001well i hereby call this meeting to order roll call please brown is here mrs albert what was that what did i say i think you just said mrs albert oh missus i said mrs okay 40 years i've been oh let's pretend like nothing happened this is galbraith here all right mr sowalis here dr hall mrs walters here vice president roof here president albert here please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all and ms roop would you please remind us of the mission statement sure our mission is to empower each student to positively impact the world for a bright new future okay thank
002you let me just get drinking water okay prior to our regular business meeting the district wishes to hold a bond notification issue act hearing commonly commonly known and referred to as a bina hearing may i have a motion to open the bina hearing second mr brown would you take a roll call vote to open the bina hearing brown is an eye mrs galbraith aye mr swalis aye mrs walters aye vice president roop aye president alford aye the bina hearing is now open the purpose of the bina hearing is to allow the public to comment on the district's intent to sell five million five hundred thousand dollars in refunding bonds to pay claims and debts against the district specifically the general obligations debt certificate limited tax series 2021 and seven million five hundred thousand in working
003cash bonds to increase the working cash fund all bonds are being used for projects stated forth in the short short term facility plan which has been discussed during previous public board meetings as posted to the district's website are there any other comments from board members uh we do have two individuals who'd like to have for public comment for the bina hearing first up is tim piepenbrink topic is just discussion about process good evening everyone good evening i came prepared to talk a little bit tonight but i get to talk twice i filled out two forms to speak at both both meetings here so i had wanted to read some comments to you here but since there's a second opportunity i'll just read part of the comments now and the others later let me see if
004i find my page here as taxpayers we've made the dome and everything in the district possible and our voices have been listened to with indifference in this situation my next speech after a while is going to have something to do with the domes that's why i'm leading off with that the district now wants to sell bonds for the working cash fund when just this past spring a referendum was roundly denied but now this is an effort to borrow more money a good percentage of what the taxpayers had said to know to in spite of this defeated referendum there's no doubt about the needs that we have in our school district but there has to be a better and more forthright way of doing it instead of shifting funds around and robbing peter to pay paul
005to pay peter back again on that basis and in order to slow this process down the dome supporters will be filing a backdoor referendum to stop the sale of these bonds for the working cash fund our attorney advised us to submit a formal request to the school board secretary with enough advance notice that the petition can be written up in time for us to pick up at the district office tomorrow morning wednesday morning another area of concern this may not pertain to the the bond sale here another area of concern is where the illinois house bill 1785 deals with buildings that any school district wants to demolish there are quite a few steps and criteria that need to be met the least of which are three public hearings to discuss this decision to close a
006building and receive input from the community are any of you board members aware of that house bill yes okay i can read it to you if you'd like maybe i will it's just a short little few paragraphs here unless the school building is unsafe unsanitary or unfit for occupancy and notice has been served under section 3-14-22 of this code or notice is provided by a licensed entity able to determine the safety of a school building the school board must hold at least three public hearings the sole purpose of which shall be to discuss the decision to close a school building and to receive input from the community the notice of each public hearing that sets forth the time date and place and name of the description of the school building is considering closing must be
007provided at least 10 days prior to the hearing by publication on the school board's internet website that's house bill 1785. last month's meeting [Music] you had the vote to demolish the dome and that came up right after a grandiose presentation of plans for a new sports complex on the site of the dome and the adjacent property that whole presentation came out of thin air i've sent in a foia request to see where that was initiated and who was involved with it so i'm waiting for that answer uh no cost estimates were given just a big picture that an architect with a computer could draw up in an hour it would seem that the failed referendum just seven months ago the district and voters would surely look at more important things than a sports complex as
008a group us dome supporters do not want to stop good progress repairs and renovations that are badly needed in this district everybody agrees with that this is not anything to stop that yet by having the building demolition costs included as part of this bond sale we feel bound to challenge this with the backdoor referendum there's a way to negotiate around this was so everybody has a satisfactory result that's to pull the dome out of this equation and leave it be in return for the backdoor referendum being stopped this would be a great way for the district and community to do something together respectfully submitted from the supporters to save the dome any questions thank you very much uh next up for the bina hearing public comment excuse me james young the topic is information and
009clarification thank you president over dr congolese members of the board staff and staff and citizens um before i forget my comments dr i mean president albrecht is that i need to know if the board's attorney is president okay cool thank you it's my understanding that there's two different types of bonds that the board's going to be voting on tonight one is in the amount of 7.5 billion and the other one is in the amount of 45.5 million dollars in funding bonds my comments only concerns the 45.5 million dollars okay it's also my understanding that the board should provide the petition for any resident to challenge the sale of those bonds and we only have a 30-day period so that 30-day period begins at 1201 a.m tomorrow morning so i like to know where is that
010petition going to be because every moment of time is precious so i'd like to know where it's going to be at 1201 a.m so i can come and pick it up if it's not ready at 1201 am i just want someone to tell me where it's going to be so we can make absolutely sure that that petition is picked up because all we have is 30 days to get a certain percentage of registered voters to challenge the sale of those bonds now also those who feel empathetic about the dome about the building of coretta scott king magnet school a new building simultaneously with creek elementary school because that we know that's the direction you go you guys are moving in we know that you know it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out
011okay and giving the teachers at creekmoney middle school the classroom space that they need if you want the social justice movement to stop that's all you have to do is take the dome off the table agree to simultaneously build coretta skycam magnet school with creek elementary school the same way it was done in that referendum that was a referendum question back in april 2020 if i'm not 2021 okay that was the referendum question but it was 65 million dollars then okay and give the teachers the classroom space that they need and then we'll stop the movement thank you is there any other public comment for the bina hearing okay seeing that all persons desiring to be heard have been given an opportunity to present oral and written testimony with respect to the proposed issuance of
012the bonds may have a motion to adjourn and close the binah hearing so moved second mr brown would you take a roll call vote to adjourn and close the binder hearing brownness and i this mrs galbraith aye mr swaalis aye mrs walters aye vice president rupert aye president albert hi the bina hearing is now closed moving on to the rest of the agenda we will now have general public comment and for that we have one in person comment as mr piepenbring alluded to you are now up again and the topic is keeping the dome i haven't had a chance to catch my breath here yet just just a couple comments uh i had written this up but i mentioned a minute ago we're not here to stop the good plans for getting the schools to
