Regular School Board Meeting - 12/11/2023

001[Music] you [Music] for [Music] I [Music] call us meing order regular board meeting December 11th 2023 can I get a roll call Y um Mr Sterling here Mr Thompson here Mr mcnight present M Carlson here Mr Smith here miss Hastings here miss Meeks is absent Chris Arduino recording secretary to Y superintendent Shelley Wagner Human Resources Scher instruction Josh ran business and operations Jason Bloom Communications community relations all right thank you turn it over to you all right good evening everyone so tonight we have Marquette Elementary joining us for the Pledge of Allegiance and so give us a second to everybody in sorry I used to committees that we do it ourselves so I'm just like why isn't anybody saying anything [Music] let us know when you're ready [Music] bro yeah parents need here there's plenty

002of room back here too I'm really excited to um introduce introduce Payton and Ella Sammy Elizabeth Olivia uh Gabby and Ella uh these students we had 16 students that have been uh at school since day one until today they have not been late and they've been there every day and these seven were able to come here and be with you tonight uh to do the pledge so awesome that is awesome if you would all please stand to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all we are going to do our Market motto so they're going to repeat after read I will be I will be respectful responsible and safe resp responsible and sa I can make

003I can make the world a better place the world I am proud to be a mini husky I am proud to be a Min [Music] [Applause] husy yeah I know I was thinking the same thing just tall enough [Music] [Applause] [Music] awesome go that way go that [Music] way I would like to appoint or yeah to appoint Megan Hastings secretary proon can I get a vote motion second uh Mr Thompson hi Mr mcnight hi Miss Carlson hi Mr Smith yep M Hastings I and Mr Sterling all right all right Dr yber all right thank you sir our mission mission of the Harlem Consolidated School District as a b of part of the community is to help diverse Learners realize their limited potential by providing an educational program dedicated to academic excellence and the development of

004strong character and a safe and respectful Target yeah we missed the approval agenda oh yeah sorry had secretary right above it can I get a motion second motion second Mr MCN is there anything Sor is that being modified this don't think so okay what you added I don't think I so that agenda it was already on there okay right and the attachments are there too y Mr mcnight hi M Carlson I Mr Smith yes M Hastings I Mr Sterling I Mr Thompson yes one more time all right can I get a motion and a second to approve the regular and closed minutes of November 13th motion second you um Miss Carlson I Mr Smith yes Miss Hastings I Mr Sterling I Mr Thompson hi Mr mcnight hi can I get a motion in a second

005to approve regular and closed minutes of special meeting of November 20th 2023 motion second Mr Smith yes Miss Hastings I Mr Sterling hi Mr Thompson I Mr mcnight hi Miss Carlson I with that I turn it back over to J well good evening again um is my uh privilege and honor tonight to introduce you to one of our high school students uh Miss Kennedy Myers um as I was reflecting on preparing uh to introduce her tonight you know made me reflect back on on my time in high school and and in no way did I ever think that I would ever want to try to accomplish the things that this person is accomplishing um in in her short time in high school and so we're super excited to introduce a student that recently released her

006second published book um which you can find out bars and FYI so if you Google her you will see where you can buy her her books and so again this is Miss Kennedy Meers she is a sophomore h of my school and so um we're g to do a little kind of Q&A type thing here so you get a chance to hear a little bit about her story and um what led her to do what she's she's done uh so thus far so tell us a little bit about the two books that you've uh you've released so the first one I wrote uh in my e8th grade year and it was just kind of tested out I've always written stories when I was younger and they never really went anywhere and I was like I

007want to get somewhere with this and I wrote a short book and then I was like I wonder how I can get this published I watched a bunch of YouTube videos and I figured out that I could do it through this place called Lulu publishing in and it was a pretty easy process and I did that and then the second time around I wrote this uh my freshman year the spring of my freshman year and I published it through Amazon awesome pretty pretty impressive so um tell us a little bit about the two stories tell us what what you wrote about okay so the first one is called just a wish and it's about this middle school girl it's her first year going into middle school and like she doesn't get a lot of attention

008at home her parents are Workaholics and she finds herself kind of lost wishing that she like had a better relationship with her family and then she meets this new kid and his family and their families get really close um until there's a fight between their parents and their like um they're forbidden from seeing each other but then a big event happens and she has to work her way through this new grief and everything and so then the second one is called let's walk instead and it's about a girl so and before the book happens she was in a crash with her entire team and she's the only Survivor so she moves to a new school finds a couple new friends and tries to get through her grief and it's a really difficult and challenging time

009but eventually it seems like she's making her way through everything and things are starting to look up but after too many confessions are made she doesn't know how who to trust anymore and everything seems to go back to the dark wow now so pretty impressive and obviously you've got a creative mind and a gift for writing um so what's next do do you have a third one in line yes you do are you allowed to say anything yet or do we just have to wait you might have to wait okay so so tell me like for our board for myself specifically like how do we kind of keep up on what the status of the next be like is there a way to like follow you on socials do we yes I do have a

010Facebook and a Tik Tok cool I know Mr director was on Tic Tac so that's that's awesome we we're excited to see what that becomes and hopefully in our our board and our community will will check out your book like you said you can buy Amazon or Barnes & Noble um but we are really proud I specifically proud of be husky right now to be able to stand with somebody that's accomplished so much that that's up so I hope that you keep writing um and we look forward to seeing what happens in the future so congratulations thank you this will be their chance to get signed early [Applause] so we've got a few more recognitions tonight um I'm excited to uh bring back face that you've seen before um this is one of our students

011Miss Eva Perez who is a senior this year um who has accomplished great things in the world of golf um and so I'm going to introduce coach sweet here and let him talk a little bit about her season and the success of the team in general but to speak a little bit to your success thanks you don't mind I'm tell him a little about you she's very reluctant to this so I thank her for being here um first of all she's serves as a distinction of serving the longest in a golf program and any of our programs of boys or other the girls she started in seventh grade we started a middle school program a while back and she's one of the only people that's Zone all the way through um she also was a

012member of the only team to ever qualify for sexual as a freshman uh she'll be back at the school to be nominated at the wall of fame when that happens in five years she also there's no one who who's um been to more sectional tournaments in the girls program except for Carson rosich who is being nominated k w this week so ev's been to the sexual tournament three times her freshman year sophomore year and her senior year your Junior oh you're just freshman Junior you see she's smar than um but each time she found a way to play golf at the right time as golf goes the you play golf at the end of the season the best and then you can play golf further in October and she's done it each time and haven't

013you you played on your birthday each time you done them is that true or the day before okay so she us the coincides around her birthday usually a pretty good birthday she also then embodies our mission statement for the district and she embodies everything that is good inside of Harlem uh in her so I'm glad you took the time to recognize her this year for what she's done all five years six years she's actually play so tell us what before we so what's next for you what what happens your senior year what are your plans if you have some I'm going to go to college obviously um I haven't decided yet I'm still waiting for a few decision lenders before I make my big decision but um I'm still deciding if I want to play

014golf in college or not but probably won't end up and just make sure I'm focusing on like my educations awesome well gol obviously golf's a life B Sport and you can play play that for a long time but we wish you the best of luck as you're going to college and whatever comes next so now we can give [Applause] her EXC tonight there you are awesome conations okay we got a few more still awesome as you can tell we're I'm always like a month or two behind in the seasons um but tonight now we get to recognize our uh boys sectional qualifiers um so we have Coach Scott ly here uh with three of his uh athletes who qualifi for sections as well and so I'm going to let them introduce themselves tell us what

015uh your name is obviously what grade you're in and then I'm let Coach talk bit about the season I'm Elijah skore I'm a senior I'm soer Ro I'm a senior as well I'm Jake Elliot I'm a sophomore uh yeah so um we have really enjoyed last couple years of resurgence and participation in the boys golf team uh we had 18 participants last year and this year we had 27 uh which is the largest team we've had since I've been a part of the program since 07 so and uh it's been a kind of combination of uh our players recruiting and then coaches recruiting as well and it's been uh a great joy and challenge because as you probably are aware golf is a sport where we don't always get participants that have been playing since

