah yeah Kelly I mean he was just knocking it out the park as you were speaking there I mean again it goes back to this 30-hour trip that I had on a trainer a few days back and reading this article and all that and basically reading verbiage that basically said that five-year-olds minority five-year-olds coming into kindergarten is already two years behind black kids compared to white kids and other minorities two years behind for various reasons social economics things of that nature okay so and I believe it was you Dr cogley's a couple years ago basically saying it's been a study out there that kids are behind before they hit kindergarten and now you have kids here three four and five-year-old now I hear you

088talking about taking assessments on one-year-olds to three-year-olds and that is remarkable and one thing I would take out of this conversation is more daycare you know just because that's kind of a that's kind of a negative connotation as seen from Outsiders schools we don't want to take care of kids but this is ELC Early Learning Center so if we can come up with another phrase for the earlier kids and and that's great as a benefit possibly bring having teachers you know caring for their kids in a way but put them in a learning environment as opposed what you probably that's the intent but not just use that phrase daycare you know but a Learning Center so if we get our kids because how do we expect our kids if they're coming into school two years

089behind and then when we teach them algebra and geometry and things like that and other reading courses that we expect them to pass how do we expect them to be up to par in the fifth grade and the sixth grade when they get to kokona's class and things like that how do we expect that you guys are you know really behind the eight ball trying to bring our kids up to speed so we need to do everything in our power as board members as Educators and all of that to try to get our kids when they enter the kindergarten just as ready as possible all of our kids all of our kids so it's still a lot of unknowns out there but I think this is you just was knocking it you was saying what

090I want to hear I didn't expect it and Dr cogmanisa has been saying it to in different ways and to hear it come from you and it just did my heart well do we have do we have evidence within the district and Chantel maybe you can speak to this but children who have gone through our ELC do they perform better when they get to to the elementary school or do we is there any data or yeah we do have some data um that we get from the University of Chicago that we've been working with for some years so I can pull that data together that compares I mean it seems like it would make sense but you know you're just curious if we've tracked it or could see the fruits of it of the labor

091so to speak yes I'll I'll add it to next week I think if we remember back in our strategic plan we were struggling in kindergarten and if I'm not mistaken it was sixth or ninth I don't remember it was two grades and kindergarten was one of them is because I think as you know our program only allowed so many kids per year when so many other kids just didn't go to preschool because they couldn't afford to send their kids to Private Preschool so opening this up allows us to reach our kids at an earlier date and more of them that's I think the goal to make it so when they they start learning at a three-year-old Pace like you said then as they get into kindergarten at least the social aspect of it understanding how

092to be together and what rules are and what a day versus even if it's a half a day they understand that they're going to school and what the expectation is the expectation at three four and five years old and and again it cannot all be accomplished here by your teachers along it's going to take a lot it's going to take a much more apparent parental engagement all of those things to bring our kids up to speed and that's what we're here we read our mission statement our vice president Reid our mission statement all the time to empower our kids so they can be social responsible students out there in the world but you know I see the scores and this is again no knock on our district I think we're doing a tremendous job this

093is kind of a global thing here you see the scores you see the achievement gaps you see the gaps are there and we need to do our part which we are we are doing our part and I take my hand hat off to all you Educators this you know you're dealing with the hand you're dealt with and trying to make the best at what you have and I just think that what you were speaking on here I think that's a big big part of it the close that achievement Gap get these kids early see what we could do with them early and we better prepared to get to our K through six and K through 12 and we'll see those gaps on in my opinion close that much more so Ken for our you can

094stay because we may have more questions but get Ken back up here stay over there or stay here yeah stay right there stay right there I'll just stand behind you so how many for kind of moving the administration out of this out of this building sure for a million dollars how many more classrooms do we get well when you start looking at it that's why you know right now Kelly has her main office in one room and then she has her offices in another room those are actually classrooms so we would pick those up we would pick up room 35 here would be could become a classroom I've got a room next door which is 37 it could be a classroom and then so there's four classrooms right there I've got you know we're talking

095about the possibility of even moving Tech out and if tech moves out of here also we pick up another couple classrooms there's some storage and then a classroom so in essence you really could pick up with no problem five classrooms and then I think over really where our main offices are you know Kelly and I've had a little bit of conversation of this move all of our main office's reception area over there and then also I think we may can we can probably put up a doorway a couple temp walls and all that stuff not Tempo the permanent walls so that you can pick up another classroom there so there's probably six or seven classrooms that you could easily pick up uh without a lot of capital um money invested in them again we've already

