001support of our students and families. We are proud of what we can accomplish together. Thank you so much. Oh my goodness. Thank you to the Key to 73 Foundation as well as the community for all of your support. We really appreciate it. Is there anybody else from the public who wishes to comment at this time? Good evening I'm Erin Roach the president of the Hawthorne Education Association speaking on behalf of over 500 union members made up of both licensed and educational support staff. January is National School Board Recognition Month. We want to make sure you are aware that we appreciate all the time you devote while volunteering to support the Hawthorne staff, students, and community. We want you to know we see, we appreciate, we are forever grateful for what you do. And also some
002of us are very excited about the new printers coming in spring so thank you very much. That's it. Thank you so much to Erin and the HEA. We appreciate it. Thank you. Is there anybody else who wishes to public comment at this time? Okay moving on. I'm gonna turn it over to the recognition committee. Carl or George is there recognition tonight? There's no recognition this evening. There was supposed to be but the recognize are all at eighth grade welcome night at Vernon Hills High School so we decided not to make them come here instead. We'll see them in two weeks. Perfect. Okay. Very exciting stuff for them. Alrighty. I'm gonna move on to the president's report very quick tonight. The one thing I was going to mention at the last meeting that I didn't want
003to mention because there were small children in the room was just that at this what used to be the mental health committee for D-128 and is now considered a Green Oaks Liberty of Overton Hills Networking Committee, still very much focused on mental health was to please monitor your children's use of AI. These chatbots are often suggesting things and validating things that they should not be validating like self-harm and bad self-talk so I won't go into too much detail but please do be careful of that. Also Stephanie and I attended a legislative breakfast at Stevenson this Monday, I guess it was, with Representative Diditch, Tabila Syed, and Senator Adrienne Johnson just to go over things that are coming up for school districts and what's relevant to school districts and then we got a chance to share
004what was important to us so very good use of our time and we thank Stevenson for hosting and then I sent out a draft of the board meeting date for the 26-27 calendar. Did everybody get a chance to look those over? Just by a simple yes or no, is everybody okay with the dates that were suggested? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Great. Thank you. Then we consider that approved. I'm gonna move on to EDRED report. Mr. Finfer, is there an EDRED report? Briefly. January 26, EDRED legislative dinner. Keynote speaker Brad Schneider, Congressman Brad Schneider, and I'm sure it'll be all happy news. Thank you. Mr. Engel, is there a CEDAW report? There is. I have a short one. Our last executive board meeting was the 18th, December 18th. The last governing board meeting was December 3rd
005and really it's just about the summer construction projects were kind of the big ones in there. 2026 summer construction project plan was outlined for Sid Lash, Gages Lake School and John Powers. Those projects will be funded through the geothermal rebate. That initiative focuses on monitoring, I'm sorry, modernizing infrastructure for better efficiency and cost savings across the CEDAW sites. I don't know what the exact amount was but I think the rebate was somewhere around a million dollars or something like that. It was significant. Don't quote me on that number but it was somewhere around there. Next executive board meeting is January 22nd. The next governing board meeting is March 4th. Thank you. I'm going to quote you on that. Ms. Peters or Mr. Pheavitt, is there a site and facilities report? There is a site and
006facilities report. We had our last site and facilities was on January 6th. We had an opportunity to meet with our transportation partners with Lakeside. We had a really productive conversation about some of the scheduling issues and some of the bus problems and had a really great productive conversation about the bus monitors and the frequency of incidents on the school buses related to student behavior. I know I was personally really excited to see that reminder go out via email today to parents and guardians and family members regarding our SOAR behavior expectations on our buses. We hope to see continued improvement as the year goes on. We also had a chance to re-review the RFP financial summary for the copiers. I believe we've got that just to final up today. Summer projects are on track. I think
007we have bid results in our discussion items. The five-year facility plan is in process and I think that is coming and then there is still more information coming about the 1% facility sales tax. I'm not quite sure when we're going to have that on the agenda to discuss but that is definitely coming. We've got custodial bids that are coming up also very soon. There's a lot of TBD things that are coming up really soon. We are not doing custodial RFP. It is required to ought to bid by Illinois law and then I believe we have an update on our technology director role today. So that's it. Whoops, I shut that off. Miss Clifford or Mr. Finfer, is there a Wellness Committee report? There is not. The next meeting will be on Tuesday January 27th in
008this room at 3 o'clock open to the public so highly encourage anybody to come and attend. Thank you. Miss Clifford, is there a key to 73 report? Well as you know we just donated some money to the school from some really great efforts in our fundraising. I do want to encourage people to be sure to sign up for the key to 73 foundation emails. You can do that by visiting our website key to 73 foundation dot org. We are looking to start hosting some different gatherings for parents just so as a community we can come together and explore some of the local venues that Vernon Hills has to offer. Thank you. Okay next I'm going to turn it over to our assistant superintendent of finance and business operations Miss Jennifer Akin to discuss the bid
