001I call the May 14th, 2026 regular meeting of the Board of Education to order. Kate, will you please call the roll? Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Last Wednesday, May 6th, the Board of Education had the honor of attending the fifth annual Lake County Educator of the Year award ceremony. This annual event honors outstanding teachers, administrators, and support staff whose dedication, leadership, and passion strengthen schools and communities across Lake County. Lake Zurich was proud to have eight outstanding staff members nominated. This year's Guest of Honor category recognized Librarian Media Specialists and the Navigate Program was also acknowledged for its impactful work. These outstanding District 95 staff
002members were Michelle Winslow, Guest of Honor LZHS Learning and Innovation Specialist, Colleen Syke for her collaboration and leadership efforts with the Navigate event, Kim Ferraro, LZHS Classroom High School Teacher, Kelly Harper, Middle School South Classroom Middle School Teacher, Claire Collins, Spencer Loomis Classroom Diverse Learner Teacher, ELL and SPED, Adam Miza, LZHS Early Career Educator, Megan Pozar, LZHS Student Support Personnel, Yuri Kim, Sarah Adams Educational Service Personnel, Colleen Conway, Sarah Adams School Administrator and Blue Ribbon School Awardee, and Karen Lodwick, Seth Payne, who won the Lake County Classroom Elementary Early Childhood Teacher of the Year. We are so very proud. The board enjoyed the opportunity to attend this event and recognize each of you and celebrate your exceptional service to our district on behalf of all students. We thank you. Again, for your dedication and commitment
003to empower every learner to achieve personal excellence, our board members have been busy presenting challenge coins, giving shout outs to many more of our exceptional staff in district 95. Every board member has a challenge coin this time. So Mrs. Daniker, please start with your challenge coins. All right. Well, I was lucky enough to present two challenge coins this month and I actually used a personal part of a personal day to do so because I recognize how important this is. I'm going to start out with Ms. Lyons. Jen is actually very near and dear to my heart because she was a kindergarten teacher to two of my students, to my children. One of them went as far as to ask her to be his mom instead of me, so I'll always remember that. She is, but
004she is that special. I know that both of those boys, both of my boys who had her will say that that was one of their most favorite teachers, which is incredible because that's their first teacher they have at Lake Zerg schools and it sets them up really for success. I know I'm in an elementary school and I'm an elementary school teacher, but I don't think it's biased to say that kindergarten teachers are a special breed and probably the most difficult job there is in education. So that isn't why I gave her the challenge coin. That's just because I know we have a long night and I'm just going to keep talking about Ms. Lyons. Anyways, she is being given that because above being just a wonderful kindergarten teacher, she comes every Friday morning well before
005her contractual hours to let the chorus kids into the building and I just think this is an excellent example of what all teachers do all the time. They work tirelessly and they go above and beyond not just for the students in their classroom and this is a perfect example. There are not any kindergarten students in chorus, yet it's the kindergarten teacher showing up on a Friday morning to let them into the building. So I presented a challenge coin along with Ms. Fuller, who is the chorus teacher at Isaac Fox, to Ms. Lyons for going above and beyond and really being an example of what all Lake Zerg teachers have shown themselves to be, which is an excellent support system to all students in their building. So thank you, Ms. Lyons. Am I back to back?
006Okay, great. So I went from kindergarten to the high school and this one, this, if you don't know, this month is Mother's Day teacher appreciation and it is also nurse appreciation in our crazy month of May-Sember. We just like to put us all together, but I thought this was perfect way to shout out to the two nurses at the high school. I happened to be sitting at the stands at a baseball game and one of the students who is on the baseball team came with this huge basket of goodies. Ben is a special kiddo. He's a senior and he found out that he was going to have surgery right before his baseball season, so he was going to have to sit out his last year of baseball on the sidelines. And any mom or kid
007or dad who is like waiting for that last year knows how special that last season is and how heartbreaking it can be for a kid who wasn't expecting to sit out to be sitting out. And Sandra and Tia, out of just empathy and love, gave him this goody basket of baseball sideline stuff to cheer him up and because he gets to be the manager of the team to kind of keep him busy while he's there, managing game changer. When I reached out to Dr. Walsh about other things, he had no problem mentioning the many times they've had to run wheelchairs, the many acts of empathy that they have shown, ice packs, bandages, or just being a really quiet place to rest. Or my favorite is while we were there, there was a frequent flyer who
008they really quickly identified and shooed out of the office, which I can appreciate as a teacher as well. So I just want to give out a shout out to all the nurses in our district, but these are a great example of exactly, again, the type of people that work in our schools and that care about kids and go above and beyond. So thank you, Sandra and Tia. All right. Mr. Etienne, please let us know who received your challenge points. Well, thank you. Now, we as parents and community members want to be good stewards of this earth and also to leave it in good shape for the future generations. And so we're excited to have student members on our sustainability committee and two of them are privileged enough to provide coins to more recently. So here
009we have Shaila, who is at Lake Zurich High School and she's in 11th grade and she comes regularly to our committee and contributes. And these are people for whom really the impact of what we do really matter. We are talking about what happens to the food in the cafeteria and the leftovers. What do we do with recycling? What do we do with composting? And so we're very, very happy to have Shaila participate. So we're very thankful for her participation and I was very happy to provide her with this challenge coin in recognition. And of course, not only in the high school, but we have middle school north as well. And we have Joe, who is a regular member. And I'll tell you, Joe isn't shy about being student voice. Student voice really means something to
010him. So he's not shy about sharing his voice and he's very active in contributing to a sustainability committee. And so we're very proud. Actually, if you're in this meeting, you would never know he's in middle school. He sounds like he's in high school or even beyond. So we're very happy and very proud that he has been a participant of our committee and has provided a robust student voice. And we know along with him and all those that are on the committee, they will, we feel pretty comfortable that they will continue to charge for the next generation to come. So congratulations to Joe. Mr. Goldberg, can you present your challenge coin? Absolutely. Thank you, Eileen. I'm honored this evening to recognize two of our amazing staff members, Rob Medina and Joe Puglio. There's Joe right there.