013where they need to be that's not our intention it's strictly to get the dome off the list uh you know all the all the things that the school wants to do air conditioning is a key thing everybody's been jumping up and down about that [Music] we don't want to stop that but since it's all bundled together this backdoor referendum could put the brakes on that for a while this afternoon the internet was her facebook was alive and hot with comments and things that were kind of misinformation and i i don't normally comment much on on facebook but one thing was presented there the the cost of repairing the dome was i think 12 point some million dollars and so everybody jumps on there oh man we can't spend that kind of money well last meeting
014i believe the comment was made that those figures were incorrect because some of the sixth grade center costs were put over to the dome and they corrected that so the cost dropped down quite a bit the cost you know of what they wanted to do with renovating the dome basically was replace every nut and bolt in the building that's the gym floor replacing that lockers in the locker room the boilers everything everything was going to be brand new now if the school district's not going to use the dome that's fine we understand that but we would like to have the dome available to other groups in the community to use for different things that are going on here you know it's a year-round facility that teams could practice in from different schools in the district
015uh you know just regular groups if there's a volleyball league or something they can't play in the winter but they can sure play in the dome there's just so many possibilities we had a craft show that got cancelled last it was canceled last week i'm not sure when the show is but the dome would be a perfect place for something like that plenty of social distancing you know that that's what it can be used for by other people in the school district again i mentioned you know the taxpayers aren't going to take too kindly to putting up a great big sports complex in light of not doing the repairs on the school buildings i think that you know they're going to see through that [Music] it'd be you know we've already got a football field
016but i think they missed an opportunity talking about a sports complex the ground between the dome and the the bleachers where they are now this has been a topic and crete for in the in the area for a long time you could put a swimming pool there if you go out there there's already a big depression in the ground they just have to dig a little bit deeper and put a swimming pool in there and if that was an indoor pool you know you've got access to the dome for showers or whatever if they put them upstairs or if they fix the downstairs digging a hole and putting a swimming pool there would give you the ability to clean out the drainage problems that probably led to any water issues in the lower levels of
017the dome so i'm just saying have more than one option on the table that sports complex came out of the clear blue and we've got a good opportunity to do something else that we don't have we've already got a football field we've already got baseball fields we don't have a swimming pool there's there's another option so in light of all this uh i'm i'm hoping that somebody on the board will make a motion tonight to take the dome off of this uh equation here with with your bond sale and everything else that's going on so those be my comments uh i'm glad to have the opportunity to come to you here and you know misinformation kind of fed a lot of a lot of talk today on the facebook but you know the price went
018down if nobody's going to go in there and replace the basketball court or boilers or anything like that they're going to use it like it is spend some money obviously to get the place usable where they need it and then gradually making improvements and repairs so give us a chance in the community in the district to do that thank you thank you okay we do have some public comment that was sent in via email that i'll take the top opportunity to read now let me get a drink of water here the first is from lydia alvarez and the topic is the dome as as members of the crete voting public we are going to record to say we we are going on record to say we are in favor of preservation of the dome affiliated
019with the old crete high school much of our modern culture revolves around disposable places and items and even people it is time our society started supporting preservation such as that done in italy france germany and the rest of the world where respect is shown to those and that which came before us by lydia alvarez and mark benson the next public comment also topic save the dome from paul hammacker hamker i am in favor of saving the dome from demolition it has historical significance to the community it could be utilized many different activities for the youth and seniors in the community sincerely paul hemker the next step is also save the dome this is from martha gruberman her comment is only please vote yes to save the dome thank you um the next up is uh
020just titled dear school board members and it's from jen smith um thank you for taking the time to read my public comment i'm a long time resident of crete a parent of two students at csk and i'm an educator my comments is in regards to the revised 2122 school calendar i would like to share some concerns and frustrations with the changes to the calendar the first and most obvious concerns for working parents with the addition of 16 early release days parents must now find additional child care for those days we are lucky to have wonderful choices in the nearby area but there comes an additional cost appearance the second concern that will affect our students the most is the loss of instructional time as we have returned from remote or hybrid learning to fully in-person
021instruction we know that all students have unfinished learning due to the pandemic does our superintendent director of curriculum and school board really feel that is necessary for students to miss eight additional days of instruction yes eight days if you add up the hours from each added early dismissal that is the amount of time that will be lost an additional concern is a lack of preparation and planning by the district no plan for these days has been shared with the community if the district truly feels that teachers need these additional days please inform us on how the time will be used to provide effective instructional programs to ensure growth for every student it is frustrating that in preparation for a calendar revision the district would move forward without holding a public forum to get feedback from
022stakeholders there needs to be dialogue between the district school board and the community in an organized setting this is something i feel that has been brought up even as recent as a last board meeting the community wants a voice in summary i strongly feel that the addition of early release days to the calendar was a mistake a misguided action if true teachers are truly in need of time to develop plans etc i believe there's an alternate solution that then keeping our students out of school for this this much time thank you jen smith the next is from addison smith a third grader at csk dear cm school board members uh hi i'm addison smith and i would like to give you some feedback on the added early dismissals the first thing is we will get
023a little less education this upsets me because i i love learning and i want to get into a great college the second thing is some kids will have less specials too this is not fair because i love my specials other kids may too please think about changing your idea thank you addison smith of all that i've read i know we don't generally react to public comment but of all that i've read over the last couple of years that's my favorite so anyway um so that's it for public comment terry do we have any more okay um so next up is superintendent good evening uh board of education and certainly members of our audience this week is american education week and national school boards day it is our time to reflect on how lucky we are
024to work with such dedicated teachers staff and administrators but tonight i want to spend some time recognizing and honoring seven very important people and that is you our crete monies school district 201u board of education we all know that it takes strong schools to build a strong community the cm-201u school board members devote countless hours making sure our schools have the necessary resources and support that they need they listen to the concerns consider feedback from numerous stakeholders and work alongside district administration to help solve problems that have emerged they work tirelessly to ensure that all of our students here can achieve at their highest ability at times they have to make decisions and sometimes they're very tough they're not always popular with everyone but all of the decisions are based on hours of reading my