016they were this big we get them coming out kind of for the first time and uh so it's almost like you're doing beginners lessons for for a great deal of them all the way up to uh students who participated uh for quite a while so and if you par participated in golf at all you're probably aware of how frustrating a game it can be um and I think one of the most unique aspects of golf along with tennis is that they are the players but they're also the officials U we don't have people walking around um enforcing rules they're responsible for knowing the rules on their own uh and you know holding themselves and their opponents accountable and so they're certainly uh a level of etiquette uh that comes along with the game uh and

017these young men as well as the rest of the players on the team have represented our you know themselves their families uh our school and our district to the highest degree uh so much that our team uh for the third consecutive year was awarded the sportsmanship award in the nick 10 so not only are they doing their best in accomplishing um you know are having success in the game but they're representing themselves in our in our district in the proper way that that's certainly is commendable in a game that can certainly be so frustrating and so forth as well so I'm very proud of them um and the other thing that I just want to mention is that they are all multiple sport athletes at one time or another and they have um you know

018I think I hope golf is contributed to mental toughness in their other sports as well but it's also a different level of determination and grit that uh that they demonstrate and um super proud of the success that Eli and Sawyer have had we hate to see him go and Jake was actually first this is a first year playing organized Golf and just out of nowhere took to it naturally finished seventh in the conference as an individual tied for third at the regional as an individual and so we are extremely excited to see where he goes the next couple of years uh and certainly I'm sure he would attest that you know the leadership that we had on our team with Sawyer and Eli and the rest of the seniors is part of the reason he

019had success and the rest of the team had success as well and so we appreciate all your support and all the stakeholders of the district as well so let's before we clap to them as well let's find out from our seniors you got plans for next year yet yeah I'm going to play baseball at Rock Valley okay awesome I'm going to play golf at Rock now he's going to play golf at Harlem for recogniz see 50 year eligibility is a thing all right well on behalf of the school district and the Board of Education congratulations to coach as well on great Seasons wish you the best in the future thank you [Applause] the [Applause] one more we got Mom do what mom says mom say on the team believe all right one more recognition one

020more photo um Stuart I'm gon have you come up I've got a few friends that maybe joining me up here maybe they are joining you they up here so um it is my privilege to recognize one of our staff members um this evening uh Mr Stuart Becky as he is our custodian at Parker Center um you as you I know are all aware um played an instrumental part in um the situation that occurred uh not too long ago with our electrical issue at at Parker Center um he really uh sprung into action really jumped in to um ensure the safety of our our our staff that were present in the building at the time but obviously also to contact on the fire department um right away to minimize the the damage from the situation the

021other piece of this and I'm going to let maybe somebody else say a few things if they want um that that was really impressive too is that you know he was there doing his his uh building check stuff I believe at the time right and and so that but he stayed to carry out to ensure that um that everything was was where it needed to be and what needed to happen in order to get school back up and running on Tuesday um and so he really did go above and beyond what what is required of his job to to uh to make sure that we um we ready to go on Tuesday so we obviously greatly appreciate that and so I didn't really ask them to prepare anything so I'm just going to put him

022on the spot but I know that we're here to celebrate him and to thank him so there you go I will well and it's perfect that we talk so much about golf tonight because since Mr Stewart ended up being at the building all day that day he got robbed of his beloved passion of playing golf and so he had a tea time he make sure the building was a okay and that everybody was safe so your co-workers we felt very bad about that and we want to make sure that you get to play a lot of golf next season so we got you your golf as well we want you to play laps of golf outside of his working hours we want you to know how much we appreciate that you stop the building from

023bring down and exactly rebuilding a library would have been quite pricey so yeah so well obviously on behalf of the Board of Education school districts our staff um and our families as well thank you so much for what you do not only there at that moment in that day but that you do on a regular basis the pleasure of seeing you often uh through the halls and and the hard work you put in to maintain that building and so I know that I can speak for these these four mes here that really are appreciated so thank you very much [Laughter] prob oh yeah Jason a good one yeah I do have to say thank you um not only to you but also to the teachers there that day that used their signing and sign out

024um it it was so I I call them tell them get out of the building perfect so it worked out on all ends thank you again sir thank you okay moving on to comments from the community turn it over to Mr Paul good evening my name is Paul hawman and I've spoken to the board before uh of my concerns with books and different things in the library and uh so don't need to go over that but I just would encourage in light of Governor pritsker the legislation regarding books in the library that um the board would discuss a policy uh regarding age appropriateness and uh approvals and reviews of books materials uh for Content uh because we all here understand that ideas have consequences and ideas are move the world uh we see good ideas

025and bad ideas like an example of bad ideas that drove the octob oober 7th event in Israel as well as the Holocaust were all idea driven so just a appreciate the role that you have as a school board and as committees reviewing the materials and just encourage uh from the community standpoint of due diligence thank you thank you sir let okay little good evening um my name is Kitty Littlefield I'm a former board member at Hana and Rockton and um now I live in the Harlem school district and a tax fa here so I appreciate all the jobs that you do and the work that you do and the time that you put in and so I'm just here to talk about the library policies as well with everything going on and we know a

026lot of controversy that has gone across our country about libraries and all of that and so um about age appropriate sort of what Paul was saying um having age appropriate materials in the in the right Library so I'm going to ask that you would revisit the library policies and put a hold on voting on that tonight or the first reading I don't know how you do that specifically as a board just to push pause on that to really create a robust policy for how you curate your library and what comes in and what is in the certain libraries as well so that it's just a very strong and clear and clear for parents as well I think parents don't we don't have an idea of necessarily what's in libraries what's not in libraries so maybe

027a different system on how parents could become better um educated and what in the library what they would want their students looking at what they wouldn't want their students looking at so I'm just asking for you to take consideration of that and do that's sort of what Paul was saying a due diligence on that to make a more clear clear policy there thank you thank you no want El slander her last name is it it's it's GS get us get us Bob Bob get us okay um you might wonder a guy from Rockton why he's coming down here to speak for this board um I'm uh secretary in AA School Board I'm also the vice president of the tel Cott uh pre Library uh board and as many of you may know uh Tel Cott

028has gone through uh in the last year of some controversy about books and Etc uh the my connection really to this board is I also sit on the Illinois Association of school boards board of directors uh also so and I'm not sure you there and one of your secretaries was on the board too Evelyn I think um so just a couple of cautions uh under uh Governor pitre's uh legislation once the book gets into your library then it it it there's a procedure about banning it you can't ban it and what I would encourage you to do and I'm I'm doing it with the talot library I'm trying to develop a policy that we set a policy on what types of books come in before they get in secondly uh in the process of this

029controversy that happened in calop over the last year I made a point of reading about six of the books cover to cover so I understood what was in these books CU there's a lot out there uh uh controversy about some of the books and some of the books I I said these books are appropriate for a parent whose child is dealing with some of the issues uh but there's some other books that really in my opinion are not so I would would encourage you to set some kind take take your own initiative and when you see some of these books coming in I encourage you to look at them and read them and don't just scan them just read freom for Content so you have an understanding of what may be coming into your your

030library okay uh the other thing is uh in your policy you have some complaint uh procedure that would be filed with the American Library Association I would also encourage you to understand more about the American Li Library Association and what some of their policies are and some of their agendas are um this is a local issue that you need to discuss and the more you push up to a national thing than other other fores get involved so I just encourage you be cautious about the policy that you develop going forward I thank you very much thank you sir moving in Jud all right thank you so we I emailed everyone that we had a couple updates to the to the bills and they're attached online and at your place so sometimes with one meeting a

