001okay Julie can I have attendance please Stephanie Peters here Michael Engel here Joel Finfer here George Beavitt here Robin Klee here Carl Borchers here Julie Clifford here seven present zero absent and move on to public comment is there anybody from the public who wishes to comment at this time good evening members of the Board of Education my name is Hannah Kim I'm the treasurer for the key to 73 foundation on behalf of the key to 73 foundation I'm proud to share that the past year's fundraising efforts were extremely successful because of the generosity of our community we are able to continue supporting the stability of Hawthorne families and ensuring Hawthorne students to come to school ready to learn and thrive it is truly an honor to present two checks to the Hawthorne Board of Education
002totally more than $26,000 tonight we are contributing $12,579 to Eagle net helping families maintain reliable internet access and $14,246 to the Hawthorne food pantry the key to 73 foundations raised to restock was vital in making sure no Hawthorne Eagle went hungry during the holidays thank you for your partnership and continued support of our students and families we are proud of what we can accomplish together thank you so much 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's National School
003Board 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 it we are forever grateful for what you do and also some of 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 a recognition tonight there's no recognition this evening there was supposed to be but the recognized are all at eighth grade welcome night at Vernon Hills High School
004so we decided not to make them come here instead we'll see them in two weeks perfect okay very exciting stuff for them all righty 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 to mention because there were small children in the room was just that at this what used to be the mental health committee for d128 and is now considered a renoaks Liberty of Overton Hills networking committee still very much focused on mental health was to please monitor your children's use of AI these chat bots 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
005that um also Stephanie and I attended a legislative breakfast at Stevenson this Monday I guess it was with representative ditch to be less I had and Senator Adrian 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 what 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 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 all right thank you that way consider that approved um I'm gonna move on to add red report mr. Finfer is
006there an unread report briefly January 26 at a red legislative dinner keynote speaker Brad Schneider congressman Brad Schneider and I'm sure it'll be all happy news thank you mr. angles there seat all reports there is I have a short one our last executive board meeting was the 18th December 18th last governing board meeting was December 3rd and really it's just about the summer construction projects were kind of the big ones in their 2026 summer construction project plan was outlined for Sid Lash gauges Lake School and prevocational and John Powers those projects will be funded through the geothermal rebate that initiative focuses on monitor I'm sorry modernizing infrastructure for better efficiency and cost savings across the seat all sites I don't know what the exact amount was but I think the rebate was somewhere around a
007million dollars or something like that it was significant don't quote me on that number but it was somewhere around 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 Miss Peters or mr. Pheavitt is there a site and facilities report there is a site facilities report we had our last site 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 not 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
008today to parents and guardians and family members regarding our sore 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're gonna we've got that just to the final up today as summer projects are on track I think we 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 gonna have that on the agenda to discuss but that is definitely coming got custodial bids that are coming up also very soon so there's a lot of TBD things that are coming up really soon we
009were 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 okay oh that's it whoops I shot that off um miss Clifford or mr. Finfer is there a wellness committee report there is not the next meeting will be on Tuesday January 27th in this room at three 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
010foundation 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 gonna turn it over to our assistant superintendent of finance and business operations miss Jennifer Aiken to discuss the bid results 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 be here tonight to help me present all right 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
011so a good good range especially coming up the 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 to kind of cover any of the unforeseen and things that might come up during construction with this the next steps will 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 schools out so as a brief overview if there's any questions I
012can write answer anybody have any questions this time thank you thank you very much Dr. Hannigan do you have a superintendent's report I do just two quick items at the last board meeting there were two future topics that were recommended I just wanted to let the board know the elementary extracurricular activities will be embedded in the staffing plan presentation of February 19th and the AI artificial intelligence presentation will be discussed on March 9th or March 18th 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
013consisting 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 position for the 2526 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
014to 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 2025 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
015on 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 stuff staff met with three finalists in the afternoon of Thursday December 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
016moved 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 Vivette aye Robin clique aye congratulations to our new executive director of technology mr. Kevin Colts please come up and share 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. Leali 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
017support 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 elevating 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 they're
018going 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 the 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 day of school he was outside greening kindergartners and they came to the building our son Kanan 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 Kanan loved HSYL couldn't stop raving about his teachers and also had a lot
019of 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 we are I'm honored to 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 miss 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 our feet at the last board meeting Carl had requested additional financial information regarding the copier refresh our feet so I
020put together a short presentation 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 be 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 2022 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 cost 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
021month 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 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-year 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 20 26 and a fixed cost maintenance agreement for a four-year term with no annual escalators the goal was long-term cost stability 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
022rose about $90,000 for 11 last 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 era devices represents the best overall value for the district this recommendation is based on a comprehensive evaluation of cost performance 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 fourteen thousand one hundred and eighty two dollars and sixty four cents at this time are there any questions that I can
023answer anybody have any question I don't have any questions I just want to say thank you for the further breakdown that kind of give us a more clear view of our previous expenses in our future investment for stability and our inner service I actually do have one minor question having seen some of this already I'm very comfortable with the monthly cost I think my question is related to the equipment cost and is the 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 of those anyway correct correct so copiers have a lot of electronic components today and security patches so we bought those original ones all right got it we didn't
024do at least 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 RFP okay thank you any other questions okay thank you thank you that said can I get a motion to approve the copier refresh so moved second motion by Michael seconded by George can I get a roll call vote please George Beavitt aye Carl Borchers aye Julie Clifford aye Joel Finfer aye Stephanie Peters aye Michael Engel aye Robin clique aye motion passes seven aye zero nays back to you dr. Hannigan thank you we have received five for your request since our last Board of Education meeting which has been identified in section 8.2 of the board agenda there any topics for
025future 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 any opposed meeting adjourned at 724 thank you who had 25 minutes just kidding