025weekly newsletters financial reports personnel updates as well as many new mandates that come to them almost weekly from the state tonight i would like our staff to help me join me in a round of applause for our district school board for we appreciate you for all your dedication and the support we have just a very short little video to share with you [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thanks again for all that you do thank you [Applause] it would not be complete without a photo op so we're going to ask you just to stand up we're going to gather and do a quick picture so need you in there president hold your breath and board members as you see we have a small token
026for you uh underneath is um our famous popcorn that we tend to give yeah that's right that's right no getting into it yet we have something in the bag for you as well as our certificate so those are for you to add at home and speaking of celebrations i am very happy to be here tonight to recognize uh one of our schools in particular this evening especially i think as it comes on the heels of national education week that could have been more perfect along with your ib evaluation you're getting everything this week so uh get it all done with it in october i received notification from the u.s news that had come back that had been completed the ranking of the top 30 percent of elementary and middle schools in the state the rankings
027used the methodology of including grade levels for each state schools were assessed on the number of students who were proficient or above in mathematics and reading language arts half of the formula was based on test scores and the other half was based on demographics in other words the top ranked schools are all high achieving and have exceeded in at education for their students i am proud to say that coretta scott king maddox magnet school was rated a score of 67 out of a hundred in other words it was ranked number 667 out of all the elementary schools in illinois which did rank it in the top 30 percent according to the latest testing window from our state our students were 37 percent proficient in mathematics and 42 percent proficient in reading this recognition is an
028affirmation of all of your hard work of your students your staff and your families working together and i would certainly like to recognize the school district the school this evening so would you all stand around mr mayne i'm going to present to you on behalf of the district so mr maine i'm going to present this is for your building and hopefully you will uh place it in somewhere very prominent for your building and again this is the recognition of coretta medic school as listed as the best elementary school congratulations thank you that sort of stuff great job guys and then you guys can stay standing at this [Music] you ready guys here we go okay everybody count it through here one two three thank you guys congratulations we have a mug for all the teachers
029at the building and they are out of the buildings uh it will be delivered tomorrow for you so yes these are take a look at these so just grab one of those since you came out tonight you get your mugs earlier before you guys leave i just want to say a personal thank you i mean it's nice as a school board member to be recognized but really that's that's what it's all about so thank you everybody at csk and just so you know uh starting tomorrow wednesday thursday and friday they have the ib evaluation so they they're going to be evaluated the next three days they've been working so hard to get ready for this good luck with that guys we know they're going to do fabulous yeah good job guys now please go home
030and get some rest you've got kids to see tomorrow so goodbye and not not only do you represent crete school district in my opinion you represent the so-so birds and the south side of chicago and a big spot in illinois keep doing what you're doing okay thank you that was fun i broke the ice so okay next up under administrative updates is teaching and learning and the school report card update so i'll turn that over to jauntel congratulations again to csk and their recognition we also want to recognize that this week is american education week and we want to say happy american education week to all of our staff each year the office of teaching and learning presents the annual academic report and so this is part of that report here turn it on there
031we go all right so isbee annually releases the school report card that shows how each school each district in the state is performing on a wide range of educational goals the suspension of in-person instruction has affected multiple report card metrics uh some of our metrics uh isbee has collected no data and for some of the metrics the data is in but in person instruction likely impacted those results as a district we can say that students are making progress but they are not growing at rates that were consistent with pre-pandemic levels and again that is because of the pandemic math continues to be a challenge for our students but a plan is developed to address those deficits as you go on to the website you will see some metrics that have been calculated from me and
032it will say calculated with concerns when you go to uh illinois report cards you will see that there are some calculations that the report card uses but it was um affected by covet the result you will also see there is a caution for statewide thresholds and there are margins of error in some of the documents that you will see on the website and on other platforms you will see terms like unfinished learning learning loss unfinished instruction and these terms throughout the different documents and websites identify a loss of work from not finishing the learning which is a combination of teaching and learning for the academic year where we weren't able to bring students to their full proficiency proficiency level as we discussed these terms are specifically referring to the effects there is an updated so
033i say that because this information has been coming in on a daily basis it is because we're releasing new information um but there was a public release of information in october uh and the metrics that were released were metrics that don't rely on the assessment data and so that is that first two columns where we look at uh chronic absenteeism fluency dropout rates eighth grade um on track and again those two lists uh in december december 2nd i do believe illinois if we will release preliminary numbers on our iar assessment data because we tested in the spring our sat results participation rates and college and career readines is we will have a third release and that will release will be april 27th i believe and they will release additional data and again this information has
034been coming in daily and my team has been involved in various webinars that the state has been posting as they are releasing this information is when you go to illinois reportcard.com and put in the district's information this is what the first page will look like again you will see that little caution notice there that says items possibly infected by covet are highlighted below view item for specific information and as you can see every tab here has that notice that again because of covid the data is not as reliable pre-coded and then post-coded one wants to get to that point we did take the ir iar assessment in the spring and there is a portal parents are used to getting a paper copy of those scores we will release this information for parents to go online
035to view their student scores as a district we tested about 30 percent of our students who were in in the spring for hybrid that we're in for hybrid we tested about 30 of our students again our participation rate is usually in the 90 um and we were not able to have that because of hope information will also be shared next week as parents go into our virtual parent teaching conferences metrics not included right now include again our assessment scores on iar s18 or blm which is given to our special ed students isa um our growth percentile participation rates scatter plots and the achievement gap uh we mentioned the sum of his designation uh in 2018 is the last time that we are receiving a rating and they will not if we will not be releasing
036a rating for 2021. we do have three schools that receive funds because of that 2018 rating we have school all of our schools are at commendable and we have one school at target those schools receive again because of children with disabilities they receive an amount of funds each year and this is the final year of those funds for the middle school that world and pre-television the key points of data that we can share with you again each school is receiving this information within the last couple of weeks and so their teams their school leadership teams their grade level teams the administrative teams their professional learning communities are digging into the data and what it means but you can see our scores for the 2021 column for students passing algebra 9th grade on track not a
