001under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> The board will now move on to public participation portion of the meeting. Uh Dr. Andrews will begin with the superintendent report. >> All right. Good evening. So November 15th is recognized as school board members day throughout the state of Illinois. The day honors the dedicated individuals who served as unpaid volunteers who giving countless hours each month to support our students, staff, and community. Tonight, we'd like to extend our sincere appreciation for all of our board members and their continued commitment to and service to the district. Thank you all very much. [applause] as a sign of our thanks. We'd like to present you guys with some candy candy. >> Good. Great. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Just what you want? Yep. >>
002Yes. >> Next. Congratulations to Mrs. Sean Sler who has been named the ISA outstanding speech educator of the year by the Illinois Elementary School Association. Mrs. [clears throat] Segler is an English teacher here at High School and also a speech coach at Middle School. So again, congratulations to Mrs. Segler. Show her [applause] keeping the good news coming. Congratulations to Mrs. Neil Roberts, assistant principal at Donna High School, who was named the Central Illinois Valley Assistant Principal of the Year by the Illinois Association. Congratulations, Mrs. Roberts. [applause] Um, just a very brief construction update received some information from Dr. Kman previously on the training center. Um, but commit work for Wild. um entering into conversations about FF pictures and have been underway. Um so Rachel has been scheduling those meetings virtually of course there as well
003to secure and offer their site as well. So that is that for now. Um just a reminder that fall break is next week. There will be no school next Wednesday through Friday the 26th through the 28th. And just a quick um update on the hickory grow power situation. Uh shortly before the board meeting um started the switch gear that was determined to be the issue why we couldn't turn power back once restored power to the area has been replaced. We are in need some additional um supplies to completely finish everything but we are at a point we are up and safely able to be up and operational. So happy for that. Um, finally, um, our foyer requests. There have been two foyer requests since the October 15th meeting, and those kind of view of those
004requests. Um, next, our athletic director, Jason, and Coach M are here to recognize, one of our students. [applause] We're super excited to introduce [clears throat] our new state champion, please come up. Mom, dad, she's here with dad Luke. Here's mom Deb, grandma and two brothers. And then go up. [applause] Had a great year. He was out state champion in 2A boys state golf. He was the turtle star golfer of the year, boys golf of the year. And we also had the girls golfer of the year, Sydney Hunt as well. So both them were they're both juniors. So again both juniors and of the year plus sports boys golfer of the year. He was first team all the high conference and obviously state champion as well. And uh when he was at sectional he finished second
005at the m or regional and then high for second at the Bloomington section and then got hot at the right time at the state tournament. on Friday shot a two under and then went to uh the clubhouse tied for first ahead Saturday morning where he shot a three under on Saturday became a five under and state championship that he well deserved. So again, congratulations buddy on a great year and something I can't take away from you state championship. Congratulations so much. [applause] >> [applause] >> as he headed into he broke the course record but a week prior to the ali tournament 61 to break the course record first day he does goes and buys some putter case a new putter to the conference tournament I'm thinking what are you doing and he walks into the
006regional second I what you're doing and then go tie your second section and then a week later do exactly what he's doing. State champ. >> Love it. >> Good stuff. [applause] [laughter] >> That's great. You sound good. Okay, at this time we'll move on to public comments. Is there anyone who wishes to address the board? If so, raise your hand. Okay, this concludes the public participation portion of the meeting. The board will now move on to information discussion items. We have a presentation from Jim Helton. Jim, if you want to come up and sit in the hot seat there as it were. Jim is from the IA IASB. He's going to provide the board some information on the services offered uh by IASB for the upcoming superintendent search. >> Good evening. How are you doing?
007Good, >> Jim. How are you? >> All right. >> Teresa. All right. You got >> All right. Make sure I don't >> Yeah, we've met. Good to see you. >> Yes, sir. >> We've met. All right. >> How you doing, Nick? >> All right. Good. >> Very good. >> All right. I'm going to go ahead and go ahead and just take um one of the folders. Um my background um taught and coached in the I80 corridor. So I was there for 17 years. Spent quite a bit of time in the classroom. Um and so en enjoy that teaching and learning piece. Uh I spent uh half of my administration as a principal. So I was a prek3 principal and a junior high principal middle school southern part of the state. and then superintendent uh for
008nine years at uh Waterlue CUSD5. So as a unit district about 3,000 students uh metro St. Louis RA uh started working for ISB 10 years ago. So I retired 11 years ago as superintendent ISB 10 years ago and then two years ago I needed to step into leadership for executive search. So that's fulfilling that as well. Uh we have Dr. Rick Zimmerman, another uh consultant that has been, you know, talking with Tom with regards to being part of the search potentially. Um we'd like to tell you what we do, have you have some questions and uh so all right, ready? We're ready for this evening. All right, I'm gonna do this instead of that. I have the old coach's voice. It probably carries so I think we are all right. Um and again a little
009bit of introduction to oursel to myself. Um you know what we do uh we are a market leader. Uh we do more searches in the state of Illinois than anybody else. Um we have over 60 years of executive search experience. Uh 300 years of our consigned football experience. So we've got a very veteran staff. Uh we have a great network reputation and process allows us to attract a consistent strong pool of candidates. Um over the last several years the pool has reduced a little but it's very strong and I think that that's one of the things that um by by having the schoolboard association we're able to continue our network. We'll go through that a little bit later. Um your foundation traditional is to employees. And so, um, as you work with your outreach and
010trainings folks, uh, in your governance training, as you know, so one of your principles, one of the most important pieces is for you to, uh, find that superintendent, hire that superintendent um, and, uh, then, uh, work collaboratively. We're the only organization in Illinois uh whose primary goal is to serve Illinois boards of education. Um we have our policy, we have our outreach and training teams, we have our OGC, we have our governmental relations, and all of our departments support what we do. Um so we're not isolated. The good thing about being part of the schoolboard association as well is we don't double dip in the fees. And so the fees that you pay to be part of our organization are reflected in our so we're not going to double dip in the fees. And so
011we've been highly successful keeping our fees down and keeping our service. All right. This is our national outreach. Uh we have an affiliation with the national affiliation of superintendent searchers. There's 39 states throughout the United States made up of school board associations that also have serves. And so these schoolboard associations, they are strong in policy, they are strong in best practice, they are strong in integrity, and they we know the state laws. So having that alignment, if we have an out of state applicant, we go straight to them and say, "What do you know about this?" So having that next level of um just reference checking is is really important for us. Um and the the other piece of that then too is we collaborate uh one time a year. We'll get together in the
012summertime. uh collaboration. We rotate our uh chairmanship and leadership and this year uh Illinois is the chair. So I'm the chair of the national organization for this coming year or we're going to host the conference in Chicago where do we host where where do we recruit? Um so we have extensive professional association activities and networking. uh the IASA which is the uh Illinois Association of School Administrators and Superintendent Group, IHASBO which is the school business officials group, IPA, principles association, and then we also have professional advancement seminars. So the superintendence association and us put on three seminars a year for aspiring superintendent. We'll do two in the Springfield area and one in the Lombard area. And so we'll just have a full day of networking, a full day of what it takes to meet uh
013an application through our process. Uh gets them in front of us, gets us in front of them uh and just expands that network. The other piece that we have is our nationwide uh national affiliation of superintendent searches. When we post a search, it will go to all of those 39 states. All right. In addition, some of those 39 but not all of them are part of our Revelas application software. We have 17 states that is if an applicant fills out a profile with Rebellis, it then goes to 17 states automatically. So having that outreach is just one piece that um probably sets us apart from some of the other uh firms and search firms. Uh so having that uh you know I think that integrity piece of the h having that integrity piece of the
014network is incredibly important. Um we also have um a 29 state cosmetic group and so we used to belong to the national affiliate or the national association school. We now belong to the consortium of state super we've been able to get a 29 state application portal from their website. And so if you go to the cospite you're able to see all the 29 states and all the superintendent openings on that. We advertise and highlight that. Another piece of it that we have those principles, superintendent, assistant superintendent, business officials, um human resource folks, everybody that wants to be part of our network and we highly recruit that. Uh we have over 8,000 educational leaders including some of the people who work at universities. Um, whenever we do a posting, we'll send out an email. All right.