011Joe is a very interesting gentleman. Joe comes to us from Lake Forest High School where he started the incubator program and also actually worked in the theater there. He retired a few years ago and we elected to hire him to help us with our incubator and accelerator programs. And he has not only been the person that's sort of been the glue of the program, but he's brought to the community so many things that he's learned there, but particularly his background in theater and arts. He's been able to impart upon the students how important it is to be able to get in front of a large group of people to be able to present. I think about, you know, myself at that age. I'm not sure I would have been brave enough to stand up in
012front of a group of sharks and present my ideas and do it in such an amazing fashion. For those of you that had a chance to come to the pitch night a few weeks ago and saw those amazing presentations, a lot of that work was what Joe had done to prepare those students, in fact, for that. So he works closely with our students. He helps them develop, refine, and ultimately present their business ideas. But much more than that, he's able to help them translate their ideas into reality. And I know that both he and Josh Hollander, who's our full-time teacher in that department, do such an amazing job with those kids. So many of you might know for the last five years I've been fortunate enough to be a coach and a mentor in that
013program, and I'm continually amazed by the work that those students do. And a lot of it has to do with, obviously, the coaching that they're getting from myself and the other coaches, but also from what they're getting in the classrooms every day. And what Joe has brought to the program is really amazing. I think we're all very fortunate to have Joe in our program. So thank you, Joe, for everything you do for our students. My next challenge coin was awarded to Rob Medina, and Rob serves as the fab lab aide. And that's kind of a funny title, but it really doesn't capture the impact what Rob does every day. He is responsible for making sure all the equipment in the lab is maintained. He recognizes how to teach the students how to use the equipment,
014and he's really the technical backbone of that entire lab. He trains the students and he makes sure they have what they need to succeed, but he also goes so much far beyond what his job title is. For example, a group of students that I was working with needed to put together a prototype of the product that we've been working on, and Rob dedicated an entire Saturday of his time to work with us, literally 10 hours in the fab lab so we could put together our prototype. And he showed my students how to use various pieces of equipment. He worked with us and really showed, I think, the importance of having people like that in our system. So he also works with the robotics team and he brings a level of passion and craftsmanship to everything
015he does that I think is really remarkable. So Rob, I want to thank you for everything you do to support our students, for helping turn ideas into something real. We truly appreciate you. Thank you. Dr. Pinter, would you start with your shout outs? Yeah, sure. All right. I just really want to do a shout out to Lindsay Binden from Middle School North, and I'll read what I have, but I just want to say, like, she is just, if anyone knows her, you just sit down with her and she's just so real, so down to earth. My kid, every time he comes home, he talks about science all the time because she's his teacher. She's this very understanding of children and very, she calls herself chill. I agree with that. But this is what I prepared
016for today about Lindsay. So Lindsay Binden is a seventh grade science teacher at Middle School North who deserves a shout out for her deep understanding of neurodivergence. She told me that she understands that kids have different brains and that she never gets angry at a child who thinks differently. Instead, she respects neurodivergent kids and has high expectations for them. Mrs. Binden described herself as an efficient but understanding teacher who works with kids and doesn't blame them. She said that her students would describe her as chill. Illustrating this point, she told me a story about a child who constantly was asking to go to the bathroom. While some folks might see a child like this as a nuisance who was disrupting the class, Mrs. Binden did not. Because she had read up on so many different
017signs of ADHD, she was aware that children with ADHD sometimes get so caught up in the present task that they sometimes forget to use the restroom until it's close to being too late. So for that reason, she saw this child not as having a behavioral problem but instead as a child with a neurodivergent brain. While that child struggled in many classrooms, Mrs. Binden's open mind and acceptance made it so that he thrived in her class. Not only does Mrs. Binden care about children with all kinds of ways of thinking, she's also an excellent colleague. She wanted to send a shout out to Steve Teitel for being an excellent teacher and for making sure that all voices are heard. She said that he's an excellent collaborator and a good friend too. She also wanted me to
018recognize Stacey Schmiderer. Did I say it right? Schmiderer. Yes, that's what I said. Cool. For being an awesome collaborator with good ideas and for being very hands-on with kids, Mrs. Binden noted that the students really love Mrs. Schmiderer. Again, thanks to Mrs. Binden for caring about all kids and for recognizing the beauty of diversity and children who have neurodivergence. She makes many kids believe in themselves, brings them joy, and makes them excited for school. Her work and effort is a bright light in many children's days at North Campus. Thank you so much. Thank you, Ms. Tim. Okay, all right, so that was my afternoon visit to the high school and I was lucky to present a challenge coins to the student deans, Joe Haney and Brittany Botrife, and that is not an easy job. It
019was just a real pleasure to be there. They exemplify going above and beyond in support of students at the high school and whether it be through their proactive teaching regarding student behavior expectations, coaching and mentoring, conversations with students, striving to demonstrate social emotional skills, or responding to students in need during times of need, Joe and Brittany provide a high level of service in day in and day out for students. Brittany and Joe demonstrate exceptional leadership in a wide range of situations that are often challenging. They routinely routinely have difficult conversations with students and families, yet they do so with a listening ear and with student privacy and dignity in mind. They are also often the recipients of critical feedback from state stakeholders and they navigate these conversations with patience and grace. They regularly have to
020manage high stakes situations and decisions and do so without any expectation of recognition for their efforts. They are quiet leaders, they lead by example, and they model district values of integrity and respect, most especially along the way. Over the course of their collective tenure at Lakeshore High School, they have demonstrated a commitment to continuous improvement of student experience, processes, procedures, and other areas that have been a benefit to the LZH community at large. Lakeshore High School is truly a better place because of the efforts of deans Haney and Botrife and there are not enough words to encapsulate all they do in service of our school community. And I'd just like to have an aside here that Joe Haney went to Knox College, which is my alma mater in Gillsburg, Illinois, and he did graduate 10
021years after me, which I won't hold that against him, but how fun to meet a person in your field of, you know, in your community who went to a school of 1200 like you did. So thank you for your incredible leadership and service of our students, staff, and families, Joe and Brittany. All right, and I have another one. Okay, this is really, I really enjoy going to the Young Adult Center because it's, it's very special energy there. It is protected, this energy is protected. So when I went to present this challenge coin to Dione Couples, she, it was a fast process because she said, well, I want to have a picture with my students and then we'll do another one, but then, okay, I think you're upsetting our apple cart, so you want to go.
022So I was like, okay, I can do this, and yes, I can see how that would be true, and obviously she's doing an amazing job protecting her students, and they just have a beautiful, really a beautiful energy there. It's just, I don't know, it's really hard to explain, so it's just really beautiful. So Dione Couples embodies the district mission statement of empowering every learner to achieve personal excellence. Through her long-standing work with the district's transition program, Dione has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to supporting all of our young adult learners towards preparing for post-secondary employment, independent living, and educational training goals. Dione is also a model team player. She never hesitates to help out with a student need to assist with a colleague or to support with any task, big or small, that arrives throughout the
023day. Dione has additionally been an advocate for other staff members in the program with respect to communicating various student needs in community-based settings. Most recently, Dione has been an instrumental in preparing for the annual Young Adult Center Plan Sale. Dione has been a leader in organizing sale needs in advance of the event, even about volunteering to come in over the weekend in preparation. Due to Dione's exceptional work, the team generated over $500 in sales before the actual event, all of which will go back towards supporting the program. It's a really great pleasure to meet her again and see her interact with her students and just be in that building with her. So thank you to Dione for her outstanding work in support of our young adult learners and her teammates. Thank you. Thank you. Lisa,
024or please go ahead with yours. So like everyone here, we play many roles, and one that I'm proud to serve, that I started about a year or a little bit over a year ago, is president of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the St. Francis Conference. We're the group that runs the Thursday evening food pantry, so that's where I am every other Thursday. We started last year to engage the youth of our community to more actively volunteer on Thursday evenings, and I was thrilled to be able to present a challenge coin to Lake Zork High School senior Caitlin Howell. Caitlin volunteers at the pantry, and she enjoys the role of entertaining the children that visit the pantry while they're waiting for their family's turn, and they often stay while their parents are shopping because they're
025so much fun. So Caitlin noticed that the toys and supplies were dwindling over the year, and asked if she could ask friends and neighbors to donate art supplies and toys to replenish. The pantry leadership was thrilled that she noticed this need and volunteered to take steps to fill that need. Caitlin's collection efforts resulted in two cars worth of items coming to the pantry. With the help of her mom and another friend, the items were brought into the pantry, and Caitlin organized the area to showcase all the new items. The kids are thrilled with the new fun things to do, and the parents remain grateful that their children have this opportunity every time they come to the pantry. Congratulations to Caitlin for not only seeing a need, but also taking the steps to fill this need
026for her community, and as she graduates this weekend, she leaves the district a great example of our portrait of a graduate. Thank you, Lisa. I had the privilege. So last Tuesday, I was heading up to the high school for a 730 a.m. meeting, and I was really surprised because there was a lot of traffic coming and going from the high school and quite a few students walking up to the main entrance. So I expressed my surprise at the number of teens that were coming to school so early in the morning because we all know they like to sleep in as late as possible. And I learned that this was not an anomaly. For many mornings and weekends over the past several weeks, teens have been coming to school early and on Saturdays. These extra hours
