Crete Monee School District 201u Board Meeting 10/19/21

001yep okay we're ready to go okay hereby call this meeting to order roll call please mrs galbraith here dr hall here here mrs walters here brown is here vice president roof here president here please stand for the pledge 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 would you please recite the mission statement sir our mission is to empower each student to positively impact the world for a bright new future okay thank you okay first up is public comment i've got a couple to read that were emailed to us but we'll go ahead and we've got a couple in person so let's do those first uh so first up um tim

002peep and break topic is the dome time good evening good evening can you hear me okay yes uh my name is tim piefenbrink thanks for allowing me to come before you again tonight talk about the dome again this morning i had sent a letter and a list of names on a petition to terry ask her to distribute them to you i don't know if you've seen them or not had a chance to read them i've got copies here if you don't have one um to the board of education october 19th this is a request from residents alumni and friends of the dome our statement that we've said all along throughout this whole time is we are encouraging the school board not to demolish the dome but to include it in their building plans and or

003make it available to community organizations for activities and events at your uh committee the whole meeting last week there's quite a bit of discussion about the dome and president albrecht aptly said that the dome had been an ongoing concern even before he was on the board there have been lack of maintenance issues in the lower levels for many years and proper repairs were never kept up that doesn't give cause for tearing the building down the district has a responsibility of being the stewards of our property passports have not dealt with those issues either and now we find ourselves faced with losing a building that was the envy of the south suburbs not that long ago other schools in the south suburbs have been around for 75 years or more and they continue to be used

004bloom high school is an example and they've got a field house there that's about the same age as the dome the district may not have any future use for the dome but that doesn't mean that the community can't use it yes there are repair costs involved but they don't all have to be done at the same time or to the magnitude of replacing everything in there with new locker room showers bleachers gym floor etc we need to be realistic about the cost if the building's turned over to another civic group the plans may be much different along with using local contractors and maybe even some volunteers as a community project this dome can come back to life a perfect example of that is the creamery in monie if you're all familiar with that they've done

005an outstanding job bringing that building up to show place basically a good question was asked last week at your meeting what would that spot be used for if the dome was gone too similar by two of our administrators maybe an athletics facility wow that's what we've got there right now in the dome the dome is a perfect facility for indoor activities during cold weather and inclement weather and big enough for use by more than one group at a time open the building up and let people see the possibilities the dough may also qualify as a historic landmark there certainly is a way to make this happen and we have public support to do so one of the attachments that came with the email that you got this morning was the list of names on the

006petition that has been going on for a while as of last count an hour ago there were 1054 signers on this petition so they're looking i'm going to submit this for the record to save the dome from these petitioners if there's any doubt as to who the petitioners are or the signers are look them up there are residents alumni friends of the dome former athletes for many schools they may voice their opinions again when opportunities arise since they are interested in district affairs as a community we can work together to accomplish this so i'll submit that also uh just one other note that came up here i got a i got an email this afternoon and i'm just going to read what it says here i'm sorry to say that at this time the district

007is no longer opening the facility for community members to view that came from a letter i sent last week after your meeting to let the new administrator at the crete park district come in and just take a look at it so the district is no longer opening the facility for community members to view the board's not interested in selling the property so a tour would not be prudent that sounds to me like there's a foregone conclusion here what would be prudent would be to let the taxpayers have a choice and a say in a matter of this magnitude with this building so i just i just want you to be aware that that was a letter i got before tonight's vote before tonight's meeting so i don't know if that's out of order to get

008a letter like that ahead of time or not so anyhow that would be my comments any questions for anybody yes yes i don't want to throw anybody under the bus here it was one of the directors here sorry the superintendent said it was from her and i said i probably sent it to the board and i missed it so i apologize for asking a question because it's on me to know that she sent it okay thank you okay okay thank you very much my comments thank you i'm using this i think so okay next public comment is from billy morgan and the topic is also the dome hello how are you first off before i start talking i want to looking at this agenda i think we need to congratulate cheryl and sandy thank you

009so much it looks like you've been going above and beyond to try to be educating yourself as board members so congratulate you before it's time um but i i've been thinking about this dome issue for a while and i've been watching the meetings and the the thing that strikes me the most as i've been watching these is um admiration for what tim peep and brink and the supporters of the dome have been doing i uh it gets hot with this mask on i i have a lot of admiration for going out there when it's really it appears that there's a foregone conclusion and you still want to go against the board you want to talk to the board you want to understand where they're coming from and i think it takes a lot of courage

010to do that he presented over a thousand names for all of you to look at and no matter where they live there's something about the dome that's important to them and we might all know that this conversation is happening about the dome the people in this room our close friends the people we talk to but there's tons of people in the community that are going to if the dome gets torn down drive down sang them on drive down exchange see it gone be confused they're gonna start writing on facebook what happened where'd this happen when did this vote happen and uh i think that it would be prudent if we could try to have a little bit more community input in this decision i know that you don't have to i know you can vote

011on it tonight but if you could have a couple of community forums if you could talk to people have like a real conversation about what it is about the dome that's important to them talk about the numbers explain it it's really hard to go back and forth with numbers when you know you can't really respond to me when i'm giving a public comment and when you're talking i can't respond to you i think that there's something to be said for having a real dialogue with the community and listening to the people so there's something important about being willing to go out there and say this is important to me i was there for two years and i was in the new building for two years i think um there's a lot of people who are

012there for four years there's a lot of people who are actually athletes look at me i was not an athlete but i would just encourage the board to not go rashly into a decision because your mind is made up because the public doesn't know this is happening and they're not going to understand it so i would just encourage everybody to give the people a chance to talk about this have public forum dialogue with the people thank you very much thank you the next public comment i'll read the public comments from james young and the topic is citizen concern hello president albrecht members of school board and superintendent coglinese i would love to meet with all of you tonight at the school board meeting however prior commitments prevent me from occurring or prevent that from occurring

013nevertheless i am requesting that the statement be read during the public comment period of your meeting tonight it reads do not destroy the dome it's too much of a valuable piece of property to demolish instead we need to be creative and invest in it so all of our student staff and community members of the warrior nation can benefit from it respectfully submitted james w young and then the next public comment that was submitted via email is from larry crenshaw the topic is the dome i am very concerned that you're going to tear down the dome everywhere in our country the socialists are trying to get rid of our heritage they tear down great statues across the country of incredible military commanders like robert e lee and presidents like thomas jefferson and now the elected leaders

014of the school district are working to erase our great crete history by demolishing the dome i knew as soon as i heard about the 1619 project and the monuments of our great history being torn down that our country does not care about preserving our sacred history anymore i am so sad that this little town is going the way of socialism and canceling our proud heritage by tearing down the dome what has crete come to with the dome gone there will be nothing there just a big empty space where a piece of land we used to be proud of stood and we are paying and we are playing into the hands of those who hate america if we didn't hold on to our glorious heritage don't cancel the dome to larry crenshaw and that's it for

015public comment tonight next up is board updates and i'll turn it over to dr cara thank you very much it is with great pleasure that i take this opportunity to recognize and commend two of our board members that are sitting here this evening and that is mrs cheryl roop and mrs sandy walters they have worked very hard at taking the appropriate classes to learn all there is about board governance through the iasb illinois school board association and this evening i get the honor of awarding and recognizing them with the master board member so mrs roop will be getting a master board uh member level 2 status and mrs walters has earned her master board member level one status so we can go up there i'm just gonna present these to you [Applause] this would be

016fine so mrs roop this is for you and you're in recognition and we have a little uh package there for you to desk and this is walter this is for you thank you recognition so oh wait mask oh yeah he's false though there you go thanks ladies i would just like to say are you i'm done okay uh congratulations cheryl and cindy and i can tell you that i have not received either one of those levels yet but nobody can beat that high school diploma that i got from crete okay i just want to let you know that okay [Laughter] congratulations to both of you i'd like to say congratulations and welcome to the group i think the three ladies are all master board members now are any of the men okay okay just checking

017just checking yeah it's lady power tonight congratulations you guys good job bill and dr hall we got to step up our game yep oh wow [Laughter] okay congratulations thanks i'm sorry next up is administrative updates personnel and culture yes this is something else i wanted to make sure that the board saw as you know in our newsletter a few weeks ago we went out to present the excellent education awards to many of the staff members that received it in our district and again the staff members were nominated by their colleagues and peers for really outstanding service so we had gone out to the buildings that day and presented them with the awards and their recognition and i know many of you couldn't be there because of [Music] the timeliness during the day and certainly uh

018because of the covet protocols so we wanted to take this opportunity to share a little bit with you what that day looked like and right now i'm going to trim this over to ingrid stevens and she will take it from there ingrid thank you dr cara good evening board and good evening administration crete monte administration and our distinguished guests i'm here to talk to you this evening about how we recognize our employees we do have a recognition program here at cremoni school district and we do understand the importance of keeping our staff motivated and one of the ways that we do that is through employee recognition we do recognize our employees via recognizing their years of service there are also building oriented recognition programs but this is a new initiative when dr coghlanis joined our

