001One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We're now back in open session for being in a very long close session. Sorry. I apologize for that. Uh I would entertain a motion for student discipline, please. Mr. Mr. President, I move that we uphold the findings of the board and student discipline cases number 2522 1531 2520 1132 and 2533. I have a second. I have a motion to second roll call vote, please. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah, motion passes 70. That brings us to the agenda and consent agenda. Um, any additions or corrections to the agenda? Okay, we consider the consent agenda and agenda approval. I I would entertain a motion for approval, please. I move to approve. Second motion, a second call, please. M. Yes. Mrs. Gordy. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
002Yes. Yes. Motion pass at 70. That brings us to item number five, which should be public. Good evening board, Mr. Hart, and our large audience tonight. My name is Kimberly Paps. I'm the director of human resources and we're going to start this meeting off with some great news by recognizing some of our very hard workers here within the district that were nominated by their building principal or principles for the award of golden ruler. So if you are here tonight and you are a recipient of the golden ruler, please come forward so we can recognize you. [Applause] Y. All right. Tonight with us we have all of our recipients for some of our recipients I should say from the golden ruler. We will start with Lisa Pollinsky Mark Deman Elementary School. Miss Finn, she is at
003Liberty. Michelle, North Elementary [Applause] School, [Music] [Applause] Southwest, even those that are here and those that are still on this list, they make up many, many years of serving in this district. We have some very veteran staff and some newer staff. And we just want to say, oh, sorry, getting our applause. Sorry. So sorry. We want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all that you do. You will be recognized on April 24th with the regional board of education at the regional office of education in Bismar for a nice dinner and recognition. They'll get a golden ruler. But again, the importance of this is you are recognized by your building principal or principals for show for showing up and doing what you do and doing it well. So we thank you very much.
004And before you go, I want to read all the names one more time. We have, who is not here tonight, Ginger Brown, home program interventionist at Edison. Tom White again, head custodian at me Park. Cinnamon Long Secretary at Liberty. Porsha Lillard, teaching assistant Danville High School. Sher Duning, South View Upper Elementary School teacher. Carla Doo, teaching assistant at Northeast. Miss Lisa Pollinsky, teacher at Mark Denman. Megan Moore, social worker at KDBA. Mo Kaiser, teacher of ECSC at Southwest, and Miss Michelle Bay, seventh grade teacher at Northridge. Again, thank you for all that you do every day, and just we we just owe it to you. Thank you very much. [Applause] Good evening board, Mr. Hart. My name is Zetta Piso. I am the director of food services. And continuing with what Miss Pap said, I
005wanted to come out today to celebrate some things happening in the excuse me, food service department. If I could have some of my team to join me. Uh, Miss Karen, Miss Robin, Miss Lori, Janelle, Miss Janelle, Miss Linda. So our staff area supervisors oversee three to four schools um each on a with daily operations and training from August till January. I had one area supervisor. Now we're fully staffed with three and I wanted to introduce we have Miss Laura Merritt who covers Edison, Liberty and Northridge. Miss Janelle Clark who covers Southwest View, Me Park. Miss Linda who covers DHS, Kenneth Bailey, Mark Demond, and Northeast. Miss Linda, in addition to covering her four schools from August until the end of January, also supervised all of the caterings that we had, managed the afterchool programs, supported
006other school territories that was open. Um, so I wanted to acknowledge her for that. I also want to talk about our new district cook, Miss Robin Pierce. Before I do, I want to mention we received $26,000 this year in extra funding for food just for committing to cooking food from scratch. So, Miss Robin joined us um in February, but starting in August, we build a rapport with a local, the money came from a local farmers grant. We build a rapport with a local farmer, which is Lockheart Angus, who's here tonight as well. from them. We have purchased um beef bites, beef fajita meat, and I could say thousands of grounds of pounds of ground beef easily. With that, Miss Robin has made um from scratch spaghettes with meat spaghetti with meat sauce, chili, meatloaf, sloppy
007joe. We actually had a student, I can't remember which one of you told me said that a student walked into the cafeteria and said, "This smell like my mama house last night." So, to me, that's um that's a compliment. I just wanted to acknowledge them for that. Um the second part is a new system that we have. I'mma step over and let you log in. Two years ago, I was given permission to switch our POSOS system, which is our per uh point of sales service system that had been in the district for years to another one that would provide services just for food service. those um the benefits of switching to the new POS system. We have accurate counting of the school meal participation from the students, more effective tracking of student allergies. It helps
008with the internal back end of what we do, which is production sheets and creating a recipe database. The two things I'm most excited about with this new system is there's an inventory uh aspect of it where now everything that comes into the district as far as food for food service. We know when it comes in which school it arrived and if we're moving food around. It also tracks that mo that movement of the food. So we have more accurate data and it helps to reduce cost as well because we're not overpurchasing food anymore. So that was the first one. The second one is menus and I'm going to have Miss Karen Costan to speak on that. Hello everyone. To the interactive menu is a really great tool and it's very easy for staff parents to