096done the HVAC so everything is zoned out already too and we're in good shape there too so uh so I think you know and our plan is to replace all the carpet too so all that's coming up so that's all part of the plan already so it really would not take a lot more so Staffing there is available funding through preschool for all grants well we think we think about probably by so Kelly always has this problem of not asking for money I don't have a problem asking for money oh so yeah I know so so so our goal is to try and increase the money that we have coming in from the uh from our uh preschool for all Grant to pay for some of these teachers also yes okay so you can let's

097say that all works where are we going to find the teachers good and that's where our partnership comes into play with Lewis University so we have Paras that are going through programming right now so we are growing them to get their certifications in early childhood special endorsement ell um so if they have all of that they have the possibility if we have openings to apply for that and um gov I was adjusting the day Governor state has correct something as well they also have where our students can earn college credit our high school students can earn college credits by going through if we partner with them through for a program as well as they begin to they can earn their parapro something certification and as well as team with our parapro super can become Educators

098they can work as they go and then they can work as they go sodium Grant as as well going on right now are for our paraprofessionals so they have the opportunity to work here and to go to school for free maybe not 100 but um a great amount of that money is paid our schooling is paid for right now which is great so I don't know how much more that goes I know one of it one of the grants go until December this year and then I I heard there was another funding that was opened up and people were applying um to go back to school so we have a lot of parents that are back in school which is very exciting to me they finally they have that opportunity and then of course they're

099looking the the colleges are looking into they know they realize that early childhood education was getting smaller and smaller so they're they're encouraging that they're building their programs and by having these funds out there hopefully we'll see more people coming in this area that's that's our goal so whether we get the grants added on ask for more money you know there's there's a lot of opportunities out there to help us grow let's see okay and what this building used to be a full school right yes my husband went to this the school and it was elementary so yeah that's well create money but anyhow um I think you're high back in the day I think you're going to get a lot more classrooms than six out of the open space you have to be honest

100I mean this is way bigger you counter this as one this is more than one room so um Kelly please please don't be afraid to ask him for money be free to ask us for money maybe but not him make him come to us that was back when you didn't get credits for electives you you know you and I are gonna have a little talk after this mister they pick on me about a little statement I made a couple years ago he was he was just because I was afraid of losing it or right I mean because we've had it for so many years I didn't want to be that person that asked for something and they took it away and he's like no no no no no no no no no we right yes

101well well Kelly is the grant money you're talking about because I read something about the governor release grant money back in August of this year is that the sum of money for early learning I believe that it was like August of last year he released I don't know so many millions of dollars the governor okay with Louis I'm talking yeah I just saw something I recall reading something that says Governor release x amount of million dollars approve x amount of million dollars for early learning programs and that was in August of this year's just a couple months ago so I don't know I think I share this with Ken and Dr Carolyn Dr Care on this so I don't know if you've got more information or would you seek more information I don't all I

102will say is that I know Governor pritzker is you know high on his agenda yeah early for early learning no education so he can change to try and fund that more and more and more so I think as the uh depending on you know what happens at the midterms here but again I I see that continuing I can see him continuing be putting more money than in there so I think the rest they asked for okay okay what's tomorrow let's keep going on sure thanks Kelly thank you very much so picking up on that in order to expand the program that means the Administration has to move out of here and so one of the things is to relocate our administrative offices to the former old plain Trail Bank operations building which would mean we

103would purchase the property from wintrust bank we would also need to construct an addition there for some more offices and a boardroom professional development area with separate entrances I I'm estimating the cost at about three million dollars I'll update you on on the latest of this uh however you know as as you may know right now room 35 why we have it for board meetings we also use this for professional development if we moved over there we would not have that uh room to be used and so my thought is that we would put on an addition so that we would have an addition that would house um what I'm calling a boardroom professional development with a separate separate entrance so that the board meetings would be there and then it could be used for

104professional development also we've had offices so on one side of the building would be OTL office of teaching and learning along with the superintendent's office professional development on the other side would be HR business and then we're looking also at bringing technology over there um the building is for sale um I will not go into quite honestly sales prices that's something I can talk to the board about in closed session and we we do have we can't do that in closed session because I don't want to make the jet any negotiating thing but they are in the process of getting a new appraisal for that property for us in order to sell that property the president bank has told me that they have to have an appraisal within 12 months of sale by law so