015And what's the posting on? And I can give you I have a couple of examples of types of um vacancy announcements. So, large book format and smaller format. But these are examples of whenever we get a high whenever we post a position, it will blanket the 8,000 emails and then whenever we update it, there'll be another 8,000 folks that will go out. Whenever we are have a deadline posting, they'll get another update. And and so this vacancy brochure is one of the pieces that we work with the district to develop. Um and this is exclusive professional network that we have um blankets this and electronic for. And so that digital form of your uh vacancy announcement will be distributed um at least four times per year or of course by four times per service. the
016in the piece that I gave you, you're also going to see within that first there are the steps of a process. Our steps align with our calendar. Um our steps of our process are basically we have a proven pyramid step where basically where we facilitate a search to meet the needs of the district. We have we will have a designated search coordinator that will be available for consultation. We will assist the board of education in establishing the timeline. This is a generic timeline based upon what I've had conversations with board presidents are. Um, right now we have signed two 27 contracts and so this is typical to what some of the 27 searches um is going. We're we're now doing the presentations um potentially board action. We've got two contracts already approved 427 already. Um
017word action potentially in December uh January and February. those surveys. What we also do is we have a 15 uh question survey that is tied to professional leader standards, leadership standards and that is on online survey kind of a quantitative piece that we will survey the board. We will survey your staff. We will survey your parents, guardians, we will survey pardon your community. You tell us who you want to be sent to. What we do is we have you force match five leadership traits. We will then take the data, find congruence, report out in an open session on what the ideal candidate traits that districts are good looking. There's other pieces of that can also be added. Um, do you want superintendent experience? You want principal experience? to a teacher experience. Those pieces can also
018be added to that online survey. Um but but those online the professional learning traits professional learning standards um are tied for each district. Every vacancy announcement that we put together is unique because of that. All right. Basically, it's what the district is telling us you're looking for. The other piece that we'll do that's part of that ideal candidate profile. Um we can come into a district and also do focus group work. Um it works better if we target a couple of days. We work with the district to follow. Let's say you want um representatives from your elementary spoken to staff representatives parents from your middle schools. Same thing with high school. We will meet with those individuals. We can start as early as 7 in the morning or actually 6:00 in the morning till 9:00
019at night. It doesn't make any difference. Our days are we charge for extra mileage or anything like that. But basically what we will do is add additional questions. What is ideal? What what characteristics are you looking for for your new superintendent? What's unique about done lab? All right. What do you do well? What are your challenges? So having those four additional questions, you have the quantitative piece with the online survey, having that qualitative piece where we sit, we listen in a non-biased way and collect data and then we'll report out this is what your group said and we can probably do your district in a couple of days, I would think, if we align the groups really well. Um it it's a waste of time to say we're going to have a community forum and
020whoever shows up will do that. It would be better to invite certain folks to a community forum and then we can do that on this and we can talk about that down the line a little bit. The other piece of it um we'll provide guidance on appropriate compensation package. Um we will announce and and advertise the vacancy. Um, generally if if we do something, we'll get everything worked in the spring of the year and then we'll hold it until that late June, July when we'll post and then we'll post and we'll have probably at least a four week five week posting at that point with a full brochure and what you're looking for and all of the timelines by At that time, we will work with the district to align for calendars to make sure
021that the board is ready for when the deadline comes whenever we have round one interviews, round two interviews, etc. And that's what that excellent next part of the timeline is. Um, we could get the slated candidates to the board in October with uh there another part part of the package that we have is we have a practice interview potentially where if the board is interested in that um myself would guide the board as we would a final interview or the final applicant uh that we would show you and then one of our consultants would interview as a candidate. um interview for the position. He would study the district and he would interview as a position. We would then brainstorm. We would uh talk about what we did well, what what could be improved and then
022we you would be ready potentially for that first round of interviews with a slate of candidates. Um what we'll do again is um there will be more than there'll be at least two potentially three consultants involved with the lab search. We take a look at what you quantitatively tell us and qualitatively tell us what is and what we've advertised. That's what we sell whenever we network. And then whenever we screen after we have a closing and we screen, individual consultants will screen based upon what you tell us. And then we'll get together and compare our notes with our dashboard and say, "Okay, which ones need additional conversations?" And so we'll have additional conversations pre-screen zoom at that time with 10 to 12 folks then to try to narrow it to that six five. All right.
023If if you have internal candidates, we talk to the board about how you want to address the internal candidate. And so all of those pieces and every district's different. There's 850 some in the state of Illinois. 8 probably all 850 of them deal with internal different. All right. And so it's we are there to work for the board and work for you. Um at that time like I said we train boards in proper questions what to do. We help you with round one, help you with round two. Uh in round two there's another component that we find very s uh successful is uh basically having stakeholder groups one or two groups and it can be either heterogeneous or homogeneous of 20 folks 30 folks that will meet your second round uh candidate. Um and basically
024how we'll do it is we we'll set up the schedule um kind of a wagon wheel type approach where the board will interview a candidate focus groups will or stickers will interview a candidate. But the way that we have feedback is we'll take your ideal candidate trades and they will rank each each of the semi- finalists based upon in a likered scale based upon your quality based upon how well they match what you're looking for. All right, we facilitate that as as well. Um after that, you know, we'll provide guidance and uh you know, basically finalizing the contract and and such with your superintendent. Um and then we'll, you know, they'll be if the district wants to conduct a site visit, we'll aid in that site visit for the finalist that you choose. Um and
025then hopefully we'll have a new superintendent hired by December. um that way they can uh transition from wherever they are uh and uh to to be with you by that July of 27 time frame. And probably one thing that really aids in what we do is we will have our house region training director meet with a board and the new superintendent within six months of our hiring and you will have a starting right workshop setting and getting the district going into directly with that whole leadership team. As we said the as per enrollment your standard search is 9,400. Um, if you want additional fees, the fees would would add to that if you wanted, for instance, we can talk about this in the future or uh in a future time. Um, but you know, if
026you want per per day stakeholders on the front side, I I suggested maybe two at this point. Um, would you, you know, want potentially a practice interview piece uh and then the stakeholders at the end potentially a couple and that would add to that 9,400 price. Why we're responsible only to you? I mean I be quite honestly um we have a high success rate over 91% of our superintendent placed in their position or the first contractor position. Uh we have a statement of assurance. Uh if something goes ary, we're not going to go anywhere. We're here with you. We also have a guarantee of service. Uh one-year guarantee. Should something happen in that one year, uh we will come back and repeat the search for we will do that. Um as we said, over 55
027experience in Illinois. Um we've served in 85 different counties, 411. The followup training is incredibly important. As we said, that is free. Um and part of what we do I think what we do well um the city uh we partner with this superintendent association they have for the first three years of a superintendent they have a mentoring program and so having that one-on-one mentoring for them is incredibly important. Um so we all are in this together we want everybody to succeed. Um, we would love to have done questions. Went through it quickly. Uh, but I gave you some homework. So, you have a lot. Uh, how many was on the board the last time? Superintendent. >> No, >> just Teresa. >> All right. Very good. >> You know, I'll ask a question. make a comment