027are spent with several AP teachers who on their own time are organizing these extra study sessions for the upcoming AP exams. AP exams do have an unusual defined way to answer certain questions with specific grading allocations to all of those. So the sessions were held to review the material and ensure the students were able to answer the questions in the proper manner and showcase the knowledge they had gained over the last year. I was honored to be able to present challenge coins to Michael Burr, Kim Ferraro, George McNallis, and Jenny Morgan. They all conducted these sessions over the last several weeks. These four high school teachers are a great example of the amazing staff that we have here in District 95. Thank you for taking the extra step to ensure student success and I believe
028I speak for everyone when I say we really do appreciate you. Thank you, Lisa. I had the privilege of going to the Lake County Tech Center this morning to recognize Dr. Michael Karner. The Lake Suric District 95 Board of Education extends its deepest gratitude to Dr. Michael Karner for his transformative leadership. Dr. Karner is a critical leader who has fundamentally shifted the educational landscape of Lake County by championing equitable access for all students. His vision ensures that every child, regardless of their background, has a pathway to success through scholarship monies, safe school environments, and robust online and alternative learning options. Dr. Karner's impact is felt across our county through his tireless dedication to several key initiatives. Dr. Karner's passion for career readiness is unmatched. Through his leadership and partnership, the workforce development group, and the
029groundbreaking Navigate program, he has ensured that thousands of students explore a wide array of career options in a hands-on immersive way. Recognizing that success begins at birth, Dr. Karner was instrumental in bringing Dolly Parton's Imagination Library to Lake County, ensuring our youngest learners receive high quality books at home to foster a lifelong love of reading. Through the Lake County ROE Foundation, Dr. Karner has raised millions of dollars to remove physical and financial barriers, such as the lack of food or basic supplies that prevent students from focusing on their education. He provides annual opportunities for educators throughout Lake County to engage in collaborative county-wide professional learning. These experiences allow educators to share their expertise with peers and learn alongside one another in a unified network of excellence. Beyond his strategic work, Dr. Karner ensures that educators
030across the entire county are acknowledged and celebrated for their exceptional service. Dr. Karner possesses an incredible ability to collaborate with all 50 plus school districts, constantly connecting us so that we build success through strong regional partnerships. We are incredibly fortunate to have such an exceptional leader at the helm. So thank you to Dr. Karner and that was our first out of district challenge coin. Moving on, moving on to public comment. Do we have anybody? No, we do not. Okay, so then the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. Dr. Gault. Thank you, Mrs. Maloney. This evening I have for the board the approval of closed and open minutes from the board of education meeting held on April 23rd, 2026 and the special board of education meeting held on April 25th, 2026. Also the
031approval of payrolls, the approval of transportation decision tree, approval of the comprehensive district plan, approval of the personnel report, which includes many things, but I'm going to ask Dr. Walsh if you wouldn't mind coming up for just a moment. We do have employment of administrative staff listed for this evening and so if we can, oh hazardous routes, thank you. Michaela to the board. Michaela grew up in Johnsburg and went to Johnsburg schools, went to Lake Forest from there. She has taught in the Zion School District for eight years. She has taught third grade, fifth grade. She's been a reading interventionist and most recently was a classroom systems coach. Her focus on supporting students during challenging times really stood out while we were talking to her. Finally, she is a Cubs fan, which is fine and
032we will deal with, but we are really excited to have her on board and welcome her to Lake Zurich High School. So that is the administrative recommendation this evening for the board. Also included are stipends for May 14th, 2026, the resignation of administrative staff, which includes Kristin Herrick. She has been with us for six years. Congratulations to Kristin. She is going to become a principal in a neighboring district and we could not be prouder of her. As well as Nicole Jensen has served our high school for many years and she is going on for a district level position. So congratulations to both of those individuals. They are both going to be missed greatly. And then employment of certified staff includes I want to just give the board a little bit of information on one of
033them, Michelle Anderson. She is currently a paraprofessional in our district and she was a part of our Bloom board program. And so she is the first individual that we've been able to offer a full-time certified position to. So when you approve tonight, you thank you so much to the board for allowing us to have this program and a special thank you to Mrs. Besich for bringing this program on so that we could help people who are really committed to Lake Zurich already be able to realize their dream. And so I'm very excited for that recommendation. We have some resignations of certified staff, employment of non-certified staff, and then a resignation of non-certified staff as well. That's what I have for you this evening. Thank you, Dr. Galt. May I have a motion and a second
034to approve the consent agenda as prepared and presented by the administration? So moved. Second. Thank you, Doug, and thank you, Natasha. Are there any questions? Kate, please call the roll. Ms. Timm? Yes. Mrs. Warren? Yes. Mrs. Danniger? Yes. Mr. Goldberg? Yes. Dr. Pinter? Yes. Ms. Maloney? Yes. Mr. Aitken? Yes. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the superintendent's report. Dr. Galt. Thank you, Mrs. Maloney. This evening we have several items, so please bear with me. There are many slides, and I'm going to share the floor with Mrs. Stallion as well. And so this evening we'll first start with you did receive some communication to the board. Specifically, there was some information about electronic device access within the school day, including cell phones. And so please note that actually that meeting took place today
035with that parent. And so a special thank you to district and building leaders who took part in that conversation. Recess consideration for middle school students was also sent to you. And then additionally, you have at your seats a request to consider the library book selection process and that that be discussed at an upcoming board meeting. I did have the opportunity as well as Mrs. Stallion to speak with our teaching and learning committee. And so later on in my presentation, you will note that we would like to add an additional teaching and learning committee meeting because we do believe that that deserves some conversation and that would be the appropriate place to hold that conversation. And then we will share the information at the board meeting as we typically do once we have that conversation at
036the committee level. So just note that. And then additionally, FOIA, as typical, it's included within your agenda. I know each of you have already read that. We did have a lovely donation of $2,500 to our robotics club, so a special thank you. I am worried I'm not going to be able to name this correctly, but I'm not sure. Mr. Goldberg, if you are familiar. I am not. OK, so I'm not going to attempt to. It is on the screen. But a huge, huge thank you to them. These monies are so important to our students as well as our educators who are overseeing that program. Go ahead. Oh, it's Fresenius Carbide Medical Product Company. Thank you very much. So I'm going to at this time, Mrs. Stallion does not have a whole lot of time left
037with us. And we had just such an incredible conversation during teaching and learning this evening. I'm going to let her go ahead and take the stage. Thank you. We did have a great teaching and learning. That will be the last one that I will facilitate. But I do want to thank the board. There were kind words said and wonderful learning that has happened throughout the six years that I've been here. So I appreciate that. We talked a lot about summer semester, and I'm going to give huge shout outs to Mr. Jackowitz and Ms. Allen for the work that they have done to provide yet another what we believe will be a fantastic summer of learning for our students. You can see the dates up there. Just notable to point out again, we will have no
038classes the week of June 29th. And you can see that we continue to have a Teacher Institute Day so that our teachers can get in prior to students coming. And we will also have an open house so that our parents have the opportunity to come in, see where their students will be learning over the summer, and meet those teachers. We also are very proud to say that our bus drivers are fully staffed, our K-8 is fully staffed, our high school is fully staffed, and that we have over a thousand students who are registered, which is up a bit from the summer before. So clearly our community and our students and parents really do enjoy the opportunities that are provided by the summer semester program. You can see our course offerings on the next slide, and
039we do have our enrichment, and you can see many of those are already full. And I expect that we will see some others fill as we continue to accept students in registration. We do have bilingual programs, success, which we've had many years, extended school year, and the first year, the advanced math bridge program, which we've talked quite a bit about, allowing students to bridge some of those standards that they may not have had during their year to allow them access to more advanced math opportunities. So we're excited to see how that program goes and get some feedback from our students and families after that. You can see our LZHS course offerings, pretty typical of what we'd offered before, our credit earning. We are full in driver's ed, of which we fill up within hours of
040that being posted, maybe minutes. Consumer ed and government is full, and we will continue to offer ACT prep. The numbers for the students that are interested in that summer opportunity are not robust. They weren't last year either, but we still believe that if there are 14 to 20 students who we think we can offer that to, then we're really proud to do so. We also really thank the high school, and I do want to thank Dr. Walsh and Mr. Gim. They really advocated through Dr. Galt and myself to expand offerings during the school year for our students and our families to help them achieve success on that assessment. So to his team and to the high school teachers that took part in that, that was really beneficial, and I do think that's something that we
041should continue offering. And finally, we know that safety is a big concern during summer semester, so we're always looking at traffic patterns and drop off and pick up during that time as we house many students in our K-E programs. So Mr. Jackowitz has been very thorough in working with transportation, with facilities to ensure that we will be able to very safely transport students to our buildings and then back to their families at the end of the day. So thank you again to all of those folks who have taken part in planning for what I believe will be another successful summer semester. We also had a lengthy discussion about weighted grades. What I will say is it came to our attention early on that we had some families who were experiencing some discomfort as they were