105he's getting that once I have that price he has said to me that he will let me have that appraisal he's just looking he can't take a loss on the building that's um I will share that uh when we talked about we're moving over there for two months and so the rent for that is going to be five thousand dollars for both for entitled 2500 a month he said if we do purchase a property he will credit us back that money also you know so uh again I just estimated this price and that would include also the addition that is on there that is really just an estimate I haven't even started looking at plans for that I have had our architect over to the building to take a look at it he's got the

106blueprints he's just waiting for me we haven't put any money in his work at all he's just waiting for me to give him the knot if we want to start looking at developing some type of addition onto that building okay I have also talked to the uh the president of the bank who has said he will give us an easement coming through his lot so that we can enter that way we do not have to put another entrance in at all we can do that so that's not a problem he also said that we'd be he'd be happy to allow us to put a sign out there for our district offices as long as it doesn't block his big LED sideways I don't think it will but he said he would allows to do that

107no school buses at all so this is all be you know office traffic uh he's that concerned about board meet you know because board meetings will take place after the bank uh is closed so even if we had a meeting that would be attended large by the public we can also use there a lot so that's not a problem either um I I estimated this I can actually we we think we can get this done in the fall of 23 which then would allow us to get this place ready for 25 uh we could do that so uh just to kind of let you know that the last thing that I will share are the outdoor areas the outdoor classrooms uh What I Call Outdoor whipping centers this is just kind of a sample of

108what we could do at Balmoral I think as the board knows we did the ELC Courtyard here which is just been an absolute hit as Kelly can tell you with the staff and with the kids it's great to be in the offices and just hear the kids out there all the time uh so what we would do is we would put Outdoor Learning Centers like this everything would be AstroTurf with some small breakout areas a bigger area that we do this is just kind of a sample at Balmoral but what we would do is we could do balmoro create CSK and also the middle school we would do their Courtyard also estimating the cost of that of about 1.5 million dollars it does sound High it is high most of it is because we have

109to Crane everything over the roof in order to get it into those areas and that which is what we had to do here looking at that probably completion somewhere around August of 25 this would probably be on you know the back end of our our list so let me let's go in a little bit about financing and about total costs and everything so the entire plan is costing about 25.6 million dollars you'll see the breakdown of all the costs here again this is pretty high level first crack at all the estimates could come in a little bit cheaper I think but that at least gives us kind of a where we're looking at right now so the question comes up is how do we fund this so I'm going to talk a little bit about

110tips here I'm not going to talk a lot it's I'm going to talk about tips during my Levy presentation I'm going to go into it in depth because it is going to be uh big become a large amount of income that's coming into so there are two tips that are going to be rolling off one is we'll need tip number three one is up tip number five this is the annual revenue that we would get into the district now again this is not a one-time thing this is an annual amount that we would get into the district into our operating funds about 5.929 I'm just going to say six million dollars to round it up we'll start getting this money in June of 25 and that all right I'll go into detail about that again

111during my Levy presentation but that's going to be coming in but what you can do is you could sell alternate revenue bonds which is again you're selling the bonds based on getting that Revenue in that's what this that's what alternate Revenue bond is I've contacted PMA who's our financial advisor that does all of this stuff and again uh if this is a route you want to go that I would recommend and if you're interested in that I could bring PMA in for a discussion probably in January sometime to go over this it is an alternate bond is issued using a revenue source as a pledge of security for the payment of principal and interest there are some guidelines associated with that we meet all the guidelines this the revenue that we have coming in from

112the Tiff we'll meet those guidelines there is still a petition period a 30-day petition period like there was before so that would still have to take place this is a chart there's a lot of small numbers on here but this is a chart that I've asked PMA to put together because if you remember back on this slide we've got about six million dollars coming in so I said okay that's six million dollars what if I use up here these two columns are 1.5 million dollars of an annual payment towards a bond payment how much money can I get on that these two columns is if I use two million dollars this is if I use 2.5 million dollars of that money okay the two columns will tell you if one I'm selling the bonds this