019staff she reviewed all the initiatives that we had on on the table at the current time and one of the things that she took an interest in was how do we recognize our staff at that time we came up with this new initiative called excellence and education and actually this is our first time distributing these awards this is the first time that we've implemented this program this program gives our staff members an opportunity to nominate vote for they submit entries for um to recognize not only teachers but every staff member in our organization has an opportunity to be entered and win an award the uh review uh committee the um the recognition committee i'm sorry who administers all of our recognition activities developed this program heather godbout i don't know if you all are familiar

020with her but one of our long-standing teachers here at creekmoni's school district came up with this idea and the recognition committee came together and develop the criteria there is a criteria this particular program um excellence in education celebrates innovation dedication positive work ethic collaboration leadership and solid commitment to improving our students lives staff members are nominated by their colleagues that is the most important part of this program and then we have a panel of judges that consist of teachers support staff and administrators alike who evaluate the submissions and then the winners are determined from there so what i'm going to go through here is i'm going to show you real quickly here the winners of the awards for this year the categories are support staff of the year excellence in teaching student services person of

021the year the champion of education war award and the distinguished leadership award each winner has was nominated by a fellow colleague so for example christopher schmidt received the support staff of the year award crystal as you can see is a systems trainer in the i.t department her nomination entry read something like this crystal's work is almost completely behind the scenes but her work touches every student and staff member in the district in addition to maintaining skyward a very complex student information system she is the id department mother to us all she remembers every deadline and always provides valuable input to our projects these are the types of entries that are submitted by co-workers paraprofessional of the year lynn sawalis lynn has been working as a paraprofessional for the creedmoni early learning center for the past

022seven years she is a leader for our school and participates as a member of our pbis team as well as leads meetings with paraprofessionals working on the articulation strategies with the students joanna groth excellence in teaching award joanna is in her seventh year teaching early childhood special education at the creekmoney early learning center she has dedicated her tenure to providing students with skills and strategies to enhance their learning opportunities the distinguished leadership award now there are two awards in particular in this group that our team considers higher level awards a more broader skill level um is necessary to achieve this this award status and it looks at how that employee touches students and staffs across the the district again all of these awards are nominated by colleagues it's not just crete monet administration picking their

023favorite employees these are their staff their fellow colleagues people they work alongside of nominating them for these awards and so nancy bai who's at monique education center she received the distinguished leadership award in her entry read something like this nancy continually demonstrates outstanding leadership not only at the building level but district-wide by assisting colleagues in writing legally defensible ieps nancy's professionalism and helping her co-workers is only exceeded by the care she takes to assure that every student she assists in the iep process is getting what is in the best interests of the student food service support person of the year donna bilo donald must be truly special because she received two nominations glowing nominations i want to nominate miss donna because she does so much more at our school than is required of her she

024takes time to get to know each one of our students personally and has an amazing ability to remember all of their favorite items miss donna also takes time to work with students that have student government jobs during the day paraprofessional of the year now some of these categories have multiple winners so for example with paraprofessional of the year i believe we had three or four winners so some categories have three or four opportunities for recipients the distinguished leadership award and the champion of education award there's only one winner in those categories so here heather hassan who's at the moani education center she's she was she received the paraprofessional of the year award miss hassan is one is one pair of professionals call upon when a teacher is absent she is also certified as a teacher

025so she is professionally prepared to teach however it is her positive disposition that makes her stand out she is a true team player and never shows any hesitation or question when she is called upon christine kaluzi paraprofessional of the year christine is an excellent paraprofessional from my years of working with her i have witnessed her going far and beyond the call of duty to help students she receives she helps with kids with learning and physical disability and i have never once heard her complain we all know that teacher assistants get paid very little money for the amount of work they do but when christine does her demanding duties she does them with energy and with a positive attitude and a smile another great thing about these awards like i stated earlier is there is an

026opportunity for all employees across the districts and that is the one important thing about this program excellence in education so here is a great example in addition to donna bilo is renee lopez who is the head custodian at moni elementary he was nominated for support person of the year i have known renee for 13 years he he always goes far and above to keep our beautiful school clean which i love because i perform so much better in a clean healthy environment renee does more than just keep the school clean and sanitary he also makes positive connections with students there are several boys from all grade levels that volunteer to help rene do small jobs around the school these boys sometimes have behavior problems in the classroom but when they are helping renee they engage in

027positive thought pro thought provoking helpful behavior angel misters paraprofessional of the year mrs misters goes above and beyond to make connections with the students she is loyal and hard working she treats everyone with respects and receives respect from everyone in return nicole persic student services person of the year she is the school social worker at crete elementary not only does mrs persic demonstrate a strong commitment to the students in our school she is also committed to helping our staff i know i'm not the only staff member who has needed someone to listen to to listen or a shoulder to cry on she is always there to listen offer support and comfort us mrs persic also models exceptional professionalism professionalism no matter how stressful the situation is she remains calm and is able to take the

028lead even if a student is wrong she remains she advocates for all of her students in a positive learning way so the student find com the students find comfort always knowing someone is in their corner tasha williams student services person of the year she's also a social worker at the crete money middle school tasha is more than just a social worker at the middle school she goes above and beyond every day for not only the students on her caseload but any student who needs an advocate to help them succeed it is obvious from the minute you walk into her office that her main priority is to help her students in every aspect of their life tasha's office might seem cluttered and messy at first glance but when you look closer you see it is full

029of clothing and supply donations for her students tasha is not only a support system for her students at the middle school but she has become a support system for staff as well she is always open to discussions and ideas in order to help her students succeed in any way possible marcia krug i've known marsha for a very long time and she truly deserves this award i've been here for about 14 years now and marcia is always positive she's always helpful you can always call upon her to help you do anything and everything so i was super excited that not only did i see this in her but her colleagues saw the same thing in her as well as a support person ms krug is an integral part integral staff member to our crete money school

030family mrs krug has an innate caring and helpful spirit that she shares all throughout the school day mrs krug's helping spirit is rooted in her strong religious convictions she serves as the administrative assistant to our assistant principal's office she she is extremely organized and helps locate students cell phones buses she does everything from a to z very efficiently and always with a smile and a kind word jennifer sullivan the excellence in teaching award as a paraprofessional at crete crete elementary i have worked with many wonderful teachers jennifer sullivan is exceptional because she keeps her bar very high for academics as well as behavior she has the ability to get the most out of her students by being firm and compassionate at the same time she talks down to no one and is the most inclusive

031staff member i have ever worked with champion of education award elizabeth crawford who is now at coretta scott king miss crawford has consistently demonstrated her commitment to diversity and equity through her work both in and out of the classroom betsy strives to provide a safe supportive environment safe supportive and compassionate learning environment for her students she takes advantage of both formal and informal professional growth opportunities including participating in the race equity and leadership school conference at harvard university and being a member of the district equity team these are our rest these are our recognition committee members as you can see i think that i think that fourth one is not right [Laughter] at some point we've had people come and go but all of the names here they are they were instrumental uh when we

032first started out the recognition program and also dr hall [Music] and i just want to thank you for your time we will soon open up the nominations for this program to begin in january we will make announcements throughout the district that um employees will have the time to nominate and then we will do that in january so nomination time will run from january to april and then we will select the winners in may and make the announcement at the beginning of the year thank you thank you if i can just make a comment and congratulations to everyone this is a excellent recognition program people love to be recognized for the work they do so kudos to you dr coglinis and ingrid for supporting and recognizing our employees thank you yeah i act of those comments

033it's uh we're always amazed at the amazing people we have in this district so okay next up next administrative updates business ken thank you donna's just switching over a presentation uh one of them there we go thanks don one of the two questions that came up i believe at last the committee of the whole meeting is one what do we see as a vision for the property where the sixth grade center and the dome are located right now and two there was a question about the addition at the middle school so those two things came up and so i wanted to to share with you kind of a vision uh and this is really in the draft form of an upgrade to our athletic facilities where currently uh the football stadium is now there's some

034open property and also the dome and the sixth grade center so let me kind of get you an earmark here so you can see kind of grayed out here a track so this is right now where the football stadium is this area here is a blank uh you know vacant property it's just a grass area right now and over here you will see the dome here along with the sixth grade center and these are some tennis courts over here so the idea is to upgrade our football facility in order to do that we would move that over here and put a new stadium with a regulation track stands all of that next to the parking lot which would make it more convenient for parking and for fans to get to and then we would add

035two new baseball two new softball fields at this location right now as you all know our softball team does not compete here at the high school they have to be transported over to crete elementary right now so this would put them there we would make sort of a plaza here you know so that all the fields would be uh jointly they can be used at the same time you could probably even quite honestly in this little area here put some type of concession stand that can be used by all of the teams at one time they can also quite honestly be used by the community too and you can run community programs out of there too uh we would look at eventually or when we do this of turfing this field so it becomes not