028the uh the timetable that you put up there. Um I know we we're taking advantage of the fact that we know I mean it's a retirement. It's not someone leaving for a different job or something. So we're able to back into that and you've obviously backed it up all the way to today or this point. And so, um, I'm I guess my question is is the is the, uh, whatever that is, 20 months or, um, is that is that pretty typical or do you think this >> we're going to be quick or long? >> Are you Well, I would say you're quick until this year. Um, we've just signed two contracts for 27th already. Um, they're asking the same questions. Are we quick? Are we? and it's like, well, I I I guess we're ready
029to go. I I think quite honestly, um, if districts know there's a there's a retirement and the superintendent is leaving, it gives time. You don't have to rush it. We can uh what I think is is a timeline that gives us a little bit of flexibility. If if you want to um lengthen a little bit, you can lengthen a little bit. if you want to do the, you know, the surveys in February, we've got time to do them in February. I mean, schools are busy and we understand that. And so, from our standpoint, um, like I said, we've had two 27 searches already. We've written RFPs for two more. Um, so know your number. Okay. questions for Jim. >> How many times in the past has ISB um been involved in Dunlap superintendent searches? >>
030Pardon me. >> How many times in the past have you guys been involved with DL super? >> I know we did the last one. Um it's a great question. Um because I know Tom Ley was uh in my role when the when district was hired. Um, and I I was one of the readers on the back side of it. So, I know that this I thought we had twice. That sound about right? >> Other questions for Jim? >> That follow-up training is part of the package, part of the base package. >> Yeah, it's Yeah. follow-up trading quite honestly is I think the icing on top of the cap. We [clears throat] talk about a proven pyramid, but really it has a star on top of pyramid kind of >> makes everything I think shiny. >>
031And so you had mentioned um the numbers like 10 to 12 candidates first round interview. Is that what you mentioned? >> Generally what we'll do is we will pre-screen about 10 to 12. >> Okay. >> We would generally recommend uh six in at five, six, seven candidates in that first round. Okay. Um I mean to give us a chance to then we have that expectation of confidentiality to get through the first round. Um today I mean four or five years ago I probably wouldn't be talking about it but you know people were um a little more open to applying for jobs etc. And now uh they need to go back to where they are and continue to be successful. So we have that expectation of confidentiality with that. Some folks I know um we don't
032show all the applicants etc. I mean that's what you hire us to do and kind of narrow it. We want to make sure we work with the district and reflect what you're looking for. >> Yep. >> Okay. Anyone else? How many how many current ones do you have open right now? >> We have 15. So, and we just like I said we just find we just had our 15 and then we had two more that were getting um in the brochures around. And so it used to uh before the fair uh or fair wage law passed, we used to be able to post stuff um without the full brochure. Now we can't and so now we have to have both the full language and the contract part of it and so all of that benefits
033etc has to be part of the posting and so it it made us kind of do things a little bit differently as well. you can get a contract signed with the district work on the back end um and it would go into our portal but now it goes in as a upcoming vacant and and so that's kind of how we are able to uh parse that a little bit but I think the law's good I mean you know and it's good and bad because you know some folks will say okay um I don't know if I can go to the district for that amount money and that's good. Um I think where in the past they might apply thinking that the salary might be such and such but I think now um the candidates that
034we've gotten since January one um have been serious about the jobs. >> Okay, Jim, thanks for your >> anything else. >> Thanks for your time. I'll uh I'll get feedback from the board and we'll uh we'll be in touch. >> And there we go. >> I'm going to mess with the text. >> Thank you. >> All right. Appreciate it. >> Better do this one more >> handshake thing. Okay. >> I'm old school with that. >> Sure. I like it. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Appreciate. You bet. >> Safe travels back. >> Yes. >> Yeah. I think I'm going to JAC right now. So, >> okay. >> Enjoy. >> Thank you, sir. >> Thank you. >> Next one. Okay. Very good. [clears throat] Okay. Information regarding the school activity accounts
035has been included in the board packet. Is there any discussion? Information regarding an outofstate baseball tournament has been included in the board packet. Is there any discussion? I did get a question about this. Um was sent to me and Dr. Dearman. So, um I'll just make mention that um I did get that question and this is very similar um to the one that was uh handled last year all but everything in terms of expense wise. It's not a district thing. Um there might be uh some gas money involved but otherwise it's out of state so it requires our uh approval. But that's really the long and short of it. Um, next, Dr. Andrews will present information regarding the Illinois report card for 2025 school year. Dr. Andrews. >> All right. Lost. Great. [cough] >> [clears
036throat] >> So, um, at the end of each October, the state, uh, Illinois State Board of Education releases the previous school year's, uh, report card metrics after they've finalized everything. So, that embargo is lifted on the 24th. Communication was sent out to the community about that. Today, I'm just going to talk very quickly about the summit of designation calculation process just so some of the metrics make sense. Um we will come back to that very quickly and talk about some proposed changes that will change how calculations are made moving forward. Um that is currently being finalized as we will be submitting that uh shortly for final approval. Um we'll talk about the actual data from school year 25 and then an update on um for the district strategic plan um also the pre-com very very
037high level. Um first uh the annual sum summits designations are outlined there. Um and as we'll be focusing on the designations that our buildings receive which were on exemplary commend commendable which are the highest two. The chief difference between exemplary and commendable is that to be exemplary you have to be in the highest top 10% of all schools. That's the fixed number um that they have. Again we'll talk about that calculation here in a minute. Um you cannot have any underperforming student groups uh within that mix as well and high schools have to have a graduation rate over 67%. Ours very much so was um we had another successful school year. Um we had four of our buildings earn exemplary um status and four commendable DP grade high school middle and hickory grove all earned
038exemplary status and banner view valley commendable status each having success in various ways. um when comparing it to previous school years. Um in terms of the calculation, this infographic breaks it down for elementary and middle schools because those are grouped together, K8. And then for high schools, they have their their own metrics, some similar. Um the chief things that account for the largest amount when determining their overall summitive score, they get a a score out of a 100 and that determines where their designation will be. Um [clears throat] but for elementary and middle schools growth on the English language arts and math assessments which are chiefly the Illinois assessment of readiness but also it includes um performance results from the uh dynamic learning maps alternative assessment also referred to as the LMA and um at
039the high school the largest is graduation and they calculate that in both in composits of four five and six year graduation rates. Um this um is outlining uh just a couple of changes that have happened since last year that affected this year. Um for this year uh for 25 school year um that was finalized in August. Proficiency benchmarks were updated which is accounts for 7.5% um for math ELA. Um and then um it also attributes for science for fifth, eighth, and 11th grade students, but um it applies to the building overall. Um previously you had five performance levels with the A and you had different terms of four different levels for ISA and SAT. Um SAT's um levels were not used. Illinois had determined their own proficiency benchmarks and did not utilize the SATs. So,
040Illinois had been had entered in for some time and again it updated over the summer um what the right size um assessment profiles and performance levels benchmarks would look like. And so now across all the assessments because the high school has gone back to the ACT, they have the same performance level names. Um, and for the ACT, the state is utilizing this the ACT's historical data in determining what would lead to a successful um collegiate experience in earning at least a C or higher um in college earning in college credit courses. All right, so um this chart if you click on it, it'll have historical data back to 2018 as well, but this just shows the metrics for 2025. There's a lot going on here. Um, for each different indicator, there is the raw score