113column scenario one on here is if I sold the bonds in 23 next year and get the money or I can wait till 24 and sell it can I get a little bit more which you'll see and I'll go through the bottom line here so again 1.5 million selling 23 24. 2 million 23 24 2.5 million 23 24. because you know I tried to find this on tape but I remember Mr Brown asking me a question about three or four years ago when I was doing one of my lovey presentations and we talked about Tiff she said what would you do with that Tiff money I remember you asking me this question at that time I said here's what I would do I would take a third of that and put it towards athletic facilities

114I would take a third of that and put it towards your operating costs and then I take the other third and put it towards the preventative maintenance program in your facilities which is what's needed and so that's what this kind of does is it breaks this up so again if you take 1.5 million dollars we've sold it in 23 we would net out 17 million if you sold if you took 1.5 million dollars in 24 18 million if you take two million dollars of that and 23 sold at 22.6 million 2 million 24 million and then if you get 2.5 million you could get 28 or 30 million my recommendation really in all honesty is this middle of the road I I think taking the two million dollars and securing it against some bonds to

115get you either the 22 6 or the 24 million dollars depending on when you want to sell these uh is is probably the best way to go I don't know you can go this high it's only a half a million dollars more to be honest with you and that but again I you know a little bit more conservative than this is so what then would happen is is this is that I could use Esser funds 600 000 1.4 million dollars in sr2 and sr3 funds of that I think we dip into our fund balance about 1.6 million dollars we're in good shape with that uh it would not hurt our financial rating at all we go about 1.6 and then we would get 24 point a little over 24 million dollars which would give us

11627.6 million dollars in revenue for our projects and this is kind of a summary page you'll see now again you don't have to go this much but I just put it down so everything jives projects are going to cost 25.6 million dollars we would get 27.6 million dollars so you got about two million dollars extra doesn't mean you have to borrow all of it you can borrow a little bit less of it okay look like I'm sorry so I know I went through that you know those numbers are so small I know I know I and I apologize so out of the Six Million every year two million is gonna go to the debt payment 2 million is going to go into your your uh operating funds and 2 million is going to go towards

117preventive maintenance yes Wild Card question go ahead what if it's not there what if what's not there what percentage that money what if it's not there the Tiff money I think that's the thing that you're going to have to uh again and you know I think this is very well known I'm retired in June of 24. okay so uh quit laughing why are you laughing you know yeah I did no I you know here here is and again I'm a straight shooter with this and we're going to talk about facts I mean I think we all know that there are a couple issues over at up and making sure that up dissolves that tip and I think you're going to have to stay on top of that whoever my successor is is going to have

118to stay on top of that along probably with our legal counsel so now so now what Tiff so in January of 21 they took 3 million out of a tiff that has been put back yet it was at a tip five that isn't Tiff five yes so my point is you're projecting 4.9 million out of that Tiff but my thing is what if it's not there well see here's and again I I'll go into that next month to understand about that Tiff but that money will be there because that money is based on eav not on surplus funds that are there okay so I'll I'll explain that next month but that money will be there as long as they dissolve that Tiff and they have to you have to make sure that they dissolve that

119tip and that tip will be able to be dissolved so what and again I'll just give you a little bit here on that those both those tips in Monet and up were created in 20 20. yes no I'm sorry 2000 were created in 2000 they expire in 23 then you have 12 months to file to dissolve them which means they'll dissolve in 24 so that they get onto the books in Spring of 25. so in Spring at 25 you'll start getting in half of that money which is the three million dollars let's just say and then what happens is the next fiscal year you'll get all of it in okay so that's the way the cycle works now I'll share that next meeting but this money is based on eav it is not based on

120the surplus funds that may be there so you're gambling by taking selling the bonds thinking that they closed that Tiff I am so I mean the reality is Street shooter if they don't close that Tiff now we've borrow that money right and we've got to find a way to pay for it right and you're gonna have to pay for it on operating funds is what we to pay for it now now again I I will share this with you and I've shared this with the board that you know Monet has asked about extending that tip my response to them John Izzo our attorney has been our starting point is 15 million dollars to discuss that because if they extended you know you look at my number here that I shared with you dollars my 13

121years what they extend is about 15 million dollars give us 15 million dollars and we'll talk okay and again I'll share the sixth meeting because again the district has the right to negotiate that an extension and they need a letter from us in writing supporting that so you know again I um again this is my recommendation I would stand firm on that because again we're talking six million dollars a year six times you know 13 years is a lot of money you know that's like 78 million dollars just something again that to consider again I I agree with you Mr swallowish I think you know you're taking a little risk there but I will say I believe you're holding the cards on this one but you just have to make sure that you know the