031month it gets tricky to make sure they're all paid in time so I apologize I try not to do that but I will read um the updated payable summary so the total payables this period were 5,565 78830 there were two payrolls this period for a total of 6, 12029 for total expenditures of1 , a59 split out by fund the education fund paid $ 7,854 19199 the operations and maintenance fund paid $465,900 paid 2,362 225 just a quick note that's all of our principal payments this year and most of the interest uh for for our debt service fund the transportation fund paid $43,750 the IMF Social Security fund paid $242,500 44 the capital projects fund paid $1,885 519 the uh majority of this is CTE in addition to Rock Cut and some of the other projects

032that we did so and that's again total expenditures of 12,454 6 9859 were there any uh Bill questions that were unanswered bill right thank you sir need a motion for approval of the bills motion second Miss Hastings I Mr Sterling I Mr Thompson I Mr mcnight hi Miss Carlson hi Mr Smith yes all right turning it over to Communications and committee reports um first off would like to at least acknowledge uh our student K Myers who had two books already um amazing uh i l that we brought something that was academic and not just Sports so that was good to start off with well yeah thank you Jason for bringing that to our attention as much as we can exemplify those attributes in our district is is something that we should do uh the golf

033team's doing doing well um I'm very thankful that we have those robust teams I remember the fall watching what I thought was like 30 some kids walk through for golf and I was like that's the first I've ever seen it was bigger than some some of the other sports that actually put more than one person out a out out of time so kudos to them um I do want to acknowledge some other good things that happened in this District uh did the uh olon Park uh musical the other night both their kids were in it we did a great job I didn't know my son could play the ukulele but might be under might be under the tree now um we also were able to bring out 237 of our uh kids out uh Saturday

034Jason was there for that for Christmas for kids um that was 237 kids that were able to get a Christmas present and buy their own gifts some were getting shoes and other things that they needed at the house but whatever they wanted they were able to get besides a gun or any violent toy anything um but that was that was really good and all those funds were provided by our community so just to to know that it got brought back um that was that Saturday and you were there for shop with the c with our our kid as well that was 65 on there so I mean quick math over 300 kids in our area that were able to receive something that they didn't have to and it was it was all provided by our

035local people so um I just wanted to say thank you again for that uh we had some real good support teachers firemen counselors everybody out there uh just just out there supporting so thank you with that I'm we have our next regular board meeting Tuesday January 16th 2024 it's going to be the new year 6: PM um another policy committee meeting February 20th 2024 at 4:30 and then we have recommendations to approve first reading of policy updates from November 15th 2023 policy committee meeting Michael I'd like to request that the policy 6 230 238p and 238p be pushed out for a separate vote okay yeah I'd also like to discuss 7.6 before we 7.60 before we voted on it so let me let me get these all down the right direction 7.6.6 7. 7.60 now

036did you also have one with 5.3 well I just that was purely irony I have to ask because you made all right and what was the other one 6230 um AP the first one AP and then AP and E 6 230 6 230 6 238 is there three of them yes 23 okay we will pull those out for separate votes and with that I turn it over to Mr kson Perfect I go those down thanks everyone uh yeah uh like to um just call out the commedian the great work that they did being able to uh take 300 kids and make their Christmas a little bit better um is great and it's nice to see the support that our community uh has for that uh Kennedy Myers uh if she's not here that that's one

037amazing to have a book but also just the I I love the story just as much the initiative of going how do I do this I'm I'm not supposed to be able to do this I can just YouTube it like I just love that that going through and not just doing that but going down that rabbit hole figuring how to do it and being successful not once or twice it's great to hear that for it all of our uh golf uh team members and the continued success that they have and boy are they tall um absolutely that be why I'm bad at golf um and then uh to Stuart um just one I love not sitting here having to deal with what are we doing without having a you know uh school that needs to

038be either uh correctively uh rebuilt or having major issues that were were instead giving out golf to successfully uh making sure everyone is okay and uh everyone the fire department coming in there the communication's going back and forth making sure everyone is safe um but yeah I his continued work uh is is great to have someone that's in their their District anding we keep them there as well into the community uh as always everyone comes out everyone has uh different opinions and making sure that everyone is involved on all cases it's great having someone coming up from Rockton so uh actively involved to get your opinion uh it's great to hear that as we uh go through and and take this very seriously for all of that um outside of that this is our last

039one ahead of winter break so hopefully all teachers enjoy their upcoming break or Christmas or any holiday that you celebrate and uh you know even more exciting than all those holidays is going to be your opportunity just as many seats to be filled at our next business services committee meeting he doesn't look like Santa Claus but close we have Josh and we'll hear all the uh the good things coming here on July July wow wow January 10th 2024 uh 5:30 a little earlier than this one you said close and with that I will turn that over Evelyn is out if I want me to read her that would be fine sure uh opportunity for the next meeting there is the equity and social justice meeting that one you seek in here before that is going

040to be December 21st 2023 at 4:30 even earlier so SCH at the high school thank you it did not show the room number on this one is there room number that needs to be done West 14 thank you there we go and I will turn over to eron going third is always tough because I get to Echo everything that Michael and Kurt had already said um I'm I I guess there's one plaguing question is Miss Meyer's books in our libraries they should be because it's fantastic I'm I'm just asking if they are um if anybody can answer that and if they aren't we should look into that yeah um I don't think anybody can say anything bad about those books so um the more the mar but but I I couldn't even write a short

041story in high school so I mean to to actually I did get a writing award in college for something I made up but as a true story but anyways um but no that that's some remarkable um golf teams uh I'm just I don't I think I have clubs and ponds at multiple golf courses throughout the area um some of you all probably do too um and then St the the way that that that whole um incident at Parker Center was the way that it was handled I think throughout everybody internally externally I think we dodged a huge bullet there just because of of I believe that we were prepared for it I believe there's certain there there's things that are taking place on the back end that are setting ourselves up for for success with

042that um also with some of the emails that I've received lately all the board members have received I want to shout out to our resource officers you guys like with some of the things that you guys are doing um I I feel that we're moving in the right direction with discipline with with helping our kids and and keeping up keeping people safe at sporting events you you know what we're talking about here but um I I think I I just I I think you guys I really appreciate you um obviously there's some things coming up that you guys are excited about but I I don't think that you guys get get the recognition so um shout out you got one from me so other than that I'm going to turn my time over um and

043then the community for all the gifts that's just outstanding but once again I'm just echoing somebody else so Rebecca thank you um I want to say congratulations to especially our uh book writer oh my gosh I can't imagine I used to write stories myself but I would never have thought to get them published and certainly Nothing At Large um to steart that's wow working with 5-year-olds is a thing and all it by itself let let alone but um saving the building basically from burning to the ground or whatever might have happened is fantastic um to the golf kids they've been eating a lot of Tyson chicken or something super tall it's great that they're doing what they're doing um and I want to make a personal shout out to Chris uh Glaser I think was

044his name for uh gifting me with a RJC shirt I really impressed with that and I didn't expect one but I think that was fantastic that he took the time to do that I wanted to bring up a little bit about myself my own personal opinions about the uh Library um media that's going on in our school district I understand I am not personally I'm not a book banner I think belong in our library I think they need to to be in there and everybody that writes one especially our new writers um should have a book in the library um personally my concern is that we need age appropriate guidelines and we need to uh if we look out into our communities we have everything that is out there that is media is basically rated

045we have movies that are rated we have TV that is rated we have um video stores that are rated we have video games that are rated We have basically everything out there is rated in some way or another except our library Medias and I understand that that can be a that could be a huge job to be rating everything in our libraries but I think that there's a lot of concern for uh the age appropriate just the age groups of what these kids are reading and the idea that you know if we don't have guidelines personally and we allow some of these regulations to go through uh you know what's to stop some pervert from sending a you know subscription to Hustler to Parker Center I that would be horrible and so it just is