037huge disruption discrepancy or drop but again all of the data is to be taken lightly because of indicators we have a few data points here our early college work 9-12 this number here the uh 583 that actual number is 783 that that is a typo um and then our ap coursework had originally been given grade 10 through 12. the updated version of this will have raised nine and where we are with our dual credit and our cte our students in ctp courses all of those numbers have one of the metrics that you are used to seeing that will not be provided this year um at all we will get them in our office we're going to be able to share them with the board is being a kids report and that is our report that
038looks at kindergarten readiness but again the state will not be putting that information on the illinois report any questions so you will you'll have a corrected version of this posted on the website yes we did provide to the board some additional um data um that looks at the data that we took um the assessment the local assessment that it in the district this fall and so this is the map nwa it is an adaptive assessment that is given to each student and each student is given their own target and it looks at each individual student and gives them their own projected growth in their own growth rate so that information is available again last year we started uh assessing all students uh taking 12. and this was taken during the hybrid this is permanent okay
039so our students took this assessment starting in september and they were finished in october so when i see like 43 of 60 student 64 students in kind of balmoral kindergarten so we've only tested 43 of the 64. now of the 64 students um okay oh and or above okay got it and then we have the data for the middle school and for our high school in the past we've always talked about our local role model again taking a look at our students their accomplishments and looking at their needs and so we've always talked about growing glue we're in the process of setting new baselines of where our students and where our trends are and we always you know hope to be in the glue where our students are cheap achieving at a higher expected growth
040green means that they are achieving at an expected rate again this is their achievement within our own district yellow means that based on where our trend lines are those students are achieving lower than and then when we have any red dots with our data that shows that we have unsatisfactory growth and we need to look at where those students are and provide additional services this year based on our following data all schools k-12 we made green growth meaning that students based on their trend are progressing at a baseline rate that shows they are growing as they are expected to grow um except four we have in the bloom break six seven and eight with ela and then um lower than expected in math we have grades three four five and eight and again our school
041leadership teams our building administrators have recently received this data and information and they will be taking a dive into the data to see what is going well what we're doing right at certain grade levels and what we can increase and do better at other grade levels we will also look at individual students and how they are performing i i think that's a little confusing to me you know you have expected growth you have all the schools from k through 12 then you have this accept and then you have something six higher than expected and lower than expected but how can you make the comment of expected growth for all schools so when we put everyone in the same pot and we look at the average of everyone together that means we're on a green tree
042and we have pockets of individual students in grade levels who have performed above and then we have some that have performed below but we put everyone in the same pot together in the pool together everyone is is making green growth what we're able to say in those certain grade levels um you know something dynamic is happening with our blue growth and something more needs to happen with our yellow i see thank you so we do have a growth recovery plan some of this went into our ester presentation that we gave at the beginning of the year to talk about things that we're doing to support that gap that we know that we have and historically again we've always had some academic achievement gaps that we needed to look at and we needed to close so
043this is to say to the board that we are aware of that and that we're going to make strides and have a plan in place to support that learning now you did say earlier i'm sorry you just say earlier there was a gap and it was predicated on funds or lack of and i i missed that what exactly that was you don't have to go back now and just keep that in your back pocket all right i want to see that it was like the fourth fifth slide it was it was he said we no longer have these funds and i didn't want to interrupt you all right i think the funds that you're referring to mr brown are the funds that we get um for school improvement based on the summertime destination for those
044three schools so we still have those funds this is our final year of receiving that list of funds okay uh so some things that we have in place for our growth recovery plan we know that we have um again to close that gap and how we're going to concentrate on that we did put the amended calendar together in order to give teachers more time to collaborate so when we're talking about we have those students who are achieving a debate that we need them to we need to have personalized conversations and team meetings and discussions about how we're going to support those students and the things that we're going to do and put in place to support them and we don't only look at our students who um are not achieving at that rate we look
045at what we need to continue to do for our students who are achieving and for our students who are exceeding what are we going to put in place to support those schools so we look at all students but we do pay a particular look to bring up students who are not achieving where we wanted to we do have um starting soon we're working on our deadline to have the implementation meeting with it to talk about the tutoring program paper 24 7 which will offer three grades 3 to 12 and parents that completed the survey for page 2 24 hours 7 days a week for any student who wants tutoring so we have that coming to all of our three to twelve students in positions we are working on our extended year plan and what that
046is going to look like what are we going to be able to offer our students we did ask for stealth staffing to support our students from student advocates to culture and learning and teacher interns to help support their needs because we have some pretty robust school improvement plans that you will vote on the scheme again that identifies that learning law talks about how each school is looking at their own data and making plans to close those gaps we're going to monitor those academic growth plans for individual students and any student grade free and up has set their own individual goal with their data and math that i showed you before and teachers are working with them to talk about that goal and make sure that they're able to achieve that goal again giving them voice
047and agency so that they can be accountable for their learning along with us we are doing our professional development plan to support our teachers and their learning in their instructional practices um and then we have created school climate and culture sort surveys so that we can have the input again for staff and students to talk about what what those needs are on the horizon we are looking to provide more support for family development and support we're looking at our science curriculum we're creating task force teams to again look at the data and see what our needs are and then each building excuse me is creating their own equity and then part of the presentation that will go up has the dashboard activities and action plans because everything is rooted in our everything is rooted in
048our strategic plan any questions i do have another question here you know back in the past we used to have no child left behind and the schools had to show that they or was what's the phrase i'm looking for ayp yeah annual yearly progress if they hadn't made that those milestones within a couple years eventually i guess that's what happened to old hickory which is csk now that school was basically shut down academically and the new team of of educators came in there so with the school improvement plan you have this growth model and i'm seeing a couple of these schools kind of coming back i don't know if they ever got off be honest with you i'm not sure but you have a school improvement plan for a particular school and at what point