042receiving information from universities, not getting some of the scholarship money and some of the things that they were expecting to get. Of course, that made us curious as to why that was happening, and through Dr. Galt's support as well as the work of the high school and the directors and myself, we dug in pretty deep this year to figure out what was happening, and we did discover that we have some things we need to address. We will be taking a look at changing. Well, we're not going to look at it. We're going to do it. We're going to change our weighted GPA. Our weighted GPA currently allows a student to leave us with a 5.67 GPA. Many universities are not accepting that GPA. They will not accept anything over a five, and that was affecting
043some of our students. Because of that, we are going to shift our GPA to a 4.0 for unweighted and a 5.0 for the weighted GPA. When we think about that, what we're trying to do is equalize our students' opportunities with other students that are applying to the universities who are telling us that our GPA is not going to be accepted at their university. Many other districts are doing that same work that we're doing as well. We've reached out to many to understand where they are, where we are, and how we can ensure that our students are getting access to the best universities they want to go to and the most scholarship money that they can get. In addition to recalibrating that GPA, we are also going to remove the pluses and minuses starting at fourth
044grade so that an A is weighted as an A, a B is weighted as a B. That was one of the things that put us high over the 5.0, is the pluses that we gave. Again, please know that we did a lot of research on this. We reached out to many universities. Agnes at the high school did an insurmountable amount of contact with the universities that she connects with. We reached out to many of our local high schools and quite frankly some that aren't so local to find out what they were doing and discovered many are going to be moving to this as well because they experienced the same thing. So we are going to remove the pluses and minuses as well, thereby ensuring more equitable access for all students. We are also going to
045take our dual credit and our AP will be weighted the same. They are both college level courses, entry courses, and they should be weighted the same. So they will be weighted the same with the honors courses the next week and then our CP courses at a 4.0. So we'll reclassify that. Again, there are many strengths to making this change. We understand that there might be some questions and concerns. The Department of Curriculum and Instruction will partner with the high school and we are at the ready to support any family or students who have questions about this and staff. But those strengths right there are going to equalize our students' opportunities and not put them at risk of losing anything because of something that we just needed to fix. So we're going to do that. We're
046going to make that change. We recognize that communication is critical. We know that. So we do have a plan. We will be doing parent letters. We will be doing podcasts. We will be doing infographics that we can put out so parents can get quick glimpses of it and then maybe go deeper within a letter or a podcast. We will give side by side examples. Where were we? Where are we? And why are we there? And then we will also provide parents an opportunity to recalculate their students' GPA. And if they believe that our recalculation of their students' GPA on their transcript is not accurate, they will have an avenue to reach out to us and we will work with them to recalculate and adjust or change should that need arise. There is going to be
047a lot of work for our data team. We looked into whether or not we could go back and update transcripts. We can. We can do that. We reached out to the state to say can we change those, update those. We will have a qualifier at the bottom of all the transcripts saying this is an adjusted transcript based on a 5.0 weighted and a 4.0 unweighted. So we will make sure that every student and every university understands that that change was made. We will be changing our profile so that all of the universities that look at our profile understand what we do. It's very complex. We've learned a lot through this process. But communication is key and we will make sure that we're reaching out. And then I did want to personally thank Mrs. Daniger because
048she is the person who helped us to understand that there were some issues out there and then was able to connect us with some families who were struggling and I don't know if you would like to say something but I really do appreciate all of your effort. I appreciate because I very much recognize how huge of a lift this is but as a parent with a senior throughout the entire year this was the number one thing I kept hearing and from personal experience my son didn't choose this school but we got an $8,000 difference in the money he was going to be given and the letter that I was presented said it was because of our school districts which way that they graded or that the way they calculated the GPA. Thank you. So I
049know when I talked to you and to Dr. Gault I said this is going to be an issue and both of you acted on something that I know is going to be very disruptive but hopefully disruptive in the best ways possible. I also mentioned in the meeting my other student I'm pretty sure his GPA will change downward because he gets a lot of pluses on the scale so I recognize this is a change but I do think it's the right change. Thank you and that concluded pretty much our meeting I want to make sure that I turn it over to our two board members who sit on the committee if they have anything that they would like to add to the conversations we had. It's key when Ms. Stallion was talking about the note that
050would be on the transcripts we are not adjusting transcripts of people that graduate this year or two years ago or five years ago this is a moving forward however the grades next year's graduates received all of the grades will be adjusted to this new GPA calculation so that's really critical we're not changing what's been reported to schools in the past it's really just a move forward I think this is very common throughout and it makes it much easier with all with the common app now and the number of students applying to every school being as conforming and as as giving them exactly what they're expecting just makes that acceptance process so much easier for our students I think this is a very positive move that's going to benefit our students in a lot of different
051ways. Yes and of course as we learned we're not unique in going through that experience as been shared some of some of our districts in our area have gone through the change already and so it also helps us to be a little bit more consistent with some of those districts as well. Okay thank you to both of you oh yeah I do have a question once you're done oh is it about this you could go go ahead that's fine okay yeah I'm just thinking of like um one of my little nerdy kids uh that is going to see her GPA probably decrease and I think if she's gonna freak out if she sees it so is there gonna be kind of like a heads up hey kids you know your GPA might be at this
052but it's going to drop this one term and it doesn't mean you've lost a bunch of points it's because of this yes um we will work with the high school we will have to change the syllabi at the high school we'll have to do some front loading with our students um to help them understand I think you know um we talked about having teaching kids how to recalculate and recognizing that it is not an impact on you as a learner it's not that your GPA fell because you somehow aren't displaying or exhibiting proficiency um against standards and against your learning it really is more about equalizing your opportunity as you graduate and move on to your secondary education that you now compete equally with students that are outside of Lake Zurich and yes we will
053have some students who feel like an a plus got me more than an a right um but we will have to support them and navigate through that there will be some conversations and there'll be some probably angst and anxiety through this and so we will work with our high school counselors with our high school administration to help students understand why and the benefits there'll be a couple rocky years while we're navigating this and then it will settle in and it'll be our work of the day. Okay moving on to some recognition and we're going to start this evening with staff and educator appreciation week and so I'm actually very very excited we have some staff in the audience this is the board and administration's opportunity to thank them I think listening to each of you
054speak specifically about staff and what they do and how they contribute to our district is just representative of the staff at large in district 95 every corner you go to every student you talk to there is always a staff member who is leaving behind each day a legacy of support and care etc and so these are just a few pictures of some of the fun that they had during staff and education educator appreciation week I have realized that the reason this occurs in may is because may is a very difficult month our students are appear and so and our staff have quite a bit that they need to do in order to make it through the month of may with students and to help students make it successfully to the end of the school year
055so just if we could give a round of applause we have some staff here some watching so thank you and thank you to our pto's at each building because they really did try to make this a very special time for staff across the system and then also want to acknowledge a lake county educator staff awards night as you heard mrs maloney speak about dr carter one of the most wonderful things that he has brought to the entire county is an opportunity to celebrate all of our staff across the system and so we had many individuals who were recognized that evening I have a few pictures but really want to point out we did have one of our educators win and so they won the elementary early childhood educator of the years that's karen ludwig from
056seth pain so congratulations so and he just he did a really nice job of honoring as many staff as he possibly could and he tries really really hard to do it within a certain time frame that he can never quite meet but we really appreciate him trying so hard but there's so many people to acknowledge it becomes very hard to do in a short period of time so then I do want to take a look at lakes rick high school had pitch night what what just what an incredible event you heard mr goldberg speak very highly of the program through the educators who are at the helm of this program and again our students have produced ideas and innovations beyond belief and so actually if one of these becomes an actual thing I am going
057to be hopefully their first customer because I consistently have to buy new shoes on a regular basis and especially boots and if there is a way to make the shoes last a little longer with an insert I'm in so very excited about some of these products but this was the first time in our history of incubator where the judges had such a difficult time that they awarded each team the same amount of money so they each received five thousand dollars which is not typical typically there's a team that rises above the rest that did not happen our students were articulate they were just incredible and we have just an awesome community wanting to support this this this program our our staff included and our students and so and I would also be remiss if I
058did not thank our foundation they are very involved in this as far as support goes and so a huge thank you to them for all of their hard work behind the scenes as well then wanted to just share we had two students of ours reach the pinnacle is what I am told of student research at the Illinois junior academy of science state exposition and so I really hope that I get these names correct I'm going to go with the first name so Andrew and Yasavin both received the highest designations and so congratulations to both of them as you look up here you'll note one Andrew developed a new curriculum framework for integrating complex numbers into pre-calculus so way to go and then Yasavin was created or engineered a machine learning model to improve the accuracy