009get on. You just go to the regular Danville district 118 website and you go to the quick links. It's very sensitive and go to menus and then as you scroll down you see our regular menus that we've had on the breakfast and lunch for K through 8 9 through 12 in English and Spanish which will continue to post for the families. But above here, you click and you can go to the interactive link as it's thinking. And here's the menu. Now, the first thing you'll see is over on the right you have schools to choose from. So that way you can choose to see what's going on at your school. And besides choosing the school, you have your date range over here. You can click and look at the breakfast menu. Another click and you're
010at lunch. Over here, the menu plan. Some schools like Southwest that I chose has more than one menu plan. We have prek and also K through eight. So, you can pick either one of those you need to look at. And the next thing is the calendar. You can look at it weekly, which shows you a version here of just the week that we're in now, the current information, short and sweet. But we also [Music] have the monthly version so you can scroll down and see everything we're doing for the whole entire month at a glance. So, and it's interactive. So, if there's any changes made, you know, like we had days out of school or anything, as soon as we change it, it's changed on here. So that way you know whether your kids's getting
011pizza or chicken strips. Now another fun thing about this is the information it can give you. If you look at the entree here, sweet and sour chicken, you can click on any of them and it will give you nutrition information. It gives you your allergens and your ingredients down at the bottom. So there's lots of information and you go through your entre, grain, vegetable, fruit, everything that's offered and any of those items you can click on and get information. Thank you. Thanks. Okay, there's just one last thing I wanted to do. So this project here, setting this system up, Karen had to train about 40 hours just to learn it herself. I was training, but I probably did about 25. She did 40 hours of training. After learning it herself, she then took the training
012to the staff. She trained the kitchen managers, area supervisors, cashiers, servers, how to use the system as well. and then she continues to train them on a regular basis while doing her regular jobs um as well. I wanted to bring that up as well as to talk about the efforts of Miss Linda which I mentioned her stepping in and I have that stepping in and helping me to cover the entire district um with a smile every single time doing whatever it is that I needed. Miss Karen with her countless hours of setting this program up. She was truly the project manager. Um she came into the department, stepped in and just started doing wonderful things. When this came up, she went above and beyond. So to both of you, I just wanted to in recognition
013of your dedicated service and unwavering commitment to Danville 118 food service department, Linda L, Karen Hostigan, thank you for helping to make the students our priority. So thank [Applause] you. Thank you, Kimberly. Thanks for making us hungry. That's really neat. Just hit me. Hello board members and Mr. Hart. My name is Kimberlin UAS and I'm a fifth and sixth grade physical education teacher at Southview Upper Elementary. I just wanted to take this time to give appreciation to the Danville Public Foundation and their donors for their generosity in approving my grant a pro uh grant proposal for the bowling unit that we are going to be adding which will enhance our curriculum. This equipment order comes with eight carpeted lanes, 80 bowling pins, uh eight bowling balls and it also comes with scorecards. This is a
014crosscurricular activity in which students will have to keep score and they will have to use mathematics. Um, this is also a great social experience. So, one thing I wrote in the grant proposal is any District 118 break we have any given weekend, you'll not only see our South Upper Elementary students pulling with their family members, but you'll also see District 118 students and family members also partaking in bowling. This is something that students can also um enjoy outside of school, a lifelong experience. Um, and also they might be able to join the Danville High School bowling team, which I think is pretty awesome. Uh, thank you Bob Richards and Stephanie Yates for um, helping communicate throughout this process as this is my first grant proposal I've ever written. Um, and thank you to Aubrey Orur.
015She is also a fifth and sixth grade southwester physical education teacher. She has 21 years of experience for within South Upper Elementary. with her guidance and support, I was able to successfully write this first grant proposal. So again, thank you to the Danville Public Foundation, thank you to the donors, uh, and thank you to the board members and Mr. uh, Hart for your time. Thank you, [Applause] Eric Roerson. Eric Hello. Um, I'm Eric Robinson with Robinson Transport. Thank you for allowing me to join the board meeting tonight. Um, I'm here to um express uh concern in um hoping that I could persuade you board members to give a second look at the transportation contract. Um, that's what I'm here for, just being transparent as possible. Um I feel that uh some of the bid was
016rushed and uh some of the uh bid numbers are incorrect. Not by fault on purpose, but I think it should take a second look. Um there's a lot of missing pieces and a lot of rushed things that I think a $30 million contract should probably take a little bit closer look at. Uh financially, just responsibly. I think it should. Um, I understand that you guys have a local vendor that's been with you for a very long time and that's respectful and I have the same thing in a lot of districts that we take care of. Uh, but also I know it's getting harder for school districts and uh the money that we're possibly could save the district because we were a lower bidder is a lot and I think a district should look at that
017nowadays a little closer. Um obviously I understand that uh being loyal is one thing u but um when you have a lot of difference um it should be uh looked at closely. Um I wanted to kind of just review some of that stuff with the time I have to make sure everyone's on the same page. I've been sending some emails which I'm very very sorry to do but I like to put a face to myself and understand that I'm definitely don't want to be seen as coming off hostile. I just want to be coming off with informative. Okay. Um first and foremost uh the uh the bid documents that we are saying are missing out of our uh bid. Um so you know the same school code that is being used to say well we