041and then there is the weighted score. In terms of determining that summited score, which you see um down here along the bottom, um, that is the that is adding up all of your weighted scores. If you're curious as to how we got to that number, but each year your thresholds do change. So, but when taking a look at this across the board, of course, in buildings do this individually. We do this at the district level obviously as well and then we work in concert to make sure that our work is complenting one another. Um but all of our buildings in terms of proficiency um they earned above average profic proficiency when looking at scores. Um but just in terms of when comparatively looking at some buildings versus others. Um just noting that for math in
042particular um we have different things we're doing within the district. We have um PD that we've entered into um with ROE 53 um that we have staff members that are attending that and that will help inform some of our next steps for math programming um as well as a math program evaluation that we will be completing at the district level. Um so there'll be more information coming on that but that whole that whole complete program evaluation and those are things that you do you can do that in two ways you can either do what's called summitive evaluation or formative this will be summitive in nature so longer it takes into account more longitudinal data and research and then develops a plan about how we're going to target um and improve programming and gets of course
043the most important stakeholder feedback um science proficiency um just note that Um for the past several years, several uh there have been several changes to the uh proficiency metrics. It's either been not recorded. It's been just based on how many uh the percentage of students that tested um at fifth, 8th, and 11th grades um or it was using just starter proficiency levels that they had. Well, when they changed proficiency levels for ELA and math, they also for science. And since the assessment they created, they now had historical data. they updated their benchmarks because they determined that their previous benchmarks were too high. So that's why you do seeum a dip there. You have a dip across the state with that. But um we um will continue to as we do with our what's called the
044GBC work evaluate our science priority standards. Um, ISBY also has released new new practice information that's been available um to staff members because the science test has changed quite a bit and how the the kids are assessed on their knowledge of those concepts and skills is a little bit different. So to make sure that the first time they're not seeing that way is the day of the test um they have some better resources available to districts. So we're excited for that. Um and then finally chronic absenteeism. We'll talk a little bit more about that because we have seen some uh some growth and improvement there. Um but in terms of how what we are doing to target that and to increase um our student attendance, we do have the we have expanded the title one
045student service support specialist positions. Um we had that at Valley um and partially at RGU, but now we have dedicated positions at Valley Ridgu and Wilderweight. And Stacy Dillinsky at Valley also does spend some time at home support grade school as well. So, lots of outreach to parents, um, speaking with students from homebound, um, connecting families with resources. It's just it's made a tremendous difference. We'll talk about that in a second. Um, additionally, a new, uh, platform that we, um, have been working on in the curriculum department. We'll be getting that out to staff that will allow us to monitor not only academic data um, in real time, but then also monitor student attendance. teachers, the administrators will be able to see that and see a whole company profile um with with all students and
046also schoolwide. So, we're excited for that. But again, to celebrate some of our success, again, all building proficiency performance are above average or expected performance levels. Um at math and ea growth rates are within the typical range um with Dun Middle, Dunlap grade, Hickory Grove and Walweave showing strong growth rate for math and middle valley, Hickory Grove and Walter showing strong growth rate for E. Uh Dunlap grade um average math growth rate increased by 18.9 93 percentile points which was fantastic. They did phenomenal effort there. Um and Valley decreased chronic absentism one year by just over their 7% which is pretty fantastic. Valley also increased the English language learner proficiency performance by 27%. Also fabulous speed of making sure um that we are helping our newer students in the districts who are not proficient in
047English get proficiency. If you are wanting to take a look um linked here, it's illinois reportcard.com um but direct links to the district report card if you were to look at the presentation which is on board book um would take you right there. It has lots of the information I just presented plus more in terms of financial data. It does break down um assessment data into different demographics subgroups. Um it has the whole entirety of the school profile there. Um just to start talking about a little bit of historical data that we've always reported at this time, the ACT SAT performance table has been updated again. Last year we had returned back to the ACT um after transitioning from the ACT to SAT in school year 2017. Um so just so you can see comparably
048there from uh 2017 up to 2024 I have um the concordance table calculation of what our ACT average was based on our SAT performance. They are not the same assessment whatsoever. Similar skills are being assessed in nature but not they're not complete apples to apples. So in terms of where our performance is again we've had another strong year um especially when we're taking a look at what our average what our average is compared to the state average is approximately 18.5 across the state. So fantastic job by our high school students and staff members. All right. I said at the beginning that there are some changes to the performance um to this performance summit summitive designation process for school districts for what we are realizing right now on school year 26. Um first those summitive designation
049ratings will change from what I talked about on the left exemplary commendable targeted death uh to exemplary commendable approaching developing a comprehensive and Illinois is proposing at this time that in the past because about 70% of schools live in the commendable state they are really looking at the new commendable as commendable approaching development and you rank there based on some cut scores we'll just briefly go over here in a So things have the chance to look a little bit different. Um again you had your academic and your school quality and student success indicators before for both elementary um day eight and then high school. Now they have what are called um what they are saying are streamlined core and elevating indicators. So at the top here of this the bottom right um proficiency data across
050math, ELA and science um will be one of the four indicators. growth on those assessments would be another and then the graduation rate for high school will be the third core indicator. Elevating indicators below Illinois or English language uh progress is one that you use through the ELP consistent attendance which was chronic absenteeism. So now we're just flipping that and we're not looking at the percent absent but rather the percentage of students who were present for uh 90% of the school year. And then uh the climate survey participation as well. your performance of that can't lower your building's designation. It can only raise it. That's elevating indicator. Um, this just explains what those are and gives you what it used to uh used to be if that applied and then um or a description of
051its redesign and then uh what it replaced if that applied. Um here are the cut scores and really the biggest takeaway from this is for those core indicators which then will help us determine what our overall building destinations are. you will get that information much sooner. I as different data came in throughout um the summer for the past several years um have made my best educational guess because again that threshold score changes every year based on what your top 10% because it didn't matter. It was just always your top 10% of all um elementary schools and high schools. So um that is good. So we'll always know where we're at there. So very helpful for that. Um this chart just um shows on the left there. Um I said that before you had se approximately
05270% of Illinois schools living in the commendable summit of designation with the bottom five being comprehensive and intensive. On the right for both K8 schools and high schools is based on their actual calculation of 2024 and 2025 data there. That's the approximation of what spreads may look like moving forward. So again, before you had the majority of schools living in that commendable, now you might have some that are still within those commendable ratings, but just with a different thing. So, and the whole intent of that is just to help schools have very specific conversations and approaches to the school improvement process. They're things that we do um that's not uniform across the state, but all of our buildings um we have conversations at the district level. We have them with building administration and building administration