009results for summer 2026-2027 project. Good evening. The business office has one item to discuss tonight and it is the preliminary bid result. I have Tom McGrath and the friends here tonight to help me present it. Alright thanks for having us back tonight. Obviously we had the bid opening yesterday for the interior renovations at Middle School South. We had a great turnout over the three trade packages. We had about four or five bidders for each trade package so a good good range especially coming up to summer months here guys are filling up contractors are filling up so it was a great turnout considering everything. Overall the bids came in pretty much on target we're about 2.4 million all in with everything with several contingencies and allowances in there as well. Healthy contingencies that kind of cover
010any of the unforeseen and things that might come up during construction. With this the next steps we'll plan on coming back to the next board meeting with a full recommendation. We'll have our scope reviews over the next week or so with all the low contractors just making sure everybody's has everything covered that we need and then we'll be ready to start construction come June when school's out so as a brief overview if there's any questions I can try to answer. Does anybody have any questions this time? Thank you. Thank you very much. Dr. Hannigan do you have a superintendents report? I do just two quick items at the last board meeting there were two future topics that were recommended and I just wanted to let the board know the elementary extracurricular activities will be embedded
011in the staffing plan presentation on February 19th and the AI artificial intelligence presentation will be discussed on March 19th or March 18th. That's all I have. Thank you. Moving on to the consent agenda. Tonight's consent agenda consists of the board meeting minutes from December 17th 2025 the expenditure report of January 15th 2026 the Amazon expense report of January 15th 2026 the MasterCard report of November 21st 2025 treasures report of November 2025 board expenses for 2025 Illinois Association of School Board Conference and a personnel report consisting of one new hire for resignations and one leave of absence. Before we vote Dr. Hannigan do you have any remarks? I do. As you can see in the personnel report there is a recommendation to hire for the executive director of technology position that is a newly established administrative
012position for the 25-26 school year following a comprehensive review and restructuring of our technology department which included the former assistant superintendent for innovation director of innovation technology support supervisor and technology systems and infrastructure administrator roles the district identified the need for a single executive level position to provide a unified leadership and oversight of all technology operations. The executive director of technology position was created to consolidate responsibilities improve operational efficiency and ensure strategic alignment across all technology functions. The position was posted on October 31st 2025 to our district website as well as k-12 job spot IASPA, IASBO and IASA Illinois education job bank and various social media platforms. We received 39 applicants that applied cabinet reviewed the online applications and identified a pool of candidates to be interviewed and that was completed on Friday November 14th
0132025. From there then we had an interview team comprised of members of cabinet and the technology consultant Jean-Sophie which her last day is tomorrow she's very happy. We interviewed she's not happy with me right now anyhow I got sidetracked so we had a we we ended up after that paper screening we brought candidates on two separate days we had five candidates come on the morning of Thursday November 20th for a screening interview with cabinet and Jean and then we had an additional five candidates on the morning of Thursday December 4th 2025. From there then we brought three candidates back for a second round of this was really a third round of interviews we that committee composed of district and building administrators and technology support staff staff met with three finalists in the afternoon of Thursday
014December 18th the interview team independently scored them same process that we always run and then from there the finalists had the pleasure of meeting with myself or interviewing with myself Jen Aiken and Adam Palmer and I'm very excited this evening to make the recommendation of Kevin Colts as the executive director of technology. Okay thank you so much. Does anybody need any items to be taken out and voted on separately? Okay can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda items as presented? So moved. Second. Motion by Carl seconded by Stephanie could I get a roll call vote please? Michael Engel? Aye. Carl Borchers? Aye. Bill Finfer? Aye. Julie Clifford? Aye. Stephanie Peters? Aye. George Viefit? Aye. Robin Cleek? Aye. Congratulations to our new executive director of technology Mr. Kevin Colts. Please come up and
015share a few words. He had to make sure that was me. First off thank you Board of Education, Dr. Hannigan, everybody on the team. I am beyond grateful for this opportunity to Hawthorne. I also feel it's important to thank Dr. Lialli at Lake Bluff even though she's not here. It's never easy to lose someone in the middle of the year but she's been extremely supportive and knew what this meant to me as I went for this position. My wife Sarah thank you for your support. Sarah has endured more than her fair share of late-night tech and interview conversations over the last two months so that's done. I feel wrong to say because I don't feel that old but I've been in this industry for 19 years now. I've spent it in a few different districts