049do you say you know what or the state says you've been on this plan for three years or five years and we're going to continue you know i don't know is there is there a cut off spot before the state come in and says you know what you're not making you're not making the numbers we do um every student succeeds act but i will also say what the u.s department of education and what bisbee knows is that the pandemic has affected us and like i said we need to create this new baseline where our students are we need to reinvent their school in a different way we need to do some different things so there's no cut off where the state is going to come in and take over the state has said you know
050we have received those esser funds and we need you to think about the things that you're doing in your instructional practices as you're spending those funds and target and have target tutoring think about your extended school year think about your staff bring your teams together and make decisions that are best for children okay thank you any additional questions so there will be two more is the releases of data and then dr carroll will let me know how you guys would like to receive that information okay thank you okay uh next up is the consent agenda um dr coglins would you read off the items on the consent agenda for tonight under superintendents item one approve regular meeting minutes of october 19 2021 item two approved regular meeting closed session minutes of october 19 item three
051approved committee of the whole meeting minutes of november 9 2021 item 4 approved committee the whole closed session meeting minutes of november 9 2021. under business item one approved board of education financial report see teaching and learning item one approve school improvement plans okay thank you uh before we get a motion are there any items on the consent agenda that a board member would like removed for a separate vote okay hearing none can i get a motion for the consent agenda approval second roll call please oh not nothing real let me see here i'm sorry uh just a quick question for where you can uh your financial report and it's been a couple months at least three four months you used to give us a more defined report when it came to scratch that i'm
052looking at something different from the financial perspective scratch that okay when you gave me that look you said think again maurice and i and i thought i said what else and my i went real quick to another item real quick i thought you're going to call me mrs no [Laughter] [Music] any other questions or comments on the consent agenda roll call please brown is deny mrs galbraith hi mr sualish hi mrs walters aye vice president rupert aye president albrecht aye motion carries uh next up are action reports under business can i get a motion to establish december 7 2021 as the date for the truth and taxation public hearing on the 2021 tax levy can any question or any questions for ken we'll have this at the next committee of the whole meeting yes okay
053and it will be or will it be publicized yes it will be publicized it'll be going in the paper probably on either friday or monday that'll be the public hearing and then the levy will be approved at the regular meeting on the 14th okay great any other questions or comments uh what's the last date to get that the last date is it uh second to last tuesday of the month so you know the the committee though i'm sorry the regular meeting is on the 14th so i'll drive it out on the 15th okay we'll begin with that [Laughter] i think you need a trip a third okay don't put that on lyle uh roll call please mrs walters hi brown is and i misses uh mr sawalis hi mrs gilbert aye vice president rue aye
054president albert aye motion carries the next item for consideration is a resolution declaring the intention to issue seven million five hundred thousand dollars working cash bonds for the purpose of increasing the working cash fund and directing notice of such intention to be published as provided by law based on the advice of bond council the entire resolution does not have to be read aloud since it was posted as part of tonight's agenda in accordance with the open meetings act therefore mr brown as secretary of the board of education would you read aloud the title of the resolution resolution declaring the the intentions to issue 7.5 million dollars working cash fund bonds of community unit school district number 201u will county illinois for the purpose of increasing the working cash fund of said school district and directing
055the notice of such intentions be published in a manner provided by law may i have a motion to accept the resolution declaring the intention to issue seven million five hundred thousand working cash fund bonds of community units school district number 201u will county illinois for the purpose of increasing the working cash fund of said school district and directing that notice of such intention to be published in a manner provided by law so move second any questions or comments um i've got more so as a summary of the parameters included within the resolution the following pertinent terms are summarized the district is authorized to incur debt and issue bonds for the purpose of increasing working cash fund the board has agreed that it is in the best interest of the district that the fund be increased
056proceeds of the bonds will be deposited into a working cash fund and will use for projects stated in the short-term facility plan that include but are not limited to temporary cooling rooms at balmoral elementary school crete elementary school money education center and scott king magnet school to dim a demolition of the sixth grade center demolition of the dome heating ventilation and air conditioning at balmoral elementary school crete elementary school coretta scott king magnet school talala elementary school in the early learning center electrical upgrades at balmoral elementary school crete elementary school coretta scott king magnet school talala elementary school and the early learning center plumbing upgrades at balmoral elementary school crete elementary school and coretta scott king magnet school led lighting at crete muni high school and an addition at the creekmoni high school additionally there'd
057be cosmetic improvements at balmoral elementary school crete elementary school in karas coretta scott king magnet school talala elementary school and the learning center notice of intention will be published in the chicago tribune based on the preceding information do any members have any questions or discussion of on the resolution being presented i have a question what did you just read number three because we didn't vote on number two did we no i'm reading we're still we haven't taken a vote yet on i'm reading all of that goes with the number two yes no the case no it doesn't that's that's i'm like whoa for seven years and all that doesn't go with 7 million no it's a combination there are two resolutions on the table for tonight one is the intent to sell 7.5 million dollars
058in bonds of working cash bonds and then 45.5 million is a cell to pay off the debt certificates those debt certificates will do the same projects that are listed also in the working cash so you combine those two and you have 54 point they go together they go together so they will be used for the same projects that your death certificates were used for okay but that's that's not how you explain it on last week you basically said working cash what are we going to do with working cash you say ah not sure i'm going to put it in a fund that was decision that was that was last year's number of 20 mr brown those were those were last year's bonds where we sold 17.5 million right yes the 17.5 million i could i
059played that was from last year the 7.5 that you brought up last week right and i said what are we going to do yeah you know i saw our our score look well and all of that you said you were just going to put it in not not what we talked about last year with the 17.5 million and we pretty much allocated six something million for working cash and you use a little bit of that to do things already but okay no no you asked me about the seventeen points okay maybe maybe u.s okay i did ask you that what are you going to do with that extra money and i stated we were just not going to use that at all okay that's not how i maybe you misunderstood sure i guess i need
060clarification because reading all that makes it sound like the 7 500 is going to do that i guess to me this is misleading so i don't think i understood that and i think by the comments i'm hearing around me i don't think any of us understood that these go hand in hand because it says you know under number three that it's paying claims against the district versus what he just read so let's let's we're going to try and talk a little bit legally here about what has gone on okay again let's go back when i gave this presentation about the financing that mr albrecht asked me to give so we took out the board approved 40 45.5 million dollars in debt certificates okay back last month so you approve that we've closed on that so