059of breast cancer tumor classification and so if our future is in the hands of students like this yay us so congratulations to them we also lots of stuff at the high school going on so it is a very very busy time but we had seniors night and so honors night and that was just an incredible experience to again recognize students our teachers did an amazing job of making sure students were acknowledged for their hard work as seniors over their four years one of the things that we are starting to try to share out because we have incredible kids incredible kids that and we this is not a full report I would just say to you this is what has been reported by students and I believe it is under reported so to date we know
060about so this is what's been reported to us three million one hundred twenty six seven hundred and ninety dollars in scholarship money for kids that's amazing so congratulations to our students but thank you to our educators from kindergarten on up this is because of the work of our staff the commitment of our families and the hard efforts that our kids put forward and I I just cannot be prouder so thank you awesome and then there are times where I just received small notes just to let me know that there are kids that are accomplishing things outside of our our high school and our schools and so I do want to give a shout out to Anthony Diaz he graduated from the Merit School of Music Conservatory Orchestra program and this marked the culmination of 13
061years of music instruction and commitment he was formally recognized also for academic excellence and exceptional musical artistry and additionally he just he demonstrated exceptional discipline throughout this process and I do think we need to acknowledge our students who are going above and beyond and so you know congratulations to Anthony he also happens to be the son of an educator in district 95 so congratulations to Mrs. Evelyn Sanchez as well and then Mrs or I'm sorry Mrs. Tim also already mentioned that we have plants that have been for sale and all of the work at the Young Adult Center but here's a few pictures just to share with you and so any money that they make goes back to their program they also prior to this if the board recalls I shared with you that they
062had a sale amongst other transition programs at the ROE another another event that Dr. Karner supported and allowed his space to be used for that and that's where they had made some initial monies before their sale here I was able to attend that I have some plants that I have not yet killed which is great and I'm really excited to see if I get some peppers and tomatoes so we'll see but wonderful just wonderful things going on across all of our schools and then as the board knows I do I am a member a director at large for the chamber I had an opportunity to not only attend the Tuck campus board meeting this morning but also attend the chamber meeting early afternoon and so they had a few things that I think are important
063for us to just recognize that are going around in our own community so a huge thank you ELA Township shared many things that they're doing for our students and I don't know that we always know what some of those items are and so they handed out some really awesome brochures but on June 4th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. they have salute the tooth and so they'll be dental health care provided in a mobile dental clinic and just want to really thank them for their efforts in this regard so that was wonderful they also shared and I think some of our folks on sustainability are going to be excited about this green year routine annual shred and recycling event and so just note the date of that June 7th 8 32 11 30 and then
064additionally there is a blood donation opportunity on May 21st from 10 a.m. till 2 30 through ELA Township so doing a lot of really awesome things in our community and so I wanted to make sure the board was aware in the community who is listening is aware as well and then important dates so we've kind of moved through some things so we have graduation coming for our high school seniors middle school promotions on May 20th our last day of school is quickly approaching our summer semester will begin on June 8th I did want to add the teaching and learning board committee meeting so board members were aware and then please do not forget our board of education retreat will be on July 10th that is a Friday we are typically closed on that day but
065we will we will all come together in the afternoon on that Friday in learning and discussion together going back to graduation I know many people are concerned about weather for this upcoming graduation we are monitoring it very very closely there was a communication Dr. Walsh sent out I believe today making sure families understood that if in the unfortunate I guess moment we have to decide that we cannot do it outside it would be moved to Monday but for now we are going to be very hopeful that this is going to happen on Sunday and it's going to be a beautiful day and that is the full report which was a lot sorry but thank you thank you Dr. Galtz the next item on the agenda is reports to the board the first is Dr. McArdle
066has shared the 2026 annual review of safety plans I'm in the reports in the board packet are there any questions for Dr. McArdle okay no questions Dr. McArdle also provided the empower 95 update for the safety analysis summary in the board packet do the board members have any questions for Dr. McArdle I do have one yes go ahead my question was I noted that the idea is I love the idea of condensing the systems having a unified system I love that but the note was that we're trying to make sure that whatever system we put in place is compliant with Alyssa's law which hasn't been fully rectified yet so if we choose to go down this road are the vendors promising that they'll make changes to accommodate anything that might come out of the pending
067legislation we're going to buy let's say we assume we were going to buy this package the law gets crafted differently than they assumed and they designed their software around is there anything in the software agreement that would allow us to for them to accommodate any of those changes that cost us so first I do want to acknowledge and recognize all of Miss Stevens work on this effort as well she did the bulk of the heavy lifting in terms of the research and cross-checking and looking into the law and answering all of my questions about you know what about this and that so very much thank you to her for all of her efforts there the crux of the law is covered in all of the options presented here I do not know that we have
068asked our vendors at this point about contingencies should there be additional language integrated I am certain that is something that we could we could ask about but we did not do that at this point yeah I think it might not be a bad idea just to make sure that if again assuming we go down this road that we the software purchase is going to be flexible enough that should there be changes in the law due to the pending legislation that we don't we're going to spend additional funds to accommodate those well and these vendors are currently monitoring the same legislation that we are and so our hope is that you know if there are any unexpected changes that they would be responsive to those needs as well and these are annual licenses right we renew
069these once a year yes that's correct okay so we'd assume that there's some kind of agreement there'd be regular updates besides the annual drop we'd get regular updates to the software should there be changes is that part of it we have the opportunity to review our agreements each year and so should there be an unexpected to your point legislative change or something that they put into the law that we weren't anticipating we would have that opportunity yeah just it'd just be nice to know if the agreement we're going to sign even inside the one-year scope should there be a change in legislation though they will accommodate that without the cost to us or having to wait for that entire year cycle to occur we will ask the question okay thank you just a quick question
070I really appreciate the fact that you took into account one of the items was handling when you have large amounts of visitors coming to the school for different occasions and I know that does happen throughout the school year so I guess my question is is the process changing at all from a user when I come in I sort of know what to expect is that changing now because of this new system or is it just more the back end and I'm not seeing it as a user are you referring to visitors coming visitors so we currently use the raptor system for visitor management and that is the administrative recommendation is that we stay within the raptor family and so as an as an end user coming into a building you would not expect many many
071experiential differences right that's accurate there will be no change for you which is also helpful I know you talked about staff training and I'm guessing it's more on the more of the execution side as opposed to or for new stakeholders to our system so for example we have new administrators coming on board we'll have new staff members you know families that have never experienced you know our visitor entry processes so apart from those groups it should feel very similar great thank you then I guess I want to add on to that I just thought of it because we've talked about the increase in maybe responsibilities with like our front office staff that naturally come with creating a more secure building which is very important so will this help with easing any of those responsibilities or
072will it again be one more thing added on top of what they already have taken on as part of their role I'm going to ask Miss Stevens to speak to how what we're proposing will streamline the volunteer screening component so this will actually take some of the work off the plate of our front office staff because currently they do the full bulk of the volunteer screening whereas the system will help them with a lot of that work and those background checks will be done through the platform and the software I just would ask Miss Stevens is there anything else that you feel is important for the board to know thank you for being here tonight thank you the only other thing I'd like to mention is that Raptor is a national company and it is
073used in many states and in partnership with states who have passed Alyssa's alert or Alyssa's law and so they have built into their program a lot of those pieces that are in place with the legislation in other states where it's passed thank you anybody else okay Dr. Romano has prepared a presentation on the 2026-2027 draft budget and projections um Mr. Nardiello please play the presentation good evening everyone thank you for joining us today as we present the 2026 to 2027 draft budget for Lake Zurich CUSD 95 we've put a lot of thoughtful work into this document and we're excited to walk you through it think of today as our sneak preview your second more detailed look at the district's financial roadmap for the coming year which has been built upon the preliminary budget in January
074complete with clear priorities and realistic estimates let's dive in as many of you know Lake Zurich CUSD 95 follows a clear disciplined multi-stage process for developing our annual district budget as shown here it begins with board approved financial assumptions in the fall moves to the preliminary budget in January brings us here today with the draft budget in the spring continues with the tentative budget in June and concludes with the final budget in September this structured approach keeps us organized transparent and accountable here's a quick snapshot of the key revenue adjustments from our preliminary to draft budget on the reduction side we've taken a more conservative view of local and federal sources local education is down 145 000 federal education down 250 000 along with smaller adjustments in municipal and operations categories the good news includes
075a 170 000 increase in state education funding and a 59 000 boost in other operations sources the net result is a more cautious but realistic revenue picture we like to call this cautious optimism built on thoughtful projections and known variables turning now to expenses we have made thoughtful and strategic refinements particularly within the educational fund these changes include a reduction of 824 000 600 in other objects driven primarily by lower contingency reserves and residential tuition adjustments and a 623 000 200 decrease in employee benefits we have strategically reallocated these savings to high priority areas including a 583 400 increase for special education residential costs a 417 700 increase in supplies and materials and a 135 100 increase in purchased services this balanced approach reflects our commitment to fiscal responsibility while directing resources to areas of