036really a football stadium but an all-purpose all sports station so soccer would be able to use it all of those sports would be able to use it so this is just kind of a concept that we have put together i've asked our architect to put that together very quickly just to give an idea from a timing standpoint i kind of threw this together i think you're all familiar with this with our projects that we have our short-term projects but what i've added down here is the ability sometime around possibly summer of 23 into 24 here that you can begin looking at not only the athletic facilities but also in addition at the middle school i think that coincides with a new strategic plan and so i would tie all of that into your strategic plan

037and that so you have that capability you will have uh i i don't know i haven't even associated costs with any of this there it will be some borrowing capabilities in that time that you can begin doing some of this so i believe it's all within a realm of possibility for a future you know i i think as um one of the things to keep in mind is this is a marathon and not a sprint and it's just going to take time to get these things done but i think looking at it you know again this way it gives the opportunity to bring in all of your sports onto this location and that uh and making some equity in these sports both male and female when it comes to baseball and softball so i just

038wanted to kind of address that and address both of those uh just to give the board the idea of just kind of a vision that can be used for that property do you can do you have any rough estimate of the cost i know for the middle school edition you brought to the board considering 10 additional rooms like 6.6 million dollars yeah that was that's kind of a rough that was kind of a rough estimate i really don't on yet so there's mr brown i'd have to look at that because a lot's gonna depend on you know what what really um the scope of this is you know how many stands you put in how you know uh you know even over here um do you put in and you know we've kind of got

039in a drawing here kind of like uh press boxes and stuff like do you put those type of things in you know and then so you know again it's just kind of a vision but again um i will share with you that going out into 2425 the board will have some financial financing opportunities that they could finance this either through death certificates or the sale of bonds and that especially what you need to think about is when those tips roll off those large tips roll off you have that money that you could earmark some of them not all of it but some of that for some of this over a length of time in that so again um you know those are things again you know what i will what i would recommend is you

040know it gives you kind of a vision of things but again once you begin talking about your new strategic plan which i believe is coming up dr kara 23 23 that's where i would start looking at all of this and start deciding all of this and everything okay because this is going to have to also be coordinated at least as football ones got to be coordinated around seasons too you know it's going to have to be coordinated very well so so again uh you know we can start that process i think it's too early to kind of start the cost process of this whole thing but i will i will say that you will have those opportunities i don't i don't think it's too early to at least give us some preliminary numbers on the

041football field and all that i don't think that you know give us the rough numbers well when you get a chance i just it doesn't hurt i think we're biting off a pretty big chunk to accomplish what we have to do now i agree with what we want to go forward but it doesn't hurt it doesn't hurt to throw some numbers uh projections we got projections everywhere again i mean if there's a cost involved that's one thing if there's no cost involved you can well anytime i ask the architect to do something there's a cost okay but that's like okay i agree legal we're good good if there's no cost i'm fine that's so no cost i'm fine but when it's cost yeah that's that close the doors on certain things uh question for you

042real quick if i may question the boys baseball team both varsity and freshman sophomore those two fields are not owned by the district is that correct or no where the boys play baseball now the property is that after hall do you know i don't know is that the district i thought it was is it no no i'm talking about the guys we own that it's right now behind here okay there's one right behind here that i believe is ours and and the other one next to it the young that's we own that i believe we do i'll i can check that for sure but i believe we do own those the ones at heritage park of course we do not but yeah i believe the ones that are right behind here we do well that's

043the that's the two this is two there not the not the one more southern in the in the park but i uh okay i just i'm curious i heard this years ago that we did not own that property i just heard it's again you get this he said she said assumptions i just most positive yeah if you can still apply that i appreciate it oh that's what it is okay ken i want to say good job with that but i also want to say i it i think it would be a good idea to kind of get an idea of the cost um simply because it just gives you a measuring stick to see how attainable it is you have you may come up with some donors may start people may get ideas for fundraising

044and just to get as close as possible um you just you never know and then it gives you an idea of you know maybe what you want in it or not sure i definitely know that traditionally you would put press boxes at the varsity fields not at all four fields probably um but it definitely looks good to me i i like it and i know it kind of goes against the the dawn the domers who don't want the dong torn down i must say that i am one of those people throughout history that does not agree people and i can get beaten up for this that does not agree with tearing down all the statues because it doesn't take it doesn't mean that it never happened because you tore the statues down um it doesn't

045mean that it never happened because we get rid of the memories i'm also not the person that believes that we shouldn't name teams after indians because it's just part of you know that still it's like to me now you're eliminating history and then they forgot about and it never happened that's just me but i understand the sentiment of the dome but i also understand how important this is for our students and our student athletes personally i wish that we could turn the dome into maybe an indoor football facility or just indoor all-purpose facility it's like kind of like what hf has but i love this as well so can i i believe and correct me if i'm wrong i thought you had some input in when the so-called phrase the plan and that whole project

046i thought it included in the big scope of things a football new football field baseball fields and all of that and there was some preliminary numbers on that and i would think you had something to do with that i i did have something to do with that and are supplementary numbers and i'd have to get them updated one of the things mr brown and board i would recommend on this is and i think president albrecht brought this up i think let's get kind of through and let me get some prep work done on all of these other projects that we got coming out for summer because that's a lot of work and then i can start working and one of the things i've actually to be honest with you have had conversations with dr hall

047and asked him to help me because of his expertise with athletics too you know to to help me again with some vision and some design of this you know uh with his background to kind of help and so we can get some preliminary stuff so then we can start working on some numbers too so i just want to just kind of concentrate on our short term one first and then you know begin kind of looking at that so that that's kind of my thought okay okay thanks ken you're welcome okay next up is consent agenda approval um dr cara would you read off the consent agenda items before we go to a motion certainly uh under superintendent's report we have item number one approved regular meeting minutes for september 21st approved close session many meeting

048minutes of september 21st 2021 approved committee of the whole meeting minutes of october 12 2021 and item four approved committee of the whole closed session minutes of october 12 2021. item five approved press plus issue 107 board policy updates under business approved board of education financial report under curriculum approved the amended calendar for fiscal year 22 personnel and culture is um direct superintendent to sign the moa with cme a regarding covet 19 pandemic operations and that's it and that is it so so before i get a motion does any board member have an item on the consent agenda they'd like taken off to vote on separately well at one point i was contemplating on taking out the financial report for a separate vote but after reconsidering i chose not to but i will comment on

049it okay all right well can i get a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved and okay i i would like to comment open for comments yeah any comments or discussion yeah we look like we are asked to approve the press plus issue 107 board policy updates and i'm all good with that just want to be able let the board be aware that i'm going to come back with policy number 510 that deals with the hiring and seeking minority personnel or people to be hired with the company that's for our policy i think we need to look at a little verbiage to add that so i just want to let you know it's coming okay i talked to dr collins on this maybe next time around when i review a couple other policies that

050is one that's uh just being asked to be approved tonight with no changes that's 510 policy 510 okay i have a question um when you look at that change why why not i'm at i'm just trying to get clarification why not um ask for it to be pulled out and reviewed or voted separately oh we can come back at a later date i still don't understand the verb reach the exact verbiage and i don't want to tie down the board well it's not on the agenda tonight i mean if you want to it says we're not approving it tonight well yeah you're approving i'm sorry seven you're talking about policy another policy that's not on the consent agenda tonight right it's it's it's under the consent it's not an action i know but it's saying

051that we still got an opportunity right to look at this to get the final approval because it's saying approved press plus and it's not an action item but it's to approve the agenda those are the items that we reviewed earlier right and i don't believe that was that was one of them if you go and look at that well there was no changes to it i mean if you want to propose a change to it in the future we can certainly bring it back and put it on the agenda again 5 10. so okay because i looked uh i can't even get in here if you look under the policies isn't 510 showing there with no changes right this is the one with the change i just want to mention too if it's on today

052it's not going to come back up until it's time for reveal again right but can't you review policy i think we can short something i'm just making the board aware of that that when it's on there from press plus that's the time for their exact review and their renewal so it wouldn't come back from press plus again for i believe it's three five years somewhere different different amount of years i'm not exactly sure what is it terry it's five years unless the board chooses to bring it right so that's why i'm pointing out that's not going to come back automatically for five years you're going to have to start a conversation when you want to do that right and i haven't briefly i see i see the one change in doctor cognition we talked about

053it at the committee as a whole that's in here but that 510 that was one that i had a little dialogue with dr coglie's on and somehow it just kind of shot through real fast without actually having a little bit more dialogue to consider that change that i'm looking to have so 5 510. i i do it's in there yeah it's in there it showed all right just just said no changes that was all it had i had no change question i don't know if this is for new business or what but what what are we doing to hire and promote minorities is that i don't know i'm that that's what i'm asking i could bring that up as a maybe a new business item business yeah we've talked about it i think it'd be