061those debt certificates are being used the proceeds for that are being used for all the projects within the short-term facility plan okay that's not enough money to do those projects it's only 45.5 million dollars the whole caboodle is 67.4 i believe it is so now we're doing two of these the first part is 45 so now that debt certificate established a claim against the district so the refunding bonds that you're doing for 45.5 million which is number three on here is paying off the death certificates that's what that's doing you still need additional money to complete all those projects that's the 7.5 million that's here also is going to be used for those projects also so combine the two you've got 52 53 million dollars there that's going to be used as part of the
06267.4 million dollars of those projects right so what you have to do is the debt certificates as i explained are a claim against the district and that so all we're doing is with the 45 with the refunding bonds here is we're paying off that claim is what we're doing we still have the money you know it's like refinancing you're you still have the money you're just paying it off a different way because that's what you have to do in school finances paid off because death certificates are paid out of the operating funds and you don't have enough in your operating fund so that's where you take out refunding bonds and that to pay them off okay so we're not gaining any more money at all right so two and three are actually together together but
063they have to be put out as separate entities yes because there are two different types that money is all for the short-term facilities all of it's for the short term that's why mr albert has to read that of what it's being used for because i may use a million dollars for the cooling room but i may use some more money for central air conditioning somewhere so you know it's it's all kind of bundled together that i'm going to be pulling from in order to do it and when we get to number three he's gonna have to read it again right no no just once well again here's the thing all number three is doing is paying off the debt right that's what it's doing all right we've already got the money that resolution that was
064passed before the debt certificates listed all those projects and that doesn't say anything about a new school lists all the projects that have to be done right now all right in a in a 12 year so this is 52 points somehow a million dollars yes and we're looking to borrow when it was when the smoke clears 64.7 million 67.67 points million and the rest we were looking to borrow and next year sometime in february and 23 2023. then at the same time what we're doing keep in mind the same time what we're doing when we extend this out is we are lowering the annual debt payment to the district which is going to save the taxpayers money yeah from 12 to 10 million we're going from 12 to 12 to 10 million dollars yes so
065the debt certificates we're paying off from this resolution and we accumulate not from the 7.5 mr brown from the 45.5 yes then that's the next item on yes okay so and and that includes we have accumulated some interest on the money that we already have on hand from selling the debt certificates right yeah we're paying off 45.5 million dollars that includes the interest that we have to pay in the short term yes and that's a couple hundred grand uh i did the calculations and i believe it's about 200 or 230 30 000. it's 0.6 and that's not just interest accrued since they were issued that's issuance costs and other things uh there's there's a little bit more initiative it's about 300 000 total with issuance cost and with the interest of 0.6 those numbers were
066in our fyi or one of those it was like 233 and so it was just around three i believe the issuance okay so again this the motion on the table we're only addressing the resolution of 7.5 million in working cash bonds of which those proceeds will be used towards those projects i just read not but won't fully pay for them that it's part of the overall fin it's one part of the overall financing any other uh discussion or questions roll call please mr sowalis aye brown present mrs walters aye mrs galvert aye vice president rupert aye president albrecht aye motion carries with five i votes and one present vote okay the next item for consideration is a resolution declaring the intention to issue forty five million five hundred thousand refunding bonds for the purpose of
067paying claims against the district and directing that notice that such intention be published as provided by law based on the advice of bond counsel the entire resolution does not have to be read aloud since it was posted as part of tonight's agenda in accordance with the oil to be exact therefore mr brown as secretary of the board of education would you read aloud the title of the resolution yes resolution sending forth and describing in detail claims heretofore authorize and allow for proper school purposes which are presently outstanding and unpaid declaring the intentions to issue 45.5 million dollars bonds for the purpose of paying claims against community unit school district number 201u will county illinois and directing the notice of such intentions to be published as provided by law may i have a motion to accept
068the resolution setting forth and describing in detail claims here two four authorized and allowed for proper school purposes which are presently outstanding and unpaid declaring the intention to issue forty five million five hundred thousand dollar bonds for the purpose of paying claims against the community unit school district number 201u will county illinois and directing that notice of such intention to be published as provided by law moved second as a summary of the parameters included within the resolution the following pertinent terms are summarized the district is presently outstanding and unpaid claims in the aggregate amount of 45 million 500 000 and that the claims are authorized and allowed for school purposes the board has agreed that is in the best interest of the district that the claims be paid from the proceeds of the bonds the
069claims consist of the outstanding general obligation debt certificates limited tax series 2021. the money will be paid back through installments not to exceed 20 years notice of intention will be published in the chicago tribune based on the preceding information do any members have questions or discussion on the resolution being presented okay with no further discussion or questions mr brown will you take a roll call vote to approve the resolution as presented yes mr sawalis aye mrs walters aye brown is the president mrs galbraith aye vice president rupert aye president albrecht aye motion carries five votes for four one voting president okay um next up can i have a motion to approve a certificate of payment in the amount of ninety five thousand five hundred eighty dollars and twenty three cents to rl sohold general contractor
070inc for the 2021 renovation work at tawala elementary school and the early learning center so ken is this the last payment no there's going to be one more payment i found out i had a discussion with the contractor today actually there are four items still that are punchlist items and then they found out that there are two still warranty work that i want him to complete so the final payment will come in december then so that work should be done he told me probably by before thanksgiving and then we'll have the final payment next month and do you know what's roughly left after this payment i don't there's about a 10 retainer so it's about i think it's about 300 000 as well okay ken we had four punch list items the last time you
071talked to us we still have those things for oh there are four new ones that came up so i think okay just checking because i wonder why things weren't getting taken care of yeah no they're getting taken care of as we go and so you know i just happened to bump into it today so i asked myself where are we at with this whole thing because i saw the payment come through and it wasn't the final one so i'm glad i saw joe and uh you know he was here working on them and dlc talala is finished completely there's just a couple punchless items here and then there's a couple warranty work like i'll give you i did one of the drinking fountains i went to fill a bottle up and it wasn't working so
072he's going back to check that so just some warranty work and all that stuff something just wanted to make sure that we weren't stuck on those no no we are not thank you any other questions or comments roll call please i'm brown isn't i mrs galbert aye mr swanlish aye mrs walters aye vice president rupert aye president albrecht aye motion carries next up is personnel and culture can i get a motion to approve the personnel report including approve the certified staff leave of absence return from leave of absence resignation retirement and educational support staff employment leave of absence return from leave of absence resignation and retirement any questions or comments on the personnel report roll call please mrs galbraith galbraith you have an issue with my name this evening hi we are right mr sualish