046a I mean it would never happen I expect it would never happen and that would be really insane but at the same time I think we need I think we need guidelines that say Hey if there's if there's any kind of violence horror you know blood you know just just the things that you would go to like an our movie should be rated R in our books as well should be rated 17 and above we have things that are that are um you know a lot of violence a lot of profanity should be listed possibly for your 13 and upgrades and then you know we we should just have and and I understand there's a lot of people that believe some that a lot of people that don't but I just feel like we need

047something that says if you're this age you can't read something like that you can't be accessible to something like that unless your parent takes you to the library and gives you that I think this a school district we are here I mean if you look at our um even our computer systems we keep our students from getting into things that we know they're not supposed to be getting into just by what I can't even get into some of the stuff that I might want to look at on the on the Internet it's not available and I look at our Equity newsletter that just came out in this past week and it has a lot of great things that are in it about the different books and the recommendations but even in that they recommend for

048an age group there's for the little ones there's for the older ones and some of the even like your Native Americans that they spoke of are for the younger kids or for the older kids so we know even as a district we we have recommendations for age appropriate material but I would just like to see that be more in depth into our library systems whether it's you know books videos CV CDs DVDs you know all of the information that goes in our libraries I just want to see it be a little more careful as to who's accessing it so that's pretty much all hope hope we can work together in a lot of different ways with this kind of so I appreciate you listening thank you thank you thank well I would I'd like to

049point out what Mr mcnight said about the uh what went on at Parker Center and that there are things in place to to to put things in place to make this a great School District I just wanted to make sure that I recognized all of the support staff and Par professionals they all do a terrific job a lot of them behind the scenes to make sure that everything runs smooth and uh the kids get everything that they need in order to be successful in schools so thank you and I'd also like to um mention what Mr lumpy said I truly appreciated that he put that whole sportsmanship thing uh right at the top he he used the fact that those players are responsible for officiating themselves and that the whole ethics behind it and the

050whole idea of fair play and uh and doing things right is just so important and and that sportsmanship we all should learn that it is about fair play it is about treating everybody the way that we want to be treated and and uh I really appreciate Mr lmy saying that and I also uh at the uh education committee meeting it's so interesting we just talked about the the library and the selection process couldn't have been what was it 3 months ago it wasn't it wasn't that long ago we just talked about it at link because it it is an important thing and and yeah the Harlem School District was right there being proactive in in looking at the process and so I really appreciate it it just shows you how great the education committee is

051and we're going to have a education committee coming up here we're going to call it the solstice Edition and it's going to be December 19th 2023 appropriate appropriate Sol distress is recommended it will be here at 4:30 p.m. looking forward to it uh so like Josh said we only have one meeting in December so uh stick with me um Olen Park I went to their book fair and their art show uh there was a line down the hall so I'm so excited to see engaged uh readers ready to grab some books with their parents shout out to Elena for somehow managing that checkout um fun activities Community continued to show up throughout the night we did uh my my daughter and I did some sort of uh like Clue game to narrow down what teacher

052was responsible for uh the missing something I don't know it was really fun um and while driving to that I saw maz's choir concert line wrapped around the building so that was pretty amazing uh Echo Mike on the Allon Park concert the gym was packed um the gym the the music teacher not not only uh taught instruments but had like a whole switch to the set so every kid was involved in every facet of the thing it was uh really awesome to see uh we did light up the parks which was so much fun uh the bus was beautiful the community was out in numbers um and I got to spend some time with Kurt and his family Josh his family it was Trella his family it was super fun um special shout out to

053Rock Cut Windsor mazni uh they hosted me for a visit right before thank Thanksgiving and uh I am just every single time I get into a building at Harlem I'm continuously uh more and more impressed um the teachers that I got to meet the kids that I got to meet how um engaged are admins are um I mean principal Kaz kazinski even put me to work I did lunchtime Duty I did recess Duty it was really it it was really an awesome awesome way to kind of build into that Thanksgiving break so thank you for the schools who hosted me um if you are not following the culinary arts Instagram uh you should this week was shuder week so we Pro we learned how to properly cut cheese based on the variety and uh for

054all my Elementary Huskies including my own watching I now properly know how to cut the cheese um that was fora um I got to meet Kennedy at her book signing um and holy cow so I was worried I wasn't going to get a chance to read the book before tonight I did get through it I uh finished it last night um before I went to bed and uh I is not my genre and I was open with Kennedy about that I was I was like I read really boring non-fiction um so ya uh romance Thriller was not on my TBR list for uh for the the year uh however um I'm glad to hear that it's on Amazon and in Barnes & Noble because it can hold up to anything I've read about current ya

055um really impressive student and I'm so glad that we could have her in I uh suggest everybody go grab a book and have her sign it because I don't think this is going to be the last we'll hear from Kennedy um alumni shout out Mike will know this person uh Sarah Reed mcamera is a harlem alumni and she was just uh featured in a national magazine um she uh Kurt for your Instagram needs that's SRM Prince on Instagram uh so she has a five or six page spread in here about her brick and mortar she just opened up in the center of downtown Rockford um so our lumni are doing awesome things our kids are doing awesome things like there's so much to be proud about uh when it comes to Harlem and if you

056have not finished up your Christmas list I suggest you uh go ahead and and stop by her store she's got plenty of goodies for uh anybody in your life um holiday message for everybody rolling into the holidays I want to wish everybody a happy and healthy winter break rest up spend time with loved ones and we'll see you in January um and lastly so I I want to I want to real quickly um take into consideration board member Carlson what you said on the books and I do also want to for anybody who was not at the policy meeting clarify that we could have adopted press and press is a lot more stringent on who can actually review the books um I you guys can Google me and know what side of the book battle

057I'm on um that's not surprise to anybody I will say though that I am a huge proponent of compromise and this policy is a compromise it's absolutely a compromise um we have a sixth grade transition let's let's do that um we want our funding let's keep that we want low taxes let's keep that so just uh for anybody who is not at policy I would urge you to actually take a look at what press asked us to adopt and the work that went into actually putting into place what you see into place so that's it thank you with that roll on to Dr Michelle thank you I have three overnight travels that I'm bringing forward um I want to just point out that all of them are for state competition and we will need to

058qualify in order for that overnight to occur but I have requested with um our athletic departments to please do that ahead of time because I don't like sending you guys an email saying hey I'll talk about this after it occurs um so the first one being in January uh it's for boys bowling they would leave on the 24th and return on the 28th the state bowling is in Fair viiew Heights um the second one is for IH a cheer that takes place in Bloomington the team will leave on February 1st and return on the 4th and then the final one is Ida state for dance uh that occurs in Springfield and the dance team would leave on February 9th and return on the 10th so I am just asking for a CL on those three

059items this evening thank you all right thank you my first item tonight is a recommendation to approve a surplus declaring a resolution declaring Surplus property at the high school Wilson Park Maple Harlem Administration Center Loves Park Windsor transportation and Parker Center so not quite all of the buildings but there's quite a bit of Surplus on there tonight are there any questions regarding the Surplus we're recommending next is a recommendation to approve a facility Crest with Junior huskys cheerleading uh this is a Sunday rental at the middle school in January I believe they have there on that okay next is a recommendation to accept the July and August 2023 Treasures reports my next item is the audit so now that the audit is done catching up on the uh months of treasures reports so there'll be

060two um each meeting until we are caught up uh for the next couple months I reviewed the August Treasures report even though it's still pretty early in our fiscal year only being a month two we've only been at school a couple weeks at that point so next month it'll be September and October and so we'll start to get a little better picture of how things are trending in so questions on the treasures report okay so last week's Business Services meeting um lindsy fish from Sage came and presented the FY 23 audit I've attached the final version of the 160 page right Aon of information I read every one of them too I'm sure Kennedy's books a lot better yeah if you're having trouble sleeping I recommend the audit it will definitely help um there's a

061ton of information in there um and I know that not everyone's had an opportunity to fully review that so if any point whether it's tonight or any point in the future there's questions or anyone wants to sit down please feel free to reach out we can take a look at that if you look at the back half I think it's the last 20 Pages or a little bit more is the statistical section of our act for and so that has a lot of comparative information sometimes 10e historical so it's kind of good to get an idea of kind of where the past has been on that so um are there any questions on accepting the audit good feedback yeah yes thank you um also we will send that I mentioned to Business Services to um