054more of an old business but that's exactly what i'm looking to add to it because the current basically the current policy and again i'm paraphrasing the current policy said that the district will go out and seek minority people for possibly employment teachers and things of that nature but it doesn't say how it will they will convey it to the board we always have to ask so how did it go this year how did it go so i'm just looking for some very rewarding that part and let the board know what's the status okay that's what i'm not because i'm also interested not just yeah higher in both definitely yeah just not looking let us know it was it good was it not good okay this year next year was it good was it not good

055all right that's all i have and and for the financial report uh ken i'm i'm just a little concerned with our cash flow you know we're at 12 million dollars right now and you have it and i believe it's page 8067 and on the document that you sent us and our cash flow is showing uh steady steady going down getting better and it becomes in the black in may of 2022 and which is a good time to be in the black because we have our end of the year financial reporting june 30th right so i'm just a little concerned what's going on what's driving that and and then i looked at the working cash and i'm hoping that working cash one point we was we was trending at zero of working cash and i would

056assume that the working cash has been on our report that showing 16.5 million dollars right now that is 17.5 million minus the 1 million that we used to pay off the building the maintenance building is that what that 16.5 million is showing in working cash right now it is okay did transfer some more out of there into capital projects oh you did okay you did make a transfer of three million dollars okay so i'll look at that and see so yeah yeah how do we get that 16.5 okay i'm looking at that okay yeah i'll i'll look at that and i'll look at that thumbnail so the other thing i will mention on the cash flow to mr brown is that you'll see let's talk to mr albrecht about this too you'll see that on

057the revenue side we're short this month there's a deficiency of about 9 million that's from property taxes we haven't received however we did get another 12 million in already in october okay from which is a little bit of delay that we got uh it's just the way wool county was we will probably get another batch in in november because if you remember will county you're able to pay your taxes now in four different installments again so there's another one coming in november so after you'll see uh in at the end for the october financials uh you'll see a lot better on the cash flow side okay excellent thank you i appreciate it yes all right and i'll check on the working cash one too mr thank you sir and then just so everybody knows i

058had asked ken a question about i noticed that on salaries and benefits i i would expect at this point given that we are not fully staffed and that is an ongoing problem that we would have been had kind of a positive variance under um salaries and benefits actually it's a unfavorable variant so he's going to look into that and see if it's a timing issue or whatever it is so yeah get back to us at the next committee of the hole i will yeah i definitely thought that's what got me you know the unfavorable variance it was just a red red red red a lot of red there and it's kind of stuck out so thank you okay any other questions on the consent agenda okay hearing none roll call please uh brown and deny

059mrs galbert aye dr hall aye mr smallish aye mrs walters aye president vice president rupert aye president albert aye motion carries next up are action reports under business can i get a motion to approve a certificate of payment the amount of three hundred and eighty one thousand seven hundred fifty dollars and ninety cents to r l soho general contractor inc for the 2021 renovation work at talala elementary school in the early learning center moved second was that uh wild tourism there any questions or comments i do real quick how we doing ken with formalizing a final kind of action item leftovers you know again we said we need to put an end to where they are and the whole thing was paying this contractor off was that we got an occupancy permit but yet we

060got some lingering action items on and you was going to communicate with them to say hey we need to put it in i am i have a i talked to our director he said there's about 12 items left i have a construction meeting on thursday that i will convey that because i'd like to get all those things done by the end of these small departments by the end of this month yeah how much left money we owe them roughly uh i think we're holding back uh let me just see this real quick 454 000. okay so subject to them completing that work that would come back next month for approval to pay yes okay okay any other questions on this item not roll call please brownens and i mr wallace hi dr hall aye mrs

061walters aye mrs galbraith aye vice president roof aye president albert aye motion carries okay the next up um i have a little bit of a script to read on this um let me just ah this is bigger buddy just looking right here that's the same thing okay got it messing with my eyes i'm looking for a i'll get the motion in here so okay uh the next item for consideration is a resolution for the issuance of not to exceed forty five million five hundred thousand dollars in general obligation debt certificates limited tax series 2021 to be issued by the district pursuant to section 17b of the local government debt reform act and that the board of education would consider the adoption of a resolution providing for an installment purchase agreement in order to improve school

062sites and alter repair and equip school building facilities authorizing the issuance of said certificates evidencing the right to payment under said agreement providing for the sale of said certificates 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 the board of education would you read aloud the title of the resolution a resolution authorizing and providing for an installation purchase agreement for the purpose of paying the cost of purchasing real or personal property or both in and for community unit school district number 201u will county illinois and for the issue of not to exceed 45 million 500 thousand dollars general obligation debt certificates limited

063tax of sad school district evidency the rights to payments under said agreement writing for the security for the means of payment under said agreement of said certificates and authorizing the sale of said certificates to the purchaser thereof thank you so as a summary of the parameters included with the within the resolution the following pertinent terms are summarized the board has agreed that is in the best interest of the district to improve school facilities based on preliminary plans and cost estimates presented to the board and discussed at a public meeting the amount of money borrowed at this time is not to exceed 45 million 500 000 and authorizes the president and secretary of the board to acute and attest to the issuance the money will be paid back through installments not to exceed 20 years the

064following facility projects will be completed in their entirety or in part with the 45 million five hundred thousand dollars being borrowed temporary cooling rooms at balmoral elementary school crete elementary school monie education center and coretta scott king magnet school demolition of the sixth grade center demolition of the dome if approved by separate action heating ventilation and air conditioning at balmoral elementary school crete elementary school coretta scott king magnet school talala elementary school and the early learning center and electrical upgrades at the balmoral elementary school crete elementary school coretta scott king magnet school talala elementary school and the early learning center also plumbing upgrades at the balmoral elementary school creed elementary school and coretta scott king magnet school led lighting at the crete money high school in addition at crete monee high school and finally cosmetic

065improvements at belmont balmoral elementary school crete elementary school and coretta scott king magnet school talala elementary school and the early learning center so based on this information i'm going to ask mr cirma to give an overview of the complete financing of the short-term facility plan that will result in the district receiving 67.4 million in bond proceeds thank you president albrecht [Music] so mr robert asked me to just kind of give an overview to try and simplify this whole financing and what is going to occur so i'm going to try and do that uh to the best of my ability the first i want to start with are some type of the types of debt when it comes to school finance and some of these we've experienced before you've experienced before actually some are a little

066bit new to you one is work cash bonds you know these are bonds that are sold and may be used for capital projects and operating expenses currently we're able to sell our limit is 21.9 million dollars working cash bonds that's the limit we have and if you remember we sold working cash back in december to finance and pay for uh life safety projects and also to put as uh money in the bank and to hold as our fund balance okay so right now we could sell working cash bonds up to 21.9 million dollars then there's life safety bonds life safety bonds are bonds that are sold and they have to be used specifically for life safety projects as defined by the 10-year services that are happening we've talked about those that we have surveys from

0672012 2013 and all that but currently the district sold bonds working cash bonds in december of 2020 to pay for life safety projects so we really don't have a need and can't use life safety bonds to do any financing because we've already earmarked money for that already and that's part of the resolution of december so so so can just real quick since you're on that so you're saying that the working cash bonds that we borrow 17.5 million dollars last year in december could you tell me again and you're this is kind of rhetorical for me but i just want to make sure i'm hearing it from you what was the purpose of that 17.5 million dollars the purpose of that were two purposes one is to complete life safety projects within the district we earmarked

068i believe 10.5 million dollars of that okay for that and then the other seven million dollars is put as fund balance well one million were used to of that seven one million we used to pay the building off right uh i believe you use that to play the building off i'm not i'd have to look at that for sure but i think we did mr brown but i do know that we've set aside according to that resolution money was uh allocated for life safety projects and and again i i i know i'm seen in a different way i'm going to ask you the question and either you're right and i'm wrong or i'm not seeing this right it's probably the latter oh that's all right okay so it looks like are we borrowing doing this

069time around here with that resolution that was just red are we borrowing any money to address life safety issues we are done i know so this time around so i don't know if i'm looking at this wrong when it comes to the renovation project sure and and things are calculated it says total cost so the project is 48 million dollars okay what exactly is that number then i'd have to look at that page let me mr brown because it's kind of correlates with what you're saying here so i just want to make sure things is right i can't i can't go further until isn't it all added up to that no okay this is separate all this adds is this okay so that's a separate thing tonight yes yes separate life savings the life safety

070all that's already been funded yes all the life safety has been found so there's no borrowing no borrowing whatsoever no what's being proposed is not to address life safety and again as part of the resolution that you are approving tonight yes only those projects that mr albrecht has read are involved and none of those were life safety okay being said no they were not a demolition of the dome the demolition of the sixth grade center i thought we had fun for that i think we was gonna borrow for that we were looking at any time to do that and pull the trigger we got the bid and we had money for that so why are we borrowing it now well again you can go ahead and use fund balances okay so so so that's so

071this i mean just give me a reason that's all i'm saying mr brown at the time we approved the demolition of the sixth grade center and we put the hold on the dome we we hadn't provided the board had not provided for the funding of that we were looking at that as part of the financing of a a future school project that got all put aside so we never we never borrowed money we didn't have money in the bank we didn't fund that project it was all to come and then put on hold good and i'm good i'm just so this is just looking for explanation though i'm looking at this you're like oh you know what dv8 and that's all right i'm looking at it sure and just just a simple explanation i'm good