073hi mr brown is and i mrs walters hi vice president rupe aye president albrecht aye motion carries next up under personnel and culture can i have a motion to approve the intergovernmental agreement with the village of crete for police services it specified at specific events upon district request moved second group first replay any questions or comments on this motion okay roll call please brown is an eye this is galbert aye mr sualish aye mrs walters aye vice president group aye president at albert hi motion carries uh next up is old business any old business yeah i just wanted to confirm that um we did discuss that illinois i don't know if it's a law or whatever um that you have to have certain requirements if you're closing the school building but we discussed that we're
074not closing the school building because it's not a function we don't have any school that's functioning that we're closing and so we determined that that does not pertain to us right i just want to confirm that's correct right right and this relates to the public in the public comment that the law requiring three public hearings and we've already consulted with our council that that's not required in this instance correct thank you um yeah just i have a couple items just think of the clarifications from some of my some of my notes from public comment tonight uh just in full transparency can petitions will be available in central off the administrative office yes they're already copied they already will be available in central office tomorrow morning when we open up at 8 o'clock okay so someone
075will not be here at 1201 correct no okay thank you okay um the other thing i think point of clarification when we did the referendum in april the point of that referendum was to build two new schools and by law by state school code anytime you're building a new school you have to go to referendum i think we were pretty public at that time and anybody who's been in our board meetings or watched them um on video that we were public pretty public about that if the referendum did not pass this was the path we're going to move forward with air conditioning and put more money into these schools so i don't think it should be a surprise to anyone what we're doing now and then lastly there was some comment tonight about the dome
076the 12 million dollar figure that's been banted around around the dome so it would take the district to bring that up to the state school standard so that would be the money that we would have to put into it to bring it up to a standard and approved by the illinois isbe there's also been some confusion about that this is a 54 000 number what that is is there is a cost to bringing down the sixth grade center there's a cost to bring down the sixth grade center and the dome it costs fifty four thousand dollars less to bring them down both at the same time than if we were just to do the sixth grade center to them individually right right so ken did i say that correctly yes okay i just thought points
077of clarification for the public who may be watching yeah and just to couple on there real quick just so we're on the same page if we're going to have students in that facility it has to be bring up to the school code from the state we can't just put a little here and put a little there you just can't do that if we were to renovate all these buildings that we're doing here am i wrong in this building that were brought up to standards that's why the costs were so high you're exactly right there are if it is a school facility and whether that facility is used by community members or whatever it's a school property and it has to be according to the illinois school code which is a whole different set of standards
078in addition there has been some comments about just bringing in contractors letting them do the work we cannot do that as a school we have to follow the procurement act we have to use uh prevailing wage when we do this and all those things so you know whether you know if it's 15 million that's one thing but even if it was five or ten million dollars you know and that that's money that i i think and again this is my opinion that we're taking also away from other projects that we could be doing but we do have to bring it up to schools standards whatever the illinois school code is yes and know some can i ask one question sure numerous times i heard the term backdoor referendum i couldn't tell by the public comment
079if they were saying we were doing it back to a referendum or they were talking about doing because he kept bringing it up when he was talking about you're forcing a back to a referendum or whatever i have no idea what they're talking about i want to be clear on what a backdoor referendum is okay can we ask somebody to literally spell out that question for your air condenser yeah that's what i thought maybe eric a backdoor referendum is a way of uh building quite frankly building a new school without going to referendum and the way you can do that is as was explored by this board is taking out lease certificates and then paying them off with refunding bonds okay that's a backdoor referendum and but however this is what i will say this
080board has been very clear that they do not want to do that and we're not building a new building you know at all and so a backdoor referendum is you know is basically what you're saying is you're going around and skirting around and using exception and that exception isn't the illinois school code you can't do that that that is very clear but again and there are some districts that do that district is this district is very clear and i concur with that that they wanted to get the opinion of the community in a straight referendum for this right and that so um we are not doing a backdoor referendum right now what we are doing right now is we're using death certificates and refunding bond to remodel our buildings we are not building any new
081buildings and and honestly i and again i i will say this and i'm adamant about this it puts my credibility on the line also because i have come forward and said this is what we're using this money for you know and i've recommended that to the board and the board has concurred with that so i am not going to put my my credibility or my reputation on the line in doing something that is not according to these resolutions because in the resolutions it specifically says what we're using those money fors and that's for modifications and repairs and that's what i wanted to explain because i know there's a lot of community members watching this meeting tonight mr piepenbrick made comment about a reference to comments on facebook i was not on facebook today i'm sure
082it was alive and i know that the term backdoor referendum was used many many times i knew what it was but i wanted it spelled out explicitly for anybody watching this or who will watch it that that is not what is taking place here because there this has been mentioned time and time again and you know this is still goes back to the high school days when they're trying to build the high school and it started then that you know everybody in the board was getting accused of back to referendum blah blah blah so we're back to that again and i i just wanted it spelled out so that the public understands and that we all know that what we're doing is upfront and like you say been spelled out we've not hidden anything so
083thank you very much that's why i wanted it made perfectly clear what that exactly was yeah and i think the other thing i will say from the from a public sampling to understand what we will be doing is that we have established a website under uh facilities there is a website that shows the short-term facility plan and also you know it has that chart that i think i shared with the board you know the color one and everything and then i we've also put in their full plan which lists out all the projects that are happening in the buildings so all that is in there with the costs and everything the same the same information that you received is on our website so people can see exactly what we're going to be doing and is
084that going to be updated regularly so that as things start it'll it'll be updated it'll be updated on an annual basis so what will happen is on an annual basis because what will happen in your cycle should be in you know that after we we do our work summer of 22 then i'll go in and update all that so then the board knows what we're going to be doing the following summer maybe some things we haven't hit on but we're going to push off the next summer depending on how the bids come in and all of that so that'll all be updated you know for the next three years as as we move forward on an annual basis because we're only working three two and a half to three months per season yeah that's essentially