062The Association of school business officials to be reviewed and then they issue a certificate if we meet their their guidelines so we'll send that before a break so next is a recommendation to approve Award of bid to Larson Equipment and furniture for the purchase and installation of cafeteria tables at Ralston Elementary for a total cost of $72,900 um we've worked with Larson before and they provide a really quality table and if you look at some of those other bid prices um while this is a little bit higher in the past um it was much better than the $131,000 bid that we got I meant to ask you this business servic do these come with any kind of a warranty I'm sure yeah I don't have that off the top of my head but yeah and

063in the consideration I'm assuming you compared that as well I forgot to ask that at Business Services typically they're pretty similar but I I'm assuming but I'm just I'm just curious you know yeah cuz they get used cuz we cuz we had some stuff at Windsor so we were contacting that company and they were coming out and look at it and like that so that was all my only question yep any other questions on that okay um so next is a recommendation to approve an agreement with Arc design to provide design and working drawings for the 2024 summer pavement replacement project this is for Marquette this is one that we pulled off the last board meeting we had quite a bit of conversation at Business Services um and we talked about what's required what what

064do we need for this project and I reached out to the regional office and part of that are we permitting processes that any project over 50,000 requires signed off plans on by an architect or engineer we did uh contract directly with the engineer here which saves about $3,500 in this process so um that's design permitting bidding oversight of that project so that not only covers the the requirement but also just all of the local rules and regulations and makeing sure that everything's built according to the rules so so by pulling it and doing it with this different 3500 savings yes yep take the B where you can and I appreciate all the conversation we had too about this yeah thanks I think we all learned something there I think we all gained some intellect on

065processes are there any other questions on that okay next is a recommendation to approve an agreement with permar security uh to update the monitoring system at rocka Elementary um we talked about with the new gymnasium coming online there are no more spots to put a buzzer access so this is updating the backend kind of brains of that system and making it uh cloud-based and more modern uh that costs to update that it's 4,446 4,446 18 it it is an extra $16 a month for monitoring because what we're paying is is fairly low and we we can't update really anything security wise unless we physically go to the building we can't remote in so this will give us an app in real time information um and so this is will be the first building that we

066have updated to being a current backend system on that so are there any questions on that all right my last item tonight is a recommendation to approve an agreement agement with the regional Office of Education for Teacher Institute Wellness Fair professional development at a cost of $ 6,25 paid with title two funds there's a memo uh from Becky Logan and Jake Herbert Hubert sorry uh just laying out those classes in dollar amounts it's the yoga classes is there the option to work in your classroom class I've heard that request oh I hear that often but that's not something that you can do for um slip days or Institute days that's our school code okay just just interesting you note yoga versus that that the yoga is professionally yes bring some small goats to the yoga

067if there are no other questions that's my report tonight thank you thank you sir that Dr s l greetings greeting greetings all right tonight I have the recommendation to approve the Personnel agenda and addendum um we have 10 transfers tonight one has a correction um for Kay Kon it was listed as G general program assistant should read bus assistance so that was corrected on the agenda there are 11 Employments three Federation Bank requests 18 resignations what I want to note about the uh resignations is that there were two revisions to dates um for resignations and they are should both be January 2nd 2024 and that is on the agenda that's all I have for you tonight thank you thank you Dr AR all right well I got quite a few foyers here that I right

068so first one on September 26 2023 from Laura cada of Coca-Cola requested the most recent beverage contract and the district response dated November 14th 2023 would attach responsive documents the next play um submitted on October 31st 2023 from William gal of WX requesting email information on a Personnel matter and the district response stated November 16th 2023 to a narrowed request with appropriate information attached okay next one submitted on November 16th of 2023 from Katherine Casey of Science of reading Illinois submitted on November 16th 2023 which is a duplicated request for curricular information grades K through 3 next one submitted on November 26 2023 by Patrick Lee requesting latest IAQ and environmental testing for schools next one submitted on October 16th 2023 for Michael Ros I believe CEO of luma data requesting information on the property

069and Casualty Insurance for all lines of insurance in the district's response dated November 21st 2023 attaching requested documents and then the last one submitted on October 12 2023 from Molly McCain requesting information for our FPS and bids related to school photography vendors and the district response dated November 21st 2023 attaching relative documents okay now any questions on any of those read those kind of quickly um Jason is about to give you um all the update on our long range plan um part of uh our responsibility um is to make sure that the board is updated on the strategies that we are working on um in the district and so Jason's going to do that um beforehand I'm really proud of um man I'm going to have her on the uh on the podcast too so

070so that's going to be cool um for for Ken to be able to come on the podcast and talk about her books so a little plug there so I think we she's coming Monday and we'll have her on we'll ask all those questions that Jason didn't get to ask and we'll we'll put that up there for everybody to see but really proud of her what she so outstanding so abolutely all right so uh this evening I'm going to provide a brief overview of some of the activities that we've been working on as you're aware um last year you approved the goals that we have as part of our strategic plan um from 2022 to 2027 and so uh my job this evening is to just update you on the progress of some of our strategies

071that we're working on uh towards these goals and so um as you also aware um you're going to see in this uh that a lot of these strategies are things that are really initiated and led by us as an administrative team including some of our directors at the district level um much of what you approved through the school Improvement plans are led by building principles and their leadership teams within their schools and so um much of that is data driven um at the local level at the building level um and so you're looking here at um things that we're doing at the the higher level uh to ensure that we are uh meeting these goals as a district and so I'm going to take you through uh each of these uh I invite you to

072ask questions I'll do my best to to answer if if appropriate um as as you know I am really the communicator about some of these things and so if there's anything that you see in here that you feel like is something that you'd like to learn more about to hear more about um we always Dr myself can always invite people in to kind of give you an overview of some of the programs that we mention in here so all right so we uh we broke our long range plan into three components tied to the Illinois State Board of education's long range plan so they have um three priority areas uh the first is student learning so we have two goal statements um tied to student learning and so uh the strategies that we've been working

073on this past school year so 2022 23 U many of which you'll see are kind of in progress around going um we are in the process of starting to develop a profile of a graduate um the next steps of this process will really be involving um some of our stakeholders as we really shape what it is we want our graduates to look like what do they look like when they leave um our district what skills they possess what characteristics do they have and so this is really exciting work for us um Dr yarro and Jak cubert um are really taking the lead on some of this and so in the coming months we're going to continue that so you'll see this one as another strategy that's we're working on this year um because we want

074to make sure we we really get this right because this is something that's reflective just as a mission statement or vision statement um this really is a reflection of who we say we are and what we say we are about um we had a course Equity analysis completed for specialized programs EC through 12 um so this a lot of the information that came out of that assessment um has been shared over time at our education committee meetings where we really look at our programs um and and the students that are participating in our various programs um we also really ensure we use this study to ensure that um we're meeting the requirements of grants for example the um parents initiative or preschool for all grants making sure that um we're meeting the requirements of the

075grants so M and her crew uh completed that analysis um we also completed last year the ver uh vertical curriculum articulation of the learning standards and social studies and World languages uh for grades 7 through 12 um just just as a note as they were going through um this is carrying over into this year as we um really look at how we incorporated in sixth grade and what does that transition look like specifically around um social studies and World languages and just as a side note to this um Jake is in the process of developing a fiveyear cycle so as we look at our different departments you'll hear me mention science here in a second um social studies math he's working on a b a cycle that will a fiveyear cycle to review and do

076this similar process to sure that um we're obviously providing high quality uh experience for our students um we also create an inventory Hidan in her department and student Support Services Crea inventory of instructional curriculum for students with individualized education plans so they've got a document um that has actually not been shared yet uh but that that their group has been working on that really lays out all of the curriculum resources that they have for their students um with IEPs um next up we have our goal that uh will provide students the opportunity to engage and connect students beyond the classroom through interest based activities um this first item is one that is in progress It's one I'm taking on um I've started the process of evaluating all the programs that we offer um these are