072with that i'm not being combative i'm just trying to get an understanding sure all right thank you sir sure the third type of bond is a funding bond and a funding bond is a bond that's sold to pay off a debt that the district has an example of that is a debt certificate which is over what we're talking about tonight are debt certificates and then it's very similar in uh i'll say in your home finances if i take out a loan or a lease on a cop now i decide to get a home equity loan to pay that off and bundle that all together that's kind of what a funding bond does it pays off a debt that the district has if they don't have the capability in their operating funds to pay off and

073then lastly there's something called debt certificates and debt certificates are issued by a district of evidence of payment of an application or a liability an obligation of maybe building something a liability of like a lease or something like that it could be so it just gives the district the opportunity to spread these this obligation out uh instead of with one entity like one bank you can go out and do it to a lot of different banks and offer it at different levels let's say of five thousand dollars so i can really sell 45 million dollars in debt certificates at five thousand dollar increments to a whole bunch of investors that's what this allows you to do and not so it creates that liability so those are the four types now again what happens is we

074can't use life safety so what we're going to do is use all three of these and now the financing so the question comes up is how do i do that all right let's go through this so step one i need to create a debt to pay off using funding bonds so i'm going to sell 45.5 million dollars in debt certificates and do that in november which is next month you're voting on the resolution to start that process so the death certificate is issued by a district as evidence of payment for an obligation liability and that's what we just talked about that's what um president albrecht had talked about and as he had read our liability is the construction of these buildings that's going to happen in the future we don't have any contracts on that

075yet but that's going to be the future all right so i'm going to create that debt then what i'm going to do is i'm going to sell 52.4 million dollars in bonds in february 45.5 million are funding bonds to pay this off okay because remember i can use funding bonds to pay that off because i don't have enough in working cash bonds to pay at all so now i'm going to do 6.9 million dollars in working cash bonds to pay those up so that that gives us a sale of 52.4 million dollars that's going to happen in february so first we issue the death certificates and then we go ahead and pay them off and we borrow a little bit more and there's a reason why we're doing that okay and it has to do

076with debt limits and all of these other things that come into play step three which is going to coincide with this is i'm going to restructure our current bonds that we have right now because what i want to do and again remember we talked about this board is we want to reduce the annual debt payment that we have from 12 million to 10 million because it's going to save the taxpayer about 140 a year on their debt part of their property tax so they're going to save some money so we're going to do both of these at the same time we're going to restructure so that we can get the annual debt payment down and then we're going to sell 52.4 million the last part of this then is i'm going to sell we're going

077to want to sell 15 million in bonds in the spring of 23 for working cash bonds because remember i said we had 21.9 million 15 6.9 21.9 million dollars in working cash bonds and why i'm doing it now is because i don't have the debt limit to put all of this together so i've got to do two separate bond scenarios the reason i separated this out into 15 million dollars is because the board talked about making sure we go down parallel paths on our projects to make sure that if i'm going to do crete elementary i'm going to do csk and i'm going to do balmoral so what is this 15 million that up to the edition at the high school so everything will be done on a parallel bat it doesn't mean i'm not

078going to start this work i can start the work i can start the design and all of that stuff by 23 we've got the money coming in and all that so we'll be fine but that's why i separated this out so that there's no perceived that we're we're worried about one school over another it at least the first step two will and and step three will have enough funds to do all of the elementary school work you're right yes exactly because within these also within this amount here the 52 is also all the cosmetic improvements which we're not doing until like 23 which is we'll be open already so we'll be all right so we can use that money to fund it then we move this around and that's why again using working cash bonds

079is good because you've got more flexibility okay so how does the math work out here we go so we have death certificates in november 45.5 million dollars but then again i'm going to take out funding bonds in february plus a 6.9 which is 52.4 million i'm going to add in working cash bonds february of 23 of 15 million animal together 67.4 million dollars test tomorrow [Laughter] on it i know it is it is very confusing you know and uh again a lot of like craziness but again it's it's doable it's uh it's within the scope of the illinois school law and accounting okay okay and so going back to the initial borrowing of 45 million 0.4 45.5 million you're calling those funding bonds and you said that there was a period of you're going to

080pay off those funding bonds and you're going to doing a restructure i didn't hear the phrase refunding bonds no it's the about i see the funding but you said we was going to like refinance our own self that's what refunding bonds are like a refinancing we're refunding our current our current bonds that we have to structure them so that we lower the debt payment down to 10 million dollars okay at the same time when we do these new bonds we'll make sure they fit under the 10 million dollars also so that beginning in i believe it's 25 or 26 i'd have to look at the chart the annual debt payment goes from 10 million from 12 million dollars down to 10 million and it stays 10 million all the way up okay and i think

081this going back the number that you have here again that you gave us this document the cost of the project is 48 million dollars and we're going to vote on tonight the frank the funding for the demolition of the sixth grade sin and the demolition of the doll and we got 1.4 million dollars it says oh what this oh where's the new one i got two here this is what is this what you gave us last week i have two of them that's the same date maybe it's got the same date on it i'll try it too it does not let me see here look at that okay all right you don't have your question no no no i'm looking up here oh that's what i'm looking at here sorry that's what i'm looking at

082no the dates on top are saying because it's the same okay um that's what i was looking at let's see the revise okay here's mr brown well just one number i want to look at here and i and i want to put my guys just real quick okay so okay there's some changes okay i got it right and then so this is the one mr brown this is the 67.4 million one got it so that includes the addition it doesn't include the work done at ems at mec okay so this yeah i thought i was looking at this that's been the same book that's all right with the date all right good that's all right i won't i won't beat you up too bad you're okay okay any other questions for ken i want to

083clarify something that mr brown just said he said we're voting tonight on the demolition of the sixth grade center that is not a correct thing we're not voting just the downfalls the sixth grade center has already been voted upon okay just wanted to clarify that just the demolition of the dome is what we were voting on yes but we're voting on the funding of paying off the demolition of the high school center i mean high sixth grade center aren't we wasn't that yeah the demolition of the sixth grade center i know that's what we're voting this funding not right the funding funding the funding to pay to get that particular action item completed right correct if approved that's so yeah we already voted we already voted on a demolition two we already voted to enter

084into the contract right and we're voting tonight to pay that off got it okay any other questions so are you done yes sir okay so i are we uh still don't appear to this we don't have a motion yet okay thanks ken you're welcome okay so now formally i have a motion to approve the resolution providing for the issue of not to exceed 45.5 million dollars general obligation debt certificates limited tax for the purposes of improving school sites and altering repairing and equipping equipping school building facilities providing for the security for and means of payment for said certificates and authorizing the sales said certificates to the purchaser thereof so moved second oh sending move yes okay any other questions or discussion uh i just would like to make a statement real quick unfortunately for me

085i am definitely on a core with 99.9 of what we're voting on for obtaining the funds necessarily to complete so many of the tasks with the exception of the demolition of the dome so being said my vote will be indicative of that particular item only and it's unfortunate that it's tied in with this overall package to complete the work i am totally in favor of paying for air conditions and the other things again that's the one exception that i have and unfortunately i cannot vote as i really would want to vote on this that's just a comment i'd like to make okay okay um so we're voting first on number two then three then four correct that's correct okay um i guess i'll make my comment on number three when we get to number three

086i guess any other comments questions and and and terry i don't know if you can when i vote or something like that because i'd like to be entered it in for the record somehow written on how i vote and my reason why i did just right thank you i appreciate it okay roll call please brown is a president mrs galbraith okay i'm clarifying again we're voting on number two oh yes yes i dr hall aye mr swaalis aye mrs walters aye vice president roof aye president albert aye motion carries next up can i get a motion to approve a contract to omega-3 llc of elgin illinois and the amount of negative fifty four thousand dollars for the demolition of the dome moved second can could you explain again why this is a negative fifty four

087thousand dollars well not really that is that is a contractor's move like i said you know like no tomorrow well again perception is not reality here well again this is according to the documents that we have so omega-3 when when we asked them or the bid documents were sent out we asked them to give us a price on the demolition of the sixth grade center as an alternative if you were to demolish the dome at the same time what would be an additional cost omega said if you demolished at the same time the additional cost is going to be a negative 54 000 so it costs less to demolish both together than it would to do the sixth grade center yes okay and we already approved the contract for the sixth grade center alone yes

088so at this point we're appropriating fifty four thousand dollars less if we vote yeah affirmatively yes you are okay yeah and just just from my experience you know contractors do that and guarantee you if we go and ask this particular contract to go tear down the dome and they're going to give us 54 000 only that would not happen so you see in your cost your justification for it it says we'll do for a negative 54 000 only if you give us the 1.2 a 3 million dollar contract and then you have one contractor that was very close to them they were lower in the big part i think maybe lower a little higher then they came up with 58 000 to tear the dome down so you do that you go low here but