085that's really that's all it is really you know that and you know the one we are starting now is the temporary cooling rooms you know you you have approved the awarding of that contract so that one will be starting and you know we're starting to work on that but besides that everything else is going to be done in the summers yes and ken if they have a successful petition can you explain again how that would impact the district because i know we kind of just reiterated again i know it was sir brought that up last week but sure for anybody that maybe wasn't watching um if they have a successful petition what will happen what will that stop so successful petition will stop a lot of the projects that will be going on now i
086can't say specifically what projects is going to start i i don't know that but you can't pick or choose projects to stop you knowing that so it will stop you know the process of uh let's say the 45.5 million dollars let's take that one so what that will do is that we'll stop the refunding of the debt certificates so that will stop all those projects 45.5 million dollars in projects quite honestly the other thing it does then is we have to pay back the debt certificates on a short-term basis so that's where that cost of we have to pay the cost of issuance we're going to have to pay uh the cost of the short-term interest which is about 300 to 350 thousand dollars total and that so you have that you're also going to
087have to pay some contractors some money because these contractors have already been awarded the contract and they'll get paid whatever work they've done so far it could be minimal but it's still in in the equation and all that so it really stops everything at this point and then you're also going to have some fees associated with the architect because right now they're doing all the bid documents along with the engineering and all of that for all these projects because we've got to get bid docs out by probably january okay so it it really stops everything all right plus the work that's been done to lay out for elc and talala to get the air conditioning this summer all that cost would be for naught yeah i i think yes and no i think there were
088some life safety things that were in there you know and that so so that had to be done and we had the money for that to do that was done in 2020 so so we have that money but again it's a lot of those upgrades you know that need to be done you know when you do plumbing you know and that that you won't be able to do you know because as i shared if you remember life safety only you know when you do the piping in the building it just includes the piping it doesn't include the fixtures those are not life safety things so that's additional cost that you incur ken i would just like to clarify and sure not trying to correct you at all and everyone on this board know how i
089felt about the dome okay i'm not going to bring that up and sure how i feel about it now but i just need a little bit more clarification on a back door referendum it's in the school cove statue as you mentioned that and all of us know here if it comes to a new school being built for all practical purposes we have to go to the voters there's a couple little gray areas around that but you know which i'm not for but for the most part if a new school is being built we have to not an attachment but a separate building we have to go to the voters and whoever wrote these laws i believe was very smart because at the end of the day it's the taxpayers the taxpayers pay all the staff
090salaries they pay for these buildings and all of that so they said even though the school district can sell bonds in different categories working cash for example without going to the voters the voters still have a say-so in some way shape or form in a petitionary period within 30 days to obtain x amount of signatures to say hey we still want a voice on how these bonds is going to be sold so they not going through the normal way of a referendum they go through the back door that's how i see it that's how i what i see is a backdoor referendum the voters can go if they were to obtain adequate amount of signatures and it would tell the district we want a voice and the district could choose to put it on a
091referendum or they would not be able to sell those bonds okay so so if if that being the case you know in this case here i think it's up to the district to continue to promote what we want to do and again i promoted that and i was in favor for the air conditioning and things that and i'm still i am and the only reason i voted the way i did today because how i was against the dome still am and how the monies were intermingled and and paying for those different things so the voters shall always have a say so but the code what it did where the voters don't have a say so that's selling life safety bonds and it's for a reason when we go to sell life safety bonds there's no
092back door referendum and there's no referendum we can downright out cell life safety bonds that correct depending on how much how much space we have buying power we don't have to go to the voters in any shape or form for life safety i'll be honest off the top of my head i'm not 100 sure but i'm happy to look into that or if ken yes one way or the other for certain um yeah i'm not sure i don't believe the working cash you got the petition a period you got refunding bonds got funding bonds alternate bonds and things like that working cash like alternate bond but i just want to make it clear that that's the reason it's there the law said at the end of the day the taxpayers have a say so in
093some way it's not straight out where the school district have to put the referendum out for building schools but they say you know what the school district is looking i'm just throwing the number out there they're looking to sell 25 million dollars in bonds and you know you might have a group of people for whatever reason say hey don't we have do we not have a say-so in this and the law said yeah you do there's 30 days you have to come up with x amount of petitions and you could come up through the non-conventional way which is back door i i think we need to be very careful about using that term back door because that's not an accurate statement you're you're intermingling a term without you no that's that's actually that's actually in
094it's actually stated it's a back door it's not just a haphazard statement out there they call it you know i say alternate bonds or whatever they say backdoor referendum well i think i think ken explained what a backdoor referendum is in the school code which is to build new schools through the issue of lease certificates and then refinancing them that's a backdoor record right but all this all this allows us for a petition period that's it correct this is not a backdoor referendum correct i think it becomes okay all right we can agree to disagree i don't want the because i think it helps to make it more clear we talk about clarifying we've got to be transparent and what we're asking absolutely they can petition it right and we're not we're not doing any
095type of referendum backdoor or anything like that but i think it becomes back door where it gives the public an opportunity to come in through a non-traditional way to seek a referendum well the petition period though mr brown is not non-traditional that is within the school right period so that's not the backdoor referendum okay the backdoor referendum is always caused by the district that's who implements the backdoor referendum in the use of for a new building that's where backdoor referendum comes in condition period as as robert said he's always there that that that's a whole and i stand to be corrected you know i you know i have my moments of not knowing is there is no such thing as a back door referendum if you're remodeling is that correct you can do back to
096our if it's new building yeah i've only i've only heard of backdoor referendums when it comes to new buildings and i thought that's what you said about the school yeah that's that's what i have so i just wanted backdoor referendums you know it's a way of doing it without going to the voters to get approval and that is doing a backdoor referendum maybe eric we could ask you to just look at the school code and kind of come back with kind of late descriptions of what a backdoor referendum is versus petition period and that's right though anytime you had a beena the ina scope right there that's when it becomes an opportunity to gather and back door referendum oh we'll have so yeah we see council later absolutely okay any other old business any new
097business okay we do have a need for a closed session tonight probably about 45 minutes we have two two things to discuss can i get a motion to go into closed session for the purpose of personnel item number one under the open meetings act exceptions list and for litigation item 11 under the open max open meetings act exceptions list second roll call brown is an eye mrs galbraith aye mr suarez aye mrs walters aye vice president rupert aye president albrecht hi we are in closed session at 8 13. yeah it's freezing in the boardroom yeah all right we need a fourth let's go where is somebody come on i got a question all in favor say aye aye we are a journey