076greatest need and providing stronger support for our students with the highest needs stepping back for the big picture here are our operating funds in the draft budget which is balanced across funds we've maintained strong fiscal discipline while ensuring resources flow where they're needed most overall the numbers reflect a balanced approach that protects our core educational mission and keeps the district on solid financial ground zooming in on the education fund you can see the careful balancing act we've performed targeted reductions in benefits salaries and other objects have been strategically reallocated to high priority areas like special education and instructional supplies this isn't just moving numbers around it's making sure every dollar works harder for our students and teachers looking ahead our team has a clear list of next steps as we prepare the tentative budget for
077june this includes finalizing state and federal estimates updating capital projects and debt service funds refreshing our long-range facilities plan and conducting a deep dive on special education tuition and reimbursements we'll also fine-tune staffing and grant allocations rest assured we're not done until it's right and refinements will continue until the final proposed budget is shared in september thank you again for your time and continued partnership meeting the many competing priorities of our district will require focused and sustained efforts in the months ahead particularly as we work within the constraints of limited new revenue growth we remain committed to delivering a responsible budget that best serves our students and staff i now turn the meeting back to you madam president thank you dean and dean's assistant are there any questions alicia i'm um thank you for this
078great report i learn more all the time and i appreciate that even though it's painful but it's very interesting and um i vital to the success of our district so um i'm wondering uh i want of course i want to appreciate you for uh the conservative estimates for the federal federal local municipal and local you know um funding sources and i'm wondering i know there's gonna be another assessment in june for the federal funds i'm wondering i guess how you came to the 250 000 negative for the federal money and if you see that changing by mid-year next year possibly or is that possible what i can tell you is that one of the things that happens when we start with the preliminary budget that's part of our financial workshop is that we're using generalized
079assumptions across categories we typically maintain some of the areas as flat what we've done at this stage is we've gone line item by line item i have spent an extra ordinary amount of time looking at the revenue sources to try and get as accurate as we possibly can at this stage there are things that are simply not known mandated categoricals with regards to reimbursement for transportation we are still using some estimates the the things that we're hearing are not necessarily positive and that they would remain in that 60 percent proration which historically has been closer to 80 85 percent so uh as we've been taking a look at those on the revenue side i feel like we're in a rather accurate stage but we will take a look at that there are some things that
080do take place uh later in the summer where after the tentative budget is completed our grant allocations do come forward those are based on a numerous number of factors and so we will line item each one of those that was one of the things we talked about with regards to grants and whatnot mainly in the special education or title one areas to take into some determinations we'll also be taking a look at any news that comes out from the state board of education with regards to mandated categoricals the most important one for us to follow in that beyond those that i've mentioned is the transportation reimbursement of the transportation claim not a lot of good things that i'm hearing in that area and i don't know if you guys have noticed the pump it has
081gone up quite a bit in costs especially in the area of diesel and i don't think that that's going to change i think it's going to actually get a little bit more difficult as we get closer to the new school year so one of the things that was added was costs associated with transportation and diesel fuel in particular within the budget but on the revenue side i believe we're as tight as we can be right now june i don't anticipate a whole lot of changes but we will be evaluating that for the final budget presentation for september the 10th when we bring that for your consideration okay i appreciate that overview you know it's important for us to hear and people watching at home and in the audience here that it's a lot of number
082crunching and taking from columns so thank you for the work on that thank you does anyone else have questions for dean i do i do oh sure um i know last year the special ed transportation was one of our bigger surprise costs in our budget but this year with the new edition of like our transportation fleet that's going to be with the vans do you find i know that the gas is going to be a problem but do you find that we're going to be able to have some savings there or at least some more stability compared to where we were last year when it comes to that so one of the things that we're going to be doing as part of later stages typically after that june to september we're going to do a
083really deep dive in the area of transportation with regards to our capital replacement plan and whether the five-year cycle is where we want to be in addition to that we are going to take a look at other projections associated with transportation costs whether there's a larger capital improvement acquisition or whether or not there are some other things associated with transportation i'll be able to get into that in more depth at that point we do believe that there are some some features out there with regards to the transition of our existing special education transportation provider who did not bid as we're moving to a new provider that there are some staff members that will potentially have an interest in joining our team directly which would allow us to reduce the number of routes that we outsource
084so that that component there may be some opportunity with that and again there'll be a much deeper dive on that as we get a little bit later in in the cycle i wish i could give you some more information on that but there's there's quite a few moving parts and it's one of the larger areas left to transportation i really believe that there's more there that we need to get into but as far as reimbursements and the funding sources from the state i think we're pretty close to where i think it's going to fall it may get worse but i don't think it's going to get a lot worse dr romano can you give the board some understanding of increases that we've already seen in the area of fuel so when you were sharing because
085i think we understand what it looks like in our homes but what does that look like as a district in relationship to our buses etc well just an approximation i updated our fuel costs to between 20 and 25 increase over last year's thank you and then the mandated categoricals will have more information in june about what we may be owing or will that be waited till like september that september again i think that'll be closer to the september but anything that we get in advance of when we finalize the next stage of the budget i will highlight as we did here this evening all right and then other than that um because i heard some whispers from my teacher perspective of tier two starting to become part of the conversation again have you heard anything
086along those lines i continue and i've been hearing for years that that's something that needs to be addressed that is definitely something that is at the state level and there is a need for that to be addressed i have not heard if there is anything i don't know if dr gault you know anything more on that but so i sit on the legislative committee and work closely with dr burkey from luda and he has indicated as well but he has probably been the person who has said every single year that right is going to happen if you ask him again today he would say to you it's going to happen because it has to happen and when i was at a different meeting earlier today they spoke about how they believe in trs we're sitting
087at about 55 percent of our staff or our educators being in tier two rather than tier one so that number continues to grow which means the state is going to have to do something at some point so um if dr burkey is not wrong again this year then yes but i keep hearing the same thing i've been hearing year after year right and dr omano is always great at saying we cannot budget for something that we're not sure of yet but always on the back of our minds yeah and i appreciate that i just don't want us to have an overly conservative right where we we doomsday right budget that and then all of a sudden it doesn't come because then we're making some substantial impacts that will affect students experience too early that's one
088of the things that this board should be really proud of is the fact that we do have a fund balance that is healthy so we don't have to react immediately unlike other districts that may not have that where we can actually wait until it happens give ourselves a runway to make determinations on what's in the best interest of student staff in the community financially and live off of that emergency related fund and so yes absolutely trying to not be chicken little yeah thank you natasha for bringing that up doug did you yes thank you dean first of all thank you again for the incredible data that you provide i think the transparency that we have in the budgeting process is huge and i know a lot of work goes in behind the scenes this a
089couple of comments first of all i think it's almost for sure that categoricals are going to be down at the 60 percent level everything i've read coming out of the state and out of the iasb is expect that i think you've budgeted for that so i think that's actually really smart maybe it'll be a happy surprise we get more doesn't seem very likely given the state's budget situation i think the cost of fuel going up is going to ripple through a lot of things it's not just going to be fueled the good news is we've got locked in energy prices for electricity and natural gas so we're we're great there fuel costs you know for our buses are going to go up and i think if you look at what we spend on fuel even
090if that goes up 25 that's not a huge hit for us what i think will be a larger hit is the ripple effect of all that right all of our transportation costs for any goods and services that we buy are likely to increase as a result of that i think you know it's difficult to understand exactly what that the impact that's going to be but it's almost for certain that's going to happen and i i believe that we you know we in the united states haven't really seen the full impact of world events yet we've been buffered from it because we do have a very robust supply in this country but if you look at what's happening in other countries where there are already asking workers to stay home from work because of that i
091think that we will if this world events continue along the same trajectory for a while we're likely to see much much more significant impact in many ways from that i do think that one impact we're seeing already is inflations going up right and that could definitely affect cpi so our cpi calculation you know may or may not be true in the future based upon what's happening right now but i think one thing that really stood out to me in this budget was this is the first budget i've seen at the draft stage in i can't think how long at least a dozen years where we're already projecting a deficit all right that isn't normal thing for us so that you know that is the red warning signs are flashing given again i know you've been