122resolutions have been passed they have to pass a resolution they have to send it to the county clerk the county clerk won't do anything without that resolution from them so so essentially you're banking on the two Villages two entities to do that yes and you I mean when when the up chip rolls off the last one that rolled off I I had to be in contact with them on a monthly basis for six months I was sending them notes did you do this are you doing this what are you doing I filed for your request I did all of it yes you know and so I think you know uh uh talking with the legal counsel to assist with you this is a lot of money that six million dollars a year is a lot

123a lot and so I you know it's nothing that I don't think you can take it lightly I don't because it will put this District in a great financial position and the purpose of the tips are to do that that's the purpose of it okay so I just want again I think I asked you this question before I just need to have a level of certainty it comes to all 11 0 to approve not to extend a tip it's an understanding and building bill can jump in on this it's my understanding the conversations I've had with John Izzo and him and I have talked about this that letter in writing from each of the taxing bodies supporting the extension the extension is approved by the state legislature I believe that's who approves the extension and

124if the state legislature does not have those approvals historically they have not approved an extension especially a school district that is responsible and gets 60 percent or seventy percent yeah no the go by no if all the other number the state legislator could really look at it say no four four I mean we're one and people were a huge yeah but I don't know I don't know if they're talking about Revenue no there is no again and again this is my understanding talking to John and you know being involved in this there is no minimum or maximum of the entities my understanding Bill shaken said yes that's right there is no there is no minimum or maximum but what the state legislature does look at is getting the approval of all the taxing bodies they

125specifically look at the school district because we are one of the largest or the largest taxing body and if we say no we do not they historically have said we will not allow that to be extended I'd have to I have to defer you to John you're pretty much saying we are pretty much certain that if we say we do not want the hormone need to tax uh tip that they will not yeah that's what we're saying that if again that if we as a board our district say you know what no we do not approve you extending these tips for another 12 hour uh 12 years money and University Park that that's what a buck stop no they will not have the luxury to extend their tips so we pretty much again as all

126of you alluded to this nothing is 100 certain except paying taxes and dying okay but but so but you feel pretty confident that I heard on Council party not in his head too that bill it's pretty confident so generally if there's not a state law state law have to do with practice is again okay okay and I think we do have some muscles by being the biggest as Cheryl alluded to 70 of these revenues that hit us coming again for us I know again okay you know whoever whoever follows me in this role I will advise them that this is a high priority I mean a high priority to make sure that this is done and again it just it just takes a lot of you know following up and being proactive blah blah blah

127all that stuff yeah so Ken I I share kind of the concern about borrowing on revenues that we think will have but we're not 100 sure I would say the and thanks for putting this together I mean this is good stuff but I think as I said here kind of thinking about the projects like you and the um you know executive staff come back on the middle school I mean if we're going to do this let's do it right and let's let's do it once and do it right I mean I you know there's four classrooms the right size is a you know let's I I don't want to just because we've got this kind of package of stuff we want to do um kind of do it halfway and or at least see what

128what it would cost to get it done right the first time I guess is what I'd like to see um and then on the district office relocation um I mean I think that building makes a lot of sense if it's available to us I think my concern is about putting you know an additional couple of million and renovate right away you know with spending two million dollars on administrative offices non-student is it's kind of a tough sell I think in the community so that would just be my feedback so I don't know if others um definitely would you know how I feel about the facilities the football multi-purpose Stadium looking at the Middle School I definitely would like to see that done it sound the way it sounds like they need a whole new school

129that's the way it sounds to me like they just don't have room and they need like even if they got eight class zones it wouldn't be enough so I I don't know how realistic that is and maybe I just misinterpreted it um I I but I definitely would like to get it right the first time however I I guess you could when I look at the other stuff what's needed what's extra um what would be what we do down the line when it even as we talk about phasing things in for the athletic facilities maybe we could look at those things when it like can could we Face some of the other things in um I don't know those are some of my thoughts but we really would have to we know we want from

130the stadium we know we don't no I didn't sound I wasn't clear on what we need from the middle school so we have to be clear what what they want Dr Hall that's kind of what kind of I think I think more on what's the right programming what's the right facility size where's the marriage there well yeah that's what I'm saying so once we get that I think though for me those are the two big big uh items that we really need to look at are those the middle school and some people who aren't athletic don't understand they they'll say they understand that Athletics are important but they really don't they just it's not that it's this is about it but that's part of Education it's like if you're a coach you can't say I