077our extracurricular clubs and activities things that happen within the school day outside the school day and so um as I'm working on this one because it is taking some time uh and really starting to look at okay now what does the participation look like what are our numbers for this and then eventually we will start to Dev the plan to uh really look at doing a gap analysis and and understanding where do we have opportunities to get kids connected um but this also transitions to Athletics to um any of the things that we we offer as well so that's in progress so um that was not completed over the course of last year um but it's something that we are still working on we also have developing a plan for the implementation of work-based learning

078opportunities post procedures on the career pathway website so this is another one as they are um that program our Pathways and our endorsement areas are evolving um that process is continuing to evolve just like the next one below um they're still in a process of really uh kind of creating a a structured plan for ensuring that all of our students and families understand what our Career College and Career endorsements look like what our career Pathways look like what that means to them so um while they're doing communication and they're making families aware of the things that um are available and the students are aware and counselors are having these meetings um doing a lot of that in isolation and so um the next step is really to bring this together to say how do we

079ensure that all of our kids are are prepared to make decisions in regards to this how do we make sure that our families are aware of what opportunities um are presented for our kids um then lastly we have uh develop a plan for increased vocational opportunities for self-contained programs um I'm just going to read this one so I ensure that we get it right um this is one that is completed but it is always going to be ongoing just as many of these are um the in August the Practical assessment exploration system lab was installed at high at Harlem High School um the staff training was conducted as a result the students at um Harlem High School have the opportunity to participate in experiences develop practical skills such as taking public transportation dining other community-

080based activities uh the community program offers students business skills such as designing um uh and processing teachers for example um we have students that did a self-funded crafts and coffee store uh the life skills program runs a recycling program um that's been an ongoing program that we've had for um our students in the life skills program and then the vocational program provides job activities uh within the school and continues to operate the closed closet donation program and so really it's about giving um some of our students some of those practical skills to engage in the community outside of outside of school um pretty uh pretty cool program there our next area is learning conditions and so some of the strategies that we focused on here um is really complete an evaluation District social emotional learning

081curriculum so this is somewhat completed um as the they really worked and focus on prek through 8th grade um and so a survey was conducted to really look at our social emotional learning curriculum excuse me um our second St Second Step curriculum and so they had survey data uh they talk with staff to figure out what is the best approach to this what do we need to be doing to ensure that um we are uh doing this stuff with Fidelity and so um they really are focusing and continuing to recommend that we focus on uh Second Step is our curriculum for social emotional learning um with that being said prioritizing the utilization you'll see that as an upcoming strategy also why this isn't progress is that we will be looking at the high school next

082and so it started with that over the course of this last year we'll be working on what social emotional learning looks like at the high school um provide professional development um on the wellbeing of our students uh and staff through our teacher I apologize as type of our teachers uh Institute day and so these documents I I didn't mention this that what I'm reading um is actually on our website and so there is a longrange plan under about us that if you click on that you'll get an update of where we're at and the strategies and so the things that I am reading through some of these items will have links and so if you want to see what our teacher Institute day looked like and all the sessions that were offered and everything that

083was available and who taught them you'll be able to see that there and so if you go to our website um you can you can get what I'm actually uh what I'm actually reading to you um and then lastly we had the assessment of the early development instrument so this is another one that is in progress and I I know that I'm saying that quite often but this is a big task for us um and working with Parker Center so we started the process of rolling this information out um this was the survey data that we did uh two years ago with our kindergarteners um in partnership with Rockford public schools and Alignment Rockford um and so we are in the process of really trying to uh figure out how we want to best utilize

084this data locally so we've done some different things CommunityWide as we roll this information out in partnership with Rockford's Public Schools um really looking at our community data um and so next steps for us is to really bring this locally to us and say okay now that we have this data uh what are we doing about it to address the specific needs of our communities because if you remember from a few years ago when we presented this that um this really localizes down to the neighborhood level um some of the challenges that exist and some of the opportunities that exist um and so uh a lot of valuable feedback that we reive through that process and so uh we hope to be bringing that to all of you and then locally to our community to

085really kind of figure out how do we how do we address the needs that were reflected through uh that survey next um we uh the next goal is district will created e environment where all stakeholders fi value support and state and so two of the areas that we focused on um was was to one look at Santa reunification I know some of you got the opportunity to see that at Tri conference and so um this is something that Dr Ur and myself are working on and this is really uh a plan that is way bigger than we ever imagined it to be um and so for years we focused on our response to active uh threats and so we have Alice is something that we've trained our students and staff on and we've been doing

086that for quite some time I think 2015 or 13 um but a few years ago we had the opportunity to be exposed to um the re standard reunification really what that meant to us um as a district and and um what that really looks like in response to an active uh violent event and so um that's something that we have had some conversations with the new Emergency Services disaster agency coordinator from wo County um we are drafting up all our plans and working with the I love you guys foundation and the resources that they have um but just to give you an idea um what we've prepared our staff for and our um our students for is something that usually lasts about 10 minutes um it's about 70% of all school shootings are over within

08710 minutes um what we're working on here is something that uh we anticipate to take 8 to 10 hours um after that event um and so as you can tell that there's going to be just by the time there's a lot that goes into this and so we're meeting regularly to work on this but this is a plan that is is way bigger than we ever we ever anticipated and the further you go the further to get into it and so uh we are excited though that we are going to be here soon um really starting to bring this towards our staff um and helping them understand what that looks like so um that will be in progress as well and then um also to develop an equity assessment tool for policies and procedures so

088that was something that came out of our equity and social justice board committee um we um we made a recommendation to create a document that we can use to really evaluate our policies and procedures um that will allow us to really ask ourselves questions to make sure that that um that we recognize whether or not policies or procedures negatively or positively impact um all of our individuals within our within our school district and so um I think we have a great tool there that really gets us to to question and so now we we we have to implement that tool and then we also have the facility uh maintenance cycle and assess the current and future program needs and so um we had a few items that are that been happening obviously you're well aware

089of the the CT Edition and the health clinic and the amount of work that's going into all of that but um we are in process we're almost wrapped up with the U 10year Life Safety survey and facility assessment um this is going to uh be completed here and shared with all of us in Spring um which will really kind of paint the picture of what needs to be addressed um from a facility perspective over the next 10 years and so uh we're excited to see well I don't know we're excited to see what what has to happen in the next 10 years but uh we will be getting that and shared with you all of you obviously as we start to plan out what do we need to be uh working on over the next

09010 years um we did update the facility ization plan as you saw from our preparation for transition of sixth grade to the middle school we did have all Architects complete the facility utilization uh study of all of our uh schools um so that we can ensure that we are maximizing the potential of the space that we have available and then lastly developing the next year maintenance plan um we do not have a full Al plan plan in place and that's why it still says in progress but a lot of work has been done and so um you're well aware of our playgrounds and and the work that's been done there um and some of the other projects that we've been doing um in the exterior uh We've created a position that is a um grounds

091[Music] and what is the name of that position Landscaping grounds and custodian position um custodian floater that will uh this spring um will start to actually develop Now official plan with that position in place when we have somebody in that position to really determine how do we ensure that the the grounds really um uh represent the the high quality School District that we are and so an official plan in that sense will be that we will start to look at what is that position do um how are they maintaining the grounds and and working in partnership with Property Services so we've also been updating a set of basketball hoops at each building and that will should finish the summer um and just as a normal maintenance we just did the field at Rolston and we

092updated the softball fields at maches which were in rough shape so they look really good too and then Rock Cut's getting their baseball field with the with the water towers um and then the last section is elevating Educators and so uh for this we have invested in our staff to ensure that they feel prepared support and honor for their role in creating high quality expence for all stakeholders and so two of the strategies that we focused on this past year um was developing an equity professional development plan and so that's something that we've been working on Dr har and I have met with um some staff to figure out what it is that we want to um do as part of this plan but we also have requirements from the state I.E implicit bias training