053has those conversations with their building uh with their um district building leadership teams. Um and they um based on that that's how they form what their their goals and plans will be for the year. So that's not everywhere but this is the state's way to try to provide some uniform support um to districts. Uh previously again some historical performance that we had presents on was our star um reading and math proficiency. Um just to see if we are seeing um an improvement from fall to winter because you do typically see a little bit of performance dip there um based on what's called the summer slide or what's referred to as the summer slides. We always want to see um that students are um increasing proficiency based off that star reading and profici star reading and
054math proficiency tests are given as our universal benchmark assessment that we are required to give. It helps us to identify students who might be in need of additional intervention and support and and target and help students there. So these are just charts there that are showing our fall to winter um growth. Again, historically, we had started this back in 2019. This is just for continuity sake. Moving towards the new metrics. Um, as long as there is no push back, we'll probably change that differently. Um, and just present that information in a different way. This, um, before that was proficiency. This chart is um, showing the growth percentiles. So, this is just your average growth of students across the district compared to their academic peers. So students who performed similarly three tests before the most recent
055test. And so we want to see obviously 99th percentile will be great for everybody, but we certainly want to see um within the typical growth range or above. Um and we're seeing average range the average ranges there being 55 SGB for both reading and math for the last school year. So that is good to see on our end. Um here and this is a little confusing because um the completed uh for last year here is the second to last column for AP historical performance. We had 364 students tests and take 77 778 exams. Um 342 of those students had scores of three plus um and that's the of the students who took it. So 93% almost 94% of students um receiving passing scores which is a tremendous help when they get into college. Um and
056then finally on the right you just see the number of total number of AP students and the number of exams that ordered is because we get those started here in the fall. So what scores and everything will look like you will see after the students test and wait. And then finally again very brief um if you just remember from the strategic plan their goal two um actually has two goals that concern academic academics and student achievements. The first is creating opportunities for students to explore college and career pathways. The second is utilizing stakeholder feedback and data to create curriculum special education and student services department plans. Dr. Hastings had previously um this year presented presented [clears throat] on the progress that special ed made. Um so we're going to talk about this shortly. Um for
057goal 2A um just note that we are continuing to have conversations and are getting as much information as we can about different ways that we can expand our CTE or career ready um opportunities for our students. And that includes talking with local um entities that have similar off that have offerings that would meet that need as well as things we can do within our building as as we currently see it before that we talk about more expensive options um to meet that need. So eventually uh Mrs. Skazlab and I will present a little bit more on that, but just know we have that. If you have any questions about that, more than happy to share yet another spreadsheet with you. Um, but we have that to monitor that. Um and then for our department plan,
058so how we came to the curriculum department plan, we um developed a comprehensive survey um and worked with our elementary, middle, and high school curriculum councils to make sure that they felt like that was going to capture and give us the information we needed to inform our next steps for how we improve our curricular programming. Um as well as some human resources things that were on there too. Um overall, we had 190 responses from all relative classifications. Um with those curriculum councils, we comb through the feedback to determine our priority items and then also talk about phrasing is how we would um word those goals. Um and then additional um uh stakeholder feedback from families will come with future work of our uh curriculum department plan. Um we are currently within the third iteration of
059that plan. If you were to click on the the bottom uh image here, it would actually take you to it. So you can so you can read those in depth. They are separated by level. Um you'll see that the current year is pretty topheavy, but that's all of our feedback and the goals that we had prioritized um with the curriculum councils at the end of last school year. And then as we are meeting and targeting those things and determine what our next steps might be, we'll then fan out those um additional indicators and place those into the next two school years. So that's the process and where we're at with that. I like to have a plan on the page, be clear about where we're going and why. Any questions about that? >> Yes. >>
060You go back to the AP slide. >> Yeah. >> Does the increase in the amount of AP students correlate to the population of the high school because it looks like it's going up 10 11 12% every year. >> Yep. That plus increasing our AP offerings um over the years has significantly increased that. We have as teachers um talk with students about their courses as they do every year um and encourage students to take it. I always did with my AP uh class that I taught. >> You shouldn't have to be in honors. If you feel like you want exposure to to the goals or to the goals of the program and to the skills that will be helpful in college, I encourage them to take it. Teachers do too. So selling the courses, the increase
061to that um in our increase to enrollment certainly. >> But it doesn't but that isn't uh unless I misunderstood Teresa. I mean that doesn't tie it's not a oneto one I mean it's the sales as uh aspect or it's the identification of more students being interested or something that isn't that isn't tied to the the growth of the district. It's not growing by 10% year-over-year. >> We've also like with our course the ones that we've added um we've also expanded so like sophomores there are more than like that definely add to that as well. Thank you. >> Other questions? >> I mean, there's a lot there. So, we're going to reserve the right to ask you questions after we have time to study it. Matt, >> you know, I like to talk. Absolutely. >> And
062saw the uh >> tons of data. >> The chronic absenteeism. Yes. >> Improvement. That was good to see. Do you It's obviously what over 7% improvement at Valley. Have you seen that? Are we seeing that districtwide too? I know it was an issue that come out of >> co. Um well uh we continue to have a healthy percentage of students who do miss over 10 or 10% of the year for various reasons. Um whether it's for travel um or for other circumstances it does happen. Um it's otherwise if you look at the historical data it's about stable. Um but having individuals in those positions that are title one buildings where typically that has been higher has been extremely helpful. and hopeful that we'll see the same upgrade this year while they're waiting. >> Great. Good
063work. >> Okay. Thank you, doctor. >> Information regarding the Dunlap High School course selection guide has been included in the board packet. [snorts] Is there any discussion? No discussion. No one's commenting on that. Okay. Information information proposed revisions. It's not a sentence, Miranda. Information regarding proposed revisions to policy 410 has been included in the board packet and Dr. Andrews >> will present information regarding these proposed revisions. >> Yeah, I can quickly uh put that up. quickly. We've fallen for that before, >> but for policy 410 just outlines uh fiscal uh business management for the district. It doesn't currently have in there about how the board um assesses fees uh and approves those annually. So, what this does is just formalizes that um and it outlines what those fees are. Um so for this these first
064two sections there um that is um almost verbatim taken from uh the Illinois school code um is what those school fees mean. Um the collection of fees section is just explaining the process of how we otherwise work to collect those fees. So at initial registration, parents have the ability to pay online with a credit card or the option to pay with cash or check and submit that to um the respective agents of the building that would collect that. And then uh from there if the fees are not um collected, we do continue to reach out to families um and ask to collect um with an invoice of an itemized invoice of what those fees are. And we do provide them um information about what's in policy 4140 which outlines not only what is available to
065free and reduced lunch families and as well as the um the option for e-waver for families that may not necessarily qualify for free or reduced lunch but otherwise um experiencing financial hardship and need um to be excused from paying those fees. So at each of those junctures, we remind them of that. Um at the as the information item um had toplined in anticipation for this um we currently have just approximately $140,000 worth of uncollected school fees. And so this is just trying to formalize the process of how we go about collecting those unpaid fees. um a program a an application um that our district registar Kimble Fool had sought out and we are currently working to get in all all of our buildings but she started here at the high school the pilot to make