018can't accept your bid because of a mis documents can also be the same school code that allows you to accept a bid because of misdocuments. So I want to make sure every board member is clear on that. You do not have to not accept a bid because you a document is missing. you can actually accept any bid you choose even if all documents are missing. So I just want to make sure and we know both sides of that. Um the big documents that are saying been missing I think interpretation of the bid introduction and reference sheets would explain that. Every question that is saying is missed was touched on and answered. Um now how that needs to be touched on and answered would have to have examples in your bid packet to show me exactly
019how you wanted that to be responded. bid figure calculations. Big errors in bid figure calculations. You guys are currently getting build for 84 routes a day and over 40 special needs routes a day. Um now granted the way that we did the bid specs, it cuts that in half. So 40 and 20. Uh your bid calculations only included 40 regular routes and 14 special needs. We were a lot lower on the special needs. So why that was reduced, I don't know. Also, bus monitors are very costly thing for the district, but very needed on buses. We really enjoy having them in other districts. Bus monitors were not even included in the bid comparison. That's a huge discrepancy that's missing. So just think you need to take a closer look at that and make sure that
020the bid comparison is done correctly. None of these things, am I saying, is done on purpose, but I think that we were rushing it and the errors that could have been made could be detrimental. Okay, we were put in as we was $3,300,000 difference year-over-year, which is $1.5 million. My numbers show we're closer to $3.5 million difference, which is $600,000 a year. It's a lot of money for district. We are a company that's been around for 25 years, have never faulted on a contract, and also take care of a current district of your size. If the reference sheets had been called and checked on, that would be known. But that was also a reason why we were rejected. I really appreciate the board's time. Thank you all and thank you very much. And I hope
021that you could table this decision a little bit longer, take a closer look, and reconsider having us as your vendor so we could serve you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Bruce Bar. Good evening. Big crowd. Uh, my name is Bruce Bar. I'm the owner of Yellow Bus Group. Um, I have been on your transportation contract. I'm not here to cry over spilled milk or to try to change your mind. Um, I've been in the school bus industry for um, 48 years. I was involved in Danville public schools back from 1986 to 2004. Was one of the senior managers with a first student and rider back until the time that I left in uh 2004 and started my own school bus company. I had a school bus company called Illinois Central School Bus. I started with 10
022yellow school buses. I ended up with 3,300 school buses. I operated in 11 states and I um had 61 facilities, 30 of them that are bigger than the one in Danville. So I think that my record alone stands for my experience. Um I um I came here I drove down from Morris basically to talk to you about the bid process, not to get the results changed because you're going to vote on what you're going to vote on. Um, I was uh I was also the largest family-owned school bus company in the United States. Um, when I got out of it, um, I was interviewed by the US Department of Justice um, several times for the lack of competition in the school bus industry. I74 was a dividing line. That was the line in the sand.
023Um, it was back when Laid Law bought for a student and I everything south of I74 belonged to Laid Law. Anything north belonged to Ryder. That's just facts facts of the story. Um, I want to say that the bid process that you at Danville, like I said, I've probably put thousands of bids together in my career. The lack of transparency and the lack of timing affects biders. You put a bid together. You put this on the internet and you put it available on 35. You wanted the bids turned in on 3:14. We received an addendum at 10:00 at night on Thursday, the day before the bid was due. I had already dropped my bid off. Not going to change the result of me not having audited financial statement, but your process, something's wrong with the
024process, as I'm just telling you from experience. um to have a 30 or $40 million contract to be able to be voted on and put together in a period of eight days. And that's probably why some of the reasons you don't have competitive bids. Illinois Central, which I own, they didn't bid on it. They bid on it before that they didn't bid on it again because of the process. Um and I will close and I'll sit down and shut up. Um, Ran Tool Schools 136 was bid last week for student which is here. That's their contract. They had five biders bid and the school bus industry has changed where the mom and pops of like the Robinsons in the world are gone. They're not here anymore. They're all owned by equity groups. They're all owned
025by Wall Street companies. Um, but I'm going to go back to Rand Tulle. Ran Tulle is a very similar district. It's not as big as Danville. Um, they were bid last week by First Group. First student took the rates down and raised the raise the rates 3% a year for the for up to five year contract. So they had an increase of 12%. Total took the rates down, increased it 3% for year two, three, and four, and five. So you got 12 12% over five years. your contract, your $30 million contract, first group raised the rates 10%. 7% and four and four and four, 29 to 30%. There has to be somebody in in this process that thinks that there might be something wrong with the bid process. District down the street gets 12 and
026we get 30. I watched your board meeting um from six months ago, three months ago where you basically were chastising first group for not giving a good service. I I watched it. Um but according to this recommendation, they are wonderful. I'm just telling you that competition is good. And thank you for at least listening to me because I think that the difference between Rand Tools numbers and your numbers will cost your taxpayers about $2 million over the life of your five-year contract because there is a lack of competition. Predatory pricing is possible. um because I've witnessed it for like I said 40 some odd years and I watch how they they could predatory price all kinds of stuff. But again, thank you for listening to me and sorry if I ran it on for a