093that's required and how do we ensure that we're meeting the requirements of the state and school code um as well as providing support for our staff um in regards to um our Equity work and then uh second to that is uh creating a staff onboarding review process which Shel and her team um did they evaluated a pro um current forms and processes and and we've actually now come into the 21st century we've got all of our forms fully digitized through Frontline Central um all of our employee contracts all of that information so um we're excited to see that transition occur from HR uh and moving things to Frontline Central another piece to this that um uh the next steps that are kind of tricking into this year is that they're going to implement a process

094called stay interviews um which is uh which is a really in my perspective a really great opportunity for us but State interviews are um structured discussions that leaders conduct with individual employees to strengthen the employees engagement and retention within the organization so really getting ourselves in tune with everything from the onboarding process and how that went um to just ensuring that our our employees quick what I'm saying this wrong ensuring that our employees are are feeling supported um are happy and and hopefully we're able to retain them um from that information and those conversations um and then last I know that we're halfway through this school year but I want to talk about um some of the things coming up and so before I show you these just a couple things to note um the

095the items that are in progress you're not going to see on here because they're just carrying over um the other piece that I I forgot to mention is you again are all aware the sixth grade transition and um our CT facility and our health clinic are very big ticket items um and so while you'll see that there's not just gobs of of of different uh strategies or new things that our team is working on this next year um most that's because of the fact that those those items are very timec consuming um and requiring a lot of us to be involved in that process and so um as you can see we will be focusing on continuing to focus on our our transition to sixth grade um we're going to work with science teachers in

096grade 6 through 12 to provide training on the Next Generation standards generation science standards and to work on Alig uh the vertical articulation of the curriculum um we're assessing the English language arts resources my state just Board of Education um just shared the Illinois literacy plan and so we're looking to uh align our Ela stuff uh with the new Illinois literacy plan um we have a group of us that are starting to really explore um how we safely Implement artificial intelligence and what that looks like um we're already in the process of uh really starting to draft up the plan for supporting our staff um as as a way to use that as an educational tool and so um but that obviously includes policy practice what is what's a how do we ensure the safety

097of our students and staff through that and so um that's something that we're prioritizing at the moment as you I'm sure aware from all the talk about that U prioritize the implementation of Second Step social and emotional learning curriculum as we found from that survey um one of the things that uh we need to address is just implementation and the um ensuring that that people are utilizing it because we're seeing um a strong response when it's done with Fidelity um but not everybody is is spending as much time as as necessary so that's something that we're going to focus on is is really ensuring that we're doing that uh doing that well completion of the employee health clinic um and then completion of the Career and Technical education Edition and Renovations of the high school

098as I mentioned those are those are big projects and taking a lot of time and so um those will be main focuses of this year because we want to make sure we get those right obviously um and then we will take that assessment um from the 10e life safety survey facility assessment um to really start to plan out and that will come to all of you uh what our future facility projects are and what they need to be uh over the next 10 years um and then as I mentioned HR is really um starting this in January uh but there stay interviews for their human resources department so all that being said I I tried to go through it quickly um we've got a lot of great things happening a lot of work that our

099team and our leaders are doing um we've got a lot of big projects excuse me projects happening this uh this school year and so we're excited to see see that stuff coming frush and again if you have any questions feel free to ask now or reach out if there's something that you're interested you want to hear more about I can arrange to have somebody that can speak to it better so first off thank you Mr GL for coming together such a thorough um presentation obviously letting the community in the board know of all the things that we were working on um you may have said it um but how can the community keep track of our progress yeah absolutely so um if you go to our our website under about us there's a button for

100long range if you click on that you'll see the goal statements um you'll see the strategies and the information that I just shared with you um then you'll also see the list of the 2023 24 strategies and so there is a little barometer on each one so you can kind of say you see how close we are with each goal statement in regards to completing the strategies that are that we put in place um but yeah you can view that information on our website what kind of things are you guys thinking about with AI uh so question answer but I will do my best um so we I've started to really explore um a couple things one we're really we went through myself um Mickey Josh eron um started to go through uh the process

101of there's a couple great resources out there of building this checklist of what are all the questions we have to ask ourselves like what do we need to make sure that we have in place in order to start to open this up and and so we've gone through that process and really reflecting on and looking at what do we currently have place what is our current policy our acceptable use policy what does that have in place that supports this um and started to ask those questions from a safety stpoint um and then on the other side of it we're really starting to look at how do we roll this out to staff so we do have plans to start to um allow staff the opportunity to um use some AI tools in the coming intitute

102day February February Institute day um and so we'll give all of our staff an opportunity to um learn a little bit about more about AI um but then also the opportunity to really kind of start to explore some of the tools um because we feel like allowing our staff to start to understand how they can use it um safely but how they can use it in their classroom to become more efficient um and to some of the resources that are available through Ai and we've started to as a team started to play with that and I've you know I I won't say this I guess I'm saying not the public so letters I've used AI to to to draft me and idea for a parent letter um and then I make some tweaks and things

103like that and so really looking at how do we how does it reduce some of the burdens that we have for our staff how do we um uh use some the tools to make us more efficient and that way um but obviously for our staff to really fully understand um some of the opportunities because I think what we have to be prepared for is our students have to understand or we have to be in a position where we can support our students to use it in a positive way and and to not be limited by our own lack of understanding or knowledge and I think we we've seen that in some cases where you know we'll put up some some fancy new technology if we don't really have the creative mindset and understanding how to

104um to really maximize the use of it it it leaves it there and our students don't really get to fully engagement so we have to really invest heavily in and this is my opinion have to invest heavily in our in our staff and helping them really start to understand the possibilities and how this can really transform just like the calculator just like look forward to thank youon I ask when we do the stay interviews is that kind of where we're just trying to get our employees to stay as long as possible is that like an exit interview is it how does how does that kind of you generally do it with new employees so after they've been with you for 60 to 90 days then you just sit down with them ask him how it's

105going how how things have been they' been supported what they think yes their opinion what can we do improve what would you suggest because we really do value their opinion we want them to say research shows that if you do stay interviews they stay yeah yeah we want to keep anyway in addition to that um being able to get get their opinions on why they stay right you know and being able to look at that and we need to improve on some things we we can learn that or we got some things that are going going great that's awesome too so I'm really excited about that I saw Mr Smith's eyes come so thanks sh yeah um real quick before you I just wanted to um to to thank um our cabinet team because a

106lot of what you saw in that presentation um like Mr Bloom said U he's he's responsible for for a lot of that work as well but um the team really does a good job of making sure that those strategies um you know are are getting done and supporting Jason and myself and and ensuring that those get done as well so I like to say thank you Dr Herb Dr Wagner um Mr soon to be Dr Bloom at some point like before ever and then and then real quick too um I take this opportunity to say um you know for Jason just for the community to know like um I get a lot of requests as superintendent to be at at different events and and things of that nature and so I've structured um I'm Mr

107blooms soon to be Dr Bloom's uh title to to to help me out so if you see him in the community at different events and things like that it's like me being there you know so I just want the community to know that and he does a really good job like we split you know uh this past weekend um he was at Christmas for kids I was at um you know cop I shop with a cop and and so just being able to have someone I can lean on like that I appreciate that so that's all I got see you took the easy one yeah why not trying to CW cats all over the prin I had dogs though okay literally police dos all right moving on to the consent agenda can I get a