092incredibly active particularly the last handful of years you've come in one plus and minus one percent you've done an amazing job on this so i'm actually worried right now that we're already showing a deficit at this point and i know there's things that are totally out of our control i think you know given the fluidity of this at this point in time i think you know we definitely would like to see you know regular updates from if you see warning signs that are coming up based upon anything else outside of the normal budget process i think please let the board know because again given the volatile nature of the situation currently i think we should expect to see some of those but thank you i really appreciate it i'm just really concerned at this point
093in the budgeting process you know we're already showing a structural deficit and i'd like to add one comment back in response to your observation and that is and it's one of the questions i would have asked if i was taking a look at this presentation where it talked about over four hundred thousand dollars added to supplies i want to point out that that is a representation of a curriculum adoption for mathematics and it is a substantial increase over what we have done historically within that department we have in the past for ela adoption we had had conversations about potential for using board designated funding so in other words utilizing fund balance to cover those larger expenses for those large adoptions which have such a significant impact on student experience what i can tell you is
094that that dollar amount is included in what you're seeing in the deficit so in later versions of the budget as we get tighter and tighter we will be having an articulation of we are requesting this dollar amount come from fund balance i.e. a deficit specific to this adoption and how that plays out with the overall budget so right now it's included that increase was over four hundred thousand dollars beyond what we've typically done but you're only seeing two hundred thousand dollars worth of deficit off of that so we're still in a positive arena with regards to the ed fund when you pull that back out but it is still red and it is still something that we need to manage and go through but that's a projection because we we don't know what what resource
095our staff are going to select as they walk through a process and so i do want to remind the board that from our perspective that's the greatest amount that we would need to cover in addition to what the curriculum and instruction department already have in their budget they have the monies in their budget right now that are designated towards what we already know we're spending on mathematics so i do want to make sure the board is aware of that we believe that's the most that the a new a potential new resource could cost us but that doesn't mean that that's not what you know we don't know what the committee is going to select and so we want to make sure again that the board knows that we're going to have to set aside monies
096it's time and so as our staff goes through that process they'll be making some recommendations for the board to consider and dr romano and i have had multiple conversations about how we might request those funds so i do think that that part of the budgetary process is a little soft right now and we won't know that number at the beginning of the school year because it takes time as you know we don't usually bring those recommendations to you until spring and i would just add relative to the tier two reconciliation and i i absolutely believe it needs to happen it should happen it will happen at some point i know what dr burkey told us this summer and actually had to follow on lunch with him and he's pretty convinced it's going to happen and
097just sort of um back of the envelope calculations on the things that are being discussed again nothing is written down there's no pending a law at the moment but assuming that what he believes is true in terms of how they roll this thing out it could cost us a million under around a million dollars it costs to us to do to reconcile that so it is not an substantial amount but and i it's long overdue in my book to do this so i you know i i don't know when they're going to politicians are going to do it i think they need to be brave and actually just do it but um but i do think that could come to us it's possible could come to us this fiscal year thank you again um i
098have just a comment i'm really glad that we're keeping the structure similar to what we had before i was very worried that there was going to change more dramatically um because i think it's great that in sixth grade the students get different exposures of languages so i'm i'm really happy with that thank you i know my comment is just that i really really appreciate the process that you go through here getting not only committee input but teacher input student input parent input i just think the transition process is easier because of that and i would i guess that you get a lot less reactionary feedback because everybody knows what's happening and they got to have a say in it so thank you anybody else all right thank you mrs stallion this piece be such shared
099the educational support personnel range and wage adjustment recommendations in the board pack packet and please recall this recommendation and information is based on the presentation made to the board during our last meeting together do any board members have any additional questions for miss pieces i would just i just would like to comment that i think that was a really quick turnaround on improving those scales to reflect other districts for those positions and we really took to heart what the group helped us with figuring that out so thank you for the quick action on that and it took a long time and i know they were really their presentation was very impressive and so thank you thank you anybody else have any comments or concerns thank you mrs visage our last item is the depository's investment
100manager dealer and brokers annual list dr romano can you answer any questions the board has thank you again dr romano now we move on to discussion with action the first item for discussion with action is the actual annual purchase let us get a motion and a second on the table to approve the purchase of ipads cases and apple care plus for schools from apple the sole source in the amount of seven hundred and eighteen thousand one hundred and thirty dollars second thank you dr pinter and thank you alicia are there any questions every year this comes up we know we have no choice in a way really it's apple apple ipads we can't really negotiate we don't have a lot of negotiation leverage but my question is a broader one perhaps do you have this
101you know what what cycle do you decide you're going to use apple products compared to other products we may have mentioned that at another board meeting but is there can you just remind me about the cycle so like this year you're you know you you buy more ipads and apple products at what point do you decide well i'm going to go with a different non-apple product what's the cycle sure so this was the we're nearing the completion of our of our two-year review of our device of the device of choice in the district and so we concentrated this year on looking at all the different devices that were out there the committee you know reviewed them all apple was their choice and recommendation for continuing with that very late very late in the game apple
102released a new product the apple neo of which we have some interest in as possibly a tool of choice for perhaps the high school at the high school level because it came out like so late in the game we were able to present it at our last committee meeting and the committee got to see it and everything our recommendation did not include replenishing that for this year for two reasons one it is not we didn't want to jump on it until they get all the bugs out of it so we were we were very conscious of not only the quality of the device the needs of the student the needs of the staff but also in terms of the financial commitment because clearly you can see just by the size of this it's a it's
103a big financial commitment for us every year to continue to have one-to-one devices and so all of our classrooms over 650 of them are outfitted with apple tv in the with the apple neo right now you cannot a staff member would have to set up two different accounts one for the neos in their classroom and one for the ipads in their classroom to monitor their students as an initial but we know that it's in the pipeline at apple to possibly address this so they could be used compatibly within a classroom so if they can nail that down over the next year the second year work of our committee will be to further explore that opportunity that opportunity but inherent in the overall plan is to replenish approximately you know at a minimum like you know
10425 to 33 percent of our fleet every year so there's not so we never have to go outside of our budget to replenish the fleet but we did look we did look at the other devices and the recommendation was to stay with the ipad well thank you um you know i know if this is not the right place is but i'm still going to make the comments anyway and it's more directed to the to the superintendent one of our board members sent me some some material some months ago about the use of um electronics in schools and i said well you know i don't know the train probably has left the station but on that but nonetheless i think this is gathering more momentum so at some point in the future not today but at
105some point in the future i would hope that we can continue to monitor what's happening across the country on that topic and as a district um don't just default to what we've been doing year after year but but give it some thought that's that's just a just a generalized statement and thank you mister so we we we are in process of having those conversations and so much of that you're going to see through policy discussions as well as um principals working with staff etc for us to um determine how we're going to move forward and what new policies and practices need to be in place so i appreciate what you're saying we are moving forward with those conversations and dr zar and her team started that process a bit through their through the um the
106collection of information that they're going through right now yeah and we also have additional recommendations to be implemented next year in terms of usage and some of our protocol and practices that we've had in the past that i will include in the update to the board in the january strategic plan update and and it's maybe i mean and it might be something at some point some topic for the teaching and learning committee at some point in the future it actually has come up in the health and wellness committee discussions because those are some parental concerns that come forward screen usage time do they need to come home how do you put limits on it that kind of thing and i know the district's been providing education continuously about how to put limits on the devices
107that your children have that you can help regulate them and help them make good decisions so i know that's come up in health and wellness which has tied into the fact that it also has already been doing right so it's right and i and i certainly don't want to um this is what we're doing an emotion on the table is on this so so i just wanted to mention that for something for the future thank you can i can i just like thank you thinking about what you were just saying i'm just curious this is can i ask you this question um angela maybe okay um i don't know if it would be you but i've been looking at i have two little people at home and i look at what they do and i
108know that they're like obviously just two people but i just feel like the handwriting of the kids nowadays maybe it's just my kids but i'm like oh my god it's like horrific right i'm looking at it and i'm trying to figure out why it's so bad for both of them and it's i think it's because they're on the ipad all the time and this their spelling is also really interesting i think because they're on the ipad all the time and they can just put you know spell check on there and then now it's fine but i don't know if they actually know how to spell you know what i mean so those are just two things that are concerning to me that i've noticed with my own kids or it's like i just feel like