027little bit. Thank you. Thank you. Patty Walters Good evening. Uh my name is Patty. I am a former student. I went all through school here as did my husband and all three our two of our children. Um and I am here to speak to the potential that um there may be a settlement voted on this evening. Um for the sup former superintendent or um I'm going to read a little bit because that's easier for me um to kind of keep the emotion in check. But uh I just I think that the board in February, I don't know how many of you were here. Um there were a lot of people that spoke up and were incredibly passionate and unfortunately didn't influence any change in that moment in terms of the votes and um I I
028don't know if it's too late for that. Um but I just I think the expectation is is that the board acts on behalf of students, families, staff, and taxpayers. It is not time to vote on a settlement yet. There are still too many questions. Um, so we've heard things like leave no stone unturned. Um, just because you can doesn't mean you should. And I'm asking for a motion to table. I want that to be something that you ask for tonight. I think there still needs to be a fiscal audit, which has not been um something that's been talked about very openly. There has been requests for an investigation and I think ultimately um due diligence. There are a few board me uh members that are leaving um after I think there's one more meeting after
029tonight. Um for those of you that are leaving, do the right thing on your way out. Let your last decision be your best decision or don't vote at all. Um I don't I there's no reason to rush this. Um I think I saw a headline not too long ago where um Mr. Hart said that morale is at an all-time high. We didn't rush a paid suspension. We don't need to rush a new superintendent and we don't need to rush a settlement. So, I'm asking you to take pause. Um, delay a settlement until you're confident that there's been no breach of contract. Your last order of business must be to demonstrate that you care more about Danville District 118 than someone who repeatedly demonstrated that she did not. Um, redeem yourselves with those who voted you
030uh voted for you to represent them. Please show this group of advocates that their voices matter and simply do your due diligence before writing a check bred from manipulation, intimidation, and self-serving strategies that made this made it this far. Please be your own voice and let go of what has been perceived as an alliance that cannot be broken despite the obvious. So again, I I'm just asking that you motion to table, that you do your due diligence and investigate someone before you write a big ass check. So that's all I've got. Thank you. Um Amy car. Good evening. My name is Amy McCarti and I am here tonight as a concerned and heartbroken parent. I'm here because my 12-year-old son was assaulted at Northridge Middle School and no one contacted me. Let me be clear
031about what happened, but rather let me read to you my son's witness statement as taken by the school. And I'm going to leave out the student's name because the school failed to redact it of the name of the student who assaulted my son. At the beginning of first hour, the student was whipping someone with a charger and then then he came and whipped me. I after walked out to get water and he came up behind me and he tried to strangle me. I asked him to stop so it doesn't look like a fight and I held on to the charger as I walked back to the classroom. When I got to the classroom, I was not letting him have the charger, so he threw two chairs at me. I told Mrs. rose what happened so
032I did not get in trouble and the whole time I was trying to diffuse the situation and I did not get hurt. The dean of seventh grade students handled the incident. She had my son write that statement and she even inspected his body to check for visible injuries. Despite all of that, despite the severity of the incident, despite the emotional and physical risk my son faced, not one person from that school contacted me. In fact, when I finally heard about it a week later. It was in passing from a teacher at the school who thought I already knew. "I thought the school would have called you," she said. And when I reached out to ask the principal what had happened, he had no idea what I was talking about. The dean told me she hadn't
033contacted me because my son said he was fine. Let me be very clear. My 12-year-old child does not carry the responsibility of deciding whether I, his parent, should be informed after he's been attacked. This is not his job. That is your job. As educators and administrators and caretakers of our children during the hours they are in your care, it's your legal duty. It's your moral duty and it's your human duty. By not calling me, you took away my ability to care for and support my child. You decided I didn't need to know that my son had been strangled and had had chairs thrown at him. In the state of Illinois, strangulation is a classified as aggravated battery and a class C felony and could carry a penalty of two to five years in prison for
034an adult. But no one called to tell me that my son was assaulted in this way. The student, I was told, was disciplined. But you decided that my son's voice was enough to override your responsibility. And that decision is not only unacceptable, but also dangerous. I want to know how something this serious could be minimized. I want to know why your protocols, if they exist, failed. I want to know what steps are being taken to ensure this does not happen again. Because make no mistake, this is not just about one incident. This is about a system that let my son down, that chose silence over safety, that place paperwork and assumptions over parental partnership and student well-being. So tonight, I'm calling for immediate review and reform of your incident response and parent communication policies. I'm
035asking for clear guidelines that require parent contact when any physical assault occurs. I'm asking for accountability for those who failed to follow through. And I'm asking for your commitment, board, right here, right now, that no child or parent will be in the dark as we were. It's no secret that Northridge is a dangerous school. Multiple teachers and employees of the district cautioned us not to send our son to the school for fear of his safety. If the incidents of this past week are any indication, and they are, the school needs not only a reform of disciplinary policies and procedures, but it needs more student resource officers and more hall monitors in the school every day. Not just when 20 students from rival gangs fight in the halls or when a frustrated student threatens the school.