108motion and second to approve the Personal Agenda with the Dums motion second uh Mr Sterling hi Mr Thompson hi Mr MCN hi M Carlson hi Mr Smith yes yes Miss Hastings by all right can I get a motion in the second to approve student travel request motion second Mr Sterling hi Mr Thompson hi Mr mcnight hi M Carlson hi Mr Smith yes Miss Hastings I Motion in a second to approve facility requests motion second Mr Thompson hi Mr MCD hi Miss Carlson hi Mr Smith yes M Hastings hi m Mr St hi all right moving on to action items I need uh to can I get a motion to approve first reading of policy updates from November 15 2023 policy committee recommendations pulling 6.23 0 6.23 AP 6.23 ap- e and 7.60 for a separate

109vote with all with that being said what about the other policies can get a motion motion second Mr mcnight hi Miss Carlson hi Mr Smith yes Miss Hastings I Mr Sterling I Mr Thompson I all right yes we'll go with the 7.6 first the in the notes when I read that maybe I read it wrong if that's the case I apologize we're good that's what we're here but in the notes it said uh that the policy was going to allow for uh nonresident uh staff members children to attend tuition free and if I didn't read that right so that is something that that could be considered it is not currently in there now and I think if that were going to be a discussion there would be a lot of like looking into that first

110right because when I read the policy it did not have any of that language inre but I wanted to bring it up because there's a reason why that language was in the notes sure reviewing the policies sure it's it's it's an option but we're just we're just not ready yet we have to do some more more research on how that would work so yeah we didn't sure you looking for us to do it no okay okay so yeah if we were going to do that we would have to pull all that information and do that in the future it is not okay I then I guess I don't understand why it was in the notes as because it's an option it was it was a part of press as an option so there are places

111where this is something that they are adopting it into the policy as a way of uh kind of like bolstering employment the school code so it's a food note for the school code so it gives us that option to be able to do that but okay all right just wanted to make sure want to make sure I had my good all right all right with that and a recommendation to approve um 7.60 as as put forward motion second uh Miss Carlson hi Mr Smith yes Miss Hastings I Mr Sterling I Mr Thompson yes Mr mcnight I all right now going on to 6.23 would you care to go any further into that or just reiterate what you've already said basically R um I appreciate that the agenda um not I'm sorry the policy I appreciate

112that the education committee had made some changes and uh done some uh different things with the Press offering and uh had added a few things into it I would like to see a um I know one of them is a um where the parents can pull out books that they don't want their students to read and they can do that as well which is fine with that I would also like to see one that offers possibly parents who would like to see them reading specific books or something that you know pulling out books possibly they're part of their classrooms possibly pulling them out of classrooms if they don't want them reading specific books and not just you know library books or Library materials I think it'd be helpful to have parents have a little more

113um guidelines in that as well um I um I'm glad that we are offering it to students to um add selection as well I still think that if we have a committee I think there should be a committee of at least three people I think two people there should be a majority and not just two people not just certainly not just one person and I appreciate they added at least one person but I think it should be a majority as well and I think that if students do offer their additions to the library that it should go through a committee and not just hey I want this in the library and then it gets put in there um uh I think that the uh establishing criteria from the superintendent or design needs to be a

114little more than just superintendent doign it also should be possibly the same committee that might be putting some of these books into the libraries as well and so I think that it's a good thing to have a change um that it's not just the press as it's written but that I think we need to offer some more of the that we need to look into a little more of how the how the structuring of books are brought in how the how who's bringing them in how are they put in how are they possibly rated how are are there any guidelines and so it's kind of reiterating the same thing but I think it just a little stronger than just somebody picking something and having it stuck in the library so I know we we've talked

115you talked about at the policy commit about having some of the the extra things that they put in there and I think that's helpful but I think that it just needs a little more tweaking and pulling together some more um in-depth information didn't we bring uh the policy to educ or the process to education yes okay so that'll be next no we already went over the process in education so I think it was what two two months uh two or three months ago we brought uh the process uh Larry had asked it to be added to the agenda that we bring the process of how a book gets into a library to education so we went over that process there's no minutes when I look up like your go to the meeting minutes and stuff

116there are no minutes that I can seem to find for the unless I'm looking in the wrong place because I know I'm going to the board and to the minutes and the only minutes I ever see is the business services meeting minutes so somehow I'm either not are youting going to the board book minutes are usually posted after they're approved yes in board here's education committee from October 24th I think that's when you were talk is that when you I think so I don't remember Like Larry but we we brought it forward or excuse me I keep saying we Mr Smith brought it Forward um and asked specifically to go over the process of getting a book in the library I thought you were I sorry I thought you were there miss Carlson I probably

117was but who knows my first meeting I may have can I can send you minutes okay you'd like to make it easier that would be helpful CU I know either I'm looking in the wrong place or because if I pull up a meeting I'm not seeing minutes I mean I'm seeing when it's on the I'm seeing the meetings on the board B but I'm not getting you you do have to remember that with these committee meetings there one a month so it's a long time before they get posted because we have to get them approved before I can post understand there something they can request um they posted on talk to request minutes they're not official until they're approved but if you know if it makes it easier on someone just say unoficial s request

118unofficial ones that um I just think my point was is that I I don't think the book just goes into the library from what we saw at education there's a process um so I just let's yeah let's get you those minutes and let's get you that policy um so you can can understand how a book gets into the library but yeah it definitely has its you know it its process and its due diligence that it goes through before it goes on the Shelf so and of course this this 230 AP and the 230 yes or basically just follow that same order correct it's so one is the admin and procedures and the next one is actually just the for um that's why I just wanted to bring It Forward yes you can 0 a motion

119to approve first reading of as attached to correct um now with cons I I hearing the concerns like we can always bring those concerns and add to policy we can always we can always make changes correct that's our Challenge and that's that's kind of what I'm thinking is just to you know maybe at the next policy meeting say hey let's look into making some you know further ideas as to January 19th guidelines February febrary January 19th would be wasn't that wasn't that the next meeting many meetings February will be the next policy committee meeting so we can have those robust yes yes with that is there any more discussion on 6.23 6.23 AP and 6.23 AP all right I would like to take a motion and a second motion second Mr Smith yes Miss Hastings

120I Mr Sterling I Mr Thompson yes Mr mcnight hi Miss Carlson no all right I get a motion and a second to approve resolution declaring Surplus property motion second M Hastings I Mr Sterling I Mr Thompson I Mr mcnight hi Miss Carlson hi Mr Smith yes can get a motion in a second to approve acceptance of July and August 2023 Treasures reports motion second Mr Sterling hi Mr Thompson yes Mr mcnight hi Miss Carlson hi Mr Smith yes Miss Hastings I can I go a motion in a second to approve acceptance of FY 23 audit by S motion second Mr Sterling Mr Thompson I Mr mcnight hi M Carlson I Mr Smith yes Miss Hastings I can I get a motion in a second to approve the award of bid to Larson Equipment and furniture

121for the purchase and instulation of cafer tables at ralson elementary for a total cost of $2,923 motion second Mr Thompson I Mr MCN I miss Carlson I Mr Smith yes Miss Hastings I Mr Sterling I can you get a motion to approve an agreement with Arc designed to provide the design and working drawings for the 2024 summer pavement replacement project motion second Mr mcnight I miss Carlson I Mr Smith yes Miss Hastings I Mr Sterling Mr Thompson hi I'm sure that we have to do can get a motion in a second to approve the agreement with perar security to update the monitoring system at rck Cut Elementary motion M Carlson I Mr Smith yes Miss Hastings I Mr Sterling I Mr Thompson yes Mr mcnight hi any further announcements and discussion we teachers got to

122get that yoga oh yeah sorry get a motion in a second to approve agreement with regional Office of Education for Teacher Institute Wellness Fair professional development at a cost of $625 paid with title two funds motion second Mr Smith no Miss Hastings I Mr Sterling I Mr Thompson yes Mr mcnight I miss Carlson hi announcements and discussion all right make a motion on a second to Executive session to discuss the personel 5S second uh Mr Sterling Mr Thompson I Mr MCN i m Carlson I Mr Smith yes Miss Hastings i s minutes s minutes minutes oddly long and specific [Music] exactly [Music]