066sure it was everything it set up was going to be um they've been very successful in collecting so it was quite a bit of money right away so um the high school's figure I'll just go back to that table that breaks down on the fees on the high school's uh figure looks substantially larger than the other buildings not only because there are more students but because fees fee balances travel with students as they come out of the high school. So that's why the fee balance at the high school looks much larger because you might have uncollected fees for for several years but everyone is is attempting to do that. So the proposed collection of unpaid fees process would be of course us working with families to the extent possible. Um but if we are not
067getting any um any sort of communication and are not able to enter into uh payment agreements um with families then um looking uh at least having the option to um sending those unpaid fee balances to a collection agency. Um, and then after there, if we're still not if we're still not getting progress there, um, the potential there for file to a small claims per curve report to file students. >> Okay. Do you have um I don't need it now, but is do you have aging to that? >> What's that? >> Do you have an aging chart like to that 142? I mean, do you know how old some of those dollars are? >> Oh, uh, yeah. Um but we could figure >> I mean when the say a kid graduates >> y >> I mean
068does did they fall off of this or so this is just these are only active students there could have been some dollars that fell off with the most recent class >> that got away the district can't withhold graduation >> I know that but their but their debt has been historic torically just absolved at the point of graduation. Okay. Yeah. I and and we had a minute to talk about this. I don't even remember when that was, but it was like last week or something. I had a question about it. And uh the district does is willing to work with anyone that's interested in settling this up with payment plans or >> whatever. just we don't want it to go and I yeah so as much as you don't want to you know throw around the
069term or you know have it discussed you know collection agency or this sort of thing um I I think it's wholly appropriate and I I don't like the idea that you can just uh be be neglectful of it until your kid graduates or is no longer in the district and then somehow got away with it. I mean, that doesn't seem right to me for those that are paying. So, I mean, if collection is the way we have to go, I don't like at all the idea of the small claims court business. I think that sounds like a lot of time and energy and resources, >> but I think the collection agency gets it to the same. Again, I'm not a proponent of using them, but I don't know what else you would do. >> As
070written, the language would just give the district the option. So, it's not that would be 180. We're going to file that paper. >> Okay. Questions for Dr. Andrews. >> Dr. Andrews, are what's the highest amount? I are these are these parents that continually do not pay. So like every year it just continues. I mean, is it in the thousands for some? >> You could be. Yes. >> They're in the thousands. >> I mean, that's crazy. >> Interesting. Thank you. Is there is there some kind of a waiver for those who have financial hardship? Yes. Leaders have to apply for it. >> Absolutely. So when our office staff members um will send out their invoices, they remind them of or tell them that a payment plan is an option as well as link the waiver. That
071would be all formalized here with this process too. But we will we'll have uniform letters and everything once we know what our process is. Thank you. >> Okay, good. Thank you, doctor. Next, Mr. McKenzie will present information regarding the 2025 tax levy. >> Thanks, Mike. Is there any discussion? [laughter] >> I try. >> Well, it's going to be quick, but not that. >> Um, all right. Every year we have to do a little presentation in November for the property taxes. Uh I like to start off by uh reminding people the term especially new board members. Uh what we're talking about is the levy. We we ask for a amount of tax revenue. That's what we ask for. We ask for an amount not the rate. The rate is finally set by the uh county. Uh
072the AV is set by the county. the tax rate is set by the county and then when they do all that, the extension is the amount of tax that we're actually going to receive, but we're actually asking for a dollar amount for this county to levy. And what um the first step uh is tonight we're doing our levy presentation has to be uh 20 days before the adoption of the levy. Um because it's what I'm recommending is over 105% of last year's, we have to do a a truth in taxation hearing. So we have to public size that. Um has to be on our website 30 days before the hearing. So it's been up since last week. Um uh and then we have to publish a notice in the newspaper which is scheduled to be
073on December 4th. uh has to be 7:14 days before the actual hearing which is uh at the next board meeting on 1217. Uh I'll ask you to approve it on 1217 and then I have to file it with the uh county clerk uh the last Tuesday of December by the last Tuesday of December. Usually I file it the day after we pass it. So I'd be finally going to need to just to be sure that they had get it plenty of time. They always call me if there's if we're getting close, but still uh process I follow. I uh I talk to the county assessor uh about what they're estimating our taxes are going to be. I do it every year. They're usually pretty accurate in August. They said 7% in August. I talked to
074them last week. They're still saying 7% is what they're estimating. There's still several large uh tax uh uh challenges that are running through the system. So, uh it might be a little different from that, but they're still expecting 7%. There is one large one uh that could change that down by, you know, 6.9% or something like that. So, it's not going to end yet, but it still should be near that 7%. Um then I through the budgeting process and through this uh October November period I start looking at different projections and try to figure out how much we need um based on the EAB. Uh and then eventually I take the information to you. Um this is last year's tax levy for reference and where I mean that we asked for a dollar amount. We
075asked last year for the yellow dollar because our max rate in certain things like for top line our max rate is 2.7%. My law right now our limit is 2.7%. It's 2.7 unless we go out to a referendum to raise that but um so we can only get 2.7%. Well, I want it to be at 2.7% because where you know to keep that level. So, I have to ask for a little bit more than I'm going to expecting to get. So, last year we asked for 28,900,000. Well, based on the final EAV, which isn't set till March, and we're doing this in November, um that would have relate resulted in a rate of 2.7442. We can only be 2.7. So, the actual extension was 28432. 28,432,000. That's the exact actual amount we're receiving this year
076um for the levy for the levy that actually happened. So I we asked for what's in the yellow expecting to get what's in the green, you know, and so our final tax rate in the bottom right cell is 4.43624. That was the final tax rate last year. And it's a little strange because you have to ask for a little bit more than you expect to get. so that you can capture that max rate and the ones there most of them are max m have a max rate the only ones that aren't are tort IMRF social security and bonds bonds so we can issue whatever we've been approved to issue so um so there so that's our last year we got 4.43 even though what we asked for would have amounted to 4.49 or nine because
077of those limiting rates. We ask for more knowing that we're going to get the less ser. So this year what I'm recommending is um on this sheet there's cal there's the middle column the middle two columns there are 7% and 9%. We're expecting hit 7% but I'm basing the levy on what if it they're wrong and we're going to get a little bit more than that. We still want it to be 2.7 uh final rate for education and and all those tax rates. So, we're gonna we're based I'm basing the levy based on what if it increases more than 7%. So, I'm going to ask for 9%. Knowing we're more likely to get the 7%. We're almost certain to get the 7%. We're asking for the higher. So that what that comes up with the
078proposed levy of uh in the yellow the total is 50,781700 which would come up with a final tax rate assuming a 7% increase of to 4.434467 won't be exactly that and I don't know the final EAB and I won't know that until March compare that to the last slide it was 4.43624 43624 I'm you know I'm expecting it to be virtually the same maybe even a little bit down next year if it is 7%. So that is what we will be asking for you to approve in December and I'll I'll talk to the county and make sure that we're still one of the requirements of this meeting is I have to disclose to you our cash balances. We always talk about what what money did we have as of June 30th. This is the amount