036I foyed information from the Danville Police Department for police calls, incidents, and responses to Northridge for the last two and a half school years. I was sent 17 pages of police calls. Every one of these responses to the school compromises our student safety. Cause include juvenile problems, harassment, threats, civil disurvance, battery, multiple fights, sexual assault, drug activity, a suspicious person with a weapon, psychological behavior or suicidal tendencies, an armed person, and the list goes on. I have a lot more that you need to hear. And if you would welcome, I would share it with you after the meeting. Sorry, it's okay. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name's Chris Eastston, Dr. Ashton, Elder Parks, Mrs. Shrader, Pastor Miller. Tonight, I'm here to speak directly to you. Collectively, you've served on
037the District 118 Community Consolidated School District for over 40 years. That's more than 640 schoolboard meetings together, not counting the special times, which I know are very special. You've shown up to make some difficult decisions, ask hard questions, and do what you do best, advocate for what our students need. That kind of long-term service in a community is rare. You can look to Urbana and Champagne to see some uh examples. It doesn't happen. It deserves to be recognized and appreciated. And I want to thank you truthfully for your public service, your commitment to education, and most of all, your commitment to our children. I know that the mission of District 118 is close to your hearts. You know the mission, though I'm surprised it's not uh put on the wall in here, to ensure each
038student reaches their full potential. I believe you've worked faithfully toward that goal. And I mean it when I say it. I have personally never doubted your motives or your resolve to make a real difference in the lives of our children and their families and our staff. And that's why I'm here tonight to ask you to continue that legacy of careful community centered leadership. On tonight's agenda is a motion to consider a settlement agreement with Dr. Alicia Gettis. I understand this is a significant and sensitive issue. I do not pretend that it's easy, but I do believe it's important for you to know that timing matters. In just a few short weeks, a new board elected by our community will be seated where you sit or close by you. In Pastor Miller's case, this new board
039will be new organization will come and it will guide the district in the next chapter, a better chapter. I believe and thousands of people who live in this town also believe that this newly elected board should have the opportunity to be a part of this decision. I'm here to remind you what you already know. You are under no immediate pressure to act tonight. None. Voting to table this motion is not a vote against resolution. It's not a vote for delay for delay's sake. It's not punting. It's a vote to let the people who were just chosen by the voters have a voice in shaping this decision. Voting to table the motion tonight is a vote to pause, reflect, and ensure transparency in this process. It's also a vote to protect your legacy. And I know
040that it matters to you because you would not serve for 640 board meetings for nothing. More than 40 years of service. I believe I believe in my heart that you want to leave this district in the strongest possible position. Not just administratively but relationally and hear me ethically. Pausing now would demonstrate to our students, to our staff, to our community. It would demonstrate a pause would demonstrate humility, foresight, and respect for the voices of the people who put you and the incoming members of this board in office. Dr. Ashton, Elder Parks, Mrs. Trader, Pastor Miller, I know that you care deeply about this district. So tonight, I respectfully ask please vote to table this motion. Good evening board. Uh Mr. Hart, Jacob Brett, St. high school principal here to share some brief updates on some
041changes to graduation. Um, graduation will still be held as planned Saturday, May 24th. The location has changed to the Palmer Arena. The time has changed to 10:00 a.m. Uh to give you quick rationale for this decision, at our last graduation planning meeting, um we realized that and this is a good thing, but bringing the home stands up to ADA compliance reduced seating capacity. Uh in experimenting with different stage placements on the field, we re excuse me realized that um it would result in really a poor viewing experience for the majority of the audience. Um, and so if we wanted to have graduation on the football field as we've always had, we would have to reduce families tickets from 8 to 5. Uh, so we made the choice to move to the Palmer Arena. And, uh,
042we made the choice to change it to 10 a.m. Uh, simply because the reason it was at 11:00 in the first place was because the home stands face east and we wanted the sun to be high enough in the sky so people weren't staring into the sun for the children's graduation. Uh, so we will get formal communication out to you in my weekly communications this Sunday. But quick and recap, uh, graduation is Saturday, May 24th, Palmer Arena, 10:00 a.m. Weather will not be an issue. We have air conditioning. Lock it in. Laura Williams. Good evening board. I'm here to talk about the debacle that happened at Northridge the last week. The one that probably everybody in this room and in this community have viewed on Facebook because kids get to carry cell phones around and
043document such incidents. I'm appalled at the behavior of the students. I'm appalled that I have to make excuses and be embarrassed when people ask about coming to this community and they ask about our school system and I have to be the person that tells them I've heard things. Now I've seen things and it's appalling. I'm embarrassed that I have to tell my own daughter that I don't think we should send our her son there next year because of the atmosphere. It's a family hardship to figure out how collectively we'll come up with $10,000 to ship them to Bismar one kid or 4500 to go to Schlurman to avoid this outrageous behavior. It is unacceptable. As Mr. Eastston just said, the mission to ensure each student reaches their full potential. We have a lot of educators
044and a lot of educated people in this room tonight. With Maslo's hierarchy, what's the first thing that has to be met before a student can succeed? They have to be safe. How can they learn if they are not safe? How can teachers teach if they aren't safe? We have to do something better. I don't know if that's restructuring. I'm not sure what the answer is. You've been chosen to lead this community and Northridge has to change. There is no ifs, ands, or buts. It's outrageous. How can we expect students to learn? How can we expect students to reach their full potential when you have several students acting like fools and the rest of the students trying to do the right thing? I never thought I'd see the day when my grandson and his entire group