109both of them regardless of what their grades are handwriting is horrible there's a lot of research out there right now about handwriting and the advantages of actually learning both manuscript and cursive and that that does need to come back as an emphasis in the early elementary grades so that typically is taught taught conspicuously from kindergarten through about third grade i'm sorry i didn't mean cursive well either one really literally just i think when you're putting everything on an ipad when they're writing their they're not it's just not the same as if you're using a pen and paper well it isn't and but we have to develop the fine motor skills and the strength within the hands and the arms to be able to make that transfer and that has been a lost skill that needs
110that's coming back and our teachers have recognized the importance of that so please know that we are looking at resources to support not only handwriting to you have to have the muscles regardless of the technology you use if you don't have the muscles you can't write right you can't write on with an apple pencil and you can't write with a regular pencil so we our teachers recognize that so that is being done as far as the spelling goes that is also something that was remediated a couple years ago when we shifted to a structured literacy approach and we implemented our new resource so what you will what's going to happen is those students that are in our early childhood in our early education or early elementary programs there there is more of a focus on
111phonics and word instruction so what we have to do at the middle and high even high when we see deficits in that we need to give kids the code there's a code to spelling and we need to teach the code so you're not wrong and we are addressing and our teachers are well aware of it excellent okay thank you so much thank you doug thank you eileen a couple of questions mary so one is can you say over the course of the life of these devices and we're three to four year cycle time for the devices what percent of them do we have to refurbish or return or replace use our apple care what percent are we seeing that they're being damaged so first most of them are on a four-year cycle except for the
112the ones that seniors turn in they become our kindergarten ipads and so those ones are on a on a five-year like on a five-year cycle but i would say the apple care is really integral to like what we do hundred percent like belgium you know absolutely they're like so good with it i would say you know can you pull up the ticket system and come up with something the reason i'm asking is i know that the numbers have been are up and down and i'm not sure what drives that but i can say for my three the the i'll have replaced their ipad at least once and i think that's followed them into adult when they can't seem to keep a phone for more than a year without breaking it but it's a different problem
113i could say that i just had a really animated conversation with the parent of a child that we're on his third ipad in six months yeah that's so that's kind of depends on the kid the and then the other part of my question more of a technical question is it i just went back a couple years and looked at our last ipad purchase and the prices have been pretty flat but it looks like we actually have dropped back to a lesser amount of memory right we're at 128 and i think we were buying 256s at one point my question is from a technical perspective is that memory enough for all the applications that they're running in the classroom and storing data and that's that's like smaller than most phones you buy today obviously so ryan
114just shared the 256s that you would have saw one time was just a special set it wasn't ever for the one-to-one device so these hold the that for memory holds up really well when we met with our focus group when we met with our high school kids one of the ideas we wanted to float past our high school kids was perhaps shifting the refresh of the ipads to a different schedule like how did they feel about the four-year refresh and they were our like strongest group was saying that they don't have any problems at all with the four-year and they would have a hard time if we they they said they weren't they really didn't want to do a three-year because in high school they said in in elementary school and in middle school in
115in their opinion there wasn't they didn't have to save a lot on their ipad that was pertinent to them for the next year they felt that once they got in high school that they didn't want to give up their device because they had papers from everything on it and for them to have all their files and folders and everything they they didn't want to refresh it after that so they are telling us that we don't have that much problem with it oh okay good these were um nine-gen models are what they were old i pulled it up in our idea and our management system they were all 64 so this will be doubling okay well unfortunately due to ai data centers the cost of memory has skyrocketed in the last six months to years that's
116driving a lot of pricing so um you know i know that you guys your team has spent a tremendous amount of work the last year and a half looking at the devices we've had this conversation two or three times over the last two years about we want to move to different devices and it sounds like the net result of all that was no we're going to stick with the apple ecosystem and specifically with ipads which you know is fine and that's a decision i know you guys spend a lot of time and calories going through that the conversations about what should be in the classroom and devices that's not part of this but but i do think that um they're always going to be devices in the classrooms that we're not going to walk away
117from that the question is are they personal are they school or how they lock down etc but i really um i really think you guys have done an amazing job managing all these devices if you think about we've got 6000 plus devices you know that that's an incredible user base and it it generally works really smoothly so i just you know kudos to the entire team that supports these devices i know all the work goes on behind the scenes to maintain all the various applications are used so thank you for this i appreciate it thank you doug alicia just briefly i i feel like i'm one of the younger dinosaurs here but uh i you know our whole upbringing was what is the next latest and greatest tool you know i started playing lemonade stand
118on my apple 2e with the green and white you know green and black screen and and um really the the conversation has shifted right nationally globally every school district is having these thoughts parents are making comments kids you know so um i think it's great if we could be on the forefront of that discussion i'm glad that we are approaching it transparently on different committee levels and i think it's just important for the health and future of our children they have to be technologically savvy we do know that it is reality but yeah my daughter's handwriting is terrible and i think it's great if in a math a math paper if you can write it with pencil on the paper and take a photo of it and turn it in so awesome thank you teachers
119for allowing the kids to do that i thank you for that math teacher my son had that is like i'm not doing this ipad stuff so um you know it's a tool and i also know we have to watch out for these tools and um just another thing i thought with the writing is like when you have to go to a text box and then you have to expand it so you can see what you wrote and then shrink it so you could put it on the line it's just these things just i don't think we should take them as assuming that this is what we have to do forever so i just thank you for talking about that peter and dr pintar thanks thank you kate can you please call the roll yes yes
120yes yes yes yes yes next we have the approval of the athletico contract extension may i get a motion and a second to approve the one-year extension of the athletico training services agreement with athletico for the 2026 2020 school year at a cost of a hundred and two thousand seven hundred and twenty dollars as presented so moved second thank you doug and thank you natasha do you board members have any questions related to this agenda item i'm going to start on the side alicia kelly dr pintar no just one quick question on the um that they they charge sixty dollars an hour for supplemental services i was just curious as to what is that if we need more than the two trainers that are already scheduled to do that yeah or if there's a special
121event that they want to do or or whatnot it's it's not that often but the high school does have some need for some things that are outside of the typical and that way they have an established rate to be able to work from it's just interesting that that's almost three times the rate to have them there currently but that's fine i know they're definitely needed to be there it's a valued service we were pretty excited about being able to lock them in at the 2.9 this year yeah that is huge do we routinely just like with our bus drivers look at taking this in house we have not thank you lisa natasha peter doug i just wanted to say that i think it's awesome we have two trainers now back when uh my three athletes
122were in school we had one and it was a real problem because they're all everybody's getting banged up quite a bit and then and it was a real issue for them to find time with the trainers i'm just thankful we have two trainers they provide a very valuable valuable service to lisa's point so and lisa trainers that i knew of and worked out that were awesome so this is awesome this is great thank you doug all right kate please call the roll mrs dannegar yes ms maloney yes mr atian yes mrs warren yes dr pincher yes ms tim yes mr goldberg yes all right the next item on the agenda is closed session we are going into closed session for the following reasons the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employees specific
123individuals who serve as independent contractors specific volunteers or legal counsel for the district five ilcs 122c1 collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees five ilcs 122c2 student disciplinary cases five ilcs 122c9 may i have this motion so moved second thank you alicia and thank you doug kate can you please call the roll mr atian yes ms tim yes mrs dannegar yes mr goldberg yes mrs warren yes ms maloney yes dr pincher yes and we will be taking action after closed session this evening okay okay we are back in open session and have one item for action i have a series of motions prepared for the board to take action on with respect to the two student discipline
124cases we discussed in closed session i will read the motion to uphold the administration's recommendation for first for both cases based on the outcome of board action on those motions i have additional motions to modify or overturn the administrative straight of recommendation prepared student one i need a motion to uphold the administrative recommendation for three days of out of school suspension for student two zero two six zero four zero nine may i have that motion and a second so moved second thank you doug thank you alicia kate please call the roll to uphold the administrative recommendation recommendation for three days of out of school suspension for student two zero two six zero four oh nine zero nine dr pincher yes mrs warren yes mrs dannegar yes ms tim yes ms maloney yes mr atian yes
125mr goldberg yes student two i need a motion to uphold the administrative recommendation for 1.5 days of out of school suspension for student two zero two six zero four one six may i have that motion so moved second thank you lisa thank you alicia kate please call the roll to uphold the administrative recommendation for 1.5 days of out of school suspension for student two zero two six zero four one six mr goldberg yes ms tim yes mrs dannegar yes dr pincher abstain mrs warren yes ms maloney yes mr atian yes all right the motion carries so may i have a motion and a second to adjourn the open session second thank you doug thank you lisa those in favor aye those opposed the meeting is adjourned at 9 50 p.m. thank you