089you go higher there and then there were some contractors that was way out and you know what what i what i found ironic was the contractor that we're paying we're going to approve the certificate uh the payoff i think we already know coming up or whatever they were like five times four or five times higher they bid in on this project i don't know if you caught that they bid in on this project to tear the dome down how they were so high i know i'm mixing apples and oranges but yet they won the bid for doing the work that we're looking to pay and what they did over the summer so they was just way out there so you know i i saw that i saw that 55 4 000 and it was some

090talking points among the board say hey you know they're going to do this and give us 54 000 back i said oh that's just the skills of those contractors to have people talk like that so they can just bring them you know bring that issue up again and say hey this contract is not going to charge us anything they're going to give us money it's just a mental psychological thing that contractors i won't speculate what they were thinking in the bidding process i mean the reality is here we've we've already approved a higher dollar amount yeah than it will the contract demolition at the end of the day so it's really an accounting entry here then then we're not getting money back yes absolutely again on the surface when it comes down to it you

091know we we will not be pruned if we're just dealing with dollars or cents not to do this this is the right thing to do you know four dollars and cents and if you all agree to do it and vote this is the right thing to do with and select this contract at the end of the day is dollars and cents but i'm just telling you from my experience out there in the construction world in some capacity from my experience you know i have an mba in in project management and things like that so i see how they do things i will learn how to do things okay okay any other questions or comments on this motion dr hall sorry here we go this is probably one of my first difficult votes um and if

092we do and really push to do what what was presented tonight i feel comfortable the part that i don't feel comfortable with is will we actually push forward for doing that during our time or will it happen at all i understand the sentiment of the dome i do but i also understand the need to improve in a different way and move forward um i wish that we could keep the dome and still improve the athletic facilities and incorporate the dome and it somehow i don't know if that was presented or if that was looked at or or what have you but i do know that this is a difficult decision for me as a board member because of the fact that while some people may say there's only what was it five public comments in

093regards to versus all of the people we know that traditionally we don't get a lot of support not just not i won't say support but involvement not just here but many places when it comes to certain things school related and i know i'm rambling on but i just i don't know that i feel excited about this vote i'll say that and i apologize i think again i focus on a contractor itself but not how i really felt about the dome voting to demolish the dome i think all of you know the way that i have been been pursuing this and supporting not to demolish the don't again way back months ago it was brought to us and i believe our president said last week you know that's been on the table for quite a few

094years i know the plan prior to many of the board members here today that was presented to us that board back in 2016 was to build a new elementary school on the existing sixth grade center it did not include demolishing the dome and there was no issues conveyed to the board at that time about the dome then the new board came came up you know when you get new board you get new ideas and i'm cool with that and the new board said you know what we got to remove this dome and dot it out of that and that plan kind of went and fell by the wayside for various reasons then we have this board and it came up about demolition or demolishing the dome and it was basically i thought was cost justification

095and i do commend the board at that point with a 43 vote the table to vote table to vote to demolish the board because i had some qualms with some of the numbers and one of the big numbers was life safety we had three point two million dollars for the sixth grade center and her life safety and unbeknownst to me that that 3.2 million dollars included life safety for the dome and one of the big ticket items under the life safety for the sixth grade center was 2.34 million dollars for replacing the pipes and for some reason that 2.2 million dollars came over to the dome as being life safety issues and that was my reason say i saw an issue there's something going on and the board gave me time to look back that's

096the statement that bill sewallis read out for me i was out of town i was still on the meeting and can't agree there was that was not a good number for life safety for the water pipes you corrected that but you made some changes and added things on dotted and i said well this is a fight that i chose not to enter in and then the board came back and said on a meeting it was a virtual meeting the board came back and said you know what the real issue is that the board is in the footprint of the proposed new elementary school and i took a step back i said okay i'm okay with that i chose not to fight the battle and then i asked last week i said that is not an

097issue right now the dome is here we have no plans prior to tonight's hearing we have no plans to build anytime in the near future a elementary school on that site i believe i was the one that even recommended that site when way back to build an elementary school after we were going around around around trying to find it i said strategically that property should stay within the district so being said i hear it apply to the people me i have no sentimental values tied to the dome other than never forget who was at one time my daughter was probably one of the smartest kids here at crete bowl new at the time but she was not an athlete but she was on a basketball team and she was sent out to play on the

098court she stole the ball from the opposing player and she ran down and made her only two points in her career and i was in the wrong basket that's how i remember the dome and i'll never forget it okay so again i know i'm talking here i hear the plight i that's amazing tim you got one points i don't know almost 1100 signatures regardless if it's people living here in our taxing district or not but they had a tie to the dome i looked at it strictly as a financial essence and i'm gonna say this the last thing strictly and i think cost justification does not warrant to demolish that building if we don't have any good strategic reasons and plans to do so that dome has a lot of life we have buildings that's

099here today that we're going to invest a whole lot of money in it's a lot older than the dome and i'm going to say this i behind the scenes when i saw i said how could we and i looked at myself what's in it for me as far as if i was a business owner i had to structure what would i do with it i said i would not condemn it so i did behind the scenes that you can if you want you know two years ago i get emails and conversations i had that i talked to someone that said what would it take to move the dome 250 thousand dollars i had a site readily available for within the district 250 000 just to move the dome with a couple you know maybe sixty

100thousand dollars for a foundation no basement all of that but i didn't bring it to the board because i just knew it was a lot of red tape there again you know where i feel with this dome and i thank you for the chime for listening to me appreciate it board okay dr hall can i just address one thing with you um you're right there is no guarantee that that's going to happen but i came on this board in 2015 with all the the from a previous board their ideas there were many things we're still dealing with the middle school been dealing with the middle school since i came on this board we've got to fix it it was it was whatever i don't know i don't know who's i don't know the back story

101i don't want to know the back story but we've got to hope that we as a board are going through ken's telling us 22 23 we're going to have some funding power is that correct ken somewhere in there we could start looking at spending some money again i think you can start looking at uh some financing options beginning in 23 around and start looking at that for the future yes so this project that we're entering into now is going to take us to 23. in the last sprint of that marathon when you can see the finish line tape across we can go ahead as a board we will still all be here and this is what we're voting on today this is what we do or we do not want it's our job to make

102sure that that doesn't die and who's ever here in the new board that starts in 23 may not be all of us maybe who knows that's up to the people that are here that's what we wanted it's our job to take that with any new member and say this is the reason we voted for this this is what we're looking at this is this is what needs to happen in order for that to happen and i think that this board is very strong i think they're very intelligent they've asked the questions a million times of ken he's probably so sick of us he wants to just walk out the back door but it's because we do want to go forward we do want to do the right thing and i totally understand where you're coming

103from because when i walked in the door i was scared to death and all this stuff was coming at us that needed to be fixed or changed or built or plans hey they wanted to do this your wife was president she led all these saturday sessions on what could we do we broke down in teams what would work here what would work there we spent a lot of time and money on this project we need to begin following through we start and we never get to the finish line we need to end that here and now in this this board if we say this is what we want to do how do we get from point a to point b we need to follow through we need to hold each other accountable to do that

104to make sure that we have the information and it's solid information and that we can achieve it i think the addition of youth or athletics with your knowledge is amazing because i don't know if a football field should go north and south or east and west you know all that stuff that's going to make that planning so much easier and i'm glad that ken has already asked you to be a part of that because that makes a huge difference you're a part of it you can bring it back to us make us understand so i just want to throw that out there i think that as a team it's our goal to go forward with what we envision and if for some reason we can't get the money then we have to have a plan

105b so we can't always just have a plan a we need a plan b and a plan c and i think we've gotten in the habit of doing that for pretty much now and you know i i welcome your opinion i welcome mr brown's opinion god knows i was on the outside looking in a few months ago so i know exactly where you're sitting it is a tough decision but you live with it and you go forward and i definitely understand that and i don't know if you remember me saying a couple maybe a month or so ago i think one of the things that holds us back is you know the fact that sometimes the public doesn't understand what the long-term vision is right i don't want to bring that up yeah so that

106and i'm fine with you know change and moving forward but i'm just reiterating it is a tough decision it's a horrible decision you know because it's it's it means it does mean a lot but i also think that at the end of the day if though like i said if we move forward and i know he can't guarantee you can nobody can guarantee exactly it's a chance that we take um so i'm just saying uh hopefully we'll stay to stay the course move forward with the athletic facilities uh and hopefully we'll look like edwardsville if you've never been to edwardsville have you been ever yet but see you're an integral part of that so you need to hold the rest of us all accountable and say hey in october of 2021 ken threw this plan

107out where are we are we still thinking this do you think it's going to work here's my opinion i mean we need to keep doing that not just because it's two years away i guess is is what i'm saying the earliest we could really decide on financing i guess would be two years away but in that two years all that that ground work is done and we have a lot figured in the next two years yes a lot and again you have to have a vision and i think she knows more than anything i'm a plan a b and c guy i always make sure that if you want something out of life that you can find a way to get it but you have to be able to compromise somewhere down the road so