045of sixth grade kids that he hangs around with are all talking about how afraid they are to go to Northridge. Why should that happen? Why? It's outrageous and it makes me furious to think that we're not doing better. We're smart. We're educated. We have helps. We need to in use those. We need to immediately take cell phones out of the school. You all know how many problems stem from cell phones. That's not a safety issue for a student to carry that cell phone to school. It's a safety issue for my grandson to attend that school. We need to stop the cell phones. We need to look at restructuring the system because it's not working. We talk about dollars. Dollars need to be put into making sure there are people in that school that are regulating
046until it can self-regulate on its own because it's not happening. We also need to have parent accountability. We need to make it inconvenient for them. If your child wrapped a cord around my child's neck, I should expect to have my butt up in that school getting my child from the school and making sure that it doesn't happen again. We need to look at the discipline policies and I understand there's a discipline committee and we all need to pitch in and help however we can but then that needs to be implemented at your level and with board approval again to ensure each student reaches their full potential. How in the world how many seen the videos? How many's heard the rumble? How can anyone learn in that system? anyone, please do something about it. It's the
047last thing in the world that I would want to say my kids didn't attend Danville schools. The last thing I'm very proud of Danville. I wasn't successful in Danville because I was allowed to fall through the cracks. My kids were successful in Danville because they weren't allowed to fall through the cracks. and I'll be danged if I see my grandsons not be successful because of idiotic behavior and unaccountable people. Please make sure that every student has the right to succeed. Thank you. Well, We already did the golden rule of recipients. So that should bring us the sixth business finance transportation. Good evening board. Mr. Hart D118 family. I am Narcissus Ranken, director of business and finance. Um and this evening I have a recommendation for transportation bid. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. Um, the
048current transportation contract is ending this school year. Um, the district solicited competitive bids for student transportation services beginning with FY26 school year through the FY30 school year. The bid opening took place on March 17th, 2025. Um, we received bids from three vendors, First Student, Robinson Transport, Inc., and Yellow Bus Group of America. Per section 10 20.21 of the school code, student transportation contracts must be awarded by first considering the bidder or bidder or biders most able to provide safety and comfort for pupils, stability of service, the factors required in the bid documents and then price. After careful review of the bid submissions, we determined that the bids submitted by Robinson Transport Inc. and Yellow Bus Group of America are not responsible. Robinson Transport failed to provide a description of its present operations and a list
049of outstanding transportation contracts and as a result we have concerns about Robinson Transport's ability to provide a stable service to the district. Yellow Bus Group was recently formed and therefore was not able to provide the required audited financial report. As a result, the bid is not responsive and does not demonstrate that it can provide stable service for the district. Um, First Student provided a complete and thorough bid. First Student has provided transportation for Danville School District 118 for more than 20 years. We have continued to work collaboratively to provide quality student focused services. It is our recommendation that the board of education award the student transportation bid for the 20 FY2025 FY2026 FY2030 school years to first student as presented. No board. What do you say? You have a recommendation in front of you. Do
050you have a motion if you want to approve this? I'd like to move to postpone until the next board meeting because I do have I'm concerned about the 12% Ranchel got and ours is going to be a 29%. Sorry. Yeah. If you're going to make the motion, do you make a motion to do that? I do. Okay. And then and then we'll have the discussion and I'll let you discuss right then. Okay. But first, we have to it's parliamentary procedure that we have to go through the motions here. If you we have to entertain the motion to postpone. I would need a second for that if someone wants to do that. Second. Okay. The second motion and a second discussion. I am concerned about the rate increase. Is that true about Ranchul getting a 12%.
051So when at the time of my bid opening, I don't I don't know what Ranchol's percentages were. If they just recently had a bid opening, I wouldn't have known that. I would like to know that information. And I did call around to districts to see like what they were pl what percentages they were getting and it was about the same not what ran received the same as for student for us. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Any other any other questions or if not then I'll ask are these numbers negotiable? Uh I see the numbers then and they brought up the increases and they're sitting right over there. You can't answer yourself. Um but with like first student are we able to negotiate with them? We have a bid but do we can do do you are you
052able to negotiate after that or do you just be able to accept that bid? You could accept the bid as is and as the years progress you could negotiate. You can renegotiate and Mr. Hard and I worked with legal counsel through during this whole bid process. Could you say it again? I didn't hear you. We worked with legal counsel during the whole bid process. We wor the whole process. Okay. Um Okay. All right. Well, you the motion in front of you is to postpone or table to the next meeting. Is that would that be um to to the author of the Yes. I'm concerned about has as they said about our just the timelines. I'm concerned about how we handled our bid the bid packets. I guess I guess I just need to know when
053you want to postpone too. Okay. 23rd to the next meeting. Yes. Okay. Otherwise, you could postpone it indefinitely. So, I'm looking for, you know, I'm just trying to be specific. That's all. Can I ask a question? Yes. If um if let's say the board said they did not want to accept this um like they said you wanted to negotiate or do does that mean that we would have to completely turn it down and reopen the bids? How does that work? So, the negotiating part, the way I understand it from speaking with legal counsel is that we would have to accept it like Mr. heart said and then later on discuss negotiating a a different uh percentage and or decline it and then start over, right? Is that okay? Those are the two options. Okay. Okay.