079we had in each of our funds as of June 30th. So, we had $23 million in cash and $33 million in investments. The reason we had 213 million in the small print I put down there, we get 21 million from the county for our first tax assessment on June 20th. So, on June 30th, we had $23 million. So um uh that 33 million is really what I consider the money we had invested you know as of the end of the year but we just happened to get you know a week before that we get a big chunk of money which is we need to pay the fall payrolls and stuff. So [snorts] so that is just where we were as of June 30th. Um, this is a new requirement came out last year. Um, but
080fund balances can only be by state law two and a half times your expenses. [snorts] Not really an issue down state. Must be an issue up in the county um suburbs, but I don't know any school district has anywhere near that. But if you add up our or you take our expenses over the last three years and average them for the operating expenses, education, operations and maintenance, and transportation, that's for all the things we do here. Those are our operating uh funds. And then you look at our cash reserve balances, which track back to the previous page. we had a ratio of 683 which means we have um 683 uh I don't know how many how that translates to day but we always say we want to have 180 days of fund balance well 180
081days would would this would be a 0.5 and this is a 683 so we have a healthy fund balance but we certainly are not over fun overfunding or or anything by this one but this is a a requirement of the tax um just because I think some school districts have such large finances. Anyway, another thing we'll be asking you to do next week, next month is abate taxes on the uh uh on one of our bonds which we are paying for out of county school facility sales tax. the Valley. When we expanded the Valley several years ago, we sold bonds that we're now paying out of county school facility sales tax. We're not having the county levy money for us. We're paying it out. So, we have to tell the county formally not to levy
082for that. And that's what this abatement is about. It's a December thing. Every December until those bonds are sold off or paid off here in like three years, we'll be doing that process. And so we use about a million dollars a year of our [snorts] sales tax money to pay those months. So we get about$2 million of them. This year we're expecting about $2 million. So half of pay that. So [snorts] anyway, that's all I have formally. If you have any questions, >> questions from Mike. >> All right. >> Okay. Uh as always if you uh think of anything for next month please let me know. >> Okay this concludes the information discussion items. The board will now [clears throat] move on to the consent agenda. Are there any qu is there any discussion regarding
083items on the consent agenda? Do I have a motion to approve this consent agenda? I move to approve the consent agenda as presented. >> Andrew, can I get a second? >> Second. >> Okay, Mick. >> Any discussion? Roll call vote. >> I >> Okay, that motion carries. The time is 7:16. Board will now move on to action items. The bill list, treasurer's report, and district investment report [snorts] are included in the board packet. Could I have a motion to approve payment of the bill? Blush. I'll move to approve payment of the bills in the amount of 11,716,66644 cents. Is there a second? >> Oh, it's not here. >> Second, yousef. Thank you. Any discussion? Roll >> call vote. I >> I >> motion carries. Information regarding the 2026 2027 school calendar has been included in
084the board packet. Can I have a motion to approve the 2026 2027 school calendar? >> I'm I move to approve the 2026 2027 school calendar as presented. Okay, Andrew. Is there a second? >> A second. >> Okay, Nick. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries and it's 7:18. Information regarding the resolution providing for the issue and sale of not to exceed 62,750,000 of funding bonds of the district and for the levy of taxes to repay the bonds has been included in the board packet. Can I have a motion to approve the resolution? >> I move to approve the resolution presented. >> Okay, Mick, is there a second? Yeah, Andrew discussions. >> Yeah, I got a couple comments here, maybe a request. Um, so Mike and I had a
085conversation a short time ago about the 18 million that's um planning to be refinanced [snorts] to get to that number of 6275. >> Yeah, that's a good point. Let me back up just a second, Nick, for the those listening or watching at home. So, we've been um talking about the 44 million or whatever the number is for the Wilder weight. And what this is is we have currently outstanding some bonds uh in the 2014A and 2020 bonds is what they've been referred to me anyway as. And these would be extending those bonds some three and eight years out respectively in order to maintain the same uh tax rate. So in lie of having to increase taxes or go to the public about taxes. Um, we've envisioned being able to push those out and with that
086again refinancing them so that you'd have to take those, refinance them, add that to [snorts] that 44 and that's how you come up with the 62750. So maybe with that as the backdrop you can continue, Nick. I'm sorry. >> Thank you. So, for the sake of my being more informed on this and if it's to the benefit of any of my fellow board members, Mike, I'm wondering maybe if you could give us a little bit of insight to how uh the decision was was came to in terms of um the refinancing versus perhaps other options that maybe were either considered or might might be considered. >> Yeah. [clears throat] >> Uh Dr. Dear and I, you know, dealt with the uh uh with this uh uh and he can speak to it of course also,
087but what we do is when we do these kind of things, we have bond counsel that we use and uh we talk to them about different scenarios and we could have just issued the bonds, the new bonds, 44 million Um, and because of this new law, which is what we're using to uh cause to to build the new school, we had to do it in two steps. That's why there's an extra step in here. Um, so we could have issued originally just the 44 million and we talked about doing that. The problem with that is we for the next five years, we still have these old bonds sitting there. Then they would would be paid off. So we could we could have just issued new 44 million just paid interest for the first five years
088and then you know paid off the in the next 15 years 20 years total the rest of the box and that was one of the options we talked problem with that is you're going to have a spike of the property tax I don't remember the amount but it would go up a little bit um because we have that extra interest piece on top that we aren't planning that we aren't right Yeah. Um and so the other option was to refinance these two bonds, stretch out the payments a little bit on them. So you know, so there you know, so you have that and then that would and then when you layer on these new bonds, there would no there would be no expected increase in property taxes. And so it's a normal thing to do
089whenever you issue bonds like this. you start looking at the different possibilities. Um, uh, we like to smooth things out. It's easier for taxpayers to expect, you know, in the future that the rates are going to be about the same. And so that's what we try to do. Um, and so perfectly normal to do this. And so that's what and I know it was mentioned at one point in a meeting, but I I think it just got mentioned as an aside as being no big deal. And so because it is kind of a normal thing uh um but uh that you know that was what we talked about. Those are the two main scenarios we're talking about. We we try and keep them raise the property tax rate the same or are we willing to
090accept a little bit of a bump for five years so that then it would be a little lower after that. Um, uh, I know they're going to look great, especially, uh, there's been, you know, everybody wants it to be about the same because people, uh, especially public, you know, do not like variation in that if we can avoid. So, we don't like we don't like the variable. But anyway, so that's what the final analysis of how we decided to do it this way. And like I said, it's been this has been kind of going back and forth for over a year and a half. So, I don't remember exactly when we talked about it and this was said, but um but [snorts] it's always kind of been the plan because we didn't want we want
091to maintain the property tax as close to the same as possible. >> And so, we don't have like a theoretical number anyway. if we were to say, you know, pay for the, you know, pay off the the current bonds and >> project out. >> I don't have it right with me. No, I mean, I was asked about this right before I came over here, so I didn't have time. >> And you still don't know. >> Call. >> You were asked before the meeting and you still don't know. >> Still don't know. >> Um, >> I called. I mean I you know if we want that we you know we we could have we I can go back to the bond council that gladly run the numbers for me what it would be if we just
092paid interest only for those 44 million for you know how that would affect our tax rate. Um the other possibilities if if we had really uh some other money sitting around that we didn't need, you know, we could you know pay it out of fund balances, you know, pay some of it out of fund balances and do these abatement like we talked about. Um but we already know that we're kind of getting tight on that anyway. So I don't would advise you putting another strain strain on existing fund balances because that's just going to exacerbate that that issue. Um so I wouldn't recommend doing that. Um, >> in other words, getting too close to the 180 days that we've >> Yeah, you're going to get under that 100 day and 80 days a lot quicker.