016elevating into different roles all of which have provided me different opportunities and developed me into the leader I've become. I believe many of my strengths come from the hands-on opportunities I received aside from the traditional classroom setting when I was younger. My biggest passion outside of providing smooth technology access is providing those opportunities to students using technology. I think technology a huge gateway to providing those types of opportunities. As I move throughout my career I've kept a constant eye on Hawthorne and what's going on. My wife and I made the decision to move into this community four years ago. Our oldest son started at HSYL last fall. My wife and I have been nothing but impressed by the organization and processes in place here. I'm sure Dr. Hannigan may not remember but on the first
017day of school he was outside greening kindergartners and they came to the building. Our son Kaden was not having it. Dr. Hannigan did his best to try and get him into the building but it just was not gonna gonna happen. Seeing Dr. Hannigan do that left such an impression on both Sarah my wife and I and just realized what kind of place this was. Within a week Kaden loved HSYL, couldn't stop raving about his teachers and also had a lot of accolades for the playground that was at the building. At one point during the fall I remember making a remark to Sarah I think if there's ever opportunity to come work at Hawthorne I think I might go for it no matter when it is. I never expected to come fruition this fast but here
018we are. I'm honored to have been chosen. I thank you and I'm looking forward to get to work. Thank you so much. Welcome, welcome. All right I'm gonna turn it back over to Ms. Jennifer Aiken to review the action item on tonight's agenda from the business department. The business office has one item for board approval and it is our copier refresh RFP. At the last board meeting Carl had requested additional financial information regarding the copier refresh RFP so I put together a short presentation to show where we are now and where we're hoping to go with board approval. So our current situation started in 2021. Brought on proven IT to our copier company and we installed 38 machines under the usage based service agreement with a total hardware value of just over $237,000. In October
0192022 we added an additional five machines under that same service structure. Service costs are usage based meaning that we pay per copy and per print with different rates for black and white versus color. While the model worked well during the contract term costs increased significantly when that agreement expired. Over the past 45 months total copier costs were approximately $200,800. During the contract period we averaged about $4,026 a month. After the contract ended the average rose to about $5,333 a month. Highlighting the financial volatility of the usage based printing model. In November 2025 the district issued a request for proposal to evaluate replacement options. The RFP requested 30 machines scaled appropriately to current building needs. 11 high volume black and white units and 19 smaller color machines. All the devices were required to include a three
020year warranty. The deployment plan distributes machines across elementary schools, middle schools, the district office and tower road. From a service standpoint we requested installation by March 2026 and a fixed cost maintenance agreement for a four year term with no annual escalators. The goal was long term cost ability and predictable budgeting. So if we compare what we had or what we currently have with IT, our proven IT to what we are recommending tonight with impact networking, the total equipment cost as you can see rose about $90,000 for 11 less machines. And then the price per month is comparable. After reviewing all the proposals the administration of the business office determined that impact networking proposal using case area devices represents the best overall value for the district. This recommendation is based on a comprehensive evaluation of costs,
021performance, reliability and long term operational efficiency. Most importantly, this proposal controls long term service costs through that non escalation agreement, reduces exposure to usage based volatility, supports sustainability and lifecycle efficiency goals and provides predictable budget friendly monthly expenditures. The business office is seeking board approval to enter into a three year copier equipment lease and a four year maintenance agreement with impact networking with a monthly cost of approximately $14,182.64. At this time, are there any questions that I can answer? Anybody have any questions? I don't have any questions. I just want to say thank you for the further breakdown to kind of give us a more clear view of our previous expenses and our future investment for stability in our in our service. I actually do have one minor question having seen some of this already.
022I'm very comfortable with the monthly costs. I think my question is related to the equipment cost and is that is the cost for the previous equipment is that the cost when we originally purchased and not what it would have cost to replace those because we also would have had to replace all those anyway, correct? Correct. So copiers have a lot of electronic components today and security patches and all that jazz. So we bought those original ones outright. Got it. We didn't do a lease. Okay. The predictability of having a lease and not having those fluctuations with budgeting got it was appealing and that was recommended by an industry expert that I spoke to outside of the Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. That said, can I get a motion to
023approve the copier refresh? So moved. Second. Motion by Michael. Seconded by George. Can I get a roll call vote please? George Vivid? Aye. Carl Borchers? Aye. Julie Clifford? Aye. Joel Finfer? Aye. Stephanie Peters? Aye. Michael Engel? Aye. Robin Klee? Aye. Motion passes 7 ayes 0 nays. Back to you Dr. Hannigan. Thank you. We have received five FOIA requests since our last Board of Education meeting which has been identified in section 8.2 of the board agenda. Are there any topics for future agendas? All right. With no further business to discuss, can I get a motion to adjourn the open meeting? So moved. Second. Motion by Stephanie. Seconded by Carl. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Meeting adjourned at 724. Thank you. Who had 25 minutes? Just kidding.