054Any other questions? So, you know what we're voting on? The motion that we're going to vote on is to table this to the next meeting. Okay. Not an up and down. This is not to approve the motion or disapprove of the of that bid. It is to table to the next meeting. Okay. Any further questions? Seeing none. Roll call, please. Mrs. Corby, yes. Mrs. Shider, yes. Elder Park, yes. Pastor Miller, no. Mrs. Holler, yes. Miss Pay, yes. Dr. Ashton, yes. Motion passes 61. Okay. So, we be postponed to the next meeting. Okay. Okay. Thank you. We can work on that or answer. If you have any questions, bring them to the proper authorities. All right. Let me see if my thing will let me go back. I did something wrong here. I have way too
055much information on here. Item seven, curriculum. Thank you. Um, engineering essentials. Thank you. Good evening, board. Um, tonight I have a um a recommendation if you remember from the last meeting um Mr. Brett and I brought up um a course for you called Engineering Essentials. and it is um a course that we'd like to offer for our freshmen to really bolster up our introduction to the project lead the way offerings that we have at the high school. And so we'd like your recommendation um approval on the recommendation tonight. Move to approve. Second. A motion and a second. Um roll call, please. Oh, hold on. I'm sorry. Any questions or comments? Roll call vote, please. I'm sorry. Mrs. Shder, yes. Elder Park, yes. Miss Pay, yes. Mrs. Holler, yes. Pastor Miller, yes. Mrs. Corley, yes. Dr.
056Ashton, yes. Motion pass zero. Seven 7B. So, I have another recommendation for you tonight, and this one is has a lot of pieces to it. Um, so I'm going to summarize it as succinctly as I can. Um, I have a recommendation for um, some materials. We piloted um, for 5 through eight some science materials and um, it didn't go well um, for it wasn't a good fit for a lot of our students. Um, and so what we would like to do is continue working with our IQ Quest materials for the majority of our science students um, and bring in an expert to really um, work with our teachers on developing um, with some science curriculum with some open source. Um the expert that we would use is somebody that we've worked with before and had
057we were very successful with our high school science teachers absolutely um rever her and she did a great job with those um when she worked with the science the high school science teachers Northeast did um really like the science materials and they would like to use those um and so the total cost for both of those things or the cost um to continue would be to use for our fifth and sixth grade students would be $44,183.77 and we were asking for um $41,000 to work with a science expert and she would have us like um that would be the maximum that we would ask for. I don't know that we'll use all that money. Um, but that would allow us to have her help us write some curriculum with open source, which means it's free
058available curriculum that we could utilize, but she would also do professional development with the teachers in fifth through 8th grade. Um, and then we would have a set curriculum that we would bring to you after that. And we would continue to use iquest until that till we had that ready to go. Move to approve IQest and the use of uh an expert. Thank you. Second. Second. So these things that are in our board packet, are they iquest or are they what work? Oh, they're samples. They're samples of the work she would do. Oh, of what she would do? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Not of the ones that didn't work. Okay. Okay. Who's the expert? Dr. Carol Baker. She actually um wrote a lot of the NGSS standards and also wrote the assessments, helped write the assessments
059for the state. Um she's renown and she's she makes everything very um easy to understand and then when you're working with how it works in the classroom, she makes it engaging for the students, engaging for the teachers. um we really enjoy working with her and so she's this is what she does now. She's retired from the classroom and she this is what she does as her job through the ree the regional office of education through the state. Any other questions? So is this a total of $85,000? I um I'm going to hope that your math is I mean it's the two together the 44 187 and the 41,000. Yeah, those two. So the materials would be the materials would be the thing that we would that cost will stay solid. We may not pay that
060much for her, but that's like the what we would we would hope like that would be the most we would pay for her. Yeah. I I got I just I have to restate this. That's why. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, what you're going to vote on is this the whole bundle here. Um 44 4418377. Come on, get back to the top. Thank you very much. This is screwed this up. Okay. So, you're voting on um upper elementary and middle school science course materials and support. Uh it's not over $85,137.77 I think is what what it is. I think that's what it is. What's your Any questions or comments? Is this a yearly fee? No. Um once we purchase the materials, they're ours and we don't have to do them. we may have to pay like a
061small um piece for the online portion which is typical for like all of our materials now have an online component to it um but it's it's not significant and then um if we continue to work with Dr. Baker we would like it it would be however like next year if we wanted to work with her again um it would be however much we wanted to pay for her to come and work with us. I don't know that we would need to do that, but she's pretty fabulous. So, I might come back and ask you to do that, but we'll just see how far we get. We also have folks in our office that can do that, and I love science, so that's what I taught. Thank you. So, I can do that, too. Okay. Roll
062call vote, please. Mrs. Holler, yes. Mr. Shider, yes. Park, yes. Miss, yes. Pastor Miller. Yes. Mrs. Gorman. Yes. Dr. Ashley. Yes. Motion passes 70. Thank you very much. Thank you. No. Thank you. Special education. Cooperative agreement with Lumilian Associologist. Good evening board. Mr. Hart. Molly Bailey, director of special education. Um each year we enter into an agreement with VACE uh for aiology services which includes um both um help with our equipment and also um uh services for students who qualify for special education 504s through a hearing impairment or sometimes they don't. If they fail a hearing test, we sometimes just refer them to VASE for a hearing test um which is at no cost to our families. Um, this year Vase was unable to hire a full-time aiologist, so they've contracted for $100 an hour.