093And we don't want to do that. And we certainly don't want to get into situations where cash flows are so tight that we start talking about borrowing money in in the spring because school boards are school districts cash flows are strange in the fact that we get all our money in the fall, June, September, we get all this money. So right now we are flushing cash. Then you get to April and you're like, "Okay, I got to transfer this out of that investment out of that." You know, everything everything matures because you're you're you're getting low and you're you know, so you got to manage that whole process. So it's very uncomfortable when you get to start talking money. I've lived through that in other districts. And I I just say that story not because
094I expect it to happen here. I just, you know, We're no we're nowhere close to that. But if we started um pulling those fund balance too far, that's that's the ultimate, you know, problem with that is the cash flow. So um so yeah, we could run numbers about that. We could uh do that. The problem is um you know we still have the 30-day we have you know these notices you know we have to do things certain days and so >> but we could and we we can we can approve the as it's as presented today and then you could come to us ahead of the December 17th meeting with some sort of epiphany. or different idea and we could always back >> back off of that number if we wanted to but we need
095to we have to stay at the same high water mark because you can't go the other way come back from >> come down or we can we can issue less but right >> you know we're we are issuing things to not to exceed number here. If we were to change our mind and decide we wanted to do it the other way where we just accept the fact the rates are going to go our tax rate is going to go up a little bit. I can tell you how much that is would likely be >> sure you know if if I figured out tomorrow but I didn't have a chance didn't have time today. So when I first heard heard this being an issue it was already right before I came here. So, um, but yeah,
096we need approval to do still do up two and then if we decide, you know, we could pull the word if there was consensus that we wanted to do something different. >> Okay. Other questions for >> Mike? Mike, I got a question for you and >> um >> I'm fundamentally I'll just tell you fundamentally against extending whether it's and I think we all know this whether it's your mortgage whether you would do a 30 or 15 [snorts] extend it to 30 to get that rate down your interest is very high right and I I think I had that number and I found that number today and um thank you for bringing that up Nick I agree is there what is the impact if we if we would table this today and take a look at
097all those options that you're discussing now because I'd like to understand exactly the numbers and and and I'll tell you it was the 11th hour for me too. I was doing this at midnight 1:00 last night because I've been so busy, right? Looking at these numbers. So I apologize for that. But is there a way that we can >> I don't think what's the impact if we million because we have these other bonds that have already been issued that are then going to be paid off with the new bonds. So, I don't think it's advisable to to [snorts] do under the, you know, to table it completely because we have to have these 30-day notices and everything. >> That gets us out of sequence with the 30-day with the four 30-day notices. So, we have
098to stay on track for that. >> And I don't think you cannot do the 44 million because we've already >> right committed to this one, right? >> 44 million, >> I guess. Yeah, I can do the 44 be a major mess uh if you tabled it completely. >> Um and if we tabled the 18 million um or you know reduce it to the you know to just doing the 44 million originally then that we could probably do without causing a problem. um 44 million I don't know you could not do it and not >> and I I appreciate your expertise and certainly Dr. Dear, I know you guys, you know, did the due diligence and review of this, but my concern is just I don't I know since I've been on the board, we haven't
099had an in-depth discussion about this item. Yes, it's the 11th hour, but the question is is like, you know, what is the number that the district's going to be paying, you know, over the long haul with, you know, versus paying these these bonds off now. and what does that look like in terms of uh you know our present financial situation and how urgent do decisions need to be made if we were to do something like that. I mean I don't want to speak on behalf of everyone here but I think it's worth looking into personally uh just to kind of get our head around it before we vote to approve. >> Well I think we should uh Okay. Is that I didn't mean to jump on your statement there. Since there's >> Yeah. Yeah, I'm
100going to get to that. I I was going to get to that here in a sec. Sorry. No, that's all right. Dear usually is here to hit me and Matt's being nice about that. Um, no, I would say Nick though to Mike's point is, you know, any sort of, you know, looking into this a little further um, between now and December 17th, I think is great and I think we should and I think everyone should get as comfortable as we need them to. Um uh you know hopefully there'll be at least four people comfortable enough that we're able to move this forward because if we don't approve it tonight it takes it takes offline maybe perhaps the the timetable which is very tight for the new school. That's number one. and and number two whether
101it's extending these or paying some with cash or what's owed is owed. So however we address that we are it would result in in the absence of this it would result in some sort of maybe small and maybe short term but it would result in increased in t increase in taxes and I haven't had enough information to be able to go out and be supportive of either delaying the the school uh project or giving anyone a heads up that their taxes might be going up. So, I'm comfortable that, you know, we might get some more information ahead of the the final vote on December 17th. And as I understood because I got it clarified from you, we can come down from this number >> 627 ahead of that meeting, but we can't go up to
102a different number. So, we can't I mean, it would probably make everyone uncomfortable to say, "Well, let's just approve the 44 tonight." But we can't do that because if we approve just the 44, then it goes back to my one problem about now we've just increased taxes. Maybe a small amount and maybe for a short amount of time, but we didn't give anyone a heads up on that. And I'm not comfortable with that. I'm less comfortable about that. I'll just interject my two cents and especially the new board members haven't been here that long, but it was my understanding all along that we are extending those current bonds. So, I don't really have any questions, but but I understand the concern and if we can move this forward and then between now and that next
103meeting address those legitimate concerns and see if there is an option for that additional >> dollar amount. I could get additional scenarios for you easily. I mean uh uh Bernardi is our bond council and this and Chapman and Cutler are the uh uh the attorneys on this. So I mean I can easily get I'll see both of them at in Chicago this weekend. So I won't talk to them tomorrow. But um we can get different scenarios. I know they have we have them. I mean, we've seen them over time, but I just don't have them in front of me right now and I want to update it anyway with new rates and new expected rates and stuff. So, I I can get I can get talk with them tomorrow and get you what the two
104different scenarios and why we decided to do it the way we do this and what those rates would look like, expected rates. I got another question. Sorry. >> So, um, and maybe you don't know this and you can get us the numbers, but if we would do the 44 million, I there we would not always need to increase the tax rate. Correct. I did talk to Dr. Endearment about this. It potentially if we're going to have 44 million, right, we're not going to we're going to do progressive payments on this school. So, we're going to be able to obtain some interest, right? Or from the investments from this. I don't know if you've calculated what that will be on a on an annual basis, but And maybe you know this, what that would be versus
105what that increase in the payment would be and would those balance out at least for the first year. Where would we at be with that? And we can always use reserves from my understanding to pay that difference because after the fifth year those taxes are going to drop dramatically, right? If we that tax rate because our bonds are going to go way down, right? Shouldn't it it will drop. I don't know how much it'll drop but after that that initial five years. That's where I'm coming from, right? We we're going to see some maybe it'll even out the first year. I don't know with the interest that we'll receive because we're on progressive payments for that. >> Yeah. Um I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I know we're we are expecting
106about $5 million of expenses by June 30th on the new school >> out of the 44 million. Five five and a half million is what the payment schedule the construction people put together tentative before bids and everything else. So uh tentative one we had uh I think it was it was over 5 million but you like five and a half million is what we were expecting to spend over I included $350,000 of interest on in the in the budget assuming we were going to get $350,000 and that was very very conservative amount. We have 44 million. We ended up getting it in October. You know, I didn't know when we were going to sell when we when I budget. So, I assumed we were going to get it more mid year and then, you know,
107and then we start paying down. So, I put $350. Um, probably that's very light. You know, you know, we're getting three and a half% interest rates right about now for that kind of money. So, um, uh, which is down from last year was still strong and, uh, uh, so yeah, I can I I know that's been calculated in the these assumptions and stuff, too. So, >> yeah, I just I'd just like to see the options of what those numbers look like. That's what I'm looking for. >> Just maybe there is a way to to not to not incur all that interest by extending these bonds. >> Any other questions or discussion on this? Tim, for the record, is opposed to any bond extension. Sent me a note today and I told him I'd [snorts] share
108that with him even though he's not here. I told him I would do that. So, um, okay, we'll call vote. Miranda, >> hi. >> Paul, >> hi. >> Wow. >> No. Tyra. >> Hi. >> Yeah. >> Nick, I'm sorry. I'm making a big deal about it. Did you say yes or no? >> No. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. I would just And I think, you know, good good questions, good discussion, but this kind of a big ticket item. Um I I want to see these questions and this some of this discussion. I'm all for public transparency conversation at the table, but uh I'd like to have some communication ahead of time so we could because we all want the answers. We all want the same, but I'm not comfortable um with the maybe taxes
109will go up or maybe taxes won't go up. I need a I need to be sure that taxes won't go up without notice to the constituents. and I I don't have that without being able to to move on this. So, thank you. Um, yeah. Is there a motion to adjourn to close session? Now, remember, you have to pick from the categories. No one got to me ahead of time, and I don't think we have to cover that. Anyone Anyone wants to all just get in a room together now and talk more? Okay. Um, could I have a motion to approve the human resources consent agenda? >> I move to approve the human resources consent agenda as presented. >> Teresa, is there a second? Second. Okay. Roll call vote. >> I call >> I >> motion
110carried. Is there a motion to adjurnn? >> I move to adjurnn. >> Okay. Andrew second. Second >> second. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Sign is at 7:41. Thank you. >> So I think they're going. >> Uh sounds like they are. >> Yeah.