131don't want to deal with the parents that's part of coaching dealing with the parents Athletics is part of schools but that being here nor there that the Middle School leads to the high school so they need what they need so that we can so that they can get to that next day so again just probably saying really saying what they're saying those are my two big things if we could get those um looked at I mean I think that that would be so Todd you're saying not what they could live with but what they actually need to fraction at 100 correct right right yes I mean what you really need not what you can live with because she's living with no classrooms right and then she said well we could live you know we could

132make do whatever I mean at this point I don't think make do is is the way to go if we're going to invest the money we want to invest the money so that it's going to be good for 15 or 20 years unless there's a huge boom in population and look at the programming change you know updated right what's required by IB and that type of thing okay I guess the the only the only question I have and I'm going to push back a little bit on this is finding the money because if 8 is the answer on the classrooms it's 10 million dollars I I'm just being real on this but but that's for the board to decide okay and you know but we just need I think where we're coming back is let's

133not do something halfway at least have the information of what it takes to get it done 100 percent then we can decide what the priorities are I guess right and if we want to borrow money on revenues we don't have in the pocket yet all right thank you maybe you don't retire at all you may retire sooner I'll retire sooner there you go all right thanks okay thank you okay um a lot covered there tonight uh next up do we have any old business yes anybody else all right so I printed a couple things out that we read and I gotta say that when you read through the weekly updates we had one about as silly as it sounds about Halloween costumes right so I think Society has taken their mind in in and lost

134it somewhere in the last 20 years that we cannot have a child come to school in a costume or makeup or anything like that and I can't even tell you how I I don't I don't care how idiotic that sounds but it's happening and I think Dr caroluted that she had some students that had an issue and had to be you know showed up at her office and everybody forgets and puts an adult to put themselves in front of the kids and forget what a kid goes through growing up I remember as a kid in Elementary in Chicago Heights and Serena Hills dressed up as a Storm Trooper I you remember that as a kid and I think we all lost our mind and we can't have a Halloween party because it offends somebody we

135can't have a Halloween party because of a religion but in one sense you can always do something else it's the kids that want to come dressed in a costume I can't believe that they would be sent away and they'd have to come to the superintendent's office I can't tell you how much that completely bothers me that they can go out trick-or-treating but they can't come to school so I know you put it in your FYI that you had those parents in there and I know you're talking about doing a parent survey but I don't understand why we can't if a kid comes and it's against a religion if they don't dress up that's okay but they can they can still participate in the day right I have a friend that's a Jehovah's wit a Jehovah's

136Witness and he doesn't celebrate anything but we don't exclude him out of everything if he chooses not to be in that setting that's his choice but I don't understand why we're taken away from kids now I understand High School is one thing but when you're talking about elementary kids they remember that forever I remember it I definitely agree with you we don't celebrate Halloween but we never tried to stop other kids or classrooms from celebrating Halloween right it's part because as a kid coming up I did it was fun it was fun for us you don't because I don't do it doesn't mean I stop everybody else is fine right or like I mean they're kids they're kids it's it's a Memory that that you take with you and you don't dress up as a

137kid you go in your classroom we had Halloween parties I get it maybe it changed the wording whatever it's going to be but the fact that we're taken away from elementary kids is totally ridiculous that they had to show up at Dr Kara's office you know and they're frustrated do you blame them you know and then the parent pulled the other kid out like well if this one's not saying that that said I'm sad for that for those two kids so I think we need to to look at this more and and again I'm not trying to exclude anybody um you there's other ways of of doing things if the child doesn't celebrate it there's something else they can have maybe they can have holiday candy maybe they can then there'll be something else for

138maybe a fruit snack right you just you got to be creative with it but I still don't think take it away from the kids and that was a time where they would even if a teacher vote volunteer to have those students who didn't celebrate Halloween or whatever if they chose to If the parents want them to to come down to that other room and watch the movie and I know some people say well they miss out on all the fun and they can't but that's a choice the family made yes that's the answer right there so so as I said in the uh in my update um I historically I think this was a decision that was made at some board meeting in 2004 parents came and were upset and like I said in the