108we have to get through some of our biggest issues that this district has never been able to achieve and that's air conditioning and with some of that in renovating the buildings and giving our staff and our students what they deserve after that we move forward with a plan and we we work together on achieving that goal because again the other day what does that goal achieve better facilities for the athletes and for the coaches that definitely deserve it it's no different than a classroom sometimes athletics is what gets a child or an athlete through their life it's it is about education but it's just what we're what we're promoting here in the school that it's not always about college it's about career ready we need to make them better citizens better husbands better wives we

109want them to be ready for the workforce we want them to be ready for college we want them to be ready for military but at the same sense we have students here that can achieve the ultimate in in sports gets them there it gets them out of where they're at in their life and moves them on to the next step and it is a big picture thing but like i was telling ken earlier that this is a marathon this is not a sprint and if the long-term goal is that i'm here eight years or 12 years we can't achieve everything in four years it's impossible too much changeover but one thing i would like to say bill is i agree with you as a marathon but when we have talked about items we have talked

110about wants and needs of the district and we have placed certain ones closer to the finish lines than others but now i see this one the middle school edition i went over had a meeting with the principal as of yesterday i walked the building and she came to this board five years ago pretty much begging for additional rooms i think you were one that has been promoting these additions and all of that i agree with athletic fields and the importance of that bill i agree with you too and how it brings a mindset to our kids and help them out in different ways shapes and form i agree with a vision but most importantly i agree with now now and i feel that the middle school edition rooms is being pushed out and pushed out

111and pushed out when that need is there when you see those teachers on those carts you see that development role the professional development room that the teachers have and and how it's meant for three but it's nine and all of that and see our cmea president in there and things like that and again nothing changed and i know this is not a true topic of discussion but yet it's been brought up so we have to make sure when we bring things up and i'm not sure we said it maybe i'll get uh board member galbraith that when we have a plan eight the noun take care of the things that if we're gonna push the white at one time was it now to later as a vision we need to have the plan ready say

112this is what we're gonna do now and this is what we're gonna do here so i think we came a little late with this one i'm just saying ken with the developments of the sports complex when you presented the short term it's okay to present okay this is what we're going to do now but hey we're going to focus on this but i'm just going to let you know we haven't forget about this it just seemed like we was just out there in my opinion i should not have to ask questions about the sixth grade center not the sixth grade center but the middle school about the ten additional rooms when that was kind of high up we was talking about that mr brown i'm going to push back we were not because you were

113not that was one of janie's one of the main reasons let's let's let's let's we're way off topic of what what the motion is on the floor um i can i just say something yeah go ahead um i've been on the board now for about two and a half years and when i first got on board we did vote to tear down the heist the old high school and the talk of the dome at that time we were already in discussion about that so i just want you know i i fully understand i'm an alum of crete i have special memories in the dome and this is not a decision that is being made hastily it's been going on for about two years now two and a half years and there's just not been a

114viable plan there's nothing been that and and we have so many things that we really need to look at our girls softball they have to travel you know away from the school building there's safety issues there's a lot of things and and when ken just presented what he did um you know it will be sad to see the dome go but i just think we need to think about everything there's so much more that we need to consider here but i just want people to know this was not a decision made hastily i know mr brown had asked you know for delay and he presented some things and and we went ahead and we honored that as well and and now here we are two and a half years later and we still just there

115was never a viable plan so i i just want everyone to know that i understand it i i can appreciate the desire the want but you know unfortunately we're not this wealthy district that can just say hey resurrect the dome i mean there's a lot that need would need to be done um i think this vision makes a lot of sense and so i just i just wanted to add that so thank you i i definitely agree i just want to give a little clarity to something because i know mr brown mentioned uh he said about five and a half five years ago that the principal came i think that it was even before that um however long the sixth grade center has had the audition i don't and i'll say the names i don't

116care um mr tarayan uh gasparo who stopped the the um the expect the full expansion of it and then when she came back and said hey i need these classes then they said i was there you didn't tell us this before but yes she did she came before the board and said please don't stop the full expansion of it please let it go forth and they said no and then when she came back and it was proven that she was not lying they said well if you would have told us we would have never stopped it and which was not true so i just want to give some clarity to it's not we are fixing something that other board members stopped in the first place and i say it was out of spite um they

117may be friends with people but it was out of spite because of whatever reason um and it's unfortunate i don't want to be that bored i don't want to be the board that comes that people say we stop this because of an agenda against anybody an agenda um for our own selves or anything like that in a perfect world we do everything hopefully we get to a perfect world yes i agree athletics are just as important in my mind in my world as academics so which one have we been fighting longer we have probably needed athletic facilities longer than we've needed classrooms at the sixth grade center is that a middle school middle school yes um so which one do we do first well the principal has been screening for it i'm not against it

118but i definitely believe that we can even generate money by improving our athletic facilities to help so that's that's just my take on it um i do hate that it that we even got in this position but i don't want to be that bored that keeps us in the position i want to try to move forward try to look at the big picture we we want to we may not agree with which comes first but we do agree something has to happen and we can't just continue to uh have it the way it is so that's what i say let me let me just say you know kind of tack on a couple of comments that were made since i've been on the board for five years we've looked at numerous scenarios for facilities in

119this in this district none of those were incorporated the dome into the students needs none of them and so you know and we've made priorities we've made choices on how we want to move forward that's fine it may not include maybe not everybody agrees with those priorities but we as a board have come to the those decisions you know in terms of you know i'm always thinking about you know we don't want to hamstring future boards with you know make decisions today they're going to hamstring future boards i don't know what we'll do with that property eventually that'll be for future boards to decide here was a vision today that we saw but we have to give them that that opportunity and you know we've made along the line along the way here we've made

120a decision as a board we don't want to sell the property we want to retain it into the district so that's how we where we are today and i agree with sandy this decision it's a hard decision but we haven't made it lightly we've looked at a lot of different scenarios and that's where we are so are there any other comments or can we get to a vote well it came real quick if the boards decide to vote to demolish the dome again the sixth grade center is a done deal what about is there any funds to do any landscaping i know when you demolish things at the end of the day you know you still get this vacant space with not too slightly big open area without having grass so are we doing anything

121landscaping and minimum grass plant some seeds or what i would spend a lot of money and again i'd have to look at the bid documents and can see but i would assume that the ground will be leveled and that either seed or sod would be put into those areas for that i'd have to look to the midnight percent but i can i can make sure that that is done though as part of the country can you just at least let uh dr caron i'm sure we'll put it in an fyi i sure will all right appreciate it that's that's if if if it's voted okay all right any other comments add to it that again i'm not making a decision lightly either but i think hard decisions need to be made i think that's why

122we're in the position we're in because i'm not putting down any prior boards but they didn't make the hard decisions because they were hard and we just have to do it and so i'm not taking it lightly but i just think that we have to move forward and i think that's what we'll be doing tonight okay any other comments questions okay roll call please brown is a nay oh no mrs galbraith aye mr sawalis hi mrs walters aye dr hall aye vice president roop aye president albert aye motion carries okay next up can i get a motion to accept a proposal and approve a contract for the completion and installation of temporary air conditioning at balmoral elementary school crete elementary school coretta scott king magnet school and moani education center to talsma builders inc of

123alcip illinois in the amount of two hundred one thousand five hundred fifty dollars moved second second sandy give it to santa and bail motion right any questions or comments uh again i do have a question two hundred one thousand been awarded to this one particular person and janine you can probably help me out here the second memory serves me right the second lowest bidder was a contractor that i thought the district kind of said they could no longer bid and they could have easily won this bit i don't know if he wanted me to name it it was we we kind of we had some a lot of legal issues we had a lot i don't remember something good on this though they did they bid it i thought it was period as far as

124bidding on anything i could correct yeah i think you're correct that we were i don't think you could stop them from bidding but i think we decided so how do you do that i'm going to accept any bid from them right is that correct i just want to get clarity on that mr gleason is here if we need help um you cannot stop them from bidding however there is a clause in the bid documents that says the winner will be a responsible bidder and so part of that there are some stipulations within there uh that also uh define that and how it's defined as be by past work if there are any issues with past work and that so if there was a case where there was a contractor that was not a responsible bidder

125we could dis uh disallow their their bid but we can't prevent them conveniently okay so at one point at what point in the game will we know that the board know that because right now you're bringing the winner and you had all the other bidders there so if this per particular company was the winner that would have been a lot of energy i i don't want to sit here and again i would caution the board and maybe legal will sure about discussing you know what could happen yeah what happened is that tallsman builder was the low bid yeah we are recommending them as approval yes i would not even have discussion about anything else okay we can't have that discussion in the board so we can know the process we need to know a better