063Our portion of that is approximately $22,000. So, I'm asking for um approval to pay the cost of the cooperative agreement for this this whole school year um for approximately $22,000 to be paid from the idea grant. Move to approve. Second. Thank you. You have a motion and a second. aiologist in the area of $22,000 per hour. Any questions or comments? Seeing none, roll call vote, please. Mr. Miller, yes. Mrs. Shider, yes. Miss P? Yes. Mrs. Corley? Yes. Mrs. Holler? Yes. Parks? Yes. Dr. Ashton? Yes. Motion passes 70. Thank you. Um, okay. B, um, this is another contract. Um this would be with Mr. Jimmy Casus and Associates. Um his team has been working with us this school year already um a little bit um working on building positive school climate and culture um within our
064staff and students which ultimately will lead to better outcomes for our students. Um Mr. Kasus was our keynote um and you I'm still hearing people um talk about him. They reference him here um to you and um everyone seemed to love him. Um he's also been bringing uh Miss Joy Kelly. We also had her at our October um professional development day and her room was packed so we had to bring in extra chairs. Um so they are likable and um their message is timely and um appropriate. So what we're asking is to continue this through um mid next year and then maybe we'll come back again, you know, if if we like what we're getting. Um, Miss Joy Kelly would work with four building principles in their buildings. Um, South View, Southwest, Edison, and Me
065Park. Um, and um, doing that mostly. She'll come and she'll be in the building. So, she'll get a good feel for what it's like and do some coaching sessions with the principles and then um, some professional development. And then Mr. Jimmy Costus will do some on-site coaching with the central office and also some Zoom sessions with us as well. Um, also included is a culture assessment of those four buildings. Um they're extremely responsive. You know, if you text them, they are right back with you. So that's all included at no cost to to us. So I recommend your approval of this contract and services listed above at a total cost to the district of $62,000 which will be paid out of title two. Move to approve. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any
066questions or comments? Okay. I have not voting on Jay Cass and Associates $62,000 for services. Roll call vote, please. Miss, yes. Mrs. Gordon, yes. Park, yes. Pastor Miller, yes. Mrs. Schider, yes. Mrs. Holland, yes. Dr. Ashton, yes. Motion passes 70. Thank you. No, thank you very much. Item nine, school supplies for K through 12. Good evening, Mr. heart and board of education. I'm Kelly Trux, director of education support services. Um, I'm always happy to come up at this time of year to uh recommend your approval that we provide all kindergarten through 8th grade students backpacks with school supplies, including but not limited to crayons, pencils, erasers, notebooks, binders, markers, tissues, ziplockc bags, scissors, glue, dry erase markers, and other various items. The list came from um each building gave us the school supply list, each
067grade, so they are customized to the building and the grade level. Supplies being purchased are designed to last the entire school year. Danville High School has requested that we go with the clear backpacks. Um we had a a large abundance of school supplies left for Danville High School um from past purchases, so they are going to utilize those school supplies for the next year. but we can always purchase more if we need to. Um, building supply lists were provided to Educates, which is a school supply kit building company. We've used them for a few years now. Uh, they will be shipped to buildings and ready for students on the first day of the 2526 school year. The total cost is $174,765 for 3,558 kits. And the average price of the kit is $49. And we'll
068be using Title One funds for this. I feel like this is a good um use of our title one funds. Thank you. What do you say board? So move. Second. Have a motion and second for school supplies backpacks for the fee of 174 $174,765. Any questions or comments? Good job. Last year, um, right before school started, I was at one of the big box stores and there was a parent. She had four kids and you could tell that she was struggling financially and she was looking at the school supplies. And I told her, I said, "I don't mean to be nosy or intrude, but District 118 is providing school supplies for all the students from K to 12." If you could have seen the look of relief on that mother's face, you just wouldn't believe
069it. Um, I think it's an excellent idea. It's the first year this past year is when we did K through 12. And I will say I've had no requests for school supplies this year. So I think that what we purchased really worked. Um I haven't had a lot of, you know, the principles haven't asked me for school supplies. It's already April. Maybe a few things have come in. So um they've been very sufficient and they dropped their prices for us this year. Any other questions or comments? If not, voting on school supplies $174,765. Roll call vote, please. Elder Park. Yes. Mr. Yes. Mrs. Yes. M. Yes. Mrs. Shel. Yes. Pastor Miller. Yes. Dr. Ashley. Yes. Motion passes. 70. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Technology. Summer refresh. Summer time. Summertime. Good
070evening board. Mr. Hart. Annette Hmel, director of technology. Um this time of year doing summer refresh again. So, um we are looking at uh replacing our Chromebooks about 800 Chromebooks this year. Uh we're going to focus on Northridge with the 14 in going with the larger since um they're like uh our high school. They're on their devices a lot more than the rest of the students. We're also going to replace 175 laptops and 144 desktops for staff and teachers. So the total cost is going to be $847,000 555353. That's total with lease and warranty. Um title will pay $644,595.84 84 which leaves uh two thou $22,95769 of local funds out of our budget which I have already accounted for. Move to approve. Second. Any questions or comments? Yes. Is this um