139newsletter our parent population is different now our they have different kids and so I think we have to go back and re-engage our community find out what our community wants and so I had reference that that in September we would go and re-engage our families to find out what they would like and then we would reinstitute practices based on our community for today and so that's my intent for next year and I think you have to because I've been on the board since 2015 and I know that there have been parties and I know that the kids have worn costumes and I know that the teachers have worn costumes so I don't know where this from 2004 it stopped I I have teachers sending me pictures saying this was us two years ago this was

140my class three years ago so I don't know where this whole decision supposedly came from but I know that that was not adhered to at all because I have seen the pictures I have talked to teachers and I know kids in my neighborhood Who Came who went to school they did stop calling a Halloween I believe Harvest or October something or whatever his parties but the whole time my kids were in school they were Harvest parties and they never dressed up and they're out now but they started I have 2006 pictures because they were so upset because their kids went in costume when we're told they had to take them off and they sent me pictures of a previous year where they were in costumes I had teachers who came to me and said they

141wore costumes every year every year now it didn't include masks I know that because I asked that but they would wear a costume and they came to school so I don't know I think I know there are two schools who have done it every year and obviously nobody has complained there and evidently the district didn't know what was going on but I know that parties were going on and I know the costumes existed so I think we do need to take a look at this because I don't feel it's fair to the to everyone I I think right and I remember when you're talking about they had a separate they went and watched movies or something while the party went on at lunch time or whatever I do recall that happening bye okay so so

142you'll get back to us so so number two um I I gotta tell you this will be uh and I'll be careful how I word it because I know it's in your uh FYI but I have to tell you that in May the teachers were here and you know they're you know want or is the administration gonna come into the classrooms and see what we're dealing with and then I think I brought it up in August it's November and you know you put in your flight you're having some issues right and how many hours are you taking every week to handle your the some issues right my problem is you have teachers we're asking for an internal substitution because they're you know they're exceeding the 10 uh hours or 10 times that they have to

143um sober you know forget the word internal Subs where was it back in May when the teachers asked you know some people from central office to come and see what's going on is that happening like well like where are we moving forward to assist them I mean we're putting together an internal substitution to pay them more to ask for their help to do that but I like I'm not understanding what's going on and obviously if you read your FYI there's issues going on here what's going on like what what what's happening are is central office going to be able to come and help the teachers or is what we talked about this in May and the teachers came and they were frustrated but I haven't really seen anything change well I guess you're asking me

144about the the Moa that we kind of came up with as far as central office you want central office staff to go out there and cover well anybody like you know they're saying Administration so I put that in my head central office administration maybe in the buildings but how are we helping them how are we moving forward to help them cover those hours so they're not absolutely I think that's what the moas were for is to try to to uh alleviate some of that we're really stretched we were trying to come up with other incentive packages um I know some staffs were were taking a look at um you know we were looking at mental health issues is why so many people are out those kinds of things so we we've kind of looked at

145a variety of things because that was a question why I asked about the sub pay and everything and I know we increased it and I know there was a concern and what we put on there first and then it changed but just trying to figure out what creative ways are we making because is this the you know it's November what uh seventh and some teachers already hit their limit we still got a long way to go I wish I wish I had an answer for you I don't as far as trying to produce uh extra bodies to cover classrooms I don't okay like I said I I just I don't see the solution I mean at this point I understand the internal substitution 100 but I just see the word burnout if if I see

146a teacher that goes to where where was it at on MLA um at the end what you know it was two and a half times or whatever it is if a if a teacher gets to that point I just see the word burnout you know they're going to need help like I said the shortages is concerning um the last thing is uh if we can't tell I I I don't know if I missed it but I think we had talked at one point so in 2019 before the pandemic our kids were at this level here for math and reading and all their scores and but where are they at today and wherever they're at today if they're above if they're at the same level or if they're below where are they at and and I

147don't know if I missed it and then if they're whatever they're at what are we doing to get them back to work so Mrs Wallace they're leading into next week's presentation if you could wait for one week we'll have that ready for you okay thank you that was three you get you get three anybody else in the old business okay any new business okay we do have a need for closed session so can I get a motion to go into closed session for the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees sex roll call when you're ready Brown is an i Mrs Galbraith all right Dr Hall aye Mr swallowish aye vice president aye president Auburn aye we are in closed session at 8 34. and uh you'll have no business after closed

148session we'll adjourn after that so we will go ahead and stop the video feed now so thank you