126process from legal whatever okay i will want to know that well there isn't mr brown there is a process in the bid documents there is a process where it talks about a responsible low bid yes and as part of that responsible it is defined in the bid documents and one of those stipulations are any uh past issues that they've had with the district so if a contractor does not meet that clause we can disallow that bid even if it was if it was a little bit so do in your office do you have documentation of companies that's considered not responsible okay in consultation with the architect yes okay yes i know that's all i just don't want things sneaking under the radar all right and mr brown i did quick tell mr gleeson what we

127were talking about because he had just come in yes so i think ken answered your question that you asked me correct right that you can you can oh you have a mic even if somebody's the lowest bidder if you determine that they're not responsible the board can make that determination and not accept it yes that's more determination as to responsibility okay but if again if the board do not know you get future boards that's all and needs to be somewhere where this particular company is known to have caused issues and not responsible so that's always saying for future reference how would a board know that this particular company is not on our radar to do business with how would they know that has not been responsible that's all normally you're getting advice from your architect

128they have that kind of industry specific information yes and and at this particular time this architect that we have right now was not aware because that was not the architect we use for the project that this construction guy firm was used so it's a lot of well that's why mr brown though i'm involved in because if he doesn't know that i know yeah and so between us we consult on that and make sure that they meet all of the guidelines and stipulations that the board would want and that's where my recommendation would come in also okay so any other questions or comments on item number four okay roll call please brown is an eye dr hall aye galbraith aye mr smallish aye mrs walters aye vice president rupert aye president albert aye motion carries okay

129next up can i get a motion to approve the personnel report including approved the certified staff employment leave of absence return from leave of absence and resignation and educational support staff employment leave of absence reassignment return from leave of absence resignation and dismissal move second okay all right um i just want to say something really quick um just i don't know any of the other employees i know only one of the employees she's resigning nothing negative toward the district of the board i just want to thank her anita franklin for her service um she's my aunt i know she cared about the district she cared about the kids she worked very hard every day this was a true passion for her to work with the children and work at the middle school with the with

130our district and i just thank her for her time and i wish her many blessings it was nice thank you me too thank you dr hall ice or lyle i saved up quite a few employees that abandoned their job and what it what's the definition of abandonment i know you can't be too personal being specific but i'm like okay what is that just not showing up to work or just most of the ones that you're seeing here uh they're people who didn't uh complete their paperwork and didn't show up work so we didn't get a resignation out of them we have to clear them from the rolls so we can fill the positions okay you say you did get a resonation we did not that's why we have to move to dismiss this yes okay

131all right thank you sir any other questions or comments okay roll call please dr hall aye brownings and i mrs wallace hi mrs walters hi mrs galbraith aye vice president rupert aye president albert aye motion carries okay we will have a need for before we go to all been in the business but we will have a need for closed session tonight uh in the old business yes no i'm going first because it's really hard to get a word in edgewise around here sometime back before the referendum um when we thought we would be possibly building some new buildings we had asked dr cara to do an ib program evaluation and actually a whole evaluation of curriculum but but focusing in on the ib program evaluation and i think given now that we're not building the

132new building so it's not as critical to have that right now because it was are we going to build a 300 student building or a 700 student building if that was a different scenario and also with everything going on with with covid and all the difficulties i would like to just suggest that we don't ask her to do that at this time and focus on all the other stuff going on i think it's still a good idea but to be pushed back to some other time so i just wanted to formally say that i know we asked that and she's very diligent about doing what we ask so i wanted to kind of get her off the hook for now while she concentrates on all this other stuff and then put that kind of somewhere

133in the future i'm also in agreement with that you've got enough on your plate for now it's something i would like to see done but at a further date yeah i i don't disagree so i mean i i do think there's you know some of the inequities that we identified between what the curriculum is at csk and what is offered at other schools isn't an issue that's going to go away that we have to address over time but you know there are other priorities so we have done some stuff right in that regard i mean we have a line curriculum things have moved forward with that so yeah i just want to make that clear i'm gonna be honest with you i want to work her she make too much already i had her out

134looking at some things today you know at the aviation world so she liked what she saw and if the board is interesting there's going to be something going on in both phil i'll send a flyer on november 13th so mark your calendar will be something good to see by the tuskegee uh chapter out there so get a chance to see a lot of airplanes and kids and things of that nature so dr uh dr coglini's the reason we ask you to do so much because you can so thank you is that an old business or new business item that was actually old business okay that was all business yeah because i brought up aviation at one point to this board mr dr hall all right um i guess i don't necessarily need an answer tonight

135but i would like something presented possibly so that people can know what's our process for process what processes do we take when looking for candidates or trying to find minority candidates as for as well as promoting minority candidates as well as providing awarding contracts to minority businesses so we do have a process and we can share that through the fyi you're welcome we do have a process for both of those and we can mention them in the fyi as well as bring it back to a formal presentation if you would prefer yes would you like a formal presentation okay we will write that down and uh our team will get that delivered for uh november all right and i just want to tell mr brown i hope he's not mad at me because i do

136have a background in aviation so he did mention that he did mention that no yeah you and i son my son graduated from the same program absolutely so again once the board gets more in tune on what's going on i think they will definitely be in favor of in some way shape or form the aviation world and i'm trying to similar to the rotc i think that's a big hit but i think when again the aviation world comes more out front to the board i think they will have a good buy-in that's just my opinion okay any other old business any new business yes okay new business um i guess i have a question i know that there was a meeting with um rich township in regards to the cte i know we've been talking

137about moving our cte program or creating one and moving it to the high school can you give us information on what happened there and what and what's your stance on yes on monday uh yeah yesterday we've been working with all the superintendents along with rich district to try to bring a a large career tech to the southland careertech and the idea is put together a 100 million dollar proposal that would create all sorts of aviation manufacturing all those types of things right now we are out there socializing the concept we are socializing it with our legislators with business owners with mayors i invited all the mayors to attend this as well so i did participate in the attendance every week i meet with all the other superintendents and we update what's going on and so

138forth where we're at right now is that again we've got to figure out how we're going to fund this 100 million dollar project so we're looking at grants we're looking at donations we are looking at ways to capture on some of our big box stores that are in the area to again look for donations to see what we can do to fund this project it's a very worthy project what's something that's very much needed in our area in in the meantime you know we are looking to do what we can at our high school level uh to further develop um our own career tech and like we've discussed earlier you know we're looking at expanding um by bringing over the current mec program but also i am working with lamont hollyfield who is the director

139of the careertech to expand and one of the things that we were talking about is again aviation we have a drone program that we would be further developing we're looking at some other kinds of programs that are out there again to further develop when i first came here i talked about future ready initiatives there were seven of them and just as a reminder technology equity cultural competency we've done those we've worked on those the other one was using global and local networking to help expand our students knowledge base and that's the one we're working on next utilizing resources in our area for example we need to again focus on resources we have moni has a wonderful agricultural piece we might want to go forward with that we may need to start looking at developing some

140first responders police fire ambulance we've got to figure how we're going to recreate our community and bring money back into our communities and a lot of has to do with the education we're also looking at growing our own teachers you know we have resources here we do have students that we could tap into so lots of exciting things as you know i'm working on developing a marketing initiative here in the district because we've got to get the word out we have a lot of exciting things that are just ready to be launched such as the southland career and tech but also for ourselves what we're doing here and we're really excited about the planning right now this is the things i'm getting excited about if taking the next step this board has been wonderful about

141getting us moving forward you know we've kind of settled down with the facilities and we know where we're going with this we can now start going full speed ahead on the things that really impact students career tech you know and providing opportunities uh for our students moving up so that was a long-winded response to you [Laughter] two more questions where what's the location and if it does take place and we build this addition to the high school with these cte facilities what happens to that what happens yes so if it is going to be here is it going to be somewhere else or are we going to build this and then it's rich each it's rich it's been sitting vacant as you know they did close it and that was the intent to basically demolish

142that site build a brand new site but even if we had the money today it's five years out for planning operations so we're looking very much a long-term piece we're still in the concept and the socializing the concept so i don't want to wait five or six years to do things for our students and even if hopefully it does come to fruition it doesn't negate the things that we are doing for our programming because the district would then send students and we would pay a tuition to outsource programs that we can't offer here so we are offering several programs but not everything would be offered at the the um trade center what other districts are on i call it our sister district so we have homewood philosoma we have bloom we have rich okay and

143then we have uh thorn fractional okay so thank you for bringing that up any other new business okay then can i get a motion to go into close oops let me get my handy-dandy reference card here i think this is all covered under litigation okay can i have a motion to go into closed session for the purpose of litigation when an action against affecting or on behalf of a particular public body has been filed as pending before a court or administrative tribunal or when the public body finds that an action is probable or imminent in which case the basis for the findings shall be recorded and entered in the minutes of the closed meeting yes and and we also second purpose for number nine student disciplinary cases so two purposes litigation and student discipline roll

144call please brown is and i this and this is so honest hi mrs walters aye dr hall aye mrs galbert aye vice president rupert aye president albert aye okay we are enclosed at 8 40. i have a motion to adjourn second all in favor all in favor say aye hi so you were first junior